Innocent (Inequitable Trilogy Book 2)

by Lesli Richardson

  “You sure as fuck did a great imitation of it the other day, playing keep-away with my phone.”

  “I’m not upset, and I’m not pissy. I’m…confused. Why didn’t you call me and tell me about this when it happened? Why didn’t Elliot? Why didn’t he warn me he was officially declaring? Was that you trying to get back at me? Him declaring and not telling me?”

  Well, yeah, a little. Of course I don’t admit that, duh. “For starters, because you were on an official trip with President Samuels. Secondly, me coming to work for him happened so quickly that I didn’t have time to consult with you about it first.”

  “You were with him for three weeks, Jor! What the actual fuck, man? You couldn’t find any time to shoot me a goddamned FYI text or e-mail? I gotta find out by walking into the SitRoom and seeing you standing there like you own the goddamned White House?”

  “You couldn’t be bothered to text Elliot back when he texted you? He spent days thinking you were upset with him.”

  He runs a hand through his hair. “I fucked up with the cell connection thing, yeah. I admitted it. But that’s because I was distracted. I was distracted because you were fucking missing. I was seriously considering leaving the trip and flying to Florida when you went off the radar, because that’s how fucking worried I was about you. I actually hired a guy to start looking for you. Your former boss told him you left, but they wouldn’t give him details. You didn’t respond to any of my texts or e-mails or voice mails, and then your voice mail filled up! I was begging you to simply tell me you were alive and all right so I could stop worrying!”

  I’ve seen the e-mails, listened to the voice mails.

  Yeah, he was worried.

  And, yeah, I should have at least e-mailed him.

  But I chickened out, I’ll admit it.

  Except there’s plenty of room to spin this around on him. Enough damned room to U-turn a fricking semi. I could be a dick and rub salt in his wounds, but no.

  I can’t do that to him.

  Because still love him.

  Because he’s still my Sir, even if I uncollared myself and walked away from him for my own good and Elliot’s.

  There’s also a part of me that felt satisfied to see shock register on his face when he came face-to-face with me in the SitRoom. I will be owning this White House when Elliot wins, and like hell will I pretend that I won’t in front of Leo.

  “Elliot was hurting. I wasn’t going to tell him no.”

  Leo starts to say something, pulls himself up short, takes a deep breath, stares at me for a long, uncomfortable moment, then finally speaks in a soft voice I have to struggle to hear.

  “Three weeks, Jordan. Three fucking weeks, and I walk into the SitRoom, and there you are. Then you leave and won’t even talk to me?”

  I bypass that because I don’t want to relive that particular morning. I’ve had plenty of nightmares over what I saw on that video. “I wasn’t going to turn my back on Elliot. He’s also right that this was the perfect solution. Wasn’t it your plan all along, anyway? For you to marry him and have me be his body man so you could have both of us?”

  “Until someone left and wouldn’t give me a real chance to try to fix things, yeah.”

  I ignore the soft barb, mentally batting it away. “So that’s why you’ve ghosted me now?”

  His jaw drops again. “I haven’t ghosted you!”

  “Uh, yeah, you have! You sent me that last fucking text on Sunday night a week ago that you were going dark, and then you never sent me another one.”

  He blinks, staring at me. “That’s what you think?”

  “Don’t fucking gaslight me, man! You want me to show you my goddamned cell account where that’s the last message you sent? Fine, going dark. Yet you’ll text Elliot out the ass, but not text me? Fine. Message received, loud and clear.” I jab a finger at him. “Just stay out of my fucking way with Elliot, or you are gone.”

  He stares at me. “I didn’t ghost you. I was going to sleep when you texted me that night, so I told you I was going dark. You never replied after that one—”

  “You ignored me in the SitRoom! You wouldn’t so much as look at me outside the press room. You ignored me!”

  “I was trying to be professional.”

  “By ignoring me?”

  “I replied to your work text! Do you know how difficult it is for me to see you and not be able to wrap my arms around you and hold you?”

  “And yet my personal cell sits there without any texts from you. Did you lose my number?”

