by K. A. Linde
“Course I brought her. She’s probably my best friend.”
“I didn’t know we all slept with our best friends.”
“I’m pretty sure we don’t,” he said with an easy smile. “Since I haven’t slept with her.”
Andrea rolled her eyes. “Let’s not do this at the wedding. Brady and Liz deserve a good time.”
“And you deserve the truth, which I’m giving to you right now.” He stared into her eyes. “I’ve never slept with Gigi. I have no interest in Gigi. In fact, I hope she hooks up with Chris because, when I left them, they were making goo-goo eyes at each other.”
Andrea giggled at the comment and then tried to cover it up.
“No, don’t do that, baby,” he said, trailing his hand down the side of her jaw. “Don’t ever hide that beautiful smile.”
“Clay, stop…we can’t do this.”
“Why not? We’ve been doing it for fifteen years. I fell in love with you on that beach all those years ago. Can’t expect me to change now.”
“Look, this all sounds…great,” she said, stepping away from his embrace. “But the truth is, you can’t be serious. You can’t take us seriously. You don’t want the same things I want anymore. When we started this, I just wanted an out, a way to escape my family. Now, I know that I need more than that. I can’t expect you to change with me, Clay. I can’t expect for you to want more when you’ve never wanted it before.”
“So, have you found it elsewhere then?” he asked gruffly. He hated the way she’d said that like he couldn’t change. She could change, but he was incapable? The past four months, he had proven to himself just how much he could change when he really wanted something.
“No,” she admitted, “but I deserve the chance to try.”
“Try then. Try with me.”
She closed her eyes. “Let’s not do this. Please. Another day. Another night.”
Clay shook his head. “No, I’m not backing down. I’m not walking away, like last time. You’ve had space. You’ve been away from me. I know you miss me, Andrea. And, fuck, have I missed you. Walking away is out of the question. Try with me.”
Andrea’s eyes darted up to his. Whatever she was thinking, none of it was on her face. If he didn’t know she hated the idea of politics, he would recommend her for the job. She was better at hiding her emotions than Brady.
“Fine,” she snapped. “Right here? Right now?”
It was time for his eyebrows to shoot up. “Yes?”
She took his hand in hers and then dragged him out of the reception room. They walked outside to the empty green space near where the games had been set up. Everyone was inside, eating and dancing, so they hadn’t yet ventured outdoors. Andrea pulled him past the games and around the side of the building. It wasn’t exactly secluded but close enough.
“Talk. Why the hell should I give you another chance? After the inauguration, you slept with someone else, which was specifically against the rules. And, beyond that, we were at a function together, as a couple, with your family. Then, you went and slept around afterward. For all I know, you’re with that Gigi girl,” she cried. All of her anger from the past few months seemed to pour out of her at once. She was waving her hands around and practically growling at him. “You don’t want what I want, Clay. I want this!” She gestured back toward the reception. “Love. Marriage. Kids. Things I never thought I’d want. Things I know you don’t want. We’re not right for each other, and I’ve spent the last four months trying to tell myself that.”
Clay stood there for a second in silence. “How did that work out for you?”
“Horrible. Just fucking horrible.” She pushed her platinum blonde hair off her shoulders. “Why is it that I want the one thing that I shouldn’t want? Why do I want you so fucking bad?”
“Because those things you said aren’t true.”
“What part?” she demanded.
“Most of it.”
She narrowed her eyes and huffed. “Don’t bullshit me, Clay.”
He strode toward her. She stumbled backward and straight into the side of the building.
“Don’t presume to tell me what I want, Andrea. If you’d let me talk to you that night after the inauguration, you’d know by now that I didn’t sleep with anyone. I went to bed, alone, and I woke up that way.”
She snorted, but he just slammed his hand down onto the wall behind her head.
“I’m fucking serious. I was an idiot. I wanted to hurt you after you’d hurt me with Bad Suit…with Asher,” he ground out the name. “You hurt me. I told you I wasn’t jealous, that I didn’t care, and it was a bold-faced lie. I was blind with jealousy that you’d gone home with someone else when you could have been with me. I wanted you to feel that. It was wrong. I get it now. All right? I get it.”
“That doesn’t change anything though,” she said, but the venom had left her voice. “So you were jealous? Mission accomplished. Didn’t change shit.”
“You haven’t been around. You don’t know whether or not I’ve changed.”
Andrea rolled her eyes. “Yeah. Okay.”
“So, you can change, but I can’t? You can want love, marriage, and kids after ten years, but I can’t? Somehow, I’m standing still, the same guy you went to Yale with, but you get to grow up?” he demanded.
“I didn’t say that…”
“You did. And I’m here to tell you, that’s bullshit. I’ve been standing in Brady’s shadow for a long fucking time. But, watching him with Liz, I feel more like I’m on the sidelines of something great. It never felt like a difference to me before now. But he’s happy. She’s happy. They’re so in love that it’s practically sickening,” he admitted. “Yeah, I’m happy for them. Not jealous or angry about Brady getting everything he’s ever wanted. All I know is that…what I’ve always wanted is standing right in front of me. And I’m not letting you walk away again.”
