Reveal

by Bromberg, K.

  “Trying not to get in trouble is part of the thrill.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Vaughn

  The lights of Hoboken across the Hudson are laid out before us. Ryker and I are sitting on some kind of wooden chaise longue type of chair, the leftover pizza in a box on the chair next to us. Condos tower behind us with most of their lights off, the occupants fast asleep, but there is an occasional bout of laughter or domestic sound here and there.

  And of course a siren wails or a horn honks every now and then, making me jump like one just did.

  “You really are worried, aren’t you?” Ryker asks as his finger draws lazy lines up and down the length of my spine. I’m sitting up while he’s lying back, obviously more relaxed at this being-where-we-shouldn’t-be type of thing.

  “Aren’t you worried? You’re the one who practices law for a living. What if we’re caught? What if they press charges? What if—”

  His chuckle rumbles through the silence, and it takes everything I have not to shush him to be quieter. “Relax. I’m not worried about talking an officer or two into letting us off with a warning. Or offering a subtle bribe. Besides, what we’re doing is the least of their problems.”

  “It’s ironic that I’m this straitlaced, isn’t it?” I laugh. “Most people would think it’d be the other way around—me the rule breaker and you the rule follower.”

  “Seriously. How did I not know this about you? That you are so scared of getting in trouble.”

  I glance back at him and give a resigned shrug. “Because if I get in trouble, the fallout can have dire consequences.”

  “We’ll be fine. I promise you. But I have a feeling this need to follow rules and this fear of getting in trouble started way before now.”

  “You don’t get it because you’re you.”

  “What?” he says through a laugh. “That makes no sense.”

  “Of course it doesn’t . . . but just like you breaking in here—how you don’t worry because you know a cop would see your expensive clothes and might know of you or your reputation and let you off with a warning—they’d never do that to me. People see me—a woman in the skimpy outfit at work or the person who runs Wicked Ways—and . . . and they assume what they want about me. Nothing I say or do can change their opinions.”

  He leans forward and presses a kiss to the back of my neck, his lips moving against my skin when he speaks. “Fuck their opinions. I’m glad I get to see the woman no one else gets to see.” He pulls me back so his arm is around my shoulder and my head rests on his chest. He murmurs against my scalp, “Relax, Vaughn. We’re going to be just fine.”

  His words soak in, and I know he means right now in our trespassing and also in the greater scheme of things.

  I hope he’s right.

  We sit in comfortable silence for a bit with the sounds of crickets and the trees rustling in the light breeze coming in off the river. This feels so normal. So right. It makes me afraid to leave this platform, because I don’t want that to change.

  “When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?”

  His question startles me and then makes me smile as the faint memories of my mom ghost through my mind. “A mom.”

  “A mom?”

  “Mmm. I wanted to be just like my mom. She was my world.”

  “What was she like?”

  “Vibrant. Fun. She always made you feel like you were the most special person in the room so that when she turned to pay attention to someone else, you were almost jealous over it.”

  “Is it hard to remember her?” Another kiss to my head. A hand running up and down my arm.

  “Yes. It’s been so long that I’m not sure if what I remember are truly memories or just ones I pieced together from pictures and created myself. But I remember her voice clear as day. How she used to sing silly songs to us when we were tucked in her bed. Her family was super formal, and then there was her—this wildflower among all the perfectly pruned roses.”

  “I bet they hated that.”

  “Probably.” I smile at the memories that hit me, one after another, and am grateful that he allows me the silence to just close my eyes and think of her. “What about you? Tell me about your parents.”

  “Nothing much to tell other than what you already know.”

  “Where is your dad? What does he do?”

  “He’s down in Palm Beach, Florida. He’s an angel investor in companies.” He sighs. “I don’t know—we’re not really that close. After my mom took him to the proverbial cleaners in their divorce, he bailed. I spent vacations and summers with him . . . and whenever my mom deemed that she needed less responsibility, I guess.”

