by Alex Elliott
He’s freeing me.
I’m different here. Bound, I don’t fight myself—I’m pure sensation. It’s just us. Is that his point?
I thrash but Bennett’s right here, curving his fingers over my hips, suckling my clit until I’m splayed open, frazzled. He’s licking me undone, his beard scraping across my thighs as I whimper words against the gag. As he murmurs between sucks on my clit, my name and “You’re mine. All mine.”
Hot is how I blossom against his mouth. His words implode in my mind, filling me to the brim as my release combusts. “Ben! Oh God!” I scream inside my head while on the outside I tremble under a veil of euphoria.
This is like sprinting—a runner’s high. I’m so filled with energy yet also surfing a wave of bliss, an endorphin rush. He probably sees I’m shaking from my climax—yet what he doesn’t know is I’m locking away my secrets that I long to tell him.
“Bennett.” I say his name silently to myself. Tasting the shape of the syllables of his name that I repeat over and over as I squeeze my fingers together, grinding myself against his mouth that consumes me.
He sucks a tender point, ticklish on my thigh, hijacking my intellect. When he groans, dragging his lips back to my pussy, no longer am I flying untethered. I’m lost in boundless euphoria that expands within my core, and ignites along my limbs. Writhing under him, I’m coming so hard, pouring out myself into him. He laps up my release as my world splinters into phantasmagoric sensations. I’m filled with evocative splashes of color, sounds, textures—all of him owning me.
For one protracted second, I fight falling.
At the brink, my one slice of lucidity questions the extent that this man dominates me. The answer scares the fuck out of me and I thrash. He holds me tighter, sucks me harder until my body overrides my mind. I’m awash in raw emotions. Here under him without walls, I’m ready to leap and give in to all that he does to me as I’m both bound and freed in his bed. His kisses are a language that he presses invisibly along my body, and I pray that he understands my movements, conveying how incredibly insane he drives me.
Without a word, he arches upward, and the intense hunger in his eyes tears through my orgasmic haze. Instinctively I roll my hips, craving him deep inside me. His cock judders in front of him as he pulls my thighs, drawing me across the sheets, bringing me to him. He aligns his crown with my entrance, and our gazes collide right before he thrusts his full length into me.
“Fuck!” he groans, tugging my hips up to him, forcing me to meet the slam of his dick. “You feel like silk and so wet.”
He’s softly brutal tonight in how he decimates the walls around me. With unrelenting mastery, he fucks me, holding onto my shoulders as he drives his cock into me. All. The. Way.
This type of love making, I’ve never done. Beautifully brutal in how he splays me open, then enters me until we’re joined skin-on-skin and tonight our connection twists deeper.
This primal lust we share burns hotter, harder yet also tender in how he says my name with each grunt, each slam. “Xavia. Baby. Mine.”
I watch him above me as I arch off the bed, giving into him. His chiseled features could be cast from granite in how he controls himself. With each pound of his cock into me, he flicks his fingers across my clit, weaving shimmering bliss until my pleasure turns into a firestorm, singeing every centimeter of my skin.
And then I’m there.
We both are.
Coming together, we’re one.
“X,” he says in a guttural hiss.
A shudder runs through him as I’m whimpering partial words, muddled sounds. I stop fighting and start...Oh my God. I realize how far over the edge I’ve fallen, and I can’t be—it’s impossible.
Closing my eyes, I staunch the stinging that accompanies this mind-blowing revelation. Please, please I silently beg myself to gain control but I can’t. Not with him pummeling his length into me, holding onto my hips as he grinds down, penetrating the last gossamer veil of my resistance.
“You are mine. Come for me. Only me. I own your sweet pussy.” He tells part of the truth. He owns more. He owns my soul and I blink as tears collect in my eyes.
He collapses on top of me, both of us gasping as I’m held together within his arms, within this web of silken freedom.
My heartbeat hammers, beating in tandem with the thunder of his heart, battering within his chest and over mine. He buries his face along my neck, sucking and kissing my skin. When our labored breathing becomes more controlled, I take a foggy accounting. I didn’t scream aloud all those thoughts, running amok in my mind, and I swallow, relief flooding through me.
