Hard to Handle (5 page)

When the woman got to the door, Sadie felt her shoulders relax some.
Good. Keep walking, honey.
Until she returned to the counter and Aiden held out a pen. She took it, jotting something down on the back of her receipt and handing it to him.

Sadie’s jaw went tight. And a little tighter when Aiden smiled, exposing the dimple low on one cheek. Dammit, that was
Sadie’s
dimple.

Before she could rationalize her way out of it, Sadie was marching full steam ahead toward the counter—to do what, she had no idea. Scold Aiden for talking to a woman?

The woman left, and as the door swung shut, Aiden called after her, “Thanks, Sonya.”

The sound of his voice stopped Sadie short. When the red spots cleared from her vision, she noticed Aiden watching her expectantly. Her eyes darted to the sheet of paper on the counter—yep, there was a phone number on there—to the pen in his hand. She snatched it from him and forced a tight smile. “Can I borrow this?”

Without waiting for an answer, Sadie pointed her frustrated, jealous, and clearly insane self in the direction of the warehouse and didn’t look back.

Aiden narrowed his eyes at Sadie’s retreating back before allowing a ghost of a smile to sneak onto his face. If he wasn’t mistaken, Sadie did not like that
Mrs.
Sonya Rollins had slipped Aiden her husband’s phone number a moment ago. How else was he supposed to alert the couple when their special-ordered leather saddlebags came in?

Sadie had practically been foaming at the mouth as she crossed the room. Aiden half expected her to snatch the receipt and tear it into a million pieces. This was the woman who’d fed her wedding invitations through a shredder, after all. If she could obliterate expensive card stock without a second thought, the thin sheet of thermal paper in his hand didn’t stand a chance.

And what did she need his pen for, anyway? His eyes went to the full cup of ink pens on the corner of the counter. She hadn’t grabbed one of those.

Yeah. Something was up.

For the last few days, Aiden had watched her work. She came in when the store opened, or just before, and stayed for two or three hours to arrange, and help sell, the parts she’d dug out of the warehouse. Aiden helped, referring customers to the clearance display and explaining they were making room for new inventory.

In the case of parts the clearance rack didn’t hold, Sadie had equipped Aiden with a Midwest brand price sheet with their most popular items on it. Yesterday when she’d overheard Aiden say a certain Midwest part would need to be shipped, Sadie had run out to her car and dug the part out of her trunk.

She was driven, no doubt about it.

Aiden smiled at empty doorway leading to the warehouse where she’d disappeared in a blur of blonde, pen-wielding beauty. Sadie was about to become number one in sales thanks to the Axle’s contract. In pursuit of the goal, she wasn’t about to let any detail fall by the way.

His admiration for her work ethic stirred something familiar within him. His own drive. His own goals. Aiden had finally,
finally
taken a step toward getting what he wanted when he’d accepted the job at Axle’s. Not that he wouldn’t do what he’d done for his mother a hundred times over, but this was his chance. A new chapter of his life. A brand new day.

Or it would be, as soon as he nutted up and talked to Axle. He needed to quit putting it off, lay out his pitch, and see what his gruff employer thought of it.

Aiden had a break coming up, and no plans other than finding a sandwich shop where he could fill his empty void of a stomach. He could invite Sadie to come with him, get what he knew would be her blatantly honest opinion of the business deal he was considering.

A plan. Simply having one made him feel as if he was halfway to victory. Aiden abandoned the sales floor and walked to Axle’s office. He poked his head through the open door to find Axle sitting at his computer, pecking away at a snail’s pace with the tips of his sausage-like fingers. “I’m going to take a break soon. Cover me?”

Axle turned, the chair beneath him creaking in disagreement. Over a pair of his wife’s flowered pink reading glasses—Axle lost a pair of reading glasses a week, at least—he gave Aiden a solemn stare. “Okay,” he said, his tone revealing nothing.

Aiden headed down the hallway away from Axle’s office, shaking his head as he wondered at his burly boss. Any inside information on how to scale the granite wall that was Axle Zoller would be appreciated. The man was about as readable as a braille instruction manual for complicated electronics.

