Tempting the Crown

by Violet Paige

  “And if I can’t find something short? You know I haven’t unpacked everything,” I taunted.

  He chuckled. “I think you’ll find something. Send me the address. I’ve changed my mind—I’ll be there in twenty.”

  He hung up and my screen went black.

  Holy shit. I gulped the rest of the wine either as a way to convince myself to keep moving forward or so later I could tell myself I was going along with this because I was tipsy. Either way it was pumping through my veins and I hustled to my room to find a short skirt to show off my legs for a man I barely knew.

  I cursed myself for not unpacking sooner. I shoved one box out of the way and then another until I found one that had my going out clothes. Nightlife in New Bern wasn’t exactly exciting, but I did go out for drinks sometimes and in the past year I’d had a few dates. The problem was most of them never lead to a second or third date. It was one more reason moving to bigger city made sense.

  I pulled a black dress out of the box and quickly dashed to the bathroom to reapply my makeup.

  Twenty minutes later there was a knock at the door.

  I ran through the living room and the narrow kitchen, pulling the door open.

  Vaughn filled the frame. His eyes sparked and immediately dropped to my thighs.

  “Sexy.” He waggled his eyebrows.

  I stepped back to let him in, feeling confident he liked the dress. It was the shortest black one I had.

  “And where am I going in this short dress?” I asked.

  He walked into the living room and looked around. “I told you it was a surprise.”

  He looked just as edible as he had last night. Part of me was reassured he wasn’t a dream or a vision I had concocted. He was wearing dark charcoal pants that showed how athletic his shape was. He had a crisp white buttoned shirt. And he was wearing the same intoxicating cologne.

  “This is a cool place.” He walked toward the deck. “You said you have a roommate?”

  I stood next to him. I had left the lights on and they twinkled from the posts.

  “Yes. We were college roommates. Five years later we’re living together again. I think it will be fun.”

  He nodded. His eyes were focused on something in the distance. He slid the door open and stepped onto the roof.

  “Is she home?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “No. She works late most of the time.”

  He saw the bottle of wine and the empty glass.

  “Is she going to be home anytime soon?”

  I hadn’t seen Greer since the bar last night. I hadn’t called her all day either. “I don’t know.” I stepped outside to join him. “I better unplug these if we’re going to leave.” I walked around to reach for the lights.

  As I bent over to jerk the plug from the wall Vaughn came up behind me.

  “Leave them.”

  I stood slowly, feeling how close he was to my back.

  “But I thought you wanted…”

  He spun me around to face him. I searched the darkness of his eyes, recognizing the look of hunger as his mouth brushed against my lips.

  “I said leave them,” he growled before taking my mouth under his with a rough kiss.

  Instinctively I wrapped my hands around his neck, tugging him closer to me, deepening the kiss with sudden urgency.

  This wasn’t like last night. This wasn’t the romance of a first kiss. This was the thirst for wanting it again—wanting more. There was no one watching. No driver waiting. Only Vaughn and me on a twinkle-lit rooftop.

  I gasped when I felt the roughness of his palm cup my ass. He gripped it firmly and squeezed, but the kiss never stopped. He sucked and tugged at my lips, letting his tongue dart next to mine before sinking his teeth along my bottom lip. I moaned.

  My eyes opened and he stared at me intently.

  He took a heavy breath. My chest heaved and I noticed his hand was still holding my ass. I didn’t dare move or wiggle out of his hold. I liked how possessive it felt. I liked how this man knew exactly what he wanted.

  My body eased into his and I tipped forward, drawing his lips to mine. I wanted more. His tongue lashed back and forth while my arms circled the toned muscles of his back. The ridges flexed and contracted under my touch.

  While one hand pinned my waist, the other was moving in circles, massaging my ass, until the lace I was wearing was shoved to the side. He slid his fingers from the small of my back over the curve of my cheek, plunging them between my slit. I whimpered, but he held me steady.

