Chapter 17

Lincoln

Chemistry has always been my drug of choice. Bourbon, of course, had its place; I’m a Foxx after all. But I get high off the way it feels to solve a problem. To transition parts into a whole and help it evolve into something new. I know the exact combination of grains it takes to tweak a flavor before it goes into a barrel. The science of it, what happens before it ever touches American toasted oak, is what makes me hard. I shift my body—apparently, not as hard as Faye Calloway makes me. Fuck, what is it about her?

I’m wound tight from dinner. Usually, family dinners ease whatever the week drops on me, but tonight, I watched Faye fold into my family so easily that I couldn’t look away. Even the attraction I feel toward her could be dealt with, but watching her make Lily laugh or seeing her leave with Laney and Hadley for a girls’ night out, I didn’t know what to feel. I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to hear her come again, only this time, I wanted it loud and as she rode my cock. I wanted her both in my bed and out of my sight.

My phone buzzes with a message from my brothers.

ACE

Going to need some help tomorrow night.

GRANT

Is this directed at anyone in particular?

ACE

I’m going to need some muscle.

I know what that means. We sometimes play along gray lines to keep our business moving in the right directions. I’m feeling more than amped up lately, so if he needs some muscle, then I’m happy to step up. Grant had been the rule follower, Ace liked to bend them, and I liked to surprise people and come out swinging.

LINCOLN

I’ll be there.

It’s quiet out tonight, much quieter than my thoughts. The cold air makes my breath visible, but I love being in the dark and the calm I feel when it settles in next to me.

“The fuck am I doing?” I say to myself. But before I make the decision to get up, I hear the slamming of a car door.

“Thanks, Del,” Faye sing-songs. “Nope, I’m good. Thanks for the ride, big guy.”

I lean my elbows on my knees and listen to her humming as she shuffles up the walkway.

“This bra sucks,” she says to herself, shifting her top as she kicks off her boots when she makes it to the porch landing.

“Are you drunk?”

She yelps, hand flying to her chest. “Fucking hell, Foxx!” She laughs out nervously, “No, I’m not drunk.” Dropping her bag, she steps closer. “Tipsy. But didn’t want to risk it, so I called Del for a ride.”

Internally, I applaud that small and slightly inconvenient decision. I lost both parents to a drunk driver, so I like that she’s smart enough to not risk it no matter how close she was to home.

“You know he’s the greatest? Del. He’s the only one who’s gone out of his way for me. Maybe ever.”

I didn’t realize she kept in touch with him.

“Is he the one who told you Maggie had been arrested?”

She tilts her head to the side, not answering. “There’s so much you don’t know.” She looks down at my phone. “So much more than I don’t know about you...”

“I doubt that,” I tell her as she walks closer. I lean my weight on my elbows and look down between my knees.

The girls stayed with Griz tonight and I found myself drinking too much bourbon and staring at her dark house before I made the decision to come over here and wait for her. What the hell do I think is going to come out of this?

Her feet shuffle to a stop between mine, forcing me to tilt my head up and sit back to look at her.

“You do realize what time it is, right?” she asks as I widen my legs, welcoming her to keep moving closer.

She must have changed after dinner because she ditched the oversized shirt and black pants for a pink sweater and blue jeans. Her loose sweater drapes forward just enough to give way to the best sight of cleavage I’ve seen in a long time as she bends over, bracing her hands on my thighs. She catches my wandering eyes and gives me a half smile.

“What are you doing in the dark on my porch at this hour, Lincoln Foxx?” Her eyes flit to my groin. The cotton navy-blue pants are fine for sleeping in, but they don’t leave much to the imagination. My cock has been semi hard since the stables. Now with her hands on me and the way she’s biting at that lower lip, it’s made a very distinct move that I know she doesn’t miss.

“Why come back now?” I ask, hoping to get an honest answer out of her this time.

