Vote Then Read: Volume II

by Lauren Blakely

  She rolled her eyes. “I’ll take the sweatshirt, thanks.”

  He winked at her. “I knew I should have taken the shirt when I had the chance.” He handed her the hoodie. “Why don’t you get dressed while I heat up some soup for you?”

  She nodded and turned to make a beeline for the bathroom, but he caught her around the waist. His lips brushed against her collarbone, exposed because the blanket slipped again when she grabbed the shirt. “It’s just as well we won’t make use of the condoms now. We need to head back to the compound. I’ve got work to do.”

  She nodded, relieved. She wasn’t ready to jump into bed with Alec Ravissant, no matter how much her raging desire said otherwise. But still, she might tuck a few condoms in the pocket of the hoodie. And in her backpack. And maybe in Alec’s backpack too.

  Alec considered going back to the frigid river and taking another swim to cool his raging libido, but if he remembered correctly, even hypothermia hadn’t kept him down when he had Isabel naked in his arms. He entered the small kitchen and grabbed a dehydrated soup packet and added the requisite hot water from the instant hot tap.

  It was reasonable to let Isabel sleep until she got her core temperature up, but the verbal foreplay after she woke had been irresponsible. He had a crap-ton of work to do to figure out what was going on and he needed to ensure the compound was safe and secure for the upcoming training. He didn’t have time to obsess over the woman who’d somehow managed to become the focal point of this trip.

  While the soup hydrated, he used the cabin radio to contact the compound again. Isabel stepped out of the bathroom wearing the extra-large hoodie and sported a towel around her hips. One look at her and he knew staying in the cozy cabin longer than necessary would be far too tempting. He instructed the compound radio operator to send out a team on ATVs to pick them up, and told them to bring clothing and boots in both their sizes. He raised an eyebrow at Isabel, and she gave him her shoe size, which he relayed to the compound, then signed off.

  Soon they’d have company, until then, he needed to keep his libido in line. “Soup’s on,” he said, nodding toward the kitchen.

  “Thanks.”

  “There’s also hot water for coffee or tea.”

  She cocked her head. “I thought I smelled hot chocolate?”

  Alec felt his face flush. “Uh, yeah,” he mumbled. “There’s hot chocolate too.”

  Isabel did a double take at his stumbling response. “Alec Ravissant, are you blushing?”

  He frowned. “Maybe.”

  “Because you drink hot chocolate?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s not…tough. You know? I’m a Ranger. Or at least, I used to be. I’m supposed to drink my coffee tar black and my whiskey neat. But I can’t stand coffee. Or whiskey, for that matter.”

  She grinned. “I think that’s sort of adorable.”

  “Adorable. Yeah. That’s what I was aiming for.” He felt his flush deepen. He didn’t know why his hot chocolate addiction embarrassed him all of a sudden, but it did. Maybe it was because she’d found him in the woods after he’d suffered a major ass-kicking.

  “Please tell me you put marshmallows in your hot chocolate too.”

  He shook his head. “Marshmallows are for sissies.”

  She laughed. “What other embarrassing secrets are you hiding? That you like kittens too much?”

  “Shhh!” He took two quick steps, stopping directly in front of her and placed his index finger to her lips. He glanced in both directions as though suspicious. “Not so loud. You have no idea how cutthroat the dog lobby can be.”

  She licked the pad of his finger, then sucked it into her mouth.

  Alec groaned at the heat that shot through him with the speed and combustion power of a backdraft. Without thinking, he scooped her up, and the towel fell away as her legs circled his hips. In four steps, he had her pinned against the uneven log wall, the sweatpants a thin barrier between his erection and her naked, hot center.

  His tongue plundered her mouth, stroking, taking, igniting flames as he mimicked sex with thrusting hips, drawing panting gasps from her as his cock teased her clit. “I want to be deep inside you, Isabel.” The words tumbled out in a low whisper against her lips. “I want your heat to surround me, to feel you clench tight as I stroke you and make you come. I want to watch you orgasm, hard and fast, then again, more slowly, in a long-drawn-out wave so intense you’ll think the pleasure might break you.” I want to smash your barriers and possess you. For you to be mine. Only mine.

