All In (The Blackstone Affair, Part 2) (11 page)

I guess it was the need inside me to possess
her. I’d needed the control during sex before, but not like this.
Brynne did something to me I couldn’t even comprehend. Never before
had I felt this way.
Only with her
.

I tugged her weight up off my hips. She got
the idea and held herself suspended, enough for me to let go and to
shove down the waist of my joggers. Not the easiest of tricks, but
required if I wanted to be in her, and she seemed so on board with
my plan. I held my cock straight up and told her on a harsh breath,
“Right here. And fuck me good.”

I think I might have actually got a tear or
two in my eyes when she slid down on me and started to move. I know
I wanted to. I felt my eyes water at the first touch of her cunt
surrounding my cock with all that slippery, lush heat, and during
the wild ride as she bucked up and down, shagging me into oblivion.
And then again when I blew my load inside her. I managed to pull
another orgasm from her with my thumb rubbing her sweet spot, and
cherished every whimper and sound she made as she reached her peak
a moment later. She came hard all around me. My name on her lips as
it happened was the best though.
Ethan…

When she collapsed on top of me, my cock was
still in spasms, buried inside her deep, rocked by the convulsions
as her inner muscles grabbed and pulled. I was certain I could stay
inside her forever.

I held us together, never wanting to
separate our bodies. We stayed out on the deck for a while. I just
held her to me and rubbed up and down her spine with my fingertips.
She nuzzled against my neck and chest, and felt very soft and warm
despite it being night, and we were outside, and she was totally
naked. I pulled the throw blanket off the other lounger and drew it
around her.

For the first time I understood what people
meant when they said they cried because they were so happy.

“
Go ahead
and pick
out the one you like for today,” I told her. Brynne grinned from my
wardrobe door and then disappeared back into it.

“Well, I love the purple ones, but I think
today we’ll go with this one,” she announced as she emerged with a
blue tie in her hand. She sauntered up to me and draped the silk
around my neck. “It matches your eyes and I love the color of your
eyes.”

I love when you say the word
love
in reference to anything about me
.

I watched her expression as she worked on
knotting my tie, biting just the corner of her luscious, bottom lip
in concentration; loving her attentions and not loving the fact
that she had obviously practiced on somebody else. She had stood
right up against some other bloke and tied his tie for him. I knew
it. I tried not to envision that it was morning when she performed
this service for the cocksucker and that she’d not spent the
previous night sucking said cocksucker’s cock. I was such a jealous
bastard now. I’d never been jealous with any of the girls I’d dated
before, but then again, Brynne was not just a girl to me. Brynne
was
the
girl.
My
girl.

“I love that you’re here doing this for me,”
I told her.

“I am too.” She smiled up at me for an
instant before returning to the task at hand.

There was so much more I wanted to say but I
didn’t. Pushing her never worked out, and I’d learned my lesson in
that regard, but still it was hard to take things slow. I didn’t
want slow with Brynne. I wanted fast and intense and all the time.
Thank Christ I didn’t say that aloud.

“What’s your day look like, Miss Bennett?” I
asked instead.

“I’m having a lunch meeting with colleagues
from the university. Keep your fingers crossed for me. I have to
start thinking about getting that work visa and there could be
something in this for me. Like a conservancy appointment at a major
London museum.” She finished my tie and patted it. “There. You look
very spiffy in your blue tie, Mr. Blackstone.” She held her lips up
to mine with her eyes closed.

I kissed her with just the tiniest peck on
her puckered lips. She opened her eyes and narrowed them, looking a
tad disappointed. “Expecting something more were you?” I loved
teasing her and making her laugh.

She fronted like she didn’t care. “Meh,” she
said with a shrug, “Your kisses are…passable I suppose. I can do
without.”

I laughed at the expression on her face and
tickled her in the side. “It’s a good thing you conserve paintings,
my darling, because you can’t lie worth shit.”

She shrieked at the tickling and tried to
get away.

I snaked my arms around her and hauled her
against me. “No escape for you,” I muttered against her lips.

