Chapter 33. Lennix
LENNIX
“There’s someone here to see you, Lenn.” Portia pokes her head into the conference room. Her smile is megawatt. I’ve known her just a few weeks, but she’s usually only this excited about donations.
“To see me?” I touch the Nighthorse Now graphic emblazoned on my chest. “You sure? Besides the team, I don’t know anybody in Oklahoma.”
“Well, he knows you.” Portia purses the corners of her lips with suppressed satisfaction. “Why didn’t you tell us you knew Maxim Cade? He’s been all over the news.”
I’m in the process of packing up a box of campaign buttons. Her words stop me mid-reach. I send her a sharp glance and then shake my head. “I don’t know him, and I don’t want to see him. Could you say I’m not here?”
The jubilation proclaimed all over Portia’s face fades.
She folds her arms across her chest and aims a look at me over the bottle-green rims of her glasses.
“Look, I don’t know what’s going on,” Portia says.
“But he just made a donation to the campaign, and if he wants to speak to one of our staff, our staff will be available.”
Donation. Money.
Of course. He is a Cade after all.
Without speaking, I tuck my T-shirt into the waistband of my skirt and walk past her out into the campaign headquarters lobby.
Maxim sits on the shabby thrift-store couch.
He makes it look like a throne, even wearing a simple white T-shirt and jeans.
How did I not know this man was a Cade or some equivalent?
It’s so obvious now. Men like Maxim don’t happen overnight. It takes generations to breed them.
He glances up and stands. I force myself to stay where I am.
His eyes gleam bright between a dark fan of lashes.
There’s concern there and probably the closest thing to an apology he can manage.
And desire. Oh, yes. I recognize that quick flare of want in his expression because it’s igniting in me, too, at just the sight of him.
My heart calls him the liar he is, but my body clenches, seeking a satisfaction it’s only ever found when he was inside me.
“Mr. Cade,” I say, my tone brisk and businesslike.
He grimaces and shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He takes a few steps forward until only inches separate us. And that tiny amount of space hums with memory and hunger, but I ignore it.
“Nix,” he says, his voice husky, rough. He reaches for my hand, and I step back, warning him with a look to keep his damn hands off. With his eyes never leaving my face, he nods. “Is there somewhere we could talk? Maybe grab a coffee or something?”
“Sorry, Mr. Cade.” I gesture to the half-open boxes overflowing with buttons, bumper stickers, signs, and other campaign paraphernalia. “As you can see, we’re preparing to hit the trail.”
He grimaces. “I should have told you. If we can just go somewhere, I can explain.”
“Anything you have to say to me, you can say out here.”
The bell above the door heralds the entrance of two volunteers. Our scheduler sits on the floor nearby with a giant whiteboard and dry-erase markers.
“I really think we should discuss this in private,” he says, reaching for my hand again.
I cross my hands behind my back, out of reach, and just stare him down, wordlessly warning him.
“All right.” He gives a careless shrug. “That night in the alley when we fuc—”
I clamp my hand over his mouth and drag him by the arm into the conference room. He closes the door behind us and leans against it, a smug smile on his disgustingly handsome face.
“I’m still not sure why you’re here, Mr. Cade.”
“Would you stop calling me that?” He releases a frustrated breath and drags his hands through the hair that’s even longer than it was the last time I saw him.
“Oh, I’m sorry. That’s what they were calling you on television. Did they get it wrong, too? What should I call you? Kingsman?” A humorless laugh spills out of me. “We both know that’s a lie.”
“It’s not a lie. All the men in my family have Kingsman as our middle name.”
“Your daddy, too?”
He stares at me for a moment before dropping his eyes to the floor. “Him, too, yeah. I should have told you about my family.”
“Oh, but you did.” I hop up on the conference room table and swing my legs back and forth. “You said your family was wealthy, but you didn’t have much money of your own.”
“True.”
“You said your brother was a senator.”
“He is.”
“You said you and your father were estranged.”
“Yes, we—”
“But somehow neglected to mention he’s the man I can’t stand. That you’ll inherit the company that trampled over the most sacred land my people still held.”
