by Andy King
Devotion fills his eyes. I see only love. My heart rockets, I’m going to cry with relief. The last time I felt like this was with Morrie. I wonder if anyone can be so lucky as to have two soul mates in their life. I bite my lower lip.
He puts his mouth up to my ear and softly says, “Cheri, you’re having our children and that’s that.”
Oh my god, I love those words coming from his lips. Something falls away, like I’m free of a heavy cloak, and I can run on the beach in the nude.
“While I’m at it,” he says, “I’m going to mark you, make you mine forever. I’m claiming every inch of your body, so deal with it.”
I shudder with delight at the prospect of being really used, and bring my heels around his back.
Then I have an idea, something I’ve secretly wanted for a long, long time. “Tie my wrists.”
His eyes go wide. “Really?”
“There’s some handkerchiefs in the drawer.”
He reaches over and pulls out a couple of white cotton hankies, twirls them and loops them around my wrists.
As he loosely knots them to the bedposts he mumbles, “You know, I could probably go to prison for this.”
I giggle. “Tighter.”
He tightens the knots, but leaves them loose enough that he can get them off quickly. I think he’s a little nervous about tying up the President. But he stays hard, and that’s what matters.
“OK, do me rough.” I hook my leg around his, pulling his heat against my thigh. I squirm, the cloth holding my hands. I’m already perspiring. I can’t keep my mouth shut. “Shove it in me and take what you want.”
His eyes light up like a wolf. I’m not going to have to ask twice. He puts a hand under my butt and positions me so my arms are taut. My back arches.
“Now,” I demand.
He grins. “Yes, sir.”
I start to smile back but his tongue is in my mouth again and he’s pinned my pelvis with his. I want everything he can give me.
He doesn’t kid around. Roughly he spreads my legs and fills me with a heave. I grunt. Oh, yeah.
I push my hips relentlessly. I want his seed.
He wants to give it to me, and slams in, screwing me with abandon. My butt slides around. I buck in a frenzy of need, shimmying my ankles higher up his back. If he wants kids, let’s get started right away. I love how he feels and I wish we could stay in bed forever.
My wrists are chafing, my arms stretching. I’m on the verge of pain, but keep going, gritting my teeth. He’s taking me at my word, and using my little body to the limit. Adjusting his angle, he drives in further, making me jolt with sensation.
“Annnhhh!” Electric current rips up my spine, making my shoulders flop around. Jack rocks me like a piledriver. My orgasm hammers me into a million tiny pieces, then flings them into a state of weightlessness. Stars float by in slow motion. My ears are filled with screaming—my screaming.
I’m wrenched in a spasm of pure energy, my shoulders and hips writhing like I’m having a seizure. Sweat pours off him, spattering my face and chest. I can tell he’s getting close, filling up. I get ready.
“Ohhh!” Jack explodes like a water cannon, firing a jetstream of molten fury. The mattress flash floods. He keeps going like there’s no tomorrow. I marvel at his power.
“Beg me,” he hisses through his teeth.
“Fill me up, I want babies.” I grip him as tight as I can, and feel his kernel expand. Everywhere.
Our moans chant in harmony, slower and slower for a minute. Finally we stop. He lowers his lips and kisses my neck. I bite him on the ear.
“Little love bite?”
“I’m marking you, too.”
“Thanks, I guess.”
I giggle. “I should thank you.”
“For what?”
“Our child.”
His smile is like the sun, promise brimming in his eyes. Tenderly he touches his lips to mine.
He reaches up and unties ones of my wrists, then the other. I rub them. They’re not too raw. I hope I can hide the marks from my attendants. If I wear long sleeves, no one will notice, I think. It was worth it, though; just what I wanted.
He rolls on his side, taking me with him. “You’re not too sore?”
“I’m sore everywhere, but it’s fine, it’s good.”
“If we did make a baby, I’ll be a happy man forever.”
I peer into his eyes again, and see only commitment. “I don’t know if there’s ever been a birth in the White House.”
