by Lexi Blake
Yes, the ménage his oldest son was involved in would more than likely take the spotlight off the youngest son. This was rapidly turning into his worst nightmare. How could he spin this?
“All right, I’m leaving this in your capable hands, Matthew.” The senator sounded as though he was shoving off a laundry basket on him rather than a powder keg. “Keep me updated, but do what you have to. Keep Lucas’s mouth shut until I’m ready to go public about Jack.”
There was a click, and Slater knew he’d been handed his orders. He’d been dismissed. The senator would move on to other more pressing matters, like his barely legal mistress. The way that man fucked around, it was mere chance that Jack was the only illegitimate child the senator had produced.
It took everything Slater had not to throw the cell phone across the room. He knew it wouldn’t do him any good, but the impulse was still there. He wanted to destroy something the way Lucas Cameron and Jack Barnes were about to destroy his career.
Slater carefully set the phone down and walked to the mini-bar. He opened the first bottle he found, not caring what it was, so long as it burned a path from his mouth to his nauseous belly.
He was fifty-two years old in a world that was rapidly being given over to the thirty-somethings. The new campaign managers ran on personality and an ability to spin anything. Everyone wanted a young, fresh face for the media. No one cared that he knew more about Washington politics and winning elections than all of the pretty faces put together. He didn’t look good on high-definition television, and that was what counted.
He had one shot left and that was making sure that Senator Allen Cameron became President Cameron. If he could pull off that miracle, everything would open to him. He would have his pick of assignments in the White House, or he could become a private consultant to any number of organizations. He could write a book. He could pay off his bookies.
If he could just get through the upcoming campaign, everything would be fine. Once Cameron was in Washington, it wouldn’t matter if all of the stuff about Barnes and Lucas came out. There wouldn’t be anything anyone could do. Having an illegitimate child wasn’t an impeachable offense. If Cameron was actually elected president, the scandal would be big enough that he could make a bundle off of it.
He opened a second bottle. This time he looked at it. It was barely a full swallow of vodka, but he had no doubt it was an expensive swallow.
He could write a tell-all book. Hell, he’d start on it now, so it would be in place when the scandal was fresh in the minds of the public. It would be a best seller.
All he had to do was ensure that the scandal didn’t break until after the election.
The vodka started to work, making his stomach calm down and giving him a warm glow. The real trouble lay in Lucas. The Barnes fellow didn’t seem to want any publicity. He doubted Jack Barnes would be stumping for his long-lost dad any time soon. He would keep his mouth shut and his head down.
Lucas, on the other hand, was a publicity whore. He’d do just about anything to make the front cover of a magazine. He was sure it had to do with being ignored by his parents, but he couldn’t bring that into consideration. After all, he had bills to pay and some of them were with shady characters. They wouldn’t care that his future employment was being threatened by some twenty-three-year-old’s daddy issues. He had to do something about Lucas Cameron, and that was that.
He was on the third tiny bottle when a sudden thought occurred to him.
A man in mourning was highly sympathetic.
It solved several problems. Death would keep Lucas’s mouth shut. It would put the question of Jack Barnes firmly on the shelf. It would also give the senator a platform to talk about drugs and alcohol. Law and order could be his central focus.
It was a gamble, but then again, he was a gambler. He took another drink and then made the call.
Chapter Six
Lucas Cameron briefly wondered if the massive dude who’d been sent to pick him up was also there to assassinate him. He wouldn’t put it past his father to do the deed, and naturally when work was rough, his father hired out.
“You coming?” The guy had to be at least six and a half feet of pure muscle, and he was not happy about his assignment. He glanced down at the sign he was holding. “This is you, right?”
Lucas frowned. The sign stated plainly that this man was waiting to pick up one Douchebag Cameron. “That’s not my name.”
Cool blue eyes looked him up and down. “Hey, buddy, I’m not the one wearing skinny jeans. You want a ride or not because I’m perfectly fine leaving your ass here. I’ve got better shit to do with my time than favors for Julian Lodge.”
