The Experiment

by Holly Hart

  My hand produces a fob from my pocket and sets it on top of the bills.

  “Do you know many civil servants who drive Bugattis?”

  Her eyes widen and she snaps up the cash. “Let me see what I can do.”

  The justice of the peace is an elderly woman with a severe hearing problem, I guess that’s what you can expect at two in the afternoon on a Tuesday.

  “You have the rings?” she asks as she flips through some paperwork.

  Sara reaches into her purse and brings out the rings we bought on the way to the courthouse. We didn’t have time to shop; I just bought the most expensive ones in the store.

  The old lady’s eyes pop behind her oversized glasses as she sees them.

  “Heavens,” she says. “Someone’s been saving up.”

  Sara smiles. “He stole $16 million,” she says.

  My heart thumps in my chest as the justice titters and Sara sticks her tongue out at me.

  “Oh, you,” the old lady says. Then she leans in to Sara. “Nice catch, dear.”

  She goes back to riffling through pages. “Which ceremony would you like?” she asks.

  “Whatever’s shortest,” I say.

  She frowns. “Well, that’s not very romantic,” she admonishes.

  Sara holds up the ring again. “This makes up for it.”

  “Young people these days,” the old lady sighs.

  “I, Chance, take thee, Sara, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health…”

  My mouth makes the words as I hear them, but I’m not really paying attention. I wonder if Sara would be surprised at how many times I fell asleep to this fantasy.

  Well, not this fantasy, obviously. But to us getting married.

  I gaze into her eyes as she says her own vows back to me. I always thought we’d write our own, and talk about everything we’d overcome together. Talk about how much we owed each other. These words are too banal to capture what we felt.

  What we could feel again. Maybe.

  “With this ring, I thee wed,” she says, sliding the platinum band down the third finger of my left hand.

  The old lady grins. “I now pronounce you husband and wife,” she says. “You may kiss the –”

  But I’m already there, my lips on hers, my arms around her waist. Her arms close around my neck and hold me in place.

  “Good heavens,” the justice mutters. “Get a room.”

  “We plan to,” Sara says as our lips part. “As soon as possible.”

  Chapter One Hundred Forty-Two

  49. SARA

  “This suite has two living rooms,” I marvel as we step into the place.

  The Sapphire is a downtown luxury boutique hotel that doesn’t have a designated honeymoon suite per se, but the Presidential Suite will do in a pinch. It’s 2,000 square feet of over-the-top luxury, and about ten times the size of the rec center storeroom.

  Smells better, too.

  “I’m just glad it wasn’t booked tonight,” Chance says, tossing his keys in a ceramic dish on the side table. “I’d like to make up for this crazy last-minute wedding somehow. This is a start.”

  “A start?” I say. “This place is bigger than the block I grew up on.”

  He grins. “Should I order up some champagne and what-not?”

  “Tell you what,” I say, gripping the collar of his shirt. “You take care of the champagne. I’ll take care of the what-not.”

  His eyes bulge as I slink toward the bedroom.

  “Don’t get lost on the way,” I say. “This place is huge.”

  By the time he arrives, I’m naked under the bubbles in the oversized pedestal tub that occupies a corner of the bedroom.

  “What took you so long?” I ask, stretching out a leg to give him a good, long look.

  “Just had to take care of a couple of things,” he says, wasting no time in pulling off his shirt.

  “I think you should be taking care of your wife, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” he says. “Yes, I do.”

  He stumbles trying to yank off the rest of his clothes at once. I giggle as he picks himself off the floor, finally naked, and joins me in the tub.

  “My wife,” he says softly as he sits down. “Wow.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Wow.”

  Part of me wants to stop this right now and have a long talk about where we’re going. What happens after the end of the month? If the sale goes through? If it doesn’t go through and we beat Pearce’s ass? Where are we going to be in two weeks?

  The rest of me tells that part to shut the hell up as I reach under the bubbles and grab Chance’s cock.

