Lieutenant

by Lesli Richardson

  I can’t see his eyes, but he’s smiling one of those rare smiles he has.

  He’s really enjoying this, and not in a sadistic way.

  In a Carter way.

  He plugs something else into his phone’s GPS, and we resume our journey. Fifteen minutes later, we’re standing in line in the Las Vegas clerk’s office to get our marriage license.

  He holds my hand the whole time. When it’s our turn at the clerk’s window, we show our IDs, fill out the paperwork, sign, and he pays. We’re walking now. We stop by a jewelry store next, where Carter peruses engagement rings and wedding band sets and gives me several choices to pick from that are within his budget. We’ll have to hide them from Owen before we pick him up today.

  “I can pay,” I softly say.

  He lightly smacks my ass. “You’re not buying your own engagement and wedding rings,” he says. “Pick, pet.”

  I feel a little guilty. Yes, of course I ran background and credit checks on him and Owen. Carter ran one on me, too. One of the things we did the other evening after I bought the plane tickets, besides fucking, was go through our finances together. I know what Carter’s budget and savings are, and he knows mine.

  Owen’s budget is irrelevant beyond the fact that he’s not in debt. We’re going to take care of our boy, and that’s that. Once we transition him through the next stage, Carter will take control of everything and give him a weekly allowance and extremely tight spending restrictions, at first. Once he’s certain Owen has fully relaxed into the new world order and has confidence in our ability to care for him, Carter will ease those restrictions.

  But he wants Owen completely dependent upon us for everything, at first, so that he can see we’ll deny him nothing reasonable. I mean, if he asks for a Lamborghini or something, that’s a hard no, obviously.

  I’ve already told Carter what I want to get Owen for Christmas, and after mulling it over for a day, he agreed we’d do it together.

  I want to buy Owen a car, get rid of the Subaru his mom gave him.

  His last tether to her.

  Every time he drives, I want him thinking about me and Carter, and us fucking him in every possible position in whatever car we get him.

  Operant conditioning.

  I finally pick a modest engagement ring but select a wedding band set that’s toward the pricier end of the stated spectrum. Hey, Carter said to pick.

  So I’m picking.

  He slides the engagement ring on my left finger before we leave the store and pockets the wedding bands. Twenty minutes later, we’re awaiting our turn in the wedding chapel, and Carter’s already paid for the video package, photos—everything.

  Now I’m beginning to wish I’d gone with a drive-through chapel option.

  When it’s our turn, the organist starts playing “Viva Las Vegas” as we walk to the front of the chapel—yes, we had our choice of music, too, and that’s what Carter chose—and there’s a fucking grin plastered across Carter’s face as the photographer snaps our pics and another takes video while a slightly overweight Elvis wearing a white, skin-tight bedazzled jumpsuit and with muttonchops for days marries us.

  Fuck.

  Me.

  I’ve never seen Carter grin like this before. It reaches the depths of his eyes, takes years off his face, and likely erases horrible memories from his conscious mind for a few minutes.

  He’s focused on the here, the now—on me.

  I suspect I won’t get to see this man too many times. At least, not in the beginning.

  I silently make it my life’s goal to try to seek this man out, to do whatever it takes to make him look like that whenever I can.

  Thirty minutes later, we leave married.

  Daddy’s probably going to fucking kill him.

  Benchley?

  He’ll definitely want to ruin Carter. Although I’m not sure if it’ll be the news that we eloped, or the news that, when we return to Florida, we’re both changing our voter registration from our respective parties to Independent, that will piss off that side of my father more.

  Me?

  I’m feeling both excited and the good kind of terrified, and now I can’t wait to add Owen to our lives in every way. To finally be able to live together, all three of us sharing a bed every night.

  Because I know we’re going to succeed. At everything.

  I feel it.

  This man right here will be bedding two Florida governors.

