Chapter 19
KAEDE
My body aches, my muscles are constantly flushed, and I’m running on coffee and testosterone.
It’s been a week of utter madness, and I can’t wait to keep going.
My daily routine has become wake up, work, eat, sex, sleep.
Without fail. Courtney and I meet every night for dinner, either at the gym after she works out or we grab whatever we can get as fast as possible on the way to her place or mine.
Meals are consumed quickly, sometimes even in the car to save time, chatting about our days in between bites of whatever we’ve picked up before falling into bed to fuck like a couple of teenagers who just discovered sex, orgasms, and Viagra. Basically, nonstop and repeatedly.
Except it’s so much better than that. It’s the best I’ve ever had by a landslide.
It feels like we were made for each other.
When she wants it rough, hard, and fast, I’m there too, pounding her so hard the headboard bangs into the wall from the force of my thrusts.
When she wants it slow and tender, I want it that way too, enjoying hours of soft kisses, nibbles, sighs of pleasure, and soft whispers before we fall together in exhausted oblivion.
And somehow, I feel like I’ve gotten to know more of Courtney beyond all the fronts she puts up. I thought I knew her before, but the depths that she’s let me enter sometimes make me stop in blissed-out awe.
I thought she was impressive before, but there’s more to her than I think even her family knows.
She’s serious, no doubt about that, but there’s humor there, a silliness I think I helped reawaken and draw out of her.
I know I’d been surprised as hell when I tickled her and she’d dissolved into girlish giggles.
I want to find as many ways as possible to bring that sound out of her again.
And starting a water war? I would’ve thought that was so unlike her, but I think it is her . . . the real her.
She’s brilliant too, more brilliant than I thought possible. She helped me look over the contract with Sanders and discuss our expansion plans, pointing out opportunities in a thoughtful and insightful way that would allow us to gain even further leverage in our markets.
We’ve talked about her dreams too. I’ve learned what drives her, why she’s putting everything she has into her role as VP, with sights on the CEO role when her father retires.
It’s not just a desire to prove herself, but she truly does love her father and her family.
She wants the Andrews name to live on for another generation.
And she’s known that her sister and brother aren’t the people to do that. She is.
Morgan still has some time on the throne, but just as a championship team isn’t built the week before the Super Bowl, she’s ‘putting in the reps’ now to make sure that when Morgan does step aside, it’ll be not so much a changing of the guard but an evolution.
In the meantime, she feels like she’s still got a lot to prove, a lot of business muscle to build. I can definitely understand that.
But tonight’s our first real test.
The dinner is really ramping up the pressure, tightening a noose around both of us. I wake up early on Saturday, loving that I can roll over in my bed and snuggle Court like lazy sloths until the sun rises.
Or until Court wakes up, which she does all too soon. She’s not a slow-roll kinda girl. Her eyes pop open, she does a couple of stretches, and then it’s tackle the day time.
“Let’s go,” she says.
“Go? Go where?” I groan, pulling her to my side. “Actually, just no. I’m not even moving for coffee yet.”
She pushes at my chest, not letting me doze off for even a second. “I’m buzzy with all these nerves. Let’s go for a run before you go to work.”
I peek through one half-closed lid. “I have a better idea to burn off jitters.”
She hops onto me, straddling me to place a quick smack to my lips, and I think I’ve won. But she continues over me, getting up and heading to the bathroom even as I lift up and reach for her. “Be ready in five!”
Shit. But I’m damn sure up and getting dressed because when she says five, she really means three. Maybe less.
Eight minutes later—the delay was my fault because I tried to seduce her back to bed once more—we’re out and pacing each other around the nearby park for a leisurely jog.
As I take in the quiet stillness of the sunrise, I’ll admit that maybe she was right.
I do feel more at ease, even peaceful about tonight.
We can do this. We’re ready.
Still, we quiz each other because we’re creatures of habit and tonight is the final exam of our lives.
We cover favorite colors, life goals, TV shows, side of the bed, and more.
“What color’s my toothbrush?”
“White. Oral-B Genius X,” I reply, humble bragging a bit. That’s a pretty specific one that I bet most people don’t know.
Courtney nods, telling me ‘good job’, and then it’s my turn.
