Cold Hearted: Bad Boy Romance

by Amy Faye

  "I'm glad you're so confident. Now, what are we actually going to do about this? And don't say 'do nothing.'"

  Tom pipes up, then. "We've got an invitation to sit down with him on television."

  "I don't know if that will work out?"

  "Why the hell not?" Linda's face is twisted up in frustrated exasperation.

  "Because he wouldn't show up."

  "What makes you so sure?"

  "He knows me, knows I'll school him, and doesn't want to do anything that would embarrass himself."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Sure I'm sure. But if you want me to go on the show, we can just give him the chance to not show up of his own accord, rather than just taking my word for it."

  "I'm sure you know exactly what you're talking about, Adam, but I think I'd like that."

  "May as well," Tom pipes in. He's out of his element with this.

  Tom Delaney's good for stirring the pot, but when it's time to respond, he's more than happy to step aside and let someone else get it settled so that he can throw his own, personal monkey wrench into the gears.

  "Well, let me get on the phone. Should I go for their offer, or make some public counter on a more favorable program?"

  Linda looks at him hard. He tries not to look too happy that all of this is happening. There's got to be at least part of her that dislikes the chaos. Adam doesn't. It makes his teeth feel sharp. It fits with everything he does, everything he's been doing for decades.

  "How do you feel about it?"

  Adam shrugs. "It makes no difference to me."

  "Then why not go with something more favorable?"

  "The way I see it, right now if he doesn't show up on the show he picked for himself, Terry looks like a real moron. If I change the terms, he gets an out. Says, I changed it because I wanted someone biased in my favor."

  "Okay."

  "If I stick with his show, and he doesn't show up, he looks like a coward or an idiot. Shows right off the bat that he wasn't a serious detractor. If he does show up—"

  "I got it, I said."

  "I know you got it." Adam's voice is low and soft. "But that doesn't change anything. What do you think I should do?"

  "I think you should… how confident are you? This guy doesn't have some ace in the hole that makes you look like an idiot?"

  He leans back in his chair and lets out a long breath. "No chance. There's nothing to have."

  "Okay, then. Do Ray's show. Just be prepared for something."

  Adam grins. "I'm always prepared for something."

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  The lights were hot. There had been a time, once, when Adam Quinn had wanted to be on television. When he was young. The first time under the lights, so bright that no matter where you look you feel a little blinded, he'd learned his lesson. By then, though, everything else had dug in until there wasn't much choice about whether or not he'd go back under them.

  Almost forty years later, they're still too bright. It's still miserable. But so are a great many things—and like most of them, he's gotten used to it.

  Linda's sitting off to the side, of course. She wasn't happy about the last time Adam went off on an interviewing adventure, and it's not likely to happen again, not alone.

  She stands up when she sees him looking and walks over. "You feeling alright?"

  "Feeling fine, sure."

  "Do you know the plan?"

  "No plan," Adam answers. He shrugs. "Why?"

  She looks at him flatly. Words aren't absolutely necessary.

  "I have a rough idea."

  "I'm not going to like it, am I?"

  "You'll love it, if you give it a chance."

  She takes a breath. Adam can see by the look on her face that she's not comfortable with it. Maybe she's right not to be. But that doesn't mean that he's going to change anything.

  There's a very simple plan, and no—she isn't going to like it.

  The plan is, at the end of a ten minute interview, to make Terry Johnson wish that he'd never been born. Adam prided himself, he had to admit, on his self-control. On his ability to keep himself calm, to keep himself from flying off the handle with people.

  Even people who might have deserved it, like Terry Johnson certainly did. Adam Quinn had been born a great many things. Talent wasn't something he was proud of. He hadn't earned it. But that control, that was something that he'd worked on for some time.

  And now he was going to use that skill, that he'd had to train so much. And it would work. He'd be able to do it, without too much trouble, as long as he kept himself separate from the situation.

  If he didn't, then things could go badly. So he had to make sure that they wouldn't go badly. Simple as that.

  He took a breath as the producers and makeup people started to separate, and a young woman with a panicked look in her eyes—typical of television people, Adam had discovered over the years—came to wave him to follow. They sat him down on a couch. It was moderately comfortable, he had to admit. And then, a moment later, the hot lights kicked on and he buckled in.

  This was going to be interesting. Linda wasn't going to like it, but when it was done…

  He smiled. She could have stopped him, he knew. But she hadn't.

  Epilogue

  Linda sits back in her chair. The sun's beating down, too hot for January. It should be cold. A week ago, it had been, but the weather's always been fickle, and of course, for Adam, it always seems to do what he wants. If it's hot, then he must have wanted it that way. It seems like superstition, but Linda's learned enough not to question it.

