“You don’t pull a stunt like that again.” I opened my eyes and stared hard at her. “Promise me.”
“Jack, we’ve talked about this. There are times when I can’t have Carl around. I counsel the kids, and I have meetings with donors who don’t want their names or the details of their donations disclosed.”
“Damn it, damn it, damn it, Blythe,” I roared, and then I kissed her hard. I hadn’t meant to. I wanted to yell at her until she realized that her life could be at stake, but when I thought of her in danger, all I wanted to do was hold her and never let her go.
Moaning, she ran her fingers through my hair, and I was lost. Too needy for a full seduction, to desperate to feel her alive and clenching around me, I started working on the snap of her pants. When I finally managed to pull them down, she stepped out of them while I plunged a finger inside her, testing her. She was warm and wet and ready for me.
Without breaking the kiss, I freed my stiff cock and placed my hands under her ass. Lifting her, I plunged hard inside of her and shoved her against the wall. She tore her lips away and screamed in pleasure.
Hard and fast, I fucked her against the wall in an effort to drive away the fear. She came quickly and shuddered around me while chanting my name. “Jack. Fuck, Jack.”
My legs threatened to give out from under me, and we slid down the wall. Falling to the floor, I rolled her over and tore at her shirt. Buttons popped, and I didn’t even bother to unhook her bra. Instead, I just pulled the cup down so I could free her breast. Without preamble, I sank my teeth around her nipple and flicked my tongue over her.
“God,” she moaned and writhed under me. “Don’t stop. Don’t stop.”
I couldn’t even if I wanted to. Everything from the last few days culminated into a huge drive of energy inside of me, and I fucked her almost ruthlessly on the floor. Her body was the only thing that could sate me, and I didn’t give an inch. When she came a second time, I was already close to my own release, but I needed more. So much more.
“Jack,” she whispered. “Please.”
Her body fell limp under me, and I froze and stared down at her. For a moment, I was afraid that I’d hurt her, but there was nothing but bliss in her eyes as she gently touched my face. “I’m here,” she assured me. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m not walking away, and no one is going to take me away from you. “
“I won’t let them.” Dropping my head, I kissed her slowly but hungrily. “Jesus, Blythe. Have I hurt you?”
“No.” She swiveled her hips under me and grinned. “I can take more if you’ve got it.”
Reaching between our bodies, I touched her clit and watched her mouth fall open in a silent moan. “Is that a challenge?” I whispered as I bent my head again. “Blythe, I could fuck you all day and all night.”
“Prove it.”
Just like that, she put me at ease, and I just shook my head in wonder at how I’d managed to get such an amazing woman. Moving slowly now, I held my own orgasm at bay as I built her back up again. Intertwining my fingers with hers, I held her hands over her head. She wrapped those gorgeous legs around me and whimpered with each deep and powerful thrust. Our tongues played and stroked each other as our bodies moved, and finally, when she bowed under me and strained, I let it all go. Circling my hands around her back, I held her up and against me while I emptied myself inside of her. Shuddering and crying out, she held me tight until there was nothing left.
At some point, we moved to the bed. She didn’t ask me any questions while her hands lazily roamed over my body and stirred me again. We got a little messy before I finally fed her. Neither of us had much energy, so we settled for cereal in bed. Afterward, her mouth moved around and over my cock, and I let her suck me dry. When we finally fell asleep, my fingers were still buried inside of her, and her legs were locked around my thighs.
It was still dark when a loud banging jerked me from my sleep. “Jack?” Blythe whispered, and there was fear in her voice.
“It’s okay, baby. It’s probably just David.” Still drowsy, I kissed her soothingly and slipped naked from the bed. It still annoyed David that I didn’t give him access to the elevator, but I didn’t want him to be able to pop into my penthouse whenever he wanted. Blythe was the only one with that kind of access.
Peering through the peephole of my door, I swore under my breath. Opening the door just a crack, I was getting ready to tell my father to fuck off and come back at a better time, but he pushed the door aside and entered.
