Bona Fide (Illusive Duet Book 2)

by Hazel Grace

  But personal issues…

  I’ve seen Wade Lockwood squirm, exposing himself and feelings to me. He loved me, begged for me. Now he acts like I’m the one catching naive beliefs that we still have something?

  Hello, he brought me here.

  Sliding my fingers underneath the cords holding up his pants, I yank him into me, his chest immediately crashing into mine.

  “Speaking of feelings,” I probe, sliding my hand slowly down the muscles of his stomach. “Do you feel it?”

  “Feel what?” he drones.

  “It’s not that small,” I taunt lightly, lifting my chin to him. “Your hard cock has been pressing into me since you’ve been here.”

  “And?” When my hand clasps around it, he hisses, propping his palms on the wall for support.

  “And...you might not have the hots for me anymore, Governor, but your dick and I seem to be getting reacquainted again.”

  The soft waves of the ocean outside my room fill the space between and around us. I perk my ears for a groan, growl, or erratic breathing because I’m not the only one who kept our sentiments and past memories buried under cement just for them to haunt us still.

  “What do you plan on doing?” Wade emits, throwing the ball back in my court.

  My fingertips start at the button of his khakis, erasing more of the distance between us.

  I don’t know what I want in this moment.

  If I want to hear his hunger for me again.

  If I crave to know he still cares.

  Regardless, my rationality tells me it doesn’t matter. He’s still married, has a whole new responsibility carrying a country over a city, but at one moment in time, he was mine. I owned him—body, fucked-up mind, and shallow soul.

  When my lips wrap around his thick erection, Wade’s knees buckle slightly. His exhales are heavy, eager, and starved.

  I’m the same.

  The pool of my own wetness starts to form in my panties. The appetite that started over a year ago; I’m starving like a vampire that has been desiccated, and Wade’s body is the only thing that can bring me back to life.

  A large hand grips the roots of my hair, taking the only control he has right now, and guides me up and down the length of him. How he’s always wanted over the course of the year we’ve been away from each other.

  “You’re right,” he mutters, letting my lips barely slide off the tip of him before letting me slide back down. “My cock proves to have missed you.” I hum along his shaft, completely satisfied with his answer. My hand trails down between my legs, and before I can strum my clit to the rhythm of sucking him off, he heaves me up by my strands to stand.

  “Too bad I didn’t,” he sneers in my face. Before I can open my mouth, he squeezes my jaw open to keep me from speaking. “Before you get the honor of tasting my cum again and you getting yourself off to me, there won’t be a Hardison that will touch you within a two-state perimeter. I don’t share what’s mine, so let me help you—” He leans in, the smell of whiskey off his tongue wafting through my nose. “—I’ll be sure to make the message clear enough when I destroy both of their lives for the shit you dragged them into. Then, and only then, Shelton, will you get to swallow me.”

  He drops his hand as his body and warmth suddenly leave me. Stepping away, my heart squeezes at the loss in his voice. At the animosity and disgust within his words.

  I’ll kill anything to dismantle feelings that I don’t want to endure anymore. It’s the only thing I know how to do to cope with the things in my life. I have to have the upper hand or my life feels like it’s going down the tallest roller coaster and into a dark tunnel.

  It’s terrifying down there.

  I can’t slow it down. I’m not able to control the bends and twists or if we go upside down. I’m completely helpless and at the mercy of said problem, and that’s not someplace I want to stay.

  “Have a good night, Miss Shelton.”

  A tear hits my cheekbone before he turns on his heels to leave. A sense of forlornness slaps me in the face, harassing me that I’m never going to be whole again.

  I’m never going to stop missing him.

  My ugly and desperate scars have names—and the one that hurt the most was Wade.

  ♫ Let Down — Palisades ♫

  I ordered Emmy's favorite food—pasta. Not only did it have a million carbs in it, but she needed them much like I needed to erase the last year in my head. The only good thing about the past is the opportunity for revenge.

