Whiskey and Regret

by Danielle James

  “It’s because I push you outside of your comfort zone, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, actually.” He drew in a deep breath and I heard something unspoken sloshing in the silence between us. I turned over and looked into his cognac eyes. “I can’t remember the last time I felt alive with passion. You’re passion, Xari. You’re like a flame. You pull me in every fucking time.”

  “I hope that’s a good thing. Flames destroy things.” A frown wedged itself between my brows.

  “Destroying who I am wouldn’t be a bad thing.” My throat tightened when he traced my face, sliding his pointer finger over my eyebrows smoothing away the frown, then down the bridge of my nose and over my cheekbones.

  “Why would you say that? I don’t want to destroy you, Evander. Is that what you think is happening?”

  “Who I am in front of everyone, except for you and Frankie, is bullshit. I’ve been bullshitting my way through life for the past…two decades. It took a flame to set fire to everything for me to see what my bones look like. So just because I say you’re a flame doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing.”

  I held my next breath hostage in my throat. Evander was making me feel things and they all rushed me at once. I couldn’t pick any one thing out of the mess flooding my brain.

  “You do that to me too,” I said reluctantly. Emotions collected under my skin burning the surface with something freezing cold and piping hot at the same time.

  “You seem like you’re always true to yourself. How could someone like me show you who you really are?” He asked, furrowing his brows.

  “I have this habit of not dealing with shit. I internalize my true feelings a lot. It’s easier to be who people expect me to be when I hide things in the back of my mind somewhere.”

  Why the fuck are you spilling your guts like that?

  I heard the voice in my head shouting at me like I was an idiot. I couldn’t argue. I was pouring myself out for Evander to examine. What if he didn’t like what he saw?

  “So you mean to tell me the spitfire, the brat, the badass…it’s all a façade?”

  “Not all of it. It’s just easier to be that girl than to be the vulnerable, scared, uncertain girl. Everyone sees how well I play the harp and the fact that I’m academically smart and forget that I’m still a human. I’m still a fuck up. It was easier to hide when my parents were footing the bill for everything.” Truth lobbed out of my mouth, scorching my tongue, and making me face my regrets.

  “You’re not a fuck up, Xari. You have life lessons to learn like everyone else.”

  “Yeah, but everyone else seems to catch on. Normal is a struggle for me. When I talk to you about things like budgets and bills and all that other annoying adult stuff, I don’t feel like a fuck up. You helped me figure out what being responsible means.”

  Something shifted between us and it felt heavy. It felt like the kind of thing that could anchor me to the earth if gravity were to give up on us.

  “I’m glad. I can see the growth in you, Xari. It makes me proud. You’re not the same woman I hired at first.”

  “I’m trying. Now I see how fucking hard it is just to survive.”

  “Even when you know how to survive, it’s not easy.”

  “You seem to be doing pretty well,” I remarked.

  “Because I’m doing what my father wants me to do.” I felt regret in the air like the resonating strike of a chord. “The minute I decide to jump out there on my own, I’m sure he’ll all but disown me.”

  “So he’ll cut you off? Been there. Done that,” I groaned, rolling my eyes.

  “He can’t cut me off. I made all my own money. My name got me into the senate, but my hard work earned me every dollar I have. I was a lawyer for a while before I became a senator and I did pretty well for myself. I made it a point not to take Dad’s money. He offered. I didn’t want any.”

  “I have no idea what that’s like. If my parents offered, I took.” Saying it out loud made me feel like a shitty daughter.

  “You’re high maintenance. I’m not shocked,” Evander chuckled.

  “You just called me spoiled in a nice way, huh?”

  “Gotta get my jabs in.” He poked my stomach and I laughed. After the sound died down, I reached up to touch the side of his face.

  There was that thing again. That warm fluttery feeling in my chest. It was spreading. Now I felt it in my stomach, spiraling like an out of control melody with no end in sight.

