Claiming Magique: 1

by Tina Donahue

  Hunt glanced at his credenza, complete with a coffee maker, bottled water, fruit, pastries and bourbon if he wanted it.

  Tonight, booze wouldn’t be enough. He needed Magique.

  His body tensed, warmth pouring into his groin, stiffening his cock.

  He pictured her standing near one of those granite pillars, wearing another dress like the one she had on the other night, only this baby would be scarlet, the color of passion. She’d draped her hair over one shoulder, leaving the other bared, accessible, defenseless to his touch and kisses.

  Without a word, she strolled inside, her walk as graceful as he recalled despite her black spike heels. Placing her small evening bag on his desk, she continued to the credenza. Not to pour a drink, oh no. She reached beneath her right arm, lowering her zipper. The dress peeled away from her, its ends folding over, widening the V, showing more skin, though not too much. Tonight, she’d surprised him, wearing a crimson thong and bustier. Tonight, she was going to make him work even harder for his pleasure.

  The springs in his chair squeaked as he left it. As he crossed the room to her, she allowed her dress to drop to the floor and stepped out of it. Keeping her back to him, she bent at the waist, her hands gripping the lip of his credenza.

  The fire’s flickering flames alternately pinked up her flesh and cast soft shadows on it. The thong’s satin strap disappeared in the furrow between her cheeks.

  The sight sucked all the air from his lungs. It drew him to her. He smiled at her fragrance, the same as she’d worn the other night. As far as Hunt was concerned, she’d never wear another. If she didn’t smell like roses, jasmine and musk, he wanted her to smell of him.

  He pulled off his tie and unbuttoned his collar, edging closer.

  At the tap of his shoes on the floor, she spread her legs and lifted her ass, inviting him to use each of her openings.

  Easy, he warned himself before he mounted her in haste and the act was finished. He didn’t want to rush, but couldn’t stand to wait. Bending over her, he ran his hands down her bare arms. She shivered, making a sound that told him of her delight. He wound his arms around her in a tender caress, bringing his mouth to her ear, kissing the lobe, then nibbling it.

  “That tickles,” she said and laughed. A miraculous sound he needed to hear and wasn’t about to question.

  Despite his pressing need of her, he forced himself to go slow and be gentle, easing her thong down to the top of her thighs, exposing her anus and cunt. Her underwear’s satin crotch was damp with her excitement. Her female fragrance wafted up, tightening his chest, muddying his thoughts.

  He worked his stiffened rod out of his boxers and fly, running its head down her dewy cleft. She was slick and oh-so ready for him.

  Every part of his body responded, making Hunt feel as though he might burst. Unable to hold off any longer, he positioned himself, driving his cock into her pussy, then grabbed her hands, lacing their fingers to imprison her further.

  She whimpered. He groaned.

  “Hey.”

  Hunt blinked and frowned at Tim. Arms crossed over his chest, his friend was leaning against one of those pompous granite pillars, his iron-gray suit and pearl-gray tie looking as serious as he did.

  “Go away, I’m busy,” Hunt said.

  “No kidding. We have a meeting. Remember?”

  He did now, but didn’t move. No way was he going to hang up before he knew Magique’s real name, her past and present. “I’ll be there in a sec.”

  “How about now? We all want to go home before today turns into tomorrow. Have some fun, you know?”

  He did, which was why he wasn’t about to cut off the call. “Soon as I’m finished here, I’ll join you.”

  “Waiting for the head chief of some shit to answer your call?”

  Hunt offered a smile. “Something like that.”

  “Good.” Tim gave him a wry grin. “Wouldn’t want you to be wasting your time on Magique. Using Flannigan to try to find out who she is or anything like that.”

  Right. “I told you, I’m using Flannigan for something personal.”

  Tim arched one blond brow, his expression remarkably similar to the many corporate portraits of his father. “I don’t think we could have gotten any more personal with her than we did when we were at—”

  “Hold it,” Hunt interrupted, then spoke into the receiver as though a person, not classical music was on the other end of the line. “Be right with you.”