  She gripped his shoulders as she met his gaze, her lips open and damp from the hot kiss. Her green eyes were dilated with arousal. Her chest rose as she panted and wiggled her hips, stroking him with her clit, further stoking his intense need.

  “I want you in the same way,” she said in a breathy whisper.

  She ground against him again, the sensation so damn hot, he locked his knees to keep his footing.

  “I can’t look at you without having fantasies,” she said. “This morning, I wanted you to take me on the sideboard. Minutes ago, I wanted to go down on you in front of the fire. But I’m afraid when the heat is over, orgasm complete, I’ll have nothing left but guilt and shame.”

  If there were any other words that could kill his erection faster, he didn’t know what they could be. He loosened his grip, setting her gently to the floor, then stepped back, releasing her as the heat left his body as quickly as it had arrived. “Guilt and shame?” He met her gaze. “That’s what you’ll feel if we have sex?”

  She nodded. “I—I hate myself for wanting you. It feels like a betrayal.”

  His eye—the one that had taken the worst of the blows on Thursday—began to throb. As if she’d hit him there again. Strange, because it should be his nuts that ached, given that was where her verbal assault had been aimed. He scooped up her fallen towel from the floor and thrust it in her direction.

  “I didn’t kill your brother, Isabel.”

  She took the towel and cinched it around her hips. “I know that.”

  “Your brother even tried to fix us up. He wanted us to meet.” How desperate did he sound? It occurred to him that he’d never been rejected before. His life had been pretty charmed—born into a rich family, blessed with brains, he’d had the drive and ambition to excel in the military. While there had been struggles along the way, and he worked his ass off to be the best soldier he could be, relationships—sex—had always been easy to come by. He’d always been the one to set the rules. Who’d have guessed this woman’s rejection would make him so damn pathetic?

  “I want you, Alec. But I can’t forget that you ignored Vin’s murder. Your inaction helped cover it up.”

  She really believed he’d done that? That was an even bigger blow to the balls than the bit about guilt and shame. “I didn’t cover up his murder. How can you even think that I would? I get that you might’ve thought that before, but now you know me.”

  “Do I really?” Her voice rose along with her anger. “I found you in the woods. I saved your life, and you attacked me. Then you had me arrested. The next time we crossed paths, you’d bailed me out of jail—probably because you realized having the woman who saved your life arrested would look bad in the polls. Then you show up at my house after your men attacked me in my home. Hell, for all I know, you were with them in the meadow. Honestly, Alec, you may well be the biggest threat to me here.

  “I don’t know you. All I really know about you for certain is that you want to fuck me, because I’ve seen evidence there you can’t fake. But I can’t help but wonder if even that is fueled by political motivation. Imagine the headlines if you pretend to fall for the woman who saved your life. The voting public would eat that shit up.”

  Politics. She honestly believed it all came down to politics for him. She was right; she didn’t know him at all. He dropped down on the couch and let out a bitter laugh. “Isabel, you are my campaign’s manager’s worst nightmare, because
Lord knows we couldn’t count on you to censor your words or adhere to any party line. Sure, some voters might think it’s nice if they learned we were involved, but twice as many would probably be as cynical as you are and think it was a ploy. I don’t want you for political gain. I’m not power hungry enough to make decisions like that. You’ll probably never believe this, but I’m not power hungry at all.

  “Hell, if all I wanted was power, I’d stick with Raptor. Having your own mercenary army, now that is power. I stepped into the race because I believed I could do something. I missed serving my country after I left the Army. I thought Raptor would be enough, but it wasn’t. I was trained for politics since birth, and I see a gap in political leadership really understanding what the war on terror even means. I’ve been to war. I understand it. And, thanks to my mother’s dreams of the Ravissants becoming a Kennedy-esque political dynasty, I also understand economics, transportation, crime laws, education funding, and how political deals are made.

