Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
EDEN
While I silently stewed and thought up a million and one ways to maim Lincoln Sheppard, Marco was smart enough to keep his mouth shut as he drove us to Alpha Omega Investigations in my car.
The instant he put it in park, I threw the door open and hopped out, stomping into the offices with all the rage of a charging bull.
“Eden? Well hey there, honey. How you doin’?”
“I’ll be better once I kill your boss,” I announced to Roxanne at the front desk. “Where is he?”
Her eyes lit with a devious smile as she pointed. “Workout room on the second level. Stairs are just over there.”
Instead of following me, Marco shook his head and went over to Roxanne, propping his forearms on her desk like he was settling in.
I found the stairs she’d indicated and took them two at a time, each footfall a heavy stomp.
The music coming from the workout room went from a dull hum to a steady, discernable beat as I got closer.
On any other day, I’d have stopped to appreciate Brian Johnson belting out “You Shook Me All Night Long,” but I had tunnel vision at that very moment.
The instant I reached the landing, I turned and scanned the huge open area. “You!” I shouted, my finger jabbed at Lincoln the moment I spotted him.
He lowered the bar that was extended over his head with a clack and pushed to sitting.
I heard a mumbled “Ah fuck,” but didn’t pay attention to which of the many men it might have come from as I stormed toward the weight bench Lincoln was straddling.
“You told your men to make me miserable? Have you lost your goddamn mind?”
“Damn, brother,” another man chuckled. “Looks like Castillo sold your ass out.”
I spun around and spotted Cord and West among the other men I didn’t know and glared viciously.
“And when I’m done with him, I’m moving on to you.
” My finger swung around to West. “You’re a pig, you know that?
A disgusting, destructive pig. Thanks to you, there’s pizza sauce smeared into my couch that’ll never come out! ”
He winced and reached up to scratch at the back of his neck.
My lips parted to continue my tirade, but before I could say anything else, Lincoln pushed off the bench and came at me, grabbing my arm without a word and yanking me back toward the stairs.
“What the hell are you doing?” I screeched, tugging at my arm. “Let me go, asshole.”
He kept a death grip on me as he pulled me down the stairs and through to lobby with a barked order of “No calls or visitors, Rox.”
“Got it, boss.”
Then I was being propelled into his office, the door slamming shut behind me.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” I started right in the moment he let me go. “You have no right dragging me around like—”
His hand grabbed hold of the back of my neck and he yanked me into him at the same time his head came down and his mouth crashed against mine in a kiss so volatile and explosive that my knees gave out.
Before I could fall to the floor, Lincoln wrapped an arm around my waist and pinned me even tighter against him as his tongue forced its way past my lips.
There was no give from him this time. This was all take, and damn if this kiss wasn’t just as good, if not better, than any of the other ones he and I had shared.
When he finally lifted his head, it took at least a minute for my brain to jumpstart.
“What the hell was that?” I finally managed to ask on a heavy exhale.
“Two weeks, buttercup,” he said on a growl. “Two fuckin’ weeks I’ve had to watch you at a distance, and the first words you speak to me in that time are to jump down my goddamn throat.”
I tried to step back, but his arms tightened. “Well, what did you think I’d do when I found out?”
“Exactly this,” he said smugly.
“Wait. You wanted me to come in here and blow up at you?”
“If that’s what it took to get you to stop pretendin’ like I don’t exist, then yeah. I’ve been going outta my goddamn mind for two weeks, Edie.”
“That makes two of us!” I cried. “Only mine’s all your fault.”
“It was a means to an end. One way or another, I was gonna keep you safe. I wanted to do it my damn self, but you wouldn’t allow that, so I did the next best thing, with a little added incentive to my boys to do everything in their power to annoy you to the point that you’d let me back in so I could look after you. ”
Putting my hands to his chest, I shoved as hard as I possibly could. It was like trying to move a mountain. “For god’s sake,” I gasped. “Do you have any idea how insane that sounds?”
“Haven’t been feelin’ all that fuckin’ sane the past couple weeks, buttercup,” he clipped in return.
I gave him another shove, and another, and another until he finally relented and let me go. “Don’t say that,” I snapped back just as hard, causing him to tilt his head in confusion.
“Don’t say what?”
“Don’t call me buttercup like that. Not when you’re pissed. You gave me that name when we first met, and I’ve freaking loved it ever since. Don’t you use it sarcastically. That’s not fair.”
Everything suddenly shifted. Lincoln’s anger and irritation faded away, and his face took on that soft warmth that made my heart flip. “I’m sorry, baby,” he said so gently that I thought I might break down and cry right then and there. “I promise not to do it again.”
God, I was a wreck. I was so off-kilter I didn’t know up from down. “Jesus, Linc. What are we doing here? This isn’t normal behavior. It’s totally unhealthy.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, and for the first time since storming in, I actually noticed what he was wearing.
Running shoes, a pair of loose black basketball shorts that hung tantalizingly off his narrow hips, and another Under Armour shirt, only this one was white and sleeveless. And damn, did he look good.
He watched me closely as he leaned back casually against the door, cutting off any hopes I might have had of escaping. “You’re right, Edie. Nothing about this is normal, but I’m fine with that.”
“How can you say that?” I asked in frustration, the tsunami of emotions inside of me making it impossible to think straight. “How could you ever be okay with this?”
“Because I’ve never cared about someone the way I care about you. I was just fine with the way my life was before you came along, Eden. I never considered marriage or kids or settling down. As far as I was concerned, none of that shit was for me. Then I met you.”
“Lincoln—”
But he wasn’t finished. “You told me that what we had was real for you from the very beginning. What I didn’t realize was that it was the same for me too.
” All the air expelled from my lungs on a painful exhale.