  “I heard a joke once,” I say, stroking.

  “Wh-what’s that?” he sighs.

  “Why are brides always smiling as they walk down the aisle?”

  “I,” he moans. “Don’t know. Wh-why?”

  “Because they know they’ve given their last blowjob.”

  “Huh.” It’s more a grunt than a laugh.

  “I never really understood it,” I say. “I mean, why would any woman want to give up blowjobs?”

  With that, I dunk my head under the water and take him into my mouth. It’s something I’ve always wondered about, and I figure what better time than my wedding night to try it?

  Chance hardens to concrete in an instant as I work up and down on his shaft for a few seconds. I do a lot of cardio, so I like to think I can hold my breath for a respectable amount of time. At least long enough to feel him start pulsing in my mouth.

  Finally, I can’t keep it up any longer and I surface with a gasp, pulling my hair back from my face and blinking the water out of my eyes.

  “Well,” I say. “That was fun.”

  Chance floats toward me and wraps his chiseled arms around me.

  “Yeah, it was,” he says. “Except I missed your face.”

  He pulls me in for a sloppy, wet, hungry kiss that’s almost all tongue. Meanwhile, he grabs my thighs and pulls them apart to make way for his powerful hands.

  “Okay, buddy,” I sigh in his ear. “You’re going to be getting blowjobs from this wife for a while yet.”

  His fingers go to work on me, and in less than a minute, I’m ready to go. I disengage from him and stand up, then turn and bend so that I’m propping myself on the edge of the tub.

  “See anything you like?” I say over my shoulder.

  Two seconds later and I’m shuddering as the length of Chance’s shaft glides inside me. Thank God I’m holding the tub or I would have fallen right out onto the floor.

  His hands grab my hips and pull me back to him, slamming me into his hips and making my ass jiggle. It’s like a firecracker is going off deep inside me.

  “Again,” I say. “Hard.”

  Another smacking sound, another shudder.

  “Faster,” I pant.

  He hesitates. “I have to get a condom.”

  “I went on the pill after our first time,” I say, pushing back into him and giving myself another jolt. “It’s been seven days. Don’t stop.”

  Chance takes that as his marching orders, and suddenly he’s driving like a jackhammer. All conscious thought escapes me as pure, unadulterated physical pleasure fills me. It feels dirty and sexy and oh, so right.

  “Fuck me, baby,” I moan. “Fuck me as hard as you can.”

  Suddenly he finds a whole new gear and he’s pistoning against me with abandon. It’s all I can do to hold onto the tub as wave after wave flows over me, making me tremble with pleasure and the effort of staying upright. Finally I have only Chance’s powerful hands on my hips keeping me from falling.

  “Oh God,” he pants. “God, Sara…”

  He explodes like a missile inside me as I come, over and over again. My brain has turned to mush – there’s only my body and his, and infinite ecstasy.

  Finally he lowers me back into the water, then collapses into it himself. We float there for a long time in each other’s arms.

  “Holy shit,” he says when we finally
get our breathing back under control.

  “Yeah,” I sigh. “If that’s married sex, I’m all for it.”

  “Champagne should be here by now,” he says.

  Suddenly I’m mortified. “Oh my God,” I gasp, feeling blood rushing into my cheeks. “What if they heard us?”

  “Out in the hall?” he says. “We’re good, but I don’t think we’re that good.”

  And just as suddenly, I’m strangely disappointed.

  “Well, then,” I say, wrapping my arms around him. “I guess we’re just going to have to keep on practicing until we get it right.”

  Chapter One Hundred Forty-Three

  50. CHANCE

  The downside to Bora Bora is that it’s a twelve-hour flight from O’Hare.

  The upside to Bora Bora is literally everything else. And, of course, the fact that we had access to Atlas Security’s private Gulfstream jet to take us there. Plus, recovering from jet lag is easy when you have nowhere to go, and all day to get there.

