Chapter 19

YES! Her body cheered. We can do that! Kisses for everyone.

“Harrison.” There was a world of doubt in her breath that she couldn’t hide. Confusion. Worry. A finely tuned sense of danger.

It wasn’t just the contract they signed that made her worry. What would they do tomorrow? How would sleeping together change the very delicate balance they’d managed to create? How would she pay in days to come for taking what she wanted right now?

They both leaned back but didn’t let go. She fisted her hands in his shirt, her nails biting into the skin of his shoulders. His heart was pounding so hard she felt it under her hands, could see it in his throat. She stared at that throbbing skin, wondering when the world was going to burst into flames.

And then he kissed her.

And the world wasn’t engulfed in flame. It was she that was consumed.

She clutched at his shoulders and his hands swept around her hips to pull her into his lap, but they were stopped by the stupid soon-to-be-ash blanket, which she pulled and yanked out of the way until it was gone and she could find his body with hers.

There, she found his chest with her breasts. His arms with her hands. The hard erection in his pants with her belly.

Yes. Oh, God. Yes, finally, she thought, pushing herself against him because she’d been waiting for this. Even while pretending she didn’t want it. Didn’t need it.

She’d been wanting this.

Wanting him.

He ate at her mouth, using his thumbs against the hollows of her cheeks to open it wider so he could devour her. And that’s what she craved; not just sex. Not just contact. She wanted to devour and be devoured.

“Ryan,” he breathed, pulling the sweater up and over her head and then yanking down the thin straps of her camisole until her breasts were revealed. He bent her back over his arms and licked at her breasts, pulling her nipples into his mouth, sucking until she cried out. Until everything began to coil inside of her, burning hotter and tighter.

Fuck. She was going to come. She was going to come like this.

The pain of this pleasure was nearly too much and she had to share it, enlist his help in carrying this load, and so she sucked at his throat, so hard he lifted his hips, high and hard against her, his cock nudging into her.

She ran her fingers through his hair, using her nails against his scalp, and he hissed, his skin twitching. He reached both his hands around her hips, grabbing rough palmfuls of her ass, and she cried out, smacking her hands down on the back of the couch to hold herself up, to keep herself from slipping into a pile of messy woman on a man’s lap.

He pulled her and pushed her against him. Rough and hard and fast and urgent. Like he couldn’t get close enough.

“Are you …?” he panted, licking her throat, sucking her earlobe into his mouth, all while his wicked hands held her against him. The perfect grip. A dreamy jail. “Is this hurting—” His voice cut off on a loud groan.

“Good. So good. Keep—” No. She didn’t want to keep going like this. She needed more. She needed him inside of her.

Just the thought of it—that slow penetration, the way her body would yield, but it would still sting a little, how heavy and thick he would feel, how right and foreign at the same time—brought her panting toward orgasm. Quickly she reached between them and unbuckled his belt. He caught on and reached under her skirt for the edge of her panties. She shifted to help him pull them off, but he grabbed the thin silk at her hip and twisted it around his hand, the elastic and silk burning into her skin until the fabric ripped and fell away.

He tossed her torn underwear on the floor and she pulled down the zipper of his pants and pushed aside the cotton of his boxers until he was a reality in her hand, hot and damp just there at the tip. Her mind was blown blank by lust, her body pained by want. By need. By a desire so sudden and so hungry she was almost scared the feeling wouldn’t go away. They could fuck each other until they couldn’t move, but this fire in her blood would not be extinguished.

On her knees over him, holding him still, she slowly lowered herself down, felt the push of the broad head, right there, right where her body wept for him.

She hung her head, shaking.

Oh. God.

“Ryan,” he panted, as if he were running right alongside her in a marathon. His hands slid over her ass, up her back and back down, unable to make up their mind where to stay. “Condom.”

“I’m already pregnant,” she breathed, her forehead against his collarbone, his cock easing slowly, slowly inside of her. “And there hasn’t been anyone but you for four years.”

“What?”

“Four years. I’m clean. You?”

“Ryan?” She felt him jerk as if to see her better, but they could save all their confessions and secrets for later. Now. Now they were busy with this.

“Tell me,” she demanded.

“I’m … I’m clean.” Of course he was; he was Harrison Montgomery.

She took him all the way. Her body split, her legs shaking.

His skin twitched under her hands. Against her. Inside of her.