  And I am soooo going to enjoy the look on Daddy’s and Benchley’s faces when I get sworn in as Florida’s governor.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Now — Year Four

  There are many weekday mornings I awake alone in bed in the early morning hours and wonder if I’m dreaming.

  Are we really in Tallahassee?

  Did we really pull this off?

  Because I’m living my dream, even if we’ve had to make serious personal adjustments along the way.

  I stand in the shower this Tuesday May morning and let the spray hit me in the face to help wake me up. I know exactly where Carter is without even using our family phone tracking feature to find him.

  He’s with Owen.

  I’m actually fine with that. I know some women might feel slighted, but I don’t need Carter clinging to me every minute of the day. I need him when I need him…and then I don’t. Doesn’t mean I love him any less. It means I’ve been independent my entire life.

  Of course I love my time spent on my knees in front of him—when those times happen. Lately, usually only when I ask for them to happen, because I’m busy and he knows it. We both are.

  But I’m a politician with a lot of work to do. As we really crank up the re-election campaign efforts, I’m going to have even more work to do. It’s not guaranteed that Owen will be re-elected, although his chances look damn good, if early polls can be believed.

  That means Carter needs to spend time with Owen to keep him grounded and centered and focused and doing the work Owen needs to do.

  I, however, am a self-starter.

  On weekdays, I prefer this morning routine, without Carter’s interference. Carter and Owen have always worked out together in the morning, ever since they met. It’s at least one damn routine Carter can keep going for Owen to help center and ground him. I’d be a piss-poor wife and Ma’am to Owen if I denied him this.

  On weekends or holidays, sure, I don’t mind Carter waylaying me—and well-laying me—on my way to the shower or before we can eat breakfast.

  On a busy weekday, when I have meetings starting in less than two hours? It’s going to piss me off if Carter tries to go Master on me.

  No one likes a pissy pet.

  That’s why on weekday mornings, Carter focuses his energy on his other pet, the one who legit needs him the most right now.

  I would expect nothing less from Carter, and would be disappointed in him if he didn’t put Owen first.

  Now at night? When I have trouble shutting my brain down? Absolutely, I love Carter going into Master bastard extraordinaire mode then.

  I’ve got a long overseas trip coming up that I’m beginning to wish I’d passed on. I leave in less than two weeks, and will be gone two weeks. I’ll be traveling alone, technically. No Carter, no Owen, no Dray. Not this time.

  It’s for our tourism industry, so I’m traveling with Connie Drucker, head of our state’s tourism commission, and her husband, Michael.

  I’ve got a ton of work to do, in addition to campaign appearances, but Carter told me maybe it’s better I take this trip now. To hard-shift my mind out of my usual routine and get me away from Tallahassee for a little while.

  Especially after last Tuesday night, and what happened.

  I know he’s right, but I haaate admitting it.

  See, here’s the problem—unfortunately, despite Owen usually managing to fuck me over his desk—or on his couch, or over my desk, and even over Carter’s desk—several times a week, in addition to the night or two every week Carter and I stop
by the mansion so Owen can properly fuck me in his bed, I haven’t gotten pregnant.

  During the first six months of our term, I’m afraid I was apologizing to Dray a lot every four weeks when I’d discover the proof that, yet again, whatever we were doing wasn’t working.

  But if you look at the beautiful photo-shoot that was done of the three of us one day over at the Florida Governor’s Mansion, you can’t spot anything wrong, even though I’d started that morning softly crying alone in the bathroom when I realized my period had arrived.

  Carter looked gorgeous, and with his arm draped around my shoulders and us looking into each other’s eyes, you can’t miss how we feel about each other.

  Owen, on the other hand, looked fucking hawt. Through his office, he now receives dozens of love letters and e-mails every week. It pisses me off that Carter sets Owen up to go out for a minimum of one fairly visible “date” a month with a couple of trusted beards. They don’t know Owen’s ours, but the women also have their own secrets to hide and are willing to sign NDAs and stay quiet in exchange for the visibility. They usually have dinner, sometimes see a movie or play or concert, or attend some other event, and then part ways at the mansion, where the date started.

