Caught by the Chief of Staff (A Presidential Affair Book 2) Read online

  “I’m more of a Drunken Sailor myself,” he adds before turning to the bartender. “Another Skip and Go Naked for the lady, and me as well, when you get a chance.”

  “You don’t have to drink it,” I hurry to tell him. “I know it’s silly.”

  “It’s not silly if you like it,” he says as he places his hand on top of mine where it rests on the bar top. “Do you like it?”

  “Yeah,” I answer honestly. “I do.”

  “Then maybe I’ll like it too, or maybe I won’t, but I will learn something about you.”

  “You want to learn something about me?” I ask, feeling giddy and terrified all at the same time.

  “I want to learn everything about you,” he tells me. “But I’ll start with your name.”

  “Cara. My name is Cara.”

  “I’m Rick. It’s nice to meet you, Cara,” he says as he holds out his hand to shake mine.

  “It’s nice to meet you too, Rick.”

  “Now tell me… what can I expect from a Skip and Go Naked?” he asks me, making me laugh.

  • • •

  “You look beautiful tonight.”

  “Just tonight?” I laugh.

  “No, you’re beautiful every night,” he tells me. “Sometimes, I wish you didn’t.”

  “I know.”

  He spins me out and then back into his arms before twirling me around the room. Rick is a beautiful dancer.

  This is nothing like the way he would press his body into mine in the back of the bar. How hard he was, pressed against my belly or backside. It would burn me up from the inside out and I couldn’t wait to get back to my apartment… or his.

  Rick spins me out one more time before pulling me back in closer to him than before. His hand on the small of my back slides down just enough so that the tips of his fingers barely graze the top of my ass cheeks. I’m sure it all looks very respectable from the outside, but judging by the sizable bulge that’s growing harder by the second against my belly, his thoughts are anything but respectable right now.

  He holds me closer still as we move around the dance floor. One of his legs slips in between mine as we glide around the room and brushes against my inner thigh. And then he does it again and again. When he pivots us around, he runs his nose down the side of my ear, and I feel the puffs of his breath against the shell.

  I feel his hard length press against my waist again just before the slide of his leg up my thigh, and I’m on fire. Rick is burning me up from the inside out, and there’s no stopping it. I know he wouldn’t try anything here in this room with all these important people and the press—not to mention the president of the United States, even if he is a friend. But I am so turned on right now I probably wouldn’t stop him if he wanted to take me in the hallway. So when he leans in and whispers his temping words in my ear, I’m lost to him and his evil ways, and I can’t even blame him.

  “Want to get out of here?”

  I don’t even try to fight it. I just put my hand in his and let him lead me astray, just like my own personal pied piper, all while knowing he will hate me in the morning. Luckily for me, I have a room in this hotel. So tomorrow when he’s long gone and my heart is aching all over again, I’ll be able to hunker down before I have to go home and pretend everything is all right in front of our daughter instead of doing a walk of shame.

  I take a look around to make sure no one sees us leaving together, and so far, it seems like we’re lucky. I watch Captain Black lead Jules off the dance floor and toward a dark corner and wonder what’s going on there. Those two have been at each other’s throat for days. I look back at Rick. I guess I can understand that more than I thought.

  When I look back again, Grace is watching me with a sad look on her face. She knows better than anyone what our pattern is. Tomorrow will be nothing but tears, and then in a few weeks, lather, rinse, and repeat. Only she doesn’t know the why. That little gem is left for me and me alone to carry.

  When the elevator dings its arrival, Rick reaches to push a button, but I jump in and push the button for my floor faster. “I have a room here,” I explain.

  “All right,” he says like he’s granting me some big favor, a concession, when we both know that after a couple of orgasms, he’s going to go back to hating my guts. Even though I can’t blame him for his feelings, I still bristle against his words and tone.

