A Sweetheart For The Single Dad (The Camdens Of Colorado Book 8) (15 page)

Okay, yes, she’d entertained a few midnight fantasies of being touched like that by him. But nowhere in any of them had it been as good as it really was. He knew how to kiss and he knew just how to caress, too.

Stroking when stroking felt best. Teasing when teasing worked to tantalize her even more. Tugging and gently pinching when her nipple cried out for that, and then rubbing and soothing and altogether driving her slightly out of her mind.

And still she wanted more.

Or maybe
because
of that she wanted more.

Whatever the reason, it was her lower regions that came to life then. That wanted a turn. A touch. Him.

Outside in the park? she thought.

It was dark. The sky was clear. The air warm. The grass no doubt cool.

But that was so exposed.

So maybe the backseat instead.

They could climb back there. It was a big SUV. The windows were tinted.

But even as one part of her was titillated by the idea of being that wayward, it wasn’t how she wanted it to be between them.

It shouldn’t be any way between you!
a small voice reminded her, forcing her to face the fact that this had already gone much further than it should go.

This was Sawyer Huffman and her interactions with him were supposed to be strictly business. She shouldn’t even be kissing him let alone nearly squirming beneath the pleasures of his hand on her breast and contemplating having sex with him in the backseat of his SUV!

What was she doing? she mentally shouted at herself.

And yet for several minutes more she just had to go on doing it because she couldn’t stand the thought of losing his mouth on hers, his hand on her...

But as much as she didn’t want to lose either of those things, as much as she wanted to take this whole thing all the way to the end, she knew she couldn’t. Not now, anyway. And certainly not in the Wheatley Community Center parking lot.

So after another extended moment of trying to brand into her memory the feel of his hand on her breast, she backed away just enough to give him the message that this had to stop.

Instead his grip tightened. Initially, at least. And then he took her nipple between his thumb and index finger to twist ever-so-tenderly just once before he let go and took his hand away.

The kissing ended, too, and he merely pulled her up against him as if he were having trouble letting go of her completely.

“Not the place to do this,” he surmised.

And not what they should be doing, Lindie thought. But she couldn’t bring herself to say it so she didn’t say anything at all.

But she also didn’t do anything to pull out of that embrace because being in his arms still felt too fabulous.

It couldn’t go on forever, though, and after a while she inched her hands between them to set her bra to rights and refasten enough buttons to be decent again.

Sawyer got the message, too, and sat back, releasing her and getting out of the car.

Lindie didn’t need him to open her door but while he came around she used the time to finish her buttoning as a precautionary measure since what she really wanted was his hands inside her clothes again.

When the passenger door opened, she got out.

“There’s some important baseball game on Saturday?” she said as she moved to her car, as if they hadn’t just been on the brink of making love.

“Not important, no. It’s just an end-of-summer fun thing. Boys against girls. Since I’m not getting Sam again this Saturday I signed on to coach the boys. Marie is coaching the girls. Want to come?” he asked.

“Sure,” she answered without needing to think twice as she unlocked her door and opened it. But rather than get in she turned to face him, loving the way the moonlight dusted his oh-so-handsome features and having second thoughts about what she’d just stopped.

“Good,” he said pointedly, looking intently into her face, smiling, putting his fingers through her hair to sweep it out of the way before he leaned in and kissed her again. A kiss that was as sexy and intimate and knowing as if they
had
used his backseat, after all.

But when thoughts of dragging him home with her flitted through Lindie’s mind she ended the kiss.

“I have to drive all the way home still,” she said feebly, as if that was a reason to stop.

“Me, too,” he said with a groan.

Another kiss, just as intense and irresistible, before he was the one to finally end it this time.

He stepped away from her as though distance was the only thing that could keep him from kissing her yet again. “Saturday. One in the afternoon,” he said, referring to the baseball game.

“I’ll be here,” Lindie assured him.

“Then maybe afterward—”

She ignored the seductive tone in his voice and completed the sentence. “I can cook you dinner and we can have a serious talk about what it would mean to your business to have Camden Incorporated as a client.”

Oh, that had sounded desperate.

But that was how she felt.