Then, before she could say another word to contradict him, he dropped his mouth down on hers, kissing her with every ounce of passion flooding between them from four months of missing her and fifteen years of being desperately in love.
Chapter 23
THEN TAKE ME
Andrea gasped against his lips.
She tasted like heaven and smelled even better. It was as if Clay had spent the last decade with her, yet she had just reawakened all of his senses. His hand ran down the side of her body. It ignited something between them, and soon, she was clinging to the front of his suit.
His tongue ravaged her mouth, taking everything she was giving back. It had been so damn long. The way he’d had her back in his townhouse just hadn’t been enough, and it had been interrupted way too soon. There was no way he was going to let that happen now.
“I need you,” he groaned deep in the back of his throat.
“Then, take me.”
That was all the confirmation he needed.
Clay grasped the backs of her thighs and hoisted her legs up and around his waist. She made the most amazing squeak he had ever heard. He could die a happy man with that noise.
“Fuck, that’s sexy.”
He started walking them farther away from the party, and Andrea’s head popped up. “Where are we going?”
“Who fucking cares? I need you. Right now.”
She had never cared about public fornication before…and, technically, it was a private event.
She ran her hand down his cheek, scraping her nails across the soft stubble that had come in along his jawline. “Dirty boy.”
He grinned and kicked open the door to the waiting area they had used earlier. The girls’ stuff was still scattered across the room, but his mind was set on the large black couch along the windowed wall. If it had been up to him, he would have fucked her right there against the wall of the Biltmore mansion. But he didn’t want to disrupt Brady’s wedding. He owed his brother that much.
But not enough to stop.
He needed to be in his woman. He needed her with a fiery passion that he
hadn’t even known existed. He just needed her.
All of her.
He didn’t want there to be anything left hanging between them by the end of this. She needed to know how he felt about her. No more games. No more miscommunication. No more fucking time apart. Just him and her in this moment.
Without preamble, they crashed back onto the couch. Andrea still had her legs wrapped around his waist, and he bucked against her as they fell. She moaned with her head back on the cushion. Then, she grasped his face and brought his lips back down on hers. He wasn’t complaining.
He couldn’t get enough of her. Four months had been an eternity. Not from the lack of sex. He’d had some of that, and it hadn’t mattered. It hadn’t quenched a damn thing inside him. It hadn’t released him from this thing eating away at his insides. For those months, all he had wanted was one thing. One thing to fix him.
Andrea.
And, now, she was here.
His hands ran down her dress. Fuck, he had missed her perfect body. All lithe and bendy. Gorgeous. Just for him.
He slipped a finger inside the top of her dress and flicked it across her nipple until she gasped again.
“Don’t you dare tease me,” she told him.
“I’d never dream of it.”
But he didn’t stop. She liked it. She was practically writhing beneath him. Without another thought, he yanked the material aside completely and brought the erect nipple into his mouth. Her legs tightened around his waist. A whimper escaped her lips but no words about stopping him.
He flicked his tongue across the sensitive skin while he worked on the other one, fiddling with the bud between his fingers. He gently drew it between his teeth while he pulled the other one, being less than gentle. And her entire body tightened around him.
“Clay,” she whispered, “I can’t…I can’t wait.”
He continued to hold one of her nipples between his fingers while his other hand trailed between them. He pushed up the skirt of her dress and found her without panties again.
Fuck.
He would never buy her panties again if this was going to keep happening. As much as he enjoyed ripping them off of her…the thought of her never wearing them was just as appealing.
“Is this what you want?” he asked, slipping a finger between the folds of her body.
“Oh God,” she murmured.
She clearly did want him very bad. She was soaked, and all he wanted to do was bury himself deep inside her and never leave.
But this wasn’t only about him. He wanted her to get off, too. More than once if he could help it.
He circled two fingers around in her wetness until her hips started bucking against his hand, demanding him to enter. He ran his thumb across her already sensitive clit, and she shivered all over. It was goddamn sexy as hell. Not that he had her in submission, but that she was allowing him to give her this pleasure. That he could bring this out of her. That they could bring this out of each other because, frankly, he was as hard as a rock beneath this goddamn suit.
When he felt her already on the verge of collapse, he thrust his fingers into her, drawing out the waves of pleasure he could feel rocketing through her body. He wanted nothing more than to get down on his knees and eat her pussy, but considering the time constraints, he just worked her into a frenzy.
“Fuck me,” she pleaded. “Get inside me.”
He kissed her lips once, softly, tenderly. Met her dazed blue gaze and smiled. She smiled back, slightly lopsided and sated. He loved it.
He swiftly released himself from his suit pants and let them fall into a heap at his feet. Then, he grabbed her legs and brought them back around his waist before driving into her.
“Oh, fuck,” he groaned when he bottomed out inside her. “Fucking hell.”
“God, I have missed you,” she said.
“You have no idea.”
“I think I do.”
He brushed her platinum hair out of her face, placed another tender kiss on her lips, and then moved. Not slowly. He could hardly contain himself. The way she was looking at him. The complete adoration on her face. The mask dropping and the desire evident. The way she breathed in short sputters. The way her eyes glazed over. The way her acrylic nails dug into his back.