In the warehouse, Sadie was standing on a stepladder straining for a box just out of reach of her slight height.

“Need a hand?” he asked.

“Oh!” He’d startled her, and Sadie grasped the shelf for support to keep from falling. Over her head, the large box swayed and began to tip.

Aiden rushed for her, and before he’d worked out how to do it, pulled Sadie off the stepladder and folded her into him, protecting her with his body.

And then time stopped.

Her scent wrapped around him, tickling his nostrils and reminding him of holding her as he kissed the sense right out of her. Her silken blonde hair wound softly around his fingertips where his palm cupped the back of her head. The press of her breasts against his chest, the way his arm locked around her lower back, made him want to pull her close and never let her go.

Then, in a cascade of clanks and clatters, the box overhead toppled and delivered an array of parts to the warehouse’s concrete floor. And one heavy piece in particular right into Aiden’s shoulder.

He let out a sound between a growl and a grunt as the sharp edge hit his shoulder, but he didn’t let Sadie go until he was sure it was done raining metal. Only then did he allow her to pull away. She did, slowly, turning those brown eyes up at him as one hand fisted the side of his shirt.

Those petal soft lips parted and all Aiden could think was tasting her…until her eyebrows slammed down and she barked, “What the hell are you doing?”

“What the hell am
I
doing?” Aiden asked as she backed away from him. “What the hell are
you
doing?”

Her eyebrows shot up. “I’m working.”

“Looks more like you’re trying to get yourself killed.” He didn’t mean to raise his voice, but she was yelling at him. She should be thanking him.

Aiden palmed his right shoulder and winced. Now that the adrenaline had ebbed, his shoulder was beginning to throb.

Sadie’s reached out a hand. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” he said. “Probably just a scratch.” The pain wasn’t intense. After the bike wreck,
intense
took on a whole new meaning. Nothing before or since had hurt worse than his back after he’d played chicken with a tree…and lost.

He pulled his hand away to find red liquid on the tips of his fingers.

“Aiden!” Sadie clasped his wrist. “You’re bleeding!”

Pshaw. Merely a flesh wound.
“I’m fine.”

Sadie’s frown deepened and she latched onto his wrist, dragging him with her as she sidestepped various mufflers, oil filters, and dash panels scattered across the floor. “Where is a first aid kit?” Her grip was tight for a little thing. She was squeezing his forearm so hard he wasn’t sure if he wanted her to give him first aid.

“I’m fine.” He stopped walking and she sent him a glare over her shoulder. “Bathroom,” he said, giving in and gesturing to the right.

Sadie led him in and opened the mirrored medicine cabinet, rooting around until she found bandages. “Sit,” she commanded, pushing him onto the toilet seat. She wet a pile of paper towels and turned back to him, plucking the edge of his shirt. “Off.”

“You’re bossy, do you know that?”

“Take your shirt off, Aiden.”

What he wouldn’t give for her to be purring that into his ear instead of barking it at him like a drill sergeant. No, actually, that worked, too. He hid his smile as he tugged the neck of his shirt and pulled it over his head.

Sadie dabbed at the cut, her ministrations gentle. “I had it,” she said, her voice soft. “You just scared me.”

“You did not,” Aiden said, winding his shirt in his hands. She swiped again and he sucked air through his teeth, frowning over his shoulder at her.

She gave him a tight smile. “Sorry.”

Aiden turned back around. “Next time you need something back here, ask for my help.”

She switched from a wet paper towel to dry. “You were busy,” she bit out.

Aiden kept his head down so she couldn’t see the curve of his lips. So he hadn’t imagined her reaction. Her
over
reaction. How interesting.

He heard the tear of paper, saw the movement out of the corner of his eye, and waited for her to lay the bandage over his cut and give it a pound with one fist. Instead, she laid it on his shoulder and used gentle pressure to secure it at the edges.

He turned his head slightly, weighing his next words. “Sonya’s married. That was her
husband’s
phone number she gave me so I could call him about a special order.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

“Sadie…” But her fingers moving away from the bandage to draw a long, slow line down his back made him forget what he was going to say. She was following the trail of his scar, he guessed. Most of it was numb from the nerve damage, but then, she knew that already.

