SCOTUS: A Powerplay Novel

by Selena Laurence

  Roland knew not to mention Teague’s name on the monitored phone lines of the prison, so he never said what he was proud about or whom, but Deanna knew, of course.

  “Yes, it’s a big honor,” she answered.

  “But it might be tricky from here on out?” he asked.

  She chewed on the inside of her cheek for a moment, thinking. “It might.” She struggled for the next word. “It might not be safe for us to talk for a while.”

  “Okay, I understand. I won’t call unless it’s an emergency. But I saw on your byline that you’re in Washington too.” He paused, and she could hear other inmates in the background also using their allotted phone time. “Have you seen him?”

  Her heart squeezed at the hope in his voice. So many years, so alone. Sometimes she really didn’t know how Roland stood it.

  “Yes, actually, I have.”

  “Ah,” he said, satisfaction oozing out along with the word. “I’m so glad. Tell me. How is he? What is he like? Did he say anything about Lydia?”

  Roland also knew not to refer to his mother except by her first name. They’d been so careful over the years, so aware that anything they did could bring down Teague’s house of cards.

  “He looks…great. He’s big, like you. He filled out in the last ten years.” Her mind stuck on the image of Teague’s broad shoulders and powerful chest. “And we didn’t talk about Lydia, but I know she’s doing well.”

  “Yeah? That’s good. I worry about her. Getting older.” Another pause. “Did he get as tall as me?” Roland asked, his voice alight with joy.

  “Yes, he’s been your height since college, but now he has more muscles. And lots of expensive suits.”

  “Damn. That’s fine,” Roland said, laughing. “I’d love to see him in one of those suits. He was always such a skinny…” He stopped himself then, trying to remain anonymous when the conversation was anything but. “He was always skinny,” he continued.

  “How are you, Roland?” she asked. “Did you get the last care package I sent?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I did.” He’d always been formal with her, reminding Deanna that Teague’s mother had raised her sons to be gentlemen, no matter what had happened to Roland along the way.

  “I really appreciate the socks and toothpaste especially. I’m not sure how much toothpaste they think a person uses in a day, but it sure ain’t as much as I need.” Then he laughed, and she had to smile. How he could gather the mental energy to do anything, much less laugh, was beyond her, but it warmed her heart to hear it.

  “Well, you know I’m happy to do it. When you write next time, send me a new list and I’ll do up another package for April.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And how is your degree coming along?” she asked. Roland had begun a bachelor’s degree program inside the prison, studying ancient history, something he said had always intrigued him and so why not study it?

  “I’ve finished off six more credits,” he answered, a note of pride in his voice. “If I keep it up, I should be able to finish in about eighteen months. Then maybe I can get another degree.”

  Deanna swallowed at the reminder that Roland was sentenced to life with no hope for parole. He’d always seemed to accept it, treating it as though it were inevitable, and patiently enjoying whatever small things he could in the meantime. It broke her heart every time she thought of him.

  “I think that’s wonderful,” she told him. “I’m glad you’re still working hard and enjoying it.”

  “Will you see him again?” he asked her, switching the subject back to Teague.

  “I’m sure I will—for work. I’ll keep writing stories about it all. It’s my assignment now.”

  “That’s good. I’ve switched my subscription from your last paper to this new one, so I can read all your stories.”

  “Thank you,” she told him, meaning it genuinely. “I love knowing that you’re reading my work.”

  He murmured something about hers being the best reporting out there, and she rolled her eyes to the ceiling, tears threatening yet again.

  “They’re going to end my call in just a couple of minutes, but thank you for seeing him when I can’t. And thank you for telling me about him.”

  “Always,” she answered. “I’ll always tell you about him. You know that.”

  “You come out to California when he’s at his new job. Maybe you can show me some pictures of the swearing-in? I’d like that so much.”

  She’d been to California four times since that first trip. “Yes, I will schedule it. And I’ll see if they’ll let me bring the video in on my phone. That would be even better; then you could watch the whole ceremony.”

  “You’re a blessing, Ms. Forbes. I’m thankful every day that you found me and that I can be some type of friend to you.”

  “The blessing is mine—”

  Then the line went dead, and the automated voice came back on, telling her that the inmate’s time was up.

  Someday Roland’s time would be up for good, and it broke Deanna’s heart that Teague could never know his brother in the meantime.

  Chapter 6

  Teague overslept, and now he was late. And he knew damn well why. He’d spent much of the night tossing and turning like he had every night since the president’s press conference announcing him as her nominee. And while most people would assume it was anxiety over the confirmation process, he knew better. Because what he thought about into the wee hours every night wasn’t the questions senators would ask while cameras were rolling and the world was watching. No, what sifted through his head over and over again was Deanna Forbes and the look on her face when she’d walked out of that restaurant.

  He grimaced at the security staff checking him in as he entered the Hart Senate Office Building. He had to meet with the chief of staff to the chair of the Judiciary Committee before the hearing, and he was within seconds of being late. Because he’d overslept. Because he couldn’t stop thinking about Deanna.

