The Kept Woman (16 page)

A big hand grabbed her wrist. Before she could scream, a pair of hot, skilled lips covered hers. Without a doubt, Jack was the best kisser she'd ever encountered. He was completely in charge, firm but tender, and not stuck on one approach. Jack could really mix it up with those lips of his, with a little help from his teeth and tongue. Sam's knees began to buckle.

"Come with me."

Jack opened the large glass door to the shower, and Sam stepped into a wonderland. Apparently, while she'd been sitting on the toilet plotting how she would use Jack for her own selfish pleasure, he'd been in here creating a wet, warm love nest. Sam smiled at how he'd lined the candles high up on the shower ledge, away from the spray of the six water jets.

"This is really nice, but—"

"The tank in this place is huge. We could go days without power and the water would stay hot."

Sam grinned up at him, letting her eyes take in the full impact of what was displayed before her in the misty candlelight. She started at his head and that very serviceable cut someone had given him, a cut that accentuated the slight wave in his thick dark hair but gave it room to move. It was a rakish cut, with enough length to give him a groomed-but-casual look. He definitely needed something more conservative if he was going to win the election.

"You're too sexy for your own good," Sam said, reaching up and combing her fingers through his damp hair.

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

Sam laughed. "I meant your haircut, specifically. You need to go shorter on top. You need to deemphasize the trendy bad-boy thing you have going."

Jack brought put her palm up to his lips and kissed, then dragged his mouth along the inside of Sam's wet wrist. She trembled. "That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me, Samantha."

"Oh?"

"Except for that other thing I like to hear."

Sam's heart skipped a beat. "We'll always have that."

"I think that would be nice." Jack pulled her up against his chest and hugged her. "Really. It would be nice to be in a relationship with someone you liked as a person in the real world, who you could take back to your private lair and have great sex with."

"Mmm. It does sound nice. I've never really had that before; have you?"

Jack chuckled and set Samantha before him, rubbing her back. "Seems it's always been one or the other, but never both at once. I'm not sure why that is." He gave her a devilish grin. "Unless we're counting tonight, because I definitely had a great time with you at the concert and I sure as hell had fun with you in that big bed out there."

Sam swallowed hard. "Me, too." She reached up to stroke Jack's face, feeling just a touch of raspy beard. "Do you really think we can date? Can we pull this off?"

"I don't see why not."

"I don't think Kara and Stuart would appreciate the fact that we've been. . ." Sam shrugged, looking for the right way to say it. "You know. . .."

"Going at it like rabbits?"

She laughed.

"You know what they're going to appreciate even less? That I really do like you. That I'm interested in you as a person and a woman. Because that makes things even messier. If it was just sex—"

"It's not just sex?"

Jack cocked his head, and a stream of water coursed down his neck. "Not for me, sweetheart."

"OK."

"How about for you?"

"I don't know what it is for me, honestly." She brought her hand down to his hip and stroked him there, noting the way his hip bone just barely showed under his taut skin. "You are, by far, the sexiest man I've ever known."

He smiled at that.

"But I'm not sure I want to invest any emotion in you. I'm not exactly looking to get my heart stomped on right now. And I think maybe you only like me because I'm here and I'm convenient and I'm the only woman you're even allowed to hang around with for the time being."

"Not by a long shot."

"Well, it's hard to know for sure."

Jack nodded thoughtfully, pulling her close again and cupping his big hands on her bottom. He kissed the top of her head. "You fit very nicely against me, Samantha. Have you noticed?"

"I sure have."

"I fit pretty good in you. Did you notice that?"

She giggled, hugging him hard. "I thought I felt something unusual going on down there."

Jack laughed, letting his hands roam all over her back and shoulders and butt and upper thighs. Sam felt him push her backward a little, until they were both fully under the spray of the water jets. "I want to get you wet," he said.

"That shouldn't be a problem."

He lifted Sam's chin with a finger and looked into her eyes. Jack's gaze was earnest and warm, and it sliced right down into the most vulnerable place in Sam's heart. She really had to keep her head on straight with Jack. She couldn't—absolutely could not—do something stupid. She would not fall in love with him.

