Fatal Scandal: Book Eight of the Fatal Series Read online

  “I love you like this,” he said, cupping her buttocks and squeezing.

  “I thought we weren’t allowed to talk?”

  “You’re not. I am.”

  “Not fair.”

  He bit his lip to keep from laughing. “Shhh. Just relax and let me love you.”

  “But I want to—”

  He silenced her with a spank, a quick pop of his palm against her cheek that made her shudder. Discovering that his sexy, gorgeous, willful wife enjoyed being spanked had been one of the highlights in a year of incredible discoveries. Always careful to keep the focus on pleasure and not pain, he did it again and again and again, until her bottom was pink and her moans were all he could hear.

  He spread her cheeks apart and bent to lick from her anus to her clit, sucking on the tight bundle of nerves as he sank two fingers into her. She came instantly, crying out from the force of her release. It was all he could do to hold back his own need to come as she let go so completely.

  Taking himself in hand, he removed his fingers and replaced them with his cock, pumping into her and catching the end of her orgasm. Damn, she was amazing and tight and hot and so wet. He picked up the tube he’d placed next to him and squeezed out a dollop of lube that he spread over her back entrance.

  She reacted immediately, gripping him with her internal muscles and gasping as he pressed two fingers past the tight ring of muscles. With his other hand he reached around to her clit.

  “Jesus,” she whispered, making him smile with the knowledge that he’d succeeded in emptying her mind of everything other than what was happening right here and now. He gave her his fingers and his cock, alternating so she was filled at all times while he pressed rhythmically against her clit. He loved her like this, completely at his mercy and accepting the pleasure she deserved.

  The only thing that would make this better was if he could see her face, which he knew would be flushed and rosy from desire. He picked up the pace, hammering into her until he felt her come hard, her entire body seizing from the release that took him with her, surging into her until he was completely drained.

  He withdrew his fingers and wrapped his arms around her, his face pressed against her back.

  Sam’s arms gave out and she slid to the mattress.

  He went with her, still buried deep inside, feeling her muscles twitch in the aftermath of her release.

  “You should not still be hard after that,” she said after a long moment of silence.

  Chuckling, he said, “I can’t help it if once is never enough with you.”

  “You almost killed me with that one. Not sure I’ve got a second round in me tonight.”

  “I bet I can change your mind.”

  “I have no doubt that you can and will change my mind.”

  He cupped her breasts and toyed with her nipples.

  “That was incredible, babe,” she said softly.

  “For me too.”

  She grasped one of the hands he had under her. “I love you.”

  He hugged her tightly. “I love you too.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Ensconced in his parents’ guest room with Christina, Gonzo was wide awake. He stood at the window and stared out at the light snowfall that had covered the yard. Alex would be excited to wake up to snow in the morning. Gonzo’s parents had insisted on setting up the portable crib in their room so they could get up with him in the morning.

  “Sleep in,” they’d told him and Christina, knowing they were upset and afraid.

  Sleep in. Right. How was he expected to sleep at all when he was so churned up over Lori’s death and the suspicion that had focused on him—and Christina. They’d both had motive, the opportunity and the desire to see Lori permanently removed from their son’s life, said one of the talking heads on cable news, which had gleefully picked up on the salacious stories coming from the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department.

  Except neither he nor Christina would ever kill anyone, least of all the woman who’d given birth to Alex. Sure, he didn’t like her very much, but she’d given them good reason not to like her. Starting with the day they’d met Alex when he was a couple of months old and found out she hadn’t bothered to give his son a name.

  Lori certainly hadn’t endeared herself to his family, friends and colleagues when she came to the hospital after he was shot to stake her claim on Alex. Thankfully, he’d anticipated that possibility and had taken legal steps to ensure she couldn’t take his son away from Christina and his parents if he were ever injured on the job.

  Standing in front of the window, wearing only a pair of flannel pajama pants, he was cold, but he couldn’t bring himself to go back to bed, where he would only lie there and spin.

  “Tommy,” Christina said, her voice sleepy and sweet.

  “I’m here.”

  “What’re you doing?”

  “Looking at the snow.”

  “Come back to bed.”

  He’d rather stay up and pace all night, but that wouldn’t help anything, so he joined her in bed.

  “You’re freezing! How long have you been up?”

  “I don’t know. Awhile.”

  She held out her arms to him, and he snuggled up to her.

  Shivering, she said, “It’s like snuggling with a polar bear.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I’m not. I love snuggling with you, even when you’re freezing.”

  She was trying to take his mind off his worries. He knew that, but it wasn’t working.

  “You know what the worst part of all this is?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “All these years I’ve spent doing the right thing, chasing down criminals, taking scumbags off the street, earning promotions and commendations and getting shot in the neck and nearly dying not all that long ago. And it’s like none of that ever happened. They just automatically assume, because I’ve had a beef with her, that I must’ve killed her.”

