The Escape

by Alice Ward

  I needed to cultivate patience. I needed to stop drumming my fingers on the podium when I was getting nervous. I needed to answer their questions with a question. When they pulled out the big guns, I needed to meet them with firepower of my own.

  And on and on.

  It didn’t fucking matter that I’d been universally praised by the media for my debating skills. My father always did it better — just ask him. I’d nodded along, sitting in the back of the limo, but my thoughts were elsewhere. Namely, in The Black Room. I thought about the way Cassandra had felt, slick and smooth on my tongue, my mouth salivating for another taste of her. She said she wouldn’t be back, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to go and seek her out.

  Impossible. As my father prattled on, I convinced myself that Cassandra would never happen again, and then my mind wandered to the new clerk. What was her name? Violet Wilkes.

  She was frumpy, yes. It was a warm day in May, and yet she’d been wearing layers of wool and a skirt that screamed “grandmother.” But there was something about her... like she’d been trying too hard to look like an old lady. The gorgeous woman underneath was visible while she had that uptight librarian thing going on. That was fucking sexy. I couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to peel off those layers, to reveal her completely to me. Only me.

  I shuffled in my seat as my cock twitched to life. Fuck. I had a one-track mind because I hadn’t had sex in a while. I should’ve taken Cassandra last night when she reached for me, wanting me, but I’d fucked that up, something that was quickly becoming the biggest regret of my life.

  And now I was horny as hell, and I needed to remedy that as soon as possible so my dick would fall in line and behave.

  Then I looked up at the brownstone, and my dick shrank into my boxer briefs like a berated dog.

  I climbed the stone staircase and rang the doorbell. Bernadette was old-fashioned, so as usual, she had the maid let me wait outside in the drizzle for a good five minutes before opening the front door. When I stood in the foyer, shaking raindrops from my hair and the jacket of my tuxedo, she made her grand entrance down the sweeping staircase.

  The woman my parents had deemed as suitable as my wife was wearing a striking but modest long blue gown, her blonde hair arranged in curls atop her head. As usual, the perfect look for the occasion. As heir to the Dryden coffee fortune, she’d been going to benefits since she was a child. She knew exactly how to act in every situation, exactly what small talk to employ. She fit into these galas with ease and actually seemed to enjoy them. My father looked at her as if she was an important chess piece on his political board, and often told me what a wonderful wife and mother she would make.

  A wonderful First Lady was what he really meant.

  I pulled on the collar of my tuxedo like it was a noose tightening around my neck.

  When she reached the landing, she held out a manicured hand to me. “Darling,” she said.

  “You look lovely.” It was the obligatory response, and my cock shriveled further into my pants.

  It wasn’t that Bernadette wasn’t gorgeous. She was, and she had a model’s physique, with surgically enhanced breasts and body parts shaped by daily Zumba classes. She’d been given the best of everything from her childhood, and it showed. Like me, she could pick out imitation pearls from a mile away. But she was also perfect, and stiff, and a fucking walking mannequin. She knew the perfectly diplomatic response to any social situation. Nothing about her was sensual, raw, awkward, or dirty. Nothing about her stirred me.

  The evening went just like the hundreds of other benefits before. My father coming alive around Bernadette, as if he was the one trying to court her. My mother drinking too much champagne and hiccupping discretely into her hand. Strauss waltzes out the ass. Caviar, which I couldn’t stand. My father giving a speech and calling me out as the pride of the Republican Party, destined for great things. Me waving with a fake smile plastered on my face, wondering what they would all think if they knew the future of their party had been tongue-fucking a complete stranger in a sex club last night.

  My father took my mother home early because she was teetering on the edge of drunkenness, and we didn’t need another scene like the one she’d done at the Ritz Carlton last month. When I escorted Bernadette home at around midnight, she kicked off her shoes in the back of the limo and started to run her bare foot up my leg.

  I shifted away, yawning. She smiled, the foot climbing higher. “Don’t tell me you’re tired.”

