Up For Debate (Love and Desire Book 1)

by Devin Sawyer

  “Alright, house rules,” Finn says. “Everyone gets a quarter, and we bounce it off the table into the shot glass. First person to make it gets to choose who drinks.” We all nod our heads.

  “Ready, set, go,” he says, and I toss my quarter at the table, bouncing it off and into the small glass. The other quarters bounce off the table and around the rim or roll off the table altogether.

  “Lawson,” I name him, appointing him to drink.

  “That was a practice round,” he jokes.

  “Bullshit.”

  “You’re being a sore loser tonight, just drink,” Reece tells him.

  Everyone rounds up their quarters and takes form to toss them again when Finn counts down the ready, set go. I bounce the quarter again making it on my first try for a second time.

  “Lawson,” I appoint again.

  He narrows his eyes at me and it looks sexy and intimidating at the same time, but I don’t back down. He tosses back another drink.

  Everyone misses on their next try, but we keep tossing until Finn makes it in on his second try.

  “Little Calhoun, drink up.”

  “Little my ass,” he says as he tilts his head back. I laugh but also get the sensation this might very quickly turn into a dick measuring contest.

  “Ready, set, go,” I rush out before they can say anything else and I toss my quarter again, making it on my first try.

  “Hey, we weren’t even ready.”

  “Cheater.”

  “I hadn’t even finished my drink.”

  They all argue. I shrug my shoulders at them.

  “Ya snooze, ya lose. I pick Lawson.”

  He tosses his drink back again. “You trying to get me drunk, Newbie?” he asks into my ear once he swallows, although not quietly enough that the others around us, don’t hear it and goose bumps pebble my skin… everywhere.

  Finn coughs uncomfortably, and I blush. “Alright, next round,” he announces.

  I continue to bounce quarters into the shot glass, mostly picking on Lawson, but occasionally splitting the punishment between Reece and Finn. I lose a handful of rounds and they take the opportunity to pick on me each time and the more I drink the less precise I am with hitting the shot glass. When even I start to feel dizzy, I know that everyone at the table has had a lot to drink. Finn looks stoic and off in thought as ever, Reece has a goofy grin on his face that makes me chuckle out loud, and Lawson’s eyes are sitting at half-mast on his face. The house is crowded and many people have moved outside to cool off and find some fresh air, including the girls I spotted Lawson talking to earlier, but they haven’t approached him out here.

  “I’ve got to piss,” Reece announces and leaves the table.

  “Yeah, I need to stand for a minute and stretch before I fall asleep,” Lawson says, and he does so but doesn’t look the most stable I’ve ever seen him.

  “I’m about to call this party quits. Everyone is just here stealing all my free beer,” Finn says.

  “Is it stealing if it’s free?” I laugh at him.

  “Whatever. I want them out,” he drunkenly slurs. I’m not even sure why we invited them when we just hung out with each other all night… with the exception of Lawson who enjoyed some of their company earlier. “Help me kick them out, Lawson.”

  I look over to him. “Should I call us a cab?” None of us can drive like this.

  “No,” Finn practically shouts. “Y’all will stay here. You and Lawson in the spare room. Reece, you can pass out on the couch,” he says to Reece as he returns.

  Stay in the same room as Lawson? The same bed? Does Finn assume we’ve had sex already? Did Lawson tell him we’ve had sex? All the questions race through my mind.

  “Everyone out,” Finn yells. “Get your drunk asses out of my house. Call a cab if you need to but get out.” Finn is belligerent in his funny, yet whiny way. He’s waving his hands outward toward them as if to shoo them off.

  Lawson follows behind him and more calmly helps people to get moving or offering to call them a cab. I linger out by the table with Reece, waiting for the house to empty. My nerves begin attacking me, but Reece doesn’t seem to notice as he’s thrown his head back on the lawn chair and appears to almost be asleep as it is. When Finn comes back, he shakes Reece in the chair, scaring him half to death.

  “Come on Reecey, I’ll grab you a pillow and a blanket. You’re not going to puke, are you?”

  “No, I’m not going to puke. You and Lawson both drank more than I did.”

