I stared at Emily, waiting for her response. She was looking over Giggs’ shoulder, maybe looking for a way out of the conversation and I assumed she was about to shake her head.
And then, out of nowhere, she turned back to Giggs and said, “That sounds lovely. Let’s go.”
They started walking, heading for the doors that led to the garden, and all I could do was fall in behind them like a faithful dog, the anger expanding to fill me with each step. I thought she didn’t like him! What the hell’s going on?
Emily
Thirty Seconds Earlier
A romantic walk in the gardens, with Giggs? I couldn’t think of anything worse. Now, a few minutes alone in the warm, fragrant darkness with Kian….
I was just about to give Giggs a polite no and promise to catch up with him later (hopefully, I’d be able to avoid him for the rest of the party). I looked over his shoulder, planning our escape. Kerrigan was close by, talking to someone on his cell phone. He seemed to be barely paying attention to the call, just giving monosyllabic answers to the caller while he carried on making the rounds, slapping people on the shoulders and shaking hands. “Late,” I heard him mutter as he passed by us. “I don’t know when.”
I was pretty sure he was on the phone with his wife—and clearly, she was just an annoyance next to the important business of networking. I hated guys like that.
Then it happened: he fished in his inside jacket pocket and pulled out a second phone, one that must have been set to vibrate because I hadn’t heard it ring. His smile disappeared and he ended the call with his wife immediately, not even bothering to say goodbye.
Why did he have a second phone? I watched as he answered the call. He’d moved too far away for me to hear what he said, but it looked like wait. He was glancing around him, cupping the cell phone to his chest. Someone he didn’t want to speak to in public.
That meant it was a call I had to hear. I hesitated when I remembered Kian’s warning... but if I could listen in discreetly, find out something damaging….
I didn’t want to embarrass my dad, or make Kian mad. But I was convinced something shady was going on with Rexortech, Kerrigan and The Guardian Act. I was like a dog with a bone by this point: I had to know.
Kerrigan started to move towards the doors that led to the gardens—he was going to find a nice, private place where he could talk openly. If I moved fast, I could follow behind him and listen. But I couldn’t just march out there on my own or it would be obvious.
I turned to Giggs. “That sounds lovely,” I told him. “Let’s go.”
Giggs’ face lit up. He took my hand and started to lead me through the crowd. Immediately, all I could think about was how different it felt. Kian’s grip had felt strong and reassuring, his fingers curled around mine for support, but with just enough quietly confident pressure to let me know I was his. Giggs’ palm was clammy and he held on too tight, his arm lifted a little so that everyone could see that he was holding my hand. Kian’s grip had felt wonderfully possessive; Giggs’ made me feel like a possession.
But it was working. We were now close behind Kerrigan and, when he glanced around, he just saw a happy couple off for a stroll in the gardens, not a lone woman intent on listening in. He even gave us a patronizing smirk.
We were almost to the doors when I remembered Kian. Oh God! I twisted around to look at him. He was following behind, staring down at our joined hands as if he could laser them apart with his gaze. When he saw me turn, he looked up and met my eyes... and I could see the hurt there.
He didn’t know I was just faking. And I couldn’t explain, not in front of Giggs.
Worse, we’d reached the doors. Trying to maneuver two of us close enough to Kerrigan to listen was going to be hard enough. Three would be impossible. “I’ll be fine,” I told Kian. “You wait here.”
Kian gave me an angry, disbelieving look. “I’d better come, ma’am.”
Giggs put a hand on Kian’s chest. “I’ll take good care of her.”
Kian looked down at the hand as if wondering whether to snap it off at the wrist or the elbow. A few weeks earlier, I don’t think he would have been able to restrain himself, but he just bristled and looked to me for a decision.
“It’s okay, Kian,” I said. It felt as if I was stamping on his heart. “You stay here.”
And I led Giggs out into the darkness.
“What’s his problem?” muttered Giggs.
Shut up, asshole! “He’s just a little overprotective,” I said.