  “The simple fact of my wanting you has no bearing on my political aspirations. I just want you. Plain and simple. Honestly, I doubt my campaign would survive Hurricane Isabel, so I’d just as soon keep you under wraps, but I’d never ask you to hide if you didn’t want to, because I am not ashamed of wanting you.”

  Her nostrils flared at his last statement, but she said nothing. She just stood before him with a look of heartache and confusion on her face. Her anger had melted. Now she just looked…raw.

  He wanted to curse and bitch and basically make an ass of himself, but she’d merely been honest with him, and on a fundamental level, he understood. She’d had eleven months of grief and anger in which he’d not only been the focal point, he’d done nothing to dispel her beliefs. Everything he’d done had only underscored her assumptions. “I suppose our best course of action is to get to know each other,” he said.

  She cocked her head.

  “A date.”

  “What, you want to go out to dinner?”

  “Why not? I owe you for saving my life. I even suggested it before I knew who you were.”

  “But you saved my life in the river. So we’re even.”

  “Fine, then you can take me out to dinner.”

  “But we’re even.”

  “Then we’ll go Dutch.”

  She laughed. “And when are we supposed to go out on this date? Don’t you have work to do?”

  In the distance, Alec heard the low whine of an ATV engine. They had only another few minutes alone. “Yeah. So it’ll have to be the week after next.”

  “But you’ll be in Maryland then.”

  “So you’ll fly out to Maryland.” He stood and crossed the room to stand before her. “When rich guys want to impress a girl, we do over-the-top things like fly to Paris on our private jets for dinner.”

  “Do you want to impress me, Alec?”

  “Very much. I know of a great little place in Montmartre.” He gripped the zipper of the hoodie and tugged her forward. He brushed his lips over hers. “But you’re paying for your half of dinner.”

  17

  An hour later, Isabel was back inside Alec’s suite. She was again chilled to the bone after riding on an ATV, clinging to Alec’s back as he drove the quad over bumpy terrain.

  Exhausted from the cold, even though it wasn’t yet nine p.m., all she wanted to do was sleep, but before she could crawl into bed, Doc Larson examined her. He prescribed warm blankets and more sleep.

  Two FBI agents who wanted to interview her had arrived at the compound while Isabel had recuperated in the prove-up, but Doc told them they’d have to wait until the following day, for which she was grateful. As much as she wanted to be interviewed and tell everything she knew about Alec’s abduction, her brother’s murder, and the two infrasound assaults on her, she was cross-eyed with exhaustion. The last three days had simply been too much.

  Alec tucked her into his bed, but this time didn’t linger to warm her—which was probably a good thing, because she had no doubt she’d throw herself at him again, given the chance, and she seriously needed to get her head on straight where he was concerned. He left her to meet with the new guy, or to be interviewed by the FBI. She was too tired to remember.

  She closed her eyes and settled deeper in the thick blankets on Alec’s bed, wishing the sheets carried his scent, but he’d spent scant few hours in this bed since his arrival. She quickly drifted into a deep and blessedly dreamless sleep.

  Sometime later, she woke, feeling sleep saturated and confused. She stared at the backlit clock in the darkened room. Ten o’clock. She’d slept a little more than an hour?

  She rubbed her eyes and looked at the clock again. The a.m. light was on.

  Her eyes widened. She’d slept thirteen hours?

  She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept so long. Maybe when she was five?

  And yet, she felt good. Restored. Alive.

  And warm. Wonderfully, magnificently, warm. She dropped into the pillows and pulled up a blanket. Maybe she should sleep for another six hours or so.

  The moment she closed her eyes, guilt swamped her. She had yet to get started on her report for the timber sale. Even though her day off on Friday had been involuntary, it didn’t mean it was okay for her to get behind at work. The preliminary findings were due on Wednesday, and she still needed to finish the survey. Then there was the fact that she hadn’t spoken with the FBI yet. And she needed to figure out who the hell had attacked her cabin.

  Much as she wanted to hide in this big warm bed for the next week, she had to face today. She crawled out of bed and entered the sitting room, not surprised to find it empty. The blankets and sheets Alec had used were neatly folded and placed on the sideboard.