“I won’t. Inherit, I mean. I dedicated the last eight years of my life to researching climate change, Nix. Do you really think I want anything to do with my family’s oil company?”
“I don’t actually know what to think since you’ve misrepresented yourself to me this whole time.
” I shake my head and force my lips into a waxy smile.
“While all of us wondered what would happen after the protest, how long we’d be in jail, if the charges would stick, you knew you were guaranteed bail.
Guaranteed freedom. Protection. Wrapped all cozy in your wealth. How you must have laughed at us.”
“I didn’t laugh.”
“But it was a game for you, one you played with absolutely no risk while we risked everything .”
“It wasn’t a game. I saw you, I heard you, and it’s like I said before.
” He takes a few steps closer until he’s mere inches from the table.
“I knew I’d never forget you. When I saw those dogs headed straight for you…
” He rubs the back of his neck and releases a harsh sigh.
“I didn’t think twice. I left my father in the car and took off running.
I just knew I had to…never mind. You won’t believe me. Just know it wasn’t a joke.”
“Every one of us was risking our reputation, our freedom, possibly our lives if things had escalated, and you acted like you had something to lose when Warren Cade would never let anything happen to his heir.”
“I told you we’re estranged.”
“Were you then? That day?”
“No. I tried to convince him not to go forward with the pipeline. When he refused to change his mind, I left.”
“You let me think you had come all the way from California specifically to protest with us. Was that true?”
His silence is thick with guilt and frustration.
“No,” he admits after a moment. “I’d flown in with my father. I didn’t know why we were there. Hearing what he had done and thinking I would never see any of you again, I didn’t see the point of saying who I was.”
“And in Amsterdam?” The words sour in my mouth. “The first night, could you have seen the point? Or maybe the second night before you fucked me? You could have mentioned who you were, but maybe you thought you wouldn’t tap this ass if I knew.”
“Nix—”
“And you were right. You wouldn’t have.”
“I won’t let you cheapen what we had.”
“ I’m cheapening it? You told me because I had been so honest with you, you wanted to be completely open and honest with me.”
“I did.”
“And then you lied to me for the next week.”
“I omitted it because it doesn’t matter, dammit.”
“If you really believed that, you would have told me, and you know it.”
“I’m telling you now.”
“No, I saw it on television with the rest of the world, and you came here for what?” I grip the edge of the conference room table. “To ensure if you ever make it back from the Amazon or whatever remote place you visit next, you’ll still have some ass in the States?”
He moves so quickly, I jerk back when he’s standing right in front of me, caging me with his arms on either side where I sit on the table.
This close, I smell him. I feel him. His body, big and familiar and still a mystery, radiates heat.
It makes me remember us curled around each other, naked in sex-scented sheets; to recall a day lying among half-opened tulips, sharing our dreams and ambitions.
“I’m losing patience, Nix,” he says, so close his words rest on my lips.
“Oh, am I not forgiving you fast enough? How very privileged of you to expect it.”
“I don’t want it to be like this.” He leans forward until only a sultry centimeter separates us. “I missed you. I came for—”
“What?” My will wavers and then snaps back into place. “What do you want?”
The look he pours over me is hot oil, burning me even through serviceable layers of cotton. His heated perusal caresses my face, sluices over my breasts and hips, and then pools at my feet.
“Oh, that you won’t ever get again,” I say, my voice a soft, certain promise. “I don’t fuck liars. I’m particular that way.”
“Never say never,” he drawls, tilting up my chin with his finger.
“Nev—”
He crushes the word between our mouths. It falls apart in the scorching, sweet tangle of lips and teeth.
With one hand, he digs his fingers into my hair.
The other splays across my lower back, his grip on me almost convulsive, urging me up and closer.
I’m in stasis. I’m completely startled by the kiss, unable to respond. I send a desperate message to my brain.
Move. Pull back. Push him away.
But the urgent glide of his hand down my spine to cup my ass melts my thoughts to liquid, and they swim in my head.
I can’t pull back, and all hope of resistance dissolves when he presses his thumb to my chin, prying me open.
He stalks my tongue, hunts down a response, licking and sucking and groaning and growling.
His hands tighten on me until I strain up to seek him, yanking his hair, pulling him even closer.