  When the doors open, I step out and start walking down the hallway to my room. I feel his heat behind me when I stop in front of my door, and he wraps his arm around my waist, pressing me back against his barely concealed hard length with the flat of his palm pressed low on my belly, just above the edge of my panties.

  I snap open my clutch, pull my key card out, and slide it into the lock. When the light turns green, Rick reaches around me and pushes the door open, holding it for me to pass through. But when he closes it behind us and turns the lock, his sweet and happy demeanor changes to something darker.

  “Take it off,” he says when I turn back to look at him as he leans his back against the door.

  “W-what?” I ask, startled. Usually, there’s a little touching, a little reminiscing before we get down to the nitty gritty. Tonight feels… I don’t know, rougher, darker. There’s some unnamed emotion riding Rick hard.

  “Your dress.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, ‘oh,’” he mimics me. His tone is teasing but also not necessarily kind either. “Now lose it.”

  I can see he’s dangling by a very frayed rope, so I reach behind me for the zipper on the back of my black satin dress and slowly lower it. The fabric gapes, and I let the slim straps slide off my shoulders. I don’t watch the dress but Rick as he tracks my gown’s descent from my body to the floor.

  I step out of the fabric and kick it to the side. There is something so vulnerable yet so incredibly hot about standing before a man as powerful as Rick when he’s still fully dressed in his beautiful suit and I’m wearing nothing but a pair of black lace cheeky panties, my tall black heels, and some cheap fake jewelry. Grace offered to loan me some real jewelry, but that felt wrong somehow. Like I was pretending to be someone I’m not. So I politely declined my friend’s generous offer and instead went as myself. It’s not designer, it’s not even real, but it’s me, and that’s as real as it gets.

  “Lose the jewelry,” he orders, and I pull the backing off of an earring made of long strands of dangling paste stones. I clip the backing back on once it’s free from my ear and drop it to the dresser top before treating the second one to the same routine. “You shouldn’t be wearing fake shit.”

  “I wear what I can afford,” I reply as I slip the bracelets off my wrists and set them on the dresser with the earrings.

  “Whose fault is that?” I think I hear him murmur, but when I look at him, his face is carefully blank, making me doubt I heard anything at all.

  I roll my bottom lip in between my teeth and watch as Rick lets his coat slip down his arms before carefully draping it over the back of a chair. He pops one cufflink and then the other, flipping back his cuffs before pocketing the little gold links. Each of his movements is precise, exacting. His eyes never leave mine.

  He reaches up toward his collar and pulls the tail of his bowtie. The knot springs loose, letting the ends fall open. His corded wrist flexes as he plucks each stud from the front of his shirt free, shoving them in his pants pocket with his cufflinks.

  “Lie back,” he commands me with his low voice, and I sit on the edge of the bed. I start to kick off my heels, but he stops me with a wave of his hand. “Leave them.”

  I use my hands for balance as I push back up the bed and lie against the pillows. Rick shrugs his dress shirt off and tosses it over the chair with his jacket before stalking toward the bed like a big cat. He pulls his wallet from his back pocket and plucks a strip of three condoms from the billfold, tossing them to the bed beside me before dropping his wallet to the floor. He unzips his pants and lets them fall to the floor. His cock stands long a
nd hard, and he grips the base tight in his fist before crawling up the bed to sit on his heels at my feet.

  Rick glides his hands down my calf, tickling me just a little as he raises my foot and slips the heel off before tossing it to the floor. He rolls the stocking down my leg before dropping it over the side of the bed and placing my foot carefully back down on the bed.

  He slides his hand down my other leg, raising it so he can slide the shoe off my foot like a kinky Prince Charming with his Cinderella. He presses his mouth to the arch of my foot before reaching for the top of my stocking and rolling it down my leg. But this time, instead of tossing it aside, Rick twists it around his hands over and over. Finally, he looks up at my eyes, but what I see there, I’m not sure.

  “Should I tie you up with these?” he asks. His voice is low and rough. “Should I bind you and punish you? Fuck knows you deserve it.”

