I’m good with that.
Because I want to stack the deck as much as I can for Elliot.
I feel my pocket vibrate and retrieve what turns out to be my campaign phone to find a text from Kev’s personal phone. How he got this number already is beyond me, but he did.
All that’s there is a thumbs-up emoji.
It cannot be about anything but what just transpired. Meaning, somehow, Kev had someone get him a live feed.
I text him back a smiley face.
I know why he contacted me on the campaign phone—because he doesn’t want an official record on his work cell or mine.
Forty-five minutes later, we’re out of there and heading to the campaign headquarters.
Away from the public, Elliot now looks like shit, which I anticipated, and which is why we’re alone in the back of the armored SUV.
“You were amazing, boy.” That’s not even a lie. He was fantastic.
“Thank you, Sir.”
“This’ll be fine.”
When he finally meets my gaze, he looks…grief-stricken. “What did I just do?” he whispers.
I pull him in for a hug. “Remember, you can always drop out later, if you have to. We’ll cite your health, or your parents, or something. Anything.”
That he lets me hold him like this, in the vehicle, shows me how truly torn apart he is inside. “What if he walks away from me and orders you to go with him?”
He doesn’t need to clarify who he means. “He can’t, because I won’t leave you.” I clamp his face in my hands and make him look at me. “You’re stuck with me, boy. Get that through your handsome head.”
* * * *
It’s six o’clock by the time we return to the residence. Elliot is totally fried, and while his staff wanted him to stay later and eat dinner with them, I played bad cop and said he had phone calls to deal with and got us out of there.
Technically, not a lie, because I’m sure there will be a chat with Leo tonight.
Upstairs, I strip Elliot and we take a soak in the tub.
“Have you turned your cell back on?” he asks.
We’re sitting with my arm draped around his shoulders and he’s practically wrapped around me. I nuzzle the top of his head. “Not yet.”
I haven’t even checked my personal e-mail. I’ve been a little damned busy, you know.
“You realize he’s probably worried about you.”
“Not my concern right now.”
Maybe that’s a little vindictive of me.
Maybe.
Maybe?
All right, fuck. I know that’s vindictive of me.
Ask me if I give a shit.
I mean, I totally do, but it’s all I can think to do in this moment.
The worst thing is, I’m pissed more at myself than I am at Leo.
I mean, okay, I’m pissed at Leo for not coming after me, for letting contact lapse, and, yes, I’m really pissed off at him for letting Elliot get as bad as he did.
Honestly?
I don’t know how to face Leo yet.
I’m not ready for that. Let me deal with one massive upheaval in my life at a time, all right? I was just starting to find my footing back in Tallahassee when…
Sigh.
No, I wasn’t. Why should I lie to myself? I was stuck and miserable and nothing was getting better.
Not until Elliot showed up.
That means I’m not letting him go.
We’re downstairs eating in the den an hour later. I use fresh pizza dough I made the night before and stored in the fridge to make us a custom pie. It’s healthier and it means I can feed him comfort food that’s not complete junk.
Elliot’s in his collar and bracelet and naked, curled up on the sofa while I handfeed him bites of pizza.
That’s when the burner phone rings with a Signal call where it’s sitting on the end table next to the sofa with my other eighty billion phones I now have.
Except my personal one. That’s upstairs.
Elliot freezes.
Guess he got Leo’s attention.
My heart’s pounding as I reach over, grab the phone, and answer it in speaker mode before handing it to him.
Here we go.
He sits up. “Hello, Master.”
There’s a pause. “You’re home?”
My heart pounds at the sound of his voice. Damn, have I missed him.
“Yes, Sir.” Elliot wears wide-eyed terror as he stares at the phone in his hand.
Leo sounds exhausted. “Is there anything you want to tell me, pet?”
We covered this on the way home today, how he’s to deal with Leo.
He’s to play fucking stupid. “Tell you what, Master?”
“Anything happen today? Anything…big?” I can imagine Leo standing there, eyes closed, and rubbing his forehead with his other hand. “Anything of note you might want to talk to me about?”
“I-I mean, I officially declared today, and—”
“Yeah, that. Let’s discuss that.”
Elliot’s cheeks flush. “It’s just a formality—”
“It’s a formality we haven’t discussed, pet.”
Oooh, Leo sounds pissed.
Somewhere deep inside me, I feel a little guilty that there’s a part of me jumping up and down and cheering over that.
Take that.
Elliot sucks in a deep breath. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the event, but I know you’re busy on the trip.”
“A little heads-up would’ve been nice. Hearing the fucking press cabin suddenly sound like someone fed a live baby through a woodchipper on national TV wasn’t exactly the way I wanted to find out about this.”
“I cleared it with Shae and Kev. The timing was Kev’s idea.” This is another of my contributions to the discussion. Personally, I want to drive home to Leo that Elliot isn’t the only one in this sitch with emotional issues.
Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt, as they say.
When there’s no response, we both look at the phone to make sure the call didn’t drop.
It hasn’t.
Elliot finally says something. “Leo?”
“Yeah. I’m here.”
Wow. He sounds…pissed.
