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  She trembled and her buttocks clenched. She had to say no. He couldn’t make her live with him, could he? “No,” she said. “I’m not.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’m not going to come and stay with you.”

  He gave the fleshy part of her hip a smart tap. “You are,” he said, his voice a deep growl. “You’re still saying no, after all that happened last night? And the consequences to your rear, just now?”

  She squirmed, and flushed deeply at the memory of her naked bottom facing up, held in place for his assault, being given a hard spanking by him. Then, she took a deep breath. “You may be used to wielding power, and making people do what you want because you’re a prominent politician, or because they need something from you. But that doesn’t make them like you. You’re surrounded by people who are trying to please you, hoping you’ll support their causes, but that doesn’t mean they’re your friends.”

  He looked past her, focused on nothing, staring toward her living room wall across from where they sat on the couch. She knew she’d hit home. And that he’d never admit it.

  His arms around her tensed, and he re-focused, staring into her eyes. “I’m not trying to make them like me. I’m getting a job done, and I need support for that. You, on the other hand, I can flip over right now and wreak havoc on the parts you think you’re protecting by sitting on them.”

  With another deep, bracing inhale, she stared right back, into his eyes. “You can spank me to death,” she said. “But you can’t make me live with you. And you sure as hell can’t force me to like you.” She clenched her teeth, trying to prepare for the pain she risked.

  He surprised her. “No, that’s true,” he said, brushing a fingertip along her cheek, wiping beneath her wet eyes with his thumb. “I’ll ask you again, did he hurt you?”

  Before she could stop herself, her hand flew to her chest, and then she dropped it into her lap. “No.”

  “I don’t believe you.” He lifted her from his lap, and she feared the worst. But, he simply placed her on the couch beside him and dropped to his knees in front of her. With his usual efficient skill, when it came to handling her, he flipped open the loose knot of her scarf and let it fall. His expression changed to fury. As close as he was, she could see him grinding his teeth. Then he opened the top buttons on her blouse. Not satisfied, his quick fingers moved lower, unbuttoning it down past her waist and pulling it back and down her arms to pool around her. He reached around behind her, undid her bra and lifted the straps over her shoulders. Her breasts fell, free from restriction, and he stared.

  Exposed. Her body and her lie. But in spite of his clinical examination, as he looked at the bruises, a throbbing began between her legs.

  A frown darkened his expression, pulling his brows low and tightening his jaw. “He did this to you?”

  A shiver of fear rippled up her spine. Fear and need warred.

  Chapter Four

  Tears stung and she could only nod, unable to admit she’d kept the injury to herself all this time. She watched, amazed, as he kissed her shoulder, tenderly. This gorgeous man was kissing her; his glossy hair tickled her cheek. She hadn’t let herself imagine he could be so caring. That he was capable of doing anything other than to try to control her.

  A slight shift back, and he looked at her breasts again. This time with an expression she hadn’t seen on his features before. His eyes softened, and she felt her nipples harden. He stroked a fingertip around one peak, looking up at her face, then touched the bruises where Mason’s fingertips had dug in cruelly, on her neck and her breast. The exploration was so light, she barely knew he’d made contact. She didn’t move. She did not want to break the spell. He leaned forward and kissed one hard nipple, and then the other. She moaned. Oh god it had been so long. She hadn’t had time to let a man get close enough to touch her for years. His arms wrapped around her. He leaned forward and suckled one breast with amazing gentleness, and then the other.

  Her breathing sped up and her heart pounded. She wanted to pull away, cover herself. This torment in her starved sexual parts was the last thing she’d expected to feel with the strict, disciplined governor.

  He moved his mouth up to hers, capturing her lips, circling them with his tongue. When his tongue entered her mouth, she tangled her tongue with his in a mutual dance. The throbbing in her crotch sent a powerful current pulsing through her, heating her, feeding her hunger for closeness, for his touch, for release, to feel him inside her.

