by Dylann Crush
He hovered over her, lowering his mouth to lick the sticky dessert off her cheeks and places on her chest where the cream dropped. As he rubbed his face over her navel, he spread chocolate sauce from his cheeks onto her stomach.
“Stop,” she giggled. “You’re making it worse.”
He stood and picked up what was left of the chocolate covered cheesecake. “No, babe. This is only going to make it better.”
Reagan’s jaw dropped as he drizzled the chocolate over her navel and across her breasts. He met her mouth with his, pressing the length of his body against her and covering them both in the sticky, dark sauce. With a rakish grin, he followed the chocolate trail with his tongue. When he sucked her nipple into his mouth, she squealed. When he scraped his scruffy chin along her abdomen and left fluttery kisses along her navel, she squirmed. And when he eased her thong down her thighs and spread her open with his tongue, she fisted her hands in the sheets and came undone.
Later, after they’d devoured each other, both literally in the form of finishing off dessert and figuratively in the form of reaching mutually satisfying climaxes multiple times, they lay tangled together in the sheets.
“I think I need to shower,” Reagan said, running her finger along Zach’s arm. His body wrapped around her, and her back nestled against his chest. The scrape of his whiskers on her shoulder sounded like sandpaper as he nudged her hair out of the way and kissed her neck.
“No sense in showering unless we call for clean sheets. Let’s wait until morning.” Zach’s voice muffled against her skin.
The vibration made her toes curl. She stretched like a cat who had napped in a sunny window all day. Sleepy and warmed from the inside out. She’d probably be sore tomorrow. Riding in a car for the past several days had done nothing to prepare her for the workout she’d endured under Zach’s talented hands.
“You want me to go back to my room?” he asked.
Reagan considered the options. Prior to the wedding she would have said yes. Probably wouldn’t have had the nerve to even entertain him in her room while her parents were in the vicinity. But she’d changed. Zach had coaxed her out of her shell and shown her she had the strength to make her own way. She was too old to live in the shadow of her father’s aspirations. Too old to let someone else tell her who would make an appropriate mate. Now that she’d found her legs, she wanted to stand on her own two feet and make her own decisions for a change.
“No.” She turned around and faced him. “I want you here, next to me. For tonight, tomorrow, and as long as you’ll have me.”
“Hope you don’t get sick of me. I plan on sticking around then for a very, very, very long time.”
Good. Zach kissed the tip of her nose and nuzzled his head into her shoulder. His leg flung over her hip, trapping her in place with the warm, heavy feel of him. She sighed, breathing in the combination of vanilla, sugar, and the intoxicating scent Zach called his own. And, for the first time in her life, Reagan closed her eyes and drifted to sleep, secure in a lover’s arms, certain that her future would be made up of many bright tomorrows with the right man beside her. She’d waited her whole life for this. Nothing could possibly get in her way now.
25
Zach opened his eyes against the bright sunlight stretching across the room and heating the bed. Reagan dozed beside him, their legs jumbled together in a knot of limbs and chocolate-smeared sheets. He squinted at the clock as a loud knock sounded at the door.
“Reagan! Wake up.”
Zach recognized her dad’s voice. His pulse shifted into overdrive. When Reagan told him not to go back to his room, he was pretty sure neither of them envisioned getting caught in bed together by her father. He was a big boy and could hold his own against the man, but he wasn’t too sure about Reagan. She’d put on her training wheels but had barely started standing up to dear old dad.
The knock sounded again, three hard thumps. “Reagan!”
“Hey, cupcake.”
Reagan’s eyes opened a crack and a slow, satisfied smile spread across her mouth. “Hey, yourself, stud muffin.”
He wanted to bury himself in her curves, pull the covers over their heads, and pretend that the world outside these four walls had ceased to exist.
Another knock. Reagan glanced toward the door.
“Um, your dad’s at the door. Did you want me to grab it?”