The man actually turned and started walking away.
Shit. This was not going the way he’d thought it would. He was supposed to be able to make his threats and get his money and stroll off into the sunset. For good. Forever.
Or until he needed money again. He hadn’t counted on an asshole of a driver. He jogged after the man, though that wasn’t the easiest of tasks because of the aforementioned skinny jeans. His friends claimed they were all the rage, and he couldn’t possibly be caught dead in something unfashionable.
There was only one way to deal with this—brazen through. He strode beside the big driver. “I don’t care what you do with your time as long as you get me to Lodge and quickly. I don’t want to waste more time than I have to here. I’m needed back in LA.”
A total lie, but then he was a total lie, wasn’t he?
The big guy stopped at a truck. “You really doing this?”
“Going to a meeting with Lodge, yes.”
“I meant attempting to blackmail two of the most powerful men in the state of Texas.”
Lucas pulled his sunglasses off. “I’m going to have to have a long talk with Lodge about what it means to be discreet. Who the hell are you? You’re obviously not his driver.”
“For now I’m his errand boy,” the man grumbled before taking his keys out of his jeans pocket. “Yeah, that’s what happens when you take on investors. They turn into assholes who expect you to work for free. So I’m the guy who will be driving you to Lodge’s place. I’m also the one who is currently running a very invasive investigation into all the details of your life, and if you don’t choose wisely, I’ll be the one who deals with you. I swear, I’m going to find a couple of morons to train properly and give them to Julian so he doesn’t call me every time shit goes bad. Now get in the truck and maybe rethink some of your life choices. Starting with that hair.”
The lock popped open and Lucas had to decide. Did he get in with the crazy asshole? Or run?
Fuck. He couldn’t run. He didn’t want to run. He wanted someone in the fucking universe to take him seriously.
He wanted to meet his brother.
Screw that. He wanted what was coming to him, and this big Viking motherfucker wasn’t going to stand in his way. He climbed up into the cab.
Cool blue eyes met his as he slid into the seat beside the dude who was probably at one point in time a psychopathic killer.
Damn, but he was hot. Like super hot.
The man’s lips curled into a smile that kind of made Lucas’s heart rate tick up. Maybe he did have a death wish because he was a little breathless looking at the man.
“I’m flattered, but I don’t swing that way, kid,” he said, holding out a hand. “Name’s Taggart. You can call me Tag. I need to introduce you to Adam. You two have a lot in common. Flippy floppy hair and bad life choices.”
He flushed and looked straight ahead. “You’re very arrogant, Mr. Taggart. And I wasn’t looking at you. Not in that way.”
Taggart turned the engine and started out of the parking lot. “Sure you weren’t. One of the things I happen to know about you is you’re positively fluid when it comes to your sexuality.”
“You want to call me bad names, do it. You can’t say anything I haven’t heard before.”
“That’s not what I’m saying. I don’t car
e who you fuck as long as they say yes. That’s your business. What I am saying is if you have a brain in your head, you’ll turn this moronic blackmail attempt into a family reunion and you might, just might find a blood relation you don’t want to murder.”
“You know so much about my family,” he grumbled.
“Like I said, the report my firm is writing is super invasive. Your dad is an asshole.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Barnes isn’t an asshole. He resembles one sometimes but he’s actually a good man. You are not as sad sack and pathetic as you appear to be. So take my advice and turn this thing around,” Taggart said.
“Or you’ll do what?”
“Nothing for now,” the man replied. “But you can’t imagine there won’t be fallout. Even if you managed to come up with a way to force a man like Lodge or Barnes to actually cough up the cash, do you think there won’t be repercussions?”
“I think there better not be if they want to keep their reputations intact.” What was he doing? The guy was making sense, but he couldn’t wimp out. After all, this was exactly what his brother had done to their father.
