Chapter 27 Elizabeth
ELIZABETH
@theanswerisno:
Can’t play for a few days. It’s game night and then a work event tomorrow evening
@pancakesareelite:
Ahh yes. That’s awesome. Enjoy it!
@pancakesareelite:
Is it weird that I’ll kinda miss you?
@theanswerisno:
Yeah, it is weird
@theanswerisno:
But I’ll kinda miss you too
You matter.
That was what he’d said, and I’d started crying. There weren’t many ways I could explain why without offloading years of trauma.
But I didn’t care about any of that now. Because Lincoln Carden had carried me out of a trench and all the way to his truck, despite people watching, despite me being able to walk or at least limp, if I tried.
And I should have protested.
But the second he’d pulled me against his strong chest, I never wanted to leave. Lincoln’s chest smelled like coffee and citrus. And I imagined he tasted that way too.
I shut my eyes, releasing a long breath that would hopefully help me draw my thoughts back to something more appropriate.
“Detour,” he said.
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. When the loud vibration of the truck stopped, I cracked an eye open. We were parked in front of a drugstore.
Lincoln dropped his keys in my lap. “Be right back.”
As soon as he left, I took out my phone and navigated to my chat with Link.
My gaze fell on Lincoln’s phone in the center console. If I texted Link right now, would it light up? Had I imagined all of these connections? Were they coincidences?
Wishful thinking. That was it. Because if Lincoln was my Link, it would mean he knew me on a level deeper than anyone else, and it would mean he stayed anyway.
I glanced at his phone and, with trembling fingers, typed out a message.
@pancakesareelite:
I’m really, really scared of meeting you.
My eyes were fixed on his screen as I hit send.
Nothing happened.
I lifted his phone and touched the unlock button, but the screen stayed black. My head rolled back, and I grumbled. It must have died.
Lincoln returned, and I dropped his phone back in the console. His wide eyes and red cheeks made a smile curl onto my mouth. What did he buy?
He climbed in and handed me the large paper bag, grimacing.
“Are you hurt?” I asked.
“A little,” he replied. “Most of that stuff is for you.” He started the truck and zoomed back onto the main road.
I opened the bag to reveal plastic wrapping and little cardboard boxes of every color. Pads. Tampons. Every size. Every brand. Scented. Unscented. Wings. No wings. Thin. Thick. Maxi. Night. “Did you buy the entire aisle?” I couldn’t control the giggle even if I tried.
“Maybe,” he said with an awkward chuckle. “I didn’t know what you might need. I also got… um… ibuprofen and chocolate.”
Lincoln Carden was the most perfect man to ever exist. Even though he couldn’t look at me while discussing period products.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
Come on, Lily. Don’t cry in front of him. Not again.
After successfully getting my emotions under control, we pulled up to the cabin where the construction manager and his assistant had been staying.
Lincoln climbed out first. I opened my door before he got to me and swung myself out, landing on the foot I was sure wasn’t injured.
I tested the other foot tentatively, and a pinch of pain lingered.
It didn’t seem too bad. Maybe I didn’t need to be carried.
Even if I wanted to be.
“Don’t put pressure on it. I can… uh…” He glanced away and rubbed a large hand across the back of his neck.
“It’s fine, I’m fine,” I said, and limped inside.
A deep frown embedded itself onto his handsome face and his breath struggled while Luis, the construction manager, gave us a tour of the small cabin.
It was a cozy two-bedroom cabin with one bathroom and a large living room with a fireplace and open-plan kitchen. It wasn’t unlike the cabins I’d visited for quiet holidays away from LA.
But knowing we’d be sharing it, alone, in a few days made it feel tiny.
Lincoln and I took turns to wash off as much mud as we could.
“Um… so… Anders wants you on this site next week, with me. I know not everyone likes… uh… being away from home, or… uh… living with someone else, so if you don’t want to be here every day, you don’t have to, like… stay over.” He rambled. A wince still marked his features whenever he moved.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Honestly?” He huffed out a heavy breath. “Not really. My back is killing me, and I need to lie down.”
Luis pointed at the bedroom. “Go ahead. That’s the spare room, no one’s in there. Mark’s taken off for the rest of the month.” He then walked toward the front door. “I need to make a few calls. I’ll be out front if you need me.”
Lincoln walked—with much effort—to the bedroom, and I followed, wishing I could carry him instead.
He lay down on his back and shut his eyes, but it did nothing to soothe the lines of pain across his forehead. His fists were clenched at his side.
I crawled onto the bed beside him. “What can I do to help?”