She’d touched him like this before, the morning he’d woken next to her. The morning he left to pick up breakfast to keep himself from begging her to make love to him. He didn’t think he’d ever wanted someone as badly as he wanted Sadie.

He still wanted her.

Her fingertips veered to his side, probably tracing one of the thorny branches of the tattoo wrapping around to his back.

“When did you get this?” she asked quietly.

“A couple of months ago.”

Her fingers continued down his ribs. “Can I see it?” She sounded pained to ask.

“Sure.”

He stood and lifted his arm, giving her a view of the ink running the length of his flank. After Mom died, the subject of his first tat was a no-brainer. A red rose bursting from a tangle of thorny vines. The thorns signified hardship, the red rose his mother.

Sadie traced the flower, and Aiden swallowed hard. He missed her touch. His fist closed around the shirt in his hand as he gritted his teeth.

She stroked his skin, having no idea she was turning him inside out. “Your mom’s roses.”

God, how this woman got him. “Yeah,” he said, swallowing around a lump in his throat. “A heart with the word
MOM
in it seemed a little cliché.”

He heard her blow air from her nose, an attempt at a laugh that didn’t quite make it.

She laid her palm flat over the rose and the warmth expanded from his belly to chest where it wrapped around his heart. He lowered his arm, trapping her hand against him. The expression on her face, a mixture of sorrow and longing, nearly dropped him like a sack of grain.

He closed the distance between them, bringing up a hand to cup her chin as he thumbed her bottom lip. He had so many things to say. Like how sorry he was, how he’d do anything to take back the day he’d lost her for good. How he wanted her with an intensity time and space hadn’t been able to lessen.

And God knew how he’d tried to stop.

“You should put on a clean shirt,” she whispered, not speaking the words he read so easily in her eyes.

“You should kiss me,” he murmured.

Her eyes sank closed as her hand gripped him tighter. Aiden kept hold of her face, lowering his head to her glossed lips. The sweet scent of strawberry rolled off her mouth, and he wondered if her waiting tongue tasted as sweet…

“Everything okay back here?” a voice bellowed through the warehouse.

Sadie’s eyes snapped open.

Aiden stood over her, debating whether or not to kiss her even though Axle’s head would appear in the doorway in a second.

She pulled away from him before he could and busied herself by cleaning up the paper towels and washing her hands.

Axle poked his head in, his face an Easter Island statue. He took in Sadie’s flushed cheeks and Aiden’s state of undress and his eyes widened a fraction. “Lose your shirt?”

“Nope, he’s got it right here,” Sadie lifted Aiden’s hand holding his soiled shirt and pressed it over his bare chest. He could still see the heat in her eyes. Heat he’d put there.

Aiden glanced at Axle.
He couldn’t have given me five more seconds?
Sadie licked her bottom lip. The lip Aiden had nearly had between his teeth a moment ago.
Okay, ten more seconds.

Sadie stepped away from him. “We had a minor accident. I had to patch him up,” she told Axle, her voice forcibly casual. Aiden considered dropping a kiss onto her lips just to see what she’d do, but Axle’s surly presence was sort of ruining the mood.

Aiden walked for the door and Axle backed out of the doorway to let him by. “Thanks for the first aid,” he said to Sadie.

“Thanks for saving me,” she said, her lips twitching into a smile. “I had it.”

Instead of arguing, he decided not to let an opportunity as ripe as this one pass them by. “I never gave you an answer,” he said.

Her eyebrows pinched over her nose in the cutest look of confusion.

“I’d love to go to lunch with you.” He grinned at her as he backed away from the bathroom. “I’m going to change.”

S
adie pressed her tongue against the back of her teeth to keep from responding.

She wasn’t about to argue in front of Axle. Aiden had used her own trick against her, roping her into lunch. Sadie was torn between being upset and impressed. She probably deserved it after the way she’d forced Aiden into signing the contract.