Giggs glanced back to where Kian stood, the light from the party silhouetting him in the doorway. “You think maybe he has a thing for you?” He chuckled as he said it, to show how ridiculous that would be, and I wanted to slam my purse into his head. The fear was starting to come back, too, slithering in from the edges of my mind as soon as Kian wasn’t there to hold it back.
Find Kerrigan. I had to focus on that and do it fast, before I freaked out. My chest was aching at the thought that I’d just trampled all over Kian’s feelings, but, if I’d hurt him, I at least wanted it to mean something. I looked all around us and strained my ears. There were a few other people outside, but most of them had stayed close to the building where the light spilled out onto the patio. I couldn’t see Kerrigan anywhere and for a moment I thought this whole thing had been in vain.
If it wasn’t for the gravel, I wouldn’t have found him. Fortunately, the garden’s designers had favored gravel paths between the high hedges and Kerrigan’s heavy footsteps made plenty of noise. He was heading directly away from the party, into the darkness—as I’d suspected, he wanted somewhere private.
I tugged on Giggs’ hand and led him down a path that ran parallel to Kerrigan’s. He grinned as he fell into step beside me. Oh God, now he thinks I’m eager! I sighed under my breath and hurried onward, trying to go fast but quietly. When I heard Kerrigan stop, I pulled hard on Giggs’ hand to bring him to a halt, too. Kerrigan was now only a few feet away, separated by a hedge. I held my breath and strained my ears....
“OK,” I heard Kerrigan mutter. “Go ahead. Keep it short.”
I stepped back until I was pressed right up against the hedge—fortunately, that took me off the gravel and onto the grass, so I made no noise at all. Now I could hear even better.
But Giggs grinned and stepped forward, too, until we were almost touching. Oh, great—now he thinks I want to make out.
“What?” asked Kerrigan. “It’s a shitty connection, I can’t hear you. Say that—”
And then, just for a second, I caught a break. The guy on the other end raised his voice and the connection cleared up at the same time. Even so, I wouldn’t have heard it unless I’d been pressed right up against the hedge. “—next piece of business?” asked the caller.
I went absolutely still. The darkness around me flared into light. Balloons against a brilliant blue sky. I knew that voice. I’d heard it almost every night for the last six weeks. I could see the man standing over me, leveling his gun at my head. “It’s just business.”
Kerrigan was talking to the second shooter from the park.
I couldn’t process it, didn’t even know how to begin. And then, as I was standing there frozen, Giggs leaned in close to me, his lips coming down to brush mine.
That snapped me back to reality. I twisted to the side and gave a quick, violent shake of my head.
Behind me, Kerrigan said, “Start your planning. Use S32, it’s quiet.”
Giggs frowned at me, as if telling me not to be foolish. He moved in again to kiss me and I twisted away again, still desperate to avoid making any noise.
“Keep me posted,” said Kerrigan. And I heard him end the call and walk away. I let out a long sigh and turned back to Giggs just in time for him to kiss me.
My arms came up automatically, but my hands just grabbed at empty air: I didn’t know what to do. I tried to step back, but I was already right up against the hedge and all I did was scratch my bare shoulders. Giggs’ lips were rubber
y and wet and, as I opened my mouth to protest, his tongue slid into my mouth.
I shoved him away as hard as I could. “No!” I hissed. I still didn’t want to make too much noise: partially because Kerrigan was probably still within earshot and partially because I was scared of making a scene—there’s no worse crime, in polite DC society.
Giggs stared at me, confused, then grabbed my waist with both hands and pulled me close. I twisted out of the way of his kiss, but his lips landed on my neck, instead.
This is my fault. I asked him out here. He thought I wanted this. I felt so stupid, so ashamed, that I didn’t think to be angry. His lips worked their way down my neck and across the bare skin of my shoulder: wet and slimy and horribly invasive. I squirmed and kicked. “No!” I said insistently. I felt him nudge the shoulder strap of my dress off my shoulder. “No!” I said again, right in his ear.
He drew his head back and this time he looked mad, as if I’d worn out his patience. He actually shook his head at me warningly. “Don’t be a bitch, Emily,” he chided. And he squeezed my ass with both hands.
