KING: Las Vegas Bad Boys(65)

“This is stupid. I don’t even know why we’re here,” Emmy says, setting down her beer without toasting.

“It’s not stupid. You’re here because our relationship matters. It’s how relationships work, remember? They’re complicated. You just said so yourself,” I tell her. “You could at least be happy for me. Don’t you think I deserve to be happy? To be in love? To be with Landon? Don’t you think I deserve to have someone who wants to be with me ... even though I’m not perfect? Not like you?”

The table goes silent, and I realized I just blurted out a lot of personal information. Information that makes me weak and exposed. And not the good, naked-with-Landon exposed. An I just admitted I’m a mess sort of exposed.

“No one is perfect, Claire, and everyone deserves to be happy, to have love,” Tess whispers.

I lower my gaze, completely mortified.

“I’m sorry for saying I don’t know why we’re here,” Emmy says quietly. “I know why we here ... it’s just really hard to be your friend when there’s so much I don’t know about you. Friends let one another in, friends tell one another when they have kids and are getting married in a week.”

Tess speaks again, “Claire, why don’t you want us to be in this with you?”

I can’t speak. I just shake my head, confused and sad and so completely seen. I don’t like it. When you let people in that’s when you get hurt–that’s why I’ve pushed Landon away. I can’t handle it. It’s too much, and now everyone is looking at me, asking for a pass to have access to my heart.

My eyes fill with tears, and I brush them away as fast as I can. Shaking my head, I manage to say one single sentence: “I don’t know how.”

I push out of the booth, and run to the bathroom, relieved to find it’s a single stall with a lock. I shut the door and press my back against it, trying to catch my breath.

There’s a knock on the door, and I close my eyes. I can’t handle more of Emmy and Tess, and their requests for me to be more than I am.

But it isn’t Tess and it isn’t Emmy.

It’s Landon’s voice, his perfect accent, his tender inflection. It’s Landon who came. It’s Landon who is here.

“Claire,” he says through the wooden door. “Let me in.”

I turn the lock, opening the door for him without hesitation, without any doubt. I open the door and let him in.

And that choice alone tells me everything.





Landon


The moment she locks the door behind me, she collapses in my arms.

“I love you, Landon. I do. I love you so hard. But I’m scared. And there is still so much we need to ta–”

“Shhhh, it’s okay, baby, it’s okay. There will be time to talk. Right now ... let’s finish the night the way we planned. Me. Holding you. Carrying you.”

“Why are you always so perfect, always saying the right thing to me?”

“Because I’m your person.”

“That’s, like, a line from Grey’s Anatomy or something. That isn’t real life,” she says, burrowing her face in my chest.

“This is real life though, Claire. Our life.”

And then she kisses me, hard. So hard my back is against the bathroom wall, her hands hold my face, and her lips press against mine, taking my breath away.

Fuck, I love this woman.

Pulling away, I ask her, “You love me?”

“I love you.”

In seconds I’ve hitched her skirt to her waist, grabbed her ass, spun her so it’s her back against the bathroom door. I hoist her to my waist.

“You’re so strong,” she says, her eyes no longer filled with tears. They’re full of desire. “And I want you in me. So bad.”

“God, I love it when you talk dirty.”

“Oh, this isn’t dirty. You want filthy, Landon? I’ll give it to you.”

“Give it to me then, baby,” I tease her as I drop my pants, letting my cock spring from my boxers.

“I want your cock in my pussy. And I want you to fuck me.”

“How hard?” I ask, as she pulls her shirt over her head. Her gorgeous tits are in a red bra, plunging low. I pull down one of the cups and lick her hard nipple, kissing her perfect skin.

“So hard. I want you to pound me.”

I don’t wait for her to ask me again. My cock is so fucking hard for her; I’m so turned on by her complete willingness to let loose. I need her on top of my cock. I want to consummate her I love you.

Fuck, I love her so damn much it scares me. And when I set her on top of me, without teasing her tight little pussy open, she gasps, gripping my neck, moaning in delight. My cock loves her tight lips, the way she fills me up nice and good.