  I blinked, fighting to keep my eyes open. “Of course not.” That would show weakness, something I’d never been allowed to show, even as a small boy. I automatically sat up straighter.

  “Then come inside,” she offered. “I want to show you something.”

  Fuck.

  Bernadette and I had slept together a handful of times, always when it agreed with her blatantly low sex drive. I knew what I was in for: Three hours of foreplay, condom, then fifteen minutes in the missionary position, driving into her as she stayed completely silent and complained if I moved too fast or too hard. That was the formula. There could be no deviation, or else sweat or other bodily fluids might be involved. I’d never thought sleep would be a more attractive alternative to sex, but I was getting there.

  And if I followed my parents’ wishes, I’d be living there until death do us part.

  I shuddered. “All right,” I answered, climbing out of the limo and helping Bernadette step out in her glittering heels.

  Her brownstone was, as usual, museum-perfect with expensive antique furnishings and pieces from her parents’ priceless art collection. She’d lost her mother a year ago, and her father, Ellery Dryden, now doted everything he could upon his princess. “What did you want to—”

  Before I could finish, she’d pressed those heavy fake tits against me, her lips on mine. Her hands roved under my tuxedo jacket, cupping my ass.

  I held her firm as her tongue pushed open my lips, and my thoughts went to, of all places, the yellow-horned toad. I’d probably get more aroused kissing one of them. She guided my hand to her breast implant, and as I squeezed, I imagined it bursting. Her hand reached down and caressed my flaccid dick through my pants, and I stepped away.

  “Hey, wait,” I plowed all ten fingers through my hair. “The maid—”

  “Oh, you’re right.” She groaned, which was par for the course for her and my father. They saw the help as furniture, as things that they owned, easily dismissed and forgotten. I thought about the way my father had treated that mousy clerk at headquarters as Bernadette began to loosen my bow tie. When she placed a hand on my chest, I wondered if I could close my eyes and pretend I was fucking the clerk. Or better yet, Cassandra, with her long legs and gorgeous tits. Bernadette batted her eyelashes flirtatiously. “What I wanted to show you was upstairs, anyway. In my bedroom.”

  I blew out a breath. Not a good night for her lazy libido to stir.

  “Would you like something to drink?”

  I shook my head. “You know, I’m really tired, Bern, I should probably—”

  “No!” she said, grabbing me by the collar and urging me up the stairs. With a heavy sigh, I followed her, wondering what the fuck had gotten into her. Yes, we’d had sex before, but she’d never been this insistent about it. I decided to be open to it. Maybe, just maybe, we could be a better match than I originally thought.

  When we reached her bedroom, a fortress of eyelet and lace, something that made me think of a little girl’s bedroom, she opened her walk-in closet. Then she came out, holding a slinky black lace teddy on a silk pillowed hanger, and a long white silk gown. “Which do you want to see me in?”

  I blinked, inspecting them. “For what?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “What do you think? For tonight.”

  I just stared a beat too long, my mind working out ways to get out of this. Her face started to fall, a pout appearing on her botoxed lips.

  I reached over and grabbed her hand, drawing her to me. This was
one of the things I couldn’t stand… the routine. Why did she have to choose a gown at all? Why did it have to be part of a production? Why couldn’t we just rip each other’s clothes off and fuck right here on the floor?

  “You know, you’d look lovely in both of those,” I said to her. “But why don’t you just strip for me right here?” Her eyes widened in surprise. “I’ll bend you over the bed, take you from behind. I’ll—”

  I stopped. Bernadette’s expression had transformed from surprise to… disgust.

  I needed to get out of here.

  Offering a tight smile, I changed course. “It’s late. I had a long day, and I’m not at my best right now. What if I make us a reservation for an early dinner later this week? And then we can come home, and we’ll have all night together.”

  Her eyes gleamed as she wrapped her arms around me, her fingers digging into my suit jacket like claws. She gave me a baby-pout. “Promise?”

