Innocent (Inequitable Trilogy Book 2)

by Lesli Richardson

  My day collar.

  I drop everything onto the bed. With trembling fingers, I pick up the bracelet.

  It’s still warm.

  My knees unhinge as I drop onto the bed, hold the bracelet cupped in my hands and pressed against my chest, and I sob.

  * * * *

  I don’t return to our bedroom until I’m sure I’ve got myself under control again. I’ve washed my face, blown my nose, and used eye drops.

  After I set my alarms, I strip and carefully slide into bed with Elliot. He wakes up only enough to possessively drape himself over me and immediately sink into sleep once more.

  Well, okay, then.

  Guess I’m sleeping on my back, whether I want to or not. Because the guy’s bigger than me, and dead weight.

  Plus, I don’t have the heart to wake him up to make him move. He’s usually a light sleeper because of his PTSD. Although with me he’s been seeing improvements in his sleep.

  As exhausted as I am, I thought I’d fall right to sleep, especially after dozing off in Elliot’s office.

  Except now I lie here, staring at the ceiling while increasingly incandescent rage burns inside me.

  Problem is, I don’t know if I’m angrier at Leo, or myself.

  * * * *

  At some point, I do finally fall asleep. Then I have that great dream about Leo sucking my cock again, just to wake up enough to realize it’s Elliot who’s crouched between my thighs and has my cock balls-deep in his hot, perfect mouth, doing dirty things to me with that sweet, eagerly talented tongue of his.

  Okay, then.

  I close my eyes, hold on to his head, and don’t hold back. After I’ve come and he climbs up the bed again to snuggle with me, I peel an eye open and see it’s 1:17 in the morning.

  “Go back to sleep, Sir,” he whispers, pulling me into his arms and holding me.

  With an orgasm out of the way, I do.

  When I next wake up, it’s my watch vibrating on my wrist, telling me it’s my normal time.

  Elliot’s still sound asleep.

  I get up, shut off my alarms, and head to the bathroom. As I use it, I see all of Elliot’s supplies for Duck in their proper places, the inner liner on the drying rack, and wonder if Leo did that with him last night. Their routine.

  One that’s now my routine with Elliot, too.

  There’s no escaping Leo’s presence in our lives, even when he’s not physically with us.

  It’s Friday, and we’ve got a busy schedule today and this weekend.

  Last night slams into me and my rage returns, flaring bright before I rein it in. I have no doubts that Leo’s not going to let up the pressure on me to talk. He might back off for a day or two, but I have to shoehorn a discussion of my own with Elliot into a limited number of hours so I can finally have that talk with Leo.

  Once I finish in the bathroom, I grab my work and personal cell phones and head downstairs to prepare our coffee.

  Just to find a plate of danishes and two prepared travel mugs of coffee sitting on the kitchen counter.

  With a sticky note with a heart drawn on it.

  The coffee’s hot, of course. When I place my hand against the Keurig, it’s warm. I find the used pods in the garbage, and they’re still warm, too.

  Motherfucker.

  I’m equally torn between being creeped the fuck out and desperately in love with the man. I never heard the alarm beep—

  Fuck.

  I think about last night, when I came in, how the alarm didn’t beep when I opened the door. I didn’t think about it at the time…

  But of course Leo knows how to operate the fucking system. He has access to it.

  He reprogrammed it not to chime when the door opens.

  I turn and lean against the counter with my personal cell in my hand and find that Leo’s been once again sending me texts since yesterday morning. The latest just ten minutes ago, but I had my phone in do not disturb mode and had removed the exclusion for Leo’s contact, so it didn’t even vibrate.

  Good morning. :)

  I ponder my response, or if I should even send one.

  On the one hand, he’s really trying. That my foul mood hasn’t deterred him in the slightest is…

  Discombobulating.

  If I reprogram the alarm, he’s going to turn around and reset it again, until I either give in to him, or I tell him to go fuck himself and Elliot weighs in to tell him to stop. It’s not a battle worth fighting when I already have multiple fronts under siege from Sir Stalksalot.

