Solstice (Midsummer #3)

9. Ivy

9

Ivy

NEW YEAR’S

I agreed with Lex and Miri, though it didn’t make me feel better.

“Just because the thistles are gone doesn’t mean he’s out,” Carter said, ever the hopeful ray of sunshine.

“If the queen is out, it’s a good bet the king is not long behind her.” Lex shook his head. “Let’s just stick together, okay? If anyone sees anything strange, call it in.”

Miri chewed on her bottom lip and nodded, and I gave my word that I’d report as soon as I’d heard from Kit.

Saying goodbye always broke my heart. I didn’t like watching Carter leave. I didn’t like wiping away Miri’s tears. I didn’t like sending Poppy into space and time, off to her hidey-hole with Lex’s extended family. By the time Theo drove us down the mountain, the trepidation I felt on the way there had dissipated. Lex and I weren’t the same two people who had gone into the cabin, and now that we’d figured out some of the mess between us, I looked forward to the upcoming term with him by my side.

We were in the limo on our way to my parents’ annual New Year’s Eve gala at the National Museum of Contemporary Art. Lex had been edging me all day. All day.

In the shower with his tongue. In the dressing room with my vibrator. And now stuck in traffic on 495.

“Don’t you dare come,” he said, tilting his head to the side, staring at me with those haunted eyes through narrowed slits.

I straddled him, his cock in my cunt while I rocked my pelvis slowly and annoyingly steady.

This was a game we played, one I’d grown addicted to even as I hated every part of it. Just when I was about to climax, he’d yank me off him and keep me spread and bared until I nearly bit his face off. Then he started the process all over again.

Later tonight, when I finally lost my patience, he’d let me take it out on him, and the sex we’d have would blow our minds.

“Lex, please.” My whimpering sounded pathetic even to my ears.

I hated it. I hated him. I hated all of it. But I wouldn’t stop it, not for anything in the world.

“Aww, look at that pout,” Lex mocked, sticking his bottom lip out to tease me. “If your face wasn’t off-limits right now, I’d fuck that mouth until your tongue swelled.” His filthy mind was one of my favorite things about him.

“If your face wasn’t off-limits right now, I’d ride it until I clawed your eyes out.”

“Woo.” Lex smacked my ass hard enough to make me wince and tumble forward, his dick surging deeper inside me. “You better be prepared to make good on that threat.”

My cunt clenched around him, and I picked up my pace, using the leverage to hit that sweet spot inside of me.

“Fuck, X. Slow down.” He dug his fingers into my hips, trying to hold me still, to keep me in place. I fought him. I always fought him. Going faster. Harder.

Right there. Yes. Yes. Yes.

He shoved me off his lap, depositing me into my seat. His absence hit like a punch to the twat, and I scissored my legs together to deal with it. He clamped his hands on my knees to hold them apart. “I said no.”

“Fuck you.” My heart pounded, and I clenched my hands into fists. I’d never been filled with such conflicting emotions for one person in my whole life. I needed him. I yearned for him. And yet, I wanted to punch his goddamn lights out.

“Fuck yeah, get mad,” he said, a perverted glimmer in his eye. “I love taking your ass when you’re pissed.”

“Representative Washington,” Theo said over the intercom. “Mr. Fairfax. We’re five minutes out.”

“Uh-oh.” Lex gave me another pretend pout. “Playtime’s over.”

“Get off me,” I snarled.

He smiled and leaned down to kiss me. When I bit his bottom lip almost hard enough to bleed, he pinched my clit until I gasped and opened my mouth.

“Nothing on the face.” He pointed a finger at me like he was scolding a naughty kitten, and I snapped my teeth at him again.

I had to shake that off, though. Five minutes gave me enough time to regain my composure and tell my lady parts to settle down. Despite this intense thing between us, there was one thing neither of us would sacrifice: our public image.