Stop. He had to stop thinking of Jack Barnes as his brother. He had to stop being that dumbass kid looking for someone in the world to give a shit about him. He had to be stronger than that. It was time to stop looking for someone to take care of him and take a tip from his father’s bastard. It was time to take care of number one.
“Okay. I get it. This is one of those things you just have to do,” the big guy said with a sigh as he stopped at a red light. “But the next time Lodge needs someone to deal with you, I’m sending the crazy Irishman out. He needs to work through some of his shit, if you know what I mean.”
Okay, maybe he wasn’t so hot. And Lucas probably didn’t want to know what the crazy Irish dude would view as therapy. “I don’t and I think it’s best that you do your job and drive. I don’t need advice.”
For a moment, Taggart was silent. He glanced over to get another look at the man. Nope, when the man wasn’t talking he was hot as hell. Lucas had to wonder if he was a Dom at The Club. A few moments ticked by and he couldn’t help himself. “Is it a real kink club?”
“No.”
That was disappointing. “Oh, my reports said it was quite notorious.”
“It’s rich-people kink. It’s all pretty and shit, but it’s too elegant for my tastes. And who calls their club The Club? What the fuck kind of name is that? Lazy. Or it’s a dude who seriously wants to fuck with someone’s brain. It’s like who’s on first.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Who’s on first? The old Abbott and Costello joke. Like ‘hey, you going to the club? Which club? The Club? Yeah, which club?’” Taggart huffed a little. “You know once I think about it, it’s kind of mean. I like it now.”
“What’s the difference between rich-people kink and poor-people kink?”
Taggart’s hands tightened on the steering wheel, but there was no way to miss the air of satisfaction around the man. He was proud of what he was talking about. “One is in a luxury hotel and the other is in a shithole downtown because that was all I could afford. Businesses are fucking expensive, hence the reason I’m schlepping you around like I’m Lodge’s Sherpa. It’s going to take a while, but I’ll make it something special. And mine has a cool name. Get this—The Retreat.”
Finally something the man was one hundred percent wrong about. “That’s a stupid name.”
Taggart turned to him, his eyes chilly. “No, it’s cool and meaningful.”
“It means run away from war.” What was the guy thinking? “Unless you have a spa in there. It’s a great name for a place where you can get your nails done or run from the enemy.”
That seemed to stop the big guy in his tracks, though the truck kept right on moving. “Huh, I hadn’t thought of it that way. I guess it kind of is. Not the nails thing. It kind of is a retreat from battle. We’re pretty fucked up at this point. I started the place because we have nowhere else to go.”
“Lodge won’t let you in his club?”
“Too fucking expensive for my blood right now. I put everything I have into McKay-Taggart. Everything Alex had, too. We rock, paper, scissored for whose name goes first. I was surprised. I thought he always picked rock. Luckily none of the others has money or we’d be some weird-ass long lawyer-sounding name. That’s the company, but we need someplace we can build that’s personal, too. You know how when the shit hits the fan and everything is ashes, you need to start over again? That’s how it is with us. We need to build something or we’ll burn everything down. You, obviously, are taking the second path.”
Was he? Taggart was right about one thing. Everything around him was ashes. “What went to shit for you?”
“Everything. Personal life. Career. All gone. And it happened to my friends, too. So we’re building again with Lodge’s and Barnes’s help. But this time we’re doing it together. This time we’re not breaking up and expecting shit to work. Because it didn’t. Between my best friend and my brother and his old Army buddies, we’re a sad sack lot. I can’t even tell you what happened to the Irishman. Seriously, I can’t. It’s classified and shit. So we packed up and moved here. I figure I can either give them a place to be or I can watch them burn out one by one.”
Who would care if Lucas burned out? Not his so-called friends. Had he ever had someone who cared about him enough to build a sanctum for him? A place for privacy, a sacred place.
Huh.
“You should call it Sanctum. That’s a better name.”
“Sanctum?” Taggart started to pull onto the freeway. “I like that. Hold on.”