  Our tiki hut is one of a dozen at the private resort, each with its own private dock and catamaran. If anything else in the world exists outside of these things, I don’t want to know about it for at least a few days.

  The sky is the same clear blue as the water below us. Sara’s bikini, on the other hand, is emerald green. With her floppy hat for that infamously sun-sensitive redhead’s skin, and her huge sunglasses, she fits in perfectly on her lounger with all the jetsetters around us.

  She’s forgiven me for making her wait last night – or the night before last, or – I don’t even know what day it is anymore. Anyway, while she was in the tub, I was arranging this honeymoon.

  She shades her eyes as I hand her a mojito that’s sweating away its ice in the tropical heat.

  “Thank you, dahling,” she says with some made-up foreign accent. “Do I sound Eurotrash enough for our neighbors?”

  “Hey, don’t be judgmental,” I say, lying down beside her. “Some of these people are nouveau-riche American trash, too. Including us.”

  She giggles. “I know I say this all the time, but could you honestly have imagined this when we were kids? I know my imagination just wasn’t that powerful.”

  “Maybe not this specifically,” I say. “But I always imagined us being successful together. Whether that meant living in a bungalow in the suburbs, or vacationing in a tropical paradise, didn’t really matter to me.”

  I think I’ve made her uncomfortable, because she turns her gaze back toward the ocean. We keep running into these awkward moments. I guess that’s inevitable, given the circumstances.

  Fortunately, they don’t last long.

  “Whoever invented the mojito deserves a medal,” she says, smacking her lips. Her glass is nothing but ice, lime and mint now.

  “What about the guy who gets you another one?”

  “He deserves something else. He’ll just have to wait to find out what it is.”

  I jump up and run back to the hut as fast as my feet will carry me.

  Later, after sunset, we’re floating naked in each other’s arms in the shallow water under our raised hut. I suppose one of our neighbors could see us with binoculars if they really tried, but I don’t really care.

  The only sound is the light splash as we bounce lightly, and the distant sound of faint conversation from the other huts.

  “Do you believe in heaven?” Sara asks.

  “I never thought about it,” I say.

  “I think maybe, if we’re good, we get to choose our own heaven. I hope so, anyway. If we do, this will be mine. This moment, right here, right now, for eternity.”

  “I could get behind that,” I say. “Maybe we should start our own religion. If we get enough people to join us, we can make it happen. That’s how it works, right?”

  She wraps her arms around my neck as her breasts bob in the water. I’m still recovering from our most recent trip to bed after the mojitos, but my cock is still doing its best to stand at attention.

  “We should be philosophers,” she says. “All those old guys I learned about in college were way off. So depressing.”

  I sigh. “Here’s something depressing: we have to go back to the real world in a couple of days.”

  Sara frowns. “Says who? You’re rich, and I’m your wife now, ergo I’m rich, too. We can just live here.”

  It suddenly occurs to me that she’s right. Not about living here – although that would be incredible – but about the fact that she’s rich now. In the crazy whirlwind of our wedding, it never occurred to me to think about a prenuptial agreement. She’s legally entitled to half my money.

  Like I care. I’ve got much more important things to worry about. Like the fact that my flagpole is standing tall again.

  I plant my lips on her neck, eliciting a moan from her. Then my erection brushes her mound and she gasps.

  “The mojito delivery guy is looking for his reward again,” I whisper.

  She sighs in mock exasperation as she grabs my member.

  “Probably would have been easier just to give him the medal,” she mutters.

  She turns and tiptoes through the water, back toward the ladder that leads up to our hut’s living room, towing me by my cock.

  As I follow, my mind begins to go over the “living here” scenario with a lot more serious thought than before.

  After our lovemaking, we lie awake in bed, feeling the tropical breeze through the open walls of the hut, Sara’s head on my bare chest.

  She turns to look up at me.

