by Amy Faye
Even still, though, it didn't stop her from worrying. And why exactly should she stop worrying? What was there to convince her that she wasn't in extreme danger of running into trouble down the line?
A few vague self-assurances? Firm belief that everything would be fine? How many clients had assured her that there was absolutely nothing to worry about? How many in fact had something to worry about after all, when the chips finally fell?
Nothing made her any different, when it came down to it, except that if she prepared for the eventuality, she'd be able to deal with it. The first part—the most important part—of preparing for any story you know can hurt you is to minimize.
Minimizing damage comes down to three things, and her case would be no different. The only way to assure that Adam—and, Linda had to admit, herself as well—was going to be protected was to treat her own case just like any other.
First, you make the story as implausible as possible. If nobody believes the story, then it's a non-starter. If the public has doubts, then that's nearly as good. It's all shades of gray, until you figure out how to get away with it.
Second, you create deniability. That's not the same thing, though it might seem like it is at first blush. An implausible story is one that nobody believes even without knowing the evidence. 'Hitler was a great guy and only wanted the best for the Jewish population,' for example. Right on the face of it, nobody needs to investigate because it's obviously not true.
Instead, it's closer to finding an alibi for the night of a murder. Sure, there was a reason you wanted the victim dead. It just so happens that in this case, you didn't kill them even though you could have and wanted to. After all, you were at the bar all night, and everyone saw you there.
The story is believable, but on further inspection, must be untrue.
Third, and the most important part, is to minimize the effect that it will have when people do believe the story in spite of your best efforts. The last line of defense.
And the truth was that in Adam's case, this was already done for him. There are a thousand ways to minimize the damage. Desensitization is one of the most effective. Thirty years of the press reporting on the thousands of women that Adam Quinn has slept with mean that one more doesn't hurt him any more than a report of another big win in the tech field. It's expected at this point.
It would follow her, though. She'd always be the one who fucked her boss, and there would always be a question of whether or not she'd done it before. Whether or not her entire reputation was built on all the men she'd been willing to sleep with.
Those questions would be all it took to stop whatever growth she might have been making. By the time that it was time to be seriously thinking about settling down, the difference would be big enough that you'd notice.
Which meant that she had to figure out some way to protect herself, some way to minimize the damage. It happened, but… But what?
But it hadn't happened before, and wouldn't happen again; but she'd had diminished capacity; but she regretted it?
None of them really rang true. All she could think now was that it all sounded like lies, and she had better figure out what she was going to do about it, and she'd better do it now. Or else things could end up going south very quickly.
Chapter Twenty-Two
They shouldn't have had him there alone. Linda was more than a little bit upset that they weren't there.
She and Tom should have been there to cover bases. An intern, at least, to make sure that everything is above-board. It's not hard to edit footage down to make someone look stupid. That's why you have your people there, making sure that it doesn't happen.
It was her job to make sure that this Holden thing didn't turn into a hit piece, and if it did, that she was able to respond to it quickly and efficiently. But like it or not, that wasn't what was happening.
Adam decided, right or wrong, that he was going to go alone, and it wasn't her place to question it. She wasn't about to try to use whatever leverage she had with him, but she wasn't exactly ready to go all-in with her nascent plans to cover her ass if their relationship came out in the press.
Which left her sitting in the office, watching the news. Tom was silently watching on the other couch, as well. Both of them waiting for news, as if they were waiting for the gallows.
Nothing was happening. A slow news night. Which, in this case, meant talking about Quinn again. The usual stuff, this time. Nothing too exciting, and in spite of what the press clearly thought, nothing particularly damaging.
He's inexperienced in politics, they say. Sure, he's got plenty of money on the line, and he's been at the edge of politics since he first got into it. Sure, he runs one of the most successful, efficient charities in the country. Sure, he's smart and proven that he can take projects to completion time and time again.
None of that matters. He hasn't been a politician for very long, only a couple weeks. That means that he's ill-suited to the job because only politicians can be good politicians.
It doesn't matter that he's strongly defined his positions—focus on education reform first and foremost, then revitalizing the American economy, with no foreign conflict.
He's incompetent, he's not a real candidate. And that's all they've got to say, so they're going to have to say it quite a few times.
It should feel like failure for Linda. Her client was getting this kind of beat-down on Television, on a slow news night? Scandal talk constantly. The positives were all but forgotten, while the negatives were enumerated in excruciating, even boring, detail.
Somehow, it didn't. It felt expected. This was just the beginning of his candidacy. Just the first step in taking the white house. He was an outsider, and he couldn't be safely ignored, which meant that he was going to be marginalized. It was always going to happen, and there was nothing that could be done to prevent it.
All she could hope for, in the end, was that it didn't hurt, and she didn't feel like this coverage was hurting him. He took it on the chin and his poll numbers went up.
What worried her was the waiting. She was wasting time. Wasting time responding to new threats that would arise in an interview with someone on Ellen's level. It was only natural, if she went after him at all, that something would come out of it. She was smart, she was committed, and she had enough of a following that there was a real risk of things getting ugly if the interview went sufficiently badly.
