Chapter Thirteen—Sky
When I stepped up to Linc’s door, it was more out of a sense that I should go through with it than a real desire to do so. My head had been spinning ever since he’d shown up in my office at lunch time, and the events afterward—with the police showing up, and everything that went along with it—hadn’t improved matters. He answered the door almost before I was done knocking, and the smell of something delicious greeted me.
“I’m glad you decided to come and talk to me,” he said. I took a deep breath and asked if I could come inside. “Of course—right, yeah, you can come in.” Why was he so nervous? Probably the same reason you’re so nervous.
“So I was hoping that we could talk a little bit about everything. Things happened fast, and my mouth overran my ass for a little while there.”
“You aren’t thinking of changing your mind, are you?”
He looked stricken for a minute, something that I’d never thought I would see from him. He was always so cool and calm, almost steely, but for a moment I could see anxiety and something else. I’m not sure what I was seeing, but I was sure—for an instant—that he was convinced, maybe rightly so, that I wasn’t going to go through with the wedding.
When I’d blurted out that I would marry him, a lot of things had gone through my mind, none of which I was really comfortable thinking about. The fact of the matter was that I wanted to marry him. I’d come to that realization when I’d been driving home. But I had to admit that I was nervous. Wasn’t he nervous about being married to me? I was practically a stranger, for Pete’s sake.
“No, it’s nothing like that. I told you that I would marry you, and I meant it. I just don’t know what that means to you. I want to make sure that me and you are on the same page, that’s all. This is kind of a big deal, and I want to help you all that I can for your little girl.”
The whole time I was talking, he was looking at me as if I was being silly, and I didn’t like the feeling at all. I wasn’t being silly. How could he be so calm about this? It was like as soon as he realized that I was still going to marry him, Linc’s confidence had come back and I was left trying to catch my breath.
“Thank you, Sky,” he said. “You really don’t know what this means to me.”
“I just want to make sure that we have the same expectations. It could turn out badly if we don’t, don’t you think?” He nodded his head, but all his attention was below my eyes. At first I thought it was my chest, but then I realized that he was staring at my lips again. What was with this guy?
“I think this is going to be great. I can’t see how this could end badly at all. I already feel like I know you, and trust me, this is the most I’ve talked to a woman in a long time. Most of the time I’m just worried about getting them in bed and making them scream my name till they pass out.”
He said that with a wink, so I guessed he meant it as a joke, but it didn’t help my anxiety in the slightest; it just intensified it somehow. I hadn’t even thought of the possibility that Linc might actually think that we would consummate our fake marriage—but joking or not, I didn’t have any doubts that he was capable of doing what he said. But I didn’t think I was ready for that kind of experience, especially not for my first time. Although, when I looked into his dark green eyes, I did feel a little curious.
“Could—could we eat something? I didn’t really get the chance to have lunch,” I said.
“Of course,” Linc said, and he led me into the kitchen, where he’d already set the table. How had he known so exactly when I’d get there? I took a few bites of the food he’d made—steak, baked potato, and sautéed spinach—and began to feel a little calmer. After a few moments of us both eating in silence, he spoke again. “I didn’t mean to frighten you, Sky.”
“You don’t,” I said. I should have said that he didn’t that time, because in general he scared the hell out of me. Linc made me feel things that I knew were wrong. Now that I knew we were going to be married, I had to wonder about other things. What was I going to do if he expected me to actually follow through with the marriage on a physical level? I couldn’t make myself say no forever—and I didn’t know how long it would take to get through the crisis with his daughter, so that we could get divorced.
I consciously settled my mind before bringing up the most worrisome issue—at least, what should have been the most worrisome issue. I set my plate aside and looked at Linc across the table. I decided to get some of the questions about what had happened in the office out of the way. “So what was that about at work?”
He looked a little guilty for a moment and then made a noncommittal sound. “I don’t know. What happened after I left?”
I told him about the cops coming, but Linc didn’t ask what all I’d told them and I didn’t volunteer anything. I wanted him to worry a little. It served him right for losing his head so thoroughly and jeopardizing the job that brought me here. I didn’t want him to think that it was all okay, so I let him sweat a little while before I told him that I’d given the cops no help whatsoever.
“So you really aren’t scared of me—even after that? I wouldn’t blame you if you were,” he said finally. I shook my head.
“I’m not scared of you,” I said.
“And you’re still willing to go through with the wedding?” I thought about it for a moment. That brought up the uncomfortably hot feelings again, the mixture of dread and excitement and need that came along with any thought of what being married to this man would mean.
“Yes,” I said simply.