  She sounded almost desperate. It made me wonder just what she and my father had been whispering about. “You seem different,” I ventured, wondering how to broach the subject. “Did you and my father discuss something tonight?”

  She shrugged innocently, but Bernadette was anything but. She was a sly little minx. She had a mind much like my father’s, and when they got together, they didn’t just engage in pleasantries. They plotted. They conspired. “Oh, nothing much.”

  Nothing much meant everything. Nothing much was her innocently planting a glossy magazine advertisement for Tiffany’s in the folds of my wallet. Nothing much was her emailing the Ritz Carlton in Rittenhouse Square to check on open dates for wedding receptions. Nothing much was discovering that she’d been practicing writing “Ms. Bernadette Dryden-Brice” on the back of Playbills in her purse. I raised an eyebrow. “Nothing much?”

  She reached up and placed a hand on my shoulder, and I knew that whatever she was going to say was something I didn’t want to hear. “Well, he is concerned. The election is only six months away. The first debate in a few weeks. He told me that voters prefer married candidates to single ones at a ratio of—”

  Everything inside me went cold. “Three to one, I know.” I’d heard that at least once a day since I first agreed to run for Senate. “I got it.”

  She studied me, expectant. Did she want me to drop to my knee right then? I looked away, muscles stiffening. In that moment, my future began to flash through my mind — a future of plastic galas, and perfectly mannered children, and a museum-like home with the best of everything, and torturously bad sex.

  “I should probably go,” I told her after a moment. “But I’ll make that reservation.”

  She nodded, and I hugged her chastely, in a way I’d hug my mother. It didn’t stop her from going in for another toad-lipped kiss.

  When I stepped outside, the clouds were clearing from the dark sky, so I tilted my head to the stars, taking in deep breaths of air as I wandered to the limo. Right then, more than anything, I wanted to be in that stuffy Black Room chamber, feeling Cassandra squirm and moan under my touch.

  Oddly enough, when I was there, I’d never felt more free.

  George wasn’t on duty, so I had no choice but to return home and find some other way to relax.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Brooke

  That snooty rich bitch.

  Of course Cameron Brice would be dating her. All poise and perfection, she practically had First Lady stamped on her forehead.

  The second I saw Cameron escorting her out of a swanky brownstone in Rittenhouse Square, I hated her. She was wearing a fur stole that probably costed more than my education, and a sparkling gown that was likely custom-made from some fashion maven in Paris who had her in mind when he designed it. I glowered. Despite all that wealth, the plastic bitch was draped over Cameron like a cheap suit. He was smiling, patting her hand, and laughing mildly at something she said. I couldn’t deny they looked good together.

  Presidential.

  Just what the public expected.

  With his help, doting on her like a priceless china doll, she climbed into the limo like she’d been riding in them all her life, when I, embarrassingly enough, had never even seen the inside of a car that elegant. The limo took off toward Center City, and I put my piece of crap car in drive and clunked along after them, following a few car lengths behind. The limo pulled up at the Kimmel Center, and I stopped at the corner, watching as Cameron stepped out, offering his hand to the statuesque blonde. As they ascended the stairs, he had a hand on the small of her back, his long fingers splayed protectively. It made me think of the way his hand had felt on my back, solid, warm, and strong.

  In the cold chill of night, it made me ache for that touch again. God, I wanted it so bad that my whole body flared with goose bumps.

  Masochist that I am, I waited outside the Kimmel Center for three hours. I didn’t know why. It wasn’t like there was any chance of catching Cameron doing wrong in there. But when I thought about going home to my lonely apartment, it made my stomach roil. So I sat there, behind the wheel of my car, waiting, and thinking about what made Cameron tick.

  He had a picture-perfect life. Wealth beyond measure, amazing house, beautiful girlfriend. Ridiculously beautiful girlfriend, almost too beautiful to be real. God, she had absolutely no waist and huge tits. They had to be fake. Did Cameron really like that kind of look? Was that what turned him on?

