The Phoenix Campaign (Grace Colton Book 2) (8 page)

“Always so ready,” he growls in my ear, his tongue seeking, his lips teasing.

My breathing shallows as his fingers find their way past the silk barrier, flicking my clit until I throb with need. I glance out the glazed car windows, hoping we have enough time to get me to where I need to be. “More,” I pant.

“I’ll give you more.” Jared’s fingers work me into a frenzy and I’m gasping, shuddering, ready to fling myself off a precipice and spiral into climax and bliss. But then his hand stills.

“Don’t stop now,” I beg him. The car turns onto a residential street and I thrust my hips forward in the seat, desperate to connect with his fingers again.

“We have to.” He pulls his hand from beneath my skirt and I moan with frustration. The devious glint in his eyes betrays his intention.

I grab his wrist. “You
meant
to stop here?”

He grins. “Guilty.”

I roll his hand over, exposing two fingers that are slick with my moisture. “I hate you a little right now.”

“Oh, but darlin’, I love you.” His cocky smile tells me he’s delighted to be leading me where he wants to go. Even though I fight him on policy, on tactics, and on every decision he makes to propel me forward in this campaign, this little game reaffirms his control when we’re behind closed doors.

“Pussy-teasing bastard.” I pull his hand toward me, locking my eyes on his and taking those two fingers deep into my mouth. I lick him clean, leaving no question of what I could offer him in return. “Just remember
that’s
what you’ll be missing out on next time you tease me.”

“You think denying me will put you in control?” He tilts his head, his slow drawl dangerously low. “Two can play at this game.”

The SUV rolls to a stop in the driveway of a middle-class home. I shake my head and let out a
gah!
of frustration.

***

Four cameras, including two shoulder-mounts and a wide-shot on a slider, crowd into the Hales’ living room. I’m seated around a coffee table with Jess and Marcus Hale while their thirteen-year-old son and ten-year-old daughter linger at the kitchen bar across the room.

We talk taxes and the challenge of balancing two full-time jobs with kids to raise and a mortgage to pay. We discuss the real impacts of legislation on middle-class Americans. The gulf between what happens on Capitol Hill and how these programs and policies affect them becomes crystal clear.

“We had to choose between the local public school, which has four portable classrooms taking up most of the blacktop on the playground, and thirty-three kids in Elise’s fourth-grade class, or paying for a private school,” Jess tells me.

“But if we went the private-school route, we’d never be able to save enough to afford college, even if they went in-state,” Marcus adds.

I question them about how health care policy affects their family’s budget and learn that their son’s type-one diabetes factors heavily into their medical costs. We talk national security and I learn that Jess worked at the Pentagon during the 9/11 attacks. She quit soon after and decided to be a stay-at-home mom until Elise was old enough for kindergarten.

“It was the best choice for my kids, but it’s a financial decision that put us behind in every way,” Jess admits.

What started as a shoot designed to be sliced-and-diced into clips for campaign ads and media releases becomes something real. A real family, with real struggles. Parents who want what’s best for their kids, even if it means tightening their own belts, driving old cars and skipping vacations.

As I learn more about their lives, the cameras recede into the background and we become just people talking, relating because both of our boys—their Liam and my Ethan—had mild learning delays that made reading a challenge. We talk about how Marcus had to take unpaid leave to heal after back surgery, which forced them to run up their credit cards to almost crippling debt levels.

Finally, I ask the question that’s most important to me. “When you think of your dreams for the future, what do you want most?”

“Security,” Marcus tells me. “I need to be sure that my kids can earn their own way in life, get a good job, buy a house eventually. And I need the security in retirement to know we’ll never be a burden to them.”

I nod at Jess for her answer. “Grandchildren,” she says. “I want my kids to grow up, fall in love, and marry. Nothing matters more to me than my family.”

As we wrap up the shoot, Jess’s words echo in my brain.
Family. Nothing matters more to me than my family.

***

Jared tells the Secret Service to take us to my place. We climb back in the SUV and he winks at me.

“You’d better be ready to pick up where you left off,” I say, my voice low, vibrating with need. Throughout the interview, whenever I connected with his gaze, it felt like he was devouring me with his eyes.