"I want to eat you up," Jack murmured inside her ear, just as his hands began to spread her thighs apart. Sam gasped as she saw him sink to his knees in the shower. He looked up at her from his kneeling position and gave her a wicked grin. "Open up for me, Sam."

"Oh God." She was already shaking and he hadn't even done anything but talk to her and touch her legs. She was a sitting duck. She was no match for Indiana's answer to Casanova. And when his fingers grazed the tender juncture of her inner thigh and pubic hair, she gasped.

"I won't hurt you, baby."

Sam felt his mouth land on her swollen outer lips and she nearly shot through the ceiling. How could she tell him that she'd only experienced this particular sensation one other time in her life and Mitch couldn't stand to do it for more than a few minutes? What kind of pitiful existence had she been leading?

"Easy, baby," he whispered, just as he adjusted his angle and touched the tip of his hot tongue on her clitoris. It was out-of-this-world. Sam braced one hand against the shower wall for support because she feared she would collapse. The hot water streamed down her back and rolled down her body. His hot tongue slurped at her, his lips kissed her, his teeth gave her little love bites, each touch producing its own unique spike of pleasure, and the pleasure was gaining velocity, gaining strength, welling up inside her belly. . ..

Jack suddenly drove a finger inside her and hooked it, stroking the inner walls of her vagina, and all she could think was,
It's not fair. It's not fair. It's not fair. . ..

She detonated, grabbing on to his head for dear life, amazed at the brilliance of the orgasm as it slammed against her shut eyelids. She was seeing stars! A single flash of light! The heavens opened up with such sudden brightness that she momentarily feared that she had come so hard she had crossed over into the other dimension, which she didn't know was even possible.

"That was one powerful orgasm," Jack said, leaving kisses all over the front of her wet thighs, her stomach, her hips. "You could have lit up New York City with that one."

Sam moaned, opening her eyes reluctantly, still holding on to Jack's head. She blinked in surprise at how bright it was in the shower, then looked down to see a fully illuminated naked man kneeling before her, his cheeks squished by her palms. "The lights are on!"

Jack tried to nod the best he could.

"Oh God. Sorry."

"
Mommy, change me now!
"

Jack and Sam went still. Jack looked horrified. Sam mouthed a curse and put her finger over her lips to urge Jack to remain silent, then motioned for him to get up and move to the end of the shower stall, where he had the best chance at remaining hidden.

Jack grunted slightly as he pushed himself up, and it was at that moment that Sam saw his left knee for the first time. She gasped.

"Now, Mommy!"

Sam opened the frosted glass door, still reeling from the sight of Jack's scars and aware she could not possibly let her child know they'd been in the shower together. What kind of mother was she? Dakota peered up at her and frowned, and Sam saw he was wearing his usual attire—a Bob the Builder T-shirt and not much else.

"Please wait for me in the bedroom while I dry off, OK, pumpkin?" She reached around to turn off the water and a loud crash reverberated through the room. She cringed. "Sorry," Jack whispered, staring at the candlestick lying near the shower drain.
I bumped the wall
, he mouthed at Sam, but it was too late.

"Mr. Jack is in there?" Dakota's eyes widened in excitement. "Hey! Mr. Jack!"

"Please hand Mommy a towel, OK?" Dakota reached behind him and pulled a large towel from the shelf, which came unfolded as he dragged it across the floor. Sam grabbed it and tossed it to Jack behind her back. "Thank you, pumpkin. Can I have one more, please?"

Dakota narrowed his eyes at Sam and reached for a second towel, and she could see his little toddler brain working in overdrive. Sam hastily covered herself and was about to sweep Dakota into her arms and whisk him into the other room when he ducked under her reach and flung open the shower door.

"Mr. Jack?" Dakota presented his nighttime pull-up, soaked to capacity, and Sam stared in disbelief as a big, male hand appeared from behind the chrome edge of the shower door. The thumb and index finger accepted the diaper by the tiniest pinch possible. "Change me now, Mr. Jack, and don't forget to use the wipes."

"Looking good, Ms. DeMarinis." Sam parted Kara's heavy, stick-straight hair with a comb, inspecting her work. "You should be set for another four weeks or so."