The truck veered and Lucas felt himself smash against the seatbelt.
“Oh, motherfucker,” Taggart was saying, but the truck slammed into the side rail and Taggart hit the brakes.
A car flew past them.
What the hell had just happened? Lucas took a deep breath. “I think that car intentionally hit us.”
“Or he’s an asshat,” Taggart replied with a groan. He had his cell phone out. “I’ve got to call Lodge and tell him he’s buying me a new truck. Damn it.” Taggart pointed a finger his way. “You use this special time we’re spending together to make my life easy. Change your fucking mind about blackmailing my investor.”
He hit a button and started talking. If Taggart was any more polite to the man who’d invested millions in his company, Lucas couldn’t tell. He was as sarcastic as he’d been the whole trip.
And it didn’t matter what he said, because there was no backing out now.
Lucas knew one thing about this world—there was no sanctum for him.
* * * *
Abby felt her eyes widen and her mouth drop as Sam walked out.
“Wow.”
She’d seen Sam look yummy before, but this was ridiculous. He was wearing black leather pants with a snowy white dress shirt open at the throat. He’d left several buttons undone, showing off his perfectly cut chest. The leather was tight and looked good against the black motorcycle boots on his feet. His blond hair curled perfectly right below his ears, giving a hint of softness to the square line of his jaw. He was devastatingly masculine, and she wondered why they were bothering to leave the room at all.
Sam turned around, giving her a perfect view of his tight backside. “You like?”
She walked up and cupped those muscled buns. “I love, and you know it.”
Sam turned and pulled her close, returning the favor by sliding his hands down to her ass. A small smile curved his lips up. “I’m glad you like it, baby. This is pretty much the way the Doms dress down in The Club.”
“Is it the way you used to dress when you worked here?” She was curious about Sam’s time here. She’d heard a bit about what Jack had done when he’d worked at Julian Lodge’s club. Jack had been the resident Dom. He’d played out scenes with submissives and trained clients who wanted to become Doms or Dommes. Jack knew exactly how mu
ch pain to give to enhance a sub’s pleasure. She knew less about what Sam had done besides his job as a bartender.
“No, I wore way less.” Sam smirked a little bit. “I almost never wore a shirt back in those days.”
“And pants?”
“Optional on some nights.”
Abby wrapped her arms around his waist. “Tell me something, Sam. Who tipped better, men or women?”
He seemed surprised for a minute, and he tensed up briefly. He almost immediately laughed it off. “Men. Men were definitely better tippers.”
He leaned over and kissed her. Abby went up on her tiptoes to press her mouth against his.
“They’re used to paying for sex.” She thought about the way Julian Lodge had practically eaten Sam up with his eyes. “Did Julian tip well?”
Sam stared down at her for a moment. “Julian didn’t tip, but he paid well. He was my boss.”
She didn’t quite buy that. There had been an awful lot of tension between Sam and the club owner.
“Was he your boss, Sam? Nothing more?” She put her hand on his chest to stop him from turning away. “Don’t. You don’t have to answer me if you don’t want to, but don’t think I’m judging you. I love you. I’m just curious. And besides, you know how perverted I can be. If you have sex stories about that scary man, I want to hear them.”
“Abigail, you dirty girl, I did not have sex with Julian Lodge,” Sam protested with a prolonged sigh.
“Oh, well, I can fantasize.” Abby stared up at him. “He wanted you, though?”
Sam grew still. “When Jack told him we were leaving, Julian called me into his office. I thought it was strange because he didn’t pay a lot of attention to me. He was close to Jack, not me. I went, though. I was curious.”
Abby could see where this was going. She’d seen the way Julian Lodge stared at Sam. “He asked you to stay with him.”
“Yes,” Sam agreed quietly. “He saw straight through me. He knew I wanted more from Jack than I was getting. He told me that if I stayed with him, he would make sure I got everything I needed. He promised to take care of me. He promised to be a permanent master for me.”
