Copyright
A Capitol Affair, Knight Moves, Mercenary Bride, & Tender is the Knight
All rights reserved for all titles. Copyright 2014 Jill Elaine Hughes
All rights reserved as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976. No part of these publications may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the Author. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the publisher.
These books are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
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Table of Contents: Four Novels
A Capitol Affair
Knight Moves
Mercenary Bride
Tender is the Knight
A Capitol Affair
Chapter 1
“Shit, shit, shit.”
I stared at the rolling news ticker on my computer screen in disbelief. According to the latest headlines on CNN.com, Senator Howard Grayle, the conservative Republican senior senator from North Dakota—and my boss—had just been caught with his pants down.
Literally.
Apparently, Senator Grayle—one of the most right-wing members of the Senate and an avid critic of gay rights—spent last night sampling the pleasures of the cheap male hustlers who worked the hiking trails of Rock Creek Park. (The very same cheap male hustlers who provided their services to closeted homosexual Washington powerbrokers under cover of night and thick foliage.) Conservative, stuffed-shirt (and married) gay-rights-hater or not, it seemed Senator Grayle liked getting his blowjobs best from greasy, desperate heroin addicts when he was cruising Rock Creek Park at three in the morning.
Only problem was, the greasy, desperate heroin addict who the senator hired last night was an undercover cop.
An undercover cop with a film crew, no less. Grainy video footage of the senator getting caught in a very non-“family values” kind of act was all over the news media.
Take a super-right-wing senator, add in some illicit gay sex, and sprinkle liberally with a slow newsday and America’s appetite for sex-soaked tabloid journalism—it all added up to a public relations disaster.
Shit.
I had always prided myself on being one of the slickest, savviest public-relations professionals on Capitol Hill. After ten years in the business, there was hardly a Washington PR disaster I couldn’t clean up in a jiffy with a well-written press release and a few hot sound bites. That was the whole reason Senator Grayle hired me away from Representative Dwight Harrison’s office in the first place. After all, I managed to save Rep. Harrison’s political career when he got caught cheating on his second wife with his twenty-year-old stepdaughter once I surreptitiously planted some vague terrorism threat stories in the media. The networks spent enough time trying to chase down the questionable leads I’d dug up on the Internet that the public forgot all about Rep. Harrison’s little indiscretion long enough for him to win re-election.
I know, I know—it wasn’t exactly the most ethical thing to do. But public relations has its own ethics system. The only ethic a Washington public-relations professional has to worry about sticking to these days is doing everything possible to make and keep their employer famous, rather than infamous.
And I do mean everything.
In my long PR career, I have done everything from making up fake press releases, to telephoning radio and TV call-in shows pretending to be a “concerned citizen” in order to name-drop my employers on the air, to bribing newspaper and magazine editors with boxes of Beluga caviar and Cristal champagne in exchange for favorable headlines. I even gave the media coordinator at PBS’ Washington Week program full use of my car one weekend last winter in hopes that he’d give Senator Grayle fifteen minutes of airtime to discuss his proposed Grayle-Rileman bill to legalize gambling nationwide. (The media coordinator wrecked my car, then cancelled Senator Grayle’s spot at the last minute. Not surprisingly, the bill failed.).
My sometimes extreme efforts to generate press attention for my boss didn’t always work, but they worked often enough for me to keep trying. And the seriousness of Senator Grayle’s latest public gaffe was calling for some very extreme PR measures indeed—even by my standards.
The one line I hadn’t yet crossed in my PR career was using sex as a weapon in the fight for positive media attention. But I knew I just might have to cross that one last threshold very soon. Senator Grayle had made such a public ass of himself that going horizontal with at least one powerful Washington news editor might be the only way for me to keep my job.
Or if that didn’t work out, I supposed there was always Starbucks. I’d heard that they had plenty of openings for eight-dollar-an-hour coffee baristas these days.
My public relations career was over.