He just smiled and ignored her rationale for the invitation with a “Dinner at your place” acceptance, as if he hadn’t even heard the rest.

“And talk about business,” she repeated as she silently vowed to use that dinner to really, really push for him to work with them—what she was
supposed
to be doing.

He merely smiled as she got behind the wheel of her car and started her engine.

After he’d closed her door and she’d left him behind in that parking lot, Lindie swore to herself that she was going to put every effort into doing the job she’d been sent to him to do. She owed it to her family to devote herself firmly to that goal and to not let up until she succeeded.

And if she couldn’t convince him?

Then she might have to call it quits on this mission.

Because what was going on between them just couldn’t go on much longer.

Or she knew she would lose herself in a man she couldn’t have.

Chapter Nine

“S
ean thinks something might be going on between you and that Camden girl.”

Knowing his father couldn’t see him, Sawyer made a face but kept his voice neutral. “It’s just business, Dad,” he assured him.

“She’s still trying to get you to turn your back on your clients and represent Camden interests, huh?”

“There hasn’t been any talk about turning my back on my current clients, but, yeah, she’s still trying to persuade me to take on Camden Incorporated.”

Sawyer had used his hands-free call feature to contact his parents just to check in on Saturday morning as he drove to Wheatley for the baseball game. He’d been so busy—and so distracted by Lindie—that he hadn’t talked to them as frequently as he usually did. In fact he hadn’t talked to them since before he’d had breakfast with his brother. And after a few minutes saying hello to his mother and catching up with his father on other things, apparently now they were going to talk about this.

“Seems like... What’s her name?”

“Lindie.”

“Seems like her trying to get you to work for them has been going on for quite a while. How much time does it take to say no?”

“Oh, I’ve said no. More than once.” To everything work-related. Not to everything he
should
have passed up.

“But she’s persistent,” his father concluded. “They’re like dogs with bones, those Camdens. Take it from me.”

“Well, yeah,” Sawyer agreed provisionally. “But I also sort of pushed her into volunteering at the community center so she could see for herself the kind of mess their superstores leave behind. She ended up throwing herself into that more than I expected, so that’s kept her around, too.”

“And gotten you to like her.”

Had that come from Sean or was his father hearing something in his voice that was giving him away?

Sawyer didn’t know but suddenly he didn’t want to deny it. In fact, something in him wanted to test the waters.

“She’s...not what I expected. She’s a really nice person.”

“And none of the Camdens I’ve seen in pictures is hard on the eyes,” his father pointed out.

Sawyer laughed slightly. “She’s definitely not hard on the eyes.”

“So you do like her.”

Sawyer took a deep breath and plunged in. “How bad would it be if I said I did?”

There was silence on the other end for so long Sawyer began to wonder if they’d been disconnected.

Then his father said, “A Camden...” and Sawyer could tell that he was tempering his reaction. “I suppose I’d be a little worried about whether you should be trusting one of them.”

“I haven’t seen anything about her that isn’t trustworthy.”

“Seeing it coming is the problem with those people.”

Sawyer’s hand tightened on the steering wheel. “I know that’s how it was in your situation. But I really don’t think Lindie is devious. She actually has a little too much conscience for her own good.”

Again his father didn’t say anything and Sawyer sensed the caution the older man was practicing.

“I’d hate for you to get into something you’d live to regret,” Samuel said after a moment. “Something that could hurt your business or cost you more than you think it might.”

“What if I was willing to take that risk?” Sawyer asked.

“Are you?” his father countered.

“I don’t know,” he said honestly.

There was another pause.

Then his dad said, “Getting into anything with the Camdens wouldn’t make your clients happy.”

“My job can’t be my whole life. I have a right to more. And I work hard for my clients. They all know that and it won’t change regardless.”

“So what are we really talking about here? Are you wondering what will happen if you wanted to bring a Camden home to us?”

“What
would
happen?” he asked as if it was an academic question.

But, wow, was there a heavy silence then.

This didn’t seem to be going well.

“I guess I’d have to say first of all that I hope you know what you’re doing,” his father finally said.