Axle either hadn’t noticed or didn’t care. Sadie didn’t know how. The small bathroom where he’d discovered his manager and parts supplier standing way too close to each other, one of them missing their shirt, snapped with sexual energy.

Sadie paced through the warehouse to the overturned box and scattered parts. Axle lowered to his haunches to help her clean up, but Sadie waved him off. “I got it, really.”

With a scowl that said he’d rather help her than not, he stood. “Sure?”

“I’m sure.” She smiled. Axle may not look the gentlemanly type, but he was. “I need to arrange them in a certain order,” she lied. What she needed was a moment alone. Some time to calm the jittery shake radiating through her limbs.

With one last glare at the mess at her feet, Axle stalked off.

Sadie turned the box over and started piling parts into it. When she’d instructed Aiden to take his shirt off, she knew what to expect. Golden flesh, fair hair covering his pecs and leading down to firm abs, a scar bisecting his otherwise perfect back.

The scar was less angry now. The red had faded to pink, the edges white. Until she traced it with her fingers, Sadie had been sure that like the scar on his back, she was healing, too. That she’d grown numb where Aiden was concerned.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

From the moment he embraced her to keep a fifty-pound box from emptying onto her head, to the way he looked into her eyes and demanded she kiss him, Sadie had been nowhere near numb.

And spotting that point of black-blue ink peeking out from his side, realizing what it represented…the pain of losing Aiden washed over her as fresh as if it’d happened a minute ago instead of a year ago.

The tattoo. Thorns and vines crisscrossed down his side, from the top of his ribs, and disappeared into the waistline of his pants. Thorns signifying pain. Struggle. Loss. Then the bright spot of color, the red of his mother’s roses, a symbol of her beautiful if not brief life. And Aiden’s gorgeous body a worthy canvas for the artwork.

She couldn’t keep from touching him. As if she could ease the pain the thorny expanse represented with her palm. Her hand on his skin invited the heat of his gaze on her lips and the look in his eyes brought reality crashing down around her.

He still cared about her.

She didn’t know how that made her feel. Hopeful, maybe? And fearful. Definitely some of both.

Being in his arms again, feeling his thumb brush her lip, reminded Sadie that once upon a time, she’d had it good. For a few isolated days last summer, she’d had more understanding, undeniable attraction, and connection than she would have dared pray for.

Enough.

Sadie dropped the last oil filter into the box and stood, dusting her hands on the back of her pants. Last year didn’t matter.
Now
mattered. And right now, Aiden was her coworker—albeit her very attractive, tattooed coworker—who had goaded her into lunch.

If Sadie was smart, and she was, she’d redirect her thoughts before sitting with him for an hour. The last thing she needed was for Aiden to see the ripples of attraction she felt when she was near him.

Part of her wanted to psychoanalyze the way she’d clutched on to Aiden, had shut her eyes, had so willingly waited for his lips on hers. Or maybe she just wanted to imagine they hadn’t been interrupted. That he had kissed her. That she’d kissed him back, right there in a cramped warehouse bathroom, her hands on his bare skin, the feel of his hot mouth turning her inside out…

But that wouldn’t be smart.

Giving her hectic thoughts one final shove out of her head, she walked down the hall in search of Aiden to remind him he was buying.

And he’d better not cheap out.

Sadie pushed her partially eaten salad aside, and Aiden plucked a piece of chicken off the top and ate it. As he chewed, he considered that he hadn’t asked and Sadie hadn’t argued. She’d been pretty agreeable all around, considering he’d conned her into going to lunch in the first place.

“Think you’re pretty clever, don’t you?” she’d asked him as they found an unoccupied table in the gourmet deli. She’d tried to sound scathed, but he’d seen the flicker of appreciation in her eye. He’d played her own game against her and Sadie, on some level, liked it.

“You’ve kept me in suspense long enough.” Sadie took a long swallow of her iced tea. “When are you going to tell me this big secret involving Axle Zoller?” she asked, wiggling her fingers for effect.

