Saving Liberty (Kissing #6)

by Helena Newbury

  He began to slam into me, his breath coming in pants—he was getting close, too. I couldn’t stay silent any longer: I let out a high little cry of pleasure each time he filled me and a panting sigh each time he left me. I could feel myself beginning to clench and spasm around him, the climax rushing towards me and—

  He put his lips to my ear and said, out loud, “You’re mine, Emily.”

  And then he buried himself in me and we were both rocketing over the edge, my body tightening around him as the orgasm ripped through me, him leaning down to kiss my panting mouth as he shot and shot inside me.

  Kian

  She lay on me utterly naked, using my chest as a pillow, and it was the best thing in the world. I watched, mesmerized, as her head rose and fell with each breath I took. I started stroking her hair, from the soft, glossy strands on the top of her scalp to the strands at the back of her neck that were plastered to her by sweat. Then on down her body, over her shoulders and down that long, sinuous back that had tempted me over the edge, right down as far as my arm would stretch, almost down to her ass. And then I’d bring my hand all the way back up and do it all over again, and I was instantly addicted. I could have stroked her like that for weeks.

  I could feel my rage subsiding: after years, I’d finally found the cure, at least for a little while. It had never been like that before: sex had always seemed empty, just a physical release. That hadn’t been just sex. That had been goddamn spiritual. Something in her had cleansed me of all my anger and now, running my palm over her tan skin again and again, I didn’t think it was possible to ever be angry again.

  There was a nagging doubt, somewhere deep inside that told me all my troubles hadn’t gone away, that I might just have ruined everything. Wasn’t this exactly what I swore I wouldn’t do, because I couldn’t give her a proper relationship?

  I took that doubt and crushed it. I wasn’t going to let it spoil this.

  Emily began to smooth her hand in slow, lazy circles over my chest. At first, it was relaxing. Then, as her hand slid lower, it started to take on a whole different mood. When she reached the tight tangle of hair above my cock, I looked down at her in shock, even as my cock rose in response. “Damn... already?”

  She looked up at me and the look of guilt mixed with timid lust was the hottest thing I’d ever seen. “Sorry,” she said.

  “Don’t apologize. I just thought you were all... y’know... sweet and innocent.”

  “I am!” She blushed. “I think I’m just... making up for lost time.”

  Her hand reached the base of my cock and it strained upward, achingly hard. It wasn’t just where she was touching me, it was her... her smell, her voice, her soft skin... everything about her turned me on. “It’s not like I’m complaining,” I clarified, rolling us over so that I was on top. I looked down at her breasts and grinned. Then I grinned again when I heard footsteps in the corridor outside, enjoying the way she tensed and held her breath until we heard them recede. “Come on. Let’s break some more rules.”

  She started to smile... and suddenly went stock-still.

  “...what?” I asked, worried. “What did I say?”

  She shot off the bed, sliding from under me before I could stop her, and ran across the room. I flipped myself over onto my back and gaped after her. “What are you…What?”

  Emily had reached her desk and was now bending over it, rooting through papers. I kept trying to form a coherent question in my head but, every time I managed to get a sentence together, she’d move a little, her ass would wiggle or her breasts would sway, and I’d forget what I was going to say and have to start all over again. She seemed blissfully unaware of the effect her body had on me. Didn’t she realize how gorgeous she was? Suddenly, she grabbed a piece of paper and straightened up. “Ha!”

  “Ha... what?”

  “I knew I’d heard S32 before.” She hurried back to the bed and almost dived onto it next to me, shoving the piece of paper in my face. “See?”

  I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her breasts—they were still bouncing to a stop. I shook my head. “No,” I said in a voice thick with lust.

  She blushed, finally aware of her nakedness, and pointedly covered her breasts with one arm. I reluctantly focused on the page. A report from the Environmental Protection Agency. “What am I looking at?”

