Capitol Love
Page 6
Then she had to figure out exactly what was going on.
Chapter Nine
Jack sat down across from Senator Sommers' desk, but the senator was too anxious to sit. He paced around the office like a caged tiger, stopping to peer out the window, hands cupped behind his back.
“There’s a lot of talk, Jack.”
Jack could only hazard a guess as to what the senator meant and he didn’t want to make any assumptions. “Talk, sir?”
The senator spun from his window. “That’s right, Jack, talk about our own Miss St. Cloud.”
“Tabitha? Listen, senator, I appreciate your concern, but like I said: Tabitha and I don’t have any exclusive arrangement. Whatever she's doing, whoever she's with, it's okay with me.”
“Even if she was sleeping with Senator Cafferty?” Jack was surprised by the accusation, his normally active and charming tongue struck dumb by the notion. Yet it hardly seemed farfetched, given all the information Jack already had.
“Well, that would have been none of my business, sir.”
“Not as her fuck buddy, but nobody gives a shit about that, Jack! If she was blackmailing him, somebody on our staff blackmailing a senator? If that’s true, we’re all fucked, Jack, every last one of us; you and me especially.”
Jack knew the senator was right, but it was Jack’s instinct, and his job, to keep the senator calm. “Didn’t you say Senator Cafferty was gay? If he was having an affair and was being blackmailed, our operative concern was that it was somebody from Senator Douglass’ camp, right?”
“That’s one possibility, yes. And it may still be so, Jack. But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t also fucking Tabitha St. Cloud, does it? This is Washington, Jack, not Phoenix, Arizona. People are all over the map here.”
Jack said, “It may be true, I guess. But if you didn’t know anything about it —”
“It’s my team, they’ll assume I did. And with you fucking her, they’ll assume you're in on it too. You know the truth doesn't count for shit in this town! It’s all about what people think, and they're gonna think the worst!”
“But they can’t prove anything —”
“They won’t have to. We’ll be through in politics, disgraced, run out of town on a rail, tarred and feathered, Jack!”
Jack sighed and leaned back in his chair, a hand to his chin. He thought about Tabitha, about her increasingly erratic behavior, nervousness about the Secret Service, her allusions to seeing other people. Goosebumps rose up on the backs of his arms. “I suppose it’s possible, but I don’t anything you don't know. She hasn’t mentioned it to me.”
“No, she probably wouldn’t,” Senator Sommers said, “since she may be setting you up to take the fall.”
“Setting me up?”
“Think about it, Jack! You think she’d try something like this without having a fallback position? And who better than you, blinded by pussy or so she’d have assumed. But she didn’t count on you being as experienced, as worldly as you are, eh?”
“I dunno, Senator, I really don’t.”
“All right, Jack, okay. But if we don’t find out, and I mean soon, we’re both as good as dead.”
****
Senator Douglass asked Tyler, “Nothing at all?” He paced around his own big office, Tyler standing near the desk. “It’s been days, Tyler, I have a lot of other things to deal with right now.”
“I appreciate that, sir. But there’s really nothing to report. If SenatorSommers is up to something, Jack …Mr. Ballen has nothing to do it. Seems pretty clueless too, if you ask me.”
The senator kept pacing. “That’s what worries me. A guy like that ain’t clueless. That’s what he wants you to think.”
Tyler shrugged. “Either way, he’s not cracking.”
“Nothing about that woman either, St. Croix?”
“St. Cloud, Senator, Tabitha St. Cloud. But I don’t know that much about her. Seems to get around a little bit, but that hardly makes her a criminal.”
“Unless she seduced Senator Cafferty and then was blackmailing him, then setting us up to take the fall for it.”
“Senator, I just don’t think there’s anything to that theory.”
“No? Let me tell you something, Tyler; y’know those two Secret Service agents, Hathaway and Sellars?” All Tyler needed to do was nod. Senator Douglass went on, “They do think there’s something to it; and if they do, I do. And you do too, Tyler, understand?”
“Yes, sir, of course. I didn’t know.”