Lex tucked his dick back into his pants, and I checked my hair and makeup in a compact mirror, closing my eyes to breathe down my hormones. By the time we were there, I was back in my politician’s skin. My nerves had been electric for hours, but I smiled for the cameras like it wasn’t there, like the sensation of Lex putting his hand on my lower back while we walked the red carpet wasn’t an intoxicating caress that cascaded over my entire body.

“Ivy! Ivy! When’s the wedding?” someone shouted.

“Ivy, who will you be wearing?” This one shoved a microphone in my face.

I sighed and pulled my grin tighter. I’d just been elected the youngest congresswoman in history. I had a full plate of public policy ahead of me. All these people cared about was my wedding? Sure, sure. Don’t worry about the rapidly warming climate or the mass extinctions happening all over the planet. No, the overpriced mound of fabric I schlepped on my body when I relegated myself to a day of patriarchal domesticity was infinitely more important.

My mother greeted us inside the ballroom, thrusting a glass of champagne in my hand while chastising me for my haggard appearance.

“You look like you haven’t slept in a decade.” Her eagle eyes narrowed, missing nothing. “Are you sweating?”

Just working on your first grandchild, Mother.

Lex laughed into his champagne, and I prayed I hadn’t blurted that out loud.

“Just rushing around,” I said instead.

“Well, try not to look like a prized sow, yes?” She turned and walked away, catching the attention of Senator Gibson.

“How long do you think we’ll have to stay?” I murmured to Lex.

“At least until midnight.” He winked. “Don’t worry, X. You’ll wanna stay longer than that. Trust me.”

I trembled at the innuendo behind his eyes, and I remembered the toy he hadn’t removed in the limo.

That’s right, America.

I stood in front of hundreds of elected leaders, nosy journalists, and bored housewives that loved to gossip about my family, holding an emerald gemstone plug straight up my ass.

How many congresswomen could say that?

* * *

“You don’t suppose we’ll hit an age where they stop inviting us to these things, do you?” Jon sipped his champagne and shoved his hand into his pocket.

I gave a sad laugh. “There’s no getting off this roller coaster. Just be thankful you’re not betrothed. Yet.”

“Yeah, thanks for falling on that sword.” Kit gave me a sympathetic smile and stabbed a piece of cheese on her plate with a toothpick, bringing it to her mouth. She trailed her steely gaze over the crowd with a sneer that always hid right between her eyebrows.

“Don’t count your chickens, dear sister,” I said. “Just wait until there’s another election someone has to win. Some rich cousin with an agenda. Some political asshat that Mother needs to please.”

“Which is why I’ll take my rebellion where I can.” She covertly placed a flash drive in my hand. “Your Mr. Smythe, if I do say so myself.”

“Are you serious?” I’d only asked her to look into it a few days ago. She’d already found him?

“He’s not that far away.” Kit glanced between me and Jon. “ And he’s staying with a bunch of other people with similar tattoos. The ivy and the vines.”

Jackpot.

“ Some day, you’ll tell me what this is all about, right?” She narrowed her icy eyes on me.

I hoped I wouldn’t have to. Of course, I didn’t see how I could bring Poppy into my family without a good cover story, one that we all agreed on. I smiled at my sister and nodded.

“Yeah,” I said. “Of course.”

“Oh, shit.” Jon turned toward me and hid his face. “Incoming.”

Our father strolled our way, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a glass of whiskey. Despite his stressful marriage and his very public career, the former president had aged well. In his late fifties, he still had a full head of red hair and bright gray eyes. Washington eyes. My eyes.

“It’s never good when you three are in cahoots.” He straightened, his attention going from Kit on my right to Jon on my left before finally landing on me. “And you’re at the head of it.”

“As always.” I smiled at my father and clinked my flute against his glass. “Having a good time?”

He made a sarcastic noise and turned to face the crowd. “Oh, yeah. A blast. Can’t you tell?”

The wave of alcohol on his breath hit me like a slap, and I winced as he looked back at me, a little unfocused, but I’d seen him drunker at more important events. I ignored it and finished my champagne before setting it on a tray behind me.