  “This wasn’t what I was planning, but I like your kind of surprise better, Emily.” He breathed in my ear while he pried my folds and I rocked into his fingers. My head rolled back. “Do you like it?”

  “Mmmhmm.” I closed my eyes as the sensations took over.

  He kissed the side of my neck and swept his lips over my throat. My hips moved with the rhythm his fingers created.

  “God, you’re fucking sexy.” He caressed me, taking my mouth with a hard kiss. My knees almost buckled.

  The world felt dizzy and surreal as if I existed in a body that only felt the electric waves Vaughn passed along to me. Every time he touched me I felt something new. Something I’d never experienced. The kisses. The looks. The need.

  I clung to him while his fingers expertly moved in and out of me, pushing me closer to the point where I lost control. I hadn’t decided if I wanted to lose control with him so quickly. But here I was on the roof. Under the stars, Under the lights. Kissing him, with his hand under my dress.

  The coiling tightened deep in my belly. My legs felt detached from the rest of me. The only reason I was standing was because Vaughn held me up.

  My breath quickened and I knew I was standing on the tightrope. One more thrust and I’d fall over the side, gliding down through the air, through the heat, through the magic of stardust and glitter.

  “Oh, God,” I whimpered. I could tell him to stop. I could back away from his hold. I could stop kissing him. But I wanted to take one foot off the tightrope. I wanted to fall through the ecstasy.

  I looked into his eyes, and I swore Vaughn could read me. He knew what I wanted. He held my gaze while pumping his fingers in and out of me, never letting my eyes wander. Never letting me close my eyes.

  And that’s when I fell.

  I spiraled off the tightrope. My body flew through the mist and the haze. It shivered and trembled with pleasure. Vaughn held me as the orgasm spiraled through me, binding me to him with an intimate secret we now shared.

  I bit my lip. I couldn’t catch my breath.

  Vaughn eased his fingers from me and straightened my panties and the hem of my dress. He kissed the top of my forehead.

  “Fuck,” he whispered.

  I was speechless. Breathless and speechless.

  It had happened so quickly. There wasn’t time to think or talk myself out of it. And I liked it. I liked being impulsive and reckless. I was drawn to him. I knew it the instant I backed into him with my chair. I wasn’t going to start second-guessing it now.

  He held out a hand. “We still have time for my surprise. Want to go?” He winked.

  I don’t know what I was expecting. Maybe that he would want to take me to bed. That he’d want something in return. But he seemed satisfied. I didn’t expect the date to keep going. I felt a new kind of flutter in my stomach. The kind that said this could be something real. Something other than a hot guy who liked sex.

  I smiled. “Is there food involved? Because I’m kind of starving.” I might as well test him.

  He laughed. “There is food. I think I promised you last night I’d be your D.C. tour guide.”

  “Is that what you promised?”

  I made sure to turn off the radio and the lights as we walked into the living room. I locked the sliding door behind us.

  “I don’t make many promises.”

  I felt a shiver. There it was again. The part of him that I was intrigued by. The part that said there was something mysterious a
nd dark about him. He didn’t reveal much. He could seduce. He could flirt. He could sure as hell kiss. But there was some kind of wall—I could see it in his eyes. I recognized it last night.

  And I was one of those girls who couldn’t walk away from the guy who had walls and secrets.

  I was like a moth to a flame. It was my weakness. The bad boy. The man buried behind a mountain of pain. The guy who gave his emotions in bed, but never out loud.

  “Ready?” Vaughn asked. He stood next to the door.

  Maybe I should tell myself to end it now. To fake a headache before he stole another kiss. To delete his number so I didn’t end up letting him fuck me the rest of the night. To lock the door as soon as he walked past me so I could avoid the heartache that was inevitably going to follow. But I knew I couldn’t. Vaughn was already under my skin.

