Their Reign (The Rite Trilogy 3)

13

JUDGE

Mercedes’s eyes move over me, a small line forming between her eyebrows at what she sees.

“What do you want?” she asks, tone cold. She blocks the entrance, glancing over my shoulder at her personal bodyguards.

“In,” I say when she looks at me.

“Why?”

Thunder crashes, and lightning charges the sky. “It’s fucking pouring, Mercedes.”

“Then maybe you should have brought an umbrella. Or better yet, maybe you shouldn’t have come at all.” She starts to close the door, but I stop it with the toe of my shoe.

“Really? You expected me not to come after this?” I pull the necklace out of my pocket and wave it in front of her face.

“All I have to do is raise one finger, and those two will be on you before you can—”

I wrap one arm around her waist so it looks to the guards like I’m hugging her and move her back into the house, then close the door.

“Jesus!” She pushes me off, and we both look down at her nightie, an emerald-green silk gown that is soaked at her chest. Water drips off my head, my clothes sticking to me. I didn’t put on a jacket in my haste. “What the hell, Judge?”

“This was a gift,” I say, backing her into the wall when she tries to get around me.

“I don’t want your gift. Just like I don’t want you stalking me every night. Take a fucking hint.” She pivots around me, but I grab her arm and pull her back.

“You will wear it. Every fucking day.”

“News flash,” she says, tugging free. “I don’t belong to you!”

I block her with my body as I secure the necklace around her neck.

“What are you doing? Are you drunk? Jesus? I can smell the liquor!”

Again, she tries to slip past me, but this time, I take hold of her jaw, fingers digging into soft skin. I make her look at me, and in this dim light at this insane hour, I search her face, memorize her dark eyes, the scattering of gold specks. I smell her smell, that familiar mix of amber, citrus, and warm spices that I’ve missed too much. And I kiss her. I hold her in place, and I kiss her even as her hands come to my chest to push me away, even as she doesn’t kiss me back and groans her protest against my lips instead.

I don’t care. I can’t. I need this too much. I need her.

“Mercedes.” I kiss her jaw, her throat, the curve of her neck as I undo my belt, unzip my slacks, the need too great to wait. When I straighten to look at her, her eyes have gone impossibly dark. They glisten as her hands curl around my shoulders, and I reach under the nightie to tug her panties aside. Lifting her, I brace her against the wall, her belly firm and foreign between us.

She wraps her legs around my middle as I take myself out, and she gasps when I thrust into her, making a sound that comes from my gut through my chest, my heart, and out of my mouth.

“I need this so fucking much,” I manage, kissing her as she holds on to me, grunting with the force of the fucking. I’m not sure if she’s kissing me back. All I know is that I’m inside her again. Back where I belong. And as I move faster, she closes her eyes and bares her throat. When I feel her come, all I can do is watch her face. Nothing could drag my gaze away. Not those guards, not her brother, not a fucking army.

“Lawson.” I’m not sure if I imagine her saying my name or not. It’s a breath, barely a sound obscured by a loud crash of thunder.

She dips her head, forehead coming to the curve of my shoulder. She’s wetter now, the aftershocks of her orgasm taunting my cock, and I don’t last long. I weave my fingers into the hair at the back of her skull and make her look at me. I kiss her as I come, watching her black eyes as the world stops spinning on its axis. And for an impossible moment, I am home. I am home.

* * *

I wake to unfamiliar light.Unfamiliar sounds. I open my eyes to look out of a window that’s not mine into a bright morning. Last night comes back to me in painful increments as the door opens, and I turn over to find Mercedes there. She stops when our eyes meet. She’s wearing that silk nightie with thick, fuzzy socks and carrying two mugs of coffee. She studies me but doesn’t offer a smile as she comes to the bed and holds one of the mugs out to me.

I sit up, my head throbbing, and lean against the headboard before taking the mug.

“Decaf. Sorry.”

“It’s perfect. Thank you.”

“Aspirin?” she asks.

I sip and shake my head although even that hurts.

She settles beside me, pulls her knees into her chest, and blows on her coffee. Across the room, I see my clothes draped over a radiator to dry and try to remember when I undressed. Hell, I can’t even remember how I got here. But I do remember one thing, and as I turn to take in her profile and see the necklace still around her neck, I remember fucking her in the entryway.

“You probably shouldn’t have driven last night,” she says as if I didn’t know. She turns to look at me.

I sip the coffee. “You’re probably right.” I can’t move my eyes off her and she seems strangely shy as I take in her belly. She’s about six months now. A little more. Above her nightie, I see the swell of her breasts. They’re filling up for the baby. Babies.

I finish the coffee and set the mug aside. She’s still sipping hers. “Two little monsters,” I say.

She looks hesitantly toward me and nods.

“Was I such a beast that you were too afraid to tell me?”

She shifts her gaze to her coffee and sets it aside. “All I knew was I couldn’t terminate the pregnancy.” She looks at me squarely to finish. “And I wasn’t sure you wouldn’t make me.”

I rake my hand through my hair. Honestly, I don’t know either. Would I have forced that decision on her? I’d like to think not. But more and more, I’m realizing that I don’t know myself. Not really. I’ve been so busy trying not to be someone that I don’t know who I am. Don’t know which part is me and which part is me trying not to be him. My grandfather. “I’m sorry for how I was with you. I’m sorry for all of it.”