  I start playing his voice messages and archiving them, and it’s difficult not to break down crying at the sound of his voice.

  He really was worried about me.

  Oh, fuck.

  I stare at my phone. Just by turning it on, he can now track me again. He knows I turned it on last night, and maybe he took that as an invitation to keep trying?

  Then I think about maybe he stood there in the bedroom doorway this morning and stared at me and Elliot in bed while we slept.

  Because I know damned well if he was in this house this morning, he wouldn’t be able to resist doing that. And I’ve been leaving the bedroom door open because I’m trying to get Elliot used to feeling comfortable in the house. He needs to understand if he’s told the detail no one comes in before a certain time, he can trust they’ll respect that and keep him safe. It’s one way I’m trying to get him to let go of control of things he doesn’t need to worry about, and Leo never really worked with him on before because of their limited time together.

  Back to the thought that Leo probably watched us sleeping. Again, torn between the whole creeped out or endearing behavior conundrum.

  I—

  Motherfucker.

  I grab our coffee, head up to the bedroom where Elliot’s still sleeping, leave his coffee on the nightstand, then walk to the stairs and climb to the third floor.

  He’s standing at the end of the hall and staring out the window at the backyard while he sips coffee from his Slave Driver coffee mug. Elliot gave him that mug several years ago for Christmas, the first Christmas Elliot was living here, a year after the election. It tickled Leo to death because it was something Elliot gave Leo to keep here, that was his, and it was a double entendre we could all smile about.

  That year, Elliot got me a coffee mug, too. Mine says Kiss the Cook, and it’s still down there in the cabinet. I use it nearly every morning. It was a silent nod to who I was to Leo, even if I wasn’t here very much back then, and Elliot and I weren’t doing any kissing.

  I cannot have this confrontation with Leo yet. If he pushes me too hard right now, I’ll snap and tell him to permanently go fuck himself. “You can’t be here.”

  “And yet, I am.” I hear the smile in his voice even with his face turned away from me.

  He’s pleased I figured it out, that he was up here.

  “Don’t make me have them pull your keys and code. I’ll hit the panic button and call Stephen Lyman right now and tell him to send a couple of his biggest guys in here to drag you out and change the fucking locks.” That’s the head of Elliot’s detail.

  Leo finally turns, leaning against the wall, that playful smirk on his face, the one that always melts me even as it hardens my cock.

  Like it is right now.

  “I loved watching the two of you together like that. That was fucking hot, baby.” He stares at me over the top of his mug as he sips. I’m trying to think why watching us sleep would be…

  Oh, son of a—

  “You woke Elliot up last night.”

  He doesn’t reply, but the outer edges of his eyes narrow over the top of his coffee mug.

  That’s exactly what he did.

  And he…watched us.

  His greatest dream finally coming true, in part. To have his boys together.

  My cock wants to stand up and say howdy to him. Okay, yeah, I’ve literally had years of fantasies building up in my head about the three of us together, but this is out of control.
/>   Leo’s out of control.

  Worse, he’s going to drag me out of control with him, and Elliot cannot afford for there to be no grown-ups at the steering wheel, and with an emergency brake handle snapped clean off.

  I hold up a finger. “Until this is settled between us, no more drop-ins without asking me first, day or night, or I will have them pull your fricking codes and change the locks.” Second finger. “‘Give me space’ means giving me fucking space, Leo, not showing up out of the blue and stalking me.”

  “But you like me stalking you.”

  I really do… “Not when I need fricking space. The longer it takes you to back the hell off, the longer it’ll take me to talk to Elliot and work shit out in my head, meaning my talk with you won’t happen sooner. That includes texting me all the fricking time on my personal cell for anything that’s not work-related.”

  I hold up a third finger. “Reprogram the fucking alarm system and turn the door chime back on before you leave.” I wonder if he’s been here all night, or if he left and returned this morning.

  There’s one easy way to find out—I’ll look at the alarm logs.

