“Good, you make him see sense,” he grunted. “I don’t say it isn’t a sad business, but-”
“I know, I know, it would ruin Michael’s presidential campaign,” Ashley said quietly, interrupting Norm before he could say anything else to upset her. She wasn’t exactly confessing to anything definite, and nor was she denying that he was onto something. She wasn’t sure what she wanted him to believe.
Norm glanced at his watch. “Well, if you go now Michael should be free to see you,” he urged.
Ashley sighed and got to her feet. “Right, well, I guess I’ll go now then,” she muttered, rubbing a hand over her forehead.
Norm stepped back to let her pass through the door and walk out into the corridor. Ashley was barely aware of the path she took to reach Michael’s office. She was too busy trying to work out what on earth she was going to say to him! Nothing was really springing to mind.
She tapped lightly on Michael’s office door when she reached it, hoping the he would be out or too busy working to see her. She had no such luck. Michael’s voice immediately invited her to enter, and when she stepped inside she saw that he was alone.
“Ash!” Michael smiled, getting to his feet when he saw her standing in the doorway. “What can I do for you?”
“I-” she licked her lips uncertainly. “Norman just came to see me,” she whispered, taking a tentative step towards Michael’s desk. She was looking down at her feet, so she didn’t see the furious way his eyes flashed.
“Oh he did, did he?” Michael growled.
Ashley gulped and nodded. “He said- he said that you-”
“Whatever he said, it doesn’t matter!” Michael grunted. “I assume he told you that I know about the baby? Well, I don’t care what else he said, because I’m not going to let anything happen to either of you!”
In that moment, Ashley wished, so hard, that the pregnancy test had been positive.
“Oh Michael,” she whispered, blinking back guilty tears. “There is no baby,” she breathed, unable to meet his eyes as she broke this news. She heard him sit down in the large leather chair behind his desk though. When she did summon the resolve to look up she saw that he looked severely shaken.
“But I- I saw-” he shook his head, and frowned at Ashley. “You wouldn’t lie to me about this would you?” he demanded. “Norm hasn’t convinced you to get rid of it without telling me?”
“No!” Ashley choked, unable to believe that Michael had really asked her that question! “I’m not pregnant,” she insisted. “I never was,” she said quietly. “Why did you- why would you think that I was?” she asked softly.
Michael was staring down at his desk. He couldn’t seem to bring himself to look her in the eye. “I saw the test in your purse the other day,” he muttered, dragging a hand through his hair. “I guess- well, I seem to have jumped to conclusions,” he murmured. When he did finally look at her he was still frowning suspiciously however. “Why did you have the test, Ashley?”
“Because I thought- I was afraid that I-”
Michael seemed to know what she was trying to say without Ashley having to find the exact words.
“You must have been relieved when you found out that you weren’t pregnant,” Michael said slowly. He sounded so bitter that Ashley felt herself start to shake her head in denial.
“No,” she whispered, as tears strung the backs of her eyes. “No. I wanted to have your baby,” she confessed, but then immediately clapped a hand over her mouth in horror at what she had just confessed.
“Did you really?” Michael pressed, leaping on her confession. He pushed himself out of his seat and moved towards Ashley.
“I- I shouldn’t have said that,” she said hurriedly, wishing that she had been able to hold her tongue!
“Shouldn’t you?” Michael murmured. He eyes were bright with an emotion that Ashley couldn’t read. “Didn’t you mean it?”
Ashley couldn’t bring herself to lie to Michael, even though she sensed that that would have been the wiser decision. She had wanted to have his child. Perhaps she hadn’t realized how much she had wanted that until this moment? Something about Michael made her bold and reckless.
He urged her backward, until she was pinned between his body and the door. “Maybe I wanted to make you pregnant,” he growled, which made Ashley gasp and burn.
Michael lowered his lips to her mouth, stealing a savage kiss as he pressed their bodies together.
“Stop! I can’t think,” Ashley gasped, trying to pull away from him, but she was denied. Michael captured her mouth again, plunging his tongue between the seams of lips and drinking his fill of her.
“I don’t want you to think,” he panted. “Tell me what you feel?” he rasped, letting his hands wander hungrily over her body.
“Michael, no,” Ashley whimpered half-heartedly. She couldn’t stop herself from returning his kisses, and her arms had wound automatically around his neck. “We shouldn’t,” she puffed, but only because she was certain that Michael would ignore her.
“I want to be inside you,” he growled, nipping at her neck. Ashley shuddered and moaned. “I want you to have my baby,” he grunted.
“Oh God,” Ashley groaned, was it possible for a man to say anything more arousing? Every rational thought that she possessed had fled in the face of Michael’s overwhelming desire.
“Tell me you want it too,” he urged, grinding against her shamelessly.
“I do!” she sobbed. “I do!”
He had to stop. Ashley didn’t know what she was saying. He didn’t know what he was doing! These thoughts flashed through Michael’s mind, but not one of them was powerful enough to actually still his hands or lessen the ardor of his lips.
