“Does it look like happiness?”
“Should it?”
“Yes, Ethan. You make me happy.”
I circled her nipple with my finger. “What else do I make you?”
“You make me laugh.” Her lids fluttered. “You make me curse. You make me sing old songs in the shower. Do you know what I was singing at Gia’s the other day? REO Speedwagon’s Can’t Fight This Feeling. She said that you were ‘fucking me so good’ that you had my ass singing white boy songs, and the next thing you know, I’ll be playing the electric guitar.”
I laughed even harder and absent-mindedly reached for her hand to link our fingers. “I really like your sister.”
“So do I,” she added. “That comfort that I have with her, the thing that makes me love her so much, I have that with you.”
I did my best to avoid letting it show just how fast my heart was racing. “And, what does that mean for us?”
She hesitated, and I could tell that I’d left her feeling vulnerable. I’d never clearly outlined what I’d expected from our “relationship.” While I’d shared my gripes about her relationship with Roderick, I always tied it back to my desire to see her free herself from his unyielding thumb. In actuality, she had absolutely no idea how much I wanted her.
“I want you, Alle,” I decided to clarify. “To me, you’re already mine. I was just waiting for you to get to a place where you were ready to accept that.”
Tears collected in her eyes. “I’m all yours, E.”
I leaned down to kiss her, sensually filling myself with her essence while draining mine in the process. There wasn’t a nook in her mouth that my tongue didn’t explore, or an ounce of skin on her body that my hands failed to traverse. My head was light, my senses heightened. My nerve endings turned to cinder. The sounds of her moans enchanted me like the Sirens, floating me towards her, inside of her until our bodies were joined at the hilt. What I’d assumed were still, shallow waters were dragging me beneath their perpetual depth.
I moved inside of her slowly, my eyes trailing over her body as I immersed myself deep between her legs, and then pulled out until she was reaching for me again. I used my tongue to part her lips and thumbed tears away from the corners of her eyes. I leaned into her and she held me tightly, locking her arms behind my back. I continued to deepen my strokes, not completely sure about where I was headed. All I knew was that I wanted to give her all of me, and I wanted to watch her willingly accept it.
When she began to tremble, I pumped my dick against the place that would take her over the edge. Then, I took in her orgasm with complete satisfaction, holding off my own climax almost to the point of pain so I could watch her body writhe and peak under the pinnacle of ecstasy. Her hips undulated, mimicking the waves of pleasure she felt traveling throughout and the same ripples I felt along my shaft still inside of her. She tugged at my shoulders, pulling me down so that she could press our lips together, and I began to move inside of her again.
I struggled to hold back, to extend the feeling of her warmth cloaking me as far into the night as I possibly could. Although I knew I would have her again, this moment was something different.
At the moment that I felt myself release inside of her, I knew that my seed hadn’t been the only thing I’d been trying — and failed — to hold back.
She pressed kisses all over my face, neck and shoulders, sweat from my body dripping onto hers as I tried, breathlessly, to fathom what had just occurred. But, my brain conceded to the fight. No rational thought was needed here. Just my arms as I pulled her into them, my lips as I pressed them into her hair, and my chest to obscure the evidence of my realization.
We spent the rest of the weekend doing things I never thought that I would do with a woman: making breakfast omelets, pancakes and waffles, building terrible snowmen, watching B-movies on Netflix, holding marshmallows on metal skewers over the fireplace, and listening to cheesy nineties music on Pandora while she told me about her and Gia’s sibling rivalry over Howie from the Backstreet Boys when they were in middle school.
It was the fastest couple of days that I’d ever experienced in my life and before I knew it, we were boarding the plane back to Louisiana. Elderly couples smiled at us and kids came right up to engage us in conversation at the terminal. Simply put, everything felt right with the world.
During the flight, my brain came out of hiding. Realization snuck around my doubt and apprehension to come to a screeching halt. By the time the plane landed at Louis Armstrong International, I realized that my crazy ass was in love.
