Bona Fide (Illusive Duet Book 2) Read online

“If I would’ve known how beautiful you looked under the moonlight, I would’ve brought you here sooner.”

  Twirling on my heels, a tall figure slowly strides toward me. My eyes etch his features—the broadness of his shoulders, the suit that looks navy blue, and the gold watch on his left hand.

  Then the tone of said voice sinks into memory, and I relax—a little.

  “What in the hell are you doing here?” I yell-whisper, clutching my water bottle.

  “Came to see you,” Wade replies nonchalantly, still making a path in my direction.

  “How did you know—” I stop myself because the answer is obvious—Emmy. “Are you trying to kill me? Geezus...”

  “Whose place do you think this is?”

  I shrug. “I don’t kno...oh shit…” My decompressed state ramps back up to tense as he stops two inches in front of me, emitting his own shadow on me.

  “It’s mine,” he alludes softly. “I let Emmy have it for her little party.”

  I straighten my shoulders, wishing I would’ve thrown a sweatshirt on because it’s cool in here, my nipples are hard because of it—not because of him.

  “Why would you do that?” I ask.

  “Because she’s been asking me for over two years, and I finally caved.”

  “Where were you then?”

  Motherfucker.

  The words slip from my mouth before I can even catch them and shove them back down my throat.

  I want to leave now. I can’t believe that I partied and slept in one of his beds. I’m mortified actually. This—this space is HIS.

  He probably wanders around here half-naked all the time or maybe in cashmere robes or a silk pajama set. I have no clue, he was always—always—naked when we were together. Like he has a thing about clothing in the bedroom or something.

  Oh my God, am I staying in his bedroom? Am I in his WIFE’S bedroom?

  Wade steps closer, the lapels of his suit brushing against my chest, making me peer up at him. I can feel the tremor of a panic attack trickle up my spine.

  I. Need. To. Get. Out. Of. Here.

  Now.

  “I need to go,” I quip, rounding his body to go grab my purse and small overnight bag from the room I was just in.

  I honestly don’t want to know if it’s his.

  I just want to forget I ever eye-fucked this place so hard and fell in love with it. Attention to detail, probably one of my worst traits when it comes to my actual life.

  Didn’t bother to dig deeper into Wade—didn’t think it was appropriate or professional nor do I look up anyone that I work for. Should’ve though after the first time we fucked. When my feelings started to tweak a little bit, I should have been all up in his damn business like a normal chick would do.

  Except, I’m not any chick.

  Second, I wish I could forget the oven that was conveniently in the wall of this kitchen. The recessed lighting throughout the whole space, the stovetop on the kitchen island to make omelets in the morning for people.

  I’ve imagined about twenty scenarios of me in this penthouse but never with Wade showing up in the middle of the night conveying that I’m all up in his personal space right now.

  A large hand wraps around my waist as I walk down the hall, yanking me into a darkened room. Wade readily knows the space, clicking on a small lamp next to a large swivel barrel chair. The thing can seat at least three of me comfortably.

  I’m spun around with a little shove as my ass gets to know the comfort of said chair as Wade ascends over me.

  “I stayed with a friend,” he tells me, answering my previous question.

  “And you came back here in the middle of the night to freak everyone out?” I chide, slowly moving away from him.

  “Had something to do.”

  “I really have to go.” I’m halfway up off the chair when one of his hands falls to my shoulder, barricading my escape.

  Lowering himself down to me on his haunches, Wade becomes eye level with me. “Are you trying to leave me again because I don’t know how much more I can take of seeing your back unless…”

  “This is really inappropriate for me to be here and—” His hands crawl up my upper, naked thighs.

  “I think we’re way past that now, Miss Shelton. I came here tonight for my New Year’s kiss.”

  My brows snap together. “Your what now?”

  “There’s more,” he continues. Opening my mouth to speak, he beats me to it. “I need a kiss for the anniversary of the first time I saw you.”

  He kisses my forehead that leads to a staggered breath leaving my lips.

  “I need one every year on the first day we officially met.”

  His lips brush my right temple, which sends heat coursing through my body.

  “On the day you kissed me for the first time.”

  He places a small peck to the tip of my nose, his hot breath so close to my mouth.

  “On the night you let me fuck you.”

  His lips caress the corner of my mouth, composing a needy pulse from between my legs.

  “And tonight, Reagan, New Year’s. Where you can make anything happen, forget the past and start over.” His forehead presses into mine, and he whispers, “I want to start over.”

  “I...we can’t.”

  “Baby, I already told you that she is not my—”

  “I don’t want to deal with that kind of bullshit,” I rebuke, removing my skin from his. “Regardless of your political status and how you have to watch your ass, I’m not that kind of person. I don’t go for second best.”

  His hand wraps around my neck, but he doesn’t squeeze, just keeps me firmly planted where I am. “You’re not second best. You’ll never be anything but the only option for me.”

  “Wade, I just want this to—”

  “You don’t understand me,” he reproaches softly. “I’m not overexaggerating when I tell you that I can’t stop thinking about you. I can’t stop beating myself up over what I didn’t tell you. I never thought we’d—you were a surprise to me.”

