A Sweetheart For The Single Dad (The Camdens Of Colorado Book 8) (16 page)

And it was released. Opening floodgates in Lindie, too, as mouths went wide and tongues went wild and she gave herself permission to forget everything but Sawyer and being with him.

Immediately giving in to one of the many things she craved, she found the bottom edge of his cloud-soft sweater and raised it up his back, breaking away from kissing him only long enough to pull it over his head.

Kissing him again, she tossed it behind the sofa and flattened her palms to the broad expanse of his shoulders, memorizing the feel of taut muscles that arrowed to his much narrower waist.

One of his hands came out of her hair, dropping to her arm, her elbow, skipping across to her side where it didn’t hesitate to rise up to her breast.

She’d been tempted to go braless tonight because, yes, getting here had been on her mind. But telling herself that their dinner was about business, she’d put one on—a lacy demi-cup that matched the panties she was wearing.

She regretted it now when even that thin film of lace beneath the not-much-thicker knit of her dress formed what seemed like far too bulky a barrier.

If only there were buttons or a zipper in the dress that she could open...

But it was a slip-on and while she was inclined to do the same thing with it that she’d done with his sweater, she wasn’t sure she wanted to be naked in her living room. She wasn’t sure what could be seen through the draperies with all those lights on.

So she tore her mouth from his a second time, took his hand from her breast and held it as she got up from the sofa, bringing him along with her.

Off went the lamp on one side of the couch, then the other. Followed by the overhead in the entryway as she passed by it, leading Sawyer to her bedroom.

The night sky was clear, the moon nearly full, and there were three large windows to let in just enough light.

Sawyer let her take him to the foot of her bed but when they got there he yanked her around to face him and recaptured her mouth with his while he wrapped one arm around her and brought the other hand to her breast again.

It felt good even with the obstacle of clothing so Lindie just enjoyed it and explored his own carved-and-cut pecs.

He did have such a fine body...

But just as she was considering ridding him of the rest of his clothes so she could see it all, he tugged her dress up by slow inches until it was ready to be disposed of much the way the sweater had been.

She was a little glad she’d gone with the bra then because he looked when he saw it.

He leaned back a little and gazed down without any reservations, muttering an “Oh yeah” of approval before he met her lips again with a new frenzy that was something almost too primal to be called kissing as he ravaged her mouth and she ravaged his.

He unhooked her bra and cast it aside, taking both of her bare breasts in both his hands, doubly giving her a taste of what she’d been striving for.

Kneading, caressing, he molded those pliable mounds of flesh that fit perfectly in his palms. Her nipples turned to diamonds delighting in everything he did to them.

Then those talented hands abandoned her breasts, taking her shoulders instead so he could playfully push her to fall onto her king-size mattress.

Still standing at the foot of it, he shrugged out of his shoes and socks—taking something from his front pocket to toss onto the bed as he did. Then he unfastened his jeans and gave her another thing she’d wanted since they’d met. The unrestricted view of him completely naked.

If she hadn’t been wishing for it since they’d met, one look at him told her that she should have been because he was incredible—muscular and well-proportioned and all man, sporting impressive proof that he wanted her as much as she wanted him.

With a quietly guttural growl he pulled off her panties and joined her, lying on his side to kiss the tip of her chin, the hollow of her throat, the highest crest of her shoulder, her arm, and the dip between her breasts, before he finally took one of her breasts into his mouth while his hand found the other.

And, oh, yes, the man was good at that, too!

Drawing her in, flicking her nipple with the tip of his tongue, teasing with tender nibbles and gentle tugs and altogether building such a need within her that she almost lost control before she remembered she could work a little magic on him, too.

Finding that long, hard staff, she closed her hand around him, exploring, learning what he liked, what drove him to moan and writhe and show her with a growing urgency of his own hand and mouth how crazy she was driving him.

Then, while his mouth still tormented her breast, that hand at the other flattened against her rib cage and smoothed its way down her stomach, between her legs, finding yet another spot that was crying for his attention, and slipping into her to take things up another notch.

There was nothing she could do to slow the desire he ignited in her then or the small climax that rippled through her as an appetizer before his mouth deserted her breast so he could search for what he’d taken from his pocket earlier.

Rediscovering her mouth with his and tantalizing her with a tongue that gave preview of things to come, he unwrapped the condom and sheathed himself.

Then he opened her knees with his and found his way between them, replacing his hand with something so much better that slipped inside as if it were a missing piece of her.