Somehow, dimly, he knew that he was out of control. Michael couldn’t put into words the crushing disappointment that had broken the bonds of his restraint, but it was tearing him apart. Ashley wasn’t pregnant- there was no baby. He should have been relieved, but all he could think about was his failure as a man.
He wanted her pregnant, damn it! He needed to prove his virility! He wanted to see her swollen with the seed of his child. He wanted the world to know that she belonged to him.
“Michael!” Ashley gasped, as he continued, with increasing roughness, to maul her body. “Gently?” she squeaked, breathless, but her plea went unheeded. Michael reached around her with out hand to fix the lock on the door, while his other hand continued its groping caresses.
“I need to be inside you,” he growled.
Ashley nodded her head desperately, and whimpered as Michael lifted her completely off the floor. Covering the ground rapidly he reached his desk and tossed her down onto the polished surface, scattering numerous important papers everywhere as he did so.
“Oh God, oh God!” Ashley moaned, as Michael tore at her stockings and panties, and pushed up her skirts.
He didn’t make any apology to her for his almost violent treatment; he was acting on instinct alone. He could smell how bad she wanted him.
“Please?” Ashley puffed suddenly, clutching at Michael, as he took a brief step back from the desk, away from her, so that he had room to reach for his belt and free the throbbing rod of his sex.
“Soon,” Michael growled, groaning thickly.
“Now!” she begged.
“Now,” Michael agreed raggedly, tipping his hips and entering Ashley in one smooth, sure thrust.
“Oh!” she gasped, clinging to him frantically, and rolling her bottom in an attempt to drag him even deeper into her body.
Michael grunted, and tightened his hold on her. It always felt incredible to be held inside Ashley’s body, but there was something different this time, something extra raw and frenzied. He should stop… he shouldn’t be doing this- taking her like this… but Michael couldn’t help himself.
He knotted his fingers in Ashley’s hair and forced her to tilt her head back, so that he could claim her mouth in a savage kiss as he continued to piston inside her. She, in turn, wrap
ped her legs around him, urging him faster, deeper, harder.
“Fuck!” Michael swore, nearing his peek. “Oh fuck!”
“Don’t- not yet- I’m not-!” Ashley sobbed- but a second later they both froze when all of a sudden there was a knock on Michael’s office door!
Ashley’s eyes nearly popped out of her head. She tried to scramble away from Michael, but he refused to let her go- he kept her exactly where she was- impaled upon his twitching shaft.
“Michael!” she hissed, trying to speak and stop him without actually making a sound. He shifted his weight so that he could glance over his shoulder, knocking against the inside of her sheath in the most provoking manner as he did so. Ashley bit back a moan, as illicit pleasure sizzled through her veins.
Apparently, she thought in faint mortification, her excitement was only intensified by the fear of getting caught, because when the knock on the door was repeated more loudly than before, and she felt Michael throb inside her, she too sighed with pleasure. She did give her head a frantic shake when Michael withdrew and then thrust powerfully between her legs.
“The door’s locked,” he mouthed silently, quickly finding a steady, almost silent, rhythm that was pushing Ashley higher and higher every time their bodies reconnected.
“Michael!” she pleaded, her voice a mere whisper, which was drowned out by a much louder shout of Michael’s name. Norm’s voice called through the door from the hallway outside. The door handle rattled and a new clutch of fear made Ashley’s muscles contract tightly around Michael’s cock.
“That’s my girl,” Michael murmured thickly, burying his sex between her legs with renewed vigour. He claimed her mouth, swallowing the cries that she was incapable of suppressing as her whole body shattered dizzyingly, fluttering and pulsing, and bringing Michael to his own devastating climax.
Ashley went limp in Michael’s arms as he spilled his seed against her womb; her orgasm had left her kittenish and weak, but as its dizzying effects slowly faded away reality started to come crashing back down around her- what in the world had she just done?
She stared at Michael, who looked just as dazed as she felt. The intent determination to have his way (with her) had disappeared from his face, and it left him looking sated but lost.
“I didn’t-” he started to say, but frowned and shock his head. “No- I did mean to do that,” he growled unapologetically. Ashley shivered at the bald statement; there was something unforgivably sexy about it- about what they had just done. “I know I shouldn’t have, though,” he added bleakly.
Michael’s gaze dropped to Ashley’s stomach. She saw where he was looking and flushed. “It would be unlikely for me to be-” she started to mutter, but Michael cut her off before she could finish.
“I’ll take full responsibility if you are-” but he faltered over the last word of his sentence. After being so vocal earlier about making her pregnant Ashley wondered what it meant? Probably that he too had come to his senses. She wondered why that upset her?
“You don’t have to say that,” she said quietly, as she gingerly pushed herself off the desk.
“Damn it, Ash, I’m trying to-!” Michael growled, but again he stopped himself when the knocking at the door started up again. “Oh, for the love of-!” he snarled, attempting to straightened his clothes as best as he could manage, before he then started to stalk towards the door.
