Rush of Redemption (Rush Series #2)

by LR Potter

  “Maybe, but it doesn’t have to be today. It’s a media circus out there right now. Give it some time to cool off,” he said firmly.

  Turning from him, she sighed deeply. “I have things I need to take care of… my father’s funeral… his estate…”

  “I’ll take care of it,” he said.

  “It’s not your place… not your problem,” she replied.

  He rose slowly from the bed, his mouth set in determined lines. “No, you are my problem,” he stated.

  She took a step back, “What do you mean?”

  He backed her up until she felt the wall against her back. Slowly, he grabbed one hand, then her other, capturing her fully between his body and the wall. “Every damned time I turn around you’re running away from me in one form or the other. Frankly, I’m tired. And I’m sure all the running must be exhausting for you as well. Why don’t you just quit running for just a little while?” Rubbing his cheek against hers, he whispered in her ear, “We’ve already won the race, Trinity, now it’s time to reap our reward. Don’t you think?”

  He nipped the lobe of her ear and she shivered against him. Her chest began to heave and her heart thudded. The sizzle that had always consumed them flooded him at her body’s response to his simple touch. Two months of stored up passion erupted in him. He crushed his lips against her lips and forced them to open to him. He thrust his tongue into her mouth and she met him there, sliding her own tongue against him just as frantically.

  He slid his impatient hands down and caressed the bare skin of her bottom and lifted her up into his raging erection. Picking her up, he surged them onto the bed. Not caring to be gentle, he roughly shoved the T-shirt up until her breasts were exposed to the hot suction of his mouth. She cried out and her body arched up into his. Reaching down between them, he unbuttoned and unzipped his pants and lowered them enough to finish kicking them off his legs. Settling between her thighs, he placed himself at her entrance and with a quick thrust of his hips, he was fully encased within her.

  They both sighed at the connection. “This is where you belong. Here, with me, in this bed. This is where I want you.” He eased up before sliding back into her. She closed her eyes and her sex clung to his, clenching around it, sucking him greedily back into her body. He groaned against her lips. “God, baby. I’m not going to last a minute.”

  Digging her fingers into his hair, she pulled his head back to stare up into the brilliance of his eyes. “I need you fast and hard, pleassse…” she begged.

  He grinned down at her. “Oh, baby. You were made for me.”

  With a quick thrust of his hips, he slammed his body into hers. She moaned, “Yes, yes, yes!”

  Slipping his hands under her butt, he raised her hips as he plunged over and over into her pliant body. The angle of his body entering hers had his rigid shaft rubbing over the sensitive bundle of nerves located at her entrance. She dug her fingernails into his hips and arched her back as she cried out her release. Her body pulsating and clenching around him pushed him over the top and he buried himself as deep as possible inside her body as he came with hot, long bursts.

  Collapsing down on top of her, he rolled them, still connected, onto their sides. They lie, facing each other, panting. He pulled her head back into his chest and held her close to him, still needing the closeness between them to linger. She nuzzled her face against him, enjoying the connection with another person. He kissed the top of her head and rubbed his hand up and down her back.

  “I’ve missed this,” he said quietly.

  “Me too,” she replied.

  She felt him stiffen next to her and his heart began to pound. His unease prickled against her already scattered emotions. “What is it?” she asked, fearing his answer.

  “I want you back,” he said simply.

  She sucked in a breath, surprised by his words. “Why?”

  “Because I love you… I’ve always loved you.”

  “I… I don’t understand. I thought this was what you wanted,” she mumbled against his chest.

  “Why would you think that?” he asked surprised, shifting to stare down into the dark pools of her eyes. “No! You know what? It doesn’t matter why you think that. I do not want this. I hate this. I want our family together as it should have been from the beginning. I want you here with me, or if you’d rather, I’ll go with you to your condo. I don’t care where we are as long as we are together. You and Blake are my life… without you, I’m only half alive.” Using the same forceful tone he’d used the very first time he’d asked her to dance at the nightclub in Vail, he said, “Marry me.”

  She studied him for a very long time, and feeling exactly the same way she felt when he held her on that sensual precipice, she took a deep breath and jumped. “Okay.”

  His breath left him in a gush. “Thank God,” he murmured, “Thank God.”

  ~*~

  Rush sat behind his desk, high above the city of Savannah in his office situated on the top floor of Drayco International. He leaned back in his chair and waited patiently, his lips drawn into thin lines. Things were coming to a head. It was time for the sins of the past to be put to rest. He meant to move forward with his life and he could only do that if everyone let the past go. He knew his course of action would be challenged, but he had the upper hand – given to him by the very man he was about to defy.

  A commotion in the outer office was his signal that the man he’d been waiting on had now arrived. Rush glanced at the man seated across from him in one of the two black overstuffed, leather chairs. The grey-haired man stared back impassively, sitting patiently with a briefcase on his lap.

  The intercom on his phone buzzed. Mr. Drayton, your grandfather has arrived, Rush heard through the phone’s speakers. Inhaling deeply in preparation of the battle he was about to face, Rush said, “Send him in. Thanks, Nora.”

  Andrew Drayton came into the room smiling. “Rush, my boy,” he said.

  Rush rose to his feet but didn’t return the smile. “Boppa.”

  Andrew’s eyebrows arched at his grandson’s seriousness. His eyes caught on the man seated across from Rush. “Grey? What a pleasant surprise. I hope I’m not interrupting anything.” Andrew looked quizzically at Rush. “You did tell me two o’clock, right?”

  “Yes, you’re right on time. I asked Mr. Whiting to join us. I needed something notarized.”