With that, I get the giggles for real. I can’t stop for a few minutes, Jack chuckling along. When I finally contain myself I look at him and start giggling all over again. It’s contagious. He laughs from his belly, and hugs me close.
I love that, laughter in a hug.
He wipes my legs with a sheet, then sniffs deeply, and roars again. I snicker as he cleans himself off, too. I remember that I did need to say something, and raise a finger.
His eyebrows dip. “What?”
“It’s just… It’s OK, actually it’s great when you pick me up and put me in your lap. I loved it that you went along and tied my wrists, but you know you can’t do anything like that when anybody’s around.”
He looks hurt. I wonder if I have a problem on my hands.
Then he gives me a light slap on my shoulder. “Gotcha.”
“Fucker.”
“You can say that again.”
“Asshole.” I pick up a pillow and hit him with it.
He brings one around from the side and creams me, throwing me across the bed. Tears streaming, I howl, so glad to have the release, with all of the stress and all of the crap I’ve had to deal with.
I pull myself over and snuggle up to him, loving his huge chest, his bulging arms wrapped around me. I am the luckiest girl in the world.
15
Jack
I can’t believe how wonderful it feels, holding Cheri, murmuring words of devotion. We’ve only just started, and I’m going to make sure that we get the most out of every day and night. There will be hardship and heartache, I know; but our souls are united, we’re going to make it.
I gaze at her swollen lips, cherishing them. “I have a secret.”
“Oh?”
“I once jerked off, imagining banging the President.”
“You did not!”
“Actually more than once. I had to get a big towel to soak it all up.”
She giggles again. I love her laugh, like wind chimes or when you ping a crystal goblet, it’s so musical.
“You’re twisted, you know that?” she says.
“Yeah, that’s why I’m protecting you.”
Gazing at a scar on my arm she traces it with her finger. “Shrapnel?”
“Yeah, IED. I was riding in a Frankenstein, a bigass Marine Corps truck with extra armor welded on. I was lucky. I lived.”
“Do you ever think about it?”
“Iraq?” I glance away. I still do think about the incredible insanity of it all. “Yeah, but my focus was on my family. Still is. Now it’s on you, too.”
“Any guilt?”
“Tons. It comes when it comes, so I try to let it happen.”
She lifts the thin chain with the dog tags from my tour. “Can I have this?”
“You want my tags?
“Yeah, I do.”
I lift the steel from around my neck, and carefully slip it over her hair. The tags fit perfectly between her full breasts.
“Now you’re really mine,” I say.
“I really am.” She looks up at me with a little smile.
“So when are we getting married?”
Her eyes go wide. “Are you asking?”
“Already did, but…”
I leap out of bed and get on both knees. “Cherilyn Barnes, will you marry me?” I watch her watch me, and hold my breath.
“I don’t have to ask if you’ll protect me, you’re sworn to do that. Yes, I will marry you but,” she holds up a finger, “I want you
to tell me about yourself, who you really are. I’ve read your jacket, but that doesn’t tell me who you are.”
Fair enough, I think. I’m sure I know a lot more about her than she does me. I can barely contain my excitement at her answer, that she’ll marry me, but I describe my childhood in a paragraph and focus on my teen years, when my parents died. It seems like my whole life started then, caring for Anna, who was six. Anna didn’t understand why Mom and Dad went away forever. Not long after that, her symptoms surfaced. Whether it’s connected, the doctors and psychologists couldn’t say.
Cheri grips my hand when I get to the part about having to leave Anna with relatives so I could join the military and get benefits to continue her care. Cheri pays rapt attention. Her eyes go shiny as she thinks about it.
“You could have been killed, or gravely wounded,” she says. “It could have been much worse for Anna.”
“Somehow I knew it would work out. I knew I would come home to her. I told her that if she believed it with all her heart, it would happen. And it did.”
Cheri’s arms fly around my neck. I hug back fiercely.