  “A few years back, Rexortech was storing chemicals in an old warehouse. Nasty stuff, the things you use to make printed circuit boards. They weren’t careful enough and some of the chemicals started leaking out. Nothing really major—it didn’t contaminate the water table or anything but the EPA went ballistic and shut the place down until they cleaned it up. Except cleaning it up would cost more than just buying a new warehouse, so Rexortech fought it. And they’ve been back and forth in the courts ever since. Meanwhile, the warehouse is still sealed up and supposedly out of use.”

  “So?”

  “Look at what the EPA calls the building.” She pointed.

  South Side Unit 32 (S32)

  “It would be quiet,” I said. “If they wanted a place to meet and plan things....” I checked the address. “I’ll go take a look.”

  “Now?”

  I got up, hunted for my jockey shorts and then saw them across the room. “The sooner we get some evidence, the sooner we can go to your dad.” I padded naked across the room, grabbing clothes as I went. “We don’t need much. If there’s even a hint of the Brothers of Freedom in a building owned by Kerrigan’s old company, that shows you were right.”

  Emily got up and walked over to me as I pulled on my suit pants. “Be careful.”

  “Always.” I grabbed my shirt and started to pull it on. Truth was, I was eager to get going. This whole time, Emily had been doing the investigating and I’d had to take a back seat. Now it was my turn. With luck, I might even get the chance to beat the crap out of the guys who’d tried to kill her.

  But then she got right in front of me and pushed in close, sliding her hands under my open shirt and across my chest. Closer, so her nipples stroked me and my cock was nestled against her warm thigh. Suddenly, I just wanted to stay right the hell there, with my woman.

  I’d never had that urge before. Usually I’m gone while the sheets are still warm. Damn. How did guys with girlfriends do this?

  Was she my girlfriend now?

  I leaned down, she tilted her head back, and we kissed, fitting together as naturally as if we’d done it a thousand times instead of just once. It felt right. Maybe it was because we’d both done it a million times in our minds. And if there’s such a thing as a girlfriend kiss, not a lover’s kiss, then this was it. Soft and gentle but heavy with promises: a see you later, not a goodbye. I closed my eyes and I didn’t want to open them when it was over. When I did open them, the look she was giving me made me want to just hurl her right back onto the bed and start all over again. I had to force myself to look away and start buttoning my shirt. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” I said. “Well before we leave for your dad’s speech.”

  She glanced at herself in the mirror. “I better make myself look presentable,” she said, running a hand through her sweat-damp hair.

  “You look amazing,” I growled.

  “I don’t look like the President’s daughter.” She glanced down at her naked body.

  I strapped on my holster, pulled on my suit jacket and then walked over and gave her another kiss. “Maybe you don’t have to be the President’s daughter all the time.”

  She gave me a shy little smile, then kissed me again. And I headed for the door before that wonderful body made me change my mind.

  Kian

  The warehouse was way over the other side of the city and I had to crawl there through DC traffic. But that couldn’t dampen my mood and neither could the storm clouds on the horizon. I had a big, stupid grin plastered across my face like a teenager who’s just lost their virginity.

  Eventually, though, my hormones started to calm down and the doubts started to cree
p back. It was just a sense of unease, at first, but it thickened and chilled until I felt like I was itching inside my own skin. Shit. What had I done? What the hell was going to happen now? Was she expecting us to be together, an actual couple? That idea would last about three seconds once the President and the First Lady found out about it, not to mention Miller.

  Sure, she was a grown woman and could make her own decisions but between them her folks could bring a lot of pressure to bear. She was still a princess in a gilded cage: it wasn’t like I could just sneak into the White House every time I wanted to see her. And if I let her leave the safety of the residence and run off with me, I’d be putting her in very real danger. All those bulletproof windows and Secret Service agents were there for a reason: no matter what happened with us, she’d always be the President’s daughter.

  And that wasn’t even the real problem: the real problem was me. I didn’t know if I could open myself up again, after having been ripped apart twice.