  I pitch a fit and Carter cuts it back to every other month. So, during the next six months we’re in office, I spend it struggling not to burst into tears anytime someone asks me about kids. Inside my brain, pet would spend those particular moments curled up in a tight ball and sobbing while, outside, Susa smiled and said one of the several ready-made answers I usually used, depending on the circumstances.

  That’s year one.

  Year two, I spend it basically trying to ignore my monthly visitor. In whatever private times we have together, Carter and Owen start doing nothing more than cuddling with me during those particular weeks. I think Carter or Dray gives Owen a warning, because despite us not sharing a bed every night, Owen always seems to know exactly when my period starts, and always calls me in to his office for a few minutes of cuddling on his couch, my head in his lap, and his hand stroking my hair.

  Did I mention how much I love my men?

  Year three sees the return of Susa Evans, hardened politician. My period is irrelevant, because our agenda is in full swing, and I have more important issues on my plate, like trying to rally lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to push through legislation to help our schools and tighten background check requirements for gun purchases. I refuse to discuss my personal monthly issues with Carter or Owen. I safeword out of conversations on that topic with them on a regular basis, citing work.

  Year four…

  Basically, a repeat of year three, only with more bitchiness. I’m thirty-nine and, let’s face it, if it hasn’t happened by now, it probably won’t. Unfortunately, in Momma’s family, there’s a history of women entering menopause in their forties, including Momma. I’m not there yet, but it’s just a matter of time.

  I still refuse to talk about it with Carter, and now with Owen, although I’m gentle with my sweet boy when I safeword the conversations with him. I always do it lovingly, gently, and give him a sweet kiss when I do.

  Then new packages of birth control pills appear on the counter in our townhouse bathroom two weeks ago.

  Enraged, I throw them away. I understand it was a silent, gentle way of Carter trying to tell me I didn’t have to keep trying and doing this to myself every month. But…

  Yeeeeah.

  Why take something that I obviously don’t fucking need? What a horrible, cruel reminder, every fucking day, that, no matter how badly I did want this, for me and for my men, it was something apparently outside even my tenacious grasp?

  I’d rather have the monthly mocking by my body, thank you very much.

  I might be a masochist, but I’m not that kind of masochist.

  It was bad enough knowing I’d traded Owen’s biggest dreams for mine, and that the chance to have this one thing was the one thing I couldn’t give our sweet boy, or my husband.

  That, in my mind, I’d failed to put my boy first the way I’d promised Carter twenty years ago that I would.

  Who, to be honest, is a fucking saint to put up with me right now. I’m shocked Carter hadn’t moved in to the mansion, or at least into Owen’s townhouse next door. Even Dray’s had to safeword on me a few times lately when I get bitchy.

  After not talking with me about the birth control pill incident, Carter finally asked me last Tuesday evening if I wanted him to make an appointment for me in Tampa with a fertility specialist, and—

  Well, I honestly don’t remember much after practically screaming Carter Edward Wilson at him, verbally taking his head off at the kneecaps with a long, one-sided screaming diatribe, whose contents I can’t even remember, while coming up off the couch and swinging at him. I’d been sitting there, reading on my tablet, scanning through the text of a new bill hitting committee that week.

  At some point later, I was sobbing and realized we were both on the living room floor, and he had my hair tightly wrapped around his fist so he could keep my head pinned down. Because apparently I bit and scratched him a few times, actually breaking skin on his left arm. He was also covered with nasty bruises and scratches on both arms the next day, to the point he wore a long-sleeved shirt for his daily jog with Owen, and made sure to wear long-sleeved shirts to work every day to hide the marks.

  But when my brain returns just enough to register what’s going on, I find he’s also sitting on me with my arms trapped against my sides, and was texting someone with his free hand.

