Broken Course (19 page)

Her second glass of wine is almost empty by the time she turns around to face me. "I’m done." She sighs. "Thanks for, you know, listening to all that."

"Thanks for telling me. I like knowing who you used to be," I say pointedly, but she doesn’t react. I give her what I expected to be a gentle kiss, but her tongue snakes into my mouth unexpectedly. I moan loudly when she boldly reaches down between us and into my pants.

"Take me to bed, Leo James. I’m ready for my birthday sex." She giggles. Clearly, the wine has gone to her head. It’s cute, but it concerns me how quickly she switched as soon as that box closed.

"Why don’t we just go to sleep? I’ll give you birthday sex all weekend." I wink.

"No way. I’m happy. Like, really happy, and I want to be with my man now. So please. Take. Me. To. Bed." She kisses me after every word, and it makes me feel a little better about her current mindset.

She’s happy.

It’s funny. When I’m with Sarah, I’m happy too.

"Yes, ma’am." I salute her and quickly rise to my feet, dragging her up with me.

"You know about birthday spankings, right?" I tease.

"You remember my ninja knee, right?" she responds, and I bark out a laugh at the memory.

Yeah, really fucking happy.

One week later…

"WHAT TIME is it?" I ask as Sarah’s cell phone alarm starts beeping from the nightstand.

"Seven," she answers.

Seven’s not early at all unless you spent the entire night before buried to the hilt inside Sarah Erickson. Then, in that case, seven is damn near the crack of dawn.

"I’m going to go start the coffee. I might even have a cup with you." She yawns then pushes to her feet. "What time does our flight leave?"

"Eleven," I mumble burying my face in the pillow.

"Get up, baby. It’s time to take your girlfriend to Puerto Rico."

"Cancela los boletos. Déjame dormir unas horas más y yo reservaré un vuelo privado donde podemos unirnos al mile high club."
(
Cancel the tickets. Just let me sleep a few more hours and I’ll book us a private flight where we can join the mile high club
.)

"I have no idea what you just said, but I understood ‘mile high club,’ so I penciled us in an extra twenty minutes in the shower so we don’t get arrested on the way." She drags her hand over my ass.

"Coffee," I moan, sweeping an arm out and pulling her back into bed.

"I can’t get coffee if you are holding me in bed against my will." She laughs, but there have never been words to ruin the mood more quickly. I immediately release her as my pulse spikes. She rolls to the side and eyes me warily. "Leo?"

"Coffee," I repeat, but she can read my discomfort.

Rubbing my eyes, I smile sleepily while trying to play it off. But Sarah doesn’t buy it for a single second. She bites her lip and rolls her eyes when I don’t attempt to explain. I know she wants to ask; I also know she won’t. Yet another reason Sarah has me buzzing like a broken streetlamp. Aren’t we just two of a kind? I don’t ask questions because I don’t want her to have to face her demons by answering. And I think she wants to avoid asking questions to keep me from reciprocating with my own inquiries. But then again, that might just be my reason too.

"Woman, get me some caffeine stat." I rake my teeth over her shoulder and push her from the bed.

She smirks and pulls on one of my T-shirts before heading to the kitchen.

I scrub my hands over my face, wishing I could scrub my memories too. Well, everything except Sarah.

"Oh God!" she screams from the other room. Her voice isn’t jovial or teasing—it’s filled with fear and sends me flying to my feet. With a whoosh, my heart dips in my chest and I dash from the bed.

"No, no, no, it’s okay." I hear a man’s voice as I round the corner into my dining room.

The sun is peeking through the windows, but with the curtains drawn, it’s still dim inside. Sarah is quickly backing up and we crush against each other as I rush forward. With one quick swoop, I force her behind me.

"Who the fuck—"

"Alpha-Tango-Juliette-eleven-nineteen," he says before he finishes with, "And you’re naked."

Fucking Johnson.

"Jesus Christ. What the hell are you doing here?" I bark, turning to hold Sarah.

"Covering for you while you take your girl on vacation," he responds.

"Yeah, but you don’t come in until nine."

"I’m covering for you—and you start at seven."

"How about you call next time you decide to come in early? I do live here, ya know," I snap before turning to Sarah, who’s peering over my shoulder with a confused look on her face. "You okay?" I ask, but she doesn’t respond to me.

"Aiden?" she questions.

Still as naked as the day I was born, I turn back to find the same confusion on Johnson’s face.

"Oh shit! Sarah Erickson?" He laughs.

"Oh my God. Hi!" she squeals and rushes toward him, throwing her arms around his neck. "How the hell have you been? You scared the shit out of me."

"Sarah, go get dressed," I growl as her shirt lifts, exposing her panties.

"I could say the same to you," she replies, not even bothering to look back at me. "God, how long has it been since…" She stops and her shoulders tense.

"Dressed. Now," I bite out, desperate to get her out of the room.

I had no fucking idea she knew Johnson. Sure, they went to the same place for therapy, but what are the fucking odds that they were friends? It’s suddenly very clear to me that my worlds have officially crossed. Johnson knows everything about me while Sarah knows absolutely nothing. If I can’t get Johnson alone and tell him to keep his mouth shut, this could become a really fucking bad game of Six Degrees of Separation.

"Sarah," I warn.

"Oh good Lord," she complains but walks out of the room, heading toward the bedroom.

"We need to talk," I say the minute she turns the corner.