“Baby, that was so intense.” His voice comes out gravelly, tinged with his customary Southern accent. In the aftermath of one of the most torrential orgasms known to humanity, when he raises his head a few inches, and our gazes reconnect, the impact brings on a fresh river of sentiments that lance my heart.
No one has ever looked at me the way he does. Pure primal hunger and proprietary, and I close my eyes, afraid he’ll see all that I feel and can’t hide. The pieces of me—a million blown apart bits, and I’m surprised he doesn’t order me to open my eyelids. I feel his fingers on my face, skimming across my cheek. He unfastens the buckle and for one stark second, I’m afraid to remove the gag as if the emotions brewing within me, might decide a mutiny, and transcend from my mind to my tongue, telling him everything I’m holding back.
“Slowly...open,” he whispers. “You might feel a little stiff along your jaw.”
He grabs a handful of tissues and wipes my chin. I do as he instructs, and my mouth doesn’t hurt—I am slightly embarrassed at how much I’ve drooled. No... I’m wrong; my jaw aches a bit as I flex it back and forth.
He shifts position, running his fingers through his hair as his eyes trace along the rope that binds me in his bed. A muscle clicks along his cheek, and I wonder the direction of his thoughts. “Ah well,” he says softly, “Can’t keep you tied up here forever.”
As meticulously as he tied me, his fingers untie the first knot along my wrist, uncoiling the rope as sensation returns to my quasi numb limbs. As I’m freed, I realize the irony that in some ways, I’m not. Along my wrists are impressions like corrugated tubing and I watch him smooth his hands along my skin, murmuring my name like an ancient prayer. He kneels by my side, and this feels like he’s the one submitting in reverence. I bow my head against his shoulder for a second, gathering myself, the pieces held together within the coiling loops of silk rope, he crafts so carefully and now undoes.
“Let me,” he says, and reaches for a bottle on the bedside I hadn’t noticed until now. He slides his fingers along the path where once the rope held me. Now, I’m the one who is in charge of keeping myself in check.
“That was surreal,” I say, desperate to keep my voice from cracking.
Chapter 17
HOLY FUCK
“JONATHAN RICHER is here to see you,” a staffer informs me over the intercom on my phone and I lock my jaw. I’ve avoided him since I sent the anonymous emails to Jax. I should have talked with him and found out if he’s decided against going forward with the expose. Dammit, I glance at my cell, then survey the horizon of my desk where files, memos, messages are strewn. To say a slew of work waits on me is an understatement. Inside Bennett’s office, our whole morning went topsy-turvy, and hasn’t slowed yet.
“I’ll be right up.” It’s eleven and Jon should be at the Jax’s office by now. With the president’s speech an hour ago, announcing trade talks are underway and the embargo is about to be lifted with Cuba, our switchboard is jammed with calls. For the last twenty minutes, we’ve all pitched in to help answer constituent concerns.
When I enter the reception area, Jon’s face is blanketed in a dark expression. Our gazes snap together, and his frown deepens. Crap. Double crap. Did he get fired from his stint at Jax’s office? I so didn’t want that to occur. “Hey, come back to my office,” I say, greeting him and feeling like a miserable traitor.<
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“Office?” He bitterly laughs out the word. His tone is cutting enough that the staffer manning Nora’s desk shoots him a look.
“This way,” I direct him, cocking my head and refraining from opening the door to what’s bugging him out here. We walk in silence—it’s as though I can feel the anger discharging off him like burning electricity. We enter my office and I gesture to a chair. “Is everything okay?”
“I had breakfast with Brooke.” He rakes his fingers through his unruly hair as a muscle twitches along the side of his jaw. He towers in the doorway, his computer case slung over his shoulder. “I’m floored that in less than a week she’s fine. We had bagels and when I left, she had her laptop out and was studying. Strange to see her so grounded. Both of you. Night and day from the beginning of the summer, wouldn’t you say?”
“We’re in our zones. What’s going on?”
“More like what in the hell is going on?” He closes my office door, and whirls around, crossing the carpet, looking like he’s about to throttle me.