  From his kneeling position, he wrapped his arms tighter around her and buried his face between her naked legs. He pushed her thighs apart and opened her more fully to him with his fingers. His tongue darted out and pleasure and agony seared her exposed clit. With his hands under her bottom, he pulled her hips forward and moved his mouth against her sensitive nub until she squirmed uncontrollably, and began thrusting in rhythm with his tongue. “Now, Hal,” she panted. “Please, now.”

  He paused long enough to say, “Now, what? This?” And licked harder.

  Agonizing tension gripped her, she writhed, her excitement climbing until she thought she couldn’t stand it. When her release shuddered through her, she cried out, jerking her hips against him, clutching his hair, saying his name.

  With the same strong, capable hands that had peeled away her clothes, he now pulled down his slacks. He sat briefly beside her, yanked off his loafers, and soon he was naked from the waist down. Lying on top of her, his body hot against her, he worked his tie loose and whipped it off. He took her wrists, lifted them above her head, and bound them together. “You keep them up there,” he said. “Show me you can obey one thing I tell you to do.” One foot on the floor, lying half on top of her with a hand braced against the back of the couch, he rubbed his pelvis against hers.

  And then stopped. “I’ve wanted to do this for a long time,” he said. Then smiled. “I mean since yesterday.”

  Oh god, don’t stop. Her hips rose, reaching for the heat of his pelvis, for his erection, she was in an agony for his touch, and to bring her hands down and clutch him, bring his mouth down on hers. But she didn’t dare move her arms.

  His eyes bore deeply into hers. “I don’t want to stop,” he said, low and husky, “but I don’t have condoms. Please tell me you do.”

  She nearly burst out laughing. From joy, from pent up tension, and from the predicament. This powerful man, who was used to taking, or buying what, or whom he wanted, was brought low by a little piece of latex.

  She tried to wriggle out from under him but he grabbed her wrists, which she still held on the couch above her head. “No,” he said. “Don’t move, tell me where they are.”

  “In the bedroom, in my bedside table drawer.”

  He lifted himself off her and strode from the living room, peeling off his shirt as he went, and dropping it on the armchair where she’d been sitting. She watched his lithe body and heavily muscled butt shifting. She heard him open and close the drawer in her little table. When he returned, he looked first at her hands, still above her head. “Good girl.” He looked at her face, his eyes singeing down her breasts and legs. With one knee on the back of the couch beside her hip, he opened the package. She lay still, staring at his magnificent body, his huge shoulders, muscled arms, flat, rippled abdomen, and his big erection.

  Condom on, he grasped her ankles and pulled her to slide downward on the couch. He kept one foot on the floor, braced himself on his hands and entered her, slowly at first, pushing in and out while she moaned beneath him.

  She needed more and didn’t think she could bear to keep her hands away from him, longing to bring them down to clutch his buttocks and force him deeper inside her. She heaved upward against him until he drove in harder and faster. In and out of her, he moved with increasing speed until her second release brought cries and gasps she didn’t know she had in her. Overlapping her ecstasy, he groaned loudly, several times, and with a final moan, he stopped.

  Holding his weight just above her, he said, “I
don’t want to crush you,” as he looked down at her with a tenderness she couldn’t have imagined seeing in him. He collapsed on his side, nestled with her, and said, “Lainie, Lainie, I didn’t expect this. I’ve wanted to kiss you since I saw you yesterday. But I really did not expect this now. What are you doing to me?” He reached for her wrists and opened his tie, freeing them.

  With a huge sigh, she worked one arm beneath his neck and wrapped the other around him until her forearms overlapped. “Was it only yesterday? Seems so much longer. I never thought this would happen. I’m as surprised as you are. Maybe more.”

  “You’re beautiful and sexy, and you’re right about one thing.”

  She stared, incredulous. She never thought she’d hear those words from this imperious man. “I’m right about something?”

  “You thought when I found out about last night, I’d insist you come and stay with me. I have people who can keep you safe. This makes me even more sure, now that I know the danger you’re in, that you are going to move to my house.”

  “No. Absolutely not. No f—, no way.”

  His hand found her derriere and tapped a warning.

