Can't Let Go

Book 2: Love in the Balance

by Jessica Lemmon

Genres: Women's Fiction; Contemporary Romance; Romantic Comedy

Synopsis

A LOVE IN THE BALANCE NOVELLA AN INSTANT SPARK Sadie Howard would never admit there's such a thing as love at first sight, but she can't deny the connection between her and sexy Adonis Aiden Downey. She also can't deny she loves to kiss him-his mouth might be his most precious asset. Despite every promise to herself not to get involved any deeper than a first date, she can't keep from seeing more of Aiden . . . in more ways than one. Aiden Downey had no idea the hot blonde from the club would trigger his protective, gentle nature, but the moment she drops her guard and he sees the real Sadie Howard, he's a goner. When a family crisis puts the brakes on their budding romance, can Aiden find a way to hold on to her? Or will he lose the best thing in his life just as quickly as he found her? 25,000 words

Release date: September 3, 2013

Publisher: Forever Yours

Print pages: 84

Sample

Chapter 1

Sadie Howard had been home exactly seven minutes. She glanced at the clock for the eighteenth time, smoothed her palms down her denim mini, and paced her living room in her new boots, her nerves jangling like a pair of spurs.


Sadie didn’t do second dates. She barely did first dates. And now the guy she met Saturday night, and whose company she’d shared until four a.m. the next morning, was coming to pick her up for a date.


She twisted her fingers as she did another pass, wearing the generic, apartment-standard carpet to a fray beneath her heels. There were at least thirty-six hours separating her from when she saw him last, but she could swear her lips still tingled from the soft good-bye kiss he dropped onto her mouth.

A kiss she’d been caught daydreaming about at work. One kiss, and she was already coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs. Such a bad sign.

Inhaling and exhaling like she’d learned in yoga, Sadie reminded herself to calm down. “It’s just dinner,” she said aloud. “Not matrimony.” No sense in jumping off a cliff. Yet.

The low growl of a motorcycle, a sparking orange Harley-Davidson Super Glide with a Twin Cam 1450 engine—Sadie knew her hogs—sounded outside the window. Just the sound of the growling bike had her stomach rolling down a hill like Westley and Buttercup in The Princess Bride.


Aiden.


Heedless of appearing overly anxious, she pulled open the door to find Aiden Downey perched on his Harley, head down as he studied his phone. He looked up and brought it to his ear, a drool-inducing grin sliding across his face. Seconds later her cell played a tinny version of “The Electric Slide,” the cheesy song he’d asked her to dance to at the club the night she met him.

He slid the sunglasses from his nose, keeping the phone pressed to his ear above the low, dark blond ponytail at his nape, and watched her expectantly.

Oh. He wanted her to answer it. Sadie dug the phone out of her denim mini skirt. “Hello?”

“Let me see you.”

His low, sultry voice commanded her to obey. She stepped into the sunlight on her stoop, grasping the rail for support while Aiden’s intense gaze all but buckled her knees.

“Hello, beautiful,” he muttered into the phone, his words slightly out of sync with his lips.

His lips. A memory of the last kiss—the only kiss—he’d given her heated the blood in her veins. The back of her neck started to sweat. She should have worn her hair up. She swept a hand through her blond waves and resisted the very tangible urge to march down to him and have his mouth for an appetizer.


Control, Sadie.


“It’s almost a crime to ask you to change,” he said.

She frowned down at her tank top and skirt, then looked back to his jeans and dark T-shirt. “You want me to change?”

“You can’t ride wearing that,” he said as her stomach dropped into her toes. Ride? Gulp. “I brought you a present.” He reached into one of the saddlebags and extracted a pink helmet. “Matches your shirt.”


Sadie nearly ran back into the sanctuary of her apartment to take shelter from the very real offer Aiden was making.

Her? On the back of a death machine?

She planted her feet firmly on the stoop. No way was she going to put that brain-bucket on her head. It didn’t matter that Aiden had bought it especially for her—which would be actually kind of thoughtful if she were the type of girl who appreciated her life flashing before her eyes—or that she was being rude, or that he was hotter than dark fudge on a melting ice cream sundae.

Still. No way.

No. Freaking. Way.


Passing off her fear for ambivalence, Sadie propped a hand on her hip. “I don’t think so.”

Aiden rested the helmet on the seat behind him and patted the leather. “Aw, come on. You’ll hurt Sheila’s feelings.”

She let out a nervous snort-laugh. She’d rather leap off her apartment building and take her chances at a safe landing than climb on top of “Sheila.” Sheila would have to just get over it.

The phone was making her ear sweat. Her palms too. “I’m going to get my purse,” she said, ending the call without saying good-bye, and dashing inside. She returned seconds later, car keys in hand, and clomped down the six concrete steps separating them. Aiden hadn’t moved, still settled on the seat of his bike, his bare biceps beautiful in the bright summer sun.

“Are you ready?” she murmured, wrenching her eyes from his body to his face so she could think clearly. Didn’t help. His face was even more distracting, especially when the breeze caught a piece of long hair and blew it against one carved cheekbone. And then there was the other one stuck to his lip, which she wanted to move away and replace with her mouth. She licked her lips, anticipation a wiggling monster writhing low in her stomach.

He crooked a finger and motioned for her to come to him.

And dammit if she didn’t zoom right over to him like a radio-controlled car. Aiden swung his leg over the bike and Sadie set her jaw, straightened her spine, and swore to herself that there was no way he was talking her into getting on the back of that thing.

Despite the spark in his sea green eyes as he came to stand in front of her. Despite the fact he’d just put his hands on her hips and tugged her against him, his dark jeans rasping her bare legs.

No way, a small, meek inner voice repeated.


Aiden lowered his head. “I think we skipped a step,” he murmured, then lit her up with a brief, gentle kiss. She practically melted into him, her hands scrunching the sides of his black T-shirt for support. “Mmm. Been waiting for days to do that again.”


More like a day and a half, but who was counting?

A dimple notched his left cheek and the temptation to stick her tongue in it was so strong, Sadie bit her lip to keep from doing it. They had a dinner to get to. She couldn’t stand out in the parking lot and tongue his dimple like they had nowhere to be. Her eyes went to the hair that had wrestled itself out of his ponytail and she gave in and slid the strand away from his lips.

Wow. She wanted to kiss him again. Forget appetizers, she could make a three-course meal out Aiden’s mouth.

“You should put on jeans,” he said, unaware of her cannibalistic visions. “And boots if you got ’em.” He grabbed the helmet. “See if it fits.”

Nothing brought lust to a squealing stop faster than that. She stepped away from him.

“Come on, Sadie.” He squinted up at the clear, blue sky, the summer day absolute perfection. “It’s a great day for a joyride.”

Joyride? More like a Trip of Terror. The Highway to Hell. The Road to—


“Trust me. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Ruin.

But her protesting a ride on Sheila, the Danger-mobile, wasn’t about Sadie’s trust in Aiden. Getting on a motorcycle meant trusting the elements, other drivers, the bike itself. That was a lot of trust for a gal who limited her trust to me, myself, and I.


Sadie’s father had been going a safe and sound twenty-five miles an hour when he’d wrecked his bike. A handful of gravel sprayed along the shoulder, and he’d turned it over, slid into a grassy field, and made contact with a very hard, very unyielding a. . .