And then there was a presence next to us. One with enough strength that just being near it lent some to me. Giggs and I looked around just as Kian’s fist connected with Giggs’ face.
Giggs flew backward and crashed down on the gravel path. As Kian marched past me toward him, Giggs reeled and made the mistake of getting to his feet.
So Kian hit him again. This time under the chin. I saw Giggs’ feet lift clear of the ground and he went down again, spitting blood and possibly teeth. Kian grabbed the collar of his shirt and hoisted him off the ground. He would have hit him a third time if I hadn’t run over and grabbed his arm. “Stop!” I told him. “Please.”
Kian looked over his shoulder at me. The arm holding Giggs didn’t waver an inch—he could have held the guy there all night long if he’d wanted to. There was so much anger in his eyes—the only reason it wasn’t terrifying was that he was on my side.
I checked behind me. People were rushing over from the party to see what was going on. I could see three Secret Service agents ramming their way through the growing crowd towards us and my mom was close behind them. “Please,” I whispered to Kian.
Kian dropped Giggs to the ground. A Secret Service agent grabbed each of Kian’s arms and I saw him tense... but a pleading look from me made him slump and he let them lead him away, resigned to his fate. The third Secret Service agent hauled Giggs off the ground and led him away, too.
My mom ran up to me, shooing everyone else away and bombarding me with questions. But my eyes were on Kian. I had to speak to Miller, or my dad. I had to explain what had happened.
And then, at the back of the crowd, I saw Kerrigan. Everyone else was watching either Kian or Giggs being led away, but his gaze was firmly fixed on me. Then I saw his gaze move from where I was standing to the spot where he’d made his call.
He knows.
Kian
A half hour later, I was back at the White House. I waited in the anteroom outside the Oval Office for another half hour before finally being called in. I braced myself, expecting Miller to be there to formally end my career—I’d already assumed I was fired, but I wasn’t looking forward to his gloating at having been proved right about me.
I looked around in surprise when I opened the door and realized Miller wasn’t there. The President was standing by the windows, looking out across the Rose Garden with a glass of Scotch in his hand. It swept over me again, even stronger than before. I felt... awed. “Mr President?” I asked. “Did you want me to get Miller?”
“He just left,” said the President, walking around his desk. “He had a lot to say about you.” He rubbed his ear. “Most of it at full volume.”
“Are you going to yell at me, sir?”
He didn’t reply at first. He came to stand in front of me and then just looked at me. It felt as if every bad and good thing I’d ever done was being weighed.
“I’m going to thank you,” the President said at last. “For hitting that son of a bitch.”
“Yes sir. Even though he’s a senator?”
“If someone tries to touch my daughter, I don’t care if he’s the President of France.”
“Understood, sir.”
We lapsed into silence.
“Miller wants to fire me, sir?” I asked. I had to know where I stood.
“Miller wants you to go to jail,” the President corrected. “Luckily for you, you had an advocate.”
Emily. I looked into his eyes, but he was unreadable. Does he know or not?
He swirled his glass, making the ice clink and rattle. “You’re dismissed, Mr. O’Harra.”
I backed out of the Oval Office before he could change his mind. And right outside the door was Emily.
Emily
I practically dived on Kian as he emerged from the Oval Office, then pulled him away down the hallway. “What happened?” I asked. “Are you fired?”
He was looking back in the direction of the Oval Office, frowning suspiciously. “No....”
I felt my shoulders slump in relief. “I’m so sorry. It was my fault. I took him out there and he thought—”
Kian snapped his head around and stared at me. “Wait—what?”
“I—You know, I said I’d go on a walk with him and he thought I wanted to make out. It was my fault.”
We were still walking. He suddenly grabbed my arm and pulled me up short, then spun me to face him. “Are you kidding?” I could hear the Irish in his voice. “‘He thought you wanted to make out’... so that makes it your fault?!”
I just stood there gaping at him.
“It was not your fault. There’s no feckin’ excuse for what he did!”