  “If you’d like,” I answer in a barely there whisper. The truth is I would do whatever Rick asks of me, just for another second with him, at his side, in his bed, whatever he will give me. And I’ll take it gladly. But a secret part of me knows I’d love all of the dirty things he whispers to me when he’s too far gone to sensor his words.

  “Maybe another time,” he says, studying me before tossing the silk over the edge of the bed. “But not tonight. Tonight, I need you to use your hands.”

  And then he grabs the waistband of my panties and pulls them down my legs. The cool air hits my damp pussy, and I let out a moan and arch back while trying to squeeze my thighs together, only Rick won’t let me. With his strong hands on my inner thighs, he presses my legs open before dropping down between them.

  There is no gentling me into his play tonight. The first swipe of his tongue is hard and brutal; the second forces my arousal even higher. And when he thrusts two fingers inside me, I twist the bedding in my fists and gasp as my climax rolls over me.

  But Rick is far from done.

  He sits back on his heels, rips open one of the condom packets, and rolls the latex down his rigid length. There are no flowery sentiments or pretty words, only silence as he leans forward and slowly fills me with one stroke while he leans his weight on my open thighs.

  I deserve this. Every hate-filled look as he slowly drives his cock into my waiting body. He’s burning me alive and flaying my heart open all at the same time, and still, it’s less than I deserve. When his thumb skates over my clit, I know I’m done for. Another slow pass has me gasping.

  Rick leans farther back, sitting on his heels, pulling me by my upper legs onto his cock. The movement impales me over and over again and pulls a whimper from deep in my chest.

  “Touch yourself,” he demands as he plunges into me again. “Show me how you touch yourself when you’re all alone. Get yourself off on my cock with your hand.”

  I want to do just that. A shiver wracks up my spine at the thought of taking what I want, what I need from him and letting him watch me. I trail my hand over my belly and reach for my center where we’re joined as he thrusts. I let my fingers wander farther down and feel the slip and slide of our bodies before drawing my hand back up to circle my fingers over my clit.

  “Yes, that’s it,” he chants as his grip tightens on my thighs and he moves even faster still. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Faster. That’s it, faster.”

  “Yes,” I pant as I move my fingers like I do at home when no one is watching. I feel my core clench around his hard length, and I arch my back as he drives me down on his cock again and again. I’m lost to the dance our bodies know so well.

  “Feel how your pussy squeezes my cock,” he growls as he pulls me over him harder, faster.

  “Yes.”

  “Fuck,” he bites out. “I can’t hold back.”

  “Don’t.”

  “Tell me you’re close,” he says as his movements become jerkier.

  “Yes. I’m close.”

  “Thank Christ,” he bites out as he thrusts deep one more time before planting himself deep inside me and shoving us both over the cliff.

  I sprawl on the bed for who knows how long with my ass still draped over Rick’s lap and his cock still deep inside me. In reality, it probably isn’t long at all. My breath saws in and out of my lungs as I struggle to catch my breath. I wish I was paying better attention. Maybe if I hadn’t let my walls down, he wouldn’t have caught me off guard.

  “Why?” he asks in the quiet of the dark hotel room. “Just tell me why you did it.”

  “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I do. I know exactly what he’s asking, but it’s too dangerous a game to be playing now. For years, I’ve been raising our daughter alone, all in the name of keeping them safe, but now that our lives have intersected again, I’ve had him but not. He gives me his body then takes it away again when I can’t answer his questions.

  “Just tell me why you left. Tell me why you left me and took my daughter with you,” he pleads. It’s the hurt in his eyes that cuts me to the quick, so I avert my own, unable to bare the devastation in his any longer. This round of our game is almost up, and once again, we’ll both walk away losers.

  “I can’t,” I whisper the truth, knowing he will hate me just a little more for refusing to tell him the reason why I left and should have stayed gone, all while hoping against all hope he would find us and we would get that happily ever after. But those endings are only for fairy tales. This is real life, and there are real-life monsters in it.

