by Amy Faye
Adam leans down and takes one puckered, dusky nipple in between his lips and pulls softly, drawing a gasp. Linda's hands open and close, finally settling behind his head, pulling him gently into her.
His teeth begged to dig into her flesh, and they did, scraping gently along the sensitive skin, ripping a gasp out from between her lips. Linda's back arched into him more, her fingers tightening in his hair.
His hand pressed down on her hips, his fingers dangerously near to the place where her legs came together, teasing and tantalizing and making suggestions that he knew she would pick up on. Her hips bucked up a little as his hand dropped lower, her mound grazing the tips of his fingers even as he pulled back to stop her getting what she wanted.
"Ah, ah, ah—not yet."
She groaned out her frustration, but held herself still to allow him to indulge himself. His hand fell back onto her, pressing down just enough to stop her squirming. He felt her moving under, the little motions that she couldn't quite suppress.
Her body, pressing itself up and begging for his touch. His hand moved lower, below the hem of her skirt, and traced the line up between her knees, tracing a burning line up. And then, moments before he came to the place where they came together, his hand moved aside, took a different path.
He lifted the hem of her skirt, her chest rising and falling with each ragged breath as she watched and waited and wanted. Her pantyhose clung to her skin, the fabric soft under his touch.
His hands dropped between her knees once again, tracing a line with his fingernail, with just enough pressure that he knew she could feel it. He feels her shiver underneath him. Her legs squirm a little, but she doesn't move.
"Good girl," he says, softly. She shivers again as his finger traces the line up her thighs more quickly.
This time, he doesn't move aside. His fingertip finds the place where her legs meet, the tip tracing the line of her lips and drawing a groan from her, in spite of herself.
His finger presses harder, pressing a little bit between her outer lips, adding a little extra pressure to the stiff nub at the top, drawing her hips a little higher, a little more needy.
Linda lets out a groan beneath him, her body twisting. Her hips buck upwards to meet his probing, even through the fabric of her hose.
"Do you like that?"
Her eyes flutter shut, and she breathes out a single word. "More."
His teeth click together, showing wide as he smiles.
"Oh, you were always going to get more."
Chapter Twenty-Five
Linda's skin pressing against the cool leather sofa runs a chill through her body, but the shiver that shoots through her is entirely the result of the intense look in Adam's eyes as he looks down at her. For a moment she tries to twist away from him, but a hand presses down on her and holds her still, and arousal surges through her at the knowledge that she can't get free.
He's going to give her exactly what she wants, whether she likes it or not.
He hooks his fingers into the waist of her hose and pulls them down, trailing a finger behind that traces a bright-hot line down her thigh.
His fingers didn't leave her waiting long, resuming their place between her legs, probing and teasing, never quite giving her everything she wanted. That didn't stop the pressure from building up, low in her belly, a mix of arousal and pleasure that she couldn't quite get a handle on and couldn't at all refuse.
And then, all of a sudden, he gave her exactly what she wanted, driving deep into her with one thick finger. She shouldn't have felt so sickeningly full, but she did. Then his finger curled up and touched someplace inside her, and her body tightened up all at once.
He jerked his hand a little bit, jabbing into the spot just hard enough that Linda felt it through the haze of pleasure that had already built up. Just enough to send her spiraling deeper—and then he does it again.
Linda loses track of his movements. All she knows is the fact that pleasure is rolling down her spine in waves, every little bit threatening to throw her deeper into the abyss of pleasure. When he lines himself up between her legs, rubbing the head of his hardness against her slick entrance, it comes as a surprise.
When had he stopped—
Adam pushes inside her, filling her inside more than she realized was possible. Pleasure shoots through her, from her head down to her toes, her body curling up and trying to do anything it can to pull him in deeper.
His cock inside her feels right in a way that Linda can't explain. In a way that she doesn't want to explain or think about. All she wants is to feel. To feel him driving into her, deeper, more, again. His thick, powerful fingers dig into her hips, pulling her against him.
And then he lets out a groan and she can feel him moving inside her, twitching and spasming as he fills her up, the hot cum spreading out as a warm cloud that slowly expands to fill her whole body. Everything goes limp, little by little, and she lets her head fall back, gasping for air.
He pulls out, and drops into a couch nearby. She should be getting dressed. This isn't exactly the place for waiting around with her tits out, with her well-fucked pussy airing out for anyone who cares to see.
Because anyone in the world could walk in any time. And just as she thinks that, a familiar voice speaks from beside the doorway, as gravelly as it ever was.
"Are you finished?"
Chapter Twenty-Six
"So what was the plan here?"
Linda's fingers dig into the counter, and she keeps her eyes down. It's easier than looking up. If she does, it becomes a contest of wills. She's not going to want to lose that any more than Tom is—but she already has to admit that she doesn't have the hard edges that he has.
Sometimes it's better not to play if you know you're going to lose. That goes double if someone's going to get hurt. She doesn't know if it's her or him. Or maybe it would only be Adam, whose campaign was set to rely on the two of them working together.
