Landon & Shay - Part Two: (The L&S Duet Book 2)

by Brittainy Cherry

  “Damn, Shay,” he growled, rocking his hardness in even more. “You can’t say that kind of thing unless you want me to come.”

  I looked into his eyes, leaned in, and bit his bottom lip. “I said fuck me like you mean it.”

  That was when I saw the flash of madness unleash from him, and he began pounding into me, wild, untamed, and unleashed.

  And it felt so good.

  So freaking good I couldn’t hold in my orgasm much longer. As I released myself against him, he moaned from me tightening around his cock. “Shay, I’m going to…” His words faltered as his thrusts intensified, pounding more and more, and then he let go, giving me all of him the same way I’d given him myself.

  Once we finished, he slid out of me and lowered me to the ground. A chill filled the room, and all the heat that had been there moments ago faded away.

  I pulled down my dress and came back to reality.

  He parted his lips but no words came out, and that was absolutely perfect.

  There wasn’t anything left to say. At least in my mind there wasn’t.

  “I should go,” I said, gathering my things and trying to tame the wildness of my hair and my heart.

  My heart that I didn’t know still knew how to beat.

  My heart that was stupidity beating for him.

  Stop it, heart.

  Turn back off.

  “Wait, we should talk,” he said.

  “I think we’ve done enough already.”

  I headed toward the door, and he reluctantly followed after me.

  As we walked out of the room, the security guy guarding the room looked both Landon and me up and down with a devilish smirk on his face. He proceeded to hold his hand up to Landon with his chest puffed out with pride.

  “Hell yeah! I knew you’d nail it down. She’s hot, man,” he exclaimed to Landon, as if Landon had done some kind of good deed for the Dicks Across America movement by getting in my pants.

  My chest tightened a bit at the whole interaction. Was that the whole reason he walked into that room with me? To get laid? For an old time bang? To see if his past tasted as good as his present days? Did he mention it to that security guy before entering the room? Was I just a game to him? Did I give him exactly what he came for?

  A fury of anger settled in my gut.

  Landon didn’t high-five the guy, but he kept following me. “Shay, wait, we should talk,” he called out.

  I tried to push back the emotions building up inside me, because I felt like crying, and I wouldn’t cry over something as stupid as sleeping with Landon. Even though during the sex, it felt like the greatest memory of us—of who we used to be. It felt as if we were meant to be together, as if our bodies moved as one and he understood exactly what it took to take me to that next level. It felt like I was his, and he was mine again.

  If only for a few moments in time.

  But none of that was true. I wasn’t his, and he wasn’t mine. I was just another lay for him.

  “I think words aren’t really needed,” I replied, shaking my head. “I hope it was a good lay for you. Way to nail it down,” I mocked.

  He reached for my arm and spun me around to face him. He moved in closely, breathing heavily. For a second, I saw pain in his expression. Those beautiful blue eyes that I once loved so much pierced straight into me. “You know it’s not like that.”

  “I know nothing about what it’s like with you, Landon. I don’t know you. Let me go.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?” I spat his way, my anger and embarrassment building more and more each passing second. “It seemed so easy for you to do before.”

  Those words stung him as he dropped my hand and stumbled back a few steps. Good. It was about time he felt a sliver of what he left me feeling all those years before.

  “I never meant to hurt you,” he whispered, his voice cracking on the word ‘you.’

  “Just because you don’t mean to hurt someone doesn’t erase the fact that you did. Just keep your distance, Landon. You’ve done it for so long. Let’s not break that trend.”

  “Shay—”

  Before he could finish, two supermodel women walked over to us and were smiling ear to ear with their pearly whites and long, tan legs in shoes that were probably too expensive for me to even look at.

  “Landon, hey! It’s been so long. We should go grab a drink at the bar,” one of the women said.

  “Yeah, and then maybe we can find an after party to crash,” the other replied, twirling her hair around her finger, looking at Landon as if she was going to eat him all up.