“I should probably just go kill myself now.”
Rebecca, my cubicle mate in Senator Grayle’s office, looked up from her game of computer solitaire. “Why?”
“You obviously haven’t heard.”
Rebecca cracked her gum and booted up another solitaire match. “Heard what?”
“Our boss got caught buying blowjobs from boys in Rock Creek Park last night.”
Rebecca’s gum flew out of her mouth and landed on my forehead. “What?”
“You heard me. Turn on CNN. They’re having a field day with this.”
Rebecca flipped on the office plasma screen, which we kept perpetually tuned to CNN. Senator Grayle’s chiseled, aging WASP face and silver crewcut were all over it. The screen flipped back and forth between the grainy sex-video footage and Senator Grayle’s mugshot. He’d been arrested for solicitation.
Well, between the gay sex video, the arrest, and now an impending divorce, things were not looking good as far as Senator Grayle’s re-election campaign were concerned. Hell, at this rate I could even forget about getting a job at Starbucks, which considers itself a squeaky-clean family establishment. I’d probably be filing for unemployment within a matter of weeks.
I turned up the volume on the TV just in time to hear the news announcer add that Senator Grayle was still waiting in jail for someone to bail him out, since his wife apparently left him upon hearing the news.
“You know that means he’ll be calling one of us to bail him out,” Rebecca quipped. She would know. As Senator Grayle’s personal secretary, she’d suffered such indignities as scraping the senator’s vomit off the floor of a limousine when he got drunk on tequila at President Bush’s second inauguration party and running telephone interference between Mrs. Grayle and the senator’s three known mistresses.
Rebecca poured herself a cup of strong coffee and sighed. Like me, she knew she’d likely be out of a job by Christmas. “I knew the boss was a sex fiend after working here for almost six years, but this is the first I’ve heard about him having a thing for boys. He sure did a good job of covering that up.”
“It’s always the ones you least expect,” I said.
“I guess so.” Rebecca shut down her solitaire game and punched up Senator Grayle’s online media directory for me. “And I guess that means you’re going to want to start damage control with the press right away, Jasmine.”
I sighed and bit my lip. “Of course. Not that it’s going to do any good.”
I scanned Senator Grayle’s directory of media contacts, which he and a whole series of PR reps before me had spent years cultivating. Grayle had been in Washington for over thirty years, after all—and
I’d spent the past two years working to refine his image with his existing stable of press contacts, not trying to build up new ones. A mistake, I realized then. Grayle was going to need all the friends he could get in the media, and the fact was, he just didn’t have enough. I wished I’d worked harder on establishing new, loyal contacts for the senator at the networks and newspapers instead of just kissing ass with all his old fair-weather friends. I knew it would only be a matter of time before almost every editor, journalist, and broadcaster in Grayle’s tried-and-true directory would abandon him—or at best, make him into their latest punch line.
There was only one name left in that press directory I could possibly count on in a crisis like this.
Rodney Doyle, editor-in-chief of the Beltway Times.
Rodney Doyle was king barracuda in Washington’s veritable sea of razor-toothed press predators. His paper, the Beltway Times, was the lead rag when it came to hyping up right-wing politics and tearing down liberals. A rich whiz kid from an old New England family, Doyle had founded the paper right out of college by cashing in his trust fund in the early nineties, and had built it into the highest-selling conservative political paper nationwide within five years. The Beltway Times had such far-reaching influence in conservative circles that no Republican could get elected to anything—not even to his local wastewater-treatment department—without the Beltway Times’ endorsement. In addition to his influential newspaper, Doyle was a fiery political commentator who appeared frequently on television and had his own high-rated syndicated radio program and two dozen national bestsellers to his credit. Doyle’s huge media presence, magnetic personality, and red-hot political rhetoric could turn the tide of public opinion any way he wanted.