  The warehouse was all closed up, the doors chained and sealed with EPA stickers. For a moment, I thought maybe Emily was wrong after all.

  Then I spotted the small door at the back. The chain on that one wasn’t rusty like the others but shiny and new. And unlocked. There were three SUVs parked outside and, when I crept up to the door, I could hear the murmur of voices inside. Shit.

  I crept inside. The first thing I noticed was the smell. It pushed right up my nostrils, burning them from the inside until I wanted to sneeze and gag. Some sort of chemical and not the sort it’s healthy to be around. The floor was wet with it and, as my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I realized I was surrounded by towering racks of chemical drums, many of them leaking. No wonder the EPA closed this place.

  The voices were coming from the far end of the warehouse. I crouched low and crept between the racks of drums, trying not to make a sound. At last, I leaned around a corner and saw them: six men, standing around a table looking at some sort of map. All of them looked like they were ex-military: I could see it in their posture, in the way they listened to their leader. And the man at the head of the table, giving the orders, was the second shooter from the park. Emily had been right.

  I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I had to get closer. I crept out from behind the drums, hidden only by the shadows. One noise and I was dead. I sneaked closer, closer... and suddenly stopped, my heart in my mouth. My leg was a half-inch away from knocking into an open shipping crate, full of gleaming assault rifles. Another crate contained grenades. It looked like it had all come straight from Rexortech—no doubt supplies that were meant to be heading to our troops in Iraq or Afghanistan but had been “lost” along the way. They were planning another attack and a much bigger one than the park.

  I was close enough now to hear parts of the conversation. “If that happens, what then?” asked one guy.

  I only caught the end of the second shooter’s response. “—Isabella,” he said.

  Who’s Isabella?

  Then I caught some luck. “Who’s going to lead the teams?” a long-haired man asked.

  An older guy spoke up. “I’ll take the south side team.” He nodded at the second shooter. “Powell will take the north team. We go as soon as we get final confirmation.”

  Powell. I took a long, slow breath in. Finally, the leader had a name. Now if I could just get close enough to get a look at the map…

  My foot landed in a puddle of chemicals, invisible in the darkness. The splash echoed around the steel walls.

  Immediately all six men drew guns. Torches stabbed out into the gloom, searching for me and, as I scrambled back behind the drums, one of them picked me out.

  “There!” yelled someone. A flurry of shots rang out, some of them hissing inches past my head. I threw myself to the floor behind a stack of drums.

  “You see who it was?” a voice asked in the darkness.

  “O’Harra.” Powell’s voice, and he didn’t hide his disgust. “The guy from the park.”

  I drew my gun, wishing I still had my Desert Eagle instead of the toy Miller had left me with. But even with it, I’d still be ridiculously outnumbered. I could already hear them fanning out: they were going to surround me.

  It went against my instincts—I was just itching to go to work on that bastard Powell with my fists—but I had to run or I wouldn’t be able to warn anyone about what I’d seen.

  I took a deep breath and sprinted for the door at the end of the warehouse. Immediately, the air came alive with gunfire and not just the staccato bangs of handguns: I could hear the roar of an assault rifle, too. Bullets split the air to either side of me, one of them plucking at my suit jacket. Shit! They’d started to run, pounding across the wet floor towards me. I might be able to stay ahead until I reached the door but then I’d be a sitting duck while I hauled it open....

  In desperation, I grabbed at the nearest rack of chemical drums and pulled. It was one of the really tall ones, rising thirty feet up into the darkness. It was already rusted and decaying, weakened by years of corrosive, leaking chemicals. With my weight hanging from edge, it sagged... and tipped.

  There was a yell from behind me as the men chasing me pulled up short. A second later, the first heavy chemical drum slammed into the concrete, followed by another and another, the sound deafening in the huge, echoey space. It became a cascade, drums bouncing and rolling, each one big and heavy enough to shatter a leg or crush a spine, and some of them were bursting as they hit, spewing their toxic contents. Powell and his men were forced to back off and hug the walls, some of them climbing the racks to avoid the chemicals. I staggered to the door and pulled it open.