  “That must have been hard.”

  “It’s all I’ve ever known. Him gone and her falling in love, then out of love, and then the drama of a divorce. The woe is me as she collects another hefty check in her divorce settlement, only for her to do it all over again.”

  “Were any of your stepdads nice to you?”

  “They all were nice to me. More tolerant than nice, really,” he says, so matter-of-fact, and my heart breaks for the little boy who I can imagine was always trying to fit in an ever-changing landscape. “But they were moguls in their own minds. One owned some restaurants, one was a developer, like I said. One was a capital investor, and one was connected to the Vanderbilts somehow. None of them had time for a son.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I figured shit out after a while. I knew when to be absent, how to play the part for dinner parties, and how to be used as a pawn when my mother needed something.”

  “That’s so wrong.” And the opinion he had of women when we first met makes so much sense now.

  “It is what it is. Now”—he pulls me in tighter against him—“can we get off this topic? I didn’t take you on a romantic date on the Hudson to talk about my boring childhood.”

  But it was anything but boring. Sad and lonely, I’m sure, but not boring.

  “What do you want to talk about?”

  “Anything.”

  “When I was little, the town we lived in used to have this wish lantern festival,” I say, pulling the memory out of the blue.

  “Wish lantern?”

  “They’re the paper lanterns like—” Like the ones in the movie Tangled. But I don’t finish the thought because there is no way he’s watched Tangled before. “Like the ones you light, and then after the hot air fills them, they float into the sky.”

  “Yeah, I know what you’re talking about.”

  “Anyways, we used to have this festival, and people would write their wishes on them or their worries, and the theory was that once they floated into the sky, their wish would be granted or their worry would be taken away.”

  “That’s a cool concept.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “What made you think about that right now?” he asks.

  “I don’t know. I was looking at the Hudson, and it reminded me of watching the lanterns fly high above the Atlantic after they were lit and let go.”

  “If you could have one of each right now, what would they be?”

  “They don’t come true if you tell anyone,” I lie.

  “Nice try, Sanders. If you’re writing the words on the lantern, then everyone can see your wish and your worry anyway.”

  “You’re a pain, you know that?”

  “The best kind of pain,” he jokes and presses a kiss to my temple. “Your wish and your worry?”

  So many flit through my mind that I am too cowardly to give voice to. Getting my teaching credential. Starting a charity for kids with Downs. But I know none of those will ever be able to happen if I don’t take care of a few things first.

  “My wish would be to finally adopt Lucy. My worry? I have too many worries to pick just one.” Another lie, but the last person I want to bring up tonight is the senator and wishing that he’d leave me alone and be out of my life. “What about yours?”

  “My
wish would be for you to stop holding back from me. And my worry . . . my worry would be that the senator doesn’t stop obsessing over you.”

  Silence hangs heavy between us, and I don’t speak, afraid to ruin what’s left of our date.

  But it’s not lost on me that both his wish and his worry have to do with me.

  “You sure it’s okay for you to stay here?” Ryker asks as he unclasps his watch from his wrist and sets it on the dresser.

  “If you’re asking if I need to call home to ask my parents if it’s okay if I spend the night at a boy’s house, I’m pretty sure the answer is yes.” I bat my eyelashes and offer him a coy smile.

  He lifts his eyebrows and grants me a smile. “Where were girls like you when I was a teenager with an empty house for weeks on end?” he teases.

  “I shudder to think of the trouble you got yourself into.”

  “You have no idea,” he says with a shake of his head and a knowing chuckle. I picture him as a teenager. No doubt handsome, definitely privileged, and most likely lonely. He probably lost himself in girls and sports and pushed everyone away or held them way too close.

  I watch the man he is now from my seat on the edge of his massive bed as he pulls the henley over his head and tosses it into the hamper. His broad shoulders and the defined muscles of his back are on display. His trim waist leads down to his very fine ass, perfectly framed by the denim covering it.