“And you still don’t know. Not a word to your friend, right?”
“No, never.”
“If he’s not involved, he’ll tip our hand, we don’t want that.”
Tyler gave it some thought. “Don’t we?” Senator Douglass turned with intrigued surprise. Tyler explained, “If a guilty party thought he … or she … was about to be revealed, that might spook ‘em into making a move, showing themselves.”
Senator Douglass gave it some thought. “You mean put somebody out as bait?” Tyler hadn’t thought of it that way, but once the senator had said it, the plain truth was hard to deny. “But … who?”
****
Jack was glad to get out of the office, and even more glad to be back in Tyler’s company. In the scramble and chaos as the investigation widened and the vote and rally got nearer, the pressure was only mounting. And while Senator Sommers had sent Jack to investigate Tyler and Senator Douglass, as he was now fairly certain, Jack was convinced that Tyler was as innocent as he himself was.
In fact, it seemed more and more to Jack that Tyler was the only person in Washington he could really trust, and felt badly for having to be less than completely honest. But he did truly value Tyler’s company, and his intimacy, so there was no need to be anything less than completely honest there.
They had dinner in the funky neighborhood Adams Morgan filled with several blocks of shops and cafes. They enjoyed succulent lamb gyros at a popular Mediterranean restaurant where the tables were made of woven baskets. Jack washed his down with a robust craftsman beer, Tyler with a crisp chardonnay.
“I keep thinking about Senator Cafferty,” Jack said. “His family, mostly. It must be really hard on them.”
“Has to be,” Tyler said, adding nothing before filling his mouth with lamb and yogurt. “You have family?”
“Sure, parents in Phoenix, my sister’s a veterinarian in Lincoln, Nebraska. You?”
“Only child, Dad died when I was young.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
Tyler shrugged. “The way I turned out, he’d probably rather be dead.” They shared a chuckle, but it didn’t last.
Jack said, “If my old man ever found out, he’d probably cut me out of the family altogether, such as it is. That’s nothing compared to what Senator Sommers would do.”
“Yeah, I was thinking about that.” Jack turned his head to hear a bit clearer before Tyler explained, “What if you resigned from the senator’s team?”
“Resigned? Why?”
“Ethical grounds, personal reasons, whatever you want. You don’t really believe the things Senator Sommers is promoting. Why should you be working for him? Just because of the Phoenix connection? That was then, this is now.”
Jack gave it some thought, and it did make reasonable sense. But it did lead to one big question.
“What about my career?”
Tyler rolled his eyes. “Maybe I can get you a spot on Senator Douglass’ team. Intern, liaison, we could always use one of those.”
“How flattering for me.”
They chuckled a bit, and Tyler went on to say, “It could be a great opportunity for you, Jack … and for us. Just give it some thought, that’s all.”
“All right, Tyler, maybe I will.”
After dinner, they went to a local bar that featured a jazz combo playing on the rooftop, a slight breeze drifting past the brownstones. The upright bass thumped, the little drum kit purred and rattled, jazzy chords and muffled melodies on the big,
thick guitar.
“This place is great,” Jack said. “A whole year in town and I’ve never been.”
Tyler smiled. “There’s a lot more to life than meets the eye.”
“That’s for sure.” But the cryptic nature of his joke lingered in Jack’s conscience.What’s he getting at? What’s he hiding?
But the drinks kept coming, the music smooth and jaunty, and Jack’s doubts had to struggle to maintain a foothold in his beleaguered imagination. He’d been around and around the questions, the theories, the suspicions and they’d only led him back to Tyler.
After the jazz, both Jack and Tyler were ready to move on to something a bit louder. The dance club was bright with rods of color shooting out from different corners of the three-level disco. The synthetic music blared, fake strings and other synth sounds peeled out in surrealistic layers, a female voice croaking a monotone phrase into a heavily processed microphone.