“Is something wrong?”
“You’re telling me Kev and the president knew you were going to declare today?”
Leo’s a professional. He won’t fuck his job over this. I let Elliot continue talking to him. “I mean, they’ve known I’m running. This timing worked out perfectly to try to hold on to the news cycle. Stuff about the trip this morning, and then it was too late for the Sunday morning shows to do anything about it, so it’ll spin into tomorrow morning, too.”
Another long, tense pause. “El, be honest with me. Are we all right?”
Elliot looks guilty as hell. His cheeks flush even deeper as panic widens his eyes.
How sick am I that it hardens my cock? Maybe I’m more of a sadist than I thought.
I nod and encourage him to speak.
“We’re fine, Master,” he says. “Why?”
But Leo’s going to rightfully nail him on this later, because even I can hear it in his voice.
“Then why don’t you sound like things are fine? What’s going on? You haven’t responded to my texts like you normally do, and you haven’t been texting me in the mornings and at night. And now…this. I mean, in all your plans you never thought to drop me so much as an FYI text to give me a heads-up this was happening today? If something’s going on from your end, and you’re walking away from me, please just tell me and get it over with.”
“Master, I-I’m sorry. It’s a lot coming at me all at once. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was officially announcing. I…I thought you realized I was.” He’s rubbing his forehead. “I’ve been juggling a lot of things, and you had the trip, and I’m sorry.”
“And you’re not breaking up with me? Because, I gotta say, this is starting to feel like that.”
I watch Elliot bl
ink back tears. “No, Master! I love you. I’m doing the best I can. I’m…struggling. I’m sorry.”
There’s another long pause before Leo audibly sighs. “I’ll give Shae notice and come work for you, pet. Effective once the trip’s over and we’re back in DC. I can go ahead and—”
“No, Master.”
Leo pauses again. “What do you mean, no?”
“You need to finish Shae’s term with her. Sh-she needs you.”
A darker tone washes into Leo’s voice. “What’s going on, pet? Seriously, what aren’t you telling me? It really feels like you’re hiding something from me, and frankly, I do not have the patience for games from anyone right now, especially from you.”
Holy shit, he’s not just pissed—he’s incensed.
And I think I know why. If Elliot’s right that my personal phone has a tracker on it, and I’ve been off the grid for ten days…
Yeah. Leo Cruz is not handling this well at all. Stress because of the trip, added to stress worrying about me suddenly coming up missing, and now this?
Maybe Elliot isn’t the only one who’s going to have a hard paradigm shift in their life going forward.
I give Elliot a wrap-it-up signal and he looks so blessedly relieved that it’d be funny if it wasn’t so serious. “I love you, and everything’s fine, Master. But I need to go. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
Leo’s hesitation is more proof to me that he doesn’t want to end this call, except he realizes Elliot’s not giving him anything else tonight. “Love you, too, pet. I wish you’d let me in, but you know I’m here if or when you’re ready to talk to me.”
“Yes, Master. I know. But everything’s okay, I swear. I love you. Good night.”
Leo finally responds. “Love you, too, pet. Good night.”
Elliot ends the call and his eyes fall closed as I take the phone from him. When he starts sobbing, I pull him into my arms, softly cooing to him.
“You were perfect, baby. So perfect.” I kiss him.
“I feel like I lied to him.”
“You didn’t lie. You were my good boy and said exactly what needed to be said right now. You followed orders perfectly.”
“He’s so upset.”
“Well, if you’re right that he had a tracking app on my phone, maybe he’s worried about me.”
I hope.
Another flash of guilt tries to work through me and I shove it to the side.
Elliot’s brow furrows. “When are you going to tell him, Sir?”
“I haven’t yet decided how to handle that.” There’s too much emotional sewage rolling around inside me, and, for now, I need to focus on Elliot.
His needs far outweigh mine.
Elliot needs me.
Again, I know, I know. I’m self-medicating via Elliot.
I get it.
I don’t need Leo’s psychology degree to tell me that.
Maybe there’s more than a little perverse satisfaction rolling through me at the thought of Leo maybe being worried about me.
Okay, fine. Fuck. Not maybe—there’s a lot of perverse satisfaction rolling through me right now.
I finally get Elliot calmed and settled so we can resume eating, even though my appetite’s mostly gone.
“Do you want me to tell him for you, Sir?” he softly asks. “That you’re back and working for me?”
Actually…that’s very touching that he’d consider doing that. “No, boy. I don’t want you doing that. I will deal with him in my own way and time.” I boop his nose with my finger. “And that is definitely an order.” He relaxes at that, at being told he can just let go.
Once I have him asleep in bed, I retrieve my personal tablet from my room and power it up. I haven’t opened my personal laptop since arriving in DC because I’ve been too damned busy.
In retrospect, maybe that’s a good thing. No telling what Leo might have put on it.
I bought this tablet after I moved to Tallahassee, because my old one died when I accidentally dropped it in the kitchen sink.
And the other way I check my personal e-mail is on my phone.
Well, duh.
So I log into my e-mail on my tablet, and…
Holy shit.