  I uselessly struggle for a few seconds before I dissolve into tears again.

  Meanwhile, Carter sits there, grim-faced and silent after setting his phone aside on the coffee table.

  We’re still sitting there a few minutes later when I hear a car pull up outside, followed by the sound of someone entering Owen’s townhouse next door, the front door slamming shut behind them.

  I was still sobbing as, next door, footsteps run upstairs, the tell-tale beeps I’d rarely heard in a couple of years, unless one of us had to go next door to get something for Owen, and then the sound of footsteps running downstairs in our unit.

  Only then does Carter release me. I climb into Owen’s arms, wrap myself around him, and cry as we sit there and he holds me.

  They told me later I apologized over and over again to him for not being able to get pregnant, while they both tried to soothe me and tell me it was okay, but I don’t remember any of that.

  I only remember later, after frantically riding Owen’s cock, the three of us curled up together in our bed, my men on either side of me and holding me, as all three of us spent the entire night together in the same bed for the first time in over a year.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Two mornings ago, I awoke in Singapore. Yesterday and today, it’s Kuala Lumpur. We got to see some of the region the past two days, and today is a travel day. While it’s been the trip of a lifetime, it’s also been a working trip, for me.

  At least this morning we can sleep late, if we want to. Good thing, too, because I’m exhausted. This trip is no longer fun. Yet because of everyone who’s traveling with us, including a few members of the press, I have to be “on” any time I’m not locked behind a hotel room door. Cell phones are everywhere, and even though we’re not in Florida, I am not “safe.”

  I haven’t felt good since leaving Florida, honestly. Let’s add motion sickness to the list. I barely made it to the lavatory on the last flight before throwing up my breakfast. I shouldn’t have been reading on a bumpy flight, but I was bored out of my mind, and I wasn’t sleepy.

  I also know if I tell Carter or Owen any of that they will order me to a doctor, maybe even while I’m here. I know it’s probably due to my schedule being off, combined with eating or drinking something that didn’t agree with me. I have a sensitive stomach, and traveling wreaks havoc with me sometimes.

  Whatever it is, it’ll have to wait until I’m home. I refuse to have
any drama attached to my name regarding this trip. It was bad enough what I put my men through just a couple of weeks ago. I’m damn lucky Carter was able to juggle Owen’s schedule the next morning so no one but his security detail knew Owen hadn’t spent the night at the mansion.

  It was a weakness I won’t soon repeat. I’m better than that.

  I also know, after all this time away from my men, that I owe them apologies, conversations.

  I miss them, and maybe I’m not handling this as well as I thought I was.

  Maybe I should let Carter make that appointment for me.

  Or, maybe these are my karmic dues I must pay. I can’t have a life so blessed in so many ways without giving up something, right?

  Even if it is something I desperately want.

  Somehow, I know I need to come to peace with never having this one thing.

  So far this morning, my stomach seems to be okay. I’ve already taken a dose of motion sickness meds to help prevent a repeat of the tummy trouble, since weather reports mentioned storms over the waters between here and Manila. It’s likely to be a bumpy flight.

  I’m also wishing I’d pushed Carter to let Dray come with me. It’d be nice to have someone familiar who I could just be myself with behind a closed door. Not to mention, he’s kind of earned a vacation away from my bitchy work mode.

  Connie and her husband, Michael, are nice people, but they’re also in their early sixties and not exactly people I can cut loose with the way I could with my men, if they were here, or even with Dray and Gregory.

  Except I get it. Carter needs Dray’s help right now, and sending the bare minimum delegates on this trip means fewer chances for the press to roast us over any spending issues. Connie’s paid for her husband’s trip out of her own pocket. Carter had the lawyers go through everything before okaying me accepting the trip. This is definitely a working trip, and we’re keeping receipts for everything we pay for out of our own pockets, because I’m reasonably certain there will be FOIA requests hitting within minutes of our return to Florida.