Tom wasn't wasting time. He wasn't supposed to respond, he was supposed to get a response. His job was, at its core, to figure out what people expected least, and what was going to have the most effective results.
That was what allowed him, on an evening where something was certainly going to come up, to keep doing what he was doing.
But when your job is to repair someone's reputation, to clean their dirty laundry and empty the skeletons out of their closet…
Well, those things required that you knew what was coming, that you knew what people were saying. It would have been nice, of course, if there was a way to get the information straight from the horse's mouth.
She shouldn't have been frustrated, of course. It was part of the job. It was part of why she was paid quite the amount of money that she was.
If only it weren't her ass on the line this time.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The office was darkened when Adam Quinn stepped back in. The only light in the room came from the two televisions hung on the wall, side-by-side, showing two different channels. Neither one had the sound on; closed captions ran across the bottom with obvious errors visible from the moment that he stepped into the room.
The light fell on a ring of couches, illuminating a young woman, sitting there. She was attractive, Adam had to admit. Unusually attractive for a woman in her line of work.
"Linda. What are you still doing here? What time is it?"
"Late," she said softly.
"You should be at home. Asleep. We've got a big day tomorrow."
"I need to get t
he debrief on the interview with Ellen," she answers. The televisions click off. The light from the hall spills in, just enough light to see by, but only barely.
"It can wait until the morning."
"Or you can let me do my job and tell me what I need to be getting ready for."
"It went great. You'll love it. Perfect."
"That's good, but I'm going to need more than that."
She smelled good. Like a woman should, he thought. She was close now, as he walked deeper into the dark room.
"Is Tom still here?"
"I talked him into going back to his apartment."
Two more steps would close the distance between them, now. She'd fit easily into his arms. She'd feel good there, too. It was what he wanted, and he generally got what he wanted. Generally took it.
"Then we're alone."
"I suppose so," she says. Something about her attitude rubs him the wrong way.
"Is everything alright?"
"Fine," she says. He can barely make out her face in the darkness, but she doesn't look like everything is fine.
"You look distraught."
"I'm not. I'm fine."
He took a step, and the space between them closed halfway.
"Are you sure?"
"What's with the third degree?"
"You're right. My mistake." He took another step, and now he was close to her. His arm wrapped around her shoulder, pulled her in close.
She stiffened at his touch. She didn't pull away, though, and there was a difference.
"What?"
"We can't."
His lips found the sensitive skin of her throat and pressed themselves against her. She leaned into it a little, and he knew that he had her in his grasp.
"We can," he told her. "Nothing's going to stop us."
Her breathing was ragged, caught a little bit in her throat, and he could almost hear the edge of arousal building up in her.
"We shouldn't."
"We should," he responded. His lips moved to the other side of her throat, his teeth nipping along the line of her collarbone as he moved across.
He pushed her a little, stepping into her space until she was forced to step back and make room. Until she was pressed against the foot of a sofa and the only place she had to go was down onto her back.
"I don't think this is a good idea," she repeated.
"Fuck good ideas," he answered. His hands found the hem of her skirt and fished her blouse out of it. His fingers dashed under almost immediately, tracing the taut skin around her waist.
"I don't want to get a reputation," she said softly. She put her hands on his arm, not quite stopping him. His hand stopped, but his fingers, softly tracing a line across her skin, did not.
"Then don't tell anyone. I won't."
"Word gets out, though," she said. A little bit more force in her voice.
"Then I'll take responsibility."
"No you won't." Her voice is hard, now, and her hand pushes his away. He nibbles her earlobe gently, and he can still hear the edge of need in her voice even as she tells him to stop.
"I won't let you get hurt. I promise."
Her hard edge falters.
"How?"
"Won't know until I have to do it," he says. It's the truth. Linda wouldn't accept anything less than that, and Adam doesn't doubt for an instant that she would be able to hear the lie in his voice.
"Then how do you know you'll be able to do it?"
"I always take responsibility for my messes." He always has in the past.
Her hand doesn't seem to be trying nearly so hard to keep him away from her. He pulls her hips in close to his again, and she doesn't pull away. His lips trace a line back down the thick, sensitive vein of her neck.
"If you tell me you don't want it…"
She doesn't. His fingers start to work the buttons on her blouse and work their way up from her belly-button to her throat, uncovering pale skin as they go. He enjoys the shiver that runs up her spine. Linda's body relaxes and he presses her back further until she falls back onto her butt.
His hands undo the last remaining buttons, and he pushes her shirt back, off her shoulders. She pulls it down her arms and by then he's already pulling her generous breasts free of their confines.
"Do you want me," he growls.
"Shut up and fuck me."
That's the only permission he needs.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Her body is pliable under his fingers—pushing back where he wants her to push back, relaxing where she ought to relax. Her plump breasts pool on her chest, her body pressed down against the thick leather upholstery.
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.