Kara turned her head to look at Sam, panic in her eyes. "And I can come back here, right? You'll do this next month, too, right?"

Sam smiled. Clients were understandably picky when it came to their hair, but Kara was downright paranoid. She was so worried that her gray would show or, worse yet, someone would figure out she dyed it that she always double-checked the concoction Sam whipped up in her little plastic bowl before she'd allow her to paint it on her roots—Aveda No. 5 in ash and No. 5 in gold, with 20 volume developer. Maybe that was just the lawyer in Kara. Or the control freak in her. Or both.

"I'll be happy to do your hair here at the house as long as it's OK with Jack."

"Don't mind at all." Jack appeared in the doorway to the butler's pantry, his face sporting a wicked smile, still wearing the rumpled tuxedo shirt and pants from the night before. He leaned against the door frame and crossed his arms over his chest.

It took all Sam's concentration not to make little whimpering noises at the sight of him. She hadn't seen him since they'd said good night at her bedroom door, both agreeing it was too risky for him to sleep in her room. Jack said more than once that they'd been lucky that it was Dakota who busted them and not Greg or Lily. "Do you think Dakota will say something?" he'd asked her.

"It's anyone's guess," she'd answered.

Sam busied herself cleaning up the mess and putting away her tools of the trade, sensing Jack's eyes on her the whole time. She avoided making eye contact with him, worried that if Kara happened to be watching, the jig would be up.

Kara rose from the straight-backed chair and removed the plastic cape that covered her sweater, chatting with Jack. "Sam says the lights came on about two in the morning up here. Downtown didn't have power until a couple hours ago."

"Yeah, we got lucky last night," Jack said. Sam's head snapped up and she glared at him. He had the gall to wink at her. Unbelievable.

"That's good," Kara said, inspecting her roots in a hand mirror.

"Sam says I need a different haircut if I expect to be elected senator. She said I need something less sexy. Do you agree?"

Kara frowned in his direction and put down the mirror. She studied his hair.

"You really think so?" she asked Sam.

She shrugged, thinking back on what Jack had looked like standing in that shower the night before, his muscles glistening in the candlelight, his eyes shining down on her, that tousled hair framing his handsome face. The man was a sex god. "He could use a trim, I guess."

Jack immediately fished out his wallet, keys, and cell phone from his trouser pockets and took a seat in the vacated chair. He folded his hands in his lap. "I'm all yours."

Sam looked to Kara for guidance, but Kara gave her a "don't-ask-me" shrug. "Sure. Just no buzz cuts. Makes voters think of Oliver North."

Jack laughed. "Kara, you're a treasure trove of political wisdom. Where would I be without you?"

"God only knows." Kara retrieved another chair from the adjoining breakfast room and settled to Sam's left. "So how did he do last night?" Kara asked Sam. "Did he make us proud?"

Sam was about to reach for the scissors, but her hand froze. Then it occurred to her that Kara was referring to the symphony event. "No slips of the tongue that I noticed."

Jack snorted.

Kara went on, oblivious. "Well, there wasn't anything in the paper about you two this morning—the ice storm dominated the news." She fluffed her hair and reached for the mug of coffee she'd left on the counter. "So what do you say, Jack? Think it's time you whipped out the family jewels?"

Jack's big laugh was the only thing that hid the fact that Sam had just choked on her own breath.

They all heard the front door open and slam shut and Monte's voice traveled through the foyer. "Good morning, sunshine!" she called out, the sound of her heels tap-tapping across the parquet floors as Simon attacked the front staircase at least two steps at a time. "Yoo-hoo! What's shakin' in the big house to-
day
?"

"We're in here!" Sam yelled out.

"What's everyone doing?" Monte arrived in the butler's pantry door, sporting a pair of red stretch pants and a green knit sweater. Earrings shaped like miniature gold Christmas ornaments dangled from her ears. She frowned at Jack in the chair. "I don't think the man needs a makeover."

Kara sat up straighter. "Absolutely not! We hired an image consultant and ran a series of focus groups, and he was perfectly within the range of positive voter response we were hoping for."

"Just giving him a trim," Sam said to Monte. "Number two guard on the clippers. Leaving the sideburns at ear level."

