“There,” he murmured against her skin, his lips slick with her blood. “Just in case you forget again. Now they all know.”
He shifted, simultaneously breaking her reverie and their tie, and she gasped at the unwanted separation, feeling both pitifully empty and pitiful for the sentiment. She was addicted to him; addicted to his knot and his smell and the way he fit inside her like he was meant to be there, hooked like a drug, and it would likely be her downfall.
She felt the gush of his release leaving her without his knot in place to stopper her once the swell receded, gasping when he pushed to his feet.
“I want you to clean her.” His voice was sharp and dark, his courtroom bark, directed at the wolf from the wall, still only a few steps away. “With your tongue. You’renotgoing to fuck her . . . but I want to hear her scream.”
Her blood thrilled, and her wolf reared. She couldn’t see his face, but she could feel his leer as the other werewolf nearly tripped over himself to settle between her legs, the hedonism of the holiday not over yet. The full moon was only a day away, and they would run again, she reminded herself, gasping as the other man’s tongue slid over her clit, Grayson’s cum still filling her. She would run, and he would chase, what they were built for.
* * *
In the end, it was Jackson who did her the biggest favor. Ironic, considering he was the sibling whose company she enjoyed least. She already knew the gossip, of course.
They’d relocated to one of the master bedrooms in the house, had showered and he’d fucked her again, hard and slow, had kissed her reverently, kissed the weeping red crescent of his teeth, kissed her chin and her nose and her lips, each eyelid, and for a time, the sound of his breath was the only thing in the world.
Now she rolled to her side, propping her head up to watch him as he sat on the edge of the giant bed, raking fingers through his dark hair, his back to her. Other men would have still been lounging against the pillow, snoring softly or working up the energy to rouse themselves, but not him. Once he’d slipped from her body, his mind would already be onto the next thing: the next case, the next trial, the next big thing.
Grayson pushed his feet and turned, finding and shaking out his shirt, slipping his arms through the sleeves before speaking.
“My brother is going to be mayor.”
His voice held a note of uncharacteristic somberness, and Vanessa bit her lip, thinking of the endless gossip of the night.Whispers don’t matter, and you can’t let them.
“I think you mean he’srunningfor mayor, don’t you?” He looked askance in her direction as he re-fastened his shirt buttons, and she laughed. “I know, I know . . . how dare I insinuate that a Hemming not be given exactly what they want the moment they want it, presented on a silver platter to the adulation of all adoring onlookers.”
“My brother is going to be mayor,” he repeated again, a peevish note entering his voice, and that time, she’d sat up.
There was a tense set to his shoulders, a clench in his square jaw — tiny tics of aggravation and stress as she watched him pull his tailored pants back up over his hips. She sighed as his perfect ass was concealed, the tails of the expensive dress shirt smoothed beneath the waistband.
“You know, people can think what they want, but my dad avoided office so that we could have normal lives growing up, you know? So that we didn’t have to grow up the way he did. But now . . .” The breath of frustration he’d blown out was another uncharacteristic tic, and when he’d sat heavily on the bed once more, Vanessa scrambled to her knees to wrap her arms around his neck. “Fucking Jackson.”
“Okay, so Jackson is going to be mayor. What does that mean? What does that mean for you?”
He shrugged, “That’s yet to be seen, but things are going to change. More scrutiny, definitely. No more of these parties, that’s for sure. It’s already started.”
She wrinkled her nose at his words. “I don’t think you need to do that. Everybody knows what you do, who you are. Everyone is already watching. Why does anything need to change?”
He turned to her with a scowl, rolling his eyes.
“Come on, Nessa, you know better than that. Once he’s mayor, it’s not going to be long until they’re pestering me to take the bench. Time to step up. Keep my nose clean, do the whole model suburban family thing.”
He’d pushed to his feet once more, and she watched him smoothing the crisp material of the shirt, adjusting his cuffs and collar until his reflection in the mirror had been returned to glossy, superficial perfection. Her stomach flipped and tightened, unsure of the insinuation behind his words.
“What the fuck isthatsupposed to mean?”
“Well, for starters, it means a sitting judge won’t be able to fuck around with an associate from his old firm.”
Her face had heated, fists balling in the sheets, the desire to throw something at him overwhelming.
“Wait, this is because I’m not apartner? I’m not going to be an associate forever, you asshole. What the fuck is this, a job interview?! The wound he’d left on her shoulder pulsed as her blood boiled. Fire flooded her veins, and then shehadthrown something at him, but the pillow’s strike had been less than satisfying.
It’s not going to be long until they’re pestering me to take the bench.His words jogged something, something that had annoyed her, just out of mind . . . A wheel began to turn in her mind, the pieces of a bigger puzzle slotting into place around the shape of them in the center.
“Why is Tris Tatterswain here?”
“What?” His voice held a note of aggravation, too distracted to process her question for a moment. “Tris Tatterswain has been on my father’s payroll for years. He’s harmless. He’s a shitstarter and he knows everything about everyone, but he’s harmless. For us.”
Grayson does look sogoodon camera.Anything Jackson, Grayson did bigger. It was his main ambition, his biggest weakness, his main point of malleability. Jack Hemming was setting his sons up like dominos, she thought, playing a very long game from his shining, golden tower on Main Street.It’s paving the road up for the next generation. If anyone actually thinks Jack has been resting on his laurels all these years, they’ve not been paying attention.