“Lower you voice,” I reply in a dead calm tone, preparing to hear the worst.
The vast cache of secrets housed in my head swirls around like bits of paper caught in a windstorm. Which one is he on the warpath over? Bennett isn’t in, but there’s staff attached to every phone throughout the suite. Nora’s right next door, camped out in his office. She’s the only one who has freewheel over his desk, and is answering his phone, taking calls in rapid-fire succession.
“When in the fuck were you going to tell me, Xavia?”
I’ve never seen Jon this wound up and I gasp from the slice of rage he inflicts. From bitter, he’s gone to outright fury. “What are you so upset about?”
“Dating ring a bell? As in you are dating Senator Stone!” His lips are white around the edges and his accusatory stare hits me like a tidal wave.
My stomach twists. Shit, of course, he’d be the first to see the photographs that the press ran with a few cute if not suggestive bylines from our dinner date last night. I drop his stormy gaze, my fingers twitching as though I’m expressing all that I’m holding inside kinetically. My hands turn cold, and I knit my fingers together, aware that he’ll pick up on my nervous tick. Oh shit.
“Well?” he demands. “Don’t you dare start lying to me.”
“Jesus, Jon. You of all people are aware that what’s spun isn’t the whole truth,” I retort, carefully, painfully selecting what I can share—and more importantly, what must remain hidden.
“Define how much is a lie. His hands on you. You both laughing it up. Him tucking you into his car. Kissing your cheek. Which part is the lie...or is it right fucking now, where you’re fabricating lie after lie?”
“It’s not like that.” We’re both standing, less than a yard apart and his eyes bounce from left to right between mine. I don’t break his stare and continue, “It’s a ploy. A play.”
“That’s a good one.” His pupils are pins and stab at my pretense of seamless confidence, tearing tiny holes in my demeanor.
“What does it matter what I’m doing? Aren’t you doing a piece on...Jax?” I can’t believe I’m shifting gears, ready to throw someone under the bus—the man who acted as my keeper keeping me safe but I do. I’ll do anything to steer Jon away from Bennett and with ice flowing in my veins, I stow all thoughts as I focus on Jon and his anger. Not the truth. Fuck, I can’t enter that vault, and pull off this spun sugar romance.
“I’m doing a piece on the Hill, sweetheart. The whole goddamn Hill.” He shakes his head dramatically. “Don’t bullshit me.”
Still digging. Jon’s looking for details for his expose. He doesn’t care who it’s about. A negative deluge might backlash the vice president if I even suggest this is staged and part of her campaign plan, but if he keeps digging he might find out about the House. A bone needs to be thrown and I toss him one.
“I’m not. And I can’t tell you anything beyond, whatever you heard or read is being done to give Stone a better polling image. PR chicanery about his upcoming Veep announcement. It’s all about engaging voters.” The pressure inside my head feels like helium that’s expanding exponentially with each lie I slap together and then expound.
“Oh, so you dive off the deep end when your grandparents attempt to garner control over your life. They wanted to bankroll your ass and would have slathered you with power and privilege that you snubbed your precious little nose at. But now... you’re selling your name to the good senator. For what?” He waves his hand in a small circle. “A corner office!”
My heart sprints up my throat. It appears like I’ve sold out, and for now, I’m not going to argue. “Look,” I lean closer, narrowing my eyes. “Everyone uses everyone around here. Isn’t that the name of the game?”
“Well, well. Fucking well,” he jeers, his eyes raking me up and down. “Less than a month on the Hill and it looks like you fit right in.”
“What are you so upset about? Aren’t you pretending to be a staffer to get a truckload of dirt on Carter? You’re one to talk about morality. Expose ethics ring a bell?”
He shoots his finger out in front of my face, pointing at me. “Don’t you try and rationalize what you’re doing. Don’t!” He turns around, marching to the doorway. Instead of leaving, at the door he stops, glancing over his shoulder. “Guess I was right about you and politics. You’re more Kennedy and Stillman than you know, X.”