  “Did we win, Chance?” she asks. “Maybe?”

  “Not yet,” I say. “But we will.”

  She gives me a faraway look. No doubt she’s wondering the same things I am: whatever happens, where do we go from here? We’re married now – will we stay that way? It’s a huge step, and we’ve only just reconnected.

  So many what-ifs. So many things to think about.

  But not right now. I lean forward and kiss her softly.

  “Whatever happens in the future,” I say. “This, right here, right now, is a win.”

  “Heaven,” she sighs sleepily. “Right here, right now.”

  She drifts off with her head still on my chest, but it’s a long time before I follow her into sleep.

  Chapter One Hundred Forty-Four

  51. INTERLUDE: QUENTIN PEARCE

  “You’re obviously wondering why I’ve asked for another emergency board meeting before the thirty days is up,” Pearce says as the Sullivans take their seats around the table in one of Empire Group’s boardrooms.

  “And while our chairman and chief shareholder is absent,” Agnes Sullivan says, cocking an eyebrow. “Of course you know that’s highly unusual.”

  “Yes,” Pearce replies. A muscle twitches in his jaw. “On his honeymoon with my former investigator, if my sources are correct.”

  Agnes smiles. “They are. It was a surprise, obviously, but I’m over the moon for them. Chance deserves to be happy, and Sara seems like a wonderful woman. I never thought you really needed an investigator, anyway.”

  There’s no humor in Pearce’s smile.

  “No, I don’t suppose you would. And yes, it certainly was a surprise that they decided to get married the day after Sara came to me with a shocking revelation about your company.”

  That gets the old bird’s attention. She looks like a mother who’s just been told her child has been caught shoplifting.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says as the rest of the Sullivans murmur amongst themselves.

  “Then by all means, let me fill you in,” says Pearce. “Ms. Bishop confirmed information that I’d gleaned from other sources about Chance Talbot’s relationship with your late husband.”

  Agnes frowns. “Patrick and Chance loved each other like family,” she snaps. “We all know it.”

  “Is that right? And your husband willed Chance his own controlling shares, rather than passing them along to his own son, out of love?”

 
; She glares at him in stony silence.

  “What if I told you that Mr. Talbot was, in actuality, a blackmailing thug who got where he was by threatening to expose your husband?”

  “I’d say this meeting is over.” She stands, but her son puts a hand on her arm.

  “Wait, Mom,” he says. “We’re already here. We should at least hear him out.”

  Agnes sits back down but levels a warning finger at Pearce.

  “Listen to me very closely, Quentin,” she says. “If you came here to peddle scandalous rumors, you might as well tear up your offer right now.”

  “I actually did tear up my initial offer, but I’ll come back to that. First, though, I’ll assure you that this is not a rumor. As I said, it was confirmed by Ms. Bishop.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Then ask yourself this: you saw her and Chance meet again for the first time in, what, fifteen years? And less than three weeks later, they’re married. How convenient.”

  Agnes scowls, but stays silent.

  “As you know, a wife can’t be forced to testify against her husband. And now here is Sara Bishop, married the very day after she passes along incriminating evidence to me.”

  “What are you trying to insinuate?” Agnes asks.

  “I’m not insinuating anything,” Pearce says mildly. “I’m stating a fact: Chance Talbot found out about what Sara discovered, and he either bribed or threatened her to marry him so that she wouldn’t testify against him.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Chance would never do something like that.”

  “Ah, yes, our noble, upstanding Chance Talbot. A paragon of virtue. The man who threatened to expose his mentor to the Central Intelligence Agency after discovering him embezzling funds during a covert operation in Mosul, Iraq.”

  Agnes’s mouth drops open. The rest of the Sullivan clan look equally stunned.

  “Where do you think Patrick got the money to expand Atlas after he and Chance returned from Iraq? Very convenient how it just showed up out of the blue. A couple years later and everyone had shares – including the man who had no capital invested in the company, just time.”