  Andrew Drayton stared at his grandson, trying to understand the mood of the room. Finally, he asked, “Do you want me to wait in the lobby until you’ve completed your business?”

  Rush met his gaze steadily. “No, I want you to witness the signing of a document before Grey notarizes it.”

  With a wave of his hand, Andrew said, “Of course, of course.”

  “Please, Boppa, have a seat,” Rush indicated the other black leather chair across from him.

  Once Andrew Drayton was seated, Rush nodded to Grey Whiting. The man opened his briefcase and handed several pages of a document over to him. Rush took the document and sat back down behind the desk. He looked at the document in steep contemplation before glancing back up at his grandfather.

  “Boppa, for the last year, we have been living in the past. We sought to find information using whomever we had to secure it. In the end, it gained us nothing. The man we sought, the man who’d killed my father, was already dead. So the justice we craved was not given to us. With great shame, I agreed to use an innocent woman to help gain this information – which almost got her killed. If she would have died, her blood would have been on our hands,” Rush stated emotionlessly.

  Andrew shook his head. “Not just our hands. Her father was just as much to blame.”

  “You can try to rationalize this any way you want, but I want you to understand that I love her. She will be my wife.” Lifting the legal document in his hand, he continued, “This document is the prenuptial agreement you were so desperate to have signed.”

  “About time you got that done. It’s important for our future… all ou
r futures, even Blake’s,” Andrew said with deep relief.

  Rush’s lips curled into a small smile. “Yes, you are right. It is important for all our futures. You see, this document isn’t a prenuptial agreement for removing Trinity’s rights, it removes mine.”

  Puzzlement filled Andrew Drayton’s face. “I don’t understand.”

  “This document states if Trinity and I divorce for any reason… any reason at all, all my shares of DrayCo International go to her… all fifty-one percent of them. She will have the controlling shares.”

  Andrew rose quickly to his feet. “Don’t be foolish. In a marriage, anything can happen. What if it is her who wants to leave? You are putting us all at extreme risk for nothing more than a tart!” he bellowed.

  Rush leaped to his feet as well. “You would do well to remember this is my future wife you’re talking about. My recommendation is that you ensure she wants to stay in our family.”

  “I’ll never accept this marriage, Rush. If you marry her, you will rue the day, I promise you.”

  Rush studied his grandfather for a long time and with steely determination, he said, “I am going to marry her. If you can’t accept that and learn to be civil, then you will have no part of our lives. You’ll never see your great-grandson again… or me.”

  “I can’t believe you’d put that… that…”

  “Be very careful with your next words, Boppa,” Rush said icily.

  Andrew glared at his grandson. “I will not be a part of this mockery.”

  “So be it. Goodbye, Grandfather,” Rush replied frostily.

  Snatching a pen up from his desk, Rush hurriedly scribbled his initials on each page of the document, then with a flourish, signed his name to the bottom of the last page. Next he handed both the document and the pen to the notary, who inked his stamp on the document and then signed it.

  “There, it is done,” Rush said with satisfaction.

  “I’ll fight this,” Andrew declared.

  “I expect you will… but you will lose,” Rush said intently.

  “Over my dead body!”

  “However you want it,” Rush replied severely.

  With his jaw clenched, Andrew Drayton glared at his grandson before turning on his heel and storming out of the office, slamming the door behind him.

  A satisfied grin crossed Rush’s face before he glanced at Grey Whiting and with a smirk, said “All right… that went well.”

  Epilogue

  The museum was quiet and still with the exception of the soft clicking of her heels and the faint strings of a violin playing sweetly in the background. She took a deep breath and rounded the corner, there standing in the semi-circle of the statues she’d loved for so long, were the minister, with Sundra holding Blake on one side, and Hunter standing on the other. Standing in front of them was the man she’d compared to her statues so many times in the past, her own Greek god – Rush Drayton.

  He was magnificent in his black suit and ice blue tie. His eyes sought hers as she walked across the marble tiles. She was dressed in a dress – the same color as his eyes, the same minty green as his tie. She’d left her hair down and curly, the way he loved it. She could see the relief in his eyes. Even now, he’d been worried she wouldn’t go through with it. But she was in… all in.

  With hands that weren’t quite steady, he drew her close to him and lightly pressed his lips to hers. “You are so beautiful. I love you so much. You make my life complete,” he murmured.

  The minister chuckled. “I think you’ve gotten a little ahead of yourself.” Clearing his throat, the minister began, “Dearly beloved…”

  THE END

  Dear Reader: Be sure to read the next installment in the Rush series: The Masters Saga Part One – Master of the Game, available immediately.

  ~~Other books by LR Potter~~

  The Hourglass Killer Trilogy:

  Dwindling Sands

  Shifting Sands

  Cascading Sands

  The Hourglass Killer Trilogy – All three books together

  The Color of Snow Series: (Paranormal)

  Snow Blind

  Snow Flurry

  Memory Lapse – A Slater Vance Novel

  Flawed Beauty

  Rush of Innocence

  Rush of Redemption

  Masters Saga: Part One - Master of the Game – The Rush Series: Book 3

  Collaborative Works:

  Three of a Kind: Tales of Luck, Chance & Misfortune – Lucky Strike

  Summer Sizzle - A Controlled Burn

  Blood Bites – The Blood Pool

  Coming Soon in 2014:

  Blood Haze (Paranormal) due out January

  Masters Saga: Part Two – Mastering the Devil – The Rush Series: Book 4; due out February

  A Long & Steady Cadence

  Cash Saga: Hard Cold Cash – The Rush Series: Book 5

  Fangs for Hire (Paranormal)

  Judgment Lapse: A Slater Vance Novel