Year 28 - J.L. Mac Page 0,2

I’ll embrace it all. I have to because if I am going to have to face her again, I must have my game face on and be fully acclimated to the feelings she stirs in me. Better to do this in private, in one of my favorite places, on my boat, and on my terms. Facing her again for the first time in years unprepared would be a mistake, and it would only screw up my plans. She made one big promise that I fully intend on making sure she follows through on. At the very least I will confront Miss High And Mighty given the opportunity. I’m not delusional enough to think she’d even consider honoring her promise to me, but she can at least explain herself. She owes me and I’m in the collecting mood. I’ve waited years, and now my waiting is over.

Chapter 2

Raegan

“So is this considered fraternizing with the enemy?” Preston’s lips move against my skin as he murmurs, his mouth coaxing against my bare shoulder blade. “Because if it is then consider me a bona fide traitor. Heavens, you’re amazin’,” he praises. I’m lying beside him, wrapped only in luxuriously soft sheets and the afterglow of mutually fulfilling sex. His fingertips run feather soft up and down my spine, winning a sigh of satiation. Apparently it sounds all too sexual because Preston growls playfully and nips at my earlobe, making me instinctively jerk away. It disrupts my reprieve. With my head turned away from him, fine sheets cocooning my body, the effect of endorphins coursing through me, I was peaceful enough to not worry or think about… anything.

Not work. Not the Senator’s campaign. Not the travel schedule. Not the wedding I’m expected to attend. Not my hometown. Not the deal I had made. Not him.

“I need to get going,” I say, feeling suddenly suffocated. I take a deep breath and begin peeling myself out of Preston’s bed when his hands reach for me, tugging me back down. He rolls on top of me, his chest presses heavily against mine. I clench my jaw and stare unflinching into his dark blue eyes. “Off.” My demand is damn concise, but my knee to his ball will be more so if he doesn’t get his ass off me. He hesitates with a pouty look that only further extinguishes the afterglow I had been enjoying. He releases me and I stand, taking his sheet with me as I zigzag through his space, collecting my discarded clothing like little prizes.

“Why don’t you just stay the night, darlin?” His eyes hold a glimmer of playfulness that radiates the implied promise of multiple romps through the night. For a moment I am tempted, because Preston is a good lay, and given that he’s twelve years older than me, not entirely surprising. Most men in their twenties are still discovering how to pick a woman’s lock, so to speak, and I have zero interest in being their practice dummy and even less time. But his grabby hands coupled with the use of the word darlin’ is ice water on my desire to dwell here a moment longer than it will take to slip back into my designer pencil skirt, silk blouse, and Louboutin heels.

“Another time,” I say coyly, allowing my façade to take over.

Never again.

“All right then, but I am going to hold you to it, darlin’,” he drawls.

Yuck.

His Tennessee accent drips heavily from every syllable when he’s attempting to flirt, which I suppose is a tact meant to make women swoon and throb for the next orgasm. Me? Not so much. His sugary, drawled words make my anxiety ratchet up and my walls draw closer, tighter. I can’t handle this. “Oh, and—uh—this,” he says motioning one pointed finger between us, “… is between us, right darlin’?”

That’s not insulting at all, is it?

I cock my head at him with a genuine smile, drawing my lips back to reveal my straight, TV-ready, white teeth. “Preston, if I wanted your dirty little secrets or even Senator Holiday’s, I would already have them. Perhaps I already do,” I purr with a wink as I slip my foot down into one heel, then the other with a muted foomp! “And this,” I mimic his motion, waving my pointed finger between the two of us, “… is just sex. Simple as that. Not all women in this town fuck men to gain a thing beyond an orgasm, and even that’s iffy.” I faux-grimace and wiggle my flattened hand