Sawyer wished he could swear that he did. But the truth was he didn’t. He only knew that for some reason when it came to Lindie he was helpless to stop what was happening despite knowing that he should. And he’d begun to wonder how much of a problem he would be creating if this thing between them went on.

Because what he
did
know was that tonight things were going to change, and if they went on at all, it wasn’t going to be about anything but the two of them.

“And second,” his father said, “if positions were reversed and it was our family that had caused harm to theirs, I wouldn’t want you condemned for anything I ever did. I’d want you to be judged on your own merit, for your own accomplishments, for the man you are—not for the man I am. So I s’pose I can’t be a hypocrite and I’d have to try to do the same thing when it comes to a Camden.”

It wasn’t an open-arms welcome but it was something. It was something Sawyer appreciated.

“Be careful, son,” his father added with genuine concern. “The Camdens are crafty and cunning and sly.”

“I know the old guard was but—”

“You can’t be sure the new guard isn’t, too. It’s a hell of a gamble, if you ask me. All the way around—with your business and your whole life.” His father sighed heavily. “But if you’re willing to take it... Well, you know we’ll always stand behind you.”

“How much would you hate it?” Sawyer said.

“I’d just be worried for you. For me, any anger is all in the past. Over and done with a long time ago. I got rewarded for going through it by meeting your mom and having you and Sean, so don’t pay any attention to that. But keep a look out for yourself for sure.”

“I will,” Sawyer promised, hoping even as he did that his vision wasn’t already too clouded. “I gotta go. I’m at the community center,” he said as he pulled into the lot and parked.

“Just make sure you think with the big head, not with the—”

“I know,” Sawyer said before his father could complete the warning he’d been giving him since puberty.

They said their goodbyes and disconnected.

For a few minutes Sawyer sat in his SUV, thinking about what his father had said, thinking about Lindie, about how complicated this was.

But then he spotted her car a few rows in front of him and just knowing that she was nearby sent a rush through him like nothing he’d ever experienced over anyone else.

And even though he tried his damnedest, he couldn’t tame it.

* * *

“Okay. You cooked me one of the best steaks I’ve ever eaten. Salad, potato, bread—great. Chocolate cheesecake? Decadent! A little hundred-year-old port to top it all off... And I’ve listened to your whole pitch. Now you listen to me.”

After the baseball game Lindie had come home, showered and changed into a simple A-line black knit dress with a bright orange and pink flower print. It was sleeveless, with a scooped neck and a hem that reached just below her knees. She’d left her hair loose and wavy, the way she knew he liked it.

She’d reapplied a light dusting of blush and mascara, and added a soft eye shadow, too. Then, because it was still warm and she knew she’d be staying at home, she’d skipped nylons and put on only a pair of ballet flats so she was comfortable cooking for Sawyer.

When he’d arrived she’d poured pre-dinner glasses of wine while her dogs had forced him to pet them all, and they’d briefly talked about the baseball game in which the girls had won by one run.

But once that was out of the way and the dogs had settled in various spots around the house, she had, indeed, given Sawyer a no-holds-barred proposal for Camden Incorporated.

And he
had
listened patiently.

But now they’d moved from the dining room into the living room where he’d taken her hand to pull her to sit with him on her overstuffed white sofa.

He kept hold of her hand between both of his, resting them all on his thigh in a way that was comforting and sensuous at once. Then he said what he had said multiple times since they’d met.

“No. No, I will not take Camden Incorporated on as a client.”

Every word was spoken slowly and was overly enunciated as if to make sure she understood a foreign language.

“I need you to accept that,” he went on. “I decided today, thinking about coming here tonight, that I had to put a stop to it once and for all. I’m beginning to feel like a tease. As though I’m leading you on somehow, even though I’ve been pretty clear. So hear what I’m saying. Lindie, I will
not ever
work on the side of Camden Incorporated.”

“Not even if I guarantee that by doing it you’ll be working to make things better for communities?”

He shook his head and rather than addressing what she’d asked, commanded firmly, “Tell me that you’ve heard what I said.”

Lindie took a deep breath and sighed.

“And you will report back to your family that it isn’t going to happen,” he added.

“They’ll be disappointed. We all thought that growing your business by having you work with Camdens would make up for what was done to your father’s business years ago.”