  He’d left a note for her on the table.

  I’m meeting with Keith and Nicole all morning. Fraser is showing the FBI agents the forest—where you found me, where my car was found, and the cabin—and will be gone most of the day. Agents Crews and Upton plan to interview you this evening. Stay put in my quarters. You are not to wander the building unescorted. Dial extension three, and meals will be delivered.

  She bristled at the command. He’d forgotten she wasn’t one of his men and didn’t have to blindly follow his orders, and she was hardly a prisoner.

  Besides, she wanted to meet the new guy. Keith Hatcher. He at least couldn’t be involved in whatever was going on, because not only was he new to Raptor, but up until a few months ago, the guy had been a Navy SEAL.

  It was comforting to know there was someone here they could trust, because right now, everyone who worked at the compound was suspect: Nicole, Brad, Nate, Dev, even Mothman. There were a few men on Falcon she wasn’t fond of, particularly Chase Johnston, but he hadn’t been at the compound long enough to have been involved in Vin’s death, and just because the way he looked at her gave her the heebie-jeebies didn’t mean he was the culprit who’d shot her with infrasound.

  She stiffened as she stared at the slip of paper.

  Infrasound. She hadn’t had a chance to look up infrasound on her own and didn’t like relying on what anyone from Raptor—even Alec—told her. Aside from not having time to research, she also no longer had a computer or smartphone.

  She needed a shower, then she’d use Alec’s computer and start researching. She’d even be good and stay in his quarters. In the bathroom, she shuddered at her reflection in the mirror. She didn’t exactly look good after taking a swim, riding on a quad, and then sleeping for nearly twice as many hours as she usually slept.

  The bathroom was as ornate and over-the-top as the rest of Alec’s suite. She’d never seen so much marble outside of the Library of Congress. The tub was a small swimming pool with a control panel that could launch a rocket, and the shower could accommodate a swim team. While she longed for the tub, she opted for the expediency of the shower, glad that yesterday morning she’d figured out the controls so she wouldn’t scald herself again today.

  The pounding hot water rejuvenated h
er. The seven showerheads scrubbed her clean of glacial silt in no time, and the spray felt so wonderful against her skin, she wanted to stay in the shower forever. She massaged her scalp as she washed the corkscrew curls that gave her nothing but grief.

  The bathroom was heavy with steam by the time she shut off the shower, and the heated floor and warm towel fresh from the heated rack nearly sent her back into a sleepy stupor.

  After she was dried and dressed, she set to work detangling her hair. During a wet combing, her hair reached halfway down her back, but as her tresses dried, they coiled upward, reaching just past her shoulders. Without clips or hairbands, her curls stuck out in unruly, comical ways. She’d forgotten to grab extra clips when she hurriedly packed the other night, and she’d lost the one she wore yesterday in the river, so she dug through Alec’s drawers seeking a hair tie or clip, anything to prevent her from sporting a curly red lion’s mane.

  Vin used to tell her the mean girls in high school who mocked her hair were just jealous. It took her a decade to realize he might’ve been right. But years of being called Sideshow Bob because she had both wild curls and red hair, made it hard to see herself as anything but a clown.

  Alec had no hairpins, clips, or ponytail holders, not exactly a surprise, but still, she liked the idea that she might be the first woman to share his suite. She gathered her hair from her temples and twisted the locks together, then found a pen in Alec’s nightstand drawer to slide through the knot, noting as she did so that a box of condoms resided in the drawer as well.

  Maybe she wasn’t the first woman to share his room after all. Or maybe condoms were just an item he kept on hand. After all, she had a box in her nightstand too, and she hadn’t had sex since moving to Tamarack.

  She lifted the box. Sealed. She checked the expiration date. Less than two years to expiration. Maybe after she looked up infrasound, she’d google the shelf life of a spermicidal condom.

  Back in the main room of the suite, she planted herself in front of Alec’s computer and promptly discovered she needed a password to use it. She couldn’t look up infrasound or condoms. Or Apex or Airwave or any of the dozen things she really needed to know about.