  He’d already had his next two courses laid out in front of him. Dinner and dessert. I was simply the appetizer, unworthy of being his main course meal.

  I was going to vomit.

  They stepped in front of me as if I were invisible, and that was exactly what I began to feel.

  Invisible.

  I felt so insanely invisible.

  “Sorry, ladies, right now isn’t a good time. I was actually having a conversation with—”

  “No one,” I cut in. I gave the two women a smile, and they eyed me up and down with dismissal looks. “He’s all yours, ladies.”

  I walked off, feeling as if I’d just been slammed into a wall with a semi-truck. My body ached not only from the soreness of how Landon rocked my body, but also from the pain of how he rocked my soul.

  He wasn’t supposed to be able to do that anymore. I’d spent the past years trying to delete every part of him from my entire being. But it turned out first loves were unable to fully erase from a person’s psyche. A part of Landon would always live in my heart. From his kiss alone, he unlocked that corner of my heartbeats, and then proceeded to break it all over again.

  I stopped drinking for the remainder of the night, and, regrettably, Landon stayed on my mind.

  18

  Shay

  The worst part of sleeping with your ex-boyfriend who was a celebrity? You couldn’t just wallow in self-pity for your bad mistake. You were forced to see him everywhere you went. On billboards, in movie trailers, in the check-out line at the grocery store. The check-out line was the worst place to see him, too. Because on those magazine covers, Landon was never alone. There was always some drop-dead model or actress attached to his arm. He always looked dapper as ever, smiling ear to ear.

  “Wait, so you slept with him?” Raine asked, completely baffled by the story I’d just told her about my interaction with Landon as I pushed the grocery cart through the store. Raine rubbed her hands over her ever-growing stomach and stared wide-eyed at the reveal of my time at the whiskey party.

  I’d been helping her go grocery shopping for the past few weeks, seeing how she was eight months pregnant, and ready to pop any day. She couldn’t reach the lower shelves, and struggled to pick up some items, so I went along. Hank traveled a lot for work, so he hadn’t been around the past few weeks. Hank told her that they could have the groceries delivered, but Raine was against that idea. “I refuse to be bedridden and get fat. I need to get out. But Shay, come with me so you can get the pickle jars for me.”

  “Yes. I accidentally had sex with him.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “Accidentally? How is that even a thing? Did you accidentally take off your underwear and accidentally sit on his penis?”

  “He actually ripped my underwear off.” I frowned. “They were my favorite pair, too.”

  “If I were you, I’d bill him for the pair. And overcharge him, too. He has the money to cover it. But really, Shay. How?”

  “Well, he bombarded me and began going on and on about things of the past. And I don’t know, I just snapped. I went off telling him how I hated him and shoved him repeatedly as I felt so much rage in my chest, and the next thing I knew, I was kissing him aggressively and taking off his clothes.”

  “Ohh,” she breathed out. “Hate sex. That’s hot.”

  “That’s not hot. It was so humiliating afterward. The security guard outside w
ent to high-five Landon, as if it was something he did on the normal. I felt ridiculous.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t. Plus, I know how those women come on to Landon. They probably cornered him.”

  “When did you get on his side?” I asked, somewhat still hurting from the events of the whiskey party.

  She held her hands up. “Nope. Switzerland here. I’m just saying, I’ve watched how those models attacked him throughout the years.”

  “Oh yes. Poor Landon, the man who has supermodels hammering all over him. Boo-freaking-hoo.”

  “I’m sorry, Shay. I know it’s not easy. Even though you two happened so long ago, it doesn’t change the fact that what you had was real. I really thought the two of you were destined for forever.”

  I hated that I believed that, too. That Landon was my endgame. My happily ever after. My forever.

  What a stupid girl I had been back then.

  “It’s okay,” I lied. “I’m okay.”

  I’m fiiine.

  “Not to be nosy, but I’m going to be nosy…how was it?”