  A soft pressure digs into my inner thigh from his thumb, and I know he’s trying to be open with me, but it still changes nothing about where we stand, who we are and the baggage that he comes with.

  “If you want me out of your life, I’m just asking you...for one goodbye kiss. And you’ll never hear from me again.”

  “I work for you,” I counter.

  “Less than three months to go, right?”

  Right.

  This was only supposed to be a job—nothing more or less. It was an enormous paycheck for my family, potentially solving a lot of my problems.

  I just never expected for me to sink into Wade Lockwood and let him get underneath my skin. It was never like that with Grant, I just tolerated him, ignored the shit out of him mostly.

  However, the moment Wade strode through a room, he captured all of my attention.

  “I know this isn’t just hard for me,” he whispers. “You feel it too. The force that pulls us together, and it’s detonating. Everything takes off, and I never want to come down from it.”

  “You’re just making this harder than it needs to be,” I mutter, my body buzzing to the proximity of his body. The way he’s a barrier between my legs that are spread open for him. How I want him to make a move.

  Any fucking move against my better judgment.

  “Then make it easy,” he challenges, leaning in closer to me again. “Send me on my way.”

  I can’t tell him anything because my body isn’t listening to a thing my rationality is telling me to do.

  He needs to go.

  You need to go.

  Everything needs to fucking go.

  The faint brush of his lower lip grazes my upper, coaxing me to just take his mouth and have one chaste kiss.

  I don’t even know what the fuck a chaste kiss is.

  Easy isn’t something I tend to stray towards, hence the man in front of me on his knees in his expensive-as-fuck suit.

  H
is fingers trail higher up my legs, the pad of his finger right at the seam of my panty line.

  “I’m ready,” he utters. “To let you go.”

  My chest feels like it’s being weighed down by a thousand pounds. Choked inhales and exhales won’t properly fill my lungs, and my body temperature just jumped to boiling.

  If he was any other man, this wouldn’t be shit to me.

  If he hadn’t been an asshole yet sweet to me in some moments, I would’ve already kneed him in the balls and been on my way.

  And that’s not helping me right now.

  Reducing the centimeter of space that’s between our lips, my heart wins over as I crush mine to his. His exhale that leaves his nose is heavy and loud, almost as if he is relieved.

  Our mouths open at the same time, tongues immediately tangling together, and my arms wrap around his neck.

  It feels like home—comfortable and placid.

  A soft groan comes from Wade, and I swallow it, intertwining my fingers through his hair as one of his fingers skim the lace above my clit. His large hand is underneath my cotton shorts, tempting me to take this one step further. Reminding me that it’s him that I want at night and how I reminisce on the times we had when he owned me.

  “Can I make you come?” he murmurs through one of our kisses.

  Fuck.

  I can feel my eyes practically fall to the back of my head.

  Each soft brush of his skin against mine sledgehammering away my defenses. He’s taunting, challenging, wanting to break into my stubbornness of keeping him away from me—he’s winning.

  When I feel the hem of the material that bars him off from touching me completely pull up from my skin, my heart kicks up a gear.

  “Tell me ‘no’,” he presses. “And I won’t.”

  “Wade,” I plead and half-ass warn—more to myself.

  I won’t survive another uppercut from you and your life.

  “Tell me,” he repeats. “Tell me you don’t want me anymore.”

  Fucker, I can’t.

  I do want him, I want us. I want him at my house with carryout and finger-fucking sessions in his office. I love getting lost in his blue eyes and how he makes me feel like I’m the only thing he can see.

  I hate knowing that I crave that.

  It’s obvious, however, it still changes nothing. It doesn’t mutate our lives into something different.

  I’m still me.

  He’s still the governor.

  “I’m in love with you,” he whispers. “I’m so sorry, Reagan, but I am.”

  My heart swells at his words while tears burn the back of my eyes. My response chokes me, it won’t release from the hold my brain is putting on it.

  This changes nothing.

  My pride locks up, refusing the words I’m sure he wants to know the most.

  His thumb abrades my wet clit, provoking my head to fall back on its own. He takes advantage of my vulnerability, lapping his tongue up my throat, and nudges over to the column of my neck.

  I tilt my head to the side to give him easy access as his soft lips mold and press into the sensitive part of my body.

  Well, one of them.

  The other he’s working me into a damn frenzy.

  “What does this tell me?” he asks, giving a quick suck to my flesh. “Your body alludes more than your mind ever will to me. I think it loves me too.”

  His slow, lucid movements are killing me, but I need more. I require a greater extent of him to satisfy me.

  “Thinking and knowing are two different things, Governor.”

  “I’m just waiting for you to say the words,” he challenges my rationality. “Tell me you don’t love me. That you don’t want me anymore.” His massaging of my clit halts, sending my body screaming for him to continue.

  “I didn’t say that,” I practically growl, lowering my chin to look at him.

  “Then which of you is speaking to me? Your head or your heart?”

  My nostrils flare at his pressing me because he’s somewhat forcing me to admit it to the both of us.

  I’ll never be ready for that. Especially now.

  “What do you want from me?” I chide. “Nothing has changed.”

