Poker Face

by Cindy Dees

  “Let’s get back to work,” he said heavily.

  Stone nodded grimly.

  It was a nightmare trying to cram years’ worth of position papers and political platforms into Stone. But the man did an admirable job of absorbing the information being shot at him out of a virtual water cannon.

  The good news was that Jack rarely absorbed all the details and nuances of Christian’s position papers, so any holes in Stone’s knowledge wouldn’t come across as strange. Stone was, indeed, as sharp as he’d seemed in the hotel bar when they’d bantered over proper whiskey consumption. And hoo baby, were all those smarts hot.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Stone blurted, staring down at yet another position paper.

  Christian looked up sharply.

  “Lacey’s opposed to an equal rights amendment that includes the LGBT community?” Stone demanded.

  “Correct.”

  “So you knowingly work for the devil.”

  “Oh, he’s a racist and misogynist too, in addition to being a bigot.”

  “What the hell?” Implied in Stone’s tone of voice was huge disappointment in Christian for selling out his beliefs and his identity.

  Christian sighed. “Thousands of brilliant, bright-eyed wannabes graduate from law schools every year and flock to DC, convinced they’re the next great thing to hit that town. At best, a couple hundred of them will get entry-level coffee-pourer jobs on Capitol Hill. I landed a job as a senior staffer to a senator who does happen to support a position I do hold very dear, which is that prisons in this country desperately need immediate reform.”

  “Still. Satan.”

  “Newsflash—most of them are both good and bad. Jack’s not the worst of the worst.”

  Stone shrugged. “Fair enough. I’m sorry for jumping you about working for him. I get it. A job is a job, man. Sometimes, you’ve got to do a little you hate to do a little you love.” He added, “Like impersonating a client.”

  “Touché.”

  They traded smiles of commiseration.

  It was nice to know he wasn’t alone in disliking the moral compromises his work demanded. Who’d have guessed a man like Stone, so different from him, could make him feel so much better about himself?

  Never would he have pegged a guy like Stone to be his perfect partner—

  Umm. What?

  “Something wrong?” Stone, ever perceptive, asked.

  He blatantly dodged the question and countered with “Can I order us some room service? I’m famished, and you’ve been working as hard as I have.” Plus, he really needed something to distract him from all that understanding and sympathy radiating from Stone. It was possibly the sexiest thing about the man to date.

  While he ordered up cold sandwiches, Stone ran both hands over his scalp, standing his newly short hair up on end. It reminded Christian sharply of sex between the two of them, and his groin tightened.

  Practical reality intruded into his fantasies, however. It was one thing to imagine a relationship with a man like Stone, but it was another thing altogether to actually live it.

  Stone Jackson was the kind of man who would derail Christian’s carefully ordered life. The guy would jet off to his next assignment and resume his nomadic lifestyle while he’d be left behind to wait and worry.

  Oh, it would be a wild ride while it lasted, full of thrills and chills, but at the end of the day, it would be a train wreck. And he couldn’t afford that. He couldn’t afford anything that would make true all of the dreadful things his family thought and said about him.

  He really ought to give up trying to impress them. But crap on a cracker, that was easier said than done. They’d sunk their hooks of judgment into him when he was young and impressionable, and as long as they continued to yank at those strings, he continued to dance on them.

  “Earth to Christian, come in.”

  He looked up, startled. “Oh. Sorry.”

  “Was it a good fantasy?”

  He screwed up his face. “Not even remotely.”

  “Damn.”

  Christian smiled apologetically. “Have you got any questions about Jack’s position on global warming?”

  “Nope. Global warming doesn’t exist and it’s a left-wing conspiracy.” Stone rolled his eyes. “All I have to do is say pretty much the opposite of what I think, and I’ve got this guy nailed.”

  “His foreign-policy positions are generally sensible,” Christian responded.

  “Yeah, and I’ll bet you wrote every one of them, didn’t you?”

  “Well, maybe.”

