The Lion's Surprise Baby

by White, Jade

  “And your family…they’re business people. You know business people are usually the ones most against protecting the environment because they only think about their profits and their shareholders. And they buy off politicians to keep the regulations off them. Does your family have a problem with you going into politics and maybe going against their interests?”

  Brenton looked long and hard at her, and Tara had the distinct feeling that she was being scrutinized and sized up, assessed and judged. She sensed that he was searching for something in her, but she had no idea what it might be. The look that he gave her, a look of probing and studying, made her feel anxious for a reason she could not name. She was ready to beg him to answer when he finally did.

  “Tara,” Brenton replied, “my family and I have talked about this. They’re as concerned about this as I am. And for a long time we’ve thought about having someone in the family out there in the legislature, at the Capitol—maybe even in Washington, trying to make a difference about this. My family cares as much as I do, because it’s the future and we’re going to have to live in it, and our cu—our kids are going to have to live in it.

  And we want it to be good and fit and decent for them. So yes, we have talked about it, and when I decided it was time for someone to stop just talking and do something about it and I was going to be the one to step up, they supported me. And they do support me. They’ll have my back about this. We’ll use our money; we’ll use our friends’ money and our donors’ money, and we’ll do everything to make this happen. And I’ll put business aside as much as I have to for it, because it’s that important to us.”

  He had caught himself during a part of his answer. He had almost referred to his family’s posterity as “our cubs,” but he stopped himself in the nick of time. With luck, he thought, Tara would just assume he was going to say “our country.” Let her just assume that, he thought, and we’ll be good.

  “Wow,” said Tara. “It sounds like you have a really great family.”

  “We are a great family,” he agreed. “And a big family. A lot of aunts and uncles, a lot of kids. You should see us all; we’re really a sight.”

  If they all look like you, I’ll bet they are, Tara thought. “Well, it’s good that they all believe in what you want to do.” She paused, then smiled, a look that Brenton found strangely mischievous.

  “What are you thinking now?” he asked.

  “It just occurred to me,” Tara replied, “if you’re really going into politics, you might want to change your image.”

  “My image?”

  “I mean, there’s nothing wrong with the way you look. God, no, not a thing.” She eyed him appreciatively, nodding and inhaling a sharp breath. “It’s just…you look like what I first thought you were interested in being—a model, an actor. You don’t look like a politician. No offense, but this isn’t the 1700s, you know. Long-haired legislators don’t really work today. Male ones, anyway.”

  Brenton chuckled at that. “Yeah, I get that. I’ve thought about that. Everything’s always about looks, isn’t it? ‘Dress for the job you want.’ Being a professional isn’t just an attitude, it’s a look. I’ve thought about cutting all this off. I wonder if I’d even recognize myself if I did. But it’s a sacrifice. To get one thing you give up something else. Sacrifice my look for an office—a hell of a sacrifice.”

  “But if you could actually make a difference the way you want to…”

  “…it’d be worth it. And if I didn’t win I’d just grow it back.”

  “You’d win,” Tara said without a trace of a doubt. “If you talked to the public the way you talked to me, you’d win. I know it.”

  “Thank you, Tara,” he said from the bottom of his heart to the gleam of his smile. “That means a lot. Thank you for that.”

  Tara felt as if a million tiny fires were breaking out all over her, up and down her skin. His sincerity was the equal of his beauty. She could very well be sitting with a future senator, even a president. What a president Brenton would make. What a lucky woman his First Lady would be. She checked his hands—no ring lines on his fingers. He was all that and single too. How had he managed to go unmarried?

  She looked into his eyes and saw the reason. They were blue-green pools of sex. Brenton was a lover, not a mate. He was not a man for the altar, but for the bedroom. She sensed he had been in many beds, and had taken many women to his. She tried to imagine how it would be to go to bed with this most amazing man she had ever encountered.

  How would it feel to be naked with him, to be crushed in those arms and kissed by that face? How would it feel to be pressed under that body and be entered by whatever lurked in his khakis? Would he do it hard, roughly and aggressively? Would he be slow and sensuous and deliberate? Would he be both ways? Was she prepared to find out?

  “It’s getting on to dinnertime,” Brenton said. “As long as we’re here, how about getting a bite to eat?”

  “All this time we’ve been talking,” replied Tara, snapping out of thoughts that she preferred not to express, “somehow I managed to forget I’m hungry. Let’s ask for a couple of menus.”

  The next time the waiter passed by, they made their request. In a couple of minutes the young man returned with their menus. They ordered appetizers, dinner, and more drinks. They talked more about Tara’s travels and her business, and Brenton’s business and his family. Now and then, they even found something funny. Brenton liked the sound of her laugh better and better. And he wanted more and more to hear the way she sounded when she was under a man with his member inside her, and the way she sounded when she came.