We move on to birthmarks—a freckle on her right shoulder, tattoos—only me, and she knows them all intimately, and even favorite sex positions, though I’m mostly using that to talk dirty and make her blush.
We review a few of the made-up details we’ve decided on.
There’s nothing too out of the ordinary, just adjustments of real-life incidents.
Like how Courtney and I had our ‘first kiss’ the day after Ross’s press conference where he announced he was leaving Andrews and how it led to more.
We stick to the date story at the winery ending in a proposal but tweak the actual date on the calendar it happened.
Courtney says she knows Missy will ask about the proposal because that’s a total girl thing.
After the workout, we keep it up, going into more personal details over some breakfast smoothies back at my place.
“Deepest fear?” she asks, looking at me with those big, beautiful eyes.
This isn’t something we’ve shared. This is something new . . . something closer and more intimate than even sex. And I don’t think it has anything to do with tonight’s dinner. It’s about us, knowing one another not just bone deep but soul deep.
“Mine, not yours.” She doesn’t seem nervous, isn’t expecting me to reveal something she’s unaware of, but rather is seeing if I know the correct answer. But it’s not a test of me. It’s a test of herself, confirming how vulnerable she’s allowed herself to be.
“An irrational fear that you’re not going to be able to live up to expectations,” I murmur, leaning in close.
“You think you want to live up to Morgan’s bar and get his approval.
” I hold my hand up at chest level. “But in truth, it’s your own bar you’re trying to reach.
Your own approval that you seek.” I move my hand higher, in line with my forehead.
She swallows, her eyes going glittery.
“Courtney, you’re amazing. Everyone already knows that, your father included. I’ve heard how he talks about you to Ross. And I think, way down deep, you know you’re amazing too.”
She leans forward, giving my cheek a sweet kiss. I chase her for more, but she grins. “Uh-uh, keep going.”
I groan as she steps away, putting a foot of space between us. “What’s mine?”
Danger, Will Robinson!
An alarm sounds in my head, knowing I’m entering a sketchy zone of landmines and hurt feelings. Courtney is strong and handled what I said like the boss she is, maybe even finding some resolution in knowing that her father sees how amazing she is. And that I do too.
But me? I’m honestly scared for what she’s about to say, what tender scab she’s going to pick at, what scar she’s going to reopen.
“That you don’t belong. That you’re not good enough. You think everyone is keeping score of bank balances and pedigrees,” Courtney says bluntly, always straight to the point. It hurts just like I thought it would, and I’m scared that in seeing my fear, she’ll have realized it’s the truth.
I’m not good enough for her.
No matter how much I enjoy ‘playing house’ with her and pretending that we’re equals, that we’re dating for real, at the end of the day, she will wear someone else’s ring and wake up next to someone else every morning for the rest of her life.
I think again about Chet, the imaginary oil tycoon heir who would be welcomed at the Andrews family table as an equal. Fucking Chet. I hate that imaginary fucker.
She cups my face firmly, forcing my eyes to hers and my mind to this moment. With steel in her voice that allows for no argument, she assures me, “That is equally irrational. You’re the best man I’ve ever known.”
She kisses me, and I decide that maybe it doesn’t have to be true as long as she thinks it’s true. And I’ll do anything to make sure she never changes her mind.
“Let’s go. You need to get to work, and I’ve got a mani-pedi date with Violet today.” She shivers, and I know she’s already thinking about the tickling she’ll have to endure. “I thought about inviting Missy, a whole girl’s day out thing, but decided . . . nah.”
Jokes? She’s got jokes on one of the most important days of my life.
She pulls my hand, leading me back toward the bedroom, but not for fun. Hell, no. Miss Taskmaster swats my ass and tells me to have a good day before gathering her stuff and disappearing with a promise to meet me later.
I kick off from the gym at four thirty, coming back to my place to wash up and get ready. First, I take a full shower, wet shaving with a fresh blade to make sure everything’s baby-butt smooth.
I choose an aftershave from the tray on my counter, something classic but modern. No Old Spice old man smells here, nope. I fix my hair and brush my teeth, looking myself in the eye in the mirror.
You’ve got this, McWarren. Game face on. Be ready for anything.
I lay out my second-best suit since I wore my best the last time I went to Sanders’s estate.