  “The sex?” I asked, thinking back to the wild exchange. I still received chills thinking about the way Landon owned my body in that room a few nights ago. The way his kisses tasted like sin and burned more than the whiskey. The way he slid in and out of me, thrusting his hardness against my core, fucking me as if he’d been waiting to show me how much I’d been on his mind all those years we’d missed. He fucked me as if apologizing for the scars he left me with. Just recalling the night was almost enough to get me hot and bothered all over again. It was the best sex that I’d ever had, and I hated that fact. I hated that I’d never been so turned on in my life. I hated that he took me to new heights that I didn’t even know sex could travel to. I hated how much I loved the way he made me feel.

  I hated that I wanted to feel him inside me again. The other night in bed, I’d awakened hot and bothered, and I knew it was because Landon had slid into my dreams. I ended up pulling out my vibrator, and using it in the middle of the night, stupidly thinking about him as I got myself off. Afterward, I felt dirty, ashamed, and really good, too.

  What was wrong with me?

  I cleared my throat. “It was fine.”

  Raine’s mouth dropped open. “That good, huh?”

  I sighed, rubbing my hands over my face. “The best I’d ever had.”

  “Gah, that’s insane. I always imagined what hate sex had to be like. Passionate, powerful, intense. I remember I tried to get Hank to be pissed at me once, just so we could experience hate sex, but he wasn’t having any part of it. He just loves to screw me while telling me how perfect I am. It’s really annoying.”

  I smiled. “Yes, it must be awful being worshipped like a goddess,” I mocked.

  “So annoying,” she joked. Then, she brought the topic back to Landon, of course. “Doesn’t he look good, though?”

  “He looks like a troll.”

  “Liar,” she said, rubbing her lower back with one hand as she reached for a box of Oreo’s cereal. Yes—Oreo’s had cereal, and recently Raine was going through a box once every three days. “He looks good. Healthy. Each time I see him, he looks better than the last. Like a fine wine.”

  “Like a stupid two-thousand-and-ten bottle of Barolo Monfortino Riserva Conterno,” I grumbled. Raine arched an eyebrow at me. I shook my head. “Never mind.”

  But it was true. Landon was made like a god.

  “Well, lucky for you, you’re hot and amazing, so I’m sure he’s kicking himself in the ass for letting you slip away. You’re the one that got away for him,” she told me as we walked toward the check-out lane. “I just know it. Losing you is his biggest regret.”

  “Has he ever said that to you?”

  “He didn’t have to say it. I could see it in his eyes when he asked about you.”

  I tried to push that thought away and not let it settle. That was when I saw the magazines. Landon’s face was plastered all over them with him posing with different women from the whiskey party a few days ago. He was smiling, and dancing, and taking shots. They called him the playboy of the century—stating how Landon was a serial dater who made Leonardo DiCaprio look like a down-to-earth family man. The pictures on the cover from the party showcased him with dozens of different women. It was as if he was living a freaking Mambo Number 5 song. He’d found Angelina, Pamela, Sandra, and Rita, and as he continued, the girls were getting prettier.

  I picked up one of the magazines, and began flipping through it, a bit terrified I would’ve caught a photograph of me beside Landon, too. The more I flipped, the more my stomach dropped.

  Nothing.

  Not one photograph of me with Landon was captured, almost as if I’d never existed. That corner of my heart that still belonged to him? It felt foolish and ashamed that I had the nerve to even let Landon in for the small amount of time that we had.

  All those freaking girls.

  I wasn’t bitter about it at all.

  Nope. Not even a little.

  Okay. Fine. Just call me dark roast, baby, because bitterness was officially my first, middle, and last name.

  Raine took notice of me eyeing the rest of the magazines. She moved in and turned them all backward in the stands. “These things are trash,” she muttered, making me smile. It was probably a sad looking smile, though.

  “Super trash.”

  “Are you okay, Shay?” she asked, frowning. It must’ve been clear that I was shaken up from seeing those magazines.