  Stone grinned and started for the door as a knock announced the arrival of their late snack.

  “Sit,” Christian ordered firmly. “You’re the senator. Other people do the menial chores for you.”

  Stone muttered under his breath, “Prima donnas… think they’re better than all the rest of us regular folks… oughta take ’em all out back and shoot ’em… or give them a shovel and a big pile of shit to move….”

  Amused, he commented, “You must be fun in a foxhole with a mouth like that.”

  “You have no idea,” Stone drawled, sticking his tongue in his cheek.

  Christian rolled his eyes at the crude gesture. “Crawl back up onto the curb, dude.”

  “Hey, you’re the one who said it.”

  And that was how eating egg-salad sandwiches turned into a metaphor for their relationship. Stone grinned unrepentantly and charged ahead while Christian glared disapprovingly and held back.

  After the snack, Christian asked, “Do you need me to go down to your suite and get any of your stuff for you since you’ll be staying here for the foreseeable future?”

  “Actually, my gear needs to come up here where I can keep an eye on it.”

  Glad for an excuse to escape Stone’s magnetic appeal, he headed for Stone’s room. The metal trunk in the corner was surprisingly heavy. He hoisted it and hauled it down the hallway. When he stepped into the suite, Stone jumped forward to help with it.

  “What’s in this thing, anyway?” Christian asked.

  “Weapons. Spare ammo. Bullet-resistant vests. Surveillance gear. The usual.”

  Right. Usual. “You live in a strange, strange world, Mr. Jackson.”

  “And gettin’ stranger by the second, y’all,” he drawled in Jack’s accent.

  Christian went back to Stone’s room to fetch underwear, razor, and toothbrush. Impersonating Jack Lacey could only be carried so far, after all.

  It felt weird to be handling Stone’s personal stuff. Which was disconcerting, given that they’d crawled all over each other’s bodies already. How much did he really know about Stone?

  He’d been so gobsmacked by all that sizzling sexuality that he hadn’t really stopped to know the man himself. And he couldn’t very well start asking Stone a lot of personal questions now. He needed the guy to immerse himself in being Jack Lacey, not dredging up childhood memories and digging into what made Stone Jackson tick. He sighed.

  He found a sports duffel and stuffed in Stone’s undies and toothbrush. He was careful to leave the room looking lived-in, in case a maid from the hotel were to say something to the wrong person.

  Which was probably a little more paranoia than the situation called for. But he was more nervous about them all pulling off the impersonation ruse than he cared to admit.

  It might be Stone’s job to anticipate everything that could go wrong, which meant it would be Christian’s job to focus on everything that could go well. Stone needed a cheerleader right now, not a naysayer. The man was already skeptical enough about this project without him adding his own doubts and fears to the equation.

  As always, he repressed what he was really feeling and painted on a positive face as he stepped back into the senator’s suite.

  “Thanks, man,” Stone said warmly as he took the bag from Christian and peered inside it. “That was thoughtful of you.”

  “That’s me. Always thinking.”

  “Yeah. I noticed. Do you ever
let your hair down and go off the clock? You know, just relax?”

  “I met you in a bar. Drinking. I was relaxing.”

  “That’s unwinding, not relaxing. Doesn’t count.”

  He’d been more relaxed than he had been in years when he’d woken up in Stone’s bed. But he wasn’t about to hand over all the power that sharing such a detail would give Stone.

  Instead he opted to go on the offensive. “You’re pretty tightly wound yourself, Stone. What do you do to relax?”

  “I run. Or go to a firing range.”

  “You shoot guns to wind down? Holy hell. I’d hate to see what you do to rev yourself up!”

  “I listen to god-awful rap music. Puts me in a foul mood in ten seconds flat.”

  “Duly noted,” he commented drolly.

  Stone stepped close to him and said quietly, in a charged voice, “I can think of one more thing I do to relax….”

  Christian gulped. In light of the current crisis, they shouldn’t. Really, really shouldn’t. But damned if he wasn’t going to go there. Just one more time.