  “Fair enough.”

  They walk off down the hall toward a closet and I meander in the living room, waiting for Lawson to return. I go to the front door and peek out the glass and see Lawson once again chatting with the same two girls he was with earlier. My blood boils. I’m supposed to stay in a room with him but every chance he got that I wasn’t attached to his hip he was chatting up these two. It’s like when I’m right in front of him, I’m all he sees and that feeling makes me fucking swim in ecstasy, but when I’m not, he is easily entertained by any female. It makes me feel disrespected and I don’t know that I’ve ever felt a worse emotion. He claims he’s playing the future senator game, but truth be told he and I both know if he wants to win the vote one day, he should be talking up all the South Carolina boys who plan to take over their father’s companies. Tears prick at my eyes, but I hold them back when I hear Finn and Reece behind me. I look back to see them setting up the couch for Reece to sleep on.

  When I turn back around, Lawson is heading inside and I move away from the door. When he enters, he says nothing. He grabs me by the hand and takes me down the hall to the guest bedroom. He unbuttons his shirt and I look around the room, not wanting to stare, too angry to give him the gratification of knowing that I want to. The grey T-shirt he was wearing underneath is tossed onto the bed.

  “You can wear that if you want. It’s probably more comfortable than your dress.”

  He strips from his jeans and is down to just his boxer briefs and I look away again, taking the shirt and head toward the attached bathroom. When I emerge, Lawson is already lying down. I feel like I can hear my heart pounding. I’ve slept with people before, I’ve just never slept over with anyone before. His shirt skims the tops of my thighs and I scamper over to the other side of the bed and slide in, keeping my distance. I roll to my side, away from him, wanting to shut him out, wishing I was back at my dorm where I could freely analyze why I feel so frustrated with him.

  “Hey, come here,” he whispers, but I don’t move, feigning sleep.

  After a moment, I feel the bed dip and him shifting over closer to me. He wraps his arm around my torso and drags me in closer to him until I can feel his warm body pressed against mine. He drops a kiss to my shoulder, but I want to pull away from it.

  “You’ve been distant since we got here. What’s going on?” he pries.

  “Nothing,” I say, sounding annoyed.

  “Is it Jenny and Tonya?” If the motherfucker knew, why did he ask? “Do you trust me?” he asks concerned. I roll around to look at him. “No,” I say flatly. “I like you, but I don’t know you well enough to trust you just yet.”

  “I wouldn’t ever cheat on you.” He says it like it’s a promise and despite my annoyance my heart thuds in my chest a little harder for him. Traitor. “Yes, I’m a flirt. It’s a tactic, a game I play. It works, and unfortunately, it’s the role I have, probably forever. I shaped it a long time ago, with my father as the guide. He’s charming and cunning and a great leader.” Great, I just climbed into bed with a Slytherin. “I’m trying to fucking toe the line of charming and engaging without disrespecting you but I know we are going to have issues with it until we get it figured out. Just know, that I thought I would be the first candidate in many years to make a run one day without a family by his side. It’s a generic move, people love family men, but I was tired of my parents setting me up with Veronicas and so I made a new name for myself to avoid the snaky women I would inevitably have to marry into. It�
�s backfiring, clearly, because for the first time I want someone. I gave up the playboy image the second I bargained with myself to date you, because I was more scared of letting you pass me up.”

  I’m a bargain. Fucking lovely. Those are always words I’ve wanted to hear.

  “I don’t want to let you go, and I don’t want to fuck things up, but I will probably piss you off at some point, but it won’t be because I cheated on you. You can bet your ass that I’ll be loyal to you as long as you stick around.” He says this last part with such force and determination that I want to believe him, his lips making promises that I’m not sure his brain can follow through on.

  I’m still feeling the boomerang of shame I felt most the evening, but it’s lighter and I want to kiss the lips that are making promises and not worry about the mistakes his brain may make later. My drunken buzz is making my brain fuzzy, and it’s hard to field through my emotions like this. I slowly lean in the few inches separating us and press my lips lightly to his. My tongue traces the outline of his mouth and our breaths become slow and synchronized.