  No. What had he said? He liked ponytails, but mostly, he liked things loose.

  This woman didn’t exactly look loose. In fact, she looked the opposite.

  So it was clear… he was a liar. Maybe a habitual one, considering where he’d been last night. I just needed to catch him in one of them.

  As I sat there, I texted Kiera. First day survived!

  She came back a moment later. How was it, girl? Did you see the douche?

  Yep. I actually spilled coffee on him. Score one for me.

  Her response was instantaneous. Srsly?!!! You beast. Way to take one for the team.

  I wondered what she would think of my “team spirit” if she knew that I’d had his tongue on me the night before, delving into my most private parts, tearing me apart in a rapture I’d never quite felt before. And now, what was I doing? Sitting alone in a car, watching him with his perfect girlfriend, navigating through their perfect life? This clearly had nothing to do with trying to get dirt on him. It was more like… stalking.

  Sighing, my thumbs flew across the screen. He makes it so easy to want to bring him down.

  A few moments later, she replied with a smiley face and… THEN DO IT!

  Right. Easier said than done.

  My phone pinged again. You’ll get what you’re looking for in no time. Victory celebration on Friday?

  I cringed. I was all for a quiet dinner and drinks with her, but I knew celebrating victory over one small coup would only jinx things. Plus, a small part of me was glad I hadn’t snapped that picture of him last night. Maybe I’d wanted more of a challenge. Maybe I was enjoying this undercover tease a little too much. But maybe — and this was the part that made a shiver travel the length of my spine — maybe I was already hooked by Cameron Brice’s legendary magnetic charm.

  I typed. Let’s wait until the goose is cooked to claim victory. I tossed the phone on the passenger seat.

  As I sat there, I thought of the blonde woman he’d gone into the Kimmel Center with. I knew it wasn’t a first date or even a second one… she had been his chosen date the past few weeks, according to the tabloids. I imagined taking her on in the ring, sparring with her. I could see myself ripping her perfect botoxed lips and fake eyelashes off. I imagined giving her the big one-two punch, bursting those giant implants.

  Then I cursed myself. What the hell was I doing? Cameron was my target. Not his girlfriend. She’d done nothing wrong but fall for a total asshole. Cameron was the one who’d killed toads. He was the one who was against raising the minimum wage. He fought against women’s rights. He was the douche I wanted to b
ring down. His girlfriend was an innocent. In fact, he’d been cheating on her with me. I should’ve felt sorry for her.

  And yet, somehow, knowing all these vile things about him, I still couldn’t help but turn my vitriol toward her.

  Maybe I was hooked.

  The longer I stayed there, waiting, desperate for the sight of him, the more I sensed I was in trouble.

  I shifted in the front seat of the car, my backside numb, when he and the blonde appeared at the top of the steps. I leaned forward, watching their every move, afraid to blink and miss something. They rushed down the stairs in step, avoiding the evening drizzle that had begun to fall again. It was sweet, how he held his jacket over her head, guiding her around puddles that reflected the streetlights, making sure she was nestled into the limo before worrying about himself.

  Sweet. Cameron Brice was not sweet. It was all clearly just an act.

  But for whom? The street was almost deserted. There was no one around but me, watching from a safe distance.

  When he got himself into the car, I sighed. He may have been cheating on her last night, and she may have been nothing like what he said turned him on, but one thing was clear… he cared about her.

  My stomach sank.

  He took her back to her brownstone, and when they climbed the stairs, she was all over him once again. I knew right then that he’d spend the night. A man like him, so magnetic, so powerful. Judging from where he’d been the night before, he clearly had an insatiable sex drive. He struck me as the kind of man who took what he wanted, when he wanted it.

  I swallowed when I remembered he hadn’t taken me. I’d been almost naked, reaching for him, and he’d pushed me away. No, he’d simply given instead of taken.