The Kingmaker (All the King's Men, #1)(100)

I toss my head back and laugh, and can’t remember the last time I enjoyed anyone’s company this much. Once we finish our meal, he pulls my hand to his lips and kisses my knuckles. “I hope there won’t be ten years between this date and our next one.”

“Well at the rate we’re going, with me being on the campaign trail and you being all over the world,” I say ruefully, “it may be.”

“Nah. I won’t let that happen again.”

There’s a serious note in his voice that makes me look up. His expression is completely void of humor.

“I deserved your distrust, Nix,” he says softly. “I know how I handled things hit a particular nerve for you, and I’m sorry about that.”

“It’s okay. And I told you, thanks to my therapist, I now recognize there was more to it than what was on the surface.”

“I understand your fear about me . . .” He shakes his head. “Over the years, I always needed to make sure you were okay, so I get you being concerned about my . . . how did you put it? Love for danger?”

I manage a smile because it still scares me on some level that his pursuit of the next thing, the thing that doesn’t even exist yet, might one day put him in danger he can’t get out of. I’ve picked up those pieces before, and I’m not sure I can do it again.

“I wanted to give you something.” He lifts the lid from a small dome by his plate to reveal a small flat box.

“What is it?” It doesn’t even matter. It’s for me from him. It’s him thinking about me when we were apart.

“Open it.”

He offers me the jewelry box and my hands tremble the slightest bit when I take it from him. Our fingers brush, and that same charge zips over my nerve endings in a way I’ve never experienced with anyone else. My body finds a thousand ways to tell me Maxim is distinct. It has refused to offer this response to any other man, and I’m finally accepting his place in my life. It’s hard to imagine where I fit in his if I think about it too hard, so I’ve determined to just feel how good it is to be with him again.

“Doc, it’s absolutely beautiful.” Tears prick my eyes and I touch the compass charm dangling from a platinum bracelet. “You didn’t . . . you don’t have to do this.”

“I wanted to.”

He takes it from me, wraps the delicate rope around my wrist and does the clasp. I trace the points—north, south, east and west—and remember running in the four directions during my Sunrise Dance, gathering the elements to myself. This gift feels perfect and meaningful.

“It’s because we found our way back to each other,” he says, a self-deprecating twist to his mouth. “Or rather I got tired of waiting and demanded you back in my life. Maybe I’m more like my father than I want to admit.”

He says it lightly, but I know he means it and on some level, questions it, maybe even worries about it.

I stand and walk around the table. For once I’m taller, his face level with my chest.

“You and your father are a lot alike, but you’re different in all the right ways. I sometimes wonder how did Warren Cade make a man like you?”

He nods and lets out a harsh laugh. “I wonder that, too.”

“But he didn’t make you. The ruthlessness, the ambition, the determination and sense of adventure—all those things come from your father, but you studied beyond what he taught you. You went out into the world to see what else there was to it. You chose those experiences, and they shaped you into the man you are. Into the man I . . .”

I can’t say that word yet. Our reunion is too new. We’re too new, this version of us.

I dip my head and hold his stare. “You’re exactly the man I want.”





48





Maxim





She can’t possibly know what it means to hear her say that.

I’m exactly the man she wants.

The way she looks down at me now is the same way she did when she thought I was a struggling student abroad. Before she knew my name or who my family was, she looked at me just like this, a double helix of curiosity and hunger. I thought I wanted her then, but it was just a struck match. What burns inside me now is rampant, a wildfire I’m tired of trying to contain.

She straddles me. Her skirt rides up, exposing the length of firm thighs and a tantalizing glimpse of pink panties. I slide my palms over her legs and under her skirt, cupping her ass and urging her closer. Her breath hitches when her pussy, covered only by a strip of silk, hits my cock. There’s so little separating me from what I’ve wanted since that night in the garden. She closes her eyes and moves her hips, the muscles of her butt flexing in my hands.

“So no mile-high club for you yet?” she asks.

“Are you going to pop my mile-high cherry?” I laugh.

“I’ll pop it if I can find it.” She grins and slips her hand between us, gripping and squeezing my cock. “Oh, look. Here it is.”

“Jesus, Nix.” I drop my head back and groan at her touch. I reach for the buttons of her blouse, my fingers clumsy but I’m determined to see her. Her bra is pink too, and the brown discs of her nipples show through the windows of lace. I tug the straps from her shoulders, jerking the bra down to expose the plump nipples tipping her breasts. I can’t tear my eyes away, and reach out to thumb one. She inhales sharply, her eyes dazed, her mouth open and panting. I take one breast into my mouth and pinch the other.