  Later. Not right now. Then again, the danishes weren’t here, so he probably left and came back. He looks like he’s freshly shaven, so that’s the likely option.

  I bet he didn’t sleep much overnight.

  Serves him right.

  I hold up a fourth finger. “We talk when I say we talk, and it will not be before Monday. Keep pushing my fucking buttons and pissing me off, and it’ll take that much longer.” I’m struggling to maintain my composure and I wonder if he can see that.

  But this isn’t healthy, and the stakes are sky-high, man. I can’t half-ass this. I can’t let us rush into something the way we did the first time between us. Leo can easily wrap me around his fingers and I feel helpless to resist. I loved that before, and it worked for us then, but I can’t let him do it now.

  There have to be boundaries. I’m older and wiser and sooo much more experienced when it comes to the swampy jungle that is DC. Elliot has to come first. Elliot needs me, and I’m no good to him if I’m letting Leo talk me into talking Elliot out of the campaign when it’s something Elliot feels he needs to do.

  I hold up my thumb. “Elliot is mine. You fuck with me, or fuck with him, and you won’t like what happens.”

  His left eyebrow arches a little and I can tell he’s taking that last comment as a challenge and is trying to hold himself back. “Why can’t we talk right now?”

  “Because now I’m behind schedule, thanks to you. I have to wake him up and start his day. You seem to think the conversation will consist of nothing more than you apologizing and me accepting and us moving on, but it’s not that simple. If you really are sorry, actually listen to the words coming out of my mouth and do what I’m asking.”

  I head for the stairs.

  “Can I say good morning to him?”

  “No. He’s on a schedule, and you know damn well he will freak the fuck out if he thinks you’ve been here all night. You can say good morning to him at the White House.”

  What I’m really afraid of is if Elliot’s present when Leo and I talk, he’ll turn those gorgeous blue puppy-dog eyes of his on me, and he’ll beg me to forgive and forget. Then, la-la-la-la-laaaaa, next thing I know, my ankles will be around my ears and Leo’s cock will be buried in my ass, we’ll be running late to work, and it still won’t settle anything.

  I pause at the top of the stairs. “Be gone before we get out of the shower, and reprogram the fucking alarm, or I will order Elliot to talk to the detail and lock you out.”

  Leo looks handsomely amused and lifts his mug to me in a salute as I head downstairs.

  I close and lock the bedroom door behind me before I wake Elliot and we start our day.

  Elliot groans and laughs as he sits up. “Oooh, the sadist paid me a visit last night.” It’s good to hear him laugh like that. It doesn’t happen frequently enough. He smiles and kisses me. “I had this great dream last night, Sir.”

  “That Leo woke you up before you blew me?”

  He scowls. “Yeah. How’d you guess?”

  “You remember blowing me last night?”

  His bashful smile stirs my cock. “I wanted to make sure you didn’t feel left out, Sir.”

  “I didn’t, don’t worry.” I motion for him to stand. “We need to get moving.” I wonder if Leo’s lurking outside our bedroom door and eavesdropping. I know he wouldn’t dare bug the damn room, or place a hidden camera, because Secret Service regularly sweeps for those. That would get Leo into serious-shit trouble, and he knows it.

  Elliot stands and I carry his coffee for him while he uses the walker to move into the bathroom. I get the shower started and meet him in there.

  “We talked last night, Sir.” He’s watching me while I suds up the scrubby so I can get him bathed.

  “I would hope you did.”

  “He told me he followed you to the restaurant and what happened.”

  I bristle. “Yeah. Sir Stalksalot really needs to tone back his possessiveness.” I move behind him to scrub his back. The marks are still visible, and some of them are bruising, where Leo punched and pummeled him as part of their brutal play.

  “He loves us.”

  “I know he does.”

  “He said he was sorry.” When I move to scrub the top of his shoulder, he lays a hand over mine. “He finally admitted how much he’d missed you. That pulling away from me was him trying to deal with his anger and grief and worry about you, and he was trying not to take it out on me. We did have a good talk, even if we got…distracted.”