"Back off a little, will you?" Adam's voice has the same air of a threat that keeps Linda from speaking herself. He should've kept quiet. But he doesn't.
"I didn't think I needed to communicate this to you, Adam. You can do what you want to do with who you want to do it with, but you're an idiot if you pick her."
Linda keeps her mouth shut. She can't disagree with his assessment. She's about the worst of all possible choices. And yet, she doesn't want to hear it, and least of all wants to hear it about herself.
"He's right, Adam," she says softly. It stings a little when she says it.
"Who the fuck cares about that?"
"Adam, I need you to listen to me," Tom rumbles. "There's not much that I'm genuinely worried about in the next few months. Your poll numbers are higher than anyone could have expected. You've got a reputation that means any accusation slips right off your back."
"Then what's the problem?"
"The problem is, we need to be proving to people that you can keep it in your pants when it counts. When there's an ethical problem, for example."
"And you think I can't?"
Linda looks up for the first time in a while. Adam's jaw is clenched tight. If you didn't look hard, his posture might seem casual, leaned up against the counter-top with a foot up on the bottom rung of a bar-stool. His body sags a little, between shoulders that are holding him up.
But as Linda looked closer it didn't take long to notice the little things. The way that his muscles bunched up in his shoulders, the tightness in his jaw. His fingers pressed into the counter until his knuckles are white. Hearing his voice, though, doesn't hold the same illusion. He's furious, and anyone listening can hear it right away.
Tom's no different. Casual. He's better at hiding his anger in his body, but he can't hide the look in his eyes. He never can. There's something in it that she can't quite place, a predatory nature that she knew he held. His voice is low and even, and as smooth as his gravelly tone can manage.
"Can't you?"
Muscles bunch and tense in Adam's bac
k. And then, slowly, he relaxes them one by one. Linda watches all this with a vague sense of detachment. And then she speaks, before one of them pulls a knife.
"It was my fault. I—"
Tom's eyes flick over to her.
"You what?"
"I made the first move."
"Doesn't matter." His eyes flick back over to Adam. "It's about him, not about you."
Linda's eyes shut, and she imagines herself back at home. There was a time that her life wasn't this complicated, and it will come again. It has to.
"It won't happen again, Tom. Please, just. Leave it be."
"Linda, I'm not going to back off until I hear it from him."
Adam's shoulders tighten up again, and then untighten. His weight shifts and his hips lift until he's sitting. His hands slack.
"It won't happen again."
"Good. Now keep telling yourself that until you believe it."
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Adam Quinn was coding again. He knew what it meant, of course. It meant that he was in a sufficiently good mood not to be drinking, but a sufficiently bad mood to want to work through whatever was in his head, bothering him.
And then, as it often seemed to these days, the thing that was bothering him interrupted him in the middle of coding. The look on her face was wild, and her eyes opened and shut like she had to do it herself, because the force of what she'd just had to watch on the television was too great to deal with. Like the Ellen Holden interview had just fried the part of her brain that dealt with normal function.
"I thought you said it went great," she says. Her voice is low and controlled and holds none of the screaming she's obviously thinking about doing.
"Linda, you caught the interview."
"Of course I caught it. Catching interviews, particularly big ones, is my job. It's what I'm paid for."
"What did you think?"
"Don't interrupt me," she said. Her eyes bored a hole in him. It was an unusual intensity from her, and he had to admit he liked it. What would he have to do to awaken this woman when their clothes came off, he wondered? "Now of course, I thought that it was just a formality, given how well you said it went. It cleared up all our problems, you made it sound like. Oh, it couldn't have gone more perfectly."
"Well? What was the problem?"
"What was the problem, Adam? Are you seriously asking me that right now?"
"Is this angry mommy act going to take long?"
Her eyes looked like they might just pop out of her head, and Adam thought that would have been perfectly entertaining if they had.
"Mr. Quinn, if you want me to resign—"
"I'm only teasing you, Linda. Relax a little, will you? You look like you're going to have a stroke."
"My blood pressure is high enough," she says, without a hint of irony. "You walked out of that interview feeling confident about it? As if it went well?"
"Well, I mean. I guess there are various definitions of 'well,' if you want to argue the point."
Linda presses her fingers hard into her temples and rubs a small circle. Then her hand comes up and jabs a button on the remote, and the TV comes back to life.
Ellen really does clean up well for television. She's an attractive enough woman—Adam wouldn't kick her out of bed—but there are too many hard edges to her. Too many defining features. Her looks are striking, but they're not strikingly good—just striking. The magic of a professional makeup crew makes all the difference.
The sound doesn't need to be on to know what she's asking. She's got her best professional face on, which in Ellen's case looks like she's about to stab Adam at the next opportunity she gets.
He doesn't need to read the captions, either, nor be a gifted lip-reader, to know the question she's asking, because he remembers his reaction to it. A second later, he sees himself lean back and bark out a laugh silently on the muted television. He could still recall, almost to the word, what he said.