  “If you wanted to text me, why didn’t you?”

  I literally scream. “Because, asshole, you told me you were going dark! That’s always been our protocol! You text me GD when you need to be out of touch, and I wait to hear from you, or you call, or we see each other in person. Six fucking years with you, you don’t think I know our goddamned protocols?” I practically scream the last several words.

  He closes his eyes and rubs his forehead. I know he’s mentally trying to keep his cool, and that pisses me off even more. He has no right to be upset right now.

  When he finally speaks, his eyes are still closed and he keeps his voice low, slow. “You didn’t text me back…because I told you I was going dark?”

  “Yes!”

  “And you’re upset with me…because you think I’m angry at you…and ignoring you…for standing up to me?”

  “Uh, duh!”

  His hands drop to his sides and he throws back his head, staring at the ceiling as he groans. But he sounds exhausted. “I’m sorry, Jor. I’m not angry at you. I haven’t been angry at you. I really was just trying to give you what you asked for. I’m sorry.”

  Okaaay… Now I’m confused. “Then what’s the issue, Leo?”

  He finally looks at me. “I’m an idiot.”

  “Glad we agree on something.”

  He has the fucking audacity to smile, even though it looks exhausted. “When I use that code with Elliot, it’s just to let him know not to panic because I’ll be out of touch.”

  “Yeah, and?”

  “I forgot you and I had the additional caveat about it. Because you and I saw each other practically every day. I’m sorry. I should have remembered that, but I was asleep when the text woke me up. I didn’t want you to think I was ignoring you. I needed to go back to sleep, because I was exhausted and in pain. I’m so sorry, Jor.”

  “Wait…what?”

  “I wasn’t ghosting you. I thought you were just so angry at me that you weren’t texting me. I was trying not to react to you because I didn’t want you thinking I was trying to pressure you. I’m sorry. Yes, I fucked up when you left. Absolutely. I know that now. Yes, I fucked up by not contacting you more. At the time, I thought it was better, because I didn’t want to hurt you. I’m sorry.”

  He walks over, standing in front of me. His jaw tenses as he stares at me. “I fucked up by pulling away from Elliot. Chris warned me when you and I first got together that I needed to make a choice. That I needed to pick one of you to be more loyal to than the other. He recommended I make that you, and invest Elliot so heavily in you that he’d be too scared to lose both of us if I walked away with you.

  “The problem was, Elliot was in such a bad headspace that he thought he was doing me a favor by telling me to date and be with you. It was his way of trying to disengage without feeling guilty. I desperately wanted him to fall for you the way I fell for you. I wanted us to be a team together. So that I could give Elliot what he needed, you could give me what I needed, and you and I could be together and get what we both needed. That was my plan.

  “But Elliot shut down in ways I didn’t realize. Not because of you, but because you know how he is.” I nod, and he continues. “I knew if I tried to give him an ultimatum that I’d leave, he would have let me. And it would have killed him.”

  It really would have. It’s not something I would have agreed with before, but now…yeah.

  Absolutely.

  He’s not don
e. “Losing you gutted me. I knew I could force Elliot to accept you, and to marry me, but it would have destroyed everything if I did. He had to come to it on his own. I didn’t want to force you to stay with me. After all the years of begging Elliot to be with me, I didn’t have the emotional energy to force a second person to stay. I didn’t realize that you needed me to force you. And, yes, I’m sorry I failed you there, too.”

  His eyes look a little too bright, and he blinks. “You left, and yeah, I nearly blew everything up to follow you. I almost did. I felt angry and resentful at Elliot. A couple of weeks after you left, there was a thing, and we had a miscommunication, and I got pissed, and he begged me to come to him. Which, you know damn well he never did. So, I tried, Jor. I really tried.

  “But over the months, I was so lonely. I hurt every damn day. Some days, I could barely force myself out of bed, I hurt so bad missing you. Plus, I worried about you. Not just your safety, but I worried if you were okay, if you could pay your bills, if you were happy. If you’d met anyone.