Burgeoning, he filled her, easing so deeply into her that she wasn’t sure he would ever find his way out, and staying very still there for a few minutes to let her get the feel of him.

But only for a few minutes before he started to move. Lithe and limber, powerful, forceful, into her and almost out again, he went from slow to fast to faster with her keeping pace, matching him, rising to him and falling back only to rise once more.

Her legs curled around his waist, her arms held him steadily, and she went where he carried her into a white-hot realm of pleasure that burst so exquisitely it arched the small of her back, angling the way for him to come even more deeply into her. Blinding her with a bliss she’d never known before until she could only cling to him and let it have her for the moment that it lasted.

That moment when she realized it was taking him, too, because she felt him tense above her, in her, under her hands.

That moment that fused them together and then ebbed, flowing out of reach little by little, inch by inch, until they were both spent and breathless.

Slowly, only slowly, did they come back to themselves.

When she was there, Lindie reveled in the softness of her mattress beneath her and the weight of Sawyer on top of her. In the heat and sleekness of him, in his pure potency. She was too weary to open her eyes even as she lost that weight for a moment when he retreated to her bathroom.

Then he returned to lie on his back, to pull her to lie beside him, orchestrating it with arms that held her so tightly that every curve of her body meshed with his and even she couldn’t tell where one of them began and the other ended.

Once he had her where he wanted her, one hand went to her head on his chest to comb her hair away from her temple in soft strokes.

He breathed a replete sigh and she felt exhaustion overtake him.

“Well, that was a nice start,” he said, his voice passion-gravelly in understatement.

“That was only the start?”

“We have all night, remember?”

She smiled, liking that. “I remember.”

“So intermission, maybe a really quick trip to that drugstore down the street for more...supplies, and then act two?”

“Well, since we
do
have all night...”

“Don’t worry, in the morning I’ll replenish you with pancakes—they’re my specialty.”

Lindie laughed and craned her head so she could peer up at him. “Somehow I thought what we just did might be.”

He grinned. “That, too.”

His eyes closed then, his arm around her and his hand at her head growing heavy as he drifted into sleep.

For a moment Lindie laid there studying him, every sharply drawn line of his handsome face, his angular jawline, the thick column of his neck, the cove of his collarbone and the very fine mounds of his chest.

And still she didn’t have any sure or certain vision of where they could go from here.

She only knew that there beside him, in his arms, at that moment, nothing had ever felt so right.

Chapter Ten

S
awyer spent from noon until seven-thirty Sunday night with his son, and as he drove home after dropping Sam off he was aggravated with himself.

He might have been with Sam physically, but his head had been with Lindie. And as much as he loved Sam and missed Sam and never felt as if he had enough time with Sam, a part of him had spent these past hours since leaving Lindie missing her and wanting to be with her. And wrestling with guilt for feeling that way when he should have been completely involved with Sam.

But now that his day with his son was over, he had a small morsel of good news, and Lindie was all he could think about. Lindie was who he wanted to tell that morsel of good news to. Lindie was sure as hell who he wanted to get back to.

There weren’t plans for that, though.

There weren’t plans for anything. From the moment she’d taken him to her bedroom it had just been about the two of them and that one block of time they had together. They’d slept a little—maybe three hours total—between lovemaking and more lovemaking and more lovemaking even in the shower this morning rather than having those pancakes he’d promised.

Then one of her brothers had called to say he was coming over.

Everything between them had come to a screeching halt. And instead of making love again, or making any plans to get together later, they’d raced around her house, tripping over dogs that thought it was some kind of game, to be sure every scrap of evidence that he’d spent the night went with him when he’d rushed out the door with his hair still wet.

Before he’d even known what had hit him, he was in his SUV on his way home and everything had been left hanging in the air.

Maybe some people liked sneaking around or thought that keeping a relationship a secret added spice. But as he left Wheatley on Sunday night and headed for the highway he was thinking that that wasn’t for him.

He didn’t want to sneak around to be with Lindie. He’d already had enough of that just since they’d met. Enough of keeping her true identity from the people at the community center. Enough of worrying about anyone connected with Huffman Consulting knowing he was seeing her. And he certainly wasn’t looking forward to hiding from her family.

He didn’t want to have to hide anything from anyone. He didn’t want to lie. He didn’t want to rush out of her house as if they were doing something wrong and should be ashamed of themselves.

He also didn’t want the underlying desperation he’d felt all through last night and this morning. That urgency that made him feel as though he had to maximize every minute they had together and burn every word she said, every vision of her, every kiss, every touch, into his memory to have something of her, of being with her, to hold on to until the next time.

