Excerpt of The Kingmaker by Kennedy Ryan

I’m a Cade. Ambition, achieving was never a choice for me. It was just a question of if my ambitions would take me down a path that satisfied my father. But I’ve removed that factor. I may have shunned the Cade name, but the Cade nature is not so easily shed.

            “You didn’t want to get into the family business, so to speak?” she follows up.

            “Let’s just say the family business is not for me.” Neither of them, I add to myself.

            “Besides, it’s the dreamers, the inventors and entrepreneurs who change the world the most. Gutenberg, Edison, Stephenson, Jobs—something about the present wasn’t good enough, so they made the future.” I almost choke on a jaded chuckle. “What do politicians make? They make war. They make profit off the misfortune of others. They make mistakes they won’t take responsibility for and decisions they never have to feel the impact of. No, thank you. Not for me.”

            A fat raindrop plops on my nose, sliding down the bridge, followed by another and then a wet succession.

            “Aw, hell.” I pull my jacket up on my elbows to provide some shelter for the two of us, but the rain trebles, more coming down and faster.

            “We still have four blocks before my place,” I say. “Sorry, but the weather is unpredictable this time of year.”

            Rain has already started molding the thin dress to her body, faithfully hugging every swell and curve. A hard shiver runs through her and her teeth chatter.

            “Come on.” I grab her hand and duck into an alleyway. An overhang provides a tiny patch of dry ground and shelter. “We may be able to wait it out. These showers sprout up and pass over like they never happened.”

            We’re sandwiched between two buildings and there is barely any light, but the moonlight finds her, sculpting shadows beneath her cheekbones and etching dark crescents of her lowered lashes. The rain has smeared her mascara, and water-slicked hair flattens to her head. She should look bedraggled, but she manages to be the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.

            I bend, tentative at first, even after last night. Even after making love to her again this morning when I chased her up the stairs. I approach slowly, giving her the chance to refuse, but she doesn’t. She meets me, eyes open, lips eager, hands bunched in my wet hair. It’s a freshwater kiss, made of rain and passion. Slow touches pick up steam until we’re frantic against the wall, hands searching, desperate to find the flesh under our soaked clothes. The inside of her thigh is slick with rain, and I trace the droplets with my finger before inching higher and burrowing beneath her panties, inside.

            “Do that, Doc,” she says, a breath-starved command. “Yes.”

            I lean into the damp, scented curve of her neck, leaving kisses there while my finger is knuckle-deep in paradise. Every sound she makes gets me harder, ready. She kisses my jaw, my cheekbone, pulls my bottom lip between hers.

            “We should stop,” I pant across her mouth. “I can’t . . . let’s stop before . . .” How do I tell her that if we don’t, I’ll be fucking her in an alley with no regard for who might see? How do I say that without sounding disrespectful and selfish?

            “Don’t stop.” She fumbles at my waist, tugging the belt from its buckle and pulling the button loose, the zipper down. “Do it.”

            “Baby.” I drop my head back and groan. So tempting. I want to so badly. “The rain should let up soon. We can make a dash for it to my house.”

            “Or,” she says, working her hand into my pants; finding me. Squeezing me.

            “Dammit, Nix,” I groan. “Don’t make me want you any more than I already do.”

            “Or,” she says again, “you can do what we both want. Take what I want to give. Right here. Right now.”

            Is it surrender when you both want it? I’m not sure if it’s her will or mine that wins out, but I hitch her up, my hands full of her ass, and lock her legs at my back. I reach between us to push her panties aside and plunge in.

            I feel like a god.

            Yet every time she gasps and groans and tightens around my body, she conquerors me. She’s indelible. I may end up with someone else, may even love someone someday, but there is a place Lennix Moon has carved out inside of me in a matter of a few days where only she will ever fit. It’s irrational and goes against all the rules I’ve set for myself, but she feels like mine. For the next two days, she is mine.

            And then we’ll walk away.

            That rule has always worked for me. It kept me focused through undergrad, my master’s and my PhD. It has me headed to Antarctica and other far reaches of the Earth to unlock the mysteries that could shape a generation. Tonight, though, my body has found a slick, sweet home inside of her, and when she comes, when I do, the words, the rules, sound like foolishness.