  Half an hour later, he’d been briefed, warned, and coached into what the senator’s staff had said was “the most promising nominee we’ve had in a long time.” He walked along the catwalk that surrounded the high-ceilinged lobby of the building, making his way to the elevators in the far corner. Once he was on the elevators, he began the journey down to the basement level where the Congressional subway system waited to take him to the Capitol building.

  He’d always found the little subway cars to be ridiculous, but they were a necessity for lawmakers whose offices were many blocks from the Capitol building, where they held hearings, committee meetings, and votes.

  As he exited the elevator and flashed his temporary security pass to the staff allowing passengers onto the cars, he saw a flash of dark hair that set his blood boiling in an instant.

  He quickly redirected, nudging his way past harried Congressional staffers and brusque senators to the last car in the line of three, slipping in just before the doors closed. As the car started to move, he saw that it was empty except for the woman he’d seen. He tried to tamp down the excitement that bubbled up in his chest, but it wouldn’t be restrained, and by the time he reached her where she sat, eyes down as she scrolled through something on her phone, he had actual butterflies in his midsection. A thirty-four-year-old man with butterflies. Damn, he was like a teenage girl.

  “I’m guessing you’re going the same place I am,” he said, looking down at her.

  She startled, gaze darting up to his. His heart beat stronger just from that look.

  “Hi,” she said with a small smile. “And you’re right. Unless, of course, you’re going to eat lunch at the Capitol cafeteria or something.”

  He sat down next to her, nudging her with his leg when he did. “So you’re going to have to sit through the two hours of dull nitpicking too?”

  She tried not to smile, her lips tightening while her eyes sparkled. God, he loved her big blue eyes. “Yes, I’m the reporter assigned to your confirmation, so I’m afraid I’m g
oing to be at all these boring affairs.”

  He nodded, then turned to look at her full-on. “Dee,” he said quietly even though there was no one else in the car with them. “I think we need to talk about what you said the other day.”

  Her throat flexed and shifted as she swallowed. “It’s not—”

  “Yeah,” he corrected her as he reached over and ran a finger along her bare arm, making her shiver slightly. “It is. You don’t know what it did to me when you broke things off.”

  She bit her lower lip and nodded rapidly, lowering her gaze to her lap.

  “I almost didn’t make it through Yale that first year.” He picked her hand up in his and brought both of them, linked, to his lips where he planted one gentle, emotional kiss on her knuckles. “To learn that you regretted it—you don’t know how much I wanted to hear that.”

  Now she met his gaze with hers, warm, sad, and so desperate, it tore something deep inside him.

  “I don’t deserve your forgiveness,” she said. “I never contacted you because I didn’t deserve you, and I knew it.”

  He leaned toward her, smelling the soft floral scent of her hair, feeling the warmth radiating off her skin. He still held their linked hands between their bodies, but he had no desire whatsoever to pull back, release her small soft hand, stop breathing in her intoxicating scent.

  “I can’t stand it,” he whispered, letting his lips ghost over her hair. “I can’t stand the thought of you alone all those years. No family. No me. You were supposed to be with me, dammit.”

  She nodded vigorously, leaning her forehead against his shoulder. She sniffed, then pulled back to look him in the eye. “I was. I was supposed to be with you, and I ruined it. I’m alone, but it’s my own fault.”

  And that was when his heart cracked, and the betrayal and mistrust and anger began to trickle away. Because he couldn’t bear it, couldn’t wish it for her, no matter what she’d done.

  He put a finger under her chin to hold her gaze on his. “I would never wish for that, baby. No matter how angry and bitter I got—and I did—I could never bring myself to wish anything but happiness for you.” His palm slid along the side of her face, and he chuckled bitterly. “I used to imagine you living in Sewickley Heights near your parents with some rich white doctor, having his babies, sleeping in his bed. It drove me fucking insane with jealousy.”

  She smiled at him. “You were always such an alpha bastard. Dragging me around campus like you owned me.”

  He grinned, shifting a bit to get more comfortable, running a lock of her hair through his fingers. “You loved it. That’s why you always wore my old boxing sweatshirt around. You wanted everyone to know you were mine.”

  “Busted,” she said, shrugging, her voice breathy. “I loved belonging to you. Best two years of my life.”

  He looked at the creamy skin in the vee of her blouse, and his cock throbbed with want. “They were the best years of my life too.” Then he tentatively, softly, kissed her lips. A whisper, fragile and delicate, like the truce they’d just circumspectly negotiated.

  She gasped, her lashes fluttering before her eyes slid shut and she melted into him. He relished it, the weight of her leaning against his chest, the fluttering of her pulse in her neck as his hand wrapped around that delicate column and his fingers dug into the long hair at the base.

  But as he was about to press his lips to hers again, taste her deeper, reacquaint himself with the bittersweetness that had always made him irrational with want, the subway car stopped suddenly, all the lights blinking off as a siren began to wail loudly in the small tunnel.

  They both jerked, and his heart raced as he instinctively angled his body in front of hers, wrapping his arms around her protectively.

  “What is that?” she asked, turning her head against his chest to look out into the darkened car.