  I smiled. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter Four

  I held the bar lightly overhead on the Metro. My fingers clasped the metal with hesitation. I was still trying to adjust to public transportation. I tried to visualize the hundreds of people before me who had stood in this spot today going to work, or riding home. How they had been staggered in here shoulder to shoulder, avoiding eye contact.

  Vaughn’s hand tucked around my waist. He still hadn’t revealed where we were going. As the car swayed, he applied pressure to my back, making sure I didn’t tip with the momentum. It felt good. It felt safe. As if this man I barely knew had me.

  “Should I start guessing?” I asked.

  “You could try.”

  I pinched my lips together. I didn’t know anything about D.C. other than the most famous national landmarks. Most of them were closed this late in the evening.

  “Can you give me clue? Any kind of a hint?”

  I looked into his dark eyes. He didn’t give anything away. If he was being playful, I couldn’t tell. There was a seriousness beneath him that never wavered.

  “I’d rather show you.”

  “All right.” I was ok reveling in the closeness we had on the Metro. How his body almost touched mine. How there was a current running from him to me with invisible wires. And I could stand here and inhale the intoxicating scent from his skin.

  Each time the car stopped at another station I looked to Vaughn for a signal that we were going to hop off, but he stood tall, shielding me from anyone who boarded or exited. He was like some kind of body guard, making sure the only person who touched me was him.

  Eventually, he pulled my hand from the rod, led me to the sliding doors, and tugged me behind him onto the platform as the bell dinged and the train charged on to the next stop.

  I looked at the station. “Smithsonian?”

  “This way.”

  We took the escalator to the street level. It was quiet.

  “Now will you tell me where we are going?” I urged.

  “Let’s walk.” Vaughn led me along the sidewalk.

  The Washington Monument emerged on our right, towering silently straight into the night. I paused for a moment to take it in, but we turned our backs to it and continued at an easy pace for several blocks. I also realized that we were putting more distance between us and the White House. That had been my first guess for Vaughn’s mysterious night stroll.

  As we neared the water, Vaughn’s grip tightened around my palm. The lights from the memorial shimmered on the dark calm of the rippling waves. There was almost no movement at all on the water.

  It was dark under the canopy of trees, but as we rounded the circle and made our way to the front columns, I realized why Vaughn had brought me on this route. It was breathtaking.

  When we finally stopped walking, he stood back and crossed his arms. “What do you think?”

  “I’ve never been here. I’ve seen it fifty times from the road or in pictures, but I’ve never actually been here. It’s beautiful.”

  He winked. “It’s my favorite spot.”

  We walked together toward the stone steps. “Why the Jefferson Memorial?” I asked. “Not Lincoln? Not the Washington Monument?”

  He shook his head with confidence. “One reason—the quiet.”

  He was right. There was no one else here.

  He took the steps and I followed after him, trying to pick up on every detail of why this place was special to him. Why he had chosen to bring me here instead of trying to impress me with high-end dinner reservations.

  “Everyone thinks Lincoln is the place you want to go if you need to think. If you need the wisdom of a man faced with the greatest challenges and adversity. That’s where people go to wade through their moral conscience.”

  “It’s not the right one?” I questioned.

  “No. Lincoln’s sculpture mastered that on its own. If you look at him, he is already posed to think for you. To take dilemmas of morality from you. This one … this one is different.”

  I spun slowly on my heels, rotating just like the rotunda we were standing inside. “And this is where you come to think?”

  “Maybe.” He smirked.

  “I like it. It’s really beautiful.” I moved toward one of the stone markings on the wall that was inscribed with Jefferson’s quotes. The carvings stretched several feet above my head.

  There was a romantic eeriness wrapping us. Vaughn watched as I moved along the walls, absorbing the words.

  “I thought with your appreciation for law it might be meaningful to you.”

  I whipped around. “You did?”

  “Aren’t you the girl who’s going to change the world around here?”

  I closed my eyes. “I’m the girl who used to think that.”

  “What happened to her?” The deepness in his voice held me.