She felt the breathless want turn into something real; it grew weight and heft and she lifted her hips, circled them, fell back against him, again and again, lifting the cumbersome weight of her desire up and off the ground until it had a life of its own and she could not move fast enough, hard enough. His hands on her hips did not hold her close enough and she closed her eyes and bit her lip and reached and reached and reached.

Harrison groaned and swore, sweat running down his neck, the hair at her temple, wet from his sweat or hers she didn’t know or care. All she cared about was the orgasm, just out of reach. Suddenly he lifted her and turned, laying her down on the coach, and he followed, covering her head to foot. His pants falling down to his knees. He gripped the armrest of his couch, spread her legs with his, braced himself against the floor, and pounded into her. Loud and sweaty and raw and real.

So real. So authentic.

It was them. Just them. No act. No charade. No pretense.

Finally, she thought, here we are.

She reached between them, placed her finger against the hard, buzzing edge of her clit, and in one wild and ecstatic burst of light and sound and pleasure she screamed, her body blown to bits.

As if from a long ways away she heard his answering shout, felt him shaking against her, and she stroked his back, hugged him hard to her.

And waited for the regrets to show up, one by one, like moths finding the only porch light for miles.

What have we done? she wondered, combing her hands through his hair.

She didn’t know what the next moment looked like, much less tomorrow. Or the next week.

How did this change everything?

The aftermath of all that lust was fear. Fear that she’d messed it all up again. She’d gotten to someplace good. Really good. She had friends. Work she was proud of. A team that counted on her.

A baby for whom she had to build a future. A safe, loving, caring future.

And this sex could really mess it up.

“Are you okay?” he asked, bracing his hands against the cushions by her rib cage.

She nodded, attempting a smile, though her body wasn’t totally back online. There were still parts of her she couldn’t feel. Her legs, for one. Her left arm.

When she shifted away from him he slipped out, and she felt the messy wetness of them between her legs.

“I’m … uh …” he said, sitting down hard on the other side of the couch, his damp pink penis slouched resting against his leg. “Wow.”

She forced herself to move, to sit up, and then stand on wobbly legs.

He lifted a hand to catch her if she fell.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” she said, and then walked across the room to the hallway toward her room. In the hall, out of his sight, she put one hand on the wall to prevent collapse. With every step, instead of stronger, she felt weaker.

Mistake. Mistake. Mistake.

In the dark bathroom she closed the door and crumpled down on the toilet.

She had half a mind to hide here until he got tired of waiting and she heard the creak of the stairs as he went to his room.

A minute passed. Another.

And there was only silence from the other room. He was more stubborn than she was.

She considered just slipping into her bedroom from here. They could simply not address that desperate, hungry sex at all and then tomorrow, they could just pretend nothing had happened and keep plugging away in this strange, estranged pretend relationship they were in.

But when she stood and caught sight of herself in the mirror over the sink, she knew she couldn’t hide.

You are a grown-ass woman. And grown-ass women don’t act like teenagers terrified of how a man makes them feel.

She cleaned herself up, brushed her hair. Her teeth. She felt, more than that first night or even that awful ceremony at the Governor’s Mansion, like something had changed. That sex, hell, that hug, had shoved things aside, revealing what she’d rather keep hidden.

She wanted Harrison.

She liked him.

Staring at her reflection in the mirror, the lips swollen from kisses, the beard burn on her cheeks, the wild hair and wilder eyes, there was no pretending.

I had sex with my husband.

She put her hair back in a ponytail, went into her bedroom for clean underwear and a new tank top, and then headed back out to the kitchen to face the music.

The music, in this case, being a devastatingly handsome man, standing at the kitchen island, his arms braced wide against the counter. His head bowed.

My husband.

And his own regrets were so obvious they were written on his body, in the way he stood. The lines around his mouth and between his eyes when he looked up at her. He didn’t know what to do any better than she did.

And she was wholly comforted by that.

“I think we’re in breach of contract,” she said, attempting a joke.

He smiled, a brief flash, gone before it really had a chance to settle in. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”

“Then we’re in the clear.”

“Ryan,” he sighed.

She lifted her hand, her stomach, her heart, her lungs shrinking. “Please don’t say you’re sorry,” she whispered.

“I’m not sorry. I’m not. But …” He blew out a long breath and ran his hands through his hair. “I feel like I’ve taken advantage of you.”