“I’m always ready.” His lazy smile makes my stomach warm, my knees weak with want.

He puts a respectable distance between us as we cross the parking garage, ride the elevator with my security detail, and walk down the hall toward my condo. I fumble for my keys and drop them; he snatches them off the floor and unlocks the door maddeningly slowly.

When the door closes behind us, I whirl toward him, grasping his shirt and pulling our bodies tightly together. “You. Tease.” I breathe
tease
like an accusation, and he steps back, pulling me off-balance.

“That’s the idea.” He saunters to my bedroom, forcing me to follow in his wake. “The wondering is half the fun. The waiting. The wanting.”

He turns to me and squares his shoulders, but he doesn’t reach for me. I’m ready to tear off my clothes and his and just
do this
, but his normally frenzied pace that drives us into bed is now deliberate, designed to make me crazy.
 

I step toward him again and he raises his hand, forcing me to pause.

“Eager?” His smile widens and he sits on my bed. He points to my blouse. “Take it off.”

I fumble for the buttons.

“Slowly,” he corrects me.

I force my fingers to slow and I shed each garment, my eyes locked on his, waiting for his command. A nod or a gesture tells me
take this off
and
now that.

When I’m stripped bare, standing in my bedroom in nothing but heels, he twirls his finger. “Face the wall.”

I turn and he grasps my wrist, anchoring it to the wall above my head. “Don’t move this hand.” He takes my other wrist and presses my palm to the wall alongside the first. His shoe taps the inside of my ankle. “Spread your legs.”

I look like a suspect about to be frisked, but God knows I have nowhere to hide contraband, except in my mind and my heart. Jared’s breath licks over my bare skin, his fingers trailing along the sides of my breast and down my ribcage, then lower until they reach my sex.

My panting is the only sound in this room and my ears strain to anticipate Jared’s touch. I hear the soft rustle as he drops his clothes on the floor, then the sharp
smack
and sting as his palm raises a red welt on my ass.

I squeak in surprise and bite my lip.

Another
smack,
this one on my other ass cheek, and I whimper, willing my legs to hold me upright. Jared’s hand moves between my legs again, his deep hum evidence that he likes the effect of this spanking.

“More?”

I close my eyes tightly and nod, leaving no uncertainty.
Hell, yes, I want more.
This power play, this little bit of taboo, is what I crave. Jared uncovers the things I need when I can’t even say them.

More blows color my ass. Heat blooms there and throbs between my legs. My breathing is ragged as I pant between each
smack,
hiss to cover the scream that wants to break free.
I
want to break free.

He pinches my clit and I moan with relief, climbing steadily as my orgasm spirals tighter. Another spank, and I’m almost at the edge, feeling the waves of energy gather into one blinding point of pleasure.

“Not yet. Don’t come yet.” Jared’s hand stills and I want to cry, beg, plead for more.

My hands slide down the wall. I need to pounce on him,
demand
the climax he denies.

His hand closes over my wrists and shoves them back to position. “I told you,
don’t move
,” Jared says. “This isn’t about denying your pleasure. This is about extending it, forcing you to hold where you are until you’re so full you can’t take any more.”

I shake my head. “I can’t.”

“You can,” he insists, and he finds my clit again, making tight circles that send sparks through my body. His other hand moves in a blur—pinching my nipples, tracing the crack of my ass, plunging inside me.

Another
smack,
and another, and I’m coming apart as he demands I hold myself together. “A little more. A little higher.”

I writhe against his hands, pressing him for more and twisting from his grasp. Tears leak from my eyes as I try to hang on. Then he turns me, flips my back against the wall, hoists me, and impales me on his cock.

I ride this exquisite fullness, and I bite his shoulder to hold back the scream. My mind is empty of the jumbled thoughts from today—all that’s left is
I want
and
I need
and
now, now, now.

“Now, Grace. Come
now
.” Jared thrusts deep, the force of him taking my breath away. I throw back my head and unfurl the scream that’s built in my chest since this morning, the total release that I didn’t realize I could have until he forced me to delay, and delay, and delay, until every last shred of my consciousness was bound into one single, blinding urge.

