by Angel Payne
“What difference does it make?”
“It’s going to make a shit ton of difference when you’re in the Oval. Now give me the fucking order, Tracy, or we’ll both walk away now.”
“You’re a bastard.”
“Hmmm. True.”
“And I’m ordering you, as your fucking president, to get that cock out of your pants and inside me.”
“Fuck.” There was the official stunner of the day. The order heard across his body—and deep inside his balls. “Yes, ma’am.”
“You going to talk or act, soldier?”
Her sass gave him a deep chuckle and a harder dick, despite the pinpricks of regret sneaking in with both. In another time, in another place, his imagination would already be filled with the anticipation of making her truly his. Locking a collar around her neck while publicly claiming her and fucking her before all his friends and fetish family at Bastille. As a submissive, she’d never let him get complacent or bored. As a woman, her inner beauty would only get more gorgeous with the years. Most importantly, as a person, she’d be his willing partner, helping him figure shit out—even this crazy entity known as a life after Special Forces.
But they didn’t have another time or place—and he was hell-bent on forgetting exactly that as he jerked the front of his track pants down, finally freeing the angry red length from beneath.
After indulging two seconds of a clenched groan, he exhaled roughly but responded with sure silk, “Madam President, haven’t you learned by now that I’m a man of action?”
“Thank God.” Her sigh fluttered the air as he yanked the condom packet from his pocket—wisely, he’d started carrying them everywhere—ripping the thing open with his teeth, and then one-handing it for the latex roll-on. No time for pulling out the Don Juan moves right now. He needed her like air. Hungered for her like an animal scenting its mate on the wind and then finally finding her in the forest, ready to be rutted. If he didn’t get inside her right now—
One lunge and he was home.
No. Not home.
Paradise.
“Sir! Yes!”
“Fuck.” Okay, beyond paradise. Where the hell was that? He didn’t care. Wherever this was, he wanted a full fucking tour. Needed to fly higher into this Shangri-La with her, where they rode winds made of fire, drank from rivers of lust, and twisted themselves so tightly into each other, he literally had no idea where the force of her ended and the power of him began.
They were meshed. Woven.
One.
He’d never experienced anything like it.
He’d never begged destiny more to make a moment last forever.
He’d never begged destiny for shit, period.
Destiny was supposed to have taken him out a long damn time ago. Destiny was supposed to have been a grenade at his feet, a bullet to his head, a knife in his gut. It was supposed to have been quick and ruthless, a flash of pain and then a forever of noble nothingness.
Well, this shit still had the pain right. And the flashes. The agony of the throbs in his balls, the strain in his cock, and the thunder of his heart, all screaming to fuse tighter with her, to push deeper inside her—to let her climb deeper inside him. And the flashes? They hit with every single one of her racing breaths, heavy and hard, keeping time to the rhythm of her cunt’s pulls on his dick and her ass’s clamps around his fingers.
Christ.
What she did to him.
How she stunned him.
How she submitted so much more than her body to him.
In every push of her hips and gasp from her throat, he felt it. Knew it. Had no choice but to accept it. The raw power of her passion. The pure honesty of her spirit. The fierce beauty of how she opened herself to him, filling the air with the brutal force of her energy and fire and light…
She was a revelation.
An illumination.
A surprise so intense, he was incinerated to his core.
A blast so brilliant, he could no longer keep his restraint from getting torched too.
He bent deeper over her. Slid his free hand up until wrapping it around the base of her throat, pressing in hard enough that she damn well knew he was there.
“Yes,” she rasped, filling his grip with the vocal vibrations as his cock swelled into every corner of her channel.
“Yes,” he echoed against the hollow of her ear, lust enflaming him in equal measure, cutting everything in his mind down to sparse syllables—primitive words from the wildest, most untamed part of him. “Yes. Yes. Tigress mine. All of you. Pussy. Ass. Body. Mind.”
“Yes…Sir.”