“Oh God—thank you,” Linc said. His eyes were clear and I was able to see the small flecks of gold among the green. I’d never been this close since our last kiss, and I wanted him to kiss me again. God, I wanted him to kiss me so badly that I think I was the one who leaned closer to actually make the first contact. His lips felt so good on mine. It was perfect. It was just like the sweet, innocent kiss that I’d imagined it would be. He rose up and I stood too, not even sure what I was doing, but eager to find out where we were going with this.
But soon, Linc’s lips became more demanding and his body was pushing me into the countertop behind me. I felt his hands go to my ass and lift me up to set me there. Now he wasn’t as tall and I didn’t have to crane my next up quite so much to see him.
“Is this what you’re so worried about?”
I didn’t answer him with words, just nodded my head. His kisses and touches were exactly what I was nervous about. I wanted to touch him more, and I wanted to finally see what all the fuss was about. I could feel the hard ridge at the fly of his jeans against my leg, and when he pulled me forward on the counter, I could feel it pressing right up against my pleasure center. I jumped at the way it felt, so much better than I would have thought it could from just a small touch.
“You feel so good, Sky, do you know that?” I kind of nodded my head, but I was more worried about what his hands were doing on my thighs. He was opening my legs more so that he could wedge his body in between them. I felt his fingertips brush along my inner thigh, getting perilously close to the heat seeping through the fabric of my panties, and all at once something inside of me slammed shut. “We can’t do this, Linc.”
“Hell, I think we can do this, Sky. We’re going to be married in two days. It will be like we’re already husband and wife.”
I shook my head and pushed him back from me. I needed to breathe. I needed to think. He was doing something to me, and it scared me. I didn’t like the change in my body and everything that I felt because he was in front of me. It was hard to deal with all the new feelings, and I knew that if I could just get some distance from him, it would be a whole lot easier.
“We aren’t husband and wife, Linc, and even when we do get married, we won’t really be together like that,” I said.
His green eyes narrowed, and I wasn’t sure what it was I saw in them, but it gave me a little shiver of cold down my spine. It wasn’t scary, just so intense that I couldn’t feel comfortable. “Is that what you want?”
I wanted so many things, none of which would ever be uttered out loud. “I don’t know what I want, Linc, but I know that this isn’t helping.”
He finally moved back a little, and the change in me was so swift and so intense that I almost wished I hadn’t said a word. I wanted him to be near me, touch me, do all the things that his eyes promised, but I was coming to realize that I couldn’t have it both ways. If I wanted to keep my head screwed on right, I needed to keep my distance—physically, as well as emotionally.
“Let’s finish our dinner, okay?” I took a deep breath and nodded, even though I had never felt less hungry for food in my entire life. I could tell he was agitated. His body was huge and muscular, so every time he paced a little or moved to pick something up, half of his body flexed. How badly I wanted to touch him again and see if he really was as hard all over as he seemed. His hands on my body had awakened something in me, and now I was thinking about the wedding night again. Was this going to be a real wedding, in all ways? But once we were back at the table, eating again, I felt something in me start to relax.
“Sorry, Sky. When I’m around you I forget that you’re so young.”
“I’m not that young.” Why did I take offense at that? I wasn’t a child, after all. I was well into being a woman, and he was talking to me like I wasn’t.
He chuckled a little and then he shook his head. “Not young, just inexperienced.”
I was torn between feeling insulted and feeling chagrined at how right he was. For a few moments all I could do was eat my food and try to figure out how I should be feeling. “What do I even say to that?”
He looked at me kind of strangely, and I realized that I’d said it out loud instead of in my head like I’d intended. “I don’t know, Sky, but it’s true. It was pretty clear the first time I saw you that you were inexperienced for your age. How old are you, anyway?”
“Twenty-two.” I saw that he wasn’t as happy about that number as he could have been. I hadn’t thought a lot about how different in age we were. It didn’t really matter to me, but now I had to wonder if it did for him. Would he not want to marry me if he knew how true his statement about my experience really was?
“You’re very young.”
“Does it matter?” Why was I so worried all of a sudden that he wouldn’t marry me? Wouldn’t that let me off the hook, anyway? I was the one who’d decided that it was a good idea. I had offered. I was doing him a favor, not myself.
“No, not at all. Many men would be happy to have such a young and beautiful wife.”
I looked down at my plate when he came to the beautiful part. “Well, I won’t be a real wife.”
“Why don’t we talk about something else for a while?”
I had to admit that seemed like a better idea.
“Okay,” I said. “What about the wedding?”
“What do you mean?” He frowned in confusion.
“I don’t know. The logistics of it, and the details, I guess. I’ve never been married before, and for the Family Court date I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do.”
“You can come with me if you want, but that’s up to you.”
I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go to that sort of thing. I would if it would help him in some way, but I can’t say that I was overly excited about the prospect. I didn’t want to meet Lisa, but I wanted to meet Jazmin. It seemed like it was strange to get married before meeting her, but things were complicated, I knew that. It was weird how this was all coming about, but what was so great about normal?