“Well, you’re in like company.” Jon finished his flute and did the same. “We’re taking bets on when we might be able to escape. At least you can always divorce your way out.”

Our father laughed, cynical and depressed. “You’re hilarious.”

That hurt right at the center of my chest because we all knew there was no divorce in this family. We married once, and we married for life, and that was that, no matter what.

I’d always had a formal relationship with my father, the type expected from a man who’d sent his children to boarding school and paid someone else to raise them. I used to think he was a God, and my mother some Goddess, and together, they ruled my very soul. But the look in my father’s eye when he frowned at his whiskey and took a drink shifted my perspective.

For so long, I’d seen it as me versus them, my siblings and me on one side of this war and my parents on the other. Now, I hesitated. These last few years were supposed to be their retirement. She was supposed to be done. They wanted to move to Florida and live as civilians, put away their political games and let the next generation take the reins, the way their parents had done for them. But she couldn’t give it up and he’d been the man behind the curtain far too long. Would that be Lex one day? Or me?

Eventually, he turned to me and swirled his whiskey around in his glass. “Your mother wants to speak with you.”

“About?”

“A spring wedding,” he said.

Anxiety twisting in my gut, I nodded and glanced at Kit, whose scowl deepened at the mention of my marriage. Then I looked at Jon, who resembled our father so much, the media often mistook old pictures of my dad for my brother. He echoed my father’s distant look, as if he were thinking about his own future and how it might compare to the man in front of us. Or how it might compare to mine.

We were such a traumatized family.

Lex talked to Evelyn in the crowd a few yards away, and whatever she said to him didn’t sit well. The glower in his eyes intensified as they frantically searched the crowd for me, mentally shouting across the distance.

X, where the fuck are you?

I took a deep breath and headed straight for destruction.

“Oh, there you are,” my mother said when I caught up to them. “Anna and I have decided.”

“Decided?” I grabbed Lex’s hand. “Everything okay?”

“April twenty-first.” She said it casually, like it meant nothing in the world, but Lex’s stare shifted to mine.

“Ten days before Beltane,” he muttered inside my head, accompanying a hot, panicky flare of emotion. As a fire festival, Beltane marked the union between the sun and earth. In fairy lore, May first was as important, if not more so, than Samhain. It was bad enough that our wedding would be a beacon to any fairy who meant to do us harm, but to do it so close to a high holy day? We were basically giving them the finger and telling them to come get us.

“I thought we decided on June.” She and I had discussed it before the election. We had agreed.

She narrowed her eyes as if my reasonable suggestion had now been deemed ridiculous. “No.”

That was that. No further discussion on the topic.

“It’s my wedding. I should get some say on the date, at least.” I straightened and pushed my shoulders back. I’d earned a right to speak up, hadn’t I? Of the two of us, I was the only one who held an office anymore.

“April twenty-first is enough time from the inauguration as to not draw attention from your new father-in-law, but far enough away from Memorial Day as to not make a national holiday about you.” My mother looked at me like I was an idiot. How dare I not come to that conclusion on my own? “It will be April twenty-first.” She looked from me to Lex. “Anything else?” When neither of us spoke, Evelyn scoffed and glanced at her watch. “We’ve got ten minutes until midnight. Ivette, don’t forget you agreed to make a speech. I’ll see you outside for pictures, yes?”

Then she turned and walked away.

Lex put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me into a hug.

“I hate her.” I hated her so much, I could fucking sob.

Lex didn’t answer, just kissed my temple and nodded toward the back of the ballroom. “C’mon. I’ve got a surprise for you.”

* * *

Lex led me down a quiet corridor and up three flights of stairs. I followed him, wondering when I’d come to trust him so completely. Four years ago, if he’d asked me to sneak away with him in the middle of a crowded museum late at night, I’d have told him to fuck off. Now, I held the fabric of my dress in one hand and Lex’s fingers in the other, biting back a smirk as he lifted a velvet rope and gestured me ahead.