-----
Roderick Q. Hamilton
I placed my fifth call of the night to Alexandra and again she didn’t pick up her phone. I was growing even more irate by the minute, but couldn’t let a room full of my constituents see me lose my cool. I would be facing even bigger frustrations as a Louisiana senator, which meant they would see me as unfit for the position if I allowed Alexandra to burrow any deeper beneath my skin.
I was curious, however, as to the reason she wouldn’t answer my calls. Why, all of a sudden, she was becoming increasingly fickle as the weeks went by. She’d basically etched out her own position on the ninth-ward village community advisory board as a way to ensure that I secured a spot in the juvenile diabetes fundraiser. Already, people were congratulating me for my commitment to address a problem that was spiraling out of control in our nation’s children. If this project went off without a hitch, I was pretty sure that it was going to solidify my place as a front-running candidate, and my eventual election to the seat.
However, joining the board meant staying late at work, sometimes five consecutive days in a row. It meant migraines and naps, albeit suspicious, at Gia’s house. It meant unanswered phone calls at hours that she should have been readily accessible. It left me wondering if she was trying to tell me that she’d become so upset over my complete preoccupation with my political campaign, that she’d turned to passive aggressive techniques to remind me that I’d yet to place an engagement ring on her finger.
It was coming, but it had to be at the right moment. It had to be timed at a moment that would surge my career forward. There was nothing more trusting in the public eye than a man with a wife and family, and especially a man that had secured the daughter of the nation’s most beloved four-star general. At least, the sane daughter. If it weren’t for their matching complexions, dancing brown eyes, and nearly identical smiles, I would have been the first in line to argue that Gia and Alexandra were not truly related.
I called a sixth time and cursed under my breath when I heard Alexandra’s voicemail cut in. If this was the game that she wanted to play, I would go ring shopping next week. The name Alexandra Hamilton sounded more founded in our nation’s history anyhow.
“I look forward to beating you in our golf game next week,” George Waldorf, a real estate development tycoon, said as he patted me on the arm. His political contribution alone was in the six-figures.
“I could say the same,” I tossed back.
He roared a laugh and then gave me another pat before walking off to schmooze with other bigwigs, and a woman who I was certain was a paid escort.
“Good job tonight, Roderick,” James Miller said, walking up behind me. “Everyone loved you.”
“Thank you sir,” I replied. “I think that we might be on our way.”
“Next stop, the White House.”
I grinned. “A man can only dream.”
“Come on and let me buy you a drink.” He flicked his thumb towards the bar behind us. “What’ll you have, a scotch on the rocks? Scotch is a man’s drink, you know.”
Admittedly, I hated the taste of scotch, but it was undoubtedly necessary to drink in order to be indoctrinated into the political boys club. I also enjoyed being in the General’s good graces.
“Then scotch it is.”
I started to follow him over to the bar but then stopped. He turned to look at me, brief concern washing over his face before it manifeste
d into anger. His face became hard granite and he discreetly glanced around before pulling me off to the side.
“She’s doing it again?”
“Yes sir,” I answered. “I tried calling her six times tonight and nothing.”
“Call Gia.” He pointed to the pocket where my phone was tucked. “I’ll be right back.”
He walked off and I pulled out the phone while sucking in a tolerating breath. I never liked talking to Alexandra’s sister, but indulged her for the sake of the public eye and my relationship with Alexandra.
Gia was one of those bohemian tropes. A feminist, if you will. In her head, most of the women in the world were secretly just like she was, but spent the majority of their time wishing for liberation from some kind of male privilege that only they could see. While she didn’t say these words outright, I still got that vibe from her. That “I’m every woman” vibe. She had a difficult time seeing herself as the harlot she truly was, married or not. All those bright clothes and that wild hair was just a substitute for a scarlet “A” on her clothing. As a successful businessman, what Elliott saw in her was beyond my logical comprehension.