Aiden hadn’t brought it up over the last few days because, until today, his thoughts had ebbed and flowed like the tide. One minute, he was ready to go all in, the next he couldn’t imagine Axle’s shops working out any better than his previous endeavor into real estate development. He and failure were on a first-name basis.

He had the fleeting idea to keep his head down and work for someone else for the rest of his life. It was a lot less risky than taking on the largest motorcycle shops in the Midwest. Then he’d think back to the six agonizing months he’d worked side by side with Dad at the factory after Mom passed, and changed his tune. That place ate souls for dinner, and the drudgery had nearly killed him. Dad didn’t mind it. Hell if Aiden understood how.

“You have to promise not to tell anyone,” Aiden said, hoping sharing with Sadie wouldn’t return to bite him in the ass. This was a delicate balance he was trying to strike, here. “I mean it.”

“Yes! Yes, already, spill it.” Sadie frowned and a frustrated, adorable wrinkle appeared between her eyebrows.

He nearly smiled.

“When I stayed with my mom in Oregon last year, I wasn’t exactly honest with my dad about how much her treatment cost.”

Empathy colored Sadie’s eyes at the mention of his mother, but she didn’t interrupt.

“I made an arrangement with a guy at the center to send the bills, and direct all billing questions, to me. When Dad’s money ran out earlier than we anticipated, I made up the difference.”

He took a drink of his soda. Contributing his money had been a no-brainer. Mom had been at the facility two months by then, was looking better than ever, and, Aiden thought, had a good shot at a full recovery.

Didn’t work out that way.

“I put my house on the market,” he continued. “But that was more a long-term plan than anything, so I arranged to sell my vintage motorcycle collection to Axle.” Aiden inhaled and blew out a breath. Axle had kept his secret. Aiden had Fed-Exed his garage key to Axle and told him to take all of them but Sheila. The money from the bikes went to his mother’s stay, and when she took a turn for the worse, the remainder went to making her as comfortable as possible when he brought her home to die.

“At least Mom got to spend her final days at home…with us.” He paused to clear his throat, clenching the napkin in his fist to keep his emotions at bay. Losing her had nearly killed him.

Sadie’s hand covered his, reminding him she was here. Another show of support. He swore he felt the echoing heat on his ribs where she’d touched him earlier. He started again, only to trail off. “After she…”

Sadie nodded, giving him permission not to say the words, giving him an out. He took it. Even though he felt a little like his father doing it. “After…I went to work with Dad. I didn’t know what to do with myself and I couldn’t leave him alone. He was so…okay with everything. Never saw him cry or mourn.

“In the god-awful monotony of factory work”—he slid her a dry glance—“I had a lot of time to think about what I really wanted, what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. And one day, it hit me. What made me happiest? The answer was easy: my motorcycles.”

And you
, he thought but didn’t say.

Sadie moved her hand back to her lap.

“Axle had mentioned his retirement plan when I arranged the sale of the bikes. So a few months back, I called him up and asked if he’d like to train me in-house and sell Axle’s to me. He liked the idea.”

“You’re going to be the new Axle?” Sadie asked.

“Well, I’d be the new owner. To be the new Axle, I’d have to gain a hundred pounds of muscle and grow my hair long again, wouldn’t I?”

At the mention of his lost locks, Sadie’s eyes flared with desire. Or maybe he was projecting. Aiden had fond memories of her hands threaded in his hair while he kissed her into submission. Of the sound of her soft mewls, the feel of her pliant lips…He shifted in his seat and searched his addled brain for where he’d left off.

“Are you buying all five stores?” Sadie asked, thankfully steering him back onto topic.

“That was the plan. Until his three-year retirement was bumped forward to three months.”

“Three months!”

Aiden dropped the napkin on his empty plate. “Yeah. I’m a little shy on the down payment, and loans aren’t looking good, since I have no house.” He sent her a sideways smile. “And you thought I couldn’t get any sexier than the divorced, jobless thirty-year-old you met last year. Now I live with my dad.” He nodded, teasing to lighten the mood. “I’m a chick magnet.”