  The last thing I saw, as I glanced back into the warehouse, was Powell’s glaring face. A chill went through me: he’d recognized me. He probably knew I was Emily’s bodyguard, now... and with Kerrigan already suspicious about Emily, they’d no doubt put two and two together. I was a threat to them... and so was she. They were going to come after her.

  I ran.

  Emily

  After Kian left, I took an epic shower, letting the water sluice over me and soak its heat into my bones. Lying with him on the bed, I hadn’t fully appreciated the workout he’d given me. It was only when I walked—staggered—to the shower that I felt the pleasant ache between my thighs and the floppiness in my limbs where I’d clung and arched and writhed against him. I couldn’t stop grinning. God, is it going to be like that every time?

  Every time. As I shampooed my hair, a worm of fear started to twist in my stomach. What was going to happen now? Some things had obviously changed but some hadn’t. He was still my bodyguard. And there was still a lot he was holding back from me: he’d pulled away from me for so long that I knew there must be some serious stuff in his history. Things that bad didn’t just disappear overnight—I proved that every night when I woke up in a cold sweat. He’d overcome them for now but they could still tear us apart….

  I frowned. The hell they will. I’d finally found exactly what I’d been searching for, that one safe place I’d needed so bad... even before the park, even if I hadn’t known it. I wasn’t going to give that up, no matter what anyone said and no matter how hard I had to fight for it. He’d said he was crazy for me, despite the fact he’d seen me at my worst, paralyzed with fear and too scared to sleep. I remembered the promise I’d made to myself at Camp David. Whatever he was going through, I’d let him know I was there for him, too.

  I rinsed off my hair, toweled myself off and dressed again. It felt weird, putting the same clothes on again after sex. Sex had always been a night time thing, not something you did in the middle of the day with people—

  My eyes suddenly whipped to my bedroom door. With people right outside. Had anyone heard? There’d definitely been someone there at one point, but we’d been quietish. Later we definitely weren’t quiet, plus someone could have seen Kian leave my room.

  I bit my lip. There was no way we were going to be able to keep a lid on this thing. Not in the White Hou
se. Kerrigan and my mom already had their suspicions. This was coming out, one way or another.

  The only thing to do was to get ahead of it, so we could deal with it on our own terms. I had to go to my dad. I had to stand there, look him in the eye and tell him this was happening. That’s exactly what I needed to do.

  Right after I painted my toenails.

  And tidied these papers.

  And answered this email.

  I managed to put it off for the entire rest of the afternoon, coming up with excuse after excuse, before I finally admitted I was procrastinating. By then, it was nearly time to get into the limos to go to the speech. Where’s Kian? He should have been back by now. My stomach lurched. What if he’d run into the Brothers of Freedom at the warehouse?

  I chewed on it for a few minutes and decided there was nothing I could do about it—not without drawing attention to the fact he’d gone AWOL all afternoon. I had to solve the problems I could solve. I took a deep breath, grabbed my purse and headed for the Oval Office. But when I got there, I was just in time to see my dad hustling his chief of staff inside, probably squeezing in a last-minute meeting before we left. I sighed and wandered on down the hallway, past the Roosevelt room. I turned the corner and—

  The Vice President’s office was dead ahead of me, just past the next junction. The door was open and I could see Kerrigan inside, tapping out a text message on his phone.

  His second phone. The little one I’d seen him answer at the party.

  My heart started thumping. I had to find out what was in that message: it could be the smoking gun we needed. But there was no way I could see from here and he’d see me if I got any closer.

  Kerrigan finished texting and shoved the phone into the inside pocket of his jacket, which was folded over the back of a chair. No way I could get to it... unless I could get him out of his office. Even then, I’d have to hope he didn’t take his jacket with him.