  He’s gorgeous in so many ways it hurts to think about it.

  “At some point, we need to talk about the senator, Vaughn.” He turns to look at me again, the playful smile from moments ago replaced with a measured intensity.

  “No.”

  “We do. We need to figure out how to deal with him so you can stop worrying.”

  “Please, not now.” I force a smile to my lips despite the anxiety the mention of Carter Preston brings to me. “Please don’t ruin the night . . . morning . . . whatever this was.”

  “It’s a date.”

  “Yes. Our date. Everything about it was perfect. I just . . .” I look out the window as I try to find the words to explain what I need to say, suddenly shy from his unwavering attention. “I just need to be Vaughn right now. The sad little girl and confused twentysomething like I was before I had to be Vee. I need you to like Vaughn, to be okay with her and everything that comes with her . . . because that’s who I really am.”

  “Hey.” I don’t turn to look his way as he steps beside me. “Vaughn?” The dip of the bed. The feel of his finger moving my chin so I’m forced to meet his gaze. “While ball-busting Vee intrigues the hell out of me, it’s you I always see, Vaughn. Just you.”

  He leans in and kisses me. The reassurance I find in this most intimate of acts is almost unnerving. The need to want him to give me the assurance even more so. My hands slide up the firm planes of his chest, then up over his shoulders before sliding down his back and then dipping below his waistband.

  “Uh-uh,” he warns with a chuckle as his hands lock over my wrists and prevent me from grabbing what is within inches of my reach before he abruptly stands from the bed.

  My lips still tingling from his kiss, I look at him like he’s crazy. “What do you mean, uh-uh?” I ask. “I thought you were thrilled that my parents were out of town so you could lure me to your house with promises of a big party. And then I’d pretend to be shocked when I arrived to find no party, just an empty house with you drenched in cologne asking me if I wanted to see your big, cozy bed.”

  “Jesus,” he says through a laugh. “I’d love to see what else that imagination of yours thinks up”—he adjusts his grip on my wrists when I try to show him—“but not right now.”

  Something I’m not quite used to hits harshly: rejection.

  My face must show it because his smile widens and he shakes his head ever so slightly as he meets my eyes. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m trying to take things slow with you.”

  “What?” I all but laugh the word out.

  “The first time we met face-to-face, it ended with my fingers slick in your pussy.” He quirks a brow as his smile turns suggestive. “And while I’m all for that—man, am I all for that—I think we started off on the wrong foot. We started off expecting sex and then nothing more.”

  “And now you’re expecting . . . ?”

  I can see him mentally chastising himself for turning down sex. It’s in the way he shifts to readjust his raging hard-on. In the way he takes in a deep breath and looks away from me for a moment to see if he can keep his restraint intact.

  When he looks back, the gold in his eyes burns with a desire he’s trying to deny and that I’m all for igniting. “And now I want to do this right.”

  And if there was one thing he could have said to surprise me and knock the defiance to prove him wrong out of me, it was that.

  “Right?” My heart constricts in my chest.

  “Yes. Right.” He struggles with words, with the intensity of the conversation that I’m sure neither of us expected, but the tension in my hands to resist his grip eases. “I’ve messed a lot of things up, and I think you’ve had a lot of things messed up for you in your life. You, Vaughn Sanders, deserve to have something done right for you.”

  “Oh.” It’s all I can say, because everything about this late-night, early-morning date has been unexpected, just like my feelings for him have been.

  “So are you going to let me do this for you? Because I’ve gotta admit, it’s proving a hell of a lot harder to keep my hands off you than I thought it would be.”

  Thud. My heart can’t fall many more times for him, or else it’s going to end up battered and bruised from being offered.

  This man. What in the hell is he doing to me?

  I look up at him through my lashes, a coy smile on my lips, because even though I’m not going to fight him, I sure as hell am not going to make this easy on him. “So what’s this called on our scale of right?”

  “Our scale of right?”