  Evander shut his eyes and leaned in. I felt his warmth on my skin. I felt his depth and hesitation too. Somehow, after all the sex we’d had, and as many times as I’d swallowed his cum, this moment…The one shrouded in silence and unknown emotions…was more intimate.

  He pressed a single soft kiss to my forehead and I let out a pent up breath, deflating my lungs. That forehead kiss was eye-opening. My eyes might have been closed but my third eye was wide open.

  “You’re definitely a flame,” Evander sighed. “I want you to burn me up, Xari. Don’t stop being you.”

  “I won’t. Promise me you’ll always be yourself too. The real you.”

  “I can do that.”

  “Can you leave the senate and become who you were meant to be?” I asked with a smile.

  “Nah…I can’t do that, beautiful.” He stroked my jawline slowly.

  “You can. You’re just scared.”

  “I’m not an author. I’m a writer. I do it as a hobby.”

  “You’re amazing. You have a way of making everything seem so simple even when it’s not. You put the same spirit into your writing.”

  “You’re saying that because you like the way I fuck you,” he joked, squeezing my ass.

  “I’m serious.” The room might have still been swaying back and forth but I knew what the fuck I was talking about. “You could be as great as any other best-selling author out here, Evander.”

  “You really believe that, don’t you?” He stopped joking for a minute to look at me.

  “Yes, I’ve been saying that for how long now? You’re so damn stubborn, Senator.”

  “And you’re so drunk.” Our legs tangled together and I laid my head on his chest to listen to his heartbeat. It was a thump, thump, thump that was stuck in my head. I wanted to get out of bed and march down to Sunshine to pluck out the notes on her strings.

  We spent the entire night talking about everything and nothing. I’d never had a night like that before. I heard girls talking about shit like that. Staying up all night and talking on the phone or falling asleep in each other’s arms but none of that was a reality for me because I spent my time practicing. There was no time for all-night talks…until tonight.

  …

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I stumbled out of bed holding my head and praying the hammering would stop.

  “Come back to bed, Xari.” Evander’s sleepy voice tugged at me but I had to get some practice in. The Philips’s wedding was quickly approaching. I excused yesterday because a lot was going on but there was no way in fresh hell I was going to miss two days of practice.

  “I have to play,” I told him, rubbing my tired eyes. I also had to stop falling asleep without my eye mask. Sunlight was not my friend.

  “I’ll make breakfast and you practice.” He sat up and stretched giving me a lovely view of his golden muscles and colorful tattoos. I focused on Frankie’s full name on his chest and cringed inwardly. I was breaking her trust by fucking her father behind her back.

  “Deal,” I nodded, heading out of the room.

  The moment I was near Sunshine, my bones relaxed. I walked around lighting my millions of candles and pulled in a deep breath. I was at home.

  “I still want my Janet song,” Evander whispered in my ear, making me jump. The fine hairs on my arm stood on end at the sound of his voice.

  “I didn’t forget,” I smiled, turning to face him. This time when I looked into those deep, soul-swallowing brown eyes, I saw the little boy inside who wanted his father’s approval. The talk we had last nigh
t into the early hours of the morning changed both of us.

  “After breakfast, can you sit in here and write while I warm up?” I wanted him near me. I also wanted him to pour himself into something he loved.

  “Yeah, of course.” He kissed my cheek and I lit up with a smile. “Then on your next break…I’m fucking you all over this house.”

  “Um. No. Work first. Play later.”

  “Play when I tell you to play,” he growled.

  “Make. Me.” I grinned and bounced up on the balls of my feet. Evander’s hand circled my neck making my clit throb.

  “You know what those two words do to me with your bad ass.” He stood me on my tiptoes while he choked me then he crashed against my waiting mouth. When he sat me down flat on my feet, blood thumped against the walls of my veins, beating and hammering until it stole my breath away.

  “I better hear some phenomenal music coming from this room while I cook,” he told me as he walked out. My eyes locked onto the thick wedges of muscle flexing beneath his skin.

  Mine.