She'd just asked him about his relationship with Sofia, the eldest daughter of the King of Spain. Mostly a figurehead, not a real King. Well, mostly. The only real Kings left are in the Middle East, and you don't get away with having a fling with their daughters.
He tried to recall the exact question. Something like, 'You've had several romantic interludes with high-profile celebrities; not all of them ended on good terms. Many started on bad terms, with women whose marital status—'
He'd cut her off then, with the laugh. Sure, she was right. He'd had a few good stories to tell. Then she'd finished her question.
'As President, what guarantee can you give the American people that trend won't continue, and that your relationship with, for example, King Nicolas, won't be harmed by your past indiscretions?'
He'd given her the truth, which might have been seen by a politically-minded observer as a mistake. He'd told her that there was no such thing as a guarantee when it came to the future.
Oh, he'd have promised not to do it again if it would help, but promises don't count for much, and there's no way around it. She knew it, he knew it, everyone knew it. And everyone knew there was no way he could guarantee anything like that.
There was no way a question like that wasn't going to make the final video package. No way in hell. And of course, it had.
"I don't see what the problem is," Adam finally responded, after Linda paused the video and looked at him expectantly for an answer.
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and when she opened them again none of the anger that she'd been no doubt hoping to reign in had faded in the least.
"Adam, it's my job to try to keep the public from thinking of you as a loose cannon who can't be trusted with the Presidency. You hired me to do that job."
"And nothing has changed."
"If you're going to be going off and saying things like, well, like this, on national television, I don't see how I can."
Adam looked at her blankly for a long moment, and a scowl slowly soured his face. Yes, that was going to be a problem for her. It shouldn't be, which was what he'd been struggling with all morning.
It shouldn't be, because her job wasn't to stop him saying something stupid. It was to make sure that he didn't get hurt.
"I trust you, Linda," he said, with all the emphasis on the right places in the hope that maybe she'd get it.
"Do you want me to quit? Just let Tom do his thing? I know you'll have plenty of success. He's a brilliant strategist, but—"
"If I wanted you to quit, Linda, I wouldn't have hired you. Don't make stupid suggestions."
She took a deep breath and turned and took it the wrong way across back to her little cubby.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The question of secrecy has been one that Adam Quinn has had to worry over many times in his life. So far, however, this political run hasn't been one of those occasions. In fact, it's been an adventure trying to get people to spill his secrets when that was the right move.
But Tom wanted to meet in a University parking garage, and who was Adam to deny him his little theatrics? No reason to refuse. So he went in spite of his reservations.
"You alone?"
"We could have done this at the office, Tom."
"Don't argue with me," he growled, and Adam shrugged.
"Alright by me, I guess."
"Nice interview, by the way."
"You caught it?"
"Sure I caught it. Linda was furious?"
"Well…" Adam shrugs again. "I don't know about furious."
"Did she threaten to quit? She did, didn't she?"
"I don't know where you're getting your information, but—"
"Oh, don't be a wet blanket." Tom leans back against a wall and lets his eyes shut. "You asked her not to, right? Then it's fine."
"When are you going to tell me why we're meeting separately?"
"I suppose it's about Linda, more or less."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I don't know how to work with her. We're work
ing cross-purposes most of the time. What she wants is for things to stay quiet. What I want is for them to get wilder."
"So you called me out here because… what? You were nervous about talking to me in front of a girl?"
Tom barks a laugh. "Sure."
"Then what did you have to say?"
"The interview. You pulled that stunt about bagging women. Well, what if we pushed that a little? You get seen out in public with a woman on your arm, a woman you barely even know the name of, and—"
"And it looks like I'm just as ready as ever to make waves?"
"Exactly."
"I don't know if it's time for something like that."
Tom leans forward, hard. He almost looks surprised. "What's that?"
"I say we let it simmer a bit before we start making moves again. Let the clock reset."
"You're kidding."
Adam's head is already shaking, almost unconsciously. "No, not kidding."
Tom's expression is hard to read. Then again, it always was. "What's the problem, then?"
"I told you. We can't be the ones always making moves, and if we are, then the voters—not to mention the press—get tired of it. It loses its effectiveness."
"But that hasn't happened yet."
"And I'm not looking for it to." Tom's lips press together hard, and Adam notices. "Just say it."
"This is about her, isn't it?"
"Linda?"
Tom nods.
"Not about her at all. It's about keeping our heads on straight."
"But you're thinking about her."
Quinn's jaw tightens. "No, I'm not, Tom, and if you keep trying to read my mind, and you keep fucking it up this bad, then I'm going to get frustrated with you."
Tom's smile is grim. "Yeah, I suppose you will."
"Back off. I know what I'm doing."
"You hired me to advise you. I'm advising."
"That's right. I hired you. You're not the one making decisions, I am."
Tom leans down and grabs the driver's side door handle on a car next to him. It opens with a click.