She lifts a corner of a sheet and wipes her eyes. “Jack Runyon, I love you with all my heart. Yes, I will marry you.”
That felt real. She meant it.
She flops over on her stomach, her elbows supporting her. My lips zero in on her left hip. “I like your swan.” The tattoo of a swan on her hip is exquisitely drawn in five colors.
She reaches up and taps my bicep. “I like your heart.”
I flex a few times, making the big red heart look like it’s beating. That gets a little girl giggle out of her.
I lean over and kiss her swan again. “I like where it is.”
“Strategically placed, so it’s hidden most of the time. My ink isn’t trying be a statement, I’m not projecting a bad girl thing. I just like the way it looks on my hip. Like your heart.”
She rolls back and looks into my eyes again. “You never told me where you lived, where you grew up.”
“California.”
“Los Angeles?”
“Santa Barbara, the golden life on the Gold Coast.”
“Did you surf?”
“Oh yeah, until I was eighteen, you know, when they died.”
“Everything changed.”
“Yeah.”
“You went to college for a year or two?”
“I got my degrees after the service. I made a course correction, decided to try for a Federal job, see if I could keep the benefits going. I lucked out and ended up here.”
“Probably wasn’t luck, Marine.”
“Hmmm.”
“What did you major in, originally?”
“Uh, music.”
“Music? You play?”
“Used to.” I picture my childhood and early teens. It was a whole other world.
“What instrument?”
“The double-bass. You know, in an orchestra.”
“Really. I’d love to hear you play.”
I chuckle. “I wouldn’t. It’s been almost twenty years.”
“You never picked it up again?”
“I’ve had responsibilities.”
“Yeah.” She lays her head on my chest. “I asked about guilt. Believe me, I know. I didn’t kill people directly, but I’ve sent too many to their deaths.”
We don’t say anything for a few minutes. I feel moisture on my skin, probably a tear. I hold her tighter.
“I knew there was something,” she murmurs.
“Like what?”
She lifts her head and stares into my eyes. Again I want to fall into hers and swim. They take me back to the ocean. Limitless.
“You’re a doer, like me. You do stuff,” she says. “You’re good at things and you learn new things. See, I’m good at reading people, at knowing them. Maybe not the details, but I can feel how they are. I feel that you’re kind, and devoted, even though you’re a tough soldier who doesn’t take any shit.”
She tilts her head in an adorable way I’ve only seen a couple times. “I’m glad I asked, I want to know more.” She yawns and pats her mouth. “Right now I have to sleep. I have many…” another yawn takes her, “urgent national security issues to deal with.”
She flops back on the pillow and breathes deeply.
“I’ll get the light,” I say.
“I’m sure I won’t notice.”
A soft snore threads through her lips.
I smile and reach over.
_______
“Cheri!” I tap her arm, then shake her shoulder. A warbling sound is coming from the alarm clock. An agent will swing the door open any second.
“Mmmpphh.” She lifts her head and hears the noise. Her eyes pop open.
The door swings ajar. Light from the sitting room falls across the foot of the bed. It finds my foot.
“Madame President, Deputy Director Jefferson is on the phone, says it’s critical.”
“Sixty seconds, thanks,” she blurts, and swings her legs over the side of the bed.
She leans back and pecks me on the cheek. “Get moving, soldier.”
Reaching for my clothes, I catch her out of the corner of my eye, running to the closet, her breasts and her cute little ass bouncing. I flip a light on.
She pulls on a sweats combo and bomber jacket, finds a thick pair of socks and slides on a pair of RTS boots. “Throw me that brush.”
I glance around, see a hairbrush and toss it to her. A few token strokes and she grabs a cell phone from the nightstand, tucked next to a photo of her late husband.
“This is it, I think,” she says in a grim voice.
I give her a quick kiss.
She twists away and glances at the phone. “MacElvain’s on the move. No time to explain, c’mon.”
I hold the door for her. She sweeps out.