  She shields her eyes against the sun and leans back, her coat pulled tight around her shoulders. They've gone over his inaugural address every day for the past month, and if she's lucky, that's the speech that he's going to give.

  If she's not lucky, then… well, the entire campaign's been full of surprises from the beginning. What's one more?

  The ceremony finally gets started with the swearing-in. Some part of her jumps into Linda's throat as his hand falls on the bible. A fear that shoots through her, asking what would happen if he did something unexpected. What are the odds he would decide to surprise her? She doesn't want to think about it.

  Her body starts to recover, just for a moment, as he repeats faithfully. A little voice inside reminds her that for surprise, he's shown that he can keep himself under control when it counts, and it certainly counts now.

  The speech begins as-expected, too. She allows herself a little swelling in her chest, the pride of a job well-done. It all sounds crazy, but somehow… well, they made it this far, she supposes.

  And then everything falls apart when he turns away from the podium and points back. Her mind plays back the past sentence, trying to figure out what she had missed. She can hear it, once she thinks about it.

  "I'd like Miss Owens to join me at the podium," he said. That wasn't part of the speech they'd discussed.

  Her face goes red immediately. He knew better than this. The cameras, the glitz, none of that was something she wanted. It was part of his life, but it wasn't part of hers. He knew that. He'd promised—

  She stood up and waved, stepped down to him.

  He dropped to one knee in a practiced, easy motion, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a little black box, and Linda's vision went white for an instant as the crowd started to roar in the distance.

  He'd always had a flare for the dramatic. Now if only she could get away from it.

  "Will you marry me, Linda?"

  She can hear his voice going out across the speakers, her breath coming in short, sharp bursts.

  She takes in the deepest breath she can, one that almost manages to fill her lungs, and steadies herself long enough to get one sentence out as a hot tear streaks down her cheek.

  "Yes, Mr. President."

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  Here’s a preview of the sexy love story you’re about to read…

  "Shut up and kiss me."

  Roy did as he was told, pulling her up to set her on the counter. The way he did it was like she didn't weigh more than a bowling ball. She scooted her hips up to help him get the sweatpants off, and then he was kissing her again, holding her head up with one hand as his other explored her body.

  His dancing fingers found their way to her core, his palm pressing against her mons as his fingers spread her folds and teased the hard, pleasurable nub at the top. A spasm shot through her, shooting her eyes open wide for an instant before she let them slip closed again.

  He started to probe her depths, finding them already slick with arousal, and then curled his fingers, stirring up pleasure that Erin hadn't felt in any of the exploration she'd done of her own body before.

  She tried to catch her breath, tried to regain her composure. Roy added another finger and kept stroking that spot inside her, her body tightening, her back betraying her and offering her breasts to him in spite of her embarrassment.

  He let her head down just slowly enough to avoid banging into the mirror behind her, and then yanked her sweater up.

  "God, you have great tits," he growled, his voice ragged with arousal.

  "No I don't." She could barely get the words out, as his fingers continued to take her breath away from her.

  "Shut up," he commanded, and she couldn't argue with him any more. He pulled the orgasm forcibly out of her and left her pooled up on the counter for a moment before wrapping his arms around her and carrying her out of the bathroom and dropping her ass-first onto the bed.

  "You're sure about this?"

  Erin answered by pulling her legs apart a little more for him. He took one ankle in his hands and lifted it over his shoulder, then lined himself up against her waiting lips and slid inside.

  God, she hadn't—this was—she couldn't find words to describe any more. She could feel his cock jerk with every deep thrust inside, could feel him hitting her perfectly, deep enough that it almost hurt. His cock stretched her just to the point of pain, the spiral of feelings and emotions driving Erin absolutely crazy.

  Reason tumbled off a cliff, and the delicious feeling of oblivion right around the corner, about to overtake her, forced her hips to push back against him, the sound of skin slapping against skin filling the hotel to harmonize with a voice of pleasure that sounded remarkably like her own.

  Roy pulled hard on her nipples and hit her again right where she needed it, and then her entire body tensed up as an orgasm ripped through her. She could feel his rhythm getting erratic, as well, as he got close. She could feel him much more closely, now, as her body tried to learn every nook and cranny of his cock in the time it took for her orgasm to subside.

  When he finally slid into her, jabbing against something deep inside her, one last time and started to cum, she felt another shock of pleasure run through her, prolonging the orgasm another precious few seconds as he twitched with each potent, ropy shot of cum.

  He looked at her for a long moment before leaning down and kissing her.

  "Is it always like that?"

  Roy smiled at her. "More or less."

  "Can you fit in my suitcase, then? I need to take you home with me."

  He moved his still semi-hard cock inside her and stoked the fire inside her that she'd thought had died down after her orgasm.

  "No, not quite. But I've still got plenty of time left in the day."