  He pulls back, separating his body from mine. My instincts are to roll over and hide, but like always, I have to see this through to the end. I have to give Rick just enough to wound me even more, because it’s what I deserve for what I’ve done. He can never know everything I did was for him and our daughter.

  “Sometimes, I can’t even look at you, and others, I just want to fuck the mouth that lies to me so prettily. So which is it going to be?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “That’s just not fucking good enough anymore,” he says as he prowls off the bed and steps into his pants, pulling them up his muscular thighs and zipping them. He tugs his shirt up his arms and steps into his shoes. He rolls his tie up and stuffs it in his pants pocket, and then he grabs his coat and slings it over his shoulder. When he makes it to the door of the room, he doesn’t turn back, but he does say the words that tell me I’ve probably lost him once and for all. “You know, if you would have just told me, I probably could have forgiven you. But I can’t keep doing this.”

  “I know,” I whisper into the night, but he’s already gone.

  “Is There a Connection Between POTUS and FLOTUS Staff Members? Tongues are Wagging!”

  Chapter 3

  Just let it go

  Manhattan, New York

  Six months earlier…

  “Can we talk?”

  I knew Rick was going to be meeting Senator Chancellor here, and I also know we need to find some kind of new normal, even footing sort of. If that’s even possible after my world got flipped upside down last week when I saw him for the first time in almost a decade..

  What I did not plan on was my long-lost baby daddy making an appearance.

  In all the time I had known Grace, she despised Senator Jake Chancellor of New York. Never in my wildest dreams did I think she would hook up with the hot former Navy SEAL turned sexy politician. And then it happened so fast I didn’t have time to prepare.

  I knew Rick worked for the senator; I just figured I could avoid running into him. It was a naive plan, and it clearly had a snowball’s chance in hell of working out. At all. But who would have thought a small time personal stylist with a very limited client list would ever run into the right hand man of America’s most beloved politician? Certainly not me. In fact, Rick and I had lived in neighboring states for almost three years and had never once crossed paths. I don’t know what I was thinking when I moved Rachel and I back to New Jersey. Maybe I thought I could be in touch with my heritage and introduce my daughter to a little of hers too. But al
l I managed was to complicate our lives tenfold.

  I had no idea Rick planned to meet the newly minted couple at their home to ride with them. Or that he was about to be confronted with his long-lost ex-wife who had been living in the same city with the daughter he never knew he had. It was a lot to take in. I like to think I was prepared, but really, I was hiding.

  And now, it’s time to face the music. I can only hope I’ll be able to live with the consequences after. But my daughter deserves to have her father in her life, and he should get to know her too. Maybe they’ll be good for each other.

  So I came to the senator’s office first thing this morning after I dropped Rachel off at school. I just drove straight over here so I wouldn’t be able to chicken out by going home. I know from Grace that the senator drives her to work a little later in the morning, so there won’t be a ton of people here to witness my shame.

  My knees are weak, and my armpits are sweaty. I’m a regular Eminem song as I walk through the halls. I stop in front of his office door and take a deep breath before raising my fist and knocking.

  “Come in,” his terse words sound through the heavy door. I let my hand feel the cool metal before I turn the knob and poke my head in.

  “Can we talk?” I ask his stunned face. Clearly, Rick didn’t expect to see me here.

  “Yeah,” he says hesitantly as he stands from his desk and buttons his suit jacket. “Come on in.”

  I push the door the rest of the way open before closing it behind me. He gestures for me to sit in a club chair in front of his desk, and I walk through his spacious office and sit down. He has a corner office with huge windows that overlook some of the prettiest parts of the city. A huge wooden desk sits in the center of the room, a silent statement of the power and money he wields on a daily basis in the name of the senator. I can’t help but look down at my worn jeans that fit a little snugger than they did a year ago and a pair of Converse sneakers. Maybe I should have put more thought into how I looked this morning before I came over here.