  Cue in golden boy, Grant Hardison.

  That stupid son of a bitch more than likely thought he was going to get off scot-free with fucking Reagan. It didn't matter that he didn't know she was mine or that he couldn't keep his mediocre dick (because unfortunately, I saw it) to himself, the game pieces were set in place. All I had to do was pull the trigger.

  “What’s the special occasion?” Emmy asks me, sitting next to me on the couch of my study while we watch some dumbass reality show about fixing up houses.

  Our carryout containers are in our laps, cans of Coke on each side of the end tables, and napkins on our chest like bibs because we're both exhausted, and we're going to make a mess.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “This is our third dinner in a row,” she claims. “And I know for a fact that you have things to read and—”

  “Quit babysitting me,” I chide lightly. “I’m a grown-ass man.”

  Em shoves more tortellini into her mouth. “I’m not complaining. I’m just saying—”

  “Chew before you choke.”

  “Don’t you know the Heimlich?”

  I shake my head. "Never paid attention in Freshman gym class, was too busy checking out Jessica Flunter's ass." Emmy breaks out in a chuckle, which turns into a small choke before my hand immediately goes to her back. "I told you to chew.”

  “I was," she retorts, clearing her throat. "Would've been a pity. I never showed you how to use the remote so you wouldn't have to watch this show anymore while I lay lifeless on the floor."

  "You're dramatic as hell." She shrugs and goes back to eating her pasta while keeping her eyes glued to the TV screen.

  We eat in silence for a few moments before a commercial comes on, snapping Em out of her trance.

  "Did you do it?" There's no conviction in her voice, but I feel the frustration seeping off her body. She's tired of trying to pry me from the deep end of my mistakes and ghosts, and I'm guilty as hell for making her do it.

  “Yeah,” I deadpan.

  “Why?”

  I let out a heavy sigh. “Why not?”

  “Why do you let her still get to you? Why do you still have a copy of it?”

  "Because I'm kinky like that, and I like feeling the stabbing pain in my gut to remind me, Em, that's why." I glance over at her, expecting a glare of some kind, but instead, she blankly stares at me.

  You’ve lost your damn mind, that’s what reads clear as day off her face.

  Honestly, can’t argue with her on that. I only let Reagan torture me some more when I let her go down on me, allowing her soft lips to wrap around my raging cock that wanted to remind her of what I tasted like. What seeped from her body to claim her like that truly meant anything at all.

  It didn’t.

  I can’t unsee or unhear the soft gasps that left those lips every time one of them thrust into her. Their hands all over her naked body, stroking and teasing while she writhed against them.

  Her pleading and begging to let her come.

  “Wade.” My body shakes as Em’s hand rocks my forearm.

  “Mhm?” I squeeze my plastic fork to keep my body from trembling. I can see it when I close my eyes. When I try to think of the moment with just her and I in a dark, Mexican hotel room, in a different fucking country, and it still preys on me.

  That’s when I stopped.

  When everything came to light. If she wants to use someone else to decimate memories of us together, she’s going to have to live
with the responsibilities of taking that said person down with her.

  It’s all shits and giggles recording a second sex tape until the media make Jed and Grant Hardison the front-page headline, and she gets to explain that one.

  “You good?” I press my lips together and nod at Emmy’s question. “What are we going to do about Demi?”

  Right, the ongoing problem at hand.

  “I bought us the time.”

  “You said that already, but she isn’t going to wait.”

  “Tell Bailey to fill her schedule,” I quip. “I’m working on outing her love child with my father.”

  “Absolutely not,” Em leers, shoving her food to the side. “You’re not putting your half-brother through that kind of publicity. He’s just a kid. Can you imagine learning something like that?”

  “It’ll be like an initiation to the family.”

  “Lockwood.”

  I snap my attention to her. “You got another idea?”

  “Did you talk to Lucas and Phoebe about it?”