“Congratulations. You made the front page,” he said sarcastically as he threw the newspaper on the table.
“What the hell,” I hissed to him. “This is not a fucking good time.” I was still butt naked.
“Then put some fucking clothes on. I honestly don’t care. You still met with her. She tore this family apart, and you met with her anyway!”
“Jack?” Blythe asked hesitantly.
“Dad, don’t,” I started, but it was too late. Reaching over, Hale slammed his hand on the light switch. Startled, Blythe blinked. Thankfully, she was wrapped in a sheet. Her eyes widened, and I gritted my teeth. “It’s okay, sweetheart. Go back to bed.”
“Yeah,” Hale hissed. “Go back to bed, sweetheart. That’s all you women are good for anyway.”
Enough was enough. Furious, I pushed my father hard into the wall. “You ever speak to her like that again, and you will never see me again. Do you understand?”
“Just another bitch trying to get between us.” He turned his head and stared at Blythe. “You put him up to this, didn’t you? Meet with his mother so the two of you could ruin his life behind his back. I won’t allow it.”
Blythe gasped. “Your mother is here?” she whispered. “That’s the woman you were talking about yesterday? Your mother is here?”
I hadn’t told her. I’d had every intentions of telling her last night, but things had gotten a little out of hand. This was not how I wanted her to find out. “Yes,” I said finally. “I wasn’t trying to hide it from you, Blythe. I swear.”
She stared at me for a second before she turned to my father. “I’m sorry that your wife hurt you. I really am, but I’m not trying to hurt you or your son. I thought you liked me.”
“Goddamn it, I do,” he said gruffly as he pushed my hands off him and straightened. “Read the news article. The picture was taken on the patio. Someone overheard your conversation. Your mother set you up, Jack. I told you not to trust her.”
Warily, I reached for the newspaper he’d thrown down. The headline itself was enough to make me wince. Congressman Embroiled in a Dangerous Game with Father. It sounded like it belonged in a tabloid.
“I’ve already got my PR team working on it. I suggest you contact David. We’ll meet about this later when your cock is distracted.” Hale swept out of the penthouse and slammed the door behind him.
Helplessly, I turned to Blythe. “I was going to tell you last night but—”
“But I slipped away from Carl, and you were distracted from lunch with your mother. I get it,” she said slowly. “I really do, Jack, but I think you need to tell me what’s going on right now.”
“I can sum it up pretty quickly,” I muttered as I stared at the newspaper article. “My mother showed up because she thinks my father had Sherry killed, and I don’t know who is lying to me or who is telling me the fucking truth.”
And now the whole city would know.
Nineteen
Jack
“Wow.” Still holding the sheet around her body, Blythe walked over and wrapped her arms around me. I dropped my head on hers and let her hold me. “That’s a lot for you to handle.”
Kissing the top of her head, I tugged down the sheet until I could place the flat of my hands against the warm skin of her back. “I’m sorry for the things my father said. There’s a lot of residual anger from my mother leaving, and it’s surfaced now that she’s back. I don’t think I realized how much he hurt when she betrayed him.”
“He th
inks that I’m going to do the same thing to you.”
“Yeah.”
Slowly, she pushed back and stared at me. “Do you?”
“No, Blythe. The one person I know is not using me is you.” Wanting a distraction, I tugged at her sheet. “Want to fool around some?”
“Jack.” Chuckling, she tightened the sheet and moved away from me. “This is big. Your mother is accusing your father of murder. Based on your reaction last night when I slipped away from Carl, I’m assuming you’re not brushing that aside.”
Sighing, I walked into the kitchen to start a pot of coffee. It was too damn early for whiskey, which was what I really wanted. “My father and I have always had a tense relationship. I don’t deny that. Do I think he’s capable of having someone killed? Under the right circumstances, yes.”
“But?” she urged.