And Rodney Doyle wasn’t afraid of weaving his own personal brand of fantasy into a very stretched-out version of the truth if that’s what got him the results he was looking for. The Democrats could thank Rodney Doyle and the Beltway Times for being shut out of the White House for eight years, among other things.
And there was no level too low for the paper to stoop, either. The Beltway Times was America’s closest counterpart to an old-school British tabloid, and it seemed no scandal was too sordid for the paper’s pages as long as it had at least something to do with our elected officials in Washington. The paper used scandal (preferably sexual) whenever and wherever it could to manipulate the nation’s political winds in whatever direction Rodney Doyle wanted them to go.
Rodney Doyle’s spinmeister skills were so sharp, in fact, he even managed to make over Monica Lewinsky from sleazy tramp into glorious political savior of the nation during the Clinton impeachment scandal.
It went without saying that Rodney Doyle was a brilliant, slick, slimy bastard.
Or so I’d heard, anyway. I’d never actually met the man in person before. Sure, I’d sent his paper press releases whenever Senator Grayle needed an endorsement or a photo op, but truth be told, I’d always been a little afraid of Rodney Doyle’s cutthroat reputation, so I’d never spoken to him in person— even for a follow-up on a press release or to get Senator Grayle a slot on Doyle’s radio program. And I’d never had to. Up until now, Senator Grayle was a popular, established politician with a high media profile who’d never had any serious opposition in his home state. Senator Grayle had never needed more than a routine endorsement from the Beltway Times before.
But then again, Senator Grayle had never been in such dire political straits before. Senator Grayle was up to his wrinkled, old-man balls in the biggest sex scandal to hit Washington in years. His career—and consequently, mine too—were in deep shit.
If there was anybody who could turn the crimson media tide back in Senator Grayle’s favor, it was Rodney Doyle. And like it or not, I’d knew I’d have to start kissing Rodney Doyle’s ass pronto if I wanted to keep my job, cutthroat-slick-bastard reputation or no.
In fact, I’d probably have to kiss a lot more than just his ass, if you know what I mean.
And I’d have to start praying that Rodney Doyle actually wanted Senator Grayle to remain in office. If he didn’t, then I was sure that Doyle and his paper would soak up the squalid juices of the “Grayle-gate” sex scandal for everything they were worth.
The very thought of meeting Rodney Doyle face-to-face made little beads of sweat start creeping out on my forehead, and not just because I knew the guy was a slick, sleazy, powerbroking bastard. There was another side of Rodney Doyle that intimidated the hell out of me. There was another reason why I’d given the man a wide berth for my entire career, and it wasn’t because I was such a savvy PR professional that I didn’t need him or his paper.
No, there was another reason. One you might not expect.
I’d seen Rodney Doyle on television enough times to know that the man was drop-dead gorgeous, sexy as hell, hot enough to make my crotch turn to cream at the very thought of him. I also knew that Doyle had quite a reputation as a ladies’ man—especially when it came to seducing young, attractive female Congressional aides.
Which might make you think I was exactly Rodney Doyle’s type.
Ha. Not quite.
I might have been a female Congressional aide, but that was where the similarities between me and Rodney Doyle’s infamous string of Washington conquests ended. At thirty-four, I was not exactly young, and as a plump size fourteen with mousy brown hair and freckled skin, certainly not what you’d consider attractive, either. Which didn’t exactly make me a good candidate for any Sexy PR Savior of the Year awards. The chances that Rodney Doyle would find me even remotely attractive enough to exchange sexual favors with me so I could save my boss’ (and my own) career were roughly equivalent to the Canadian Army’s chances of conquering the world by force of arms.
Still, that didn’t change the fact that the very notion of seeing Rodney Doyle in the flesh already had my panties in a pretzel.
And the fact that I hadn’t had sex in the two years since I’d started working eighty-hour weeks for Senator Grayle certainly wasn’t helping matters. I was about to come right there in the office just thinking about going to meet this guy. I was right and raring to cream in my Hanes cotton panties—something I’m sure neither my cube mate nor the upholstery on my desk chair would have appreciated one bit.