  “Some days, the only thing that got me out of bed was looking at the app and seeing you walked to work. And it got to where I looked at Elliot and I got angry, because I wanted to blame him for all of my pain. When the truth was, Elliot was just being Elliot. I put hopes on him and us and all of this that were unfair to him.

  “So, you’re right. I failed you, and I failed him, and I’m sorry, baby. I fucked up. Yeah, I stalked you. Yeah, I tracked you. But when I walked into the SitRoom and saw you standing there, I nearly climbed over the damn table to put my hands on you, I was so fucking relieved to see you there.”

  He blinks back tears. “Baby, I was terrified you were dead. And, yeah, I’m fucking pissed at Kev for knowing and not saying anything. Except he didn’t know I was worried about you, so I guess that’s fair. I can’t imagine if he knew I was that scared that he wouldn’t have at least given me a hint he knew you were safe.

  “So no, I’m not mad at you, baby. Apparently, I can speak seven languages, and still manage to be a fucking dumbass in all of them. If you give me another chance, I promise I’ll do better. I promise I’ll fight like hell alongside you to get Elliot elected. Whatever it takes, I’ll do it.

  “Yeah, I showed my ass the other day by following you to the restaurant and by coming over after you were home. Yes, I watched you two make love that night. I stood there, crying, because I went from feeling terrified you were dead to watching the two men I love more than my own life being happy and healthy and loving each other. If I’d dropped dead in that moment, even not being able to touch the two of you again, I would have died happy. Because all I want is for the two of you to be happy.”

  Wow. I’m…stunned.

  Before I can react, he grabs me, slanting his lips over mine in a crushing kiss that steals my breath and nearly every brain cell in my head.

  My cock’s instantly hard and throbbing, aching to feel Leo’s hand around it, or his mouth.

  To feel Leo’s cock buried deep inside my ass.

  Don’t get me wrong. Elliot’s no slouch, but you never forget your first, right?

  My heart and soul—and body—still belong to Leo every bit as much as they did almost seven months ago, when I left DC.

  That hasn’t changed, even though my relationships with Leo and Elliot have.

  His hands slide down to my ass, cupping and squeezing, and I jump up and wrap my legs around his waist.

  That makes him growl and turn, sitting on the sofa with me as his mouth devours mine.

  Those sweet, sexy lips, the urgency in his kisses, the haggard rasp of his breathing—all of it.

  I need it, and Him.

  I need my Sir.

  “My only issue now, boy,” Sir rumbles against my lips, “is that I can’t think straight around you, and I can’t think about anything but you. Especially when I know the two of you are together and I can’t be with you. Worst mistake of my life was letting you walk away, and then not dragging you back. I hated not being with you. I’ve never been so scared in my life as I was during those three weeks not knowing where you were, or if you were all right.”

  “Then it’s a good thing I’m with Elliot now, isn’t it?” I snark. “You’ll always know where I am. Hunky Secret Service dudes to keep us safe.”

  Lightning fast, there’s a fist in my hair, wrenching my head back and making me cry out as he stares into my eyes.

  I see the dark, hungry glow in his gaze.

  Damn, I’ve really missed that.

  He speaks through gritted teeth. “Just because you’re doing this for him doesn’t mean you get to be mouthy with me, boy. There’s yet another punishment spanking I’ll add to the list.”

  But part of me wants to do exactly that. To push him harder.

  To see where the line is and how far he’ll let me go before Sir reels me back in.

  Before my Master takes over.

  Because it’s been nearly seven months since I made what admittedly was the worst decision of my life.

  Now, I want Sir to make it all better for me.

  His gaze narrows and he leans closer. “Still feeling mouthy?”

  I manage a laugh. “Always.”

  Apparently, I have no sense of self-preservation when it comes to baiting Leo’s sadist to the surface. It was always a fun pasttime for me.

  Leo smiles, but there’s no humor in it.

  Whoops.

  I was wrong about having to bait him.

  This is the sadist.

  The fist in my hair tightens, painfully so. He wrenches my head back even farther and bringing a prickle of tears to my eyes as his teeth graze the front of my throat, right over my collar, before he nips me there.