Monte dragged in a second breakfast room chair and made herself comfortable on the other side of Sam. "Yeah, well, it's a good idea. The length makes me think of a surfer dude, not a senator."

"My concern exactly," Sam said.

"But don't go too short or I'll be thinkin' Marine Corps or some damn thing."

Kara smiled. "See? I told you."

"Mmmm. . .mmm," Monte said, checking out Jack's rumpled tuxedo trousers. "He's a sharp dresser, I'll give him that."

They all giggled, except Jack, who cleared his throat. "You know, there's something demeaning about three women talking about me like I'm not even in the room. I feel so cheap."

"At least we're talking about you. Political death is when they don't talk about you." Kara took a sip of her coffee. "Like this morning. I am not at all pleased that you two lovebirds weren't mentioned in the Style section. That's why I think it's time for jewelry."

"It's always time for jewelry," Monte said. "I've been trying to tell the man this for weeks now."

"Days," Sam muttered.

"You're absolutely sure it's all right to borrow something?" Kara asked Jack.

"There's so much old crap in there, she wouldn't notice anything missing."

Kara laughed. "Are you nuts? That woman remembers it all—little tiny details from your father's first gubernatorial campaign, what Allen Ditto's wife wore to his first swearing-in, way back in 1972. She's amazing."

"Who's amazing?"

"My mother," Jack explained to Monte. "I decided I'd use one of the family's old pieces as an engagement ring. Thought it would be unique."

"Just so long as it's uniquely large."

"And all this time I thought size doesn't really matter to women," Jack said, clearly enjoying the exchange with Monte.

"That's a damn lie all around," she said. "You been spending too much time with women who don't have the nerve to speak the truth, is all."

Jack nodded and said, "You may be right, Ms. McQueen."

"Please keep your head still or your hair won't be in anybody's range of positive response," Sam said.

"Maybe Christy will mention you two on
Capitol Update
this afternoon," Kara said, brightening. "I ran into her last night at the symphony—crankier than ever, I swear."

"Yeah, that girl was in the salon the other day, yakking it up with Marcia," Monte said. "I never did like her."

"I never even met her," Sam said.

"Me, either," Monte said. "But she never struck me as somebody I'd like to get to know."

Kara nodded. "She was probably at Le Cirque digging for dirt on Sam. Christy told me she thinks we're up to no good."

"Well, we are," Jack offered.

"Is she going after me? Is that what you're saying?" Sam had been running her fingers through Jack's hair to test the evenness but stopped suddenly. She looked to Kara. "That's kind of scary."

"You're squeaky clean, Sam, so don't worry. Christy's just another one of Jack's scorned women and the only thing she wants is what she's always wanted—his nuts on a skewer."

"Ouch," Jack hissed.

"Did I cut you?"

"No, sweetheart. Just reacting to the comment about my nuts."

The room went silent, and Kara and Monte sent puzzled stares Sam's way. She was about to ask them what the problem was when it dawned on her that Jack just called her sweetheart. She needed to cover for him.

"Well, darling, I won't let that awful woman near your nuts." Sam waved her scissors in the air with elan, then gave the blades a wicked snap. "
En garde!
"

Kara and Monte laughed.

"You two are getting pretty good at this," Kara said. "Now let's make it official."

The smell of his father's office always did a job on Jack's psyche. It was the smell of old books and old money, of leather and linseed oil. It was the smell of his childhood, his loneliness, and the knowledge that he was never quite important enough to drag his dad's attention away from his work. The fact that the shrine was now Jack's office never felt right to him. It was as if the ghosts of his father and grandfather hovered there among the old law texts and the gleaming mahogany, checking on him from the great beyond, fully aware that Jack's heart wasn't in it, and not at all pleased with that fact.

As Jack fiddled with the lock on the family safe, he acknowledged that was the one thing that had always eluded him about politics—a sincere zest for it, a consuming passion like he once had for football. His mind could grapple with the key issues facing the state and the nation. It wasn't that he presumed to have all the answers, but he did have carefully considered opinions, and he understood the nature of the most serious challenges facing all Americans—national security and foreign policy, the deficit, education, jobs and trade, crime, the environment, Social Security, health care.