  “Does that mean you believe me?” Lawson asks as he pulls away. I don’t answer him. He doesn’t want to hear my answer, so I move to close the gap again and run my lips into his but a firm hand on my shoulder pauses me. “Answer me,” he says firmly.

  “I’m not sure. I believe that you like me, just not enough to quit playing the same old games.”

  A sigh tumbles from him and the lips I was planning on kissing, purse against each other. “I can’t promise you that the politics and socializing will ever end.”

  “I know that. I’m not asking you to, I’m just going to have to decide at some point if it’s worth it to me. Maybe over time, I’ll adjust.”

  This time he leans in to kiss me. “I plan on convincing you that I’m worth it,” he says right before his lips assault mine. His hands roam my arms and sides and every place he caresses me I tingle. I wonder if that’s the alcohol or his touch. As always, the second his lips trace my own, our chemistry ignites, and I liken it to what it must feel like to drive a racecar. We can go from zero to sixty in seconds. Lawson’s fingertips play with the edge of his T-shirt that sits at the top of my thighs and I can barely focus on any other sensation. It’s so light it almost tickles. He traces the area back and forth, kissing at my neck as he goes. A whimper escapes me when I can’t take the teasing anymore and I’m a bit mortified that such a wanton sound existed in my body.

  His hands grip my thighs right where they meet my hips and I ache to have him slide his thumbs upward just an inch farther so I can feel some release.

  “I should sleep on the floor tonight.” His voice is hoarse and raspy.

  “No, you should sleep right here, next to me.”

  “You think more highly of my restraint than I do, Farah. It’s about to break if I don’t get some space between us.”

  I slide his hands with my own, around to where they are gripping my ass and move my hips in closer to his. His hardness is evident between my thighs. He looks pained, but the smallest thrust I feel tells me, that’s not pain he’s feeling.

  “Then let it break,” I whisper in a carnal voice that I don’t recognize.

  “You’ve been drinking. You don’t mean it.” His tone sounds so restrained as if he is holding his breath.

  “I do. What I feel for you is wild and unrestrained and it makes me crazy,” I take one of his hands from my ass and slide it around to the front until it’s just my panties between his hand and me. I throw my head back a little, enjoying the sensitive touch. “It makes me jealous, and annoyed and petty and those are all things I’ve never been before. I don’t have to like who it makes me, to know I want more of you. I want all of you.” With his hand I lift the edge of my underwear and slide his hand underneath, letting him feel how turned on I am, and how badly I want him to have me.

  A guttural groan is released from him, and like a starved animal he pounces on me the second he touches me. His lips crushing mine, and his fingers, with a mind of their own, exploring how wet he made me. Before I have the chance to enjoy it, he throws the sheets off of us and lifts himself to his knees in front of me. I can see how his boxer briefs are doing a poor job of containing his length and I become more turned on at the first sight of his manhood. I bite my lip to restrain my excitement.

  “You look naughty when you do that,” he tells me, a devilish but playful look in his eyes that I haven’t seen before. I don’t know how to respond so I say nothing. I watch him as he crawls between my thighs and attempt to not break his stare first. “Lift up,” he says, gesturing to my bottom and grabs at my panty line, sliding them down my legs. I feel the cool air hit me, and I want to feel self-conscious but am not given the time to, as he dives down tasting me, my flesh.

  An exasperated voice falls from me. “Shit.”

  He licks at me and sucks on every part of me, making my tender skin feel delicious as he devours me. He was made to do this. His tongue applying just the right amount of pressure has me hovering on the edge of an orgasm. My skin pebbles with goose bumps and when he inserts two fingers and begins pumping them inside of me it takes mere seconds for me to reach my peak. I contract around his fingers so powerfully that my whole body tightens and I feel the intense pleasure roll through my body and out my sensitive core. My tired and lazy eyes watch him as he lifts to his knees and licks at his fingers like they are candy. He looks painfully hard and when he finally removes his boxer briefs his length springs free. Nerves, tremble through me, but more prominent is my excitement. He leans in and rubs the head of his delicious looking cock against the wet mess he created, and I tremble from the sensitivity and he chuckles.