  “I know, baby.”

  “They just throw my name out there like it makes no difference whatsoever that it’s untrue. That all the good stuff I’ve spent my whole career doing doesn’t matter.”

  “Would you consider talking to Darren? He was good to you after the shooting.”

  “That would be risky with so many people pointing the finger at me.”

  “So go on the record and say you had no reason to kill her. If your goal was to keep your son, that certainly wouldn’t be the way to do it. You could also say how insulting it is to have your decorated career as a police officer swept aside in a sea of accusations and innuendo when there’s no proof whatsoever that you had anything at all to do with Lori’s death.”

  “You know, sometimes it’s very convenient to be sleeping with a political operative.”

  Christina released the low, sexy laugh that he adored.

  He wouldn’t have expected to smile, but she always made him feel better.

  “I take that to mean you like the idea?”

  “Yeah, I do. I want to talk to Andy first, and make sure I won’t be making anything worse.”

  “You need to talk to a criminal defense attorney, not a family law attorney. Maybe Bill Springer will take your case.”

  “Ha! Very funny. Can you imagine if I called him up and asked him to represent me?”

  “It would give the reporters something else to talk about.”

  “No defense lawyers, for now anyway. The one thing I know for sure after all my years in Homicide is that the minute you lawyer up, everyone thinks you’ve got something to hide. I’ll see what Andy says about talking to Darren and go from there.”

  “Do you feel any better?”

  “Yeah,” he said, “surprisingly I do.”

  “I find it always
helps to have a plan.”

  “I find it always helps to have you. I don’t know how I ever would’ve gotten through everything that’s happened this year without you.”

  “And I couldn’t have gotten through it without you.”

  He caressed her face and kissed her. “We really ought to get married one of these days.”

  “Any day you want.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yep.”

  “You don’t want the big white deal?”

  “I just want to be married to you. I couldn’t care less about the big deal.”

  “Let’s get past all this, and then we’ll get serious about making that happen.”

  She rubbed soothing circles on his back. “I’m very sad about Lori. I wouldn’t have wished this outcome on her, no matter how much trouble she might’ve caused for us. But we both know the truth—that we had nothing to do with it—so we can’t let it suck the life out of us, you know? It’s a challenge we have to get through, but it’s not like when you were shot, and I didn’t know if you were going to live. That was something else altogether.”

  “I know, honey. And you’re right. I need to calm the hell down. All the accusations in the world don’t change the truth.”

  “No, they don’t. And tomorrow you can talk to Andy and maybe Darren and set the record straight.”

  “I just hope it doesn’t do more harm than good.”

  “So do I.”

  * * *

  Sam’s day began with a call from Lindsey at six. “Are you awake?” Lindsey asked, sounding chipper.

  “Mmm, yeah.”

  “Sam. Wake up.”

  “I’m awake.” Sam opened her eyes, looked around at the loft and realized she was alone under the comforter. “What’s up?”

  “I got DNA results for the semen found in Lori Phillips’s vagina. We’ve got a match for your guy Hughes, but there was a second profile. I’m running that one now against the database. Thought you’d want to know there was a second guy.”

  “She had a busy last day, that’s for sure. Booze and coke and two guys.”

  “Are you getting any closer to figuring this one out?”

  “We’ve got a few leads to pursue today. We should know more by the end of the day.”

  “The morning papers have banner headlines, tying her to Gonzo and rehashing the custody case.”

  “Fantastic,” Sam said. “That’s just what we need.”

  “At least they aren’t leading with Springer versus Farnsworth today.”

  “There is that. Thanks for the heads-up. I’ll check in when I get to HQ.”

  “Tell your husband I said to have a good first day in the West Wing. Terry was up at four thirty because he was too excited to sleep. Thus my early arrival today.”

  “I’ll tell him. See you later.” She ended the call feeling guilty that she’d almost forgotten this would be Nick’s first official day at the White House. It was probably more that she’d blocked it out. If she didn’t think about it, it wasn’t happening, right?

  She’d no sooner had that thought when the vice president himself came up the stairs looking gorgeous and sexy in a dark suit with a white shirt and a red and blue striped tie. He was showered and shaved and breathtaking. A pang of fear struck her in the breastbone. Every woman in America would want him when they saw him on the news later in the day, because surely his first day would be big news.

  For now, for this moment, he was all hers, and he came bearing her robe and a steaming cup of coffee. Sam sat up and let the comforter fall to her waist. She ran her fingers through her hair, straightening it. “You look good,” she said, letting her gaze roam from his face down the front of him.

  “You look amazing,” he replied, his gaze fixed on her bare breasts. He sat on the edge of the lounge and leaned in to kiss her. “Morning.”

  “Morning.” She took the mug of coffee from him and took a sip. “What time is it?”

  He kissed her neck and made her squirm. “Six.”