  “Yes?”

  She perks a brow. “And?”

  “Thrilled about the idea,” I say off a heavy sigh and shrug. Em releases her held breath, relaxing her slim shoulders in her mint green dress shirt. “Then we do plan B.”

  “Oh geezus,” Em mutters.

  “Phoebe agreed to that one. So did Lucas. And, for the record, I didn’t come up with it.”

  “What...plan?”

  "Lucas wants his name cleared for himself and to move on with his life. You know how much that shit weighs on him, and I'm going to stand behind him."

  “With what evidence?”

  "See, that's the thing with old phones," I quip, twirling a lump of noodles around my fork. "He still has the video she threatened him with. And those bomb-as-hell text messages full of threats and the true face of the woman we all know and love as the Cunt from Hell."

  “How?”

  “Found it when he was going through his storage unit. He’s finally moving into my penthouse after I threatened him—over the phone.” I smirk at my assistant. “See, I know a few things.”

  “Can he do it though? That's a lot of interviews, cameras...that's a lot for you, Wade."

  I lean back more into the couch. "I'm good with it."

  I’m great with it. I’ve been impatiently waiting for years for stones to be thrown at Demi for her transgressions.

  “The word scandal is going to be thrown around.”

  “I want to be free,” I decree. “Lucas and Phoebe want it too. They’ve waited long enough for justice. Phoebe is going to open up about Camila. The peer pressure, the men that followed her around and shoved drugs down her throat. The alleged overdose that Demi ensued on Camila.”

  “I don’t know,” Em starts, gazing down at her carryout box. “It sounds easy, but there is so much to think about. The press can turn these stories into—”

  “They have me,” I counter before giving her a feeble smirk. “And I have you, right?”

  She returns it. “Always.” She presses her lips together then says, “We’ll go ahead and—”

  “Let me in!” Fists bang into the door outside, interrupting our peaceful meal, and, unfortunately, Demi's voice—it's hard to miss, even behind a heavy-ass door.

  And, lucky for her, Francis—one of my Secret Service—is standing guard. The same man she slapped in the face over a month ago for not allowing her to interrupt one of my phone conversations with the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

  Her ass isn’t getting through that door without my say so.

  Even if she sucked his dick.

  “I don’t care what he’s doing,” she bellows louder as Emmy sighs, reaching out to place her carryout container down.

  “Don’t,” I order, remaining where I am. “I want you to eat and enjoy the show Demi is going to put on for us.”

  “Wade—”

  “Who’s in there with him?!” Silence filters through my study until she speaks again. “I don’t believe you. Move your fat ass out of my way, or I'm going to—"

  “Are you going to put Francis through that shit again?” Emmy chides. “He’s already been assaulted.”

  “He better if he’s supposed to take a bullet for me.”

  “Is he fucking someone?!”

  "Geezus," Em breathes, rubbing at one of her temples. "I told you three days away would make her go mad."

  I shove a forkful of pasta in my mouth. “She’s just making herself look bad, and more people can observe that she really is a lunatic with mental issues.”

  “But she’s also a physical pandemic when she’s screaming in people’s eardrums and slapping them in the face. She can take an eye out with her nails,” Emmy states through more of Demi’s hollering. “She’s a safety hazard.”

  “She’s everyone’s pain in the ass.”

  “I’m going to get you fired!” Demi screams. “You worthless piece of shit!”

  “Wade,” Em warns evenly.

  “Let her in, Francis,” I bellow from my spot, reaching forward to place my carryout container down on the table in front of us.

  The door immediately swings open as Demi’s heels purposely hit the carpet. I peer over my shoulder to find her eyes burning holes into my head—so her standard look.

  She’s out of place here in this office. The all-American decor standing for loyalty, honor, and justice—shit she isn’t deserving of. Her pink slacks and brown top keep her, what she calls, “still on the fashionable side of the spectrum like Jackie-O”. But I highly doubt Mrs. Kennedy was a conniving slut who forced herself into the life of her husband.