Something inside of her cringed. Her pride? “Taken advantage of her” alluded that their power dynamic was so skewed in his favor that she didn’t have a choice. Or that he didn’t think she was capable of choice.

“No. That was me taking advantage of you.” That hunger she’d had for him was embarrassing now. Hormones—she’d blame the hormones.

He watched her for a long while and she crossed her arms over her chest, feeling slightly too naked in her shirt. Too naked under his gaze.

“Nothing has to be different,” she said.

“It feels like everything is,” he said. “We had … Christ, Ryan, that sex … are we supposed to pretend like that didn’t happen? Because I don’t know if I can do that!” He walked around the island toward her and she took a quick step back. Which of course stopped him in his tracks.

What would happen, she wondered if she said, I kind of fell in love with you that night in the hotel. I know that sounds ridiculous, but I’m kind of wired like that. And now … now it’s that night in the hotel and this night on your couch and I can see love again on the horizon and that’s not what I need right now. You look at me like something you’ve taken advantage of, and I’m trying to build a new life for this child. A life with love and acceptance. Full-throttle warmth.

And I don’t think that’s anything you know how to give.

“It was an emotional night,” she said. “And I think maybe … we both just needed some comfort.”

“Are you honestly telling me that’s all that was?”

Part of her wanted to ask him what he thought it was, demand answers from him, but those answers might be worse than not knowing.

She had a path; for the first time in her life, she was working toward something, and she couldn’t let that be derailed. Not for sex. Not for more of this man’s honest smiles. Not for the scraps of attention and affection he offered when he was circling his own personal rock bottom.

He’d offered her a way into a better life and she, while he’d been gone, had created her own exit strategy. She couldn’t sacrifice that now. She was going to be a mother. Her baby didn’t deserve a compromise.

“Comfort and hormones,” she said with a shaky laugh, as if inside she weren’t in shambles.

He looked like he was trying to figure out if he was offended.

“I’m glad it happened,” she said in a rush, throwing the words into his increasingly cold silence. “I’m glad I was here. Tonight. You needed a friend.”

“Right.” He did nothing to hide his bitterness. His recriminations were not pointed at her, but rather himself. The weakness he’d shown her, the vulnerability, it didn’t sit easily with him.

Her favorite thing about him, and he would eradicate it if he could.

“Don’t. Don’t do that.”

“I don’t have friends, Ryan.”

I know. I know you don’t and that’s why I have to be careful.

“You do now.” She took a stab at bright and cheerful, but it fell closer to solemn vow.

His laughter was dark, tinged with disbelief, but his manners, his well-established sense of self-preservation, that shield he’d created between who he was and what he was, kicked in and he graciously ducked his head. A strange bow that broke her heart. “Thank you, then. For being here. I’m … I’m glad you were too.”

Dad used to love nature shows and she remembered being sick once, a real bad stomach flu that required the couch so she wouldn’t wake up her sister and the big yellow Tupperware bowl by her side, endless glass bottles of 7UP and Dad keeping watch in his easy chair.

In the middle of the night the fever broke and she woke up to a dark room with the television muted.

On the screen were mountains rising up out of the sea. Green, forested cliffs and endless blue water dotted with ice.

“They’re called fjords,” Dad whispered from his spot in the easy chair. “Glaciers made them.”

Glaciers made her and Harrison. They were gone now, but the deep and far and wide distances had been scraped away and sex wasn’t going to bring them any closer.

It is better this way, she thought, stepping backward into the shadows of the hallway.

Tuesday, September 10

Harrison heard what she said. He did. They were supposed to pretend that nothing had changed. That the sex, and the comfort and care she’d shown him, had not happened. He understood that was what she wanted.

And he even understood why she would think that was for the best. She had a future she needed to protect, a home with warmth and love, and he was the guy who’d destroyed his sister’s chance at happiness.

So he got her reluctance.

But he could not seem to get on board with it.

The morning of the fundraiser he set a plate with a scrambled egg on it next to her teacup and the prescription bottle. It was a peace offering, kind of.

And a statement that he could not totally pretend everything was the same as it had been yesterday.

He didn’t know what he wanted from her, but he did know that this weird half-in/half-out relationship was not it.

But she came out of her room, grabbed the teacup and the bottle, shot him a wan, close-mouthed smile, and then disappeared back into her room, ignoring all of his symbolic scrambled-egg messages.

