“So . . .” Green started, exaggerating his look over both shoulders as he stood directly in front of her. “you do, or don’t, want me to ravish you?” Was he going to do just that? He still hadn’t made the decision. He was playing a game with her, and he wasn’t sure who’d be the winner that night.
The senator looked at him with want in her eyes, then looked at the curtain blocking them from the other room, before turning back and locking her eyes on the bulge in the front of his pants that instantly made her eyes catch fire. Holding up one of her hands in a non-verbal command, the senator rose, standing only inches from Green. Then she seemed to make a decision and turned, lifting her hair above her shoulders.
He glanced down at a dainty zipper at the top of her back and decided he could play. He took hold of it and slowly pulled down, exposing her bare back. She had a smooth, flawless olive complexion. He didn’t have to be forced to take a taste as he leaned down and kissed each new inch of skin he revealed. The zipper stopped at the dimple in the small of her back and he dropped to his knees as she shrugged her arms from the dress, allowing it to drop to the ground, showing him a lace thong dividing two amazingly toned cheeks. Green continued his downward motion, his hands now clasping her hips as he nipped at one of her cheeks, causing a feminine cry to rip from her.
With no resistance he turned her so the front of her panties was directly in his face. He looked up and wasn’t shocked to see how perfectly round her breasts were. They locked eyes, both of them smiling as he kneeled in a submissive position in front of her. Oh, how the men would love to have video of this moment. This wasn’t where Green ever resided. But his alter ego might, he assured himself — the man the senator thought he was would certainly kneel.
Without breaking their locked gaze, Green slid his fingers up and took control of her panties, slowly sliding them down her toned legs. He felt a modicum of desire stir inside him but was surprised it wasn’t greater with a naked woman before him.
He pulled her the last few inches closer to him and kissed her toned stomach, her hands circling his head, her fingernails scratching their way from the back of his neck up to his ears, her control nearly gone. He reached up and took hold of her breast, sliding her hardened nipple between his fingers as his palm gently massaged the area.
He kissed her stomach again, his head moving lower, her legs shaking as he held tight to her hips. “Yes, Hendrick, yes,” she said, tangling her fingers in his hair as she began to push him lower, guiding him to where she wanted him to be.
“Senator Miller, are you in here?” a woman’s voice called from the other side of the curtain. The wine bar had a very strict policy that this room wasn’t to be entered if the curtain was closed. That made Hendrick wonder how many times the senator or other patrons had gotten lucky in the cozy, dim space. Would he have if they hadn’t been interrupted? He wasn’t sure.
“Do not come in,” the senator barked, irritation clear in her throat. She stood as if she had all of the time in the world, then leaned against him, not at all embarrassed in her nudity. Her hand slid down his body and squeezed his semi-erect arousal. He gave a moan, knowing it was what she wanted to hear.
“We’ll finish this later. It’ll be your turn to strip next,” she demanded. They hadn’t even kissed, he suddenly realized.
Green hurriedly put his clothes back in order while it seemed the senator was in no hurry to redress. She’d told the person to not come in and she wasn’t worried about them disobeying. She bent over to gather her clothes, the slow, calculated movement allowing him to take one last look at her naked body. She did have an incredible one. Maybe they’d finish later, maybe they wouldn’t.
Once they were both put back together and properly seated on the couch with a glass of wine in hand, the senator called out to the interloper. Green’s driver from earlier opened the curtain, gave zero indication of being aware of what had been transpiring only moments before, and asked to speak to the senator alone for a few moments.
Green nodded and rose. He discretely hit the record button Brackish had installed on his phone, then left it sitting on the table. He wanted to know what was so urgent the driver had to interrupt when Green was sure she’d been told not to. Neither he nor the senator said a word to each other as he left the room.
Chapter Four
Mallory Black waited for Hendrick to walk from the room and be out of earshot before she spoke to the senator. She was used to this — used to the men the senator used like toys. None of them stuck around for long. But none of them had alarmed Mallory like Hendrick did.
She wasn’t sure what in the hell had happened in the SUV when his hand had slipped into hers. The heat that had coursed through her had shocked her to the core. And though the man was acting like a nitwit, she wasn’t buying it. He was much smarter than he let on. She could read it in his eyes. She didn’t know who he was, and she was more than a bit worried he’d compromise her job — her real job.
“What’s so important that you needed to interrupt my night when I specifically told you I didn’t want to be disturbed?” Senator Miller asked with an air of arrogance that had gotten her far in life in a short amount of time.
“Ma’am, when I came onboard you asked me to highlight any and all landmines you might be stepping on. You told me to get my point across even if you were being stubborn,” Mallory reminded her boss. “I promised to do just that and assured you I’m not easily intimidated. Well, that man you were alone with you is definitely a landmine.”
The senator looked at Mallory with unapologetic eyes as she tried to assess whether she was going to take her warning or not. Mallory had been her right-hand woman for almost three years, and she was doing a fine job. Mallory could tell the senator believed her. Now that the moment had been broken, Senator Miller would be thinking of the four hundred other tasks she needed to finish before the day ended.
“Mallory, I’m running for President of the United States. I’m a forty-five-year-old single woman who knows what I want and how I want it. I also love sex — and lots of it. None of that is a good combination to win what I’m after. It’s a must that I have, at minimum, a partner on my arm as I start going through all of the press traps that will be laid out for me. You know I must always have a propitious mindset. More than that, I need to feel a man touch me, to make love to me. What you interrupted just now was something I’ve needed for the past year as I’ve tried to clean up my image,” the senator said calmly.
Mallory didn’t try to correct the senator, but she knew she’d had at minimum two lovers in that time. Maybe they hadn’t satisfied her. Mallory was pretty sure Hendrick wouldn’t leave a woman wanting for anything when he was done with her.
“I understand, but not this man, there’s something that doesn’t feel right about him,” Mallory said with a chill in her voice.
“Is it because he isn’t quality stock?”
“Sure, that might be a part of it, but he doesn’t carry himself like someone who just came into money. There’s a way that he sits, walks, and acts that doesn’t fit,” Mallory insisted.