Back and forth, I grind against him, and he never grabs me or requests I move faster. Slowly the tears are drying, and what’s filling me is something so foreign. Something that’s not cracked and broken, but something that feels healthy and powerful.
And alongside that heady warmth, a flurry of sensation rises from deep within. My muscles flex with the rising pleasure and I ride him faster, harder, taking exactly what I need in the way that I like to take it.
He allows me to, never once taking over and thrusting up into me. He lets me build and get there all on my own. I grind against him harder, sliding my pussy back and forth, while his cock stretches me. But I’m hanging there, my clit is tickling with intensity, my inner walls are clenching against his shaft…
Then he murmurs in my ear, “Give me everything, baby.”
That’s apparently the only permission I need. Pleasure floods me in warm waves that take me away from here and bring me to a place where it’s just me and him, and the rest of the world—the very scary world around us—can wait.
I quiver and moan, slowly dragging myself out of my release, and it begins to dawn on me that he’s still hard inside me. I take one long sniff of his woodsy masculine cologne before I look at him, greeted by his gentle expression.
Wanting to offer him the same reward he gave to me, I shift my hips forward, but he grasps my waist, stopping me. “This wasn’t about me.”
“But you’re—”
“Fine.” He cups my face with his big, strong hands, staring at me deeply. “Kiss me.”
And I do, because right now in this moment, I’m not me, and in the mess of my life, from the accident to now, his strength also fortifies me in my moments of weakness.
When he finally backs away, he rests his forehead against mine. “I can’t stay here, no matter how badly I want to.”
I sigh and lean away. “I know you need to go and find whoever did this to my father.” Ryder’s never been unclear with me. His duty to my father stands above all else. And at that reminder, my mind snaps back. “Jesus, my dad. We shouldn’t have done this.” I jump up and reach for my clothes.
“You have time,” Ryder says, grabbing my waist and turning me to face him. “When Shawna knocked on the door, she said that your father’s gone into surgery. The media has left out front and they’re arriving at the hospital now to await the press conference. If anything happens, I’ll know about it, and so will you. There’s nothing you can do but sit in the waiting room and fret.” He pulls me in between his legs, as he remains sitting on the toilet, his cock still erect and glistening from my orgasm. He slides his hands over my hips and up my rib cage. “So don’t rush. Just breathe.”
I shut my eyes and take stabilizing breaths before looking at him again.
“I need to go to the police station to give them my report,” he adds, brushing his thumbs over my cheeks. “The hacker was killed tonight.”
I take a good look at him then. “But you weren’t hurt, right?”
“The mission was successful.” I can tell he’s holding things back. But at the moment my limit has been reached, and I’m pretty sure I can’t take any more bad news, so right now I stay silent as he adds, “Then I need to see your father once he gets out of surgery.” He pauses, his voice becoming thick with emotion. “Please tell me that you know I would stay if I could…”
I kiss his thumb as it travels across my mouth. “You never made me any promises. Go.”
“All right.” He gives a suffering sigh then rises, pulling his pants back into place.
The distance between us feels icy and wrong. I watch him gather my mother’s sports bra, T-shirt, and yoga pants before he dresses me.
Once the T-shirt slides over my body, he says, “I’ll come to you as soon as I can.” He gives me a quick but meaningful kiss, and when he leans away, he adds, “When you’re ready, come downstairs. I’ll ask Lee to drive you to the hospital to see your dad. All right?”
“Yeah, okay,” I say, good with everything.
It’s not until the door shuts and the silence surrounds me that I realize everything’s changed, and I didn’t even know it’d changed and can’t pinpoint when the change happened. But I want Ryder to stay and be my boyfriend. His duty to my father as chief of security convolutes this right now, keeping us from being together.
That’s when a sudden realization storms icily across me.
I’m the senator’s daughter, who should be off-limits.
He’s the bodyguard, who can’t help himself.
Tomorrow I’ll still be the senator’s daughter and he’ll still be my father’s bodyguard.
This is all we can be.
All we can ever be.
Chapter 15
Ryder
You never made me any promises…echoes in my mind as I exit my truck at Blackwood headquarters. I hadn’t made Hadley any promises, no, but as I stride into the building, after being grilled at the police station for an hour and giving my final report, I decide I should’ve made at least a couple promises to her. But the game has changed now. Someone was killed tonight to keep quiet, and with the senator’s attempted murder, I can only assume we’re getting close to finding out who’s behind this.
My attention had been on Hadley and mistakes were made. I need to correct my error, and I’ve never wanted to hunt down anyone as much as I want to hunt down the scumbag behind this. Not only for the senator, but for the tears Hadley had cried.
I enter the bristling command center, where there’s not a person who isn’t sitting behind their desk, working to get answers before I’ve even asked for them. “An update on the senator?” I ask no one in particular.
Jenny, a four-year employee of Blackwood Security, turns around in her swivel chair and answers me, “He’s still in surgery. But from the reports I’m seeing, it looks like he’s going to pull through.”