“Maybe you can count what you did with Harm’s dental practice,” he offered hopefully.

“Still, if getting Sam’s stepfather’s dental practice more business doesn’t work to keep Sam here—”

“It’s important to me that this business of persuading me to go to work for you ends here and now. Put it behind us. Please,” he said without waffling.

“You’re sick of hearing it,” she noted.

“I just want it over with. Because then I need you to tell me where that leaves us.”

That
seemed like the important part and what all the rest of what he’d said had been leading up to.

Because if they weren’t together for her to make the past up to him and subsequently convince him to stop being such a thorn in her family’s side, that left them without a reason to see each other.

And only with a whole lot of reasons not to...

She couldn’t bring herself to say that, to face it. Not when her hand was nestled so snugly in the cocoon of his hands and they were sitting there together and the entire time she’d been talking business what she’d really been thinking about was how much she wanted him.

“I don’t know...” she said quietly. “Do you?”

He chuckled a wry, helpless sort of chuckle and shook his head. “No, I don’t. But even though I’ve told myself a million times that it has to, I don’t want it to leave us nowhere,” he confessed in a voice equally as quiet as hers had been. Almost a whisper, as if it went against something sacred to say it out loud. “Is that possible? Or am I really, really barking up the wrong tree?”

There
were
so many issues standing between them.

How could they possibly go anywhere together from here?

“We aren’t really in a normal situation, are we?” she said, sorry that it wasn’t different.

He had on jeans and a pale gray summer-weight cashmere V-neck sweater that accentuated every inch of his very fine torso and made her itch to touch him. Plus he was clean-shaved, he smelled fantastic, and combined with those blue eyes, that sculpted face of his, and the memory of where Thursday night had ended, the last thing she could think about was watching him walk out right now and never seeing him again.

“No, we aren’t in a normal situation,” he agreed with a sigh. “We’re not in a good situation at all. But...” Another sigh. “I don’t think I can just walk away. Can you?”

It was not fair to ask her that and then kiss her. Especially not when Thursday night had left her with so much longing for him that a simple brush of his lips against hers was enough to reignite her desire.

She wanted this man in the worst way and the minute their lips met, her hunger for him wiped away all thought of everything that stood between them. There was only him—big and brawny and masculine and sexy—and her wanting him.

“Can we just have tonight and worry about the rest later?” she suggested when he ended the kiss and looked expectantly into her eyes, waiting for her to tell him if she was any more able to walk away than he was.

“So one step at a time?” he said for clarity.

“One step at a time,” she confirmed.

He agreed to that with another kiss, taking one of his hands away from hers to brace her head for a kiss that was much more intense.

Intense enough for lips to be parted and tongues to reacquaint like old friends eager to meet again.

Lindie raised her free hand to his chest to feel that sweater and the honed wall of his pectorals through it. So soft over so strong. And she liked it so much.

They went on kissing and kissing and kissing, and it spun her back to Thursday night, reawakening with gusto everything he’d aroused in her then. Her breasts, her whole body, yearned for his touch, and her thoughts were again of relocating—though not to a backseat or the grassy ground outside.

He stopped kissing her as if he were coming up for air and dipped his forehead to rest against the top of hers. “So what’s the next step?” he asked in a raspy voice full of clear insinuation about what he wanted that next step to be.

This could be the start of a real relationship...or this could be a single, stolen night for them to share before they parted ways. Lindie had no idea where things would go from here. That made tonight—this moment—very precious to her. It made it important that she have it all at least this once before any of the complications intruded again.

“I have until dinner at GiGi’s tomorrow at six,” she whispered.

“I only have until noon when I pick up Sam.”

Two of the many complications trying to intrude.

Lindie shoved them away and allowed herself to think only of him and how much she wanted him.

“So you could spend the night,” she said.

He smiled a slow smile. “That’s the next step I was hoping for. If you’re sure?”

Lindie smiled, raised her hand to his cheek and tipped her face up to kiss him.

“I’m sure,” she said.

Both of his hands rose into her hair, cradling her head to the kissing that was unleashed then. To the hunger that he must have been keeping under control until he knew it could be released.