The sign clearly said “Employees Only Beyond This Point,” but Lex had never let pesky things like rules keep him from doing what he wanted. He led me to a room with big heavy drapery hanging from the ceilings in swirling designs. I had no idea if this was an art installation or a room for cleaning canvas, but I let him guide me through it, the conversation with my mother growing more distant in my mind as we went.

The clicking of my heels on the hardwood echoed off the walls, mixing with the rhythm of his dress shoes, amping up my anticipation. He brought me to an alcove overlooking the Potomac, some of the party guests milling about in their expensive furs, their opulent jewelry glistening so bright, I could see it all the way up here. I burned with rage for it all. Biting that back, I took a deep breath and glanced over my shoulder at Lex.

“What are we doing?” I whispered. “We’re supposed to be downstairs.”

“Remember Ireland?” He pulled me into the curtains, twisting the fabric around us until the world fell away and it was just me and him and the dusty smell of an old room in a museum. He put his hands on my hips and yanked me closer, biting my ear and sending shivers down that side of my body. “When you dry humped me in a hallway for the whole school to see?”

I dropped my gaze to the floor. “That was because of the lust.”

“Hmm.” He trailed his lips down my shoulder, tugging the thin strap of my dress to the side, the soft satin drifting down my upper arm. “And when I fuck you in this alcove, in front of DC’s highest society, will you blame that on the lust, too?”

I should have stopped this. It would take one nosy guest to look up this way and see us standing here. It would take one paparazzo with a telephoto lens to snap the next best-selling shot of my future husband with his hands up my skirt. But I couldn’t slow down this speeding train.

“What if it is?” I wrapped my hands around his neck, fingering the back of his hair as I leaned against the wall, hitching one leg on his hip so I rubbed my cunt against the bulge in his pants.

“What if it’s not?” He smiled and I melted, choosing to ignore the consequences of what he suggested as my legs drifted open farther. Since Solstice, we hadn’t talked about what this newfound addiction to each other meant. He wanted to prove to me it was real, and as much as this was fun, I still believed I needed to enjoy it while it lasted. Once Lex woke up from this spell, this fantasy, he’d regret all of this and so would I. But I shoved that away, too, because I had a plug in my ass. Our filthy game hadn’t stopped. Our disassociation from reality still throbbed between us.

The jingling of metal on his belt urged me on, made me wetter and more eager for him, and the sounds of the party below drifted through the window as the two-minute countdown began.

“We have to be downstairs for pictures,” I mumbled through hurried kisses.

He groaned and positioned himself at my opening while I tugged my thong to the side. Lex shoved home, and I collapsed against the wooden window frame. Curtains hid us from the rest of the room, and two floors separated us from the bloodsuckers below. Here in this intimate space, nothing else mattered.

His hot breath coasted down the front of my dress, and I fisted my hands into the lapels of his jacket, holding him close while he dug his fingers into my thigh to hold me up.

“Fuck, you always feel so good,” he murmured. “So fucking good.”

“Remember when we used to sneak away from these stupid parties so I could kick your ass.”

His hand shot around my throat like a viper strike, pushing me flush against the wood. He froze inside of me, those hazel eyes dark and piercing. “Yeah, and now I’m gonna fuck your ass instead.”

I pulsed around his cock and the plug, my smile giving me away. I wanted to fight it. I wanted to shove at him and make him earn it, but the thought of doing that here, where I was supposed to be America’s Sweetheart, yanked at a filthy, demented part of me. I gave in with little rebuttal. He twisted me around and bent me at the waist, his fingers inching the fabric of my dress up until it puddled around my hips.

“Wow.” He smacked my ass again. “What a fucking beautiful sight. Green really is your color, X.”

“You have less than a minute.”

He made a dark chuckling sound and wiggled the plug out of me. I put my arms above my head, bracing against the crown molding to keep my balance, my head ducked between my elbows. The cool lube made me straighten, but when his fingers pushed inside me, all around me, I bucked against the touch.

“Right there,” I told him. “Yes, yes, yes.”