  The word seemed to pop in my mind from thin air. What the fuck was happening? The only thing I’d ever been possessive of in my life was Sunshine. I didn’t claim men. They usually did the claiming. I did the running and evading. I didn’t want to do that with Evander though.

  I wanted more.

  The thought jarred me so deeply that I shook my head to physically dislodge it from my brain. I stretched my fingers and began plucking out the tune to Any Time, Any Place by Janet Jackson. It reminded me of last night in the governor’s mansion.

  Evander and I were all over each other.

  I played the melody of Janet’s voice instead of the instruments and I swear to god, a picture painted itself across my eyelids. Me against the wall while Evander fucked me hard and slow. I felt his heat on my skin and smelled his cologne. I heard how wet I was for him and the moans escaping me that I couldn’t control.

  The recent memories turned my warmup session into something so thick and charged with sexual energy that I started getting wet. Playing the harp was always a beautiful experience but it had never turned me on before.

  You weren’t thinking about Evander fucking you while you played the harp before, either.

  Damn that voice in my head.

  I played louder, trying to drown out the explicit visions swarming me. It didn’t work. That song evoked too many desires and feelings.

  I dropped my hands to my side and shook them out.

  “Why’d you stop?” I spun around on my stool with wide eyes. Evander walked in and stood near me. Too near. “I swear to god, I love watching you play. Your back is straight as a pin and the way you arch your feet and spread your legs makes me think about doing some nasty shit to you.”

  A smile bent my lips upward. Tingles rushed along my spine before consuming me whole. There wasn’t a spot on my body not affected by him.

  “Play for me,” he said, turning me to face Sunshine. I shut my eyes and staring plucking the strings again. The music came out slow and sweet like syrup. “That’s so perfect, Xari.” His lips brushed against my neck and the hairs on my arms stood again.

  Dammit.

  Usually, the only thing that made my hairs stand on end was playing the harp. Now, Evander did the same thing. It wasn’t just my body he was affecting but my heart too.

  “Good girl,” he said, resting his hands on my shoulders. They slid down further, moving around to my breasts. He squeezed and pinched my nipples through the cotton of my shirt…well, his shirt. My notes slipped a bit when I shuddered against him. I completely froze when he traveled between my open legs.

  “Keep playing, Xari.” He pulled my earlobe into his mouth. My breathing hitched but I started playing again.

  Evander’s long thick fingers spread my pussy open. More dropped notes. The song was stained with white-hot passion. I thought it would disturb the perfection of the sound but it didn’t. The song turned into something different.

  He smeared my wetness in circles around my aching clit. My chest stuttered with jagged breaths. Each one was raw slicing through the flimsy guard I was trying to keep in place.

  “Your music is just as beautiful as you are. Just as fluid…” His middle finger dipped inside my entrance. “Just as wet.” His teeth sank into my neck sending splinters of delicious pain shooting through my body.

  Any Time, Any Place had become a broken song of drunken notes and off-pitch melodies that were fueled by the passion dancing between Evander and me.

  “You hear how beautiful those notes sound, baby?” He asked in my ear. I nodded absently, letting the sensation of his fingers stretching me and stroking me to an orgasm fall over me like a waterfall. “Imperfect. Wild. Haunting. Just like you, Xari.”

  “Oh my god,” I moaned when I felt my climax reaching its peak. I didn’t know how long I’d be able to keep my perfect posture or keep the notes flowing from my fingers.

  “Show me the vulnerable side.” His fingers were magic inside of me. I was the one who knew how to play the harp but Evander knew how to make me hit notes. The way he strummed me was perfect. “Show me how you bend and break.” His hard dick pressed against my back. I wanted it inside of me. I needed it the same way I needed to feel harp strings beneath my fingers.

  I needed him.

  I forced myself to play while I came all over his fingers. I didn’t care anymore if the music sounded perfect or not. It was about the unbridled passion. It was about the fire.

  The only thing that existed in that moment was us. Everything else was pointless. We’d become the music that kept me alive. We’d become my favorite song.