“Tell Comm to patch the call to Phone Three,” she says to the first agent, and puts the phone to her ear.
Two agents stare at me. Obviously, they know what’s happened. There are few secrets among agents, and now there are none. I look back at them, unblinking. We walk down the hall at a fast clip.
“Woodshed,” she says to the lead agent. The phone burps in her hand. “Yeah,” she says into it. She listens for ten seconds. “OK, you know the plan.”
I wish I knew the plan. I have an idea of what’s going on. Secretary of Defense, Nick MacElvain, is doing something “critical,” but Cheri hasn’t told me what it is. All I can do is be ready to shoot if I have to.
In the elevator she looks around. The three of us tower over her, but her incredible magnetism and commanding stare tell us there’s only one Boss in the building.
“I need you guys close, ready to fire on any hostiles,” she says.
“What is this, a coup?” I blurt. She just nods.
The elevator doors slide open. She bounces out, walking as fast as her short legs can carry her, the rest of us bunched close. Several Marines close in from both sides, thickening the protective shell of bodies. A sergeant holds the Situation Room door open.
On the way to her chair she glances at me. “The gloves are off. Mac’s not screwing around anymore. General Shelby and his commanders are completely loyal. All Marines know that anyone who defects will be shot for treason, and as far as I know, I’ve got the Air Force, Navy and Coast Guard behind me, too.”
Aides and analysts swirl through the room, on phones, waving hand signals, talking to each other. The tenor of the din is unsettled and jittery.
Cheri stands in front of her chair, studying a display on a huge LED monitor. It’s a map of the U.S., with Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and several Possessions inset in corners. I scan it. It’s simple and self-explanatory. Green is friendly, red is unfriendly, yellow is iffy. Concentrations of troops, planes and vehicles are black symbols.
I notice some small orange circles, in the states of Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming and a few others.
Cheri looks over, seeming to read my mind. “I
CBMs. I’m concerned about that.”
“Why would—”
“To tell Russia and China to back off. By now I’m sure MacElvain’s alerted his counterparts in several strategic countries that something is happening. The story he’s giving out is anybody’s guess. He can’t actually fire the nukes, but it looks like he’s got enough juice with certain generals to light them up.”
She leans toward an aide, a Navy captain from the looks of him. “Messages to counterparts in Russia and China: ‘No nukes will be launched, regardless of what you’ve heard.’ Give no further explanation.”
My brain slides across the wet deck of a ship, trying to grab hold of it all. I marvel at her cool, calm detachment. It seems as though she’s completely in control, almost enjoying the chaos.
The aide steps back into her space. My fingers flex. I struggle against my need to protect her. Not now. Everybody in this room is fighting to protect her, I hope.
“It’s Deputy Director Jefferson, sir. Prime Minister Logsdon is holding, too.”
That was fast. For the Prime Minister of the U.K. to have an idea that something’s going on is surprising, considering that we just found out. Their spies and contacts are good, though.
Cheri takes an offered phone. I peer at the big monitor again.
My head whips around at the crack of a gunshot.
16
Cheri
My shoulders jump. I duck. Jack pushes me to the floor, his bulk flattening me. I flail my arms. “Let me up!”
“Hang on.”
I feel him looking around, then he takes my elbow and lets me get to my knees, my eyes level with the table in front of us.
“OK, they got him,” he says, his voice taut as a violin string.
“Got who?”
“Don’t know, somebody pulled a gun, I guess. We’ll find out, but until then I’m covering you.”
“Let me get up, I’ve got calls.”
“Take ‘em from there,” he snarls.
I pout, but there’s no time for that. “Josh?” I say into the phone.
“What happened?”
“Nothing. Where’re we at?”
“You’ve got a face-off,” he says. “Looks like the White House is surrounded, a battalion of Army.”
“I’ve got four hundred Marines protecting me, I think.” I crane my neck, peering around. There’s a group in a corner, maybe hemming in the gunman. I’ve got to focus on the big picture.
