Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 86432 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 432(@200wpm)___ 346(@250wpm)___ 288(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86432 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 432(@200wpm)___ 346(@250wpm)___ 288(@300wpm)
I took a sip of wine and then, because my mind had finally managed to climb back toward politics from the body-shaking realm he apparently preferred, I asked, “How did it go today?”
He looked at me over his glass. “With the bill?”
“Yes.”
He set the glass down. “Better than I expected. Not well enough, but better.”
I took a bite of the veal, which was so tender it nearly fell apart, and waited.
“You may be right about Gowry,” he said.
My fork paused halfway up.
He saw that and went on. “He and the men nearest him gave off a few signs today. Enough to make me think they’re interested. The veterans provision landed harder than I thought it would.”
I swallowed. “Johnson too?”
“Yes. And Sinogar seemed less hostile than usual. If Gowry moved, I suspect the others could be persuaded to follow.”
Some entirely ridiculous spark of pride flickered in me. He had remembered exactly what I had said. More than that, he had taken it seriously.
“That would be enough?” I asked.
“Numerically, yes.” He tore off a piece of focaccia with elegant fingers. “Politically it would be ugly. Hathaway would be furious. Which, of course, is part of the appeal.”
I smiled despite myself. “A win over her bloc would be half the pleasure.”
“For Gowry, certainly. Especially if she decided she had to back the bill herself for the optics.”
I took another bite, chewed, and said, “Then what’s the problem?”
He gave me a brief look as if acknowledging that I knew there had to be one. “I still don’t know what would make him do it.”
I leaned back slightly. “You think he wants something too expensive.”
“I know what he wants.” A faint dryness entered his voice. “More drilling off the Gulf Coast.”
I made a face before I could stop myself.
“Exactly,” Porter said. “It’s impossible. Or close enough to impossible to be functionally the same thing.”
I looked down at my plate.
And then, as if some wicked part of my mind had been waiting patiently for the opening, the idea came.
Not as an argument, not even exactly as a plan. As an image: a tiny shard of fantasy.
Porter with the cane in his hand. Me bent over, naked, perhaps in Gowry’s office or some discreet room attached to a private club, my wrists held, my cheeks burning, while Gowry watched with those cold assessing eyes. Porter telling me I had been naughty and required correction. The cane rising and falling. My body forced to take it.
And afterward—God, afterward—Porter turning to Gowry with that calm dark authority and saying that perhaps the senator might like to sample what was being developed so carefully. That he had trained me to the penis, and Gowry would find me more pleasing now than he had when he had whipped me for not giving good head.
The picture in my mind’s eye shocked my rational mind so thoroughly that for a second I forgot to breathe.
Heat rushed through me, though, low and hard and instant. I felt it in my face next, a violent blush. My nipples tightened inside the lace. Between my legs the lack of even the thong’s covering became even more of a humiliation as I wondered if I would stain the seat cushion.
I lowered my eyes to my plate because looking at Porter seemed impossible.
Unfortunately I had learned by then that changing my expression in front of him represented less concealment than confession.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
My answer had come much too quickly, though.
One dark eyebrow lifted. “That was unconvincing.”
I picked up my glass to give myself something to do. “It was just a thought.”
“What thought?”
I drank, though my mouth had gone nearly dry. “Nothing worth saying aloud.”
His gaze remained on me for a beat too long.
“Finish chewing,” he said quietly.
I realized I still had a bite in my mouth. I swallowed it under that watchful silence.
“Now tell me.”
I shook my head. “No.”
The word sounded absurdly small in the elegant room.
He set down his fork with exact care. “Bedroom.”
My stomach dropped.
“Sir…”
“Now.”
I rose at once, because his voice seemed to promise much worse consequences if I hesitated. At the back of my mind I realized, with a helpless little thrill, that he had already conditioned me in that mental process.
I have no choice. I have no choice. I have no choice.
My legs felt weak by the time I reached the bed. He followed me in, slower than I was moving, which somehow made it worse. There was no hurry in him. No doubt at all.
“Kneel on the bed.”
I obeyed.
“Bend over. Hands flat.”
The mattress shifted under me as I leaned forward. My pulse had begun to hammer. I heard a faint metallic sound from the vicinity of the floor. I heard fabric rustle, and my fevered brain put it together immediately: he had taken his belt from his discarded trousers. A whimper escaped me.