Despite her hard breathing, the acquiescence was a perfect pair of soft sighs. The liquid texture of her body gave him the rest of that story. She’d given him everything and now soared in pure surrender. Disconnecting, only to reconnect. Becoming a ball of her most basic needs, her animal-level desires. Goddamn, he knew the feeling. Was nearly there himself. It roared in the center of his balls and then chased the white-hot pleasure up his shaft. Pumped into her impossibly tight tunnel until he was nothing but a beast himself, sliding his hand up, clamping his palm over her mouth.
“With me, submissive. Come with me. Squeeze your cunt around my cock. Scream your pleasure against my skin.”
Her breathing doubled. Her lips opened against his palm.
Her sex convulsed around his dick.
As her climactic cry fired into his hand.
Holy. Fuck.
He was done.
Broiled.
Scorched.
And now, spilling with heat belonging only to her.
Only to her.
What the hell was she doing to him?
No orgasm, with any other lover, had brought him even close to this inferno—so intense it imploded his mind, destroyed his logic, consumed his body. He was the core of a bullet, exploding from its casing. The heart of a volcano, awakened to blue fire by the gods. A flood bursting past a dam, taking down giant chunks of control in the unstoppable deluge.
He was…changed.
He was terrified.
A truth not letting up, in clarity or intensity, even as their climaxes mellowed to dull roars and he rose, gliding carefully out of both her entrances. A psychic glare only growing as he leaned and grabbed a box of tissues from the office’s credenza, wiping his hands and cock as best as he could, before making himself decent again. A pressure turning his chest to lead as he peeled her off the desk and then rolled her directly into his arms, sitting in the leather chair again, using its mobility to gently rock them both.
An ache in places deeper than that lead, as Tracy curled herself into him with sighs that were nearly songs. Soft. Grateful. Happy. The siren to his serpent, appeasing his soul with the magic of her music.
But not easing the terror.
Terror he’d just been preaching at her to embrace, to move through, to confront and conquer.
Hypocrite.
He grunted softly.
Guilty as charged.
Though if the universe wanted to pursue a trial, he was tagging a coconspirator. Fate wasn’t getting out of taking some of this blame. Nor, damn it, from helping him shoulder the consequences—namely, the impossible task of figuring out where his life went from here. Three days ago, here had been a lot less complicated. Daunting yet doable. Now, doable had disappeared behind enemy lines, and he had no rescue helo in sight.
Doable was gone.
Leaving only one entity behind in the bunker with him.
Impossible.
He fought the verdict even as he dipped his head, locking his gaze with the searching fervor of hers, tightening his hold around every inch of her—recognizing the byzantine dream of her. Further than that, realizing why her job had nothing to do with the unworkable paradox of them. Harder issues were at play here. Huger issues. Walls having nothing to do with her and everything to do with his jammed-up mind…
A conclusion invading him so hard, it was a no-joy battle to keep it from
invading his composure. As he’d feared, Tracy’s radar went up at once, jerking her as sharply as if he’d spanked her again—making the list of shit he’d be taking up with fate soon, since he hadn’t gotten the actual pleasure of delivering said swat.
“Hey.” Though she tenderly palmed his jaw, her voice was a hardcore mandate.
“Hey.” He released it atop a long exhalation, banking on the casual but professional approach to diffuse her. With a little more affection, he asked, “How are you doing?”
Damn, that felt good. Aftercare was right up there with fuck swings as one of his favorite aspects of the dynamic. The chance to be close to a submissive again, knitting what their bodies had done into a deeper mental bond, was a high like no other—and one of the prominent reasons why he liked playing hard. Breaking down walls, getting to guts and honesty, took fire and courage—and sometimes, if one was lucky, sheer magic. While he’d tasted the first two with other submissives, he’d all but given up on truly finding it with anyone in a real sense. Maybe—probably—making his living in all the most un-magical places on this planet hadn’t helped either. Very likely, he’d given up on magic, not the other way around.