But she ignores the question, as expected, and instead flips open the button of her jeans. I lean back and drape my arms along the back of the porch swing. If you can call it that. It’s more like a daybed suspended by thick ropes to the porch ceiling. She pushes the pants down her legs and steps out of them, her arms moving to my shoulders. Shifting her weight just enough, she straddles her knees on my outer thighs and hovers over my lap. I let out a hum before I say, “It’s cold out here. You want to go inside?”

She shakes her head slowly. “I like it out here,” she says quietly as she settles down onto my lap, nudging my dick as she gets comfortable.

I grab the blanket that’s draped beside me and wrap it along the back of her.

“This house doesn’t feel like home anymore. Everything is different.” She takes a deep breath. “Maggie remodeled the house and got rid of everything familiar except this swing. I feel like I can take a breath and think out here.”

I push her hair away from her face. “What is it you think about?”

She smiles. “I think about that night. In the cornfield. With you. More often than I’d like to, if I’m being honest. How that night changed me in ways I’m still trying to understand.” Her eyebrows pinch. “I think about how my sister hates me.”

“I don’t think she hates you. She’s mad at you...” I say as I drag my fingers along hers still braced on my shoulder.

“Oh no,” she laughs out, but it sounds sad. “Maggie can’t stand that I’m here. She’s so mad that I left, but she doesn’t want me back in her world. She doesn’t know the whole story. And even if she did—” Shaking her head, she cuts off her thoughts. “Maggie is the only family I have, and I don’t know her.”

A rift that large between my brothers and me would be unmanageable. I wouldn’t have survived the last five years without them. And she’s been doing it entirely alone.

“Someone beat her up. And she won’t talk about it. Nobody in this town, a place that’s in everybody’s business, has anything to say about it. Something doesn’t feel right—the details aren’t adding up.” She brings her attention back to me, like she’s trying to work something out in her head. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” she mutters, moving to slide off me, but I stop her.

“Don’t.” I clear my throat, my hand on her hip to keep her in place. “I like you here.”

“Why?” she asks, her eyelids heavy. “Why does it feel good to be near you like this?”

“I don’t know,” I answer on an exhale. But I feel it too. I don’t understand it, but fuck , I feel it too.

She settles her weight forward, grazing my cock. When her eyes meet mine, for the life of me, I can’t figure out what she’s thinking. She’s intriguing, unpredictable, and what’s happening between us is dangerous. “I hate you a little.”

I can’t help but hold back my smile because, as she’s saying that, she rolls her hips the slightest bit. “I hate you a little too, Peach.”

The smile that danced on her lips a moment ago fades away.

“You call me Peach like I’m sweet, but Foxx, you know better. I’m the furthest thing from sweet.”

“See, that’s where you’re wrong.” I yank her hips forward. The move jerks her closer and forces her chest to press into mine. “I’ve never tasted anything as sweet as what you dripped all over my fingers.”

She releases a shaky breath as she studies my mouth. “Seeing you in glasses does something to me,” she says with a sexy smile and insinuating tone. She’s focused as she reaches with both hands for the edges of my black frames, gently pulling them down the bridge of my nose and away from my face.

I watch as she folds them and reaches forward, shifting her weight to place them on the ledge behind us.

When she’s facing me again, closer now, there’s a look in her eyes I decipher before she even speaks the words.

“Kiss me,” she demands on a whisper. The warm breath escaping her lips mingles with the cold night air, making it so I can see, not just feel, what she’s asking for.

Wrapping one arm around her lower back, holding her body to mine, I let myself give in. My other hand cups her jaw, thumb brushing along her lower lip as my fingers weave into her hair. There’s no coaxing or hesitation, only a hungry sound that vibrates from my chest as my lips meet hers. She sinks into me easily, moaning sweetly against my mouth as her lips part and her tongue welcomes mine at a seductively slow pace.

I’m lost to the way she touches me, how her nails dig into the back of my neck and her hips roll, the way her lips drag and tease me. I’m a slave to her mouth in this moment and the only thing I can think is that I’ll never want to stop kissing her.