by Riley Ashby
He reached one hand between us and pushed on my clit, bringing me close. I screamed his name and bit his shoulder, trying to spread my legs wider across his lap to invite that rush, that peak, that glory I had been craving ever since he touched me the first time while I was still sore and bruised and bloody.
“Fuck it, Meyer, I’m close! Don’t stop!”
“I’m never fucking stopping, Maddie.” His use of my nickname sent me over the edge. Everything crested in those two syllables, and my body stiffened and shook, my head falling back while he bit my breast again. I felt myself clench around him, pulling him deeper, and then the ripple of his own release when he finally gave in to me. He pumped into me over and over again, his finger not stopping its motion on my clit until I finally shuddered and collapsed down against him.
He wrapped me close, crushing my rib cage while we shuddered in the aftershocks of what we had experienced together. When he finally moved, he laid me on my back before pulling away, and I felt his cum slip out of me while he moved behind me to spoon again. The fire thrummed, and we didn’t need the blanket for several minutes. As the sweat finally dried on my skin and goose bumps appeared, he reached behind him without asking and pull the blanket over the both of us.
“No more fighting,” I whispered, closing my eyes. “Now we can rest.”
He rested his lips against my neck. “There’s no more fight left in me. Now sleep,” he said, running his fingertips across my back and sending shivers up my spine that had nothing to do with my body temperature. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”
Meyer
I hadn’t expected any remorse from Anita, and she didn’t disappoint. She had a scrape on her face from when Joshua had tackled her that took up most of her concern. She looked at her reflection in the glass of a picture frame and patted it, wincing.
“I don’t know why he had to be so rough with me,” she whined, looking at our father for backup.
I almost slapped her. “You tried to kill her, Anita. If anyone gets to do that, it’s me.” I could barely force out the words, but I think my strained voice lent an air of authenticity to the threat. Conrad shot me an approving glance, but Anita wasn’t fooled.
“I saw you out on the balcony before I came to get her.”
Conrad looked concerned now, but I played it off. “I’m sure you saw whatever you think would help you justify attempted murder. What the hell were you thinking? It wasn’t even well thought out. Plenty of people saw you two run off together. You would have been arrested in under twenty-four hours.”
“And there’s only so much I can do to pay off a murder charge.” Conrad couldn’t keep the twinge of pride from his voice. “You showed a lot of initiative, but that gets you nowhere if you can’t get away with it.”
“Initiative? Dad, she tried to kill someone.”
“And we kill people every day at work. She’s just cutting out the middleman.”
Had he always been this fucking crazy? “That’s not even remotely the same thing.”
Conrad frowned, leaning on one arm against the wall. I took a step back. Anita smiled wickedly, then turned to him.
“I’m sorry, Daddy. It won’t happen again.”
Conrad softened and reached out to touch her face. “I know it won’t,” he said, then slapped her across the red mark. She gasped, tears welling in her eyes. “Now go to your room. I don’t want to see you again today.”
She scuttled out, still holding her face. Conrad turned on me slowly, and I ducked my head. I thought of Madeline’s skin, paler than I had ever seen it, warming back to color in the warm bath.
“I’m sorry.”
“I know. I don’t think you need any more lessons today.” He turned to go, then looked back at me once more. “You’re not particularly instilling confidence in me, son.”
I stared after him long after he disappeared, marveling at my good luck. He’d let me off easy. But when would it come back to bite me?
Wanting a moment to myself, I waved off Joshua and walked from the main estate back to my house. Maddie and I hadn’t slept much the night before, drifting in and out between mumbled conversations.
“I still hate you.” Madeline whispered so quietly the drone of the fire almost drowned it out.
“I know,” I told her, putting my forehead against her spine, brushing away the loose strands of her dark hair. Despite the heat from the fire and the warmth of her body, I didn’t feel hot. I backed away, then kissed each vertebra.
“We should sleep,” she whispered, arching into me, but we didn’t.
I was in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, not possessing the motivation to dress myself with the normal fanfare. I felt about to burst out of my skin, expand past the confines of my clothing to suck in everything around me. I noticed the different shades of red on the leaves. I didn’t balk when the horse whinnied at me. But I did smile when Madeline turned from her perch on the fence to regard me with her deep coffee-colored eyes. The doctor had come and gone this morning, stating that nothing was wrong but that she should avoid straining her eyes for a few days just as a precaution.
“I would have thought you’d be inside, warm.” I reached out to grab her fingers, trying to convince myself that they weren’t too cold.
“I wanted to enjoy the season. What happened?” She pulled her hand away, tucking her fingers inside the sleeves of her sweater. I smarted at the rejection until she angled her body toward me.
“Joshua gave her as much of a rousing as he could without pissing off our dad. She’s pretty offended by it. I don’t think she learned her lesson, though.”
Madeline swung around on the fence, facing me, and I moved between her thighs. My lips were level with her sternum. I tugged at the collar of her sweater, pulling it down to look at the hickey I’d left on her chest.
“Will she try it again?” Her voice was normal, but I didn’t think her shivering was caused by the cold. I kissed the bruise and let her sweater fall back.