“What? Are you kidding me?” She flung the covers back and jumped to her feet. “Oh my God. Clothes! I need something to put on. Hide! You’ve got to hide, Zach. In the bathroom.” She shoved him toward the doorway leading into the enormous bathroom and grabbed the robe off the back of the door as he let her push him through. “Stay here. Don’t make a sound. Promise?”
Zach took her face in his hands and pulled her in for a quick kiss. “You’re an adult. Don’t you think—”
“No!” She pointed a finger in his face. “Baby steps. Now stay here and be quiet. Please.”
“Fine. But you might want to kick my clothes under the bed or something.”
Reagan had already moved across the room and gathered the pieces of his discarded rental into her arms. “Coming, Dad!” She tossed the clothes under the bed before shutting the bathroom door.
Zach pressed his ear up against the door, straining to make out what he could of their conversation through the solid wooden door.
“Where is he?” Senator Campbell asked.
“Where’s who?” Reagan’s voice shook slightly.
“The damn Anderson punk. He sold us out. I knew he was up to no good.”
What the fuck was he talking about?
Reagan’s question echoed his thoughts. “What’s going on?”
Zach cracked the door, just a tiny bit, to peek into the room.
Senator Campbell held out a newspaper. “Told you he couldn’t be trusted.”
“What’s that?” Reagan took the paper from her dad and stared at it.
“It’s your brother and Cal kissing under the arbor with your mother and me smiling and looking on. Dammit, Reagan. I told you to send that kid packing.”
Zach wanted to fling open the door and grab the paper. How the hell could there be a picture? He was the only one who had a camera at the wedding, the security detail had seen to that. Unless… his camera automatically synced to his cloud storage when he had a Wi-Fi connection. Could someone at the resort have hacked it and leaked a picture to the press? He had to get his hands on that paper.
Reagan hadn’t moved, just stood frozen, the paper in her hands. Her back faced the bathroom door. Zach wished like hell he could see the expression on her face.
“How do you know it was Zach? Someone else could have taken it. Maybe one of the staff?”
Good. She hadn’t automatically assumed the worst about him. He drew a long breath in through his nose to slow his pulse and bring his blood pressure back to a normal level.
“I don’t know what’s going on between the two of you, but I’m telling you it’s his photo,” the senator argued.
“How do you know?”
Her dad took the paper from her hands and she looked up at him. “I know because he gave Simon the memory card from his camera last night and this is one of the images that was on the card. Do you believe me now, sweetheart?”
“Dad, you don’t even know how to turn on your computer. Did you actually see the picture?”
“Of course I saw it. Simon pulled them up for me so I could look. Are you sure you don’t know where he is?” Senator Campbell scanned the room, probably looking for evidence of Zach’s presence.
“Did you check his room?”
“Of course. On my way over. No one answered.”
“Well, maybe he’s at breakfast or went out on a boat or… I don’t know. What makes you think I know where he is?” Reagan’s hands fluttered to her hair then to her hips. She finally crossed her arms across her chest.
Her dad moved around the room, peering behind chairs and pulling the drapes away from the window.
As if Zach would be able to hunker down next to the sliding glass door and disappear. He fought against the rising desire to throw the door open and confront the senator face to face. It couldn’t be his picture. That had to be a lie.
Reagan followed her dad around the room, casting nervous glances toward the cracked bathroom door.
Her dad wheeled around on her.
“What’s in your hair?” He reached out and touched a strand of her hair.
Reagan waved him away. “Probably my hairspray.”
Senator Campbell’s eyes narrowed in suspicion and held his hand under his nose. “Smells like chocolate.”
“It’s a new line of scented body products. Can we stop talking about my hair and focus on what’s going on? What are you going to do?”
Her dad folded the paper and slapped it against his hand. “We need to gather the family and figure out how we want to handle this with the press. Anderson signed a non-disclosure. I’m going to sue him for everything he’s got. Get cleaned up and meet me at the breakfast buffet in fifteen minutes. I’ll get my publicist on the line, and we’ll figure out a way to spin this in our favor.”
