Hard Way (6 page)

If she wanted, she could still back down. Safe word. It would be slurred with his hand wrenching her bottom jaw, but she could say it.

She never did.

So he pulsed into her, bucking his pelvis up and in until tears gathered at the corners of her dark eyes. Those eyes were wide. Angry. Aroused. But underneath was a measure of fear he hadn’t expected to find. A measure of fear that made him groan, grunt, thrust,
explode
.

He filled her, then shoved off and away—as if her skin scalded his.

Sunny blinked up at him. Understanding distorted her gorgeous face. “That’s not fucking fair and you know it.”

He’d never left her unsatisfied. Not ever. Seeing her furious and edgy, with energy pulsing around her flushed, damp body, should’ve put an end to this madness.

Instead Dash only shrugged. “Monday morning, Mrs. Christiansen. Wouldn’t want to take up too much more of your time. You have to go to work, and I have my annual appointment with the flight surgeon. He’ll probably tell me I’m fine. Won’t that be ironic?” He stood and made a little bowing gesture toward the shower. “Off you go. The Ice Queen looks like she needs to get cleaned up.”

Quick as a minx, she was off the bed—breasts heaving, eyes like dark, dangerous smoke. She was a building on fire with no rescue crew on the way. “You asshole. When?”

“When you don’t expect it.”

She slammed her fist into his left kidney. Full-on. Full force. Even with her slight build, she was powerful and well trained. Impeccable aim. Pain rocketed out from the point of contact, filling his guts with hot coals. He could only watch as Sunny strutted indifferently toward the bathroom like a naked goddess.

She stopped at the threshold and aimed double-barrel middle fingers right at him. “Do what you want. I’ll fight you every time.”

Still holding his side, Dash made a mocking little air kiss. His grin was wide, easy and mean when she slammed the bathroom door behind her.

I’ll fight you every time.

It was a promise and a threat.

And permission.

Chapter Six

Sunny had morning rituals. She figured every woman did. The particulars were what made them individuals. Sunny showered in the morning but saved washing her thick hair for Saturdays. She scrubbed her face, ran a razor over her legs and other bits. The bar of soap she scrubbed over it was handmade and rich with a spicy scent of herbs, softened by a hint of vanilla.

She jumped when she ran the rough cloth between her legs and across her pussy.

Her swollen, aching pussy.

Her brain skipped over
why
she was like that with the same jumpy, panicky feeling.

She abruptly cut off the water and rushed through the rest of her morning routine. Clothes and moisturizer and makeup, though God only knew why she wanted to look nice. Dash didn’t care, and she wasn’t dressing up for Jake, who was in Los Angeles.

She’d need to talk to him. She could almost hear his voice.
So, how’d it go?

Still, she breathed and moved through the usual steps. Coffee was easy, based on pure repetitive motion. Driving, less so. And she
hated
being late. The dashboard clock read half past ten.

By the time she reached the parking lot of her office, she was able to banish the hazy, smoke-filled numbness. She wrenched sweaty palms around the steering wheel and looked blankly through the windshield of her Acura. Her heartbeat slammed in her chest and clawed its way up her throat.

What kind of mess had she wandered into?

No, even that was more passive than she deserved. The question really ought to be: What kind of fucked-up mess had she created?

She didn’t regret asking for a divorce, and she didn’t intend to back down from that. Liam wasn’t the man she’d married. He’d changed. Across a decade together, his earnest and forthright nature had become some mix of show and fantasy, truth and obfuscation.

Except she’d found truth from him in the last twenty-four hours. He wanted to force her. She shivered against a shocking rush of want. Need. Her brain fuzzed out again. She couldn’t think about that or about how wrecked she was on the shoals of that depravity. She’d followed a siren and loved every moment.

The offices were quiet, but that was no surprise. Representative Rueland was still in Washington to hobnob with lobbyists, which meant no mundane appointments or constituents hoping for a walk-in. She would work in Vegas while ending things with Dash, before she had to return to her new life in DC.

Not had to.

She
wanted
to go back.

Crystal looked up from the receptionist’s desk. “Hello, Mrs. Christiansen.”

Sunny made sure her steps never broke rhythm.
That name.
It was her name as well as something absolutely foreign—like some version of herself she’d never managed to fully realize. “Haven’t I told you to call me Sunny?”

Crystal was a pretty girl, with blonde hair that bobbed around her ears. Best of all, she wasn’t completely vacant. Rueland encouraged growth in his employees, and she’d taken advantage of his tuition-matching program. At her elbow was a sociology textbook. She twiddled a highlighter between her fingers. “I know. But you’re, like, the only one who wants to be informal. It’s easier to call everyone Mr. and Mrs. than slip up.”

“Fair enough. Any messages for me?”

“No, but Mr. Manfried is in your office.”

“Jake?”

He’d attended a conference in L.A. but had also scheduled two vacation days after it wrapped up. Instead he’d come back to Vegas early? Because of work or because of her?

Sunny’s cheeks pinched and the tips of her ears combusted.

Crystal’s eyes widened. “Did I do something wrong? I thought it would be okay. He said it would be fine, that you’d be happy to see him.”

Making herself smile, Sunny patted the air in a calming gesture. “Yeah. Sure. Absolutely no problem.”

Shouldn’t she be happy to see Jake?

Instead, her hands tingled with frozen fear as she moved down the hallway toward her office. She was taking tiny little steps. Concentration honed over years of martial arts training calmed her breathing from near panting to a semblance of control.

Jake was sitting behind her desk when she walked in. She managed a smile before piling her attaché case and laptop on the small black couch she kept opposite the desk. “What happened to a few days of down time?”