“When I held you on the dance floor that first night, everything changed. You’re genuine and beautiful.
I don’t just want you, Eden, I want to know you.
You’re different than any woman I’ve ever been with. ”
“I make you laugh,” I whispered, the words spilling out of their own accord.
He nodded and lowered his voice. “You make me laugh.” Pushing off the wall, he closed the distance between us and placed a palm on either side of my neck, using his thumbs to tip my face up. “And you make it so easy. I didn’t think that was possible, baby.”
“Nona told me you don’t laugh a lot,” I said quietly. “I didn’t believe her because I’d seen it myself every time we were together.”
“That was because of you, Edie. Only you.”
I couldn’t take it anymore. Lifting onto my toes, I slammed my lips against his and kissed him with everything I was.
Everything that came next happened in a blink. Lincoln’s hands made quick work of whipping off my shirt before his lips latched onto mine once more.
“Jesus,” he grunted into my mouth when my hands slipped beneath his shirt at his back and my nails raked across his skin gently.
“Lincoln,” I panted. “I need to touch you, honey.”
A vicious growl rumbled up his throat and down mine before he wrenched away just far enough to rip his shirt over his head.
The sight of his naked chest took my breath away.
There was no other way to describe it—he was sheer beauty.
If it took the rest of my life, it still wouldn’t be enough time for me to look my fill.
“Baby,” he growled, pulling me from my dazed gawking. I lifted my eyes to his to see that his pupils were blown, and the green had gone nearly black. “You want this to stop, you gotta say it now, ’cause I don’t think I’ll be able to do it once it starts.”
I made a decision right then and let my heart take the lead. It was the only choice I could make. There was no other option for me. This was it. He was it.
Pressing my palms against his chest, I parted my lips and said the only words floating around inside my head. “Don’t stop.”
Whatever control he might have been holding onto in that moment snapped. With our lips fused, he lifted me and started across his office. My legs wrapped around his waist, and I held on tight as he lowered me onto the couch in the corner.
The moment my back hit the cool dark brown leather, he pulled my legs from around him and leaned back long enough to divest me of my jeans and panties.
He came back down, one hand pressing into the cushion beside my head as the other slid between our bodies, working to free himself from his gym shorts. I sucked in a sharp gasp at the feel of the wide head of his erection prodding at my entrance.
He paused just long enough to ask, “You sure about this?”
At my nod, Lincoln’s hips shifted and he sank inside me in one thrust. Both of us cried out as we connected in the most intimate way possible for the very first time.
My back bowed and my neck arched at the intensity of his invasion. He was so long, so thick, so perfect. He gave me just enough time for my body to adjust to his size before he started moving again. And it was Heaven.
“Jesus, fuck,” he growled, pulling out and driving back in so hard my walls quivered. “You have no goddamn clue how long I’ve dreamed of this, Edie. How long I’ve wanted you just like this.”
Forcing my eyes open against the onslaught of feelings bombarding me, I lifted a hand and pressed it against his jaw, sliding my palm along the rough blond stubble at his jaw before curling my fingers around the side of his neck.
“Yes I do,” I panted as I lifted my hips to meet him stroke from stroke. “Because I’ve wanted you just as bad.”
At my declaration, he slammed inside me and ground his hips against mine, rubbing my clit and throwing gasoline on the fire burning deep in my belly.
With his mouth against mine, he swallowed every whimper and moan that escaped me, and I did the same for him, muffling his snarls and groans as we moved together.
When it became too much and I couldn’t breathe, I twisted away, lifting my head just enough that my lips brushed the shell of his ear.
“So good, baby,” I purred as I lifted one knee higher, hooking my leg around his waist and allowing him even deeper.
My fingers clung to his back and my other foot linked around his thigh.
Every single inch of me was as close to him as I could possibly get, and still it wasn’t enough.
He buried his face in my neck on an animalistic sound and picked up the pace. Each snap of his hips forced me closer and closer to that edge. But I wasn’t ready to fall over yet. I didn’t want this to end.
“Lincoln,” I whimpered, fighting to hold off for as long as I could. “God, honey. You feel so good.”
“Get there, baby.”
I was losing the battle. “Oh shit.”
“Get there, Edie. Need you to come. Need to feel you drown my cock.”
My whole body started to tremble, my muscles clenched and locked tight. “I’m so close, Linc.”
“Give it to me, darlin’. Give me all of you.”
That did it. At those words, my walls clamped down around him and a rush of pure ecstasy washed over me, pulling me into its depths as I squeezed my eyes closed and moaned long and low with my release.
I had just enough wherewithal to open my eyes and watch as Lincoln slammed in deep, threw his head back, and groaned as his cock swelled and he emptied himself inside me.
The thick cords of his neck bulged, calling out to me, and I lifted my head, giving one a nip before soothing the sting with my tongue.
At my gentle bite, he twitched and let out another grunt before finally collapsing, giving me all his weight as we fought to regulate our breathing.
It felt like an eternity before my mind was able to function again at a normal level, and as the reality of what just happened sank in, I couldn’t find it in me to regret a single solitary moment of it.
I locked my arms and legs tight around Lincoln, holding onto him with everything I had as I let go of all the hurt and the pain, let go of the anger and bad thoughts and allowed my heart to finally start to knit itself back together.
There was no point in fighting it anymore. Lincoln was it for me, no matter how hard I tried to deny it.
The way I saw it, I had two choices. I could either hold on to the ugly and let it take root, let it fester and grow until its barbs were tangled so deep I was never able to let it go…
Or I could cut it out of me and allow room for the good to move in and grow in its place.
And as I lay there beneath the man I was falling hard and fast for, the decision came easily.
I chose to be happy.