Oh, God.
Rebecca tapped me on the shoulder. “Jasmine, are you okay?”
“Wha?”
“You look a little red in the face. Do you need an aspirin or something?” Rebecca rooted around in her bottom desk drawer, where I knew she stored samples of every over-the-counter drug from Advil to Zyban.
“Mrrrgh. I’m uhhh, fine. Just, you know, a little stressed out.”
And a little turned on.
Rebecca didn’t look convinced. She went to the water cooler and drew me an icy-cold cup. “Here, take this,” she said, then handed me two Advil. “I know you’ll probably be pulling an all-nighter on this one.”
“And then some.” I scanned my packed Outlook calendar for the day and cancelled all my appointments. There was only one place I needed to go in a crisis like this—everything else could wait. “Rebecca, do me a favor.”
“Sure thing.”
I printed out Rodney Doyle’s contact information from Senator Grayle’s online Rolodex and handed the sheet to her. “Rebecca, I want you to use all your sweet-talking telephone skills to get me a private appointment with Rodney Doyle over at the Beltway Times. Preferably for this afternoon. Think you can do that?”
Rebecca’s eyebrows raised. “Rodney Doyle? The meanest, toughest press editor in town? The king barracuda himself? Are you really gonna go to him for help with this mess? Are you sure that’s a good idea, Jasmine?” Rebecca looked worried. “His newspaper is so sleazy—“
“Look, we’re basically out of options as far as the press is concerned. Doyle’s the only guy left in town who can even possibly help us at this point. And since I’m sure you enjoy having a job as much as I do, I think we should at least give him a try. So, will
you make the call or not?”
Rebecca’s expression softened. “Sure, I can make the call. But I thought you preferred to set up all your press meetings yourself.”
More sweat beads broke out on my forehead. “True. But this is sort of a—special situation.I need someone with a—well, softer touch on the phone than I can manage.” A lie, of course. I couldn’t exactly tell Rebecca that I might have an orgasm on the phone if I tried calling Rodney Doyle myself.
What the hell was the matter with me? Having orgasms on business calls wasn’t exactly my style, after all. I was a straight-as-an-arrow PR professional. I worked eighty- and ninety-hour weeks all the time and hadn’t taken a vacation in six years—which was fine by me, thank you very much. When you’re a workaholic who loves your work as much as I do, you tend not to miss trivial things like trips to the Caribbean and meat-and-potatoes sex with a steady boyfriend every Friday. Getting one of my sound bites on the eleven o’clock news was what turned me on, not drop-dead-gorgeous men. “Sex” and “free time” just weren’t words in my vocabulary. Up until today, anyway.
Which probably explained why the mere feeling of my Hanes against my clit were driving me bugnuts.
I stood up. “Rebecca, ahm, excuse me for a moment. I need to ahhh—powder my nose. Let me know if you can make that appointment with Mr. Doyle.”
With that, I headed for the ladies’ room. I was in serious need of release.
I went to the last stall—the handicapped stall. Plenty of room to maneuver. I locked the stall door and dropped my skirt, stockings, and panties.
My right hand went straight to ground zero, which was already slick and sweet with my nectar. My left hand went straight for my boobs, which I expertly popped out of their underwire 38D cups and began to stroke. My nipples are already rock-hard—sharp enough to cut glass, even. I ran my middle finger back and forth over my clit, sending that little bundle of nerves over the edge in no time at all. “Oh, God, yeah,” I cried, not at all worried about who might hear me. I came almost immediately, shaking and vibrating and kicking the stall door in my ecstasy. But I didn’t stop there. I rubbed all my creases and crevices, spreading my juices as far and wide as they would go. I came again, almost without effort, but it just wasn’t enough.
Knights and Kink Romance Boxed Set Page 1