“The interns have fouled up the press conference briefing for Rueland’s stump speech tomorrow. I needed to sort out their mess. Then I had a pile of work to do on the new bill. I hope you don’t mind me camping out here. The paint fumes in my office were giving me a migraine.”

He had spread dozens of papers in front of him, with his own dark gray laptop open at the far right. His hair was bright golden blond, and he had crinkles at the corners of his eyes. He was a man who smiled often, but his smiles were different than Dash’s. Open. Clear. There was nothing weighted in his eyes. If he was happy, he smiled. End of story.

Wasn’t that how it was supposed to be? Not constantly guessing what was going on inside a walled-off brain?

The worst of it was that she remembered another version of her husband. He’d always been a clever, complicated man, but she’d have sworn that once upon a time, his smiles had been pure too.

Once upon a time.
What a crock.

“I don’t mind,” she said. “I’m late as it is.”

Jake folded his hands on top of what looked like a spreadsheet—maybe the most recent poll numbers. She hoped so. If Representative Rueland was assessing lobbyists’ interests based on their contributions again, so blatantly as to make it into a PowerPoint presentation, she was going to add professional disappointment on top of personal ones.

“I worried.” Jake’s smile faded, and his expression turned serious.

She slid her gaze sideways, out the office’s only window. A screen of cactus and a giant creosote bush blocked most of the summertime sunshine. She wanted to feel that warmth, that grounding. She needed something that wasn’t the memory of how mean Dash’s hands could be.

“Sorry.”

“I didn’t mean that as any sort of judgment.” Jake was so sincere. Everything upfront. She had no doubt that if he said it, he wasn’t hiding anything underneath. “Just the truth.”

“I know.” She made herself smile. “But I still feel bad for making you worry.”

“If you don’t want to talk about how it went, I understand.”

He meant that too. He was so reasonable that she felt like a user by comparison. Until recently, she’d only wanted the friendship they’d built over three months. They spoke honestly with one another. He’d expressed his desire to have a family one day, which would take years for her to consider. She’d also said she wouldn’t take their relationship to a physical level until after she and Dash were through.

Was that possible? She wanted a divorce, but they would always be intertwined. Her past was colored by his influence.

“It’s complicated.”

“He didn’t take it well?”

She couldn’t help a small laugh. “That’s one way to put it.”

Jake’s eyes were a muddled hazel. She’d spent plenty of evenings looking at them across conference tables, and during a private dinner or two, but now she saw them layered with Dash’s pale blue. “Have you contacted that attorney?”

“Not yet.” She swallowed the churn of guilt in her chest. Sweat popped up along her palms again. She had no idea exactly who she felt guilty toward—Dash or Jake. She owed Jake the same honesty they’d always shared, but she owed Dash her loyalty until they were separated.

Maybe.

Didn’t she?

Jake watched her with his understanding, soulful expression. “Would you like to divert to work?”

“That would be wonderful,” she said on a relieved sigh.

He tapped the spreadsheets in front of him. “I’ve got the polling percentages for the east side. They’re looking good. Most of them seem contingent on the bill regarding road repaving.”

“Which I’m fairly sure is illegal.” This day wasn’t getting any better.

“I was afraid you were going to say that.”

She came around the edge of the desk to lean over him, then pointed at the reappropriation clause. “It’s right here.”

“We need funding for the campaign.”

“That’s not my job.” She tapped the papers. “All I know is you can’t go about getting it that way.”

“What the hell is wrong with your wrist?” He jerked sideways in her chair. His eyebrows flew toward the silky hair that draped over his forehead. Pure alarm.

Sunny pulled back, but it was too late. Her blouse was long-sleeved, but the lightweight silk made it reasonable to wear in the heat. Except by reaching around Jake, she’d revealed a raw and reddened wrist at the base of the cuff.

She wrapped her fingers around the limb in question. A slight sting was her reward. She’d been so corrupted by the experience that she liked it.

“Nothing,” she said quickly.

“That didn’t look like nothing.” Jake grabbed her by the elbow, holding her while he turned in the chair. She was framed between his knees even as she tried to pull away from his grip. He wasn’t manhandling her, but there was no getting away unless she wanted to show off the skills few knew she possessed. He shoved up her cuff and exposed the redness. “Did he hurt you?”

“No!” Except she flushed. She could feel the heat across her cheekbones. Her spine crawled with tension.

Dash had hurt her, but that didn’t explain how she’d egged him on or how she’d basked in every second. She shook her head in denial of the whole damn situation.

Jake stood and framed her shoulders between his hands. “You can trust me, Sunita. You know that, right?”

He was a big guy, carrying a good thirty pounds more muscle than Dash. This sort of pose had made Sunny realize three months ago that her marriage was dying. She’d had a shit storm of a day, and Jake had been the one to comfort her. Rather than feeling uncomfortable—as she did when complaining to Dash about a job he barely tolerated anymore—Sunny had felt understood and happy. All Jake had needed to do was hold her shoulders and tell her everything was going to be all right.

She’d been tempted then. So tempted to ease up on her toes and offer her mouth. She hadn’t. Instead she’d returned home to Vegas. She’d spent weeks taking a long, hard look at her marriage, at how she and Dash still fit—and at how the places where they still fit were far outweighed by silence and distance.

She wasn’t tempted now. Not in the least. Damn, if it could be that simple.

“I trust you,” she said, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“Then you can tell me what really happened.”

“I told him I wanted a divorce.” Part of her wanted to tell him all of it. The rest of her clamped down on the need to protect the truth of what had happened between her and Dash. “More than that, you’ll have to trust
me
.”

“I do.” His eyes were dark and solemn. “But all the statistics say how difficult it is for women to come forward about abuse.”

The pain at the bridge of her nose wrapped up through her temples and around her head. “Do I seem like the kind of woman who’d be abused?”