  He frowned at Tim, not wanting the man to mention Magique again, unless it was in the most favorable and non-sexual terms. “The sooner I get through with this, the sooner I’ll be in the conference room and you can leave for the evening.”

  “Uh-huh.” He pushed away from the pillar and spoke over his shoulder as he left. “If you find out anything about her, I’d like to hear the details.”

  Not a chance. She was his. Or would be as soon as he—

  “Prescott.”

  Flannigan. Hunt swung his chair around to face the windows and spoke as quietly as he could, “Yeah, I’m here.”

  “Okay, I got what you wanted. Wasn’t easy, but I got it. Do you have any idea who her father is?”

  That wasn’t a question he’d expected or particularly cared about. “Can you email me the file?”

  “I’d rather have one of my messengers deliver it. I don’t trust the damn Net, phones, pagers or any of that other electronic shit. You’ll have a hard copy in a few hours.”

  A fucking eternity. Hunt pushed out of his chair and paced as he talked. “How much did you get?”

  “Don’t worry, we were thorough.”

  That remained to be seen. No matter how good Flannigan was, Hunt didn’t think the man could peer into Magique’s heart. “All right. A few hours. I’ll be in my office.”

  “Figured as much.”

  “Wait,” Hunt said, before Flannigan ended the call. “What’s her name?”

  “Alexa.”

  It fit her. Elegant. Regal. He smiled. “Alexa what?”

  “Marsh.”

  Hunt stopped pacing. His mind raced, recalling what Flannigan had said about knowing who her father was. He blurted, “As in the Marshs?”

  A chuckle sounded on the other end of the line, followed by Flannigan’s sigh. “Told you you’d be surprised.”

  Chapter Four

  It had been a good day, relatively pain free. The first she’d experienced in weeks, allowing her to come to the office and work. And now this had to happen.

  Ronnie hung up her office phone and glanced across the room. Alexa was at her desk, a Louis XV replica, its mahogany inlaid with gold, its top inset with leather. Typical over-the-top furniture for a madam, a blatant cliché, but Ronnie didn’t care. She loved this stuff.

  There were white roses artfully arranged in numerous vases, sitting chairs with needlepoint embroidery and gilded mirrors hanging on the walls. Surrounded by such opulence, Alexa might have been a princess-in-waiting at Versailles, rather than a contemporary woman focused on the company’s spreadsheets, its profit and loss.

  Two years ago, Alexa had bought into the company, taking over its accounting and other business matters. She was a whiz at that kind of work. No surprise. She had an economics and management degree from Oxford and had been on the fast track to run an international business or a government agency when she’d chosen this. A damn escort service.

  “I’m not poor and I’m not interested in love,” she’d told Ronnie when they first met. “So I’m not looking for a sugar daddy or Prince Charming to rescue me. I just want to have some fun with guys. Why shouldn’t I get paid for it?”

  Ah, the young. They had such remarkably simplistic ways of looking at things.

  When Ronnie had been Alexa’s age, she’d been searching for Mr. Right for as long as she could recall. She’d grown up in a trailer park in a particularly poor part of Arkansas, the third generation of her family headed for welfare.

  The grinding poverty wore at her, along wi
th working after school at a diner that offered no future. She wanted pretty things and guys who treated her with respect, opening doors and speaking gently, rather than bellowing or using their fists to get their points across.

  At sixteen, she’d fled and got as far as the District, selling her body to survive, telling herself she was looking for love, that’s why she was doing it. The pay was simply how the men proved they adored her.

  Before long, she realized how good she was at seduction and sex, always picked first among the other girls. In time, she knew she’d never make any real money unless she had her own business. Stella Nolan—her birth name—became Veronique DuBlanc, Ronnie for short. By then, she’d lost the trailer park accent, studied French at night, learned as much as she could about current events and pulled off a damn good imitation of a woman of breeding.

  All while craving and looking for love.