  And then he’d swear off of this man before he became an irrevocable addiction.

  Chapter Eight

  STONE HAD done some crazy shit in his life, but impersonating Jack Lacey was right up there. A crowd of close to a thousand people crammed into the auditorium of a local community college while he stood in the wings at stage right, sweating all over the printed copy of the speech Christian had written for Jack.

  “You’ve got this,” Christian muttered encouragingly. “Just remember the Texas accent.”

  “Got it. Twang.”

  “And flirt.” A pause, and then Christian added hastily, “With the women.”

  That drew a bark of laughter from him. “Check. Chicks.”

  “This is no laughing matter—”

  “Relax, babe. I’ve got this.”

  Christian sputtered and turned an interesting shade of crimson as the introduction concluded.

  “Here goes nothing,” he muttered.

  “I believe in you,” Christian whispered.

  God bless him. That was probably the one thing Stone could hear right now that calmed him the fuck down enough to follow through with this.

  Stone stepped out from behind the curtain and fell into Jack’s I’m-the-Shit swagger. He threw in his best jaunty salute too. And then he reached the podium and turned to face the crowd. And every last one of the people out there was looking back at him.

  Mind. Blank.

  Cold sweat. Pulse pounding. Hyperventilating.

  So, stage fright was a thing.

  Surely, they saw him for the fraud he was. Jesus, he felt naked up here. C’mon, man. Pull it together. You’re a highly trained operative and can overcome any challenge. Including a bunch of harmless civilians and reporters.

  He stared down at the blurry sheaf of notes, and the words swam into focus. Breathe. Think of Christian. He could do this for Christian.

  “Howdy, y’all!”

  Bah-dum-bum. No reaction at all from the crowd. Oh, great. A hostile audience. Frowning in determination, he plowed into the speech.

  The pauses—applause breaks, Christian had called them—got a tepid response at first. But as the speech progressed and he outlined the new and more lenient immigration policy that Jack was now supporting, the applause grew.

  By the end he had the crowd in the palm of his hand. And it was heady as hell. Sheesh. No wonder politicians got addicted to this stuff.

  The speech ended to thunderous applause and cheers. The front two rows, mostly reporters, rushed the stage and started shouting questions at him. God bless Christian and his position papers last night. One of the voices rose above the others, and the crowd of journalists quieted to let the most aggressive one have the floor.

  “¿Qué piensa usted de que español se convierta en la segunda idioma oficial de los Estados Unidos?”

  He actually felt Christian’s gasp offstage. Apparently, Captain America hadn’t anticipated someone throwing a question at him in Spanish. Did Jack speak Spanish or not? Stone did, but he had no idea about the senator.

  He dared not glance offstage for support, or Jack would look weak. Unprepared.

  What the hell. Jack spoke Spanish now.

  He said rapidly, “Creo que es importante que cada persona los Estados Unidos aprenda inglés. Sin embargo, muchas personas los Estados Unidos hablan español como su primera idioma. Si queremos que todo el mundo aquí hable inglés, entonces el gobierno debe pagar y proporcionar educación en la forma de hablar a todos los que viven aquí.”

  The crowd went crazy. Not only because he was advocating that the government fund and provide bilingual education for everyone, but because his own Spanish was fluent and effortless.

  Leery of being thrown any more curveballs, he dared not let the moment turn into a mini press conference. Instead, he walked directly off the stage and up the main aisle of the auditorium to a crowd line that had been set up outside. He’d gone off plan by exiting through the crowd, but he had to make a snap decision and avoid those reporters.

  Well, damn. He thought back to all those times he’d been exasperated at clients for going off script and offered up a mental apology to them.

  It was hot as hell outside, the height of the midafternoon heat, and now he got to shake a few hundred sweaty palms. Awesome sauce. Moist, clammy, awesome sauce.