A small smile played on Sadie’s face, but she didn’t laugh. Aiden didn’t feel like laughing, either. At one point, he’d had more money than he knew what to do with. Enough to buy Harmony a booth at The Brink so she could spend all summer pretending to make a living weaving hemp into bracelets. Enough to build a bike collection he could be proud of. Enough to dump a huge portion of that money into the hotel and casino right before Daniel and Harmony had the affair.

Aiden had walked away from all of it. Had given Harmony everything she wanted in the divorce with barely a fight. Had walked away from the business he’d cofounded, the business that eventually buckled under the soon-to-be frigid economical climate.

The urge to get everything back didn’t just revolve around his motorcycles. Sure, he wanted them, but he wanted more what they represented.

Passion.

At some point, before Aiden went into business for the money and married Harmony for…God knew what reason, Aiden was passionate about his life. Losing his wife, his business, his mother, and Sadie…had sucked the passion,
the life
, right out of him. Until the day he was stamping holes into flat metal pieces at a rate of a zillion a minute at the factory. His mother’s final words to him, before she’d grown too weak to speak, hit him like a sledgehammer to the temple.

You’re like me, Aiden. You have this unwavering optimism. Never lose that.

Unwavering optimism. He had to sift through a mountain of refuse to remember what he’d been like before. What better way to honor his mom, to keep that part of her alive, than to find what he loved and make a living doing it?

“I have a plan,” Aiden said, his purpose renewed. “I just need to pitch it to Axle. If he turns me down, he’ll sell to the highest bidder…and I can assure you, it won’t be me.”

Sadie’s face went visibly pale. “But the Midwest contract…” She blinked, winced. “That was selfish.”

Aiden couldn’t help chuckling. “We signed you for a year, Sadie. You’ll be okay for a while.”

She didn’t smile. “Yes, but I have a five-year plan for Axle’s. Whoever takes over might not like Midwest, might not like me,” she added, her eyebrows bowing in worry.

“Impossible,” he muttered, meaning it. He couldn’t figure for the life of him why her weenie of an ex-fiancé had chosen her sister over Sadie. He’d choose her Lava-soap abrasiveness any damn day of the week.

She ignored his compliment, eyes widening. “What if you’re not there…What if Axle’s gets bought out by some corporate giant who already has a national contract with another supplier? Probably ‘Something’ Unlimited. Motorcycles Unlimited.” Her lip curled.

Aiden put a hand on Sadie’s wrist to halt her tirade on the woes of corporate restructuring. “All the more reason for you to help me convince him I’m the right buyer.”

She looked at his hand covering hers, then back at him, her expression hardening. “Okay.” She folded her hands together on the table and the sharp glint returned to her brown eyes. “Tell me your plan and I’ll tell you if it’s crap or not.”

“Going to see your boyfriend today?” Perry chimed in as Sadie knelt to retrieve a granola bar from the break room vending machine.

Clenching her teeth into a forced a smile, Sadie stood and faced him. “Which one?”

“Touché. I’m talking about Axle. You have to be doing
something
to have landed that five-store deal. He turned you down for three years straight,” Perry said, suffering no shyness when it came to reminding her how she’d struggled.

Sadie clenched her fist around her breakfast, the foil wrapper crinkling. “My persistence paid off, I guess,” she said as she headed for the door.

“Or maybe it’s because you used to date the new guy.”

Sadie halted midstep. She shouldn’t turn around. Shouldn’t give merit to Perry’s jabbering. But neither could she let him spread rumors and tarnish her reputation. She forced a placid expression and faced him. “What are you talking about?”

“Word gets around,” Perry said, not bothering to answer her. He didn’t say
like you
, but his smarmy smile implied it.

“Well…he had nothing to do with it.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Perry said with an exaggerated shrug. “He dumped you, right? Probably doesn’t take you into consideration at all.”

When Sadie pulled in and parked in Axle’s lot, she was still seething from her run-in with Perry. Normally Perry was flirtatious just this side of annoying, but ever since she’d landed Axle’s stores, he’d been downright mean. He’d hit her below the belt this morning, and without a twinkle of levity in his eye. He’d meant to throw her off, make her stumble. She recalled the smirk on his face.

Bastard.