“She won’t get the chance. I’m not letting you out of my sight.” People kept coming into my sphere and trying to claim her for themselves. I would be an idiot to think they wouldn’t try again.
She opened her mouth to argue, but instead, she closed it and slid to her feet in front of me. I wrapped my arms around her and pressed my lips to hers, drinking in her warmth like warm bourbon.
Her mouth opened hesitantly at first. She was gun-shy. She had been so worked up last night, so ready to reclaim her life and worn down by the constant back and forth that in the light of day, removed from the threat to her life, she was back to doubting her feelings. But eventually, her tongue moved forward to meet mine, and her entire body sighed against me. I felt every muscle relax as she trusted me to hold her upright.
“Do you remember how I said I’m always afraid?”
“Mm-hmm.” She nodded as she kissed me, unfolding her arms and sliding her hands up my back.
“Last night was both the most scared I’ve ever been—when I saw you go into the water—and the least, when I held you in my arms.”
Her fingers tightened in my shirt.
I had the sensation of standing on the threshold that could determine how the rest of my life would be. Now that she’d agreed not to fight me, was there a chance for us? Or would my family and the knowledge that both my sister and father wanted her dead always overshadow it? Even worse, they expected me to be the one to end her life. She probably thought that now she could convince me to take her away from here and start a new life in another state like her mother did. But I’d lose everything I’d ever worked for.
Everything except for her.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, and we broke apart. She was still avoiding eye contact, but I held one arm around her while fishing to look at my screen. There was just one sentence from Shawn: Turn on the news.
“What is it?” Madeline asked, and I realized I was frowning.
“Let’s get inside.”
Joshua already had th
e TV on, and what I saw stopped me dead in the doorway.
Blood and bodies blurred into anonymity on a dirt road. Breaking News flashed across the bottom of the screen with a death count that was climbing even as we watched. And in the background of all these bodies was a box of ammunition with Schaf Industries sprayed on the side.
It took me a minute to realize my phone was ringing in my hand. I looked down and saw Shawn’s name on caller ID.
“Hello?” My voice sounded distant, even to myself. This was bad. This was very bad. I finally released Maddie’s hand to run my own through my hair, wondering if any of this was real.
“I swear I didn’t know this was going to happen. I didn’t know it was them. I—”
“Wait a second.” I cut him off. “You know who did this?”
I looked over at Maddie, who was staring at the TV with her hands over her mouth. She was shaking. I snapped my fingers at Joshua, motioning for him to turn off the TV.
“Leave it on,” she yelled, her voice already hoarse with tears. Joshua actually stopped and stared at her before looking at me for confirmation. I turned around, and Maddie moved past me, dropping heavily into a chair without ever looking away from the screen.
“It was those guys who did the contract I told you about. The special one.”
“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Meet me at the office in twenty. We need to get on this now.”
“I’m already on my way.”
I hung up without saying goodbye and walked toward my room without another glance at the TV. If this was true, if we had inadvertently supplied terrorists with weapons of war through a legal contract, the company was sunk. We would lose everything. It would take years to rebuild our reputation, if we ever could.
“What the hell is happening?” I turned around as I pulled on a wrinkled button-up shirt to find myself face to face with Maddie. She had followed me after all. “Did you do this?”
Her accusation shouldn’t have stung me as much as it did. “No, Maddie, I had nothing to do with this. Right now, we need to go downtown. I need to figure out how to fix this.”
“There is no way to fix this.”
“Well, get ahead of the fallout.”
She grabbed my arm. “Are you talking about the people dead in the streets or your company?”
I slowed as I fastened my final button, realizing the source of her distress. Her passion was the people lying dead on the street. She was itching to get to her office as much as I was mine.
“I’ve worked for most of my life to make this company successful. I’m one of the youngest executives in the country because of it. There are workers to worry about, jobs that will be lost if we go down because of this.”
“You get to go save your profits, but I have to sit here while people suffer? Jesus, Meyer, people are dying in the streets. Are you going to do nothing to help them?”
I sat on the bed and pulled her toward me. Even angry and distraught, she looked so beautiful. I had to resist the urge to press my fingers against her full lips. “Joshua has your laptop and phone. We’ll take them with us, and you can make some calls from my office.”
She looked surprised for a second before sadness and anger slipped over her features again.
“If this was your fault, we are through. I’ve forgiven too much already.” The way her voice shook as she spoke told me she didn’t quite believe those words.
I ran my hands up her legs to her hips, pressing my forehead against her stomach. “I promise, I didn’t know. We’ll figure this out.”
Tentative fingers stroked my hair, her thumbs running over the tense muscles in my neck. “Are we going on our own? No security?”
Fuck. I still hadn’t decided if Joshua was trustworthy. He had been helpful the night before by alerting me to Anita’s strange behavior and suggesting we follow her down to the water. But just because he didn’t want Maddie to die didn’t mean he wasn’t working for my father.
“We have to go with Joshua. I should keep an eye on him anyway.” I rose to my feet and pressed a kiss to her temple, pulling her against my chest. This wasn’t how I wanted to spend my Sunday. I wanted Maddie naked in bed or on her knees with my cock in her mouth, not to be down at the office reprimanding Anita and trying to avoid federal prosecution for selling to terrorists. Not secretly working from my office when I’d made it my goal to keep her from working in the first place.