Or so he’d thought.
Until Tracy Livia Rhodes.
Until the one woman he wanted to aftercare the crap out of but couldn’t, thanks to this stockpile of bullshit in his brain.
Only it wasn’t bullshit.
Which made this suck even worse.
Especially as she huffed so adorably, he almost considered throwing her back on the desk and simply pretending it was a fuck swing—even as she followed it by snipping, “Don’t change the subject.”
A grin formed. Holding back a hurricane would’ve been easier. “Popoki, how you’re doing is the subject.”
Her lips pursed. “Beguiling me isn’t going to work.”
He surrendered half a shrug. Denying she was right would’ve been a lie. She could insist on being his Tigress everywhere else, but in these tender moments, his Hawaiian version of “kitten” melted her every time.
Mostly.
“I was hard on you,” he finally stated. With fingertips flowing along the back of her arm, quietly added, “And I’m just making sure you…liked it.”
Her tongue darted along the seam of her lips. “Yeah,” she whispered. “I definitely…”
“What?” His hand stilled. His brows narrowed.
“Liked it.” Her gaze followed the trail of her own hand, down to the center of his chest. “What I mean is…shit.” Obviously, her gray matter was spinning up a few theories of its own. John pulled her closer, securing her in with a determined hand on her outside hip.
“Tracy.”
“I’m not trying to be coy!” She snorted. “This just isn’t easy.”
“If it were easy, everyone would be doing it.”
“Everyone isn’t doing it?”
He lifted his stare, using it as admonishment. Her whip of a wit lashed his libido in all the right places, but that shit got locked back when she brandished it as diversion.
“Okay.” She straightened her posture—not a help for the situation in his crotch, already responding to the nearness of her perfect ass cheeks again—and took in a full breath. “I’ll at least give it a try.”
“Mahalo.” He softly kissed her forehead before settling back, determined to listen to her with his ears and hear her with his soul.
“So…I liked it. We’re clear on that.”
He dipped his head a little. “We are.”
“But the thing is…I…”
“Didn’t want to like it?”
“Oh, I wanted to like it.” She worried her bottom lip. “I just didn’t feel like…I should.” Her fingertips played at the buttons on his Henley. “But you…” A sigh left her. This time, it wasn’t such a sublime sound. Shiny droplets appeared on her lashes, each like a Karambit blade in his chest, but he remained still through the torture. She needed to process, to sort this shit out for herself, and he needed to shut the hell up and let her. “You, Keoni John Franzen,” she finally rasped, fingers sliding to his jaw again. “You took me into the shadows, and you made all of it okay. The darkness, the pain, even the fear… You commanded me to look at it and then embrace it. You turned my most wicked thoughts into something…” She swallowed hard, shaking her head. “Well, something I never imagined could be reality.”
So much for holding back.
Franz’s hand, just finished with a caress up her arm, swept over her shoulder and into her hair. With a gut-deep moan, he twisted his fingers in. Yanked the strands hard—and then captured her squeal of pain with a brutal crash of his lips. Invaded her even deeper, diving his tongue along hers, forcing her jaw wider so he could taste even more of her hot, wet cavity. Not deep enough. He could never be buried inside her enough…
“I never thought you’d be a reality for me, either.”
He gave her the confession as she’d surrendered hers—rasped and rickety, from the center of his gut. Listening to the words, bumping and pushing from him, caused his fingers to follow suit. He watched, amazed, as they started trembling in her hair. He spread the tips out, seeking her cheek…gathering the drops there. No. Hoarding them for the mental scrapbook he’d begun to keep of her…realizing that at any moment, the memories would be all he had left.
Besides, his words had effectively taken care of any new rainfall down her face. In place of the tears, she now wore an openly skeptical scowl. And damn it if that didn’t look five kinds of adorable on her too—until she issued the words to justify it.
“Okay, hold up a second.”
He ticked up one side of his mouth. Added a defined thrust of his hips. “I’ll hold you up anywhere, ma’am.”
