7. Clay
CLAY
“R emind me why we thought it was a good idea to host this event.” I turned to my wife, drained after a handful of calls with asshole vendors determined to make me pull my hair out.
This was hardly the first time either of us had hosted a wedding at one of our properties, for fuck’s sake.
Usually, they went off without a hitch or the need for either of us to micromanage every aspect of the process.
This was not a normal situation. I was starting to believe we weren’t cut out for this by the time I flopped onto the sofa in the office we shared at the hotel, the latest in our acquisitions.
One month in, we were succeeding on every level.
Except this one. This particular event. Florists getting their times mixed up, linens delivered in gray rather than the silver Eleanor had chosen, a sick cellist who had to be replaced at the last minute.
The printer assured me it would be no trouble changing the name in the programs for the ceremony, but I wasn’t so sure.
With a sigh, Mira joined me, picking up my legs and dropping them over her lap as she sat down. She kicked off her heels and flexed her feet, sighing. “It’s all going to work out. Things always look worse at the last minute, but then they have a way of ironing themselves out.”
“You really believe that?” I asked skeptically.
She wanted to fire off an answer. I saw it in the way her eyes lit up before her mouth opened, only to release a sigh. “It’s what I’m trying to tell myself,” she admitted instead.
“Terrific.” I covered my eyes with my arm. “What is it about this wedding? I swear, if I believed in curses, I might have to wonder what Dante and Eleanor did to get cursed this way.”
Mira’s soft chuckling made me lift my arm so I could look her way. “Are you sure we aren’t the ones who are cursed?” she suggested with a wry grin.
“What did we ever do?” I asked. “What, was I a murderous dictator in a past life? Because at this rate, I’m thinking it would have to be something as serious as that.”
“Everything will be fine in the end. Hell, Dante understands things like this. He has his right-hand man, Blake, making sure things are running smoothly at his clubs so he can be here now,” she reasoned, running a hand up and down my leg in a distracted, almost anxious way.
Let her pretend all she wanted that she wasn’t bothered by the almost comical string of challenges we faced.
But it was getting to her. Like me, she hid her concerns from our clients.
We kept a professional, level-headed aura around us when we were in front of the bride and groom.
Under the surface, though, her fears and frustrations were starting to simmer.
“I know you’re right,” I admitted. While Dante didn’t run hotels, his clubs put him squarely in the hospitality business, where anything might go wrong at any time.
He had to understand the effort of putting on a smile he didn’t feel, pretending to be more confident and in control of chaos than he was.
“Just think. Tonight is the rehearsal, tomorrow’s the wedding, and it will be a cakewalk from here on out.” She nodded firmly despite the way I snickered. “I mean it. We are going to decide that this is going to go smoothly. And that’s the way it is going to go.”
It seemed the world had other plans. I cringed inwardly when her phone rang, bracing myself for whatever this latest call would bring. “It’s Josie,” she told me, referring to the nanny currently caring for our daughter in one of the upstairs suites.
While we planned on leaving the hotel to its management team on a regular basis, the way we did with our other properties throughout California, overseeing Dante’s wedding, was too important to miss.
Her face fell once she answered the call. Turning to me, she muttered, “Serafina’s running a temperature.”
Cursed. The entire fucking weekend was cursed.
I was up in a heartbeat, already halfway to the door by the time Mira shoved her feet into her shoes and trotted behind me.
“It’s probably nothing,“ she told Josie, though she could very well have been trying to convince herself and me. “We’ll be right up.”
“I swear to God, that girl does not know what she’s doing,” I muttered, jamming my thumb against the button to call the elevator.
A quick elbow to my side from Mira reminded me we weren’t exactly alone—employees and customers moved about the lobby, and none of them needed a look behind the scenes of our private lives.
“She’s just fine,” Mira assured me. She was always better at concealing her thoughts than I was. “Little fevers happen. I’m sure Josie didn’t do anything wrong.”
I wasn’t so sure. Just because it was the same agency Travis had used to find Penny didn’t mean there weren't bad apples in the bunch.
Only when we were in the elevator with the doors closed, out of sight of everyone else, did Mira rest against the wall.
“I’ll call the pediatrician when we get upstairs.
He’ll probably tell us this is nothing and give me that irritating laugh.
” I knew exactly what she meant since I’d heard it myself.
Doctors tended to patronize and talk down to first-time parents.
If there was one thing I couldn’t stomach, it was being patronized.
The moment the doors opened, I practically launched myself into the suite. Serafina’s faint cries led me to the main bedroom, where her crib was set up at the foot of the bed. Josie sat there, rocking Sera, shushing her.
“Let me take a look.” I lifted her from Josie’s arms and held her against my shoulder, rubbing her back, stroking the dark curls she’d inherited from her mother.
My fierce, sweet baby girl. As furious and anxious as I’d been, holding her, having her in my arms, eased all of it.
I was still concerned, but it came from a place of love. I was her daddy, her protector.
“You do feel warm,” I murmured, walking her slowly around the room.
“I took her temperature. Just a little over a hundred degrees,” Josie fretted. “It’s not like she didn’t take her bottle the last time she fed. But I just thought you should know she’s fussy and warm.”
“Thanks. I’m sure she’ll be all right.” Josie ducked out of the room.
Something told me she was in a hurry to get away.
It was better to let her go than berate her for bringing us up here over what was barely an elevated temperature for a nine-month-old.
I had made it my business to learn everything I could about what to expect, what was normal, and what wasn’t.
But you still came flying up here without knowing what the thermometer read, didn’t you? The voice in my head taunted me while my daughter went quiet and still against my shoulder. There was nothing I wouldn’t do for her. Nowhere I wouldn’t go.