I let go. The climax rushes at me so hard it’s like a train passing over me as I’m tied to the tracks. It’s a wild terror that shoots through me like lightning, but I’m held in his arms, filled to overflowing by Jared—sight, sound, smell, taste, touch.

He rocks into me and my senses spiral through wave after wave, barely aware of his moan and shudder, his own climax and gasping breaths.

I am finally sated.

My legs shake as Jared’s muscles relax, as he moves to release me. I unwind my iron grip around his hips and let him lay me back on the bed and weave our limbs together in an embrace.

He plants soft kisses along my jaw, creeping toward my mouth, and I balk. No matter how intimate it was to explore the taboos of spanking and power exchange, a kiss will remain the most intimate thing between us.

It’s
too
intimate right now. My heart is raw, laid bare from the intensity of what we just shared. I’m lying to him every moment I don’t tell him about the pregnancy.

Jared sighs, content, his head on the pillow beside me. I listen to his breathing in the dark, gathering my courage to ask a question that’s been pecking at the edges of my mind for weeks. The interview today brought it home.

“Tell me about your family.”

Jared pulls back, his face turned to look at me in the dim light that filters in from the hallway. “What do you want to know?”

“You showed me the house you grew up in. Tell me about your parents.”

“Parent,” Jared corrects me. “I told you my mom was single when she had me. When she got pregnant, her boyfriend didn’t want to deal with a baby. So he took off and she was stuck with me.”

“Stuck with you? That’s a pretty harsh assessment.”

“She never made me feel like I was unwanted, if that’s what you’re asking,” he says. “But the asshole who left her sure did.”

“You’ve never met him?”

“Never wanted to. I figure, anyone who’d abandon his girlfriend and their child isn’t someone I’d want to know.”

I fidget with the sheet, needing to draw a connection between then and now. “So would you ever, I mean, could you ever consider … being a father yourself?”

Jared sighs heavily, and I wish I had more light to see the expressions crossing his face. “I don’t think I’m cut out for that. Look at my life: I spend more time in hotels than at my apartment. I’m chained to my phone, and working sixty hours a week feels like fucking vacation.”

“But would you—ever?” I press.

“All I know is that I deserved more than what that sperm donor left my mom. A kid deserves more than I’ve got to give.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Small wars have been fought with fewer logistics than the 2016 Conover-Colton campaign.

Volunteers, pollsters, writers, social media specialists, communications coordinators, media buyers, web and mobile tech, graphic designers, travel planners. Everyone is part of the machine.

Even me.

I feel oddly disconnected. When I walk in the temporary campaign base on the outskirts of D.C., three days after the interview with the Hales, I can’t help but stare at the hugeness of it all. We need to reach one hundred and fifty million registered voters. Less than two-thirds of them will show up to the polls, but we need to make sure it’s
our
two-thirds, not voters in the Republican base.

Volunteers raise their heads and smile at me. They give me a nod or a little wave. I feel like a celebrity with Mac and Eric as entourage, but I also feel like I’m going to my sentencing.

Could Shep kick me off the ticket?

Will he hate me for screwing up our chances?

Will he tell me to terminate the pregnancy?

“Congresswoman Colton. What a nice surprise.”

I smile at the pretty volunteer receptionist and read her name tag. “Thank you, Allison. Can I grab a minute with Shep?”

“Mr. Rankin’s in a meeting with him now. I’ll let them know you’re here.”

He’s here?
Jared’s supposed to be in New York working out something with Jim Boyle, a Democratic presidential primary contender who, for a short time, was Conover’s presumed running mate. I’ve been cagey about spending time with Jared, complaining of being tired, and he hasn’t argued the point since it seems like he’s on a plane every other day.

The reality is I’m stuck in my apartment with herbal tea, too many briefing papers and speeches to memorize, and a restless mind that won’t let me sleep.

“Grace.” My name on Jared’s lips is a low rumble, a summer thunderstorm heavy with warmth and promise. We’re out in the open with dozens of volunteers’ eyes watching, so I can’t reach for him.