  Inside my soul, that part of me which had been curled up in a tight little ball and in hiding ever since I departed DC for Florida finally sits up, shamelessly begs like a drunk and horny slut, and rolls over to show my belly to the man.

  He bites down on the side of my throat. “Who do you fucking belong to, Jordan?” he growls around my flesh in his teeth.

  An answer burps from the darkest depths of my soul. “You, Daddy,” I gasp.

  We both freeze. I never called him that before, but it feels so damned right.

  The sadist chuckles even as the fist in my hair disappears and he licks the spot he just bit. Then he wraps his arms tightly around me, tucking my head under his chin as he slowly rocks me back and forth and tries to soothe me.

  Tells me over and over how much he loves me.

  That’s when I realize I’m crying.

  Sobbing.

  I…I have no idea when I started doing that, but apparently, it’s been a few minutes. My glasses have also magically disappeared and I don’t know when he took them off me.

  “Yes,” he whispers as he turns and lies on the sofa with me, still holding me. One hand massages the back of my head, rubbing away the memory of the sting of his previous grip.

  “Daddy’s got you, baby boy. Never letting you go again, either. I’m so, so fucking proud of you. I’m sorry I didn’t put my foot down and refuse to let you leave. I should have. I wasn’t abandoning you. I thought you needed the space to clear your head. I felt sure you’d talk to me after a few weeks and then we could discuss this, and I could talk you into coming back at the end of the semester or something. I didn’t want to push or smother you because I was afraid it’d drive you father away. Then you went quiet, and I was even more scared to push you for fear of you pushing me away forever.”

  I cling to him as I cry. I’m drowning in the deluge of sewage finally spewing forth as a result of him lancing my emotional wound and letting it drain. He holds me, comforts me.

  Sees me.

  But he’s not done.

  “I swear I thought about you every single day,” he whispers. “You were on my mind first thing every morning and last thing before I went to sleep. I worried about you and hoped you were safe and happy. I was terrified I’d never speak to you again. I was going to
take a weekend off after I returned from the trip and fly down there again to see you, but you kind of beat me to it by being here.”

  He rubs his chin against the top of my head. The months of pain and grief and loss slowly drain from me. Belatedly, I realize I’m probably snot-sobbing all over his shirt and blazer, and when I move to sit up, he doesn’t let me.

  “Not yet,” he softly says. “I’m not ready to let go of you yet, baby boy.” He sighs. “I just got you back. I can’t let you go. Please, don’t make me let you go.”

  Like that, every vestige of resistance and anger and pain…evaporates.

  I’ll lie here all day and night with him, if he wants me to.

  It feels sooo damn good holding on to him. His scent fills my lungs, and I didn’t realize how achingly empty my soul’s felt since walking out that door with the sounds of his sobs haunting me.

  I guess Elliot wasn’t the only one adrift and lonely. Except I was able to self-medicate, first with my work, then by taking care of Elliot.

  Leo waits until I’ve stopped crying, long after I’ve settled and quieted in his arms, before he finally looks at me with a peaceful, beaming smile. “I was afraid I’d screwed up and lost you forever. I should’ve known my sweet baby boy still belonged to me.” He caresses my cheek with his thumb, ending at my lips.

  I kiss it. “Always, Daddy,” I whisper.

  Yeah, that’s going to be a thing now. It’s like a sweet, healing salve on my soul.

  His sexy smirk returns. “Daddy needs to reclaim what’s rightfully His, too, hmm?”

  I nod.

  His smile fades. “Anyone besides Elliot?”

  I shake my head. “No, Daddy. Just you and the boy.”

  A contented sigh escapes him as his smile returns. “Elliot’s ours. From this moment on, it’s the three of us, and no one else. Ever. Understand?”

  I nod. I don’t want anyone but Leo and Elliot.

  Although before this happened, I had no idea how much I wanted Elliot. I think it’s safe to say Elliot hadn’t realized it, either. How much he wanted me, I mean.

  Now that we have what we have together, I also think it’s safe to say Elliot has de-assed his head, as Leo always likes to say.