“At least I know now…” I reach for his hand. “You still haven’t found him?”
He shakes his head. “I have no idea what he’s doing or planning, and Ava refuses to get the police involved. With his drug use, he’s irrational and unpredictable, and it’s been such a relief that you were here while I was trying to find him, because at least I know you’re safe.”
“What about you?” I close my eyes. “There’s a madman on the loose who blames you for his life choices, and I’ve been partying over here, with no knowledge of that. It makes me feel useless.”
“I understand that now, and I’m sorry I didn’t think of it that way before. I didn’t want to ruin the experience of your cousin’s wedding for you.”
“I’m not a child you protect from everything, Landon.”
“I know.”
“So Ava didn’t know where he was?”
“If she did, I couldn’t get it out of her. She may not be crazy like her brother, but she likes to play games. I’m sure she knows where he is, or has an idea, and coaxing it out of her was the objective of meeting her for dinner.”
“So you were trying to seduce it out of her.”
“Not seduce.” He gives me an appealing look. “Coax.”
I breathe, deciding to trust him, even though the image of him with her, flattering her ego and trying to make her feel that she was important to him, enough for her to tell him what he wanted to know, it makes me clench my fingers. “But you didn’t succeed.”
“She admits that she gave him some money, and he told her he wanted to travel and ‘get away from it all.’”
Travel. Hopefully out of our lives for good. “Do you believe her?”
“Maybe, but I don’t believe him.”
That night outside the restaurant comes back to my mind, and the thought of what could have happened. I remember Evans’s voice in my ear all those months ago in San Francisco, how bitter he’d been, and filled with hate. I shudder.
“You understand why I had to meet her,” Landon asks.
I nod. “I do.”
“We have something special, Rachel. I want to know you won’t ever let anything like suspicion make you think of throwing it away.”
Again.
The image of two little boys wrapped in blankets comes unbidden to my head, and Landon outside my apartment, frantic as he waited for his driver to find me, for me to return. I know how much it means to him, to know that I will trust him first and not let my suspicions make me do something irrational.
> “I’ll never walk away from you,” I tell him.
His chest rises, and in the next moment he pulls me onto his lap. “I’ve missed you,” he tells me. “It took a lot of control for me not to steal you away from Laurie’s wedding and find some corner to fuck you senseless.”
“Jesus!” I laugh at the image. “Well. I’m glad you didn’t.” I wet my lips. “Although you can feel free to do so now.”
He’s already loosening the belt of my robe. “I intend to.” He pulls the robe off my shoulders to expose my breasts.
My nipples harden under his tender gaze. “I love how responsive you are to me,” he says. He parts my legs gently. “Your body was made for my touch.”
“Yours was made to drive me crazy.”
He grins and slides one hand between my legs. I’m already wet, and his finger slides easily between my folds. “God, I need to fuck you,” he sighs.
“Feel free.”
His lips cover mine hungrily, and at the same time, he starts to work me with his fingers. Two fingers slide inside me, while his thumb moves over my clit, rubbing and massaging with just enough pressure to make my body start to writhe. Sensations flood me, and I move my hips to the rhythm of his fingers, also feeling his cock hard against my buttocks. I moan. I need him inside me.
Landon reads my mind, because right then he rises to his feet, lifting me and placing me on the bed. He pulls off his robe with an urgency that’s arousing by itself, and I spread my legs, opening myself up to him. He lowers his head between my legs, and I’m already so aroused that when his tongue flicks over my clit, I almost come, my hips bucking into his face.