  Over a pair of hot fudge sundaes for dessert, Brenton said, “So we’re both checking out tomorrow then.”

  “Tomorrow,” Tara replied. “Then it’s back on the plane and back to Chicago.”

  “Feeling good about that?” he ventured.

  She considered the question. “I’m feeling good about it in a way, yes. I’m looking forward to seeing Felicia and the office and the staff, and all my friends, sure. And getting back into the routine of work. But you know, it’s the end of the trip. You know that feeling you get when the trip is over. You’re glad you went, but you’re a little sad you’re going back. You think, maybe if I could just go a little longer…”

  “I know that feeling, yeah. You want to hold on to how it feels to be traveling. That’s why people buy souvenirs, huh?”

  She grinned. “That’s why.”

  “One thing’s for sure,” Brenton said. “I don’t want this evening to be over. I don’t want this night to be over. I’d like it to go on.”

  “‘Go on’?” There seemed to be an implication in the phrase. Tara wanted to be certain the implication was real.

  “Yeah,” said Brenton, licking at a spoonful of whipped cream in a way that seemed more than a little suggestive. “I’d like this to go on. ‘Til morning.”

  Tara’s eyebrows raised. There it was. She had not imagined the implication. She repeated, “…’til morning.”

  With another lick of cream, he said, “I’ve got a nice…big…suite.”

  “A suite?”

  “Yep. On the top floor. It’s really nice. And it’s just me up there. We could keep each other company. If you’re interested.”

  Now Tara’s heart was doing more than fluttering. It was flitting around inside her like a bird in a cage with a cat sitting outside the bars and licking his chops. She knew what she wanted to say, but instead she answered, “I don’t know, Brenton.”

  “Do you like me?” he asked. “I like you,” he added.

  “I do like you, Brenton,” she replied, the feeling of leaping and flitting around inside her still going on. “It’s not that.”

  “What, then?” he asked. “Is it because it’s been such a long time?”

  “It has been a long time,” Tara replied, now feeling shy and awkward.

  “I understand,” he said.

  “And it’s not just because of how long it’s been. I
t’s because…” She suddenly couldn’t find the words.

  “What?” he encouraged her.

  “…because we’ve only known each other for a few hours,” she finished. “And tomorrow morning I’ll be going back to Chicago and you’ll go back to Napa, and we’ll both go back to our regular lives, and it’ll be just…something that happened.”

  “Something damn good that happened,” said Brenton. “I promise you that.”

  “I know it would be,” said Tara, again without a shadow of a doubt. “But it’s not something I’m really used to.”

  “You mean, you’ve never met a guy and gotten right into…”

  “No,” she cut him off. “Not really.”

  “Not really?” Brenton wondered. “Or never?”

  “Hardly ever,” she admitted.

  “But you have.”

  Now she had a squirming feeling inside; a feeling of strongly conflicting impulses. She felt as if she could twitch and squirm right out of her seat. With a helpless sigh, Tara admitted further, “Not that much, no.”

  “Not even with your husband?” Brenton braced himself for her answer. Bringing up George was a calculated risk on his part. The next few seconds could backfire on him, and cost him what he’d wanted since the moment he saw her.

  Tara’s shoulders slumped. “With George, yes. George was one time I did.”

  “And you didn’t regret that, right?” Brenton suggested.

  “No, I didn’t,” Tara conceded.

  He reached across the table and took her hand. “And I promise, you wouldn't regret this. You won’t be sorry.”

  Of all the sure things the two of them had said since Brenton sat down with her, Tara knew that was the surest. She had every belief that he would make her feel the very motions of the Earth that he wanted to protect. And yet…

  Gently, she drew her hand back and away and looked up at him with regret darkening her eyes. “Brenton,” she said sorrowfully, “I can’t.”

  “Why not?” he asked, with palpable disappointment.

  “It’s me,” Tara replied. “I don’t mean to judge. I’d never judge you. But…it’s not my habit. Yes, I’ve done it that way, but it was never my habit. And now, after such a long time…I don’t think I can.”

  She could tell how heavy Brenton’s heart was. It was all over his wondrously handsome face and it settled over his shoulders. “I understand,” he said. “And…I’m sorry if it felt like I was pushing you. It’s just…it is what I do. I never waste time. But if you’re not ready for it, I understand. I wish you were.”

  Sadly, Tara said, “Maybe I should just go. I’ll pick up half the check.”

  He raised a hand to say it was all right. “I’ve got the check. It’s the least I can do for the time we’ve had. I’ve got it.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “Thank you,” said Brenton. “For the company of someone really beautiful and really nice. I did have a good time. And listen, my cell number is on my card. If you change your mind later tonight…use it. No matter what hour. Use it. I mean it. Okay?”