I groaned as the phone rang, hoping that he picked up instead to tell me that she wasn’t available. Only heaven knew what was in store for their daughter, but her unusual name was a portentous indicator of a troublesome future.
Unfortunately, her cheery voice rang through the line. “Hello?”
“Gianna. Good evening.”
“Why do you insist on calling me exactly what I asked you not to? Call me Gia like everyone else.”
“I am actually calling to speak to Alexandra,” I quickly deflected. “She’s not picking up her phone, so I assume that she’s with you.”
“You’re also assuming that she doesn’t have friends.”
“Alexandra knows that right now is not the best time for her to have friends. We agreed on her postponing that until after we get married. That way, our social circle won’t be tainted by people who won’t be important to our rise in political status.”
“Have you ever recorded yourself and played it back just to hear how you sound?” she asked. “Or better yet, how much lubricant do you think it would take you for you to get that stick out of your ass?”
Crass language. Another indicator of the harlot that lived within.
“For God sakes, woman, just put Alexandra on the phone.”
“Alexandra isn’t here.”
I paused. “What?”
“I’m sorry, my liege, but her highness is not here.”
“Then, where is she?”
“If I knew, I would have already covered that in one of my earlier sentences.”
My insides suddenly filled with smoke. I’d thought for sure that if six of my calls had gone unanswered, Alexandra would be with her sister. It was completely out of character for her to not immediately call me back, and trying to talk to her about her disappearances had been futile. She had simply graciously apologized, appealing to the natural bureaucrat in me, and I’d warned her to never let it happen again. Then, the subject had been squashed.
In the past, whenever I’d put my foot down, her bad behavior usually never happened again. But, it was slowly dawning on me that Alexandra had disobeyed my demands for alterations in her behavior four times already since Christmas Eve.
“You don’t sound worried,” I said to Gia. “That means that you know where she is.”
“She’s not missing, if that’s what you’re hinting at.”
“Think about it,” I went on. “I am your sister’s future husband —”
“— allegedly.”
“Let me speak.” I squeezed the bridge of my nose. “Now, I am your sister’s future husband calling you to say that I can’t get in contact with her. Your initial reaction isn’t fear or concern that something might have happened to her. In fact, you sound calm and collected, which tells me that you know where she is, proof that she is doing this on purpose as some form of passive aggressive ploy for me to beat my chest and run to ensure that she is safe, realize how important she is to me, and ask her to marry me.” All of my fury dissipated. “Thank you, Gianna. Goodnight.”
I hung up even though it sounded as though she had more to say, and James made his way back over. He motioned that we step off to the side to talk and I followed him into a darkened pocket of the room.
“I have a proposition to make,” he said, leaning in. “If you’re interested, I can have someone follow Alexandra to find out what’s been going on with her as of late.”
My eyebrow shot up. “Do you think I should be that worried?”
“It’s always better to be safe than sorry.”
I got the idea that he was trying to hint at something. “Sir, do you know what has been going on with Alexandra?” I asked. “Or maybe you have an opinion on it? Did you go through the same thing with Mrs. Miller?”
He scrunched his face at my audaciousness and I immediately apologized. Of course he hadn’t gone through anything similar with Mrs. Miller. Janice Miller was the epitome of perfection. She was a beautiful woman from a stellar background without as much as a blur on her record. She also never even gave thought to stepping a single foot out of line.
“Never,” he replied. “Mrs. Miller and I have an understanding. It can be the same with you and Alexandra. She’s just being fickle right now and I think that her sister has gotten into her head. But, to answer your question, the slant of her odd behavior suggests a distraction.”
The dent in my brow let him know that I wasn’t following.
“A man, Roderick.”
My laugh came out almost like a cackle. “No offense, sir, but that’s impossible.”