“You like that?” He crept deeper into my mind, blending our arousal, combining our pleasure. This hadn’t been like the last time; this felt like Lex was seeping into my molecules. I’d never been so intimate with anyone else in my life, not even Carter.

What was happening? And more importantly, why didn’t I want to stop it?

I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.

“There’s my X,” he snarled. “You love this, don’t you? Sneaking up here to do rotten things with the one person you hate most in the world.”

“Do it, Lucifer. Jesus Christ.” I growled the words but felt no wrath behind them anymore. I hated him, and I loved him, and I’d never be able to get enough of either.

He nudged inside me, slow and easy, taking all the fucking time in the world like we didn’t have to be somewhere in thirty seconds. He put one hand on my shoulder and wrapped the other around my waist to fiddle with my clit while he fucked my ass in that tiny alcove. He filled me in every way, in my most private spot. Carter was the first person to fuck me in the ass and he’d done it so well as to make me crave it. Lex brought it to another level.

After all the edging, after hours and hours of foreplay, I should have seen this coming. Lex would be damned determined to make a mess of me, no matter what. He took me until I came in a hard, pounding climax that turned my knees to jelly. I couldn’t hold myself up, and if it wasn’t for his arm bracing me, I would have crumpled to the ground.

My come dripped down the insides of my thighs, and I was certain I’d left a sloppy, wet mess on the floor. Fireworks exploded outside over the river, the countdown now having reached midnight, and I moaned, loud and guttural, clinging to the curtains while my orgasm detonated behind my eyes and around my spine, curling my toes in my shoes, tensing all of my muscles, all at once.

My blood burned and my brain sparked, and the whole world stopped moving for one brilliant moment. Finally. After all goddamned day.

Lex kept going, chasing his pleasure until he found what he needed. He shoved his cock deep inside of me. Once. Twice. He froze on the third time, coming in deep groans and hard kicks, digging his nails into my fleshy hip.

“Happy fucking New Year.” Lex chuckled against my neck, sinking his teeth in nibbles up to my ear and back down again. I tried to move away from him, conscious that we were being missed right this second, but he didn’t let me go. He held me tighter. “Thank you for the wild ride, X.”

I narrowed my eyes and looked over my shoulder at him. “Don’t get sentimental on me, Lucifer.”

A floodgate opened in his mind and images overflowed—how much he had loved our time in the cabin, how much he loved this new rivalry between us, this new intimacy, how much he realized he had loved me his whole life.

He saturated my heart with it, and I nearly drowned, my eyes burning with tears as a sob racked the back of my throat. Then he showed me how he felt during that orgasm, how his pleasure had become mine and mine was his.

“It’s real,” he said. “It’s always been real, X.”

My heart squeezed so hard it nearly punched out of my chest. Maybe he wanted me to repeat it back, or maybe he already had his answer by how quickly my pulse fluttered in reaction. What could I say? I couldn’t deny the swell of this thing between us; it dominated every part of my mind and soul. Was that love? I couldn’t deny that my life would be fundamentally altered if he were gone, that I would likely cease to exist. Was that love?

Maybe he was right. Perhaps this infatuation for each other had always been there. Perhaps I couldn’t let myself admit it until now.

I should have thought more about that sensation of becoming one or what it meant that I’d never experienced that with anyone except for Lex. But the high of our connection kept me buzzed, and he gave me one last kiss before pulling out of me.

“My mother’s going to be pissed,” I said, wiping myself off with tissues and righting my dress before running my hands over my hair. “I was supposed to do a speech.”

Lex gave me a crooked smile and leaned down to kiss me again. “Just tell her you had better things to do with your mouth.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, that’ll go over well.”

Drunk with lust and giddy with the excitement of the night, I kissed him slowly, secretly admitting for the first time in my life that I had fallen madly and stupidly in love with Alexei Fairfax.

Miracles really do come true.

Once upon a time, Lex had sworn there would never be a day we’d say we liked each other. And now? Well…

“I love you, Lex, ” I told him, seeing no reason to keep it to myself anymore. “I really love you.”

“I know, X.” He kissed me again. “I fucking know.”