Right, he thought. That was lame. He got that. If he was going to entice her friendship and trust out of hiding, he needed better bait.

She avoided him the rest of the day, coming out in time to leave for the fundraiser in a strapless black dress that ran over her body like ink.

“You look beautiful,” he said, wishing he had more words to tell her how he felt. How she moved him.

She smiled, but didn’t look him in the eye.

“You clean up nice yourself.” She reached over and adjusted his tie. It was one of those sweet moments between wives and husbands, even fake ones, that he’d somehow gotten used to. That he found himself longing for.

He reached for her hand but she was moving out of reach. Looking more nervous than usual.

At the hotel, Wallace called him aside.

“We’ve got a problem,” he said.

“What kind?”

“Brody is here. He’d like to see your sister.”

“Have you told her?”

Wallace laughed and held up his hands. “That’s your job, man.”

In a moment of clarity, he realized he couldn’t let his mother’s behavior be his default position anymore. Protecting the family name at the cost of the family was ridiculous. And if Brody was back here for a second chance, could it be a second chance for him, too.

Harrison walked down to the loading docks near the kitchen. He pushed open the door, letting in an eddy of hot air and stink from the dumpsters. At the sound of the door opening Brody spun to face him, his face alight with hope that crashed and burned at the sight of him.

“Not who you were expecting?” Harrison asked.

“I’m here to see Ashley.” His words were like a planted flag. And the way he stood, arms over his wide chest, legs braced for whatever might come his way, it was obvious he wasn’t going anywhere until he saw her.

“I gathered.” Brody looked like he hadn’t slept in days. Or perhaps been near a mirror.

“Look, man,” Brody said. “Nothing is different. I could still get pulled in on this weapons thing. I’m still me, and she’s still her, but … I love her.”

Harrison nodded, leaning against the cement door frame.

The truth was he wasn’t so far ahead in the polls that this wouldn’t matter. It would. Glendale would use this and there would be another series of smear ads on television, with plenty of attention paid to the fact that Brody had dark skin, something that still mattered in some parts of the country.

But his sister’s happiness felt bigger than his election. Than appeasing people he didn’t know.

“What makes you think she feels the same?” he asked. “She waited for you, Brody. Showed up here wrecked because she didn’t seem to mean much to you.”

He’d used Ashley to protect himself before and that mistake was hard to live with. He wouldn’t make it twice. He was here to serve Ashley. To see her happy, and if that meant Brody, then he’d deliver Brody.

“She means everything to me,” Brody said, his voice low and rough, conveying enough emotion that it made Harrison uncomfortable. Brody wasn’t a man who lied. Or exaggerated his feelings. The ache rolling off of him was real.

“And I’d like to prove that to her if I could just …” He pointed at the kitchen over Harrison’s shoulder. “Get inside.”

“I can’t guarantee she’ll agree,” he said. “But I’ll see what I can do. Wait here. I’ll send someone with her answer.”

So after he made sure his sister wanted Brody there, he surprised everyone at the fundraising dinner and let him back in. Like a Trojan horse of potentially bad press, he let Brody in to the event to see Ashley. To give Brody a shot to make it right.

A shot for both of them to make something right.

“You sure that’s a good idea?” Ryan asked him when they were backstage watching Ashley, his bright, wide-eyed, optimistic sister, make her way through the crowd with Brody, her dark and dangerous foil, at her elbow.

“Does it matter?” he asked. “Look at her—she’s happier than I’ve ever seen her.”

He turned to find Ryan watching him. There were times when she dropped that wall she had erected, when she was so utterly and totally revealed to him that he couldn’t believe there was any point to pretending they didn’t want each other. Didn’t like each other.

“I’m really proud of you,” she said. Previous to this moment he’d never thought that was something he needed—to make her proud. He’d never really thought of making anyone proud, and the second she said those words, he realized he never thought of it because he’d never had it in his life.

It was like a unicorn.

And God … he’d had no idea what he was missing.

“Ryan,” he breathed, curling his fingers through hers until their palms touched.

At his touch, while he was feeling so exposed, she just locked herself down. Closed up. Vanished behind a fake smile, taking with her the pride and all that connection, leaving him on the outside.

They both waved and smiled under hot lights that suddenly felt ice cold.