“Thank you, Sir”—her succinct scowl clarified the title was now a term of ire instead of endearment—“but I need a little elucidation here.”
“And I’d like to help you out.” He calmed his cock and settled his smirk. “By all means, let’s elucidate.”
Her scowl tightened. “That should not turn me on so much.”
His own brows hunched. Couldn’t say the same thing about his dick this time, but that was all on her. “What shouldn’t?”
“You. Saying ‘elucidate.’”
“You know elucidate just became my favorite word, right?”
She took a hand to his chest again—with a chastising smack. “Be serious.”
“I am. Completely.” He tightened his hold, nestling her closer. “I’m ready for your elucidation.”
An eye roll and a huff later, she turned her touch at his sternum into a pattern of hesitant swirls once more. As he looked on, the apprehension made its way up her face too. “What did you mean…that you never thought I’d be a reality?”
He chucked a soft choke. “I don’t understand.” Dipped his head, attempting to catch her downcast eyes. “I don’t fuck around with symbolism, woman. I meant exactly that. You’re…” His shook his head, dazed for a second. He really didn’t fuck with words—but right now, even finding any of them to shoot straight was a huge damn problem. “You’re…”
“Not your first ride at the rodeo?”
“Huh?”
“John.” She thumped his chest again. “Come on. You’re pretty damn good at this stuff—”
“In case you can’t tell, ku`uipo, ‘this stuff’ takes two.”
“And a hell of a lot of experience. A lot of other rodeos.”
He grunted. This had to be the strangest aftercare he’d ever been a part of. “And?”
“Are you telling me there’s never been a dream pony for you before this?”
His brain skidded, nearly cartoon style, to a halt. Like the rider in that little movie, his logic slingshotted ahead, only to snap back into the saddle, gaping and dazed. “Should I be troubled that I understood every word of that?”
“Of course not.” She patted his sternum with feminine ease, yanking him from the saddle again. For a woman who worked in a wor
ld of hard facts and gritty details, she was scarily peaceful in accepting the depth of their connection. “But that doesn’t answer my question.”
The lungs beneath her fingers filled with air. Franz slowly released it. This was ridiculous, talking about “ponies” who came before her, because the woman was his fucking unicorn—but she’d also just bared herself to him on a dozen different levels, and that alone earned her an answer. But how much of an answer? Honesty, even in its brutal and painful forms, was as essential to his world as purpose and goals—but how many of the gory details did that mean he had to share? Not that this woman, so brave and bold and real, couldn’t handle any of the shit.
The pussy here was him.
He couldn’t handle it, forcing her to handle all of it.
He wanted to keep being her hero.
But that meant clarifying how she was his heroine.
And that meant supplying her with the perspective of his past.
And yeah, that meant he was going to have to bust out with the strange shit again.
Communication.
Careful communication.
Chapter Fifteen
Be careful what you ask for.
Should’ve been the lesson she’d learned thoroughly by now, right? Turn a crafting hobby into an online store, end up with a hundred employees and two warehouses. Take on Congress about security measures for foreign contractors, be appointed vice president of the country. Push John Franzen when the man had you bent over and writhing atop a desk, and the words “executive order” gained meaning beyond the wildest imagination.
But keep pushing the man, even when the desk wasn’t a factor, and get the strangest result of all.
A reaction, despite the sienna shade of the man’s face, feeling a hell of a lot like a Kansas prairie snowstorm. Unreadable. Impenetrable. Eerie, even in the middle of the afternoon.
She forced down a deep breath for herself. Crazily, took heed of what she liked calling her “Capitol Hill Swami”: the inner voice responsible for keeping her grounded when she most longed to pummel herself into that ground. She usually only invited Swami out after putting her foot in her mouth during committee meetings or pulling a dork move in front of the press like wearing different-colored shoes. Swami was most fond of telling her life really was going to be all right, no matter how she felt she’d just mucked it up.