“What if I don’t want to escape?” she asked
against mine.

“That works too,” I answered with real kiss.
I went slow and thorough, enjoying this early morning moment
together before we had to go to our jobs. She melted into me so
sweetly I had to remember we both had work and there was no time to
take her back to bed now. The nice part was that we would be here
at the end of the day again, and I could make good on my very vivid
imagination.

I got to kiss her goodbye a few more times
before we went our separate ways: waiting at the lifts, in the
parking garage up against the Rover, and when I dropped her off at
the Rothvale. Such are the benefits of having somebody you want to
be with so madly in your life. Again, I am a lucky, lucky man. At
least I am smart enough to realize it.

♥

I went through the front entrance today
after parking because I wanted to buy every major US newspaper and
have them scoured for any small thing. They’d be crammed with
political mudslinging by now, but the full bore fight between
candidates was a ways off yet. Presidential elections were held the
beginning of November in the US, so five months more of publicity.
I felt a pang of worry and pretty much ignored it. I could not fail
in protecting her. I wouldn’t allow a failure.

Muriel grinned at me when I paid for the
papers. I tried not to shudder at the sight of her teeth. “There
you go, luv,” she said, holding out a stained hand with my
change.

I got a look at that grimy hand and decided
she needed the change more than I needed to contract a contagion.
“Keep it.” I looked into her oddly beautiful green eyes and nodded
once. “I’ll be getting all these US papers regular from now on if
you want to have them ready,” I offered.

“Oh, you’re a darling, you are. I’ll have
‘em. G’day to ye, handsome.” She winked at me and showed a bit more
of those horrifying teeth. I tried not to look too close, but I
think Muriel could compete with me on beard stubble. Poor
thing.

When I got into my office I started on the
intel in earnest. I listened to the message of the man who’d called
Brynne. I played it several times. American, very matter of fact,
non-confrontational, nothing revealed in his inquiry gave anything
away about what he might know.
“Hi there. This is Greg Denton
from The Washington Review. I’m trying to find a Brynne Bennett who
attended Union Bay High School, San Francisco…”

His message was short and utilitarian, and
he left his information for a call back. The history showed he’d
only rang her the one time so there was a very good chance he
didn’t know much, or if Brynne was even the right person he was
attempting to contact.

I briefed Frances without giving away
specific details, told her to look into this Greg Denton at The
Washington Review and also to see what else she could scrub up in
the newspapers I’d bought this morning.

I was just sitting back down, eyeballing my
desk drawer where the smokes were stashed when Neil came in.

“You seem rather…human…this morning, mate.”
He sat in the chair and looked me over, a bit of a smirk going on
his square jaw.

“Don’t say it,” I warned.

“A’right.” He pulled out his mobile and
looked busy with it. “I won’t say I know who stayed over last
night. And I definitely won’t say I saw you two snogging while
waiting for the lift this morning on security cam—”

“Piss off!”

Neil laughed at me. “Hell, the office is
thrilled, mate. We can all breathe again without fear of
disembowelment. The boss got his girl back. Praise the gods!” He
looked upward and held his hands up. “It’s been a fucked-up couple
of weeks—”

“I’d love to see how your miserable arse
would do if Elaina suddenly decided she couldn’t stand the sight of
you.” I cut him off, offered up a fake grin, and waited for the
change in attitude. “Which could always happen, you know, as I know
all your shameful secrets.”

Worked like a charm. Neil lost the dickhead
posturing in about one point five seconds.

“We’re really happy for you, E,” he said
quietly. And I know he meant it.

“How’s the military investigation into
Lieutenant Oakley going?” I asked, giving in and opening my desk
drawer to pull out my lighter and a pack of Djarums.

“He’s been doing very bad things to the
people of Iraq and getting away with it, but not sure for how long
that’ll stay buried. I think the senator can only be relieved his
son is off getting into trouble in Iraq as opposed to anywhere
close to his election campaign.”

I grunted in agreement and sucked back my
first, sweet inhale. The cloves gave quite a kick, but I was used
to it. Now I just let the nicotine do its work and felt guilty for
what I was putting into my body. “So he’s career military you
think?” I exhaled away from Neil.

