“My dad is a cheater, Liz. In retrospect, it’s so obvious that this has been his pattern. I chose not to see the other women. That’s just who he is. He’s got a lot of qualities, but fidelity isn’t one of them. And you know what? As much as I hate that for my mom, that’s ultimately between them. If she wants to stay with him, that’s her cross to bear. It didn’t affect my life.” I take her face in my hands and tilt her chin up so she’s looking at me. “Until you. I lose my mind thinking about you talking to him like that. I thought I’d get over it, but here we are, five months later, and I can’t close my eyes at night without thinking of the conversations the two of you had.”

“I had no idea it was—”

“I know.” I exhale slowly and feel lighter for the first time in months. “I’ve read your conversations. I’ve read them so fucking many times I can’t look him in the eye anymore. I know you didn’t know it was him. But my point is that if it weren’t for his political career, he would never have gone looking for his next mistress on Something Real. He wouldn’t have needed to. It’s because my father wanted to run for governor that he ended up having an online affair with the only woman I’ve ever loved.”

“I’m so sorry,” she says.

I press a hard kiss to her lips. “That’s why I’m pretending to be engaged to Sabrina. Because she’s been screwed over too, and if our ‘engagement’ makes the world talk about her wedding dress choices instead of her preference for kinky sex, that’s the least I can do.”

“But what’s in it for you?”

I take a deep breath and thread my fingers through her hair. “More than I ever realized,” I whisper.

“How so?”

“It got you back in my life, didn’t it?” Then I kiss her in earnest, and she holds me tight as she kisses me back.

Chapter 14

Liz

His skin is hot under my hands and his mouth hungry as it slants over mine.

When I put my shoes on and decided to come here, I didn’t think much further than confronting him, but I couldn’t walk away now if I tried.

His erection presses against my stomach, and when my hand skims down the hard planes of his back and south of his waist, I realize he’s lost his towel.

Maybe a good person would step away before things went too far, but when it comes to Samuel Bradshaw, I am neither good nor bad. I’m only his.

Instead of getting away from his glorious naked body, I scrape my nails down his ass cheeks.

He breaks the kiss and looks down at me, the question in his hot eyes. “What are we doing?”

“I don’t know.”

“I won’t have you walking out my door feeling used again.”

I trail my fingers up his back, glorying in the feel of his skin under my fingers. I know I screwed up. I know everything is too complicated for there to be an “us.” And yet here we are. “Everything’s such a mess. But . . .”

“But?”

Not knowing how to reply, I do what I’ve wanted to do since he answered the door like that—I press my open mouth to the hard muscle of his shoulder. I work my way down his chest until I taste that sensitive skin under his navel, my hands gripping his ass, and I drop to my knees.

“Rowdy,” he growls. His hands are already sliding into my hair, making my sex clench with greedy need.

“Let me.” I look up at him through my lashes as I cup his balls in one hand. His head drops back in something so close to surrender it fills me with power.

I wouldn’t keep my mouth off this man’s dick right now if you paid me.

First, I taste him with my tongue, stroking the underside of his cock while applying slight pressure to his balls. His hips buck and his hands tighten in my hair. I moan my approval and take him into my mouth.

I’m so hungry for him. It’s true that I didn’t want him to make me the other woman, but now that I know the truth, I realize I was far more worried about losing him forever than I was about what our night at the Conrad said about me.

I suck him hard and take him so deep my eyes water. Whatever happens to us after tonight, I want him to remember something good. Not that shit excuse for pleasure from the other night. Real pleasure. Real satisfaction. Love.

I want to remember that I can love someone so much that his pleasure turns me on more than my own. Because in the dark, lonely hours of my months away from him, this kind of love seemed more like a fairytale I’d told myself than a memory.

“Rowdy. Baby.” His fists pull my hair and I suck harder, apply a fraction more pressure, and his hips rock into my face with those twitchy, uncontrolled movements that tell me he’s lost his control.

I’m so turned on it hurts, and I slide my free hand between my legs, rubbing myself through my panties. The rough lace rubs my swollen clit, and I moan as I suck him.

Sam sees what I’m doing, and the sound that rips from his chest is equal parts pain and pleasure. His orgasm is close. He swells in my mouth and I shift the angle of my hand. I want more. Need more. I need his fingers, his mouth, his cock filling me so deep the pleasure tears me in half. I force myself to relax my throat to open, and I swallow as he comes.

When his body goes limp and he releases my hair, I draw back and stand.

“Fuck,” he murmurs. He traces my lips with his thumb. “This mouth is going to be the death of me.” Then he takes the hand that was just between my legs and sucks two fingers into his mouth.