“Good,” I tell her, silently saying a little prayer of thanks for the miracle that is modern medicine. I don’t let myself be too relieved. We all need to stay sharp. “Have we looked into the alarm system at the senator’s house?” It’s top-of-the-line, and I can’t even begin to understand how it was disabled.
Another longtime employee, Chris, reports without turning away from his monitor, “From all appearances, it seems the senator didn’t enable it when he arrived home.”
Which I suppose makes sense. They couldn’t disarm the alarm without my knowing about it, because we had those safety measures in place. But that means they were waiting. Someone had to have been watching the senator, patiently waiting for that one moment for the senator’s guard to be down and then they acted. Furthermore, since Lupa and the senator were shot around the same time, I’m led to believe there must be more than one hitman. One person kept a close eye on Hadley and me. Another watched the senator. My hands tighten into fists, knowing I fell into their trap. I’d been so busy with Hadley’s video, trying to protect both Hadley and the senator that way, I wasn’t looking between the lines. I was too close to this, too close to Hadley.
And that’s why you don’t screw the senator’s daughter echoes in my mind.
I shove the thought away and focus on what’s ahead of me. “Someone please give me an update on Lupa.”
Alex spins around on her swivel chair, and I find dark circles under her eyes, telling me that when this is over and behind us, she needs some time off to take a vacation. “You didn’t hear anything at the station?”
I shake my head. “It was all business there tonight. I was questioned, signed the report that stated that we were looking at Lupa since he hacked the senator’s computer”—of course I left out anything about Hadley—“and then I left.” Which wasn’t out of the ordinary. I’ve had targets die in my presence before, some even killed by members of my team and myself. A short investigation always ensued, but in the end the deaths were ruled self-defense.
“Well,” Alex continues, spinning back to her computer, “there’s been nothing so far on the police databa
se, which means either they are still gathering evidence or whoever is doing the report is just lazy and hasn’t entered anything in yet.”
Not what I want to hear. I need a lead. Anything that could point me in the right direction. And now I know that we clearly have a couple of professional hitmen, considering whoever shot Caleb obviously took the shot from a fair distance away, since we didn’t see him. “Anything from the crime scene investigators?”
“Negative. They just finished up at the house now,” Alex reports, typing quickly, until I begin to see reports flash across the monitors on the far wall. “I don’t see anything that they’ve processed. No fingerprints reported. No strands of hair. It was a very clean job.”
“And what of the disc containing the video?” I ask.
Jenny answers, “No other prints but Caleb’s.”
I glance at Jeff, who’s sitting next to Jenny. “Any luck finding anything on Caleb’s computer?”
“Sadly no,” Jeff grumbles. “And there goes my Christmas bonus.”
He’d get one anyway, but I like them thinking they have to work for it.
Frustrated with the lack of news or helpful information, I press my hands against the back of the empty chair in front of me. “Something must have changed.”
“What do you mean?” Alex asks.
I lift my head. “We had just apprehended Lupa and the senator was already shot. What would have made the person behind this feel he needed to react?”
Alex is silent a moment, eyes flicking up to the ceiling.
“It could be this,” Jeff interjects, typing on his keyboard until a news article pops up on the screen. The headline reads: YOU’RE RICH! PAY MORE TAX! “The senator was a loud supporter of this tax policy.”
“Explain to me what I’m looking at?” I ask, not having time to read the article.
He reports, “A bill is being put forth that will increase the taxes on the wealthiest.”
Money. Exactly what I had suspected motivated the blackmailer. Usually in the end, money is the biggest driving factor in political violence, alongside power. “And this vote is happening Tuesday?”
“It is,” Jeff replies.
Which I suppose explains why the blackmailer said they wanted the senator to step down by Monday. Obviously, his vote matters. “All right, get me the names of everyone who is against this vote. And we’ll start there.”
“Now that is something I can get.” He spins back to his computer monitor.
Before his fingers even hit a single button on his keyboard, Alex says, “I’ve got the list here.”
A document containing the list of names pops up on the screen closest to Alex.
“Seriously?” Jeff quickly spins in his chair to face Alex, glaring. “How in the hell can you even do that so fast?” When she prepares to answer him, he waves her off. “Yeah, yeah, it’s just what you do.”
She smiles. “You can’t replicate the awesomeness that is contained in this body.”
“Please,” Jeff scoffs.
I shake my head and set to keeping us focused. “We’ll need to start narrowing down this list. I suspect whoever is behind this has some history of violence at some point in his life. The thirst for power often starts young.”
Alex nods, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms behind her head. “It’s hard to believe, though, that anyone would go to these extremes over money. Yes, it’s a good motivator. But I can’t help but think we’re missing something.”
I bob my head in agreement. My instincts tell me the same. “There has to be more going on here than a tax policy, even if that’s a good place for us to start.” I need to find out what it is, because to keep Hadley and the senator safe, we need to discover what is motivating the blackmailer. “Truthfully, I don’t want to follow the path that makes sense. These people seem to be one step ahead of us, setting these false leads for us to follow.” It’s a mistake I won’t make again.
Alex nods. “Sure seems that way.”
I rub a hand across my tired eyes and add, “Until we get this solved, or the police beat us to it, we need to keep a close eye on Hadley.”