“Fine.” Reagan’s head shook back and forth. Zach heard the desperation in her voice.
Get rid of your dad, cupcake. Let’s figure this out together. Zach tried to send the thought to her.
She ushered her father toward the door. “See you in a few minutes, Dad.”
The door creaked open, and Zach’s view became obstructed by a wall.
“You’ve got to stick close to us on this, Reagan. Your mother and I know what’s best for the family. You always want to believe the best about people. This is the second time that slime ball has turned on us.”
“The second?”
God, Zach should have told her what happened the night of the graduation party. Now she’d hear her dad’s version and assume the worst. He battled back and forth in his mind between blowing her cover and confronting her dad himself, or waiting and trying to sweep up the pieces after the senator finally left.
“Aw, lambchop.” Senator Campbell’s tone sounded anything but sympathetic. “The night of your graduation, sweetheart. Anderson and some of his buddies took some very unflattering pictures of you and tried to extort money from me to keep them from the press.”
Reagan gasped. “What? There must be some mistake. Zach wouldn’t do something—”
“Well, he did. You have such a trusting heart. That’s why you need me to protect you.”
Zach wished like hell he could see Reagan’s face. Or see any part of her body. He needed to pull her into his arms and tell her it was all a lie. Every bit of it. Zach would have given his left nut to be able to take on Senator Campbell in that moment.
“I don’t know what to believe. I don’t get it.”
Her voice conveyed the hurt and confusion she must have been feeling. Zach couldn’t take it anymore. Tired of waiting while the man dragged his name through the mud, he yanked a towel around his waist and flung open the door.
“Reagan!”
Her head whipped around. “Oh, my God, no. I told you to stay put.”
With one hand clutching the towel, he rushed toward her. “He’s got to be lying. I didn’t leak any pictures, I swear.”
She shoved the paper in his face. “This is your picture, isn’t it?”
His eyes scanned the large photo in the national paper. It was his shot. How the hell had they gotten it?
“Yeah, but—”
“I knew it! First you expose my family, and now I find you deflowering my daughter?” Senator Campbell’s face contorted with rage. A vein swelled up on the side of his head. Zach couldn’t look away as the vein bulged out and pulsed in time to his heartbeat. “I’ll kill you, Anderson.”
“With all due respect, sir, I can’t listen to this bullshit for one more second.”
As the senator approached, Zach flipped his gaze to Reagan. “I’m sorry, cupcake, but I need you to know the truth. I didn’t have anything to do with those pictures in the closet. It was all Jimmy. I found out after and tried to fix things. But your dad didn’t want us to be together. He threatened to get my father fired if I didn’t leave you alone.”
The senator shook his head. “Can you hear yourself? Get your dad fired? I don’t have the power to do something like that. Reagan, this boy’s spinning tales.”
Zach couldn’t believe the lies coming out of the man’s mouth. “And I sure as hell didn’t send that picture to anyone. The memory card went straight from my camera to your dad’s Chief of Staff. I swear.”
An internal battle appeared to rage within her. Would she believe him? She had to. He wouldn’t consider the alternative.
“Reagan, I didn’t do it.” Zach took a few steps her direction. “I promised you last night, remember? No more lies.”
Her gaze darted to her dad, who kept trying to encroach on Zach’s space like he wanted to get a punch in. “Dad?”
“Who are you going to believe, lambchop? The man who’s protected you and guided you your entire life?” His gaze slid to Zach. “Or the one who’s clearly only interested in exposing and extorting our family?”
Reagan’s breath hitched on a ragged inhale. “I don’t know. Zach?”
He wanted to shake her. How could she doubt him? Didn’t she know how much she meant to him? That he’d never sacrifice her for a quick buck? Damn, he’d given her more of himself in a few days than he’d ever been willing to share. If she couldn’t see that then maybe he’d been wrong about her all along.