  As if I’m any better.

  Reagan compelled me weak as fuck when her warm mouth and the soft moans that left her lips.

  It wasn’t part of the plan—it was a warning. One I never hand out.

  But when her body melted with mine, when her tongue touched mine of her own free will and want—it confirmed everything.

  She’s still affected by me.

  And I’m still fucking obsessed with her.

  Yes, I did it to myself.

  Yes, I lied.

  No, I don’t give a fuck.

  After brunch with the newly married couple, I left without saying goodbye to her. Without so much as a glance because I’m never going to say those words to her.

  That I still want her.

  That she still has a piece of me.

  Then there’s the video.

  She denies it, I’m not buying the fact that she didn’t know, and we’re still sitting in the same exact spot—broken.

  “You.” Demi points her long index finger at me with conviction. “Where were you?”

  “Right here.” I lift a brow because she looks like a fucking crazy ex-girlfriend that is making a voodoo doll of me but still wants to keep tabs.

  Surprisingly enough, she doesn't have any connections that I know of to any witches or people that practice dark magic, or I'd be more screwed than I am now.

  “No, where were you for three fucking days?!” Francis closes the door behind her as she rounds the couch and stands in front of me.

  She ignores Em, thank God, and waits impatiently with her arms crossed over her chest.

  “On a business trip,” I deadpan.

  “Where? Across the damn country? Out of the country? Where?”

  “Calm down, Dem. Your foundation isn’t hiding all those insecurities well.” She kicks one of my dress shoes, demanding I get serious. That she’s not going to stand for my comments and attempts at evading the question.

  Thing is, I don’t care. I just don’t want her knowing that Reagan is around to do round two. That’s my circus to deal with.

  “You have two seconds before—”

  “Sit the fuck down before I make you fall down,” I convey, losing the tie wrapped around my neck.

  Her eyes narrow. “Fall? That's what's going to help you if you don’t stop—.”

  “Go report whatever you wa
nt, Dem. Your threats are old, and I’m done with them.”

  “My threats are kept out of generosity. They’re not spread because I need you in this house.” She glances at my assistant for the first time. “The one where you bought votes to arrive here.”

  My jaw ticks at her blackmail, not towards me but Em. That she thinks she can dangle people in front of me like a string with catnip attached and that I’m going to jump.

  Thing is, I’ll dive off this platform, not giving a flying fuck if I lose the presidency. I'm so dead inside that the concept of moving and starting a new life sounds better and better each and every single day that I'm reminded she's within my presence. That, and along with all the fake nice-ass shit I have to say about her to the media.

  Let me tell you, it’s hard. Like understatement of the year hard.

  Demi’s hard gaze falls back on me. “Maybe that I have a love child with your father.”

  I scoff. “Calling you out for being a whore has always been the plan, Dem, knock yourself out.” Her lips heave, unaffected, something we’ve both learned from each other.

  Never ever let the other one see you sweat.

  “Or how about the one where your daddy bought you out of going to jail for almost beating an innocent man to death? We could just call up some reporters and have them start asking him questions.”

  I yawn and wave a dismissive hand in the air. “Whichever one you think will cause the most buzz. I’ll let you choose. Consider it an anniversary present.”

  “Our anniversary was months ago.”

  "No, I'm talking about the day we separated. I celebrate that every year."

  She takes a step closer, trying to use her hundred and fifty pounds to intimidate me. "You know there are pictures? You covered in blood? You on top of that poor middle-aged man who did nothing but go out with a few buddies for a few drinks, and you conned him outside so you could just start wailing on him? How did that make you feel? Knowing you had the power to let him live or let him die?"

  "Like I do now with you?" My heart is slamming in my chest, thinking about what happened that night has the adrenaline coursing through my body again.

  I try not to think about it—to go back there.