“What a surprise. The pediatrician laughed at me a little.” Mira sounded dejected as she joined us, closing the door to give us privacy. “Though he did seem understanding when I reminded him we’re out of state, so we’re a little more anxious being away from his office.”
“I think this little girl missed her mommy and daddy,” I decided. “She needed a little attention, is all.”
“She needed you.” She touched her head to my shoulder, running her fingers through Sera’s curls. Leaning in, she kissed her cheek, then smiled. “Barely warm at all. You are such a daddy’s girl. All it takes is him holding you, and all of a sudden, you’re better.”
At least one thing was going right. “Maybe we needed this.” I met Mira’s gaze, and she arched an eyebrow, curious.
“We needed to be reminded of what’s important.
And maybe we needed a little time together.
” In other words, time not spent obsessing over everything going wrong.
We needed to focus on what was going right.
“I love the way your brain works,” Mira whispered, kissing me this time. “I love the way the rest of you works too.”
“You mean you’re not after me for my intelligence alone?” I asked, feigning offense.
“You know, I am not even going to give you the sarcastic answer that immediately came to mind. That’s how you know I love you.” We kissed again, both of us chuckling, and by then, Sera had already drifted off to sleep against my shoulder.
I laid her in her crib and watched her sleep for a few moments while Mira stood beside me with her head on my shoulder. “We made that,” I whispered, still awestruck.
“Isn’t she amazing?” Mira sighed happily, and I draped an arm around her.
“Just like you.” A soft buzzing from my pocket ended the brief reverie, forcing me to check my phone. With a sigh of relief, I explained, “It’s only a calendar reminder. The rehearsal is due to start in two hours.”
“I was hoping to get in the shower before then.” She lifted her gaze until our eyes met. “Maybe we should save time and shower together?”
Already, she was backing away toward the bathroom, reaching behind her to unzip the modest sheath dress she wore. I watched, silently yearning, as the dress fell away to reveal a body that still sparked my deepest cravings.
At that moment, I couldn’t imagine anything I wanted more. “If there is one thing I love about you,” I whispered, following her lead like a dog on a leash. “It’s how efficient you are. Always trying to save time.”
She was giggling by the time we crept off to the attached bathroom, but her giggling ended when I stripped down and joined her in the large stall.
“I left the bathroom door open in case she wakes up,” I murmured, backing Mira against the wall and covering her mouth with mine as water rained down on us.
Soon, steam filled the stall, but it was nothing compared to the heat between our bodies.
It was always like this. It took nothing for the passion to ignite and carry us away.
No matter how hectic life got outside for the two of us, we could come back to this. I was endlessly grateful, just as I yearned for her endlessly, living for the moment when I could be with her again. To touch her again, to slide my hands over her supple body.
I did that now, fondling her as she ran her nails over my back, across my shoulders. Her deep moans were my guide, telling me exactly what she needed, how she needed it. Right now, she was full of tension. Eager for release. We had been through a ton of shit the past several days.
I went with it, kissing her until my lips ached, squeezing her soft flesh until she whimpered with every quick, ragged breath.
Her gasp was almost ear-splitting when I first touched her swollen clit.
“God, Clay,” she moaned out, sinking her teeth into my shoulder to hold back the rest. Whether she did it for Sera’s sake or the nanny’s, I didn’t know.
I only knew she left me hanging between pain and pleasure, making my already rigid cock drip in anticipation.
I moved my hips, savoring the friction as I rubbed against her hip.
She closed her hand around me and stroked in time with the rhythm against her bundle of nerves. Her eyes opened, finding mine, and the lust that swirled in them stole my breath, making me that much more determined to feel her shatter around me.
“So good… so close…” she whispered, moving with me, stroking me faster the closer she came to satisfaction. “Oh my God, you’re going to make me come. Make me come for you,” she begged.
The pulse in her throat raced under my lips in the second before she arched against me with a silent cry, her mouth falling open, her breath coming in tight gasps. Finally, she relaxed with a deep, satisfied sigh, her head resting against the wall.
I was just getting started. I lifted her left leg and held it at hip level so I could drive into her. Her leg tightened around my ass, and she gasped through her gritted teeth. “Oh fuck. That’s… mmm… that’s perfect.”
I had to agree. And I would have if I wasn’t so focused on staying quiet while I fucked her slowly, soaking in every second, every inch of her. Nothing in the world could top this—no amount of money, influence, any of it. I was a king when I was inside her. I was where I belonged.
“God, yes,” she breathed out, barely holding back her ecstatic cries, the force of my thrusts making her wet body slide over the tiled wall. “Yes, I love it. I love this.”
I knew she did, and so did I, so much that I wished it could last forever, even as instinct urged me to let go.
I couldn’t, not yet. Not until I felt her come around me.
That was almost better than my own orgasm, soaking in every muscle twitch, every shudder.
Every soft, helpless whimper that fell from her lips.
“Come on my cock,” I grunted out, running my tongue over her earlobe, teasing it with my teeth. It always drove her crazy, and now was no exception, her pussy clenching around me, signaling the end that rapidly approached.
I went with it, following her cues, allowing the telltale tingle stirring at the base of my spine to spread.
To grow. To consume me the way her orgasm consumed her.
All of the tension, the anxiety, the doubts of the past several hectic days washed away as we finished together, wrapped in each other—the way it was meant to be.
“Think you’re up to the task of helming this rehearsal now?” she murmured with humor in her voice. “Because I need a nap after that.”
“I could take on the world after being with you,” I declared.
So long as the world cooperated.