“My Alexandra is weak-willed,” he added. “The world is different from when Janice and I were courting. These days, men will openly covet another man’s property. I can easily see Alexandra falling victim to some lowlife’s chicanery.”
I started thinking about that smug doctor from the Christmas Eve fundraiser. Ethan Stewart. I’d despised the way he’d disappeared with Alexandra without my permission. Her working on my diabetes fundraiser meant that they’d probably increased contact, and he’d seemed more than interested in talking about business that night.
“But you’re also implying that if she did in fact fall victim to a man’s subtle trickery, she might be spending evenings with this man,” I replied. “So, she could possibly be sleeping with him.”
His brows came together. “I wouldn’t go that far. I doubt that my little girl would throw away her virginity on some clown.”
I cleared my throat. His little girl certainly hadn’t thrown her virginity away to a clown as I’d been the lucky catcher. Well, it wasn’t so much as luck as a night with Alexandra was as standard as it came. I would kiss her, maybe fondle her breasts, and then enter her. There were a few times that she’d tried to do “other” things, no doubt at the behest of her, for lack of a better word, slut of a sister, but those things weren’t for our bed. The things that she wanted to do were things that happened between a man and his mistress, not his future wife. Wives were placed on a pedestal and seeing her mouth hovering near my penis had almost gotten her tossed clear from it.
“Do it,” I agreed. “I would like to know what has been going on with her. Also, if it’s possible, I would like for them to get more information on this Dr. Ethan Stewart that she works with to ensure that I’ve got background information on everyone involved in activities directly related to my campaign.”
He smiled, nodded, and then made the call.
Chapter Eight
* * *
Ethan
I was fucked.
I know naturally in these situations your first reaction is to look at me and go, “Well, duh, of course you love her,” but men aren’t as quick with these things as we’d liked to be. It also had to be some form of Guinness world record how fast I’d gone from fantasizing about Alexandra, to the inability to function without seeing he
r every day.
Those one or two visits up to her office turned into an amount that I’m not quite ready to admit to. If I wasn’t upstairs in her office, she was downstairs in mine even if I just had a couple minutes of downtime. I started doing some other shit too, like pulling her onto my lap and burying my face in her neck or hair. I even started doing that damn Eskimo-kiss nose-rubbing thing that I vowed I would never do even if I found someone that I could be serious with. The other day, I added a smiley face at the end of one of my texts. Sometimes I reach for her hand before she has a chance to grab it just to walk her out to her car. Then, there’s the way I feel when I’m holding her and she plays in my hair. Or even better, the way she kisses me all over when I’m twenty-thousand leagues-deep inside of her.
Like I said…fucked.
I didn’t know how I was supposed to get through dinner with Kellen and Tayler without them seeing it all over my face. I’d barely agreed to meet up with them even though it was a rare occasion to have them both in town at the same time. I’d had to choose between seeing them and spending the afternoon with Alexandra, Gia, Kai and Evelyn watching Eli cut the ribbon to mark the opening of his second fitness center in Baton Rouge. It had been a long time dream of his to own several gyms across the United States, and all I ever saw was support from Gia.
Most people thought that Gia and Alexandra were different because of their very different external appearances and mannerisms, but they had more similarities than I think even they realized. The most important one, in my opinion, was the amount of support that they showed to the men in their lives. Even though Alexandra had been steering it in the wrong direction for the past couple of years, she was still able to recognize someone willing to put her interests front and center where they belonged.
Just like “cute” and a few other words, “overwhelmed” was not something that was often found in my vocabulary, but it was the only way to describe how I felt when Alexandra told me that she was all mine. I’d never thought in a million years that a woman like her would ever give up so much just to take a chance on me. It wasn’t as though I saw her being with me as a step down, but it wasn’t what everyone else wanted. It wasn’t what everyone else had planned for her. Yet, for her to finally come into her own…I would have still enjoyed watching her make decisions based on what she thought was best for her.
Fated: An Alpha Male Romance Page 10