Joshua insisted we sit in the back seat while he drove, and I didn’t object. I closed the partition to prevent anyone from snapping photos through the windshield as we drove. Conrad called me multiple times on the ride, but I ignored each one.
“Is that your dad?” Maddie was staring at the phone in my white-knuckled hand. “Is he going to be there?”
“He has to be. You’ll need to stay in my office.”
I texted him. Are you coming in?
Conrad: You should have waited for me.
Meyer: I’m sorry. We’re already in the car.
Conrad: We?
Shit.
Meyer: Joshua and me. Are you coming in?
Conrad: Answer my call.
The phone rang the second after the last message appeared on my screen. I had no choice, but I attempted to preempt his tirade by speaking first. “Are you coming in?”
“You answer your fucking phone when I call you.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.” My fingers rubbed my forehead, trying to smooth out the wrinkles forming there. That made three times I’d apologized to him this morning.
“It had better not. Whose fault is this?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. I wasn’t ready to throw Shawn under the bus just yet. “I’m not sure.”
“But you have a hunch.”
“I don’t know. I’m sorry.” Four times.
“I don’t want your fucking apologies. I want you to stop fucking this up. Do you understand that this could ruin me?”
“Yes, Dad. I do. I’m so- we’ll fix it. We’ll figure it out.”
“You’d fucking better. I’ll see you in a few minutes.” The sudden silence let me know he had hung up.
I lowered the phone, vibrating with nerves. Maddie’s hand found mine, and she pried away my phone. I heard the click of her seat belt as she slid across the bench to sit next to me, our thighs touching.
“Why were you apologizing? And you called him Dad.”
I shook my head, avoiding her eyes. I didn’t want to talk about this. “He’s pissed. It’s his company.”
“But this isn’t your fault, right?”
“Conrad isn’t ever interested in whose fault it is. The blame lands where he assigns it, and that’s often on me.” She squeezed my hand. Fuck, I said too much. I pulled away. “This isn’t about me.”
I could feel that she was stung, wondering why I was suddenly closing myself off again. But I couldn’t have this conversation with her right now or ever. She would not understand.
Dozens of reporters had gathered around every entrance of our building, blocking the drive to the underground garage. Joshua eased the car through the bodies and cameras while they shouted questions through the blacked-out glass. I looked at my feet while Madeline squeezed my knee tightly.
I stole Maddie up to my office as quickly as I could, then left her with her laptop and instructions for using the internet.
“Lock the door when I leave,” I told her, “and don’t open it for anyone but me. There’s a bathroom through that door”—I pointed to one side—“and I’ll get some food up here for you at some point.” I turned to go, but her voice stopped me.
“Thank you, Meyer.” She tugged my sleeve, pulling me back to her just briefly. “This isn’t your fault.”
I ran a hand through my hair, frustrated that I hadn’t had time to style it before we ran out. “You don’t know that.” Sure, Shawn had been the one to bring us the contract, but I’d read it over. Something had slipped by me, and that was no one’s fault but my own. I should
have been more careful.
“I do. I can hear it in your voice and see it in the way you’re reacting. You’re not responsible for this. You’ll figure out who was and make them pay for it.”
Her optimism was catching. I knew she was as upset as I was, thinking about all the human suffering that was going on as we stood here staring at each other, but she was still reaching out to try to comfort me. She saw just how off-kilter that call with Conrad had left me, and she zeroed in on that feeling just long enough to stop it from overwhelming me.
I had a task to do here, and it had nothing to do with my father. It had to do with an empire that I had worked my ass off to protect.
*
I made Shawn put up that damn contract on the projector, and we went through it line by line. I had read it myself before signing it, but clearly, I had missed something. But even after hours of reading and re-reading and discussing, we couldn’t come up with anything. Our general counsel saw no problems with it. Even Conrad couldn’t find a problem.
“They just didn’t care. They signed a contract and violated it. They wanted the weapons more than anything else, and they didn’t care about adhering to any terms.” I gestured to the news footage playing on loop on the TV in the corner. “Clearly, if they were going to be doing this with our product, they didn’t give a shit about breaking a contract.”
“Then we’re in the clear, right?” Shawn sounded like a child who just found out he wasn’t going to be grounded. “This isn’t our fault.”
“We still sold to them.”
I put my head in my hands, tugging at my hair, trying to think. “Who did this contact come from, Shawn? How did they contact you?”
He fumbled with his pen. “It was kind of an internal referral.”
Conrad stopped where he was pacing by the window. “What do you mean?”
I sat back in my chair, unconsciously distancing myself from that tone. Even Shawn, who didn’t know the real threat behind it, shrank deeper in his seat. I frowned at his reaction. This wasn’t the real Shawn. He was a grade-A asshole with a spine made of pure steel who never shrank away from Conrad if he could help it. When Conrad came down on me in meetings, Shawn usually fired back at him and got the conversation back on track to help me avoid a public flogging.