I have fifteen e-mails from Leo asking me to please text or call him. The earliest one, sent the day after I returned to DC with Elliot, is sort of casually phrased, just checking in, missing me, wanting to know how I’m doing, and…
Heh. Apologizing for not being in touch lately.
More guilty glee rolls through me.
The next e-mail, sent two days after that, is a follow-up, and a “just wanted to make sure you received my e-mail” kind of e-mail.
The third one reveals Leo’s growing alarm and stops short of demanding I check in with him.
And so forth. With them sounding more desperate the longer I don’t reply.
So…yeah.
I can almost guarantee he stuck a tracking app on my phone. The timing is too damned coincidental.
Motherfucker.
I’m torn between creeped out and completely, deeply in love with the stalky fuck. Because that means he’s been keeping tabs on me pretty much daily. How else to explain him almost immediately picking up on my absence?
He can’t.
It also means I can’t turn on my phone.
And it means Kev hasn’t said anything to Leo about me being back. Neither have Secret Service.
While I could afford to buy a new phone and activate it, and get around the tracking software by transferring the number, it’s now the principle of the matter. Why should I buy a new phone just because Special Agent McStalkyFuck bugged mine?
I guess I really shouldn’t be throwing shade at Elliot over how he handles emotional issues, huh?
Or throwing stones at my own glass house.
Then I have a thought and log into my cell phone account.
Yep. The night I left Tallahassee with Elliot, about three hours after I turned my phone off, I have a text from Leo. I can’t see the actual text messages, just times and numbers of inbound and outbound calls and texts.
I have another text the next morning, and that afternoon. Plus, a call.
The next day, another text, and another call.
Three calls, and a text.
Five calls, and four texts.
And so forth. It gets a little—okay, a lot—more obsessive from that point on.
My heart is trying to persuade me to call him, right now, or at least e-mail him, and let him know what’s going on.
But does Leo want me because he loves me, and he’s contacting me because he’s worried about me? Or am I some safe known quantity, a possession he’s lost contact with and needs to retrieve?
Oh, sure, call me out for being a petty bitch.
You’re right.
I am.
Fortunately, being petty is going to make me a damn good gatekeeper for the future president of the United States.
I shut off my tablet and return to bed. Man, I’m glad Elliot’s sound asleep.
Because then I’d have to explain why the hell I’m smiling.
Chapter Thirty-One
Thirteen days after Elliot recalls me to DC, and it’s like I wasn’t away from the city for an hour. I didn’t realize how much being back and settling in and working in the White House was going to…drain me.
Totally.
Somehow, I forgot how much Leo helped me shed my stress at the end of a day. Or even during the day, if he stopped by my office to say hello or chat with me for a moment. Little interludes like that went a hell of a long way toward keeping me sane and focused.
Not having Leo to ground me now isn’t helping, either.
Not having Leo at all is…
It sucks. All right? It totally sucks, and I know it’s my fault. I’m the dumbass who walked away. But if I hadn’t, I might not be here right now.
My every memory of this building is filled with Leo. The things we’ve done here.
&nbs
p; The DNA we’ve left all over the place.
It’s after nine p.m. when Elliot finally finishes his day in the office. I made sure he’s already eaten dinner, so I don’t have a surly boy to deal with when we get home.
On the ride home—and that’s something else I’m trying to adjust to, that Elliot’s residence is literally now my home—I guess it shows.
His soft voice catches my attention. “Sir? Are you all right?”
I realize I was staring out the window. I force a smile and reach over to pat him on the thigh. “Sorry. I’m tired and my mind’s chattering at me. The past two weeks have been a whirlwind.” And calculating the countdown of Leo returning with the president in seven days adds to my stress levels.
I’m still trying to convince myself that some fairytale ending won’t be possible for me and Leo, even knowing he’s apparently worried about me.
Not any ending like I once hoped for.
It’s better that way, though. To not get my hopes up. That way, it won’t hurt so much when it doesn’t happen. Because when Leo returns, he’s liable to hate my guts for not telling him all of the above.
It’ll help me avoid the crushing disappointment I’ll feel by already taking that rejection to heart and processing it so it’s not a shocker.
To prevent him from having any power to wield over me.
When I start to draw my hand away, Elliot catches it and squeezes.
Something else that takes me by surprise.
He’s initiating a PDA like this? We’re safely hidden in the SUV, but still, that’s…
Not like Elliot. Not normally.
He continues to hold my hand. Right there, on the seat.
May not sound like a big thing to you, but trust me, for Elliot?
It’s fricking huge.
I suck in a shuddering breath, because while he holds on, his thumb strokes the back of my knuckles.
And he looks me in the eyes. I made him take his contacts out an hour ago, so he’s in his glasses.
I’ve always felt a little less-than next to Elliot. My own issue, not anything he or Leo did to make me feel that way. Elliot’s hot, he’s got a degree that’s actually really useful when it comes to working for the government, he’s a decorated vet—did I mention he’s hot?
Yet in this moment, I feel an unusual sense of peace settle over me at this simple gesture.
Innocent (Inequitable Trilogy Book 2) Page 29