  “Condom,” I whisper. He nods and leans over to the nightstand where his wallet sits and pulls one out. He rolls it on and returns to me.

  “Speak now or forever hold your peace.”

  “I want this,” I assure him. Grabbing my chin, he tips it up and leans down to gently kiss me.

  “I want you, more than anything,” he confirms and gently pushes into me. I expected it to hurt. Between his size and my dry spell, I anticipated to be very sore, but my body is well prepared to take him. I’m still so wet that he glides in easily.

  “Ohmyfuckinggod,” he slurs all into one word before pulling out and pressing back in again, plunging long and slow, taking the time to appreciate the sensation. Our chemistry is thick in the air and it seems as if I am in a fog of pure lust. I want to connect with him every way possible.

  “Your body is so fucking beautiful,” he shares as he gazes at the way I am splayed open for him. “Take off the shirt. I want to see all of you.”

  I lift myself to my elbows and Lawson never breaks eye contact or bothers to slow as I do what he says. My breasts are full but not overly large and they bounce when he presses into me to the hilt. A grunt exits him as he watches me.

  “Sit up,” his command comes.

  He pulls me into a sitting position, never leaving my body until I’m straddling him. He leans back on his palms and I begin to ride him, as slowly as before. His gaze holds my whole body, taking me in. It makes me feel vulnerable but also incredibly sexy. I’ve never felt this sexy before in my whole life and I have a whole new perspective on sensuality and how I’d like to embrace it with him. His mouth is warm and trails its way to my breasts and I crane my neck, pushing my hair to the back to give him access. The pleasure causes me excitement and I begin to thrust slightly faster, looking to match the intensity. He releases me and skims his lips up to my collarbone, and his warm breath cascades over my chilled skin. I lift my arms around his shoulders and use them as leverage to lift myself on him over and over again at a faster pace.

  “That’s it, beautiful. You feel so fucking wonderful,” he coos, and I find my release again on him.

  There is no strength left to hold myself up and I fall back onto the bed. He pulls out of me and places me on my side, laying my legs on top of each other, in the spooning pos
ition, and he bends over me from behind, holding himself up with his arms. He presses into me from behind, and in this position, with my legs closed, I feel every inch of him slide into me. The sensation is so tight and like he is perfectly made for me, to fit me so snug.

  His speed quickens, pumping into me and I know he is on the brink of his own release. He leans in to kiss me and holds my lips to his as his body contracts and he empties himself into the condom. He releases his weight on top of me and I roll to my back, him slipping from me. I hold on to him, cradling the man I’m falling for.

  CHAPTER 13 – PRESENT

  The days are going by faster than I expected which is a pleasant surprise. I expected things to be much more painful, but the improved relationship with William and Emily seem to have made for a better transition. Things only really seem awkward when we are at the house and Lawson is around, which hasn’t been much. I’ve barely seen him the past few days outside of the press conference, meet and greets and luncheons we’ve attended. A little space after our bathroom run-in is probably good, seeing as how he was a complete douche canoe. I decide to text Finn to see if he can still meet for lunch this week. Today is one of the few days left that I’m available and I’m hoping it works for him. He did promise that he would drop work to see me, but I feel bad because I know he’s very busy. I send him a text as I brush out my hair to see if he still wants to meet at Table and Tavern and he responds back a moment later letting me know he took the afternoon off and just made us a noon reservation.

  Finn and I keep in touch. Over the years we’ve texted and maintained a close relationship. He came to visit me in Portland once, but that was before Reece and I were a thing. I had been gone about six months and at that point knew I wasn’t planning to return. When Finn messaged me, I waited a few days before responding. I had missed him and his friendship. I started over, again, in a brand new city across the nation and it felt good to hear from someone familiar. Of course, I was also afraid he would tell Lawson where I was. I don’t think Lawson would have come to find me, but I just felt better knowing I was in control of our distance and not him. I eventually responded to Finn, and he promised not to reveal my secret. He also booked a ticket to come see me a few months later.