I stared at him. I knew it, I’d been trying to convince myself of it... but that wasn’t the same as hearing it from someone else. I finally nodded, a huge lump in my throat. But weirdly, once I couldn’t blame myself, the whole thing felt scarier in some ways. If it had been my fault, I could tell myself I’d be smarter next time. But the idea that it was him, that that could be lurking behind expensive suits and designer ties everywhere, anywhere….
Kian’s hand landed gently on my shoulder, right where Giggs had kissed the skin. The warmth of him felt cleansing, soaking away Giggs’s touch. The hand slid smoothly up and cupped my cheek and I felt myself relax into it.
“Come on,” he said. “I’m going to show you something.”
He took me by the hand and led me to the residence, then straight into my bedroom.
“I want to show you what to do, the next time some bastard doesn’t know what ‘no’ means,” he said.
I nodded.
He stood facing me and took each of my hands in his. “Grab him here,” he said, planting each of my palms on his hips. I’d felt his hands on me plenty of times but it was almost the first time I’d touched him. I could feel the power of his hip muscles, huge and solid. If my fingertips slid back just an inch, they’d be holding that tight, hard ass I’d admired so many times as he walked ahead of me.
“Bring one leg between mine,” he said. He sounded calm and neutral, so I tried to be clinical about it myself. This doesn’t mean anything. He’s just teaching me. I moved my leg between his.
“No,” he said. “If you do it right in the middle, between my feet, I can squeeze my legs together and trap you.” He demonstrated, closing his legs like a trap. My dress left my lower leg bare and suddenly my calf was pinned between both of his, the heat of him throbbing into me through the thin fabric of his pants. I felt my breath hitch faster in my chest.
He opened his legs again. “Try it again, but this time, press your leg up against one of mine. It makes it harder for me to trap you: I can do it, but I’d have to throw myself off balance.”
I slid my leg between his again, but this time I pressed the outside of my thigh tight against the inside of his. Feeling the heat of him there was very different to feeling it against my calf. And as he shifted his weig
ht, I felt the outline of his cock brush against my inner thigh. He was already half-hard and swelling against me.
“Good,” he said. His voice wasn’t so neutral, now. “Now you need to bring your knee up at just the right angle. Slowly first!” He said it so firmly we both laughed and the tension was broken for a second. But as soon as I started to lift my knee, it was back. My dress fell away from my leg as it rose, baring my knee. It moved higher, higher—that was his cock I just brushed against. I wobbled—it was difficult to do it slowly, especially in heels—and he grabbed for my shoulders and steadied me, his palms warm against my bare skin.
And then my knee reached his balls. I could feel them resting right on my kneecap, hot and... heavy.
“There,” he said. His voice was strained and the Irish was the clearest I’d ever heard it. “That’s where you need to be.”
I nodded as if we were discussing the best way to change a tire.
“Now let’s get you bringing your knee up fast. Not like this!” We both laughed again, but this time it barely broke the tension at all. We were too close. Way too close. It felt like the temperature in the room had shot up ten degrees since he closed the door.
He eased away from me. “Let me see your hardest, fastest knee.” He held out his hand, palm down, as a target.
I swung my leg up. My bare knee hit his palm with a soft slapping sound and, as I wobbled around on my standing leg, his fingertips grazed my thigh just above the knee. I let my leg fall back. We must have only been in contact for a split second, but the feel of his hand remained, sending twisting ribbons of electricity all the way up my leg to my groin.
“It needs to be harder,” he said. He walked around behind me, almost-but-not-quite touching me. I could feel his breath on the back of my neck. Then his hands were on my hips from behind. I swallowed. “You need to twist from here,” he said. “A little step back... then step into it, twisting, and ram your leg up the inside of his thigh and hit right where I showed you.” He started to move me, controlling me like a mannequin. “Back....” My hips flexed under his hands, his fingertips stroking the crease where my legs joined my body, and I went weak. I stepped back... and my ass pressed against his cock, hot and fully hard now, outlined through his suit pants. I was almost panting, the need to just spin around and kiss him almost overpowering.
Saving Liberty (Kissing #6) Page 12