“But these aren’t those circumstances. The truth is that the thought had already occurred to me even before Donna showed up. I thought about it, and then I dismissed it. There’s no real motivation. If Sherry wanted to blackmail me for sex, it was for money. My father would have paid her off.”
“Was she blackmailing you for money? Or was it something else?” Blythe asked carefully. It was a strange question. I looked over at her, but she was staring at the counter and running her hands along the surface.
I shrugged. “I guess I don’t really know. She wanted sex, but she didn’t need to blackmail someone for it. I assume she wanted back in my life so she’d have access to my money again. In any case, there was no need to kill her. There may be a lot of things that I don’t like about my father, but he isn’t stupid.”
“What if it wasn’t money that Sherry wanted? What if it was information?”
Another strange question. “What do you mean?”
“Men are at their weakest during sex. Sometimes things slip. You’re in a powerful position now. What if she wanted to glean information from you and your father found out? Would he kill her to protect your political career?”
“Interesting theory. Maybe, but if my father knew that she wanted information, he would have told me.” The coffee gurgled to life, and I jumped a little. I was nervous. The kitchen was oddly tense. “What made you think of that?”
“Wait, so you think your father is right? Your mother is lying?”
Now I was confused. She’d deliberately evaded the question. “She’s my mother. I don’t want to think of her as a liar, but I have to face the facts. She cheated on my father and abandoned me. She said he ran her off and threatened to have her killed if she returned.”
Blythe’s eyes widened, and her mouth dropped open. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, and in the heat of the moment, I could definitely see her doing something like that.” In frustration, I swept my hands through my hair. “But the other stuff that she said? I’m having some issues with it. She said that he isolated her and kept her from her family and friends. The thing is that I still have memories of her, and she was vibrant and full of life. She didn’t fear for her life. She had people over all the time. She made it seem like she thought my father was using me against her, but my father didn’t dote on me. I wasn’t the apple of his eye. He didn’t sit me on his knee and then whisper horrible things about her in my ear to make me hate her.”
The coffee stopped, and I pulled out two mugs. Blythe pulled out one of the stools and sat down. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly.
“You could meet with her again. Maybe she is telling the truth, and you’re just perceiving things differently in your memories. Maybe she’s lying to you, and you need to find out why. In any case, it sounds like she’s already mixed up in this. You need to find out how.”
I glanced at her and smiled grimly. “So you finally believe that this isn’t just some random killing?”
“I do,” she said carefully. “Jack, I don’t think that I’m in danger, but you might be. Take Carl back. Please. I’ll feel better if—”
“Not a chance,” I cut in quickly. “I’m still using a bodyguard. You’re going to use Carl. I realized that he can’t be at your side at all times, but I want him nearby. Same room if possible. Same building if it’s not. You don’t slip away from him again. Not for anything, Blythe. Promise me.”
Blowing out her breath, she nodded. “All right. I promise.”
She sounded annoyed by it, but I knew that she wouldn’t break her promise. Handing her a mug of coffee, I let my fingers brush over hers. “Blythe. Do you want to meet my mother?”
Her eyes widened. “Most women are nervous that their boyfriend’s mother won’t like that. I have to be concerned that my boyfriend’s mother isn’t lying and manipulating him.”
“Love isn’t easy,” I teased.
“It’s a good thing you’re very talented in bed.”
I tugged on the sheet until her breasts were exposed. “Speaking of that.” Removing the mug from her hands, I lifted her onto the counter. “It’s too late to go back to bed but too early to get ready for work.”
Her eyes drifted closed as I strummed her nipples before taking one in my mouth. At least for now, I could hold the rest of the day at bay.
* * *
I considered finding another lawyer to help me. One who wasn’t so closely connected with my father, who would now be a suspect in Sherry’s murder thanks to the press, but Klaus was good, and it felt too late to hire someone else. Plus, it wouldn’t look good for my father if I fired his lawyer now, and I didn’t want my father behind bars if he was innocent.
Did I want him behind bars if I discovered that he’d murdered someone for me?