  “Yes. Is this considered our first date?” I lick my bottom lip and watch him take notice.

  “If that’s what you want to call it.”

  “Does that mean I’m going to get a first good night kiss?”

  “I wouldn’t want to deprive you of that, now would I?” A shy smile lights up his face.

  “But I’m in your bed. Most first good night kisses do not happen anywhere near your date’s bed.”

  “You suck at pretending, Vaughn.” He laughs, but then before I can prepare myself, he has me lifted over his shoulder, ass stuck in the air.

  “What are you doing? Stop! Put me down!”

  But he doesn’t stop. He walks through his penthouse, and only when he opens the front door and shuts it at his back does he let me slowly slide down the front of him. When his face comes into view, one eyebrow is quirked up. “Is this front door good enough for you?”

  “Yeah, but it’s kind of odd that it’s your front door when it should be mine—” My mock complaint is cut off when Ryker places his lips on mine to shut me up.

  The kiss smothers our laughter, along with erasing any other thoughts of being difficult from my mind. It’s like a sweet seduction. It starts off soft and slow and then builds with an unfettered desire that’s almost palpable.

  My hands roam up the firmness of his chest to thread through the hair at the base of his neck, while one of his cups my breast and the other presses against my lower back. There isn’t an inch of space between our bodies.

  I can’t help the groan that emits from the back of my throat, but the minute he swallows its sound he steps back and breaks the kiss. I’m left breathless, my body on fire and desperate for more of his touch, as he stalks into his place without a word.

  My smile is almost as automatic as my desperation for him. The man is struggling to keep his word. I have to admire him, but oh this is going to be so much fun.

  “That sure was one incredible good night kiss,” I say as I enter the penthouse, shutting the door before f
ollowing him down the hallway toward his bedroom. “I’d love to see what you do for an encore.”

  His strained laugh is his only response as he walks into his closet, where I can see him brace his hands against the island in there. His head is hung forward, his smile disbelieving, and he shakes his head as if he’s trying to come to terms with the fact that he’s really doing this. That he’s really denying himself sex.

  The minute he seems to rein it in, he shoves his jeans off and throws them somewhere I can’t see in the depths of the closet.

  I slide the sweatshirt he loaned me off and then make quick work of undoing the bustier of my uniform. “Hey, Ryker?” I ask innocently.

  “Hmm?” He walks to the doorway, his impressive cock pressed against his boxer-briefs, which only serves to make that deep-seated ache I have for him burn that much brighter.

  His eyes meet mine momentarily before scraping down to my bare chest and over to the bustier that I let drop unceremoniously onto the floor without looking. I make a show of giving his body the same once-over he’s just given mine—him in his underwear and me in my skirt, stockings, and nothing else.

  “Impressive.” I lift my brows.

  “That’s the least of things I could use to impress you,” he says, followed by a groan as I reach my hands to the back of my skirt so that the distinct sound of the zipper fills the room.

  “I could take care of that for you, you know,” I say, pointing in the general vicinity of his pelvis.

  “Pajamas. You need pajamas right now.” He’s flustered, and it’s adorable.

  “Oopsie.” I let my skirt fall to the ground around my ankles, so now all he’s greeted with are nylons and lacy boy panties beneath. “I didn’t bring any.”

  He struggles—the clench of his jaw, the flexing of his fists, the twitch of his cock. “I’ve got the perfect thing for you,” he says and disappears into his closet, leaving the sexual tension in the room so thick I can almost feel it. He reappears in seconds and throws something at me from the other side of the room.

  “What?” I laugh as I catch it. Then groan when I open it up. “No way. Uh-uh. I am not wearing this.” The T-shirt has RED SOX emblazoned across the front of it, and I can’t help but laugh thinking of our non-Wicked-Ways-sanctioned date. The Yankees game. His rooting for the Sox while I jeered at him for going against my Yankees. Taking the subway across town to his place. Sleeping together for the first time.