If there was a next time.

That was also something he’d been worrying about since he’d left her this morning. They were just supposed to take it step by step without any guarantee that once one step was taken, there would be another.

But what else could they do?

He hadn’t known what he’d expected going into last night. He’d known there was nothing Lindie could say to convince him to accept Camden Incorporated as a client. Or to convince him to stop exposing the downside of their stores coming in. But he’d also hated the idea that once that matter was settled they would go their separate ways and never have anything to do with each other again.

So he’d asked where his rejection of her offer left them. As if she might have some solution.

But she hadn’t. Saying they should just go one step at a time wasn’t a solution to him. And certainly following her into her bedroom hadn’t been.

It had just been what they’d both wanted.

But now they’d had that and he still wanted her—physically and in every other way.

God help him, he still wanted her so much that he knew this was no passing thing. No lark. This was serious.

But it shouldn’t be.

She wasn’t a demanding diva drama queen like the women he’d been drawn to in his first forays into relationships. Honestly, that had been a pleasant surprise, given that she was a Camden. But she also wasn’t like his easygoing, undemanding, obliging mother, either. She wasn’t someone uncomplicated who would give him the kind of marriage his parents had. She was stubborn and headstrong and determined.

From the very beginning, that first Thursday at the center, when he’d caught her buying candy for the Murphys, she’d done what she’d set out to do regardless of his disapproval.

Then with the Murphys again at the hospital—if he hadn’t threatened to send her home in a cab, if she hadn’t been weak and drugged, he doubted he would have been able to keep her from taking those girls home with her that night.

There was also Harm and her idea to get him listed as a provider on Camden Superstore’s dental insurance. He’d glossed over the suggestion when she’d initially made it but she’d just gone ahead and done it without so much as letting him know she was going to.

No, none of it had been selfish or self-serving—it had all been self
less
and generous of her. But it sure as hell wouldn’t make his life easy if she was an intricate part of it and still went around doing whatever she wanted whether he liked it or not.

Which put her somewhere in between the demanding diva drama queens he knew to stay away from, and what he believed would provide him with a relationship that could have a good give-and-take and a happy, harmonious run.

On the other hand, he realized as he sailed along the interstate, Lindie’s stubbornness and willfulness was exposed mainly when she was focused on fixing things. Otherwise nothing he’d challenged her to, nothing he’d thrown at her when it came to pitching in at the community center, had shaken her or caused her to dig in her heels. She’d been a good sport. She’d worked as hard as he had, as hard as everyone else had—that was something he
did
want in a life partner.

And, dammit all, she really did care.

Again, because of who she was, he’d figured she wouldn’t. But she did.

And she let him know it.

So really, he realized, he didn’t have to worry about her not being up front about things—the way it had been with the last three women in his life. And maybe if that left him dealing with more drama or conflict than his father got from his mother, he’d take that—and whatever minor disharmony might come out of it—as a trade-off. Because the more he thought about it, he decided that he would rather contend with the occasional disagreement than worry that Lindie was suppressing her true feelings or going along with things she didn’t really want.

At least he’d end up knowing what she was being stubborn or headstrong about so he
could
deal with whatever he needed to.

And, sure, while there was no doubt that Lindie got carried away before thinking things through—as with her willingness to take in the Murphy girls—he had to admit that he liked that she was so tenderhearted. He admired that in her. It was something else he hadn’t expected of a Camden.

There were a lot of things he admired about her...

He liked the way she’d devised the plan to send a free meal home to those in need without it seeming like charity. And to even teach the kids the skill of cooking in the process and the importance—and satisfaction—of helping out parents who were overworked.

He liked the way she’d handled Eric and Tyler’s obvious crushes on her—using their attempts to impress her to get them to work all the harder, to contribute in ways they might not have otherwise.

Plus, she was beautiful and sweet and kind and funny and smart and accomplished. She was strong and secure. She stood up for herself. And she was sexy as hell.

It was no wonder he was in as deep as he was.

But that still didn’t change the other complications. The even bigger issue of who she was, he reminded himself as he drove.

Being involved with a Camden would not please his clients.

He could probably weather some of the displeasure and spin a connection with a Camden as a way for him to get some inside information that he could use for their benefit. But he was still likely to lose one or two of them. And maybe one or two of the people who worked for him, too.

So certainly getting involved with Lindie wasn’t a good business move.

But this wasn’t about business for him. And he’d meant what he’d told his father—his job couldn’t be his whole life. He had a right to more.