*****
Cassie woke me up the next morning by banging on my door. I could hear her all the way in my bedroom, and when I looked at the clock, I realized I was so tired because it was really early. Why she insisted on coming over so early sometimes, I never would know. It was like she didn’t quite get that the rest of the world might not have gotten up at the crack of dawn like she had. Cassie had done this before, many times, but she wasn’t even consistent about it. One week she was up with the birds, and the next week she complaining if I called and woke her up at half past ten in the morning. She must have something on her mind to be here so early.
Cassie started in on me immediately, bursting out like she was going to explode if she didn’t. “Why didn’t you call me last night?”
“Why would I?” I still wasn’t fully awake. I had scurried home from Linc’s apartment as quickly as I could, needing space once again, but I hadn’t managed to get to sleep until late. Cassie got to work filling up my coffee maker and setting it to brew, and then she spun around and pinned me down with her gaze. “You’d better spill what happened with Stephen. I heard some guy ran up into your office and punched him out?”
It was scary how fast news spread in that place. I had to be at work in another hour, and I was already dreading all the looks that I was going to receive. It didn’t matter that I’d told them I didn’t know who’d done it. It had happened in my office, so everyone was going to think I was involved. I really hoped that it wasn’t going to be as bad as I thought it was going to be.
“Look, Cass, I’m sorry I didn’t call. I was a little busy with the cops and I didn’t get back home till late.”
“That’s the great thing about cell phones,” she said tartly. “You carry one with you all the time so that people can get ahold of you when they need to.”
She seemed upset, but I really didn’t want to get into it with her. She would find out eventually, and since I was getting married and wanted her to be my witness, I kind of had to tell her more than I felt comfortable saying out loud to myself, let alone another soul.
“Okay,” I said finally. “Fix me a cup of coffee as your penalty for getting me up before my alarm, and I’ll explain what happened.”
I sat down at my table and Cassie went about getting everything together. She fixed us both cups of coffee, and by the time we were seated at my table, I’d managed to come up with a coherent explanation of the situation.
“Spill, or I will spill that coffee all over you,” she said. I grinned sleepily.
“Here’s the deal,” I told her. “The guy—the one who hit Stephen—isn’t exactly a stranger to me. But Stephen wasn’t innocent in the whole situation, either. Not at all. Not in the least.” I explained about what Stephen had been doing since my first day, and how he’d gotten more and more aggressive. Cassie’s expression sank from eager interest to indignation and then into guilt.
“I’ve heard that about him before. I don’t know why they don’t get rid of that creep.”
“I wish they would, but at least now maybe he’ll leave me alone.”
“Why didn’t you tell me, Sky? I feel like you should have told me.”
“I feel like you should have warned me about him! Anyway, what would you have done? Punched him out yourself?”
“I know people above him, and some of those people owe me favors,” she said firmly. “Did you talk to HR before you got Stephen knocked out?” I laughed bitterly at that.
“They set me an appointment for next week,” I said. Cassie shook her head.
“So what was your landlord doing in the office?” I’d mentioned that part in passing, and I had to hope she would come along with me with the rest of what I had to say.
“He was actually there to discuss some details with me,” I said.
“I have to admit, I would have loved to have seen that creep Stephen get punched out by that hunk of a man who owns your apartment.” I snorted at that.
“It wasn’t all that great. Mostly I was scared shitless. But Cass, you have to promise me you won’t tell the cops I already know him.”
“Why not?” She frowned. I pressed my lips together. This was going to be the hard part of the conversation.
“Because I’m going to marry him this week.”
“What?” Cassie nearly shrieked the word out and then just stared at me.
“It’s—it’s to help him be able to keep custody of his daughter,” I said. “It’s a whole long explanation, but basically, I’m marrying him so that he can keep his ex-wife from taking his daughter to California.”
Cassie continued to stare at me for a long moment. “You’re going to marry him? Just like that?”
I nodded. “It’s not going to be a real marriage. But it will be a real wedding—at the courthouse. And hopefully it’ll work out.”
“I don’t know about this,” Cassie said, shaking her head. “I mean, how could you get involved with a guy who could be violent like that?” I actually bristled a bit at that comment.
“He got violent at Stephen because Stephen was hurting me,” I said. “I don’t think that’s so terrible.”
“Good lord, Sky,” Cassie said, sighing and shaking her head again. “It’s just going to be so he can keep custody? Nothing else?”
I nodded.
“That’s kind of a shame, you know—a hot guy like that.” I rolled my eyes; I was not about to admit how close I’d come to doing much more than a wedding-day kiss with the man I was about to marry.
“So... How do you feel about being my bridesmaid on Thursday?”