  One

  Erin Russo had already put her badge on its usual place right on her belt, and didn't realize that it shouldn't have been there until she was already out the door. It was odd, not being on-duty. She had forced herself not to even bring it with her, and then somehow it had ended up in her luggage anyway. Her work suit—that is to say, her only suit—was there, too, and she had laid everything out the way she always did at home.

  Only, she wasn't at home, and she wasn't going to work. Which should have made it uncomfortable and unusual to go around getting ready for work, but somehow she had barely realized that she was doing it.

  When she had finally been told, point blank, that she needed a vacation, she thought it would be a relief. She'd finally have time to pick skiing back up again. She hadn't been on a mountain since she was fifteen years old, and now here she was, with a great view of the Tetons. Erin stripped off the suit, already regretting bringing it.

  Those weren't the kinds of clothes that you needed on a skiing trip. But the ever-present 'what if' was always there. What if she needed to impress someone? What if she needed to look serious? What if she had to have a suit for something?

  She hung it back up on the rack, promising herself that this time she wouldn't go straight for it the next morning. Then she changed into tight-fitting winter clothes that didn't flatter her breasts nearly as much as she might have liked. Then again, she thought, there wasn't nearly enough of them to be flattered, looking down at them sadly. Barely enough to fill her small hands.

  She moved on from beating herself up over it and forced herself to keep on going. She slipped her wallet into her pocket on the way out and grabbed the keys to the rental car. She didn't need a new car, but it was impressing her enough that if she did, she might buy one. Reasonable, solid gas mileage, comfortable—it was a nice experience. Almost nothing like the heap she drove to work every morning, but it couldn't have the history she had with that old Jeep.

  Her first stop was by the ski rentals. A man who looked like he thought he was God's gift to women smiled at her with a grin that reminded her of David Hasselhoff and asked if she needed any instruction. For such a pretty lady, he could always justify a discount, no problem.

  She didn't have the heart to tell him no, so instead she told him hell no, and if he gave her a line like that again, he'd be taking a ride down the mountain on a stretcher. He laughed like she'd been joking, and maybe she had been. Somehow she suddenly wanted the suit back, and the badge that went along with it, just so she could prove that she was off-limits as long as she wanted to be.

  Erin carried a pair of skis over to the counter, where David Hasselhoff still leaned back, giving her a smile that you could run a deep-frier with, and paid for her skis and poles. The man took her ID and, to Erin's great frustration, read her name out loud. How terribly predictable.

  She took her card back once they'd run the credit through and seen that she wasn't likely to run off with their equipment, and huffed out of the room. She'd been expecting something like this pretty much since she started working at the station. It had made it easier not to go on vacation, when she realized that every vacation would be full of assholes trying their best to ruin her time.

  She stepped into line behind a couple of teenagers who looked like they had all the money in the world and had decided to come to Wyoming as a change of pace from Switzerland. They were talking about the usual sort of nothing that she had come to expect from rich teenagers.

  Erin closed her eyes a minute to try to calm herself down. She was being a bitch and she knew it. That generally meant, and this was the challenge, that she had to stop. But it was just so tempting, and there wouldn't be many other chances to confirm that she'd been absolutely
right to forgo vacation time for seven years running.

  But according to the Captain, while that was all fine and good for most of them, she was getting wound up way too tight, and she needed a break. Specifically her, as if she was doing something wrong getting the highest close-rate in the county.

  Well, whatever it was, it wasn't a complaint. They gave her full pay for a week's vacation, and she intended to use it either getting back into her childhood hobby, or proving that there was no reason to take vacations. Either seemed about as good as the other, because even if she didn't have a good time, she was going to have a good time giving the Captain shit about it afterward, and that would more than make up for the week of dealing with assholes.

  Besides, out there in the cold, she always had the option of popping in her ear-buds, and then she wouldn't hear a god damn thing. She took one step closer to the front of the line, not far now. Half of the teenagers had left and the others had continued the conversation as if they hadn't noticed their friends' absence.

  Erin finally decided to stop subjecting herself to the frustration and nestled one of the earphones into her ear, enjoying the tight fill inside. Then she pulled out her phone and started the music. In for a penny, in for a pound, she figured. So she'd made a playlist full of songs that she'd loved as a teenager, and she was going to make a very strange weekend of reliving her life before the move out to the coast.

  She kept the music quiet enough that she could almost hear over it, and kept her other ear open. As if any moment she might suddenly need to hear something. A voice behind her was accompanied by a tap on the shoulder.

  "You new in town?"

  She craned her neck over, not wanting to get her skis turned around. "Just visiting," she said.

  The man behind her was hard to see through all the clothing, but his voice was at least friendly enough. She gave him a chance to say something more.