  I nodded. “Yes, I’m fine. I’m just happy there wasn’t any photographic proof of my night with Landon. Now I can go on pretending it never happened.”

  Unfortunately, I was simply one of the many women in Landon’s life who had been played—again.

  When I got home that afternoon, I tried to keep myself busy, even though my mind was looking for a million reasons to think about Landon. I avoided social media for the past forty-eight hours to avoid seeing Landon’s face plastered all over the internet with photographs from the party.

  Temptation was the devil. There were so many times in the past forty-eight hours that I wanted to type his name into a Google search, just to read the most recent articles about him.

  But I wouldn’t, because that would be opening myself up for more pain and hurt.

  I didn’t have time to hurt over that man, I did enough of that in my past.

  I busied myself with writing. Creating fictional worlds was my favorite thing in the world to do when my reality felt too heavy. I loved writing love stories, because it took me away from the fact that I didn’t believe in true love anymore. At least in my stories, true love was a real thing. And in those stories? True love always won.

  19

  Landon

  “I need a break, Joey. A sabbatical or something from all of this world,” I told my manager as I paced my penthouse. A few days had passed, and I was supposed to be back in New York, but I hadn’t made the jump to leave Chicago yet.

  I’d been overthinking everything that went down with Shay, and I had to find a way to apologize to her for our last interaction. I wanted to talk to her to try to get on the same page, and to tell her how never in a million years did I want her to feel as if she were just another woman I was looking to bang. I saw it in her eyes the minute those two women walked up to us. I knew she thought she was nothing but a side piece.

  When in reality, she was everything and more.

  I couldn’t stop overanalyzing every second I’d spent with Shay that day. My mind kept replaying the ways I’d screwed up. I shouldn’t have slept with her. Did I want to? Absolutely. Was it a mistake? Guaranteed.

  Not because it wasn’t good—because it was. It was better than good. The last time I’d felt something so passionate, raw, and real was when I was with her.

  It was no surprise the sex was unbelievable, but truthfully it ended up doing more damage than good. I hurt her. I fucking hurt her again, and I was a damn asshole for doing so.

  D
r. Smith would’ve told me to stop thinking about what happened and focus on what came next. The problem was, I didn’t know what came next when it came to Shay.

  After seeing all the tabloids that made me look a little too close with certain women at the whiskey party, I was sure Shay wanted nothing to do with me ever again. It blew my mind how those magazines could take a perfectly innocent situation and make it appear as if some kind of scandal was happening. How did those people sleep at night?

  Probably on their silk sheets with a smile on their faces.

  “What do you mean a sabbatical? We don’t have time for a vacation.”

  “I didn’t say I wanted a vacation. I said I needed one.” A key to working on my mental health was realizing my triggers. I’d become pretty good at realizing when my thoughts were beginning to run away from me. Dr. Smith taught me that if I learned to catch those thoughts early on, then it made it easier to slow them down. If I caught them too late it were as if I was running at full speed ahead, and by the time I came to the realization that I was falling apart, it’d be too late and I’d crash.

  Joey narrowed his eyes and leaned back against my kitchen island. “Your mind going wonky again?”

  “I feel out of sorts. I’ve been going nonstop for a while now, and I don’t want to burn out. If I keep at this pace, burning out is the only option. Which will lead to an even bigger, and scarier break.”

  He frowned as he ran his hand over his face. “It’s that bad, huh?”

  I nodded. “Heading in that direction. It’s been a while since I’ve done something good for my soul.”

  “You just won an Oscar! If that’s not good for your soul, I don’t know what is.”

  “No, I mean giving back. Helping in communities. I want to go to a few underprivileged areas and really dig in on helping with the topic of mental health.”

  I’d been telling Joey this for years now, and he always rolled it off his back, thinking I was just being dramatic. “Just write a hefty check to some organization, and get back to work,” he’d always tell me. “They need your money, not your appearance.”