It was like coming home.
This was where he was meant to be and whom he was meant to be with.
He’d been an idiot for thinking he could ever get it from anyone else. Sex. Fucking. None of it was the same compared to how it felt to be inside the woman he loved.
His thrusts picked up tempo until they were both panting with exertion. He slammed into her body. Owning it. Their bodies came together over and over again. They both knew exactly what made the other tick, and with so much practice over the years, it was like playing a well-tuned guitar. He could pluck just the right string. Strum just the right melody. Play the perfect song of her body.
Harmony.
Perfect fucking harmony.
Andrea fiercely kissed him once before he felt her walls contract all around him. He saw stars as his orgasm rocked through him with the same ferocity.
He collapsed forward onto his forearms and rested his forehead against hers. Their breaths came out in gasps in the mingled air. The space felt very small. Like it was just the two of them and the rest of the world didn’t exist. Nothing could come between them in that moment.
Not after sharing that.
“Clay…”
“Andrea…”
“I love you.”
He breathed out heavily and looked down at her to see she was smiling. “I love you, too.”
After a few minutes of being wrapped together, they both straightened out their clothes. Andrea located an adjacent restroom and came back looking only slightly flushed with her hair tamed and her smile beaming. He didn’t even care about what he looked like, but she insisted he take a look in the mirror.
It was for the better that he straightened up some since…he still had a speech to give.
He took Andrea’s hand when he came back out. “You said that I couldn’t change…that you didn’t expect me to. I’d love to imagine that this right here could put all the past behind us, but I know that sex doesn’t heal all the old wounds. As much as I want it to. I’m just asking for a chance…a second chance. I’ve changed.”
“That’s wonderful to hear.”
He smirked. “I mean, honestly, I’m still the same asshole that you fell for, but I want to be with you. If I have to grovel…I can work on my groveling skills.”
She laughed, and it was a beautiful sound. God, everything about her was beautiful.
“We’ll see about groveling. That would seriously be a sight. Clay Maxwell…groveling.” She looked away from him, as if she were imagining him on his hands and knees, pleading.
He sank to his knees then and there, still holding her hand, and kissed it. “We both made mistakes. We both hurt the other. The only way we’ll know if this is real is to give it a real shot. If it’s not enough for you after that…then you can walk. I won’t keep coming back for you. I’ll let you go.”
“Clay,” she whispered. She bent down and brushed a kiss on his forehead. “I do like you on your knees, but get up. You don’t have to grovel to me. I messed up, too. I’d like another chance. I don’t know if it will work,” she admitted. “But I’d like it to.”
The pair returned to the reception to find that dinner was over. Champagne was being passed around to all the attendees. Brady and Liz were standing at a side table, cutting into the cake, while everyone snapped shots of them.
Chris appeared in front of Clay, looking frantic. “Where the hell did you go? Toasts were supposed to happen at the end of dinner, but we couldn’t do that without you. They just moved on to the cake.”
“No one seems to mind,” Clay pointed out.
Chris shook his head. “Well, we’re about to do that, so I hope you’re ready.”
Cake was passed out to the attendees, and then
Chris and Victoria gave their speeches before the rapt crowd. Chris joked about Brady’s rise to fame at UNC and then into politics. He talked about the first time he had met Liz—when Brady had brought her over to his apartment—and how he had known that first day that she was the one for Brady. Victoria was a little more…colorful. She made several inside joke references that made Liz turn scarlet. But, by the end of it, Brady and Liz were laughing so hard that each had to clutch their sides.
Clay knew it was his turn then. He left Andrea with the cheesecake she had gotten from the dessert table and walked to the front of the room. He took the microphone from Victoria, who flashed him a grin.
“Beat that,” she said with a wink.
“Challenge accepted.”
He ran a hand back through his disheveled hair, not giving a single fuck about what he looked like after what had just happened with Andrea.
“Hey, everybody!” Clay said, straightening his tie as all eyes turned to him. He glanced over at Brady and Liz.
Brady looked a bit worried and Liz even more so. Did they think I’m going to throw them under the bus?
“Ever since I was told I was supposed to give a speech at Brady’s wedding, I’d been planning out something horribly embarrassing to say about Brady. I mean, really, it’s the first time where I’m behind the microphone and not him, so I should use this to my advantage right?”
The crowd laughed, and a few people in the back cheered, egging him on.
“I’m sure everyone would like to hear a few horror stories about my brother, the perfect Brady Maxwell,” Clay joked. He even managed a grin. “But, truth be told, I couldn’t find any of those stories to share with you. Because that man who married Liz Dougherty today—” He laughed softly. “Liz Maxwell, excuse me—is the luckiest son of a bitch alive.”
Everyone burst out laughing again. But he was damn serious.
“When I first found out that Brady and Liz were a couple, my first thought was, How the hell had he gotten that lucky? I mean, Liz is even more perfect than my perfect brother. Smarter, prettier, maybe even more ambitious than Brady, and I never in a million years thought that would be possible.”