I’d spent the day in my office ignoring the growing crowd outside of my office who were still demanding that I resign. Now that my father was involved, things were only looking worse for me. My last meeting of the day was with Klaus. “I’m too damn old for this,” he grumbled as he walked into my office.
“Did they flay you while you were trying to get through the crowd?” I asked.
“Just in questions.” He sighed heavily and sat down. “Honestly, I’ve never seen the media act so brashly before. Reporting on snippets of conversation that was overheard? That’s for sensational magazines and not hardcore newspapers.”
“My father?”
Klaus opened up his briefcase and pulled out his notepad. “He had a meeting with the detectives today. I told him that his direct cooperation would go a long way, so he didn’t send a representative. He’s opened up his finances to their scrutiny. They’ve got a lot to go through, but I don’t think they’re taking it seriously, although I imagine that will change.”
I tensed. “What do you mean? Have you discovered something?”
“Not me. Your girlfriend. Apparently, she’s been playing amateur sleuth.”
As he pulled out a yellow envelope, I tried to wrap my head around what he was saying. I chuckled a little. “Blythe is investigating? You’re kidding me. How is she doing that?”
He passed the envelope across the desk. “She received these from Hirsh the other day, and she followed up with a meeting with Quincy Reed.”
I recognized the name, and my stomach flipped. “He’s an artist,” I murmured. She’d said that she needed to speak to a reclusive artist yesterday. She hadn’t lied.
But she sure as hell hadn’t wanted Carl gone because she thought he would scare the artist away. She knew that Carl would report back to me.
“He’s also Sherry’s ex-boyfriend. From all accounts, it was a real relationship. So when she cheated, he hired a private investigator and found that she didn’t just have one side piece.”
Sick to my stomach, I flipped through the photos, but it wasn’t because of the pictures. Blythe was putting herself in danger for me. I wanted to throttle her. “What the hell am I looking at? Shit, is that Roger Felton?”
“I’m still following up, but I believe that all of these men are in positions of power or are aids in office. The
y all have access to sensitive—”
“Information,” I muttered. “Damn it, Blythe knew. She knew Sherry wasn’t after money.”
“No. The detectives had already spoken to Reed, but I don’t think they’ve made the connection. Following Blythe’s information, I spoke to Reed. He can be a rather unpleasant young man, but I think there’s something here. Sherry was a spy, and she was fucking her way to information, but I don’t know what she was doing with it.”
Dropping the photos, I groaned. “Jesus Christ, what the hell is going on?”
“There’s more.” Klaus grimaced. “I contacted the investigator.”
“Yeah? Did he have more information?”
“No. He’s dead. Car accident just days after his contract with Reed ended. The artist didn’t know.”
A car accident. That was a hell of a coincidence.
“Sherry isn’t the first victim in all of this, whatever this is. So what? You think my father knew what she was doing and had her killed?” I balled up my hands. “He knew that she was back in my life, and he knew what she wanted. He pushed me toward Blythe. Fuck, he didn’t believe that I could resist Sherry.”
Klaus slapped his hands on the desk. “That is the last time I want you to ever say those words out loud. You have to believe that your father is innocent. The detectives aren’t taking this article seriously, but if they do, there’s no telling what they will uncover.”
Pushing my chair back, I stood and started to pace. “Can you think of another alternative?”
“I can.” Klaus sighed. “Sherry did a lot of stupid things to get your attention. A lot of desperate things. When you didn’t meet her at the park…” His voice trailed off.
I faced him. “What?”
“When you didn’t meet her at the park, she knew she was out of time. I think her bosses killed her. Maybe they couldn’t use her anymore, or maybe she knew she couldn’t get to you and she tried to blackmail them. Jack, if I’m right, this is big. Someone very powerful, or a group that’s very powerful, have half of Florida’s government in their pocket. Before all of this happened, you were in line for senator, and from there, who knows. You’re a big chip, and now you’re a loose end.”
His Fall From Power Page 12