  “She’s trying to figure things out,” I admitted. “Trying to start over.”

  He shoved his hands in the front of his pockets. “Then maybe you need a place here where you can think in silence.”

  I smiled. “Maybe I do.”

  “Let me show you something else. You’ll like this story.” He tugged my hand.

  I followed him down the steps to the water’s edge. We were across from the White House. It looked tiny from this spot.

  “Have you ever heard of the Cherry Tree Rebellion?”

  “No. What is it?”

  He wrapped his arms around my waist, locking them in place firmly against my body. I leaned into him.

  “When they started to build the memorial some of the cherry trees needed to be sacrificed for construction.”

  I glanced at the trees bordering the park. “But they’re so beautiful.”

  “That’s what 150 other women thought too. They chained themselves to the trees and refused to move until the president agreed to have them transplanted instead of destroyed.”

  “Really? I’ve never heard that story.”

  “Really.”

  He pressed his lips to my ear.

  “Are you some kind of historian?” I teased.

  “Just thought you’d like the story.”

  “I do.”

  “But?”

  “Well, did it work? What happened with the trees?”

  He chuckled. “The trees were dug up and moved to a new location. But don’t ask me where.”

  I smiled.

  We stood in silence. Our bodies melting into each other. I didn’t want to move. I didn’t want to break the spell.

  “Emily, you will find your way in this town. It takes time being the new fish in an ocean of sharks.”

  I sighed. “All my problems aren’t sharks.” I didn’t want to tell him my brother’s cycle had cracked through the protective bubble I created here. I didn’t want to talk about Garrett at all.

  Garrett was a pain I carried with me. At times it was so deep, I didn’t think I could breathe. And the guilt I had for leaving him behind crippled me. I didn’t know how to move past it. I didn’t know how to move inside it. It was with me, hovering on the outer edges of my thoughts.

  And he was here again in this moment. A
moment that should be mine.

  Vaughn rotated me toward his chest. I looked at his face in the shadows. I could feel the warmth of his breath on my cheek.

  A new fire started under my skin. It was the way Vaughn looked at me. The anticipation was like a drug.

  He threaded his fingers through mine. “Come on, I think I owe you dinner.”

  “I wasn’t going to say anything again, but I am starving.” We strolled along the path next to the cherry trees. I would never look at them the same way again. “Thanks for showing me your secret spot.”

  “It’s not so secret.”

  “You know what I mean.” I stopped him at the bridge. The rotunda rose behind us, illuminated like a jack-o-lantern. “I do need a place. Everything has been frantic and chaotic since I moved. I didn’t know how much I missed the quiet. This kind of quiet.”

  I hadn’t meant to turn somber. Maybe it was the heaviness of the monument, or the darkness falling on our shoulders. I was spending the evening with a gorgeous man and yet the weight of the day was still on me. I was letting it sink into my skin and ruin the romance of what Vaughn tried to accomplish.

  I looked into his eyes just as his palm caught the softness of my cheek.

  “Come here,” he whispered, dragging his lips across mine.

  I inhaled deeply. It was what I needed. What I sought.

  The perfect way his mouth moved over mine, while his hands tangled in my hair. I couldn’t help the tiny whimper that escaped from my throat. His kisses had quickly become everything. They stopped the loneliness. They stopped the unavoidable feeling of panic and uncertainty. When he kissed me the only thing I felt was the path to escape. The way out of chaos. I sighed lightly as his lips fell on mine, raking over me as if he was trying to memorize the lines of my mouth.

  The kiss burned my tongue.

  “You make it hard to remember what I’m doing, Emily.”

  I nodded. I wanted the kiss to continue. I wanted to forget everything else that had happened today. The only thing worth remembering was this. Vaughn’s mouth devouring me under a dark D.C. sky.

  Chapter Five

  I needed a strong cup of coffee the next morning at the clinic. Meg brought in two cups and sat one in front of my desk.