Neil shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

Neil had the keenest instincts of anyone I
knew. He wasn’t just an employee, not by a long shot. Neil was
much, much more. We’d been boys together, gone off to war, survived
that hell to return to England, managing to grow up in the process
and start a successful business. I trusted him with my life. Which
meant I could trust him with Brynne’s as well. I was glad she liked
him because I had the feeling she would have to be guarded
eventually whenever she went out. Brynne would so hate that. But
even as much as she loathed the security detail, she’d not take it
out on Neil. My girl was far too kind for that sort of thing.

I wasn’t kidding myself either—friend or no,
I was really glad Neil already had a woman, and if he’d been single
wouldn’t have been my first choice. He was a good looking guy.

“Well this is the interesting part.
Lieutenant Lance Oakely was stop-lossed just a few weeks after the
plane went down. From what I could find out, the US pretty much
ceased with stop-loss over a year ago, and only just a mere handful
are served now.”

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking,
mate?”

Neil nodded again. “As soon as the senator
found out he was the next vice-presidential hopeful, he got his
only son stop-lossed for another tour in Iraq.”

I clucked my tongue. “Sounds like the
Senator knows his son very well and figures the further his boy can
keep away from the campaign, the better the senator’s chances of
being elected.” I leaned back in my chair and puffed on my clove.
“Who better to get a stop-loss order than somebody who has
political connections. I’m starting to think Senator Oakley rather
hopes his son never comes back from Iraq. War hero and all
that...looks smashing for patriotism.” I waved my hand for
emphasis.

“Precisely where I was going.” Neil
eyeballed the ciggie in my fingers. “I thought you were cutting
back on those?”

“I am…at home.” I stubbed it out into the
ashtray. “I won’t smoke around her.” And I am pretty sure Neil was
savvy enough to figure out why I wouldn’t. But that was the thing
about friends…you understood each other, didn’t have to explain ad
nauseum about painful shit you wished you could forget, but pretty
much knew was a part of you down to the marrow in your bones.

♥

Brynne’s mobile lit up and roused me out of
my work. I checked the caller ID. One word—
Mom
.

Well this ought to be fun, I thought as I
pressed
send
. “Hello.”

There was a beat of silence, and then a
haughty voice. “I’m trying to reach my daughter, and as I know this
is her number, to whom am I speaking?”

“Ethan Blackstone, ma’am.”

“Why are you answering my daughter’s phone,
Mr. Blackstone?”

“I’m surveilling her old number, Mrs.—? I’m
sorry, I don’t know your name.” I wasn’t going to give it to her on
a silver platter. Brynne’s mum would have to ask me. Nicely. So
far, I wasn’t impressed.

“Exley.” She waited on me to say something
but I didn’t. I play poker and I know how to wait it out. “Why are
you surveilling her phone?”

I couldn’t help smiling. We both knew who
had won this round. “Yes, well I deal in security, Mrs. Exley. It’s
my job. Brynne’s dad hired me to see to her safety once Senator
Oakley was being vetted. I’m not going to be coy with you either,
ma’am. I know why her safety’s at risk and so do you. I know
everything.” Now I paused for effect. “She’s told me what happened
to her at the hand of Oakley’s son.”

I heard a sharp inhale and would have paid
money to see her face, but alas, had to use my imagination. “You’re
the one who bought her portrait aren’t you? She told me about you
buying her nude photograph and taking her home after. Something you
should know about Brynne, Mr. Blackstone, is that she loves to
shock me.”

“Is that so? I wouldn’t know about that,
Mrs. Exley. Brynne’s never mentioned you to me before last night. I
have nothing to compare you against.”

She seemed to ignore my veiled insult and
went for the kill. “So you’re in a relationship with my daughter,
Mr. Blackstone? I can read between the lines and make assumptions
as well as the next person. And Brynne is my only child, and
contrary to what she’s told you, I do love my daughter and only
want what’s best for her.”