“Ibuprofen helps, heat or ice helps, too, but mostly I need to rest.”
“Is it because you carried me?”
He chuckled and winced. “No, Elizabeth. It’s because I carried my mother’s piano.”
“Ah, yes.” I got off the bed and went to the kitchen. In the bag filled with tampons, I also found a pack of ibuprofen. I poured a glass of water and returned with my offerings outstretched. “Take this.”
He struggled to sit up and drink it, but once he was done, he dropped back down with a groan. “It should subside in a few hours. Luis can take you home.”
“And leave you here on your own?”
“I’m on my own all the time,” he said with that half smile.
“Do you get this often?” I asked as the soft warmth of the bed called to me. I slid down until I was lying flat on my back too. Our shoulders were almost touching.
Lincoln was quiet for a while, and I thought perhaps he’d fallen asleep, but when I pulled my attention away from the wooden ceiling, I saw his eyes wide open and staring ahead.
He looked away. “When I overdo it. It’s… from an old back injury I like to pretend I don’t have when I offer to help my mom move furniture, or carry women around, apparently.”
I laughed and that seemed to bring out a smile on his face. “How’d you hurt your back in the first place?”
Lincoln sucked in a deep breath and frowned. “Uhh… remember I told you about how my dad died?”
My heart already ached at the hesitation in his voice. “Hit-and-run?”
“Uh-huh.” He swallowed. “I was, um, I was with him. We were walking to the store to get stuff for dinner, and he, uh… he must have seen the car coming. I didn’t.
He pushed me out of the way, and I fell into a concrete channel and hurt my back.
I didn’t even register it at the time.” He swallowed again, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
I moved closer, wanting nothing more than to give all the comfort I had. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. So am I.” He blinked a few times, but a rogue tear still escaped.
I reached out and dabbed it with my thumb. His lids dropped closed.
He removed his glasses, setting them on the bedside table before rubbing his palms across his eyes. “That’s the most I’ve spoken about it in years.”
“You can talk to me about it whenever you want.”
With great effort, he turned around, shoving his face into the pillow. “Thank you,” he mumbled, his voice muffled. “Could you tell me something else? Another interesting and random fact I wouldn’t have guessed about Elizabeth.”
Lincoln rarely used my last name. I don’t know how he knew not to.
“I’m a masseuse.”
He turned his face to look at me, and it was an entirely different experience seeing him without his glasses. His brown eyes were even softer, warmer. My heart skipped over itself.
“No, you’re not.”
“I am.”
“Elizabeth, you were a model, you’re an engineer, and now you’re a masseuse?” His amused smile and still-shining eyes lit a fire inside me.
“I mean, it was just for fun. I did it as part of a three-month wellness program in Thailand. But I remember some stuff. I’ll prove it.” My blood turned to lava at the mere suggestion.
Lincoln swallowed but said nothing.
“It could help with the pain,” I added, breathless as if I’d been working out. Why am I doing this?
I opened my mouth to retract the offer, but no words came out. The logical part of me screaming about the inappropriateness was gone, replaced only by the need to make him feel better.
And the intense desire to touch him.
He turned his face back down to the pillow, and his muffled voice said, “Okay.”
Okay?
Okay. I gulped in a mouthful of air, but there seemed to be no oxygen in it.
I could do this. I could totally do this. I kneeled beside him and pushed up my sleeves.
“For what it’s worth, you don’t have to prove yourself. I believe you,” Lincoln mumbled at the speed of light.
But it was too late now. I laid my palms on his back, and he arched away but then came back again. My breath hitched, but I was already surviving without oxygen, so I dug the heel of my hand into his hard muscles and pushed it upward.
A soft groan escaped him, sending goose bumps across the back of my neck.
My hands slid downward, and my fingertips worked across the tight knots. Again, he breathed a low and guttural breath. I shifted closer until my knees were pressed against his side.
The heat of his skin passed through the light fabric against my palms. My hands shaped the contours on his back, and everything tightened within me.
I let my hands roam upward across Lincoln’s shoulders, gripping both of them and resisting the urge to play with the hair at the back of his head, the way he often did.
Below my touch, Lincoln moved against me like a cat would while being petted, and I used all the restraint I had not to lean down and kiss his exposed neck. I couldn’t help but imagine what my mouth would feel like against his firm body. What it might feel like to bite him. Just a little.
With each stroke, with each groan that escaped him, my need grew. Until I could barely stand it anymore.
There was no denying it. I had fallen prey to the Gray woman weakness.