Page 34 of The Rebel King

“Don’t be reductive.”

“I’mbeing reductive?” She slams her hand against the wall, fury spitting from her eyes. “So if I had been a man, I wouldn’t have this job now because a man doesn’t have a pussy for you to play with.”

“Dammit, Nix.”

“How dare you manipulate something this important for your own ends, your own desires? This is the fate of a nation, and you wanted me back in your bed so youarrangedfor your brother to hire me?”

“It’s not that simple. You were the best for the job. He recognized that, or he wouldn’t have brought you on.”

“Oh, I know Owen wouldn’t have hired me if he didn’t believe Icould do it. I’m talking aboutyou. Did you evencarethat I could do it? Or did you just want me back?”

“Both,” I say with unflinching honesty. “I believed you could do the job, and I would have done anything to get you back. You can call that privilege or arrogance. I don’t know what it is, and I don’t actually care. I care about you. About us.”

I cross the kitchen in a few strides, coming to stand right in front of her, placing my arms on either side of her head, caging her against the wall with my body. She holds herself stiffly, looking down at the floor, a ring of tension around the lush curves of her mouth.

“I’m sorry,” I say, dipping to kiss the tight line of her jaw.

“Doc, don’t.” She turns her head. “This is a big deal, and we can’t gloss it over.”

“Do you think you’re capable of leading O’s campaign?”

She swivels an indignant look up to me. “Of course I’m capable. I have a track record. Kimba and I have worked our asses off proving we’re capable.”

“And Owen knows that.” I push a swath of dark hair away from her face, over her shoulder. “I know you’re capable, or I wouldn’t have suggested you. I would have found another way to get you if you’d been bad at your job. Lucky for me, you’re the best in the business. You’re the Kingmaker.”

She shakes her head. “It’s hard for me to believe you now.”

I lift her chin, hold her eyes so she can see the truth. “I watched you work. I knew you’d be able to do it when you won that city council race in New Mexico.”

She frowns. “That was a tiny race. How did you—”

“And the county commissioner in Montana. The secretary of state in Virginia.”

“Doc,” she says, the chill thawing from her eyes. “You saw those?”

“The mayor in Nashville,” I continue, bending to breathe it over her lips. “The congresswoman in Tallahassee.”

She closes her eyes and listens as I recite every race I watched from a distance, document every moment I saw her rise in her field.

“I was proud of you then.” I dip to kiss her, just a quick brush of our lips. “And I’m proud of you now. Of course I know you can do this.”

She leans forward and takes my bottom lip between hers, the sweet, hot suction of it so perfect I groan and slide my arms under her thighs, lifting her up, her back pressed to the wall.

Shit, I’m hard.

Any anger still lingering in the air blurs with our building passion, and I want to fuck more than I want to fight. I kiss her neck, licking lovingly at the fading bruises. I push her higher until her chest is level with my face, and I suck her tits hard through the thick material of her sweatshirt. She moans and drops her head back to the wall. With one arm on my shoulder, she uses the other to lift the sweatshirt. She’s not wearing a bra, and I latch on to one naked nipple greedily, not even caring that I’m sucking so hard the noises I make are loud. The sweatshirt drops over my head, and I’m in a cave of cotton, lost in the clean scent in the valley between her breasts, feasting on the plump tips until they turn tight and hard in my mouth.

“Jesus, Doc,” Lennix pants, circling her hips on my cock. “I’m gonna come.”

I don’t let up, savoring her nipples and thrusting between her legs, helping her get off. Through the sweatshirt, I hear her breaths coming faster, harder. She grunts with each thrust until finally, her groan releases long and hard, tiny cries of suppressed pleasure reaching me in the scented dark of her clothes. I continue laving her breasts, relishing the right. She is exactly what I want in every way, down to how her nipples fatten in my mouth and the sounds she makes when she comes. I don’t want any man to ever hear her unravel that way again.

I tighten my arms under her, pulling her close. She’s mine completely. And I, unequivocally, belong to Lennix Moon Hunter.

I pull my head from under her sweatshirt, let her legs drop to the floor. Her expression is dazed wonder and satiation, her eyes hazy. Teeth marks dent her lips where she trapped her pleasure inside.

“Think your friends know what we’re doing in here?” I ask.

She swipes shaking hands over her face and grins, pointing to my crotch. “They’ll know we didn’t finish with that huge pipe between your legs.”

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