Desire Collection: August 2017 Books 1 - 4. Rachel Bailey

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       Four

      Linc, after a night short on sleep and long on aggravation, hustled Shaw through his morning routine, trying not to think about the fact that he’d been so close to taking his ex’s sister on the kitchen counter the night before. He’d been desperate to know if she was as hot and honeyed as he expected, and his hands had been in her pants, about to push the fabric over her hips, when he’d heard Ellie crying. Would he have stopped if she’d slept through?

      Possibly. Maybe. Not a chance in hell.

      In his bedroom, Linc muttered a curse as he pulled on his shoes. What the hell happened last night? Yeah, he was horny; it had been a while since he’d last got lucky, but, crap, he never lost control like that. Even as a teenager and at his craziest with Kari, he’d never felt so desperate for a woman, so utterly and incomprehensibly caught up in pleasure.

      And the fact that he felt this way about his ex’s sister just pissed him off. Bloody Harper women. They had a way of turning his life upside down and inside out. But, he was compelled to admit, he hadn’t, not once, thought of Kari when he’d been kissing Tate. Thank God, because this situation was weird enough without getting them confused.

      And thank God again that Tate was leaving today because he didn’t know if he could spend another night tossing and turning and talking himself out of the urge to go to her room and finish what they’d started.

      The sooner Tate left, the better. The world could then stop trying to spin off its axis.

      She was the exact opposite of the woman he thought that he and Shaw might someday want. On those odd times when he wished that his life had turned out differently, he fantasized about a sexy, funny stay-at-home mother and lover, someone who adored Shaw. Someone who’d put him and his son at the center of her world, someone he’d trust to stay with him, surfing the waves of life with him and never swimming away.

      If he ever got to that place where he felt he could trust again, risk again, Linc knew that he’d want someone who believed in traditions, in order, someone who could fit into his life and who looked the part. He wanted a woman who was easy, and he wanted calm, a lake and not a storm-swept sea.

      Tate was exactly what he didn’t want or need. She’d create waves and whirlpools, the turbulence he tried to avoid at all costs in his personal life. The woman didn’t have a conventional bone in her body; her clothes were bohemian, and, according to Kari, they’d had an unstable upbringing. Tate was a modern-day nomad, a free spirit, innately unconventional.

      But, God, the way she kissed; it was a goddamn miracle they hadn’t set the brownstone and most of the block on fire.

      Linc walked into his closet, yanked a tie from his collection and draped it around his neck, fuming over the fact that he couldn’t think about Tate and her mouth and knot his tie into his customary perfect Windsor.

      He didn’t have enough blood in his brain to do both at the same time.

      “Dad, hurry up, Granny Jo is making pancakes,” Shaw shouted from the doorway to his room.

      Linc frowned. “She’s up?”

      Shaw nodded. “And she’s wearing lipstick. Hurry!”

      Linc followed Shaw downstairs, wondering what was going on. Jo was not a morning person, and he and Shaw rarely saw her before breakfast. He did the morning shift, Jo took the afternoons and, if he was slammed, the evening shift. Then Linc remembered that she wanted him to hire a nanny...

      Crap.

      Linc felt his stomach clench and wondered how he was going to solve that problem. He understood her need to spend more time with Gary, and it wasn’t an unreasonable request. His mother was entitled to a life that didn’t include the responsibility of looking after his son.

      But how was he supposed to trust a stranger with his heart and soul? If something happened to Shaw, he’d crumble. He trusted his mom, his siblings, but anyone else? Hell, no. Nobody would ever love Shaw or look after him like he did, but Jo came damn close.

      Well, thankfully, he didn’t need to figure it out immediately. Better off thinking about it when he didn’t have a came-close-to-having-sex-but-didn’t hangover, СКАЧАТЬ