“Choose, Reagan. Either you believe me or you don’t. I love you and would never do anything to hurt you. I swear I’m telling you the truth.” Pick me, pick me. How could she still doubt him?
Reagan looked to her dad and back at Zach. Her eyes pleaded with him, begging him for an easy way out of this mess.
“He’s been lying his whole life. Of course he’s good at it by now. Sweetheart, did he hurt you? Should we be pressing charges?” Senator Campbell put an arm around her shoulders.
When she didn’t shrug him off something in Zach snapped. “You know what? Fuck it. I thought we had something, cupcake. I thought you were ready to make a life for yourself and stop living it under your dad’s regime. I’ll make this easy for you. I’m out of here.”
It took him about five seconds to reach the door.
“You can’t go out like that.” Senator Campbell gestured to the towel. “My mother’s at the breakfast buffet.”
Zach paused in the open doorway. “You know what?” He whipped the towel off and flung it at the senator. “You’re absolutely right.”
Naked as a jaybird, he walked through the doorway and into the brilliant Florida sunshine. Let Grandma Campbell get an eyeful. Reagan could cater to her dad’s demands all damn day, but Zach wouldn’t spend another fucking minute on this godforsaken island. As the dazzling morning sun warmed his skin, a chill wrapped around his heart. Served him right for thinking people were able to change. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.
Reagan’s tears mixed with the scalding water from the rain shower head. The water flowed over her skin as she scrubbed away chocolate, cream cheese, and all other evidence from last night. And to think she’d been willing to stand up to her dad for Zach. She’d given her word that Zach wouldn’t leak anything to the press. Actually thought he’d been serious about seeing each other when all of this was over. How naive and stupid could she be?
And tossing out that he loved her? If he felt that way, why hadn’t he said something sooner? Why wait until her dad had him in the crosshairs to try to play on her heartstrings?
She pulled on some shorts and a shirt, thankful to have her clothes and not Zach’s questionable assortment of T-shirts. The awful leggings hung over the back of a club chair. Reagan groaned and tossed them into the trash.
Ten minutes later, she joined her father and two members of his staff at a table by the breakfast buffet. They’d cleared out the stage and any othe
r evidence of the reception last night. The giant thatched roof shaded the space, but Reagan kept her sunglasses perched on top of her nose. No sense in having her dad see how red her eyes were from crying.
“We’ll reiterate that your personal life is just that—personal—and doesn’t affect your support of the issues important to the party.” Simon took a sip of his coffee. “Bad publicity is still publicity, right? With any luck, this will blow over.”
Her dad nodded. “Cal is stepping down from his position. That should help. In fact, Reagan here has agreed to join the campaign. We’ll find someone to set her up with…a nice Ivy League young man. Show that at least one of my children shares the same values as her father. Right, lambchop?” His hand covered hers on the table.
Not wanting to embarrass her father in front of some of his staffers, Reagan formed her lips into a thin grin. Inside, her blood simmered. How dare her father dismiss Cal so easily when he’d worked his butt off for him for the past five years? And she told him last night she wasn’t going to be leaving her job to join his campaign.
“We haven’t worked out the details yet, Dad.” She slid her hand out from under his and put it in her lap.
“How about that kid on Strayhorn’s staff? I think he went to Harvard and comes from a long line of conservatives,” Simon said.
Reagan pushed back from the table and stood. Her dad put his hand on her arm. “Sit down,” he muttered, loud enough so only she heard.
She mumbled back, “I’m not going to sit around while you figure out my future, down to who I’m going to date and what job I’m going to have.” She pulled her arm away and slung her purse over her shoulder.
“It’s not like you have to marry the guy, sweetheart.” Her dad’s eyes narrowed, and his smile spread a little too wide into the patronizing expression she’d grown to hate. With one look he could make her feel about six-years-old again, like a petulant child about to pitch a fit because she wouldn’t get her way. “We’re talking about options, right, Simon?”