  When she was young and beautiful, she’d at least had men’s attention, but only because they wanted sex, not her as a person they cherished. At fifty-eight, guys decades younger than her told Ronnie she was still hot, which wasn’t true. They were playing with her, wanting her to be their mother, to nurture and support them emotionally or financially, when she’d never had the same devotion from anyone at that age.

  She wanted better for her Alexa.

  A smile tugged at the corners of Ronnie’s mouth, generated by tenderness that had no bounds. She adored the girl, had from the moment they met. Beneath Alexa’s many layers of bravado, there was a fragile soul and heart, reminding Ronnie of herself…her need to belong to someone. No way would she allow anything or anyone to harm the girl, especially a man.

  The dossiers Ronnie authorized on Alexa’s clients were more thorough than any government’s. The men were educated, upscale, disease free, not married and certainly not violent. In many ways, Ronnie knew she was protecting her beloved girl more than life ever could. If Alexa had been like most young women and hung out at a singles bar, she’d be taking a chance on the strangers who strolled inside.

  Still…

  Given her condition, Ronnie knew she might not make it another year cancer-free, much less ten as she had the last time. What would happen to Alexa after she died? It wasn’t as if the girl could run to her parents for any guidance and warmth. Her father’s indifference or disapproval of everything Alexa did was legend, while her mother—a beauty in her own right—felt compelled to compete with rather than to appreciate her own daughter.

  Idiots. They didn’t deserve to have a child. They’d never earned that privilege and continued to abuse it even now.

  “So?” Alexa asked.

  Ronnie blinked. Had she spoken her thoughts aloud? Her skin prickled with embarrassment. “What?”

  “That’s what I just asked you.” Alexa squinted as though to read past Ronnie’s expression into the corners of her mind where lies didn’t exist. “You were staring at me with this weird look on your face. You okay? Is the pain bad again?”

  She shook her head and told a partial truth, “I haven’t felt this good in weeks. You’re not busy tonight, are you?”

  Alexa leaned back in her chair, its cushions of red velvet. She drew her forefinger over her lower lip just as she did when reading personal information on the men she’d agreed to be with. “You would know. You handle the reservations, right?”

  Indeed she did. “In that case—”

  “Wait a sec.” Alexa leaned up. “I’m game for a good time, as long as it’s not with Hunter Prescott.”

  Ronnie brought back her hand from the phone, recalling what Hunt had said when he’d just called.

  “Don’t deny that I have the right place,” he’d warned.

  Ronnie should have, but didn’t. She’d been too stunned to speak. Very few men had the agency’s unlisted number and Hunt hadn’t been one of them. Until now.

  “Don’t hang up on me either,” he added. “I’ll keep calling back. I’m not a cop or the press. Jack Kilhan arranged an evening for me and my friends the other night at the R Street house. And no, Jack didn’t give me this number. He knows better than that. I found it on my own.”

  Ronnie wasn’t about to ask how. With any other man, she would have panicked, worrying about blackmail, payoffs, money lost to keep the agency more urban myth than the reality it was. Something in Hunt’s voice told her that wasn’t why he’d called.

  “I want Magique for the entire evening,” Hunt said at her continued silence. “Alone. Just her and me.”

  Sounded like the opening lyrics to a very painful love song. Although he spoke with confident strength, there was such need behind it, Ronnie told him the score, figuring he should know. “I’m sorry. That’s not possible.”

  Alexa didn’t allow herself to be vulnerable. To give any man the chance to treat her with brutal disregard as her father always had.

  “She doesn’t do what you’ve requested,” Ronnie added.

  “You mean one on one.”

  “That’s right.”

  “That’s bull,” Hunt countered. “She did the other night when my buddies were asleep. Did she tell you that?”

  No, she had not. Ronnie studied the girl now. “I thought you had a good time with Mr. Prescott. Did he hurt you? Should I have him killed?”

  Alexa laughed.

  It sounded young and reckless. To Ronnie, it sounded as if it was solely because of Hunt. She arched one brow.

  Alexa sobered a bit. “Don’t be ridiculous. He seems like a nice man.”

  “He wants you this evening. All evening. Just the two of you.”