“Michael!” Ashley squeaked in horror, unable to believe what he was doing! She glanced down at her own disheveled appearance and knew that she would never be able to fool the person at the door (probably Norm) into thinking that she looked anything but thoroughly shagged!
Acting completely on panicky instinct, she darted towards Michael’s closet and she hid herself there, shutting herself inside the dark space just as Michael unlocked and opened up his office door.
“What is it, Norman?” Michael barked at his campaign manager.
The other man looked startled by this rough, sudden address. “I was- I was just-” but then he frowned and glanced into the office behind Michael. “I sent Miss Kendall to see you. I thought perhaps-”
“I know you sent Miss Kendall to see me,” Michael growled, unable to forget his fury with the other man for interfering in his private affairs. All right, so there was no baby now, probably, but Michael still couldn’t forgive Norman for his behavior- for what he had wanted done if there had been a child.
“And?” Norman asked casually.
“And we’ve… sorted things out,” Michael grunted, glancing quickly about the office for Ashley, as Norm forced himself inside.
Michael hadn’t realized that she had hidden herself, but he couldn’t deny that he was a little bit relieved that Norm hadn’t caught them together- not because he was ashamed of anything that he did with his lover, but because he really didn’t think that he was feeling up to yet another lecture from the other man.
“How have you sorted things out, Michael?” Norm demanded shrewdly. He gave a delicate, curious little sniff, but didn’t comment on the earthy scent that was hanging in the air. “Has Miss Kendall managed to talk some sense into you?”
Michael didn’t think that he would have explained what had happened between himself and Ashley in those bland terms, but agreeing with Norm seemed like the best and quickest way to get rid of him.
“She did,” he said blandly.
“Well… good,” Norm nodded, but he didn’t look entirely convinced. “So everything is back on track? We’ll keep the wedding at its original date- when Miss Kendall will jilt you, and then everything can go back to normal. Thank God,” he sighed, with some feeling.
Michael heard the weary tone of Norm’s voice. “This was your idea,” he couldn’t resist pointing out. “You were the one who said I couldn’t do without a First Lady by my side.”
“Well to be honest I think we might have been better off leaving you single and toning down your playboy image!” Norman snapped.
There had been a time when Michael would have agreed with this sentiment whole-heartedly, but he wasn’t now sure if he would ever willingly change the circumstances that had brought Ashley into his life. If only he hadn’t been so blind where she was concerned! She had been working for him for months, why couldn’t he have discovered her delights on his own- then all of the little misunderstands could have been avoided?
“Well, it’s too late for that now,” murmured Michael distractedly, not exactly sure what “it” was that he was referring to- not changing their plan or not realising that Ashley was so right for him earlier? He gave his head a tired shake. “We’ll have to go through with things as we originally arranged.”
“Right,” Norm nodded. “I’m glad to hear that we finally agree! I know a doctor who can-”
“That won’t be necessary,” Michael grunted.
“But Michael-!”
“Leave it, Norm,” Michael said, a note of warning in his voice. “Trust me, I know how to handle this situation.”
“All right, well, I’ll leave you to it then,” Norm said slowly. He sniffed the air again, and frowned at the papers he had just noticed lying on the floor. “Ugh- here,” he said, pulling a piece of paper out of his pocket. “Those are the numbers you said you wanted.”
“Thanks, Norm,” Michael muttered, glancing over the list of dog breeders, as his campaign manager made a hasty retreat out of the office. Once he had been gone for a safe amount of time Michael called out to Ashley. “You can come out now. He’s gone.”
The closet door creaked open, and a still delectably rumpled Ashley stepped out into the room.
“You didn’t have to hide you know,” Michael murmured. “It might have taught Norman a lesson if he had found us together,” he snorted, casting a glare in the direction of the door.
“You don’t mean that,” Ashley said coldly.
Michael’s frown deepened when he heard the cool distance that had crept into her voice. “Ash?” he murmured, taking a step towards her, but she evaded his gras
p. “Ash?” he repeated her name, and then looked guilty. “You’re not mad- about earlier? I know, I shouldn’t have- but I couldn’t stop- you didn’t- you didn’t want me to stop?” he stammered.
Ashley’s cheeks burned fiercely, as she gave her head a quick, silent shake. “No,” she whispered. “But we shouldn’t have- have done that. It was… stupid of us,” she said quietly.
Michael hadn’t stopped frowning. Hadn’t she said, earlier, that she wanted to have his baby? What was the cause of this sudden change? Well, she had probably just come to her senses! He told himself harshly. It was a pity that he seemed to be so much slower in grasping what a disaster it would be if he did get her pregnant!
“So… we’re back to the original plan of me leaving you at the altar?” Ashley asked. It sounded like she was trying to sound casual, and not entirely succeeding. Michael stared at her curiously.
The Perfect Candidate Page 14