My chest constricts from Jon’s dart. I take two steps toward him, desperate to tell him everything and not let him go, but I can’t. I can’t, I keep telling myself as my heart squeezes, and I watch him walk out the door.
Chapter 18
HARD VERSUS SOFT
FOR THE last five hours, I’ve blasted through meeting after meeting with an interpreter on my heels. We enter my conference room, he nods to me. I begin with introductions, presenting my Foreign Relations team to the Cuban Foreign Trade Minister and his staff.
“Good to see you, Minister Diaz,” I say to the man in front of me as we clasp hands and shake.
“Senator Stone,” he replies, and introduces his people.
We all take a seat at the conference table, and when Diaz speaks, his words come out in clipped syllables. During our talk, I’m proficient enough in nonverbals and Spanish to understand, we’ve hit a wall.
Not the place I need to be at four fifteen on a Friday. I listen as my interpreter translates Diaz’s last statement, but all the while I’m focused on Diaz’s body position as I begin the art of mirroring him. Little quirks in how I sit, lean, my expression, even my breathing rate. A practice aimed at communicating that I’m not some asswipe politician—which I most certainly am using these tricks—but I’ve got an agenda same as the man before me who has the ear of Castro.
I smile when he finishes and tell him I’m prepared to meet his requirements. All except one. There’s no point in pushing the trade policy law already in place in how the U.S. conducts trade with Cuba. We must operate within those constraints, or this deal is blown. To sweeten the pot, I push forward an outline of how the new trade provisions will take place, giving him a timeline, and the amount of foreign aid his country will be provided by not only the U.S., but several of our allies. Effectively, we’ve open the doors on considerable arenas in which his country can now purchase goods to assist their impoverished economy as well as doorways where Cuban exports will be permitted.
My interpreter relays Diaz’s reply: “Senator Stone, I’m authorized and prepared to make a deal. Today.”
For a second, I stop spinning. Mentally, I backtrack. I’d expected him to scoop up the file and take the offer back to his cabinet to discuss—pick apart—construct a counter offer. This isn’t the Wild West—this is an international economy agreement but okay—it’s time to adapt.
“Let’s start with support,” I say, peering across the table, affecting a mirror quality that so far Diaz hasn’t picked up on. I’m trying to be as subtle as a shadow, but still, it’s manipulative as sh
it.
The minister flips a few pages, asks a pointed question about interest rates, and I address the key points of this trade offer—all memorized on my part. I answer each question Diaz poses, both of us nonstop, forging headfirst into negotiations. Once, I turn to Oliver and he’s right there. Ready with the folder we prepared on projections. I channel my thoughts and redirect our discussion, hoping that Diaz doesn’t do something hardline like ask for the raw data and how our analysts came up with these numbers. That answer would require spreadsheets up the wazoo, two if not three analysts, and a daylong grind session.
Diaz shoots me a look of amusement, and for a second, I grip the armrests of my chair, deciphering if he’s satisfied with our offer, or about to go militant on my ass. He flashes me a wider grin, his gaze dropping to the file in front of him, and then he chuckles. He softly swears, tapping his fingers on the table, and for the first time in days, I hear a genuine laugh.
“This is remarkable,” he says in perfect English.
“Glad you’re pleased,” I reply relieved, and I am. This is the last of my meetings until I travel to Cuba and the Dominican Republic, and it’ll be a load off my plate to nail these negotiations prior to my arrival.
“We’ll meet in Havana. And finalize the signing,” he states.
He wants the photo op moment and I don’t blame him. “Minister Diaz, I look forward to visiting you.”
“Are you bringing your girlfriend?” he asks as we stand.
I shake my head. “I’m traveling alone.”
His eyes widen. “Pity. Our country is lovely.”
We exit the conference room and Xavia walks by with our press binder cradled in her arms. Our gazes fuse for a fiery second, and a silvery ember ignites in my chest. After last night, it’s no wonder. Binding her to a bed, I sampled her on a level I’d never experienced. Fuck it. I can’t imagine leaving her here for a day—forget about the week I’ll be gone. I introduce her to Diaz and I can tell, he’s besotted by her.