  A deep red blush crept up Alexa’s neck, then stained her face, its tint matching the chair’s cushions and her claret silk blouse. “No.”

  “You’re sure?”

  Alexa rolled her eyes.

  Ronnie smiled even as her heart ached. In the years Alexa had worked for the agency, no man had affected her like Hunt. She wanted him badly. Ronnie saw it on the girl’s face, the flush of her skin, the way her body seemed to wilt every time his name came up.

  Don’t throw this away, she willed the girl. It might prove to be more precious than you can imagine.

  “Look, I don’t want to see him,” Alexa said, her earlier amusement replaced with what sounded like shaky resolve. “I won’t.”

  Too bad the young didn’t listen to the unspoken pleas of their elders or simple common sense. In this, Alexa would have to find her own way.

  “Good,” Ronnie said, feigning indifference. “Given what you’d told me the night you two met, I gave him a firm no when he called. I—”

  “Wait. He actually called?”

  “He did. And I promised to book him with one of the other ladies.”

  An alarmed look skittered across her face. Interesting. Ronnie wondered if Alexa’s concern stemmed from Hunt having the agency’s phone number. Or was she jealous at the thought of him being with another woman?

  “He’ll have a good time with whomever I choose,” Ronnie assured. “Don’t you worry.”

  “I’m not.”

  Oh yes, she was.

  The restaurant was one of Hunt’s favorites, tucked away from tourists and hardly noticed by K Streeters, who preferred dining fit for an emperor. The cuisine in this place was still five-star, its specialty bacon-wrapped steaks with a few vegetables thrown on the side to keep the guilt and cholesterol down.

  The server led Hunt to the terrace and his usual table when weather permitted. It was mild today, mid-seventies thanks to global warming or simple good luck. More than the typical number of patrons ate outdoors. Blocked off from the sidewalk by plump hedges and carefully spaced trees, the dining area was dotted with large white umbrellas that shielded the linen-covered tables from this afternoon’s sun. The fabric on each fluttered in the gentle breeze heavy with the scent of flowers, a bit of diesel from the numerous vehicles whizzing by and beef sizzling on grills.

  Hunt’s stomach rumbled. He took his seat. Behind him a group of women laughed with the joy
of those who’d found love at last or closed a great deal, adding to their bottom lines. In this part of the world, he figured it was the latter event causing their happiness.

  Leaning a bit closer, the server spoke just loud enough for Hunt to hear him over the numerous conversations and the R&B pumping through the sound system. “Will anyone be joining you today, Mr. Prescott?”

  David was already supposed to be here. “Leave the place setting,” Hunt instructed the young man before he reached for it. “Bring me my usual while I wait.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Hunt pulled his cell phone from his jacket and called David. “I’m here, you’re not. I’m not waiting more than ten minutes, got it?”

  “I’m heading out now.” The sound of something hard smacking a desk or credenza came over the line, along with David’s heavy breathing. “I’ll run if I have to.”

  “Take a cab. It’s less than twenty bucks. You can afford it now.”

  “I’d rather walk. It’s only a couple of blocks.”

  “Like I said, I’m not waiting.” He ended the call on David’s newest apology.

  “I’m sorry” wasn’t what Hunt wanted to hear right now. He sure as fuck had heard it enough over the last days. The senator he’d been lobbying suddenly changed her mind and decided to align with the other side. This despite the research Hunt had provided that proved his way was best for the woman’s constituents and her continued reelection.

  “I’m sorry,” she’d said, “I have to vote my conscience.”

  Since fucking when? It was all about walking a tightrope between the voters, special interests and ethics. Conscience had nothing to do with it. Even freshman lawmakers knew that.

  With that defeat hounding Hunt, he’d gotten another from Veronique—or rather Ronnie, according to the information he now had on her.

  “I’m sorry,” she’d said when he’d called again. “But Magique isn’t available.”

  “Tonight?” he’d pressed. “Tomorrow? Ever?”

  The dead air gave him his answer. What he couldn’t figure out was why Alexa was behaving this way, refusing to see him again.