Alex’s brows slowly draw together, a puzzled look on her face. “Speaking of Hadley, where’d your sidekick go?”
“Isn’t that a given?” I ask, now confused myself. “She’s at the hospital with her father.”
“Um, no, she isn’t.” Alex turns back to her computer and her fingers begin flying across the keyboard.
A second later, on one of the monitors on the wall, I begin to see shots of the hospital’s hallways, and I realize Alex has hacked into their security footage. The slideshow finally stops at the waiting room.
“We’ve been keeping an eye on the hospital,” Alex explains, drawing my gaze to hers. “She’s not there.”
I move toward the monitor, getting a closer view, and examine the three women and four men waiting in the chairs. None of them are Hadley. I reach for my phone in my pocket and dial Lee. He answers on the first ring. “Lee, it’s Ryder. Have you taken Hadley to the hospital yet?”
“Negative,” Lee replies. “She still hasn’t come down from upstairs.”
“What do you mean she hasn’t come down? I left her over an hour ago.”
“Things were quiet for a bit and then she turned on the shower,” Lee explains. “With all that happened…I didn’t want to rush her…give me a sec.” Then I hear him say, obviously into his ear com, “Shawna, is Hadley still in the shower?” A pause. Then, “Yes, Ryder, that’s correct, she’s showering.”
Of course I know that a shower wasn’t necessary because I’d cleaned her myself. “Please go check on her, Lee.” I attempt to keep emotion out of my voice, and likely fail miserably.
I hear Lee trotting up the staircase, then his knock on the bathroom door. “Ms. Winters?” The silence even from this end of the phone unnerves me. “Ms. Winters, please open the door.” A pause again. “Permission to open the door, sir?”
“Granted.”
“It’s locked.”
I begin to pace in front of the monitors, everyone in the room with me now on their feet. “Kick it in.”
Two bangs later, Lee says, “Ms. Winters—” Then Lee’s breath catches, and his voice is wrought with worry. “There’s blood here on the floor. Hold on. I see it now—it follows into the next bedroom and then down the hallway.” I hear him on the move, breathless. Until he says, “The blood trail leads to the back staircase and out the side door of the private garden.”
The senator’s favorite garden that has perfect access to the side street, where I know for a fact my team hadn’t been positioned this evening. Tension radiates through me so fast, my breath is gone, as I realize whoever shot the senator had likely still been in the house. The police told me they had cleared the house. They’d been wrong.
Lee says, “The blood, sir…”
“What about it?”
“It stops at the curb.”
Hadley
The slow drip of water is what I hear first as consciousness creeps back to me. I’m awoken not in the gentle way my mother used to rouse me every morning as a child, but more like a sudden jolt of electricity fighting through the haze. There’s a throb at the back of my skull that makes a migraine look easy, and slowly, with each pound in my cerebellum, my mind puts the pieces back together again, reminding me why I’m here.
I remember Ryder kissing me and leaving the bathroom. I remember going back to the sink to wash my face. I remember the bathroom door opening, and the last thing I remember was the crash of something hard against my skull that came with enough force, my teeth rattled.
From then until now that’s all I remember.
Drip, drip, drip…The water continues its constant rhythm, and the reminder of the cloudiness clears enough for me to open my eyes. That’s when I realize I’m not in my parents’ bathroom, there’s rope around my wrists, and it’s pinning me down to a wooden chair.
I gasp, jolting in the seat, scanning
the square room from left to right.
Fluorescent lights flicker above me. Cement is at my feet, as is the puddle created by dripping water from the ceiling. The air is damp and musky and stale, and the only other thing in this dismal room besides me, the chair, and the rope is the video camera on a stand pointed directly at my face.
I shift against the chair, stopping as the rope burns across my flesh, trying to make sense out of why I’m here. And who would do this to me? Is this happening because the assassination attempt against my father failed? There are just so many questions, and no answers…and I’m more confused than ever.
Once more, I try to free myself, but the rope is tight and unforgiving. “Fuck,” I snap, trying to wiggle free. The walls seem too close. The air too dry. I feel the stickiness on the side of my face that I can only imagine is my blood, and a hot panic begins to flush my skin.
Calm down. Breathe.
Slowly, I force myself to regain control. Panic will get me nowhere but dead. I have no idea what time it is, and I’m not sure if it’s from being hit on the head or if I’ve also been drugged, but my eyes feel heavy, my body even more so.
Ryder…
My chest aches for his strength, but I clamp that rush of emotions down, refusing to go there. No one right now is going to help me but me.
Focusing on my breathing and my surroundings, I glance around the room and don’t see any doors, but there are so many shadows in the corners that I can only assume a door is within one of those dark areas. It’s not the most comforting feeling, considering I don’t know what else is there.
I realize, maybe by instinct, I’m not alone in this room. That’s when two men step out of the shadows, but only one approaches me. I don’t know him. But the fact that I can see his dark eyes, thin face with defined cheekbones, and narrow chin worries me far more than anything else. My captor is not hiding his identity—making me believe he has no intention of letting me go.
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