  Lava hot tears streaked my cheeks as an orgasm so good and so rich raced through me, obliterating my senses. Once the shaking stopped, I let my hands fall and my shoulders drop. My bones were soggy and useless after that.

  “I…I have never…” I inhaled to steady my shaky nerves. “In my life had an orgasm like that before, Evander.” I turned around and gripped his impressive cock in my hand. “Is it masochistic that I love how huge your dick is? Like, I love that my hand won’t fit around it. I want you to impale me,” I said. Evander cracked a smile then a laugh followed.

  “Here I thought you were going to talk about your amazing orgasmic experience and you can’t stop focusing on my dick.”

  “That experience was as close to god as I’ll ever get while I’m alive,” I told him. Every trace of humor left my voice.

  “Wow…” When he stared into my eyes, I knew he felt the sincerity in my words. Words were his thing.

  “Now, can I be your nasty slut?” I stood up and his eyes raked over my body. I took his red t-shirt off, dropping it on the floor so he could see my body.

  “Get your bad ass over here,” he grinned. A giggle tumbled from my mouth as I locked my arms around his neck. He lifted me in the air and carried me to the steps. Well, that’s as far as we got.

  He stayed true to his word and fucked me all over the house. Breakfast didn’t get made. I knew I wouldn’t hit all my practice hours either. I didn’t care as much as I normally would have though.

  That moment in the formal dining room with Evander showed me that everything doesn’t have to be perfect. I knew my performance at the Philips’s wedding would be phenomenal because I knew I was an amazing harpist. I decided to cut myself some slack for once and enjoy this man who seemed to take over my world.

  …

  NINETEEN

  “Okay so…I know I leave for DC this weekend and this question is short notice but…can you guys come with me?” Xari blinked those gorgeous lashes while her stare ping-ponged between me and Frankie. Of course, Frankie lit up with a smile. She knew to be cautious until I made my final decision though.

  “Xari, this wedding is in a matter of days and you expect me to drop everything and go with you?”

  “Not just you,” she pouted. “Frankie too.” Staring at her lips almost threw me off my train of thought. I kept picturing
the sexy way she sucked my dick last night before she crept back to her room.

  “Right, and I’m supposed to do what? Call Navy and have her move my entire weekend schedule?” Both Frankie and Xari were pouting now. With a sigh, I pulled my phone from my pocket and hit Navy’s name.

  “Hello, Senator Freeman,” she said after the first ring. I put her on speakerphone and rubbed the bridge of my nose.

  “Hey, Navy. I have a huge favor to ask.” Frankie walked over to Xari, clutching her tight in her arms. They looked like two teenagers waiting for their parents to approve a sleepover.

  “Sure, what’s up?”

  “Can you dismantle my entire weekend schedule?”

  “Um…you already had me do that last week, Senator Freeman. You cleared your schedule so you and Frankie can go to DC with Xari. Should I order you more brain-boosting vitamins?”

  The squeal Xari and Frankie let out was ear-splitting. I stood up and walked away a few feet to tone down the deafening noise.

  “No thank you, Navy. I just dropped the surprise on your sister so she’s doing what she does best.” I stared at the way she hopped up and down in an excited circle with Frankie and my entire world seemed to deconstruct so that they were the only things I saw. They were happy and that meant I was happy.

  My girls…

  “Being extra?” Navy guessed with a laugh.

  “Lighting up the room.” I cleared my throat immediately because I didn’t mean for the truth to come barreling out. “Thanks, Navy. I’ll get back to you later.”

  “Wait, Senator Freeman did you just say she was lighting up the room?”

  “Ignore that, Navy.”

  “Oh my god, you are so in…”

  I said one last goodbye before hanging up. I didn’t need to hear what that last word was. It haunted me for the past few nights. The nights I didn’t want Xari to go back to her room. The nights I wanted to keep her beside me because I slept better when she was near.

  “Oh my god, Evander!” Xari wanted to jump into my arms. I felt it. I saw it when she bounced on her toes. “You already planned to go with me.” She rubbed her cheeks and shoved me. “Now my cheeks hurt from smiling so hard.”