  “You’re leaving already?”

  “Soon.” He cupped her breasts and toyed with her nipples until they tightened. “I might be enticed to going in a little later though.”

  “You’re all spiffy. I wouldn’t want to mess you up.”

  He cupped her cheek and ran his thumb over her lips. “I love being messed up by you.”

  She offered a weak smile in return.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing, why?”

  “I know that look. Something is on your mind.”

  She ran her hand over the silky length of his tie. “Other than the fact that every female in America is going to be lusting after my sexy husband today?”

  “Stop it. They will not.”

  “Nick, honey, trust me. They will.”

  Bending his head, he went to work on her neck, kissing and nibbling, not hard enough to leave a mark but just enough to make her squirm. “What about all the guys who’ll be lusting after my sexy wife when she goes on TV this morning?”

  “You smell so good.”

  “Is that your way of dodging the question?”

  She shrugged.

  “Do I have anything to worry about where you’re concerned?”

  “No,” she said forcefully, surprised he would ask such a thing.

  “Neither do you. You have absolutely nothing to be worried about. Every woman in the world could throw themselves at me, and the only one I’d want is the one I was lucky enough to marry.”

  Touched by his words, Sam took his hand and spun the wedding ring around on his finger, remembering the matching inscriptions on their rings that hadn’t been planned. “I was pretty lucky that day too.”

  “We both were and we continue to be.” He nuzzled her neck some more, setting off a surge of desire they had no time to accommodate. “Last night was so hot, babe. I’ll be thinking about that all day today.”

  “You’ve got more important things to think about today,” she said even as a heated flush overtook her face when she thought of the things they’d done.

  “God, I love when you blush. It’s the hottest thing ever. Well, second only to the sight of your sweet pink ass—”

  Sam kissed him to make him stop talking.

  He came up for air laughing. “What? Am I not allowed to talk about—”

  She kissed him again. “Shut up about it or it’ll never happen again.”

  “Oh, it’ll happen again. As soon as possible, in fact.”

  “Don’t you have a country to run? Go away and leave me alone, you sex-crazed beast.”

  He kissed the end of her nose and then her lips again. “To be continued. Don’t you have somewhere to be at seven?”

  Sam groaned at the reminder of her TV date with the chief. “Me and my big mouth.”

  “I love your big mouth.”

  “Somehow I don’t think we’re talking about the same thing here.”

  “I could show you what I’m thinking about.”

  “I don’t have time for one of your demonstrations.”

  “All right, if you’re going to be that way and send me off to my first day at the White House with an embarrassing hard-on.”

  “You did that to yourself.”

  “Um, I believe your bare-breasted hair thing did it to me.”

  “What bare-breasted hair thing?”

  “You sat there, bare-breasted, and gathered your hair into a thing.” He spun his hand around.

  “A bun?”

  “Yeah that. Again, with the bare breasts. That’s really all it takes. In fact, thinking about that later will have the same effect.”

  “Are you really thirty-seven or seventeen?”

  “A little of both when
it comes to you.” Seeming resigned to his fate, he stood and held her robe for her.

  “If I get up, all bare breasted and whatnot, is that going to lead to other things we don’t have time for?”

  “You’ll have to do it and see what happens.”

  Sam placed the mug on the table next to the lounge and got up slowly. Though her body ached in quite a few places, she felt languid and satisfied overall. She loved watching his gaze heat as she stood naked before him. Then she turned and he wrapped the robe and his arms around her.

  “You’re a sexy vixen.”

  She laughed. “I like that word.”

  “You dazzle me.”

  “Right back atcha, Mr. VP.”

  “We need to do something awesome for our anniversary.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “I’m not sure yet. Let me think about it and get back to you.”

  “I’ll await your reply.”

  “Plan to take that week off, okay?”

  “Can you do that?” she asked.

  “I have no idea, but I’m doing it.” He pushed his hard cock against her bottom. “And doing it, and doing it and doing it for a whole week.”

  “Nick?”

  “Yeah, baby?”

  “Sometimes I still can’t believe I get to have this—you—every day for the rest of my life.”

  He hugged her tighter and nuzzled his face in her hair. “Neither can I. I look at you and think, damn, I’m the luckiest guy in the history of the world.”

  “I never thought anyone would feel that way about me. You may not know this, but I’m kind of a pain in the ass.”

  “No! I had no idea.”

  She pressed her elbow teasingly into his belly. “Hope you have an awesome first day at the White House.”

  “It’s already an awesome day, no matter what else happens.” He held her for another minute or maybe it was two before he let her go.

  Sam tied the robe around her waist, picked up the mug of coffee and took his outstretched hand. “You had to clean up all the clothes from last night, huh?”

  “Of course I did. Do you know me at all?”

  “You’re an anal-retentive freakazoid.”

  “I’m neat. There’s a difference.”