  Tara nodded, sad at their parting but relieved at his understanding. “Okay.” She got up, picked up her purse, and put her napkin on her chair. “Good night, Brenton.”

  “Good night, Tara. And…good life, huh?”

  She nodded sweetly at him. “Good life.”

  And with that, Tara turned and made for the exit. Brenton could not watch her leave. The stirring, throbbing hardness in his khakis was protesting enough already. If he watched her leave, it might split his zipper. He just sat glumly and thought, Damn, adding a few more words, including the one for what he’d wanted to do to Tara tonight.

  Tara got as far as the door from the cafe into the hotel lobby when she found she could not walk another step. She turned back and looked at him, sitting by himself where he’d been sitting with her. She had actually turned him down, the most heart-stopping man she had ever seen in her life, who clearly wanted to fly her over Santa Monica Pier.

  She multiplied this night by so many other nights and so many other men across two continents for an entire year. She had said no to all of them. Finally, on the last leg of her journey, here was the most exquisite and in his own way most fascinating one of all, and again she had said no. How many more men would she turn down? When would she finally be ready? If not tonight—when?

  It was then she found herself walking again, not into the hotel lobby but back the way she’d been.

  Suddenly, Brenton sensed her presence at his side and looked up into her gently smiling face. At once his zipper was in jeopardy again.

  “Was there something else?” he asked.

  *

  And that was what brought Tara to where she was now, lying not in her own bed in her own hotel room, but in his bed in his suite on the top floor, naked beside a sleeping and naked Brenton, smelling the scent of his sex, feeling the stickiness of it between her thighs and the wetness of it on the sheets under her—and wanting more.

  She reached over and lightly brushed the back of her hand across his mesmerizing face, which was now shadowed with a rough, unshaven growth of fuzz. He took a deep breath, coming out of sleep, and focused his newly waking eyes on her. He smiled. “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey,” she answered.

  “How long were you watching me sleep?” Brenton asked.

  “Just long enough to remember,” Tara answered.

  “Remember the six times I was on top of you last night, you mean?” He rolled his eyes up and down again, and corrected himself. “No—the four times I was on top of you, the one time I had you ride me and then flipped you on your back, and the last time when we were lying like spoons and I stuck it in you from behind.”

  Amazed, she said, “Six times…”

  “Yeah—six great times. And a hell of a lot more where that came from.” He took her by the hand with which she had brushed his face, and kissed it. “Come here,” he said.

  He was good at saying what he wanted, she had to grant him that. Tara slid across the sheets and into his arms. He wrapped her up and put his mouth to hers. He kissed her deeply, a kiss that made his intentions between now and checkout more than plain. The squeeze of his hands on her bottom underlined his point.

  Raining more kisses and licks on Tara’s lips, Brenton suggested in a way that was more than a suggestion, “I love a good suck the first thing in the morning. And you’re very good at it. How about climbing down and giving us a good suck to get started?”

  More than happy to oblige, she parted her lips from his and began to kiss a trail down his body, moving the sheets aside, to where he wanted her to be and where she wanted to go. He shifted onto his back and opened his legs, and his morning wood sprang eagerly at her. Just as eagerly, Tara slipped her mouth over it. She felt a tensing and releasing up and down his body. And with the slipping of her lips and tongue up and down his long, thick, uncut tool, Tara heard him make sounds of appreciation.

  She could have sworn he almost sounded as if he were purring.

  CHAPTER THREE

  In a very real sense, Brenton and Tara started the morning with a bang. After a wet and explosive climax, Tara lay in his arms with her head on his chest, stroking his moist, flaccid, and ample thickness and the plumpness at its root. She enjoyed the rising and falling of his pecs against her cheek and the caress of his hand on the softness of her bottom. And in a somewhat absent voice she said, “I’m going to have to change my plane reservation if I’m going up to your place this morning.”

  Brenton cursed and chuckled. “Seriously? You’re playing with my piece after a hot lay and you’re thinking about your plane reservation?”

  “It’s a practical consideration,” she said, enjoying the feeling of his temporarily shrunken hose between her fingers. “I’m a travel agent. I think about these things.”

  “You’re a very beautiful travel agent,” he replied, leaning forward and down and kissing the top of her head. “And the last week of
your trip is gonna be the best part.”

  “Really?” she said, teasingly. “I’ve been to an awful lot of places and seen an awful lot of things.”

  “Well,” he teased back, “you’ll be seeing a lot of the Tower of Morgan this next week.”

  She actually giggled at that. She had not giggled that way since she was in high school.

  He added, “I know you’ve been spending some time on planes lately, but I’ll bet there’s one thing you haven’t had -- or had done to you -- on a plane.”

  Startled, she rose up on her elbows and gazed at the shamelessly naughty look on his face. She could tell he wasn’t kidding.

  “On a plane?” Tara said.