“Time is ours, time is time, I am yours, you are mine…”
Jack relished the volume, the shallowness of the lyrics. This music wasn't about thought; it was about feeling. And Jack was feeling just what every other man in the room was feeling, the powerful pulse of the drum beat, rising up from the dance floor and into their legs, their hips. Around them, men were nearly bare-chested under buttoned-down silk shirts, already stained with sweat.
Tyler was a good dancer, his hips bobbing and weaving, hands raised above his head and pumping to that driving beat, hips also jutting in time. Tyler’s lean, lithe body was built to dance, and he closed his eyes as he succumbed to the beat.
The two men swayed their hips, cocks bulging behind their slacks. Jack took a deep breath, booze and sweat and cologne shooting up his nostrils, the collected vapors of two hundred drunken men, gyrating and glistening and doing everything short of taking out each other’s dicks and fucking right there on the dance floor. The way Jack and Tyler themselves were grinding and humping the vanishing space between them, they might as well have been naked and alone, one deep inside the other.
It wouldn’t be long before that was the case. Jack’s apartment was only a few blocks away.
Chapter Ten
Jack wrapped his arms around Tyler from behind, fingers twirling around his hairless, naked nipples. Jack nuzzled Tyler’s bare neck, breath collecting hot around his face. Tyler rolled his head, tilting it gently backward and moaning with delight, hand reaching up to cradle Jack’s head.
Jack’s hands were splayed and flat against Tyler’s flawless torso, rippling with tawny muscle, skin smooth and shaved.
Jack traced his six pack, fingers eager to find that pulsing treasure that lay just beneath his navel. Tyler’s naked cock was stretching out, hardening, thickening, taking glorious shape in anticipation of the happy struggle to come.
Jack’s hand found Tyler’s cock and squeezed hard, an intimate greeting between new friends and old souls. Jack stroked the length of Tyler’s erection, from its strong base through the perfect shaft down to the hot, pink head, that single eye peering out to find its happy home.
Jack started pumping Tyler’s hard rod, Tyler’s hips shifting back and forth with the regular, easy motion of Jack’s even motion. Jack nuzzled Tyler’s neck while he pumped, squeezing a bit harder and shifting back and forth a bit faster, little twists and tucks adding to their mutual satisfaction.
Tyler ground his ass against Jack’s cock, itself hard and long and ready for action. But Jack wasn’t ready. He wanted to work Tyler up to a pitch, as he had so many women in his history. He knew the value of pacing, of a steady approach, of a slow but certain delivery. Tyler had already taught him much, but Jack new this was his chance to reward his new friend, and to teach him a thing or two as well.
Jack jerked harder and faster, bending that thick stalk to add some conflict to the conquest, his hand sliding up and down in a terrific blur. Tyler rolled his head to the side, their two foreheads bumping, Tyler’s hands clutching Jack’s black hair, pulling just a bit.
“Yeah,” Jack hissed, “go for it, Ty!”
“You go for it, big shot, you go for it!”
They fell back onto Jack’s bed, the cool sheets clean and ready to receive them. And Tyler was ready to receive as well.
Jack had entered plenty of women in his relatively young life, and many of them in places beyond the traditional. So there was nothing about his entry into Tyler that was beyond his experience or even his mastery.
He licked his hand and lubed up his manhood before positioning it square in the center of Tyler’s tight brown star. He pushed in with a slow certainty, Tyler’s body arching and tensing up to take him in. But Tyler was well practiced, and his body offered less tension, less resistance than even most of the women Jack had known.
The swiftness of Jack’s strokes came easily and quickly, a wild but even rotation of deep strokes, long and languid but coming one after the next, speed increasing with every stroke.
“That’s so good,” Tyler hissed, “so fucking good, baby.”
“I know it is, Ty, I know you love it.”
“I do.”
“You say I’ve been waiting?” Jack chuckled just a bit as he kept pumping, faster and faster. “You’re the one who’s been waiting! You're the one who wanted this, way before I did.”
“Yes,” Tyler said, eyes clamping shut.
“Open your eyes,” Jack commanded, and Tyler did. “You’re the one, Tyler, and you know it.”
“Yes.”
“Say it!”