  I know exactly how they got distracted. I massage Elliot’s head to distract him now and pull my other hand free. “That’s fine, but he needs to learn how to adult. We’re moving from the minor leagues up to the pros, and that kind of bullshit cannot happen now.”

  “I forgive him, Sir. Can you?”

  “I’m sure he will weasel his way back into my good graces sooner or later, but for now, we need to focus. We’ve got campaign events all weekend.”

  We’re almost finished with our shower when he speaks again. “He was really here last night, right?”

  “You ask that with all those bruises?” I point at a particularly dark-looking one on his upper left bicep.

  “I mean when I woke up and then woke you up. That was him, wasn’t it? It wasn’t a dream?”

  I sigh. “I’m going to tell you the same thing I told him: do not push me.” I rest my hands on his shoulders and look him in the eyes. “He swore to take care of you, and he swore to take care of me. I left so he could focus on you, and he knows that. Yet the one thing he should have done, was supposed to do, he didn’t. I won’t fail you, El. He did, and failed me by extension. I need to work that shit out in my head first.”

  Probably by making Leo do a lot of groveling.

  “Only because he was grieving, Sir. Because he missed you.” His blue eyes are begging me to forgive Leo and let him back in.

  “Yeah, well, I missed him, too. I still need to figure out how to trust him again.”

  I get us dried off and when I go to get our clothes, I realize my tie is not the same one I laid out last night.

  Motherfucker.

  While I didn’t pay close attention, I’d bet that the tie Leo was wearing this morning matches the one he swapped out for me. He’d know which clothes were mine, duh, because a) I put Elliot’s flag lapel pin on his jacket before I went to bed, and b) my clothes are decidedly smaller than Elliot’s.

  Fine.

  I swap out the ties. Leo can match Elliot today.

  Rather, Elliot can match Leo.

  That’ll backfire on Leo, too, if he doesn’t have a spare tie in his office. He’ll hesitate to hang around Elliot for too long until one of them changes ties for fear someone might notice.

  At least Elliot doesn’t have to leave the White House today. There aren’t any votes for him to preside over in the Senate
.

  I get us caught up on time and, thankfully, we leave the residence on schedule. When Elliot walks outside first so I can set the alarm, it chirrups when he opens the door.

  Literally, I’m expecting to see Leo sitting inside the SUV when we get in, but he’s not.

  Wouldn’t shock me if he gets out of one of the other vehicles when we arrive at the White House.

  But he doesn’t.

  I don’t know if that disappoints me or not.

  Once I hand Elliot over to the NatSec team for his morning briefing, I get to work, and still no sign of Leo.

  So I head over to the EEOB for a staff meeting there. I feel like I’m playing a high-stakes game of hide-and-seek. I’m really not prepared to speak to Leo yet. He wants to have our discussion—rightfully so—but I’m still trying to figure this out.

  The past few weeks with Elliot have been far different than I could have ever suspected when he summoned me that day.

  I’m…

  Look, when I walked away from Leo, I walked away from the love of my life. I honestly wasn’t sure how I’d ever fall in love again. I knew I’d be comparing every guy to Leo. I was grieving.

  Except what I’m feeling for Elliot is far more than responsibility, or friendship, or even good old-fashioned lust.

  I’m falling in love with him.

  Correction—I’ve fallen in love with him.

  Hard.

  Leo and I fell hard for each other. Elliot and Leo fell hard for each other.

  But this is serious and can literally have global repercussions. I can’t fuck it up.

  I’d prefer to have me and Elliot sorted out before Leo and I have our “conversation.” Elliot and I haven’t even discussed what we feel for each other yet beyond saying it to each other.

  That needs to happen, too.

  I won’t go back on my promise to Elliot.

  There’s some irony for you. Leo might have faltered, but he wouldn’t walk away from Elliot because of the promise he made Elliot. Here I went and made a similar promise to Elliot. We’re both orbiting Elliot now, instead of me being a satellite to Leo.

  I damn sure don’t want to have this discussion here, on White House grounds.