  Her buttock twitched. “I mean, thank you, but no. I need to live here, with privacy, and all my books and papers around me.”

  “I’ll have them moved. And you’ll have plenty of space to study. Listen to reason.” His palm smacked down on her bottom again.

  “No. Please and thank you, and no.”

  Tousled now, his usually groomed hair slipped through her fingers as she stroked it back from his temples. His wrist lifted, and in two seconds, he’d looked at his watch, grunted, and leapt off the couch. It wasn’t possible for a person to put on a shirt, slacks, tie, shoes and jacket in less than a minute, but Hal did. “I’m speaking in twenty-seven minutes.” He sprinted down the hall.

  Suddenly alone, and uncomfortable being naked, she dragged on her jeans and blouse and followed him down the hall. She heard the toilet flush. The bathroom door opened, and she saw him checking his tie, and giving his hair a quick sweep with both hands, back from his temples where it had been so wonderfully mussed moments ago. Who was this man who had switched gears from fiery lovemaking to escaping her as fast as humanly possible?

  He ran toward her. And past her. “Sorry,” he said at the door. “I can’t be late.”

  “Don’t you want your basket?” She knew he wouldn’t care, but she needed a reason to keep him there, talking. She longed for some assurance this had meant something to him.

  “Keep it,” he said, reaching for the door.

  You’re just fucking generosity on wheels, aren’t you?

  Right behind him, keeping her anger inside her closed mouth, she jumped back as he flung open the door. Outside, Tom leaned against the car. When he saw Hal, he stood up straight, grabbed the limo’s back door handle, and opened it wide.

  Hal whirled to face Lainie. “I never lose track of time like this. I’m debating Frye; the crowd will already be waiting. And this morning will be our little secret. I don’t need to tell you what sleeping with you could do to my image.” And he was gone.

  She felt as if she’d been picked up by a tornado, and dumped in an empty desert. What the hell was that?

  Men had always been intimidated by her. Even in med school, her top grades and scientific, analytical mind kept her ahead of the pack, a pack that consisted of bright students. When she was younger, her glasses and consistently correct answers in class had scared them off. Now she wore contacts, but she couldn’t help being intelligent. Didn’t want to change that. Between her drive to complete her degree, and her determination to be the best doctor possible as quickly as possible, she had to keep her male fellow students at arm’s length. She couldn’t afford to get distracted.

  Now, three things she’d never expected had happened. A man had overpowered her body with his physical strength, and had begun the process with her of enforcing his rules; he’d brought out emotions with his damn charisma that she didn’t know were there; and he’d stirred a lust she had never suspected she had. But that didn’t matter now. The feeling weren’t mutual. He’d gotten what he came for, except for bullying her into moving into his house where he could take his pleasure whenever it was convenient. Loneliness swirled around her, but she’d be goddamned if he’d get her to move in with him just because he felt like it.

  It was a scramble to gather up her books and papers, and put her laptop in its case. She hadn’t opened a book in two days. Studying here with the memories of last night and this morning was out of the question. The university library was the only option if she wanted to focus. And she did. On anything but the fucking governor. He wasn’t the only busy person in the world. A man who got what he wanted and was gone. She, too, had important things to do.

  ***

  The campus in spring was miles of green lawns, bushes, and a copse of evergreens and spruce between the library and the parking lot. Her studying had gone well, she’d worked efficiently, once she could concentrate and forget about the man who had so taken her in with a few tender touches after the shameful spankings. No one would ever take charge of her that way again. She strolled through dappled shade, pleased she’d been able to absorb the information she’d planned to learn today.

  She could grab a bite at the cafeteria before sunset, and then head home before she lost her nerve, get used to being there before it was completely dark. She’d been successful at setting aside thoughts of both men who had intruded into her sanctuary, last night and this morning, she planned to continue.

  A man in jeans and a black tee shirt leaned against the tree she was approaching, book in hand, long shadows stretching from his feet in the early evening light. With the sun behind him, his face was a blur as she squinted against the glare. She assumed he was studying and didn’t think he’d look up, but he did. As she got closer, she realized he was watching her. He couldn’t be a fellow med student; she would have recognized him.