And if he weighed the loss of a couple of clients, of any amount of his business, against having—or not having—Lindie? Having her won out.

But there
was
still his dad.

His father was only marginally supportive of the idea of this relationship. He’d let Sawyer know he was wary. And Sawyer was sure that any connection with a Camden would be a reminder to his dad of the lousy thing the Camdens had once done to him.

He wasn’t thrilled to be the one to bring that reminder home.

Plus there was her family.

The Camdens weren’t getting what they wanted from him—for him to cease and desist his protests against their opening new stores, for him to work for them rather than against them. He was still going to be their adversary. How would it be if he was an enemy in their midst? Or would he not be allowed in their midst at all? Lindie was clearly close to her family. Would she end things with him to avoid their disapproval?

He took a deep breath, then blew it out slowly, feeling a wave of defeat because those things were all true and none of them paved the way for him to be with Lindie or for her to be with him.

So even though he’d worked out that she actually might be the right kind of woman for him, the answer to how he could have her and the future he wanted was that he still couldn’t.

But he wanted her.

More now as he got off the highway, as he neared where he could turn to get to his own loft or keep going toward Cherry Creek to get to her house.

To her.

Something in him just couldn’t let go of the idea of getting to her. Of being with her. Again and for more than just another night.

So much more than that. That’s what he had to have; he knew it with sudden and clear certainty.

He had to have forever.

Oh, yeah, it was definitely serious.

He was head over heels for her.

It was there in him, just waiting to be recognized, and now he did.

He not only wanted her, he wanted what his parents had—with her. The kind of love and caring and closeness. The kind of companionship. The kind of long life together through good times and bad.

“On an island where there would only be the two of us?” he asked himself out loud, facetiously.

But Lindie wasn’t the only one with a streak of headstrong stubbornness. He had to admit that he had a pretty strong dose of it, too. And now that he’d found Lindie, he couldn’t
not
have her because of things that were outside of them. Not when what they had when they were alone, what they shared, was so damn terrific. Not when it was everything he’d been looking for his whole damn life.

His dad might have reservations, but by the end of their conversation he
had
accepted the idea that Sawyer might be getting involved with a Camden. And Sawyer knew his parents; he knew that they would never treat Lindie rudely or badly if he brought her around.

Plus he had faith that they would warm up to her when they got to know her the way he had, when they learned what kind of person she really was. They would grow to like her, to love her, to accept her. And maybe then to forget about her being a Camden.

But he was going to continue being Camden Incorporated’s opponent.

What was he going to do about that? he asked himself as he drove past the turnoff into the heart of Denver and headed farther along Spear Boulevard toward Lindie’s house.

There wasn’t a fix for his continuing to oppose Camden Inc.

Which stood to reason, he decided, because if there was any solution beyond him taking them on as a client Lindie-the-fixer would have come up with it. And she hadn’t.

But maybe if it couldn’t be fixed, they could still navigate it. Or just live with it.

If she was willing.

He knew it might be asking a lot of her—to let him into her life when he might not be let into her family.

But it was still something he knew he had to ask. Because he couldn’t refuse himself the best thing he’d ever found.

The person who had somehow come to mean every bit as much to him as his son did.

There was no way he could refuse himself Lindie just because all the pieces didn’t quite fit.

He just wanted—
needed
—her too much to let anything stand in his way.

* * *

As Lindie drove home from her grandmother’s weekly dinner she was glad to have Sunday over with. For a day that had started out so well, it had definitely turned sour.

In Sawyer’s arms. In the shower with him. Making love. That had all been such a good beginning to the day.

Just thinking about it helped for the fleeting moment that she let herself relive it.

But then she remembered that at the end of that shower, when it had seemed as if they might have a little more time in bed together, Lang had called to say he was on his way over.

Instantly that had meant no more time in bed together. No more lovemaking. Not even a long, lingering goodbye with promises of phone calls or arrangements to see each other later. Instead she’d had to basically shove Sawyer out the door because she hadn’t wanted his car to even be on her block when her brother got there.

Just one quick kiss and he was gone. Literally only minutes before Lang arrived.

Lang, who was followed by Dane, so that they could both tell her the latest news from Idaho. Sawyer was gaining so much ground in his campaign against them that the development team that had initially approached them about building a superstore was now having second thoughts. They were considering pulling their support and siding with the naysayers.

If they did that, Camden Inc. could be looking at costly court battles and delays required to fight their way in now that land had been bought, money invested and contracts in place.