  Before he could admit that he had no idea, the speaker system in the car came on. “We ask that all passengers remain calm and stay in your seats. There has been a security threat at the Capitol building. Until it is resolved, security personnel are asking all passengers to wait. We will keep you apprised of the situation as it unfolds.”

  “Bomb threat?” Deanna asked, pulling against his hold so that he was forced, reluctantly, to release her.

  “Possibly. Or a gunman.”

  “So, we’re probably safer here?”

  He could tell from her voice that she wasn’t too certain of that, and truth be told, neither was he. But he was grateful that he was here with her. The thought of her in danger without him was more than a little disconcerting. Even after all these years.

  “Yeah, plus you’ve got me with you. I fight off armed men all the time.” He chuckled, and she shifted closer as the siren continued to wail intermittently.

  She laughed softly, then that inevitable awkward silence fell over them. He could hear her breathe in the dark, and damn if it didn’t make him want to pull her to him, tear her clothes off, and—what was the word they used to use? Ravish? Yeah, that. Ravish sounded perfect. Like a feast of flesh—hot, wet, soft, full. All that.

  “Teague?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You kissed me.”

  He scratched his head. “Yeah, I did. And I think you were about to kiss me back.”

  “We probably shouldn’t be doing that.”

  He stretched, putting his arm across the back of the seat behind her like a teenage boy trying to put the moves on a girl at the movies. Come to think of it, with it so dark in the subway car, this was a lot like being at the movies.

  “Look, I’ll be the first one to admit that I have no idea what’s going on here, but I also can’t say that I’m not still incredibly attracted to you.”

  “Yeah, we haven’t lost any of the chemistry, that’s for sure.”

  “Maybe we should explore that some more.” His voice was rough, and he stroked a finger along her collarbone, then down the center of her breastbone, ending up in her cleavage where he refrained from palming her soft roundness, but only just.

  He could feel her shake her head. “I don’t think I can do that. There’s so much water under the bridge. Getting involved when it’s just a physical attraction—I might not be able to do that.”

  “And who said it’s only a physical attraction?” he whispered, ghosting his lips along the tender shell of her ear.

  “Teague…” She sighed out his name, and it did dark things to his guts, scorching things to his cock. “It’s been years. You’ve hated me for years.”

  “I tried to hate you. I’ve been angry at you for years, but I don’t think I ever achieved the goal to hate you.”

  He pressed hot, openmouthed kisses to her temple, her jaw, and finally reached her mouth. The siren outside bleeped again, and he felt her flinch, but then his mouth closed over hers, and everything else in the world ceased to exist.

  Her tongue slid along his, and electricity shot straight through him. This. This was what it was supposed to feel like, what it had never felt like with anyone else. For the love of all that was holy, how had he lived without this for so long?

  He ran his hand along the curve of her shoulder, down the silky skin of her arm to where her hip and waist met in a tight little bend. She moaned, arching toward him, and he snapped, gripping her waist with both of his hands and dragging her onto his lap, where she had no choice but to straddle his legs. He groaned in satisfaction, spreading his thighs so that she was forced to spread hers.

  He heard something tear but was too far gone to worry about it as he dug his hands into her long hair and pulled her head back, exposing her neck as he licked and suckled the tender flesh there.

  Her hot core was pressed up against his erection, and she ground against him, little cries escaping her mouth as his free hand found her breast and squeezed, kneading and caressing until she was writhing on top of him, gasping.

  “Oh God,” she cried out.

  “Let me take care of that for you,” he whispered, like the dev
il he was. “It aches, doesn’t it? Want me to fix it?”

  “You’re such a bastard,” she hissed, rolling her hips slowly as she bit down on the flesh between his neck and shoulder in spite of the five-hundred-dollar dress shirt that covered him halfway to his jaw.

  He chuckled. “There’s my girl,” he growled before finding the hem of her skirt and shoving it up to her waist. His fingers found the tiny sliver of a thong that was masquerading as underwear, and he moved it aside to run a single finger along her slit. It was the fucking hottest, wettest thing he’d ever touched, and he nearly embarrassed himself like a teenage boy.

  “Goddamn.”

  She rocked against his hand, and he plunged two fingers inside her, making her cry out.

  They’d always been incendiary together, and they both liked things a little on the rough side. They had their sweet, tender moments, but sex with Dee had been a clash of desires that often left them both bruised and battered.

  “Harder,” she gasped as he pumped his fingers in and out of her, making sure to hit that special spot he still remembered did it for her.

  He wrapped his other arm around her waist, holding her tight against him as he drew out and plunged back in over and over, slamming his hand into her, grunting with the effort.

  She bit him on the neck right above his shirt collar, her sharp little teeth stinging his flesh and making his cock throb.

  “Oh God, oh God,” she gasped until he finally pressed the heel of his hand against her clit while inserting a third finger inside her and stroking her G-spot.

  She threw her head back, her luxurious hair tumbling down her back as she cried out like a woman being tortured. She came around his hand and he swallowed back his own groans of satisfaction. His cock was still hard as a crowbar, but he felt like he’d just had the best sex of his life because he’d made her do that—and in under five minutes.