  At the edge of the parking lot, ready to walk past him, her reflexes were too slow to see the hand coming. His grip on her arm was sudden and as hard as a carpenter’s vice. She was off balance and falling when a second man appeared and a hand clamped over her mouth.

  ***

  The smell of carpeting and car fumes, the vibrations and the movement told her she was in the trunk of a car. The pain in her head was blinding and almost made her sick. Only knowing as she did about the danger of vomiting when she was lying on her back kept her swallowing to keep her esophageal movement going downward. The campus had been empty where she was, and they must have grabbed her and dumped her in their car without anyone seeing.

  The force of the car stopping made her roll and thump painfully against the trunk door. The lid opened. The man she’d seen before he grabbed her, and another man, lifted her and stood her upright on shaky legs.

  “Just walk normally,” the man who’d grabbed her said. “We’ve got a friend waiting who wants to talk to you. Don’t make a scene and this will go easier on you.” In a few steps she was stumbling up a short flight of stairs to the back door of a small house.

  Inside, Mason sat, watching her from an armchair, a satisfied smirk stretching his mouth. “Sit,” he said.

  Rough hands forced her down into an armchair close to Mason. The man who had grabbed her stayed close, the other man moved to the door and stood in front of it.

  “I’ll make this quick,” Mason said. “I know you’re doing the governor, and that makes you more of a liability. So you gotta convince me you don’t plan to come after me. While he’s still in office, he has a lota pull, but I told you, he won’t be for long. And when I’ve dispensed with him, you’re gonna wanna be in my camp. If I hear you’ve talked to the cops, you’re both dead. But like I said, I’m trying to avoid that drama. I don’t need the heat. You tell him about this and he’ll come after me.” He stood, stepped closer, bent down to look in her eyes, and grabbed her chin, hard. He was careful though, not to leave bruises. �
�You get me? I get a whiff of trouble coming in my direction, I won’t like it, and you don’t want to piss me off. It’s your job to convince Barmak to leave this alone.”

  The man who had grabbed her at the parking lot lifted his shirt to show a revolver strapped around his waist.

  “You hear me? I’m not going to leave a mark on you now, we’re gonna pretend this little chat didn’t happen. Get it?”

  There was no point in getting herself hurt, or more likely, killed. Mason would never let her go alive now unless she promised to keep quiet. If these brutes killed her, she’d never be able to warn Hal to double his own security. She nodded.

  The man by the door opened it. Lainie stood carefully and walked outside. The two men walked with her to the car, one pushed her into the back seat, the other drove.

  At the entrance to the campus, the man in the back seat leaned across her and pushed open the door. She jumped out and ran for the parking lot and her car, without looking back. Mason was serious. If she said one word to Hal, there’d be no stopping him. And if Mason knew Hal had been in her apartment in the morning, he must have someone watching her all the time.

  She Googled Hal’s campaign schedule and found he was speaking at a hotel downtown where she’d catered a dinner a month ago. A coffee shop was located off the lobby. She had a half hour to get there and warn him and she had to talk to him before he stepped out in front of the crowd.

  She called the number he’d programmed into her phone. No answer. She sent a text, “Meet me in the coffee shop. Urgent.” And then she hit the gas and screeched out of the lot and onto the street.

  Beyond making sure Hal knew that Mason was not a supporter, as well as being dangerous, the need to see him was intensely important. In person, she could look into his eyes and see what was there in this man who could be so careless with her. He couldn’t possibly care about her and have run off without even a hint that he’d call her again. She wouldn’t tell him the whole story with Mason and his kidnapping episode, she’d never be able to stop Hal from trying to force her to press charges, and that would put both their lives in danger. She needed some kind of proof. The police hadn’t held Mason after he’d had that pedestrian killed; it was only her word against his. What chance did she have if she talked to the cops again, and they still couldn’t put Mason in jail?