  He was a strong man with an iron grip, but after a hundred or so people did their damnedest to crush his fingers in the name of machismo, he was close to crying uncle. Cripes. How did politicians do this day in and day out? No wonder they opted for kissing babies. Tiny rug rats didn’t try to break their metacarpals.

  He’d almost reached the end of the line and Tucker, waiting at the door of the SUV, when a fast-moving body came flying out of the crowd at him. He caught the movement out of his peripheral vision, and his bodyguard instinct took over.

  He whirled and absorbed the hit, grabbing what turned out to be a young man. He used the kid’s momentum to carry them both to the ground, roll, and pin the kid under him all in one fast move.

  He stared down into glazed eyes that showed no awareness of place or self as the young man muttered in an incoherent babble. Drugs or a psychotic break. Stone knew the signs cold.

  Tucker shoved Stone aside—or at least tried to. But he shielded the kid from his security man until he could bite out, “He’s no threat, Tuck. Stand down.”

  Tucker stopped. “You sure?”

  “Look at his eyes.”

  A brief pause. “Got it.”

  Together they helped the young man to his feet. A woman stepped out of the crowd, wailing in panic. Stone muttered, “And there would be the mom. A hundred bucks says the kid went off his meds.”

  “Not taking that bet,” Tucker replied.

  The very fact that the young man stood passively between them now, mumbling to himself as if barely aware of them, confirmed Stone’s suspicion. Screams and shouts erupted around him, but Stone was only vaguely aware of the noise. He was wholly focused on the target and safely suppressing any additional outbursts.

  A pair of policemen rushed up aggressively, Tasers drawn.

  Dammit. This could get ugly fast.

  Stone physically stepped in front of the youth to protect him from the cops.

  “Stop,” he bit out sharply. “This young man is not dangerous and is likely mentally ill.”

  The police stared over his shoulder at the youth suspiciously.

  It took a few tense moments to get them to focus on him and stand down enough to register what he was saying. But eventually they lowered their stun devices.

  By the time he got through to Miami’s finest, the mother was beside the young man, hysterically explaining the same thing and begging the police not to kill her baby.

  Man, he hated drama. And he sucked at drama from women. Especially mothers. The last thing he—Jack—needed was to freak out some poor woman in public.

&n
bsp; Stone put his arm around the distraught woman’s shoulders and guided both her and her son away from the police.

  Christian rushed forward, and Stone pushed the pair at him, murmuring, “Get them inside and away from the police before the kid does something stupid to trigger a violent response.”

  Nodding and looking massively relieved, Christian hurried mother and son away, and for the first time since the kid came charging out of the crowd, Stone looked up. Abruptly, he became aware of all the people staring and pointing their cell phones at him.

  Aww, hell.

  To take matters from bad to worse, a reporter stepped forward and jammed a microphone under his nose. “What happened, Senator? Will you press charges?”

  He didn’t hesitate. He said scornfully, “Of course I won’t press charges. The way we treat those with mental health issues in this country is deplorable. We could all use a little more compassion and a whole lot more funding for treatment and care of people like that young man. They’re human beings, for cryin’ out loud.”

  He spun, muttering over his shoulder at Tucker, “Get me out of here.”

  The reporter yelled after him, “Is it true someone’s threatening to kill you?”

  Dammit. That rumor seemed to be gaining more traction day by day. More than a few assassins had killed for the fame, and he was hoping to keep the story out of the press in case Jack’s would-be killer was one of those publicity hounds.

  The ex-Marine hustled him into the waiting SUV. This one was set up like a limousine with only one bench seat in the rear, set way back from the side doors. He stretched out his legs all the way and rolled his head, trying and failing to release the tension from the appearance.

  After a short delay, Christian slipped in the back beside Stone and reached over low, out of sight of Tucker and the rearview mirror to squeeze Stone’s hand.

  It was as if Christian’s touch released all the stress he’d been forcing down. He let out the rattling breath that it felt as if he’d been holding for the past two days.

  “When I saw that kid rush you—” Christian started raggedly.