Johnson crosses his arms over his chest and nods. "It seems we do."

"Let me put on some clothes. I’ll meet you in the office in five."

I head down the hall, trying to figure out how I’m going to play this. When I walk in the room, I find Sarah pulling her jeans over her hips.

"How do you know Aiden?" she asks.

"He works for me."

She nods and mildly relaxes.

"And he’s a close friend."

She closes her eyes and drops her head cussing.

"What’s wrong? How do you know Johnson?" I ask just to make her nervous and stop her from asking any more questions until I can formulate a plan. But as I watch her face pale, I immediately feel like an asshole for putting her on the spot. "Hey. I’m going to go brief him on some work stuff. You should really get packed. We need to leave for the airport around nine."

"Leo, we need to talk." She sighs, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

"We have a five-hour flight ahead of us. We can talk later." I pull on a shirt and shorts and squat down in front of her.

She’s a mess of nerves and I hate it. I’m assuming she’s worried that Johnson’s going to spill it all about her past and it cuts me to the quick.

"How long have we been together?" I ask, brushing her hair off her neck and kissing just below the ear.

"Like six weeks." She tilts her head to the side to allow me more access.

"That’s it?" I lean away, framing her face with my hands. "Sarah Erickson, I’m crazy about you. So crazy that, even after only six weeks together, the very idea of spending four days uninterrupted with you on a beach is about to push me over the edge of insanity. I can’t wait to get out of here and spend the weekend getting lost in
you
." I press a kiss to her lips, holding her tight against my mouth as I siphon off every bit of her anxiety.

She sighs as I release her. "How do you do that?"

"Do what?" I ask, standing up and pulling her to her feet.

"Always say the exact thing I need to hear." She drops her forehead to my chest.

"I’ve told you. It’s a gift. Now, go get naked. I’m going to brief Johnson. Then I’ll meet you in the shower. I plan to take full advantage of those extra twenty minutes you penciled in this morning." I squeeze her ass before walking away.

When I push open the door to my office, I find Johnson’s sitting at the computer, no doubt checking the business e-mails like he does first thing every morning. His eyes immediately flash up to mine.

"How did you end up meeting her?" he asks, rising to his feet.

"It was random." I walk around him to sit behind my desk.

He crosses his thick, tattooed arms over his chest. "Bullshit."

"It’s the truth. I ran into her on the street." I shake my head and begin absently staring at the computer screen.

"Okay, well, let me rephrase. How long did it take you to recognize her before you were taking her to bed?" he growls, and I continue to act unaffected.

If there were ever a person to call me on my bullshit, Aiden Johnson would be that man. He has a no-nonsense personality and feels zero need to pull punches. I’ve never heard him even partially lie. He’s honest to a fault. He might have a sketchy past, but without question, he’s one of the best men I have ever met. I have no secrets from Johnson. He knows me better than anyone else, including Erica.

"I swear. I approached her because she was gorgeous. She was all flustered and I was just going to help her out. It wasn’t until she started talking that I recognized her."

"Does she know that she changed your life?"

"No," I answer after a few seconds.

"Son of a bitch. This is fucked up, Leo."

"So people keep telling me," I snark.

"Is she the girl you’ve been seeing for the last few weeks, or is she just something new on the side?" He sits down on the couch, running a hand over his shaved head.

"Jesus Christ, I’m not that big of a dick. Of course she’s the one I’ve been seeing."

"She know about your past?"

"For fuck’s sake, can you stop with the twenty-question bit? I’m not a sullen teenager you need to reprimand."

"Oh good. Then being an adult who is not a prick, you’ll understand that I’m about to fill her in on all your fucking shit just so you can be on an even playing field."

I jump to my feet. "The hell you are!"

"Why not, asshole? That seems fair to me." He shrugs.

I walk around the desk and step into his space. Johnson is a big dude, and between the tattoos, piercings, and gauges in his ears, he’s scary as fuck. Hence why I hired him. But if he thinks he’s going to screw things up for me with Sarah, he has another thing coming.

"I swear to God, you fuck with my relationship, I will fire your ass so fast."

"You can’t afford to fire me." He lifts his eyebrows knowingly.

"Keep. Your. Fucking mouth. Shut."

"No problem—as long you open your fucking mouth and at least tell her that you know her. I’m not saying you need to bare your soul, but I think it’s a really dick move not to at least give her all the information. Sarah’s a nice girl. She’s made some mistakes, but last I heard, she was really putting her life back together. She doesn’t deserve to be blindsided by something like this."

"Don’t act like you know her like I do. I’ll admit that this isn’t the ideal situation, but it is what it is. If you think my informing her that I know about her rap sheet is going to endear her to me, you’ve lost your damn mind. She’d be gone before I even got the words out of my mouth. What I know changes nothing."

"You’re full of shit. It changes everything and you know it. So what is this with her, some weird obsession?"

"Fuck no. I genuinely like her."

"Right. And if you didn’t know every detail of her sordid past to make you feel better about your own, how would you feel about her?"

"That’s not fair."

"Oh, but it’s somehow fair to Sarah?" He throws his hands out to the side before running them over his dress pants.

I put my hands on my hips and start shaking my head. "I don’t know. Things have been going really well recently…and she’s going to flip."

"Probably." He shrugs. "But, hopefully, she’ll get over it. If you’re serious about her, you need to say something soon."

I laugh humorlessly. "That’s what Erica said."