  “Everything changed. For me, for you, I may have not been with someone in years, Shelton, but you’re not that good of a faker.”

  “How much of a goodbye did you want?” I blurt. “What will it take for you to leave me alone?”

  His eyes drop to my lips. “Whatever you’re willing to give. Anything.”

  I don’t think, I just do.

  Letting myself get lost in what we can have right now because I’m going to watch myself closer. I’m going to start building my defenses up stronger than before.

  I’m going to break this off.

  But here we are, in a room together, in his place, and we may never get the opportunity again.

  Actually, I won’t let us have this chance again.

  Facts, facts, facts.

  I’ll remember those later because the painstaking reality that is now is my pulling him by his silk shirt to join me on this massive couch thing.

  Wade begins loosening his tie, unraveling it from around his collar. Leaning over to hover above me, his legs on either side of my body as he presses a soft kiss to my mouth. His fingertips slide down the inside of one of my arms to my wrist.

  Rearranging my arm to extend over my head, he does the same to the other one, using his tie to bind them together.

  “What are you doing?” I half-ask, the other half not giving a shit as he finishes off his job.

  “Keeping you hostage.” He says it so seriously that I snort with a chuckle as he begins at his belt.

  I nod, keeping my arms above my head like a good little girl—for now—as he loses his suit jacket.

  Sliding off the cushy furniture, he removes his pants, keeping his boxers on as he repositions himself back to his previous spot.

  “You’re still dressed,” I chide.

  “If you want it—” His blue eyes gloss in challenge. “—you have to take it out.”

  I bite the inside of my lip, my civil war back in full action again. Movement from his hand seizes my attention as he readjusts his hard cock, predominantly outlined by his gray boxer briefs.

  My mouth practically waters at the sketch of his length, and my bound hands immediately go to it.

  I’m a damn human, after all.

  Rubbing up and down the extent of his cock, Wade kneels over me, watching me intently as I work and explore him.

  He’s not going to last long if I know anything about the man.

  And from past experience, I know a lot.

  Faint grazes with my fingertips get his dick to twitch in my direction as I peer up at him—innocent as an angel, of course.

  “Are you just going to play with it, Reagan?” He keeps his arms and hands at his sides but I know he’s about to bust at the seams any minute now.

  Serves him right. The dickhead.

  “I think so.” I bite down on my lower lip as his gaze follows. “You said you’d take as much as I give you.”

  His eyes narrow than soften, catching on that I’m going to be an asshole and provoke him for as long as he’s going to hold out.

  Let the countdown begin.

  “Alright—” His fingers tuck underneath the hem of my shorts and panties, feeling cooler than my already heated skin. “—my cock is yours to do whatever you want with it, baby.”

  Son of a fucking bitch.

  ♫ I’d Rather See Your Stars Explode — Slaves ♫

  This fucking woman is going to kill me.

  Fuck what I said before about being the life of me, making me feel happier and a tad more excited for the future—I’ll be dead before then.

  I knew she would be here, didn’t think I’d find her up though. It’s gotten so bad that I snuck into my own penthouse to see if I could wake her up just to talk. The New Year’s kiss thing didn’t enter my brain until I saw her sta
nding barefoot in my place. How beautiful she looked against the skyline of the city.

  That, and I can’t get my head to stop spiraling out of control.

  I have Phoebe downstairs in her own suite so that I can keep an eye on her and out of the clutches of my wife. She has day and night security and, under my orders, she goes nowhere without them.

  But she’s having a hard time, relapsing from the pills. So I’ve hired a doctor to help her.

  However, I needed an outlet tonight, something to look forward to for the new year. And this shit is literally the dumbest and most reckless thing I’ve done yet.

  I knew Em was going to have a bunch of females here, was fully aware I could’ve picked the wrong room, the wrong woman, several things could have gone wrong here, and I still did it.

  I’m still doing it.

  I can’t let shit go, and it’s eating at me. That I’m so weak for this woman, how in the hell am I supposed to run a country if one human being weakens me down to the point of consumed thoughts, fears, and the unknown?

  That’s what life is, isn’t it? The normal day-to-day.

  But when life without Reagan and her being with some other man in the future seeps into my brain cells, it devours me.

  Like what she’s doing to me right now, stroking my cock with nimble fingers, making the inner animal in me come out to play.

  The dark piece of me that was formed during Demi’s disintegration of my life. I fucked everything with a pussy and a pulse to rid my wife from my mind. To hurt her in some way but knew I’d never touch a feeling within her in the long run.

  Demi was too busy fucking my father and half of the models that flew in from New York just to get their hands on the cheaper drugs and pills. I was busy drinking myself into a hole that I never wanted to come out of.

  She didn’t care, so why the fuck should I?

  She aborted our baby, told me she was fucking my dad, I caught her in our bed with two dudes taking turns on her. She got both of my sisters addicted to pills and drugs and was the cause of killing my younger sister.

  At that point in my life, I was past the definition of done—with my career, my life, my dreams, and especially with her.

  But Reagan was the light that flickers in my chest, challenging me to rise up from the bullshit and stand up for my life. Though, I can’t say that I blame her for wanting nothing to do with me.