He never minded studying the reams of reports and analysis Kara and Stuart sent his way or meeting with key lawmakers on all levels to hash out issues. He didn't mind the public speaking or the constant parade of events and appearances.

What he minded was the nagging realization that he didn't know why he bothered to do any of it. He understood on an academic level how his work as a politician affected real people, but for some reason he often felt apart from those people—detached. He knew it was more than simply growing up wealthy. His lack of connection embarrassed him. It was his biggest secret. And he hadn't noticed it until the day he got his leg mangled. Sometimes he wondered if his soul didn't get mangled right along with it.

"Do you remember the combination?" Kara stood so close that he could feel her breath on his neck.

"Of course. Why don't you have a seat and relax?" He motioned for Kara to sit on the sofa and glared at her to stay put.

It amused Jack how the three women were now poised on the edge of the ancient leather sofa like eager schoolgirls, hands folded in anticipation. They were such an odd trio of females lined up together like that—Kara and her long, sleek, cool demeanor; Monte with her in-your-face honesty, joyous self-confidence, and loyalty to Sam; and Samantha—petite and sweet and hardworking but so much more that he suspected it would take a lifetime to get to the bottom of that woman and even then the job might not be done.

"Are you
sure
you know the combination? I think it's been years since you've opened that safe, hasn't it?"

Jack chuckled to himself. Kara had been a part of his life for so long she was like a sister to him—a demanding, scheming, wickedly brilliant sister. She had been his friend for nearly twenty years. She drove him nuts and he adored her. He knew her moods and her sore spots. He knew how her brain worked. He knew he wouldn't be running for Senate if it weren't for her—this was as much her race as it was his. Sometimes he thought they should just cut back on the middleman and let her be the senator.

"I'm all over it, boss," he said to Kara, telling himself that he hadn't lied when he told her he knew the numbers. Technically, he did. It was the order of the numbers that escaped him, and at that point he'd nearly exhausted all his options.

"I say we just blow it sky-high," was Monte's contribution.

Jack glanced over his shoulder and smiled. Every time he thought about how Sam and Monte and their offspring just showed up in his life one day, it made him chuckle. He didn't know how bored he'd been until they arrived. And to think—if he'd told Kara absolutely "no" on her scheme, he'd never have met Sam, a possibility he didn't want to contemplate. Though he'd only known Samantha Monroe for a few weeks, he'd become attached to her. He didn't like going a day without seeing her.

It was a mystery how that had happened.

"Got it!" The internal workings of the safe clicked into place and Jack pulled the handle, opening the heavy antique door. The safe was no more than four feet high and three feet wide, but it was crammed with the flotsam and jetsam of Tolliver history, those treasures MDT had chosen, for whatever reason, not to put in the Bank One safe-deposit box. Jack lifted out a black velvet chest about the size of a hardback dictionary. He placed it on the desk.

"I've only seen inside once," Kara said in a reverent whisper.

Jack turned the box and opened the lid, and all three women rose from the couch like they'd been hypnotized. They walked wide-eyed to the big desk and bowed down.

"Holy f—" Sam slapped a hand to her mouth.

"You know you're going to have to let us try this shit on," Monte said, looking up from her stooped position. "Every girl's gotta know what it feels like to be a princess at least once in her life."

Jack grinned. "Have at it, ladies, but pick something we can use as an engagement ring. That's the whole point, right?"

"My God, look at this!" Kara held up a three-strand pearl necklace accented with a diamond-framed cameo.

"I hope you have all this stuff insured," Monte said, running her fingers over the necklaces, bracelets, earrings, pendants, pins, and whatever else MDT kept in there.

"We do," he said. "Excuse me for just a few minutes, ladies."

Jack sat down at the desk and called Stuart, the whole time watching the women laugh, gasp, help one another with old clasps that didn't work so well, and shout in delight. Kara ran back to the butler's pantry to retrieve the hand mirror so they could admire themselves. Jack had to admit the black onyx bracelet looked really nice on Kara and that Monte looked like a diva in those diamond drop earrings that he thought may have belonged to one of MDT's aunts. When Sam reached behind her slim neck and snapped on a ruby and diamond choker and tossed her curls, the sight took Jack's breath away.