“I’m the one,” Tyler snapped back, eyes wide and looking back to find Jack looming behind him. “I’m the one!”
“That’s right, Ty, it’s not about this, it’s about you, it’s about us!”
“Yes!” Tyler’s body flinched and bucked under Jack’s new strength and determination. “Oh God, yes!”
Jack clutched Tyler’s cock and pumped it even as he drove his own cock deeper and faster into Tyler’s ass. He had the man compressed from both sides, his hands and body manipulating Tyler’s entire being with every jerk and thrust.
Jack’s rhythm of front and back locked in with his pumping on Tyler’s dick, forward and back in a coordinated rhythm that felt as natural as drawing a breath. But Jack was quick to change things up, countering the motion of his own hips with a wild and sporadic pumping in counter-time, using his own energy against itself to a perfect and profound effect.
“Oh God,” Tyler cried out as Jack began tearing his body apart, jerking and pushing, pumping and thumping with wild, chaotic focus, a spastic's reeling perfection that had Tyler’s face twisting in a sobbing mask of lusty pleasure.
Jack slammed harder, sensing that Tyler was well-accustomed to taking it, and taking it hard. Jack tested the limits, throwing all his strength into every thrust of his hips, holding Tyler’s perfect body tight against his own, eliminating even the slightest distance between them.
Jack pulled back his hand and let a hard, crisp slap hit Tyler’s right cheek. The man flinched and gasped. Jack let another hard slap ring out, and ring within. He could feel the pulse of pleasure course through Tyler’s body.
Jack rasped, “You like that?” Tyler nodded, and Jack repeated, “You like it? You love it!” He proved his point with another hard slap, this one louder and hard than the other two. Jack gripped and kneaded Tyler’s cheek, bringing out the bright-red hue he’d inspired in so many female cheeks, no less round or perfect.
Another slap and another hard squeeze made Tyler squirm and flex, pressing his naked back against Jack’s hairy torso. Jack wrapped his arm around Tyler’s neck and pulled him tighter, Tyler’s hand finding Jack’s arm and pulling against it. But the last thing he wanted was to free himself, and both men knew it.
So Jack slapped Tyler hard and pulled him back harder, the two men pressed together, wriggling and shaking to maximize their contact and their conflict, both working together to create pleasure neither could or would have anticipated.
But this time Jack was in
control and he was used to seeing the face of the person he was fucking. He was swift and confident, spinning Tyler’s leg around and turning the man to face him without losing purchase on his inner self. Jack was hard and deep and had Tyler entirely in his control. In a blur of sweat and flesh, the two men were face to face, the small of Tyler’s back arching to present himself to Jack, legs up and dangling at Jack’s sides.
The two men’s eyes locked as Jack raked his cock in and back, shaking and rotating and increasing his rhythm even as he tried his pattern. He’d loomed over countless lovers in the past, all of them women. But his seductive charms in that intimate circumstance were no less effective on Tyler has they had been on countless cheerleaders, pretty pages, bookish nerd girls with dreams of romantic glory.
But Jack knew then that he was whatever his partner wanted him to be, and that he could be even more; Jack Ballen could finally be the man he wanted to be, the man nature intended him to be. And as he railed into Tyler pumping him harder and faster, Jack’s path became clearer. He had a job to do and he had to do it as hard and fast as he was doing Tyler himself. He would have to break out of the mold society had cast him in, he’d have to break free of their shackles if he was going to take down the corruption of Washington once and for all.
So, Jack pumped harder, Tyler’s hard cock slamming against his naked abdomen. Jack pushed and pressed, that fantastic package rubbing hard and long, balls hard and contracted. Fucking and pressing and twirling and jutting, Jack and Tyler struggled to get closer than was physically possible, the musk of their lust rising up around them both.
Jack slapped Tyler’s ass hard and rammed it even harder, Tyler gasping and pressing himself backward against Jack as their mutual orgasms rose to meet one another. Jack’s body shook as his wad raced down his cock, that meaty muscle pulsing to push his sweaty seed out in a pearlescent package.