Chapter Twelve

 

This was a bad dream that wouldn’t end.

Tasha looked out the window at the throng of reporters and photographers who had been camped out in front of her apartment building for the last three days. Ever since that political blogger had released pictures of her with the senator.

Not Burke’s pictures, Thank God. But they were titillating enough to draw this crowd.

Tasha glanced back at her open laptop and moved closer, studying them again. Her in a bikini cuddling on Stephen’s lap at Burke’s house. A close up of them mid-passionate kiss when he was carrying her back to their bedroom after the rope demo—thankfully, it had been cropped. Her laughing at dinner, unaware that Stephen was watching her with something more than hunger in his expression. Pride? Longing?

None of them were vulgar, but the picture they painted was clear. She read the blog’s headline: Has The Senator Whose Slogan Reads “Fight for Finn” Finally Found A Girl Worth Fighting For?

The article itself was short and nowhere near as damaging as it could have been. In fact, it was flattering. It mentioned her local upbringing, her business, her citizenship classes and even quoted a few of her friends from the LGBT parade brigade. They approached her sexuality with a tongue-in-cheek reference to a BDSM book that had been so popular they’d made it into a movie, instantly removing the stigma she’d assumed would be attached to her kink.

She wanted to bake the author cookies. After she hit him with a frying pan for posting these pictures in the first place.

But maybe Ken was right. As soon as she saw them, she’d called to ask him to use his powers for good and crash the site, and he’d said, “But this is perfect, Tasha. All Burke’s leverage is gone. Any pictures he posts now would make him look like a classless copycat. He can’t control the narrative and create a scandal because they got out in front of him. Now the story is everywhere. This is why I love the Internet.”

If that was true, she definitely needed to bake that blogger cookies. Which she would bring to him if the sea of people waiting to ask her about her relationship with Stephen would just give up and go home.

A sudden increase in the decibel level brought her back to the window. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Brady Finn was walking around the hood of a black sedan. He had on his Marine face, making him look thoroughly intimidating. Not that he needed help with that. His muscles were practically exploding from his snug black t-shirt as he opened the passenger door.

Stephen was here.

The crowd parted and circled them, calling out questions as they headed toward the front steps of her building. When Stephen turned and held up his hand to ask for silence, the voices faded.

As quietly as she could, Tasha lifted her window a crack. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear what he had to say, but she needed to.

He smiled. “I’m guessing we all read the same article.” The crowd chuckled. “I had no idea a few pictures on one small blog would cause this much attention. I hear it even got a twitter mention from a Kennedy. You might have to be Irish to understand exactly how proud my father is right now.”

They all laughed again.

“How long have you been dating Miss Rivera?” a reporter shouted.

Stephen glanced at him, but didn’t respond. “I apologize for making you wait. I would have been here sooner, but I’ve been working hard to close the book on some of the unethical activities my fellow senators have been engaged in. A few representatives of the people have been giving away their votes and your voice in our government for the basest of reasons. Greed.”

The buzz of the crowd was growing again. “Today should be a big news day for you. Two state representatives will be resigning from office in the next few hours. They’ll announce their decision on the steps of the capitol building.” The crowd began to shout and he held up his hand again. “And…Mr. Philip Burke is already in the custody of the FBI. At this moment, no doubt in the hopes of leniency, he is cooperating with the agency by handing over vital information on those politicians who have accepted money to alter the language of bills, change their votes and actively participate in the kind of stonewalling and obstruction that creates most of the division and dysfunction in our system. In our country.”

Tasha placed a hand over her pounding heart. It was over? Burke was in custody?

She watched as more than half of the crowd dispersed, phones pressed to their ears as they confirmed what Stephen was saying and left her yard for more newsworthy pastures.

But not all of them went away.

“Is it true that Miss Rivera’s father was deported from this country due to his family’s affiliation with terrorists?”

She glared at the reporter, but Stephen just smiled. “He was deported because he was unable to get his work visa renewed and the woman he loved turned down his marriage proposal. I can tell you from experience that those Rivera women can be stubborn.”

Another reporter caught the hint he’d thrown. “Did she turn you down, Senator? Are you back on the market?”

“Theresa, good to see you. And to answer your question, Miss Rivera has said no in word and deed to most of my propositions for years. But Finns can be stubborn too, particularly when it’s important. I can’t say this crowd on her lawn is helping my cause, but I understand you’re just doing your jobs.”

He glanced toward her window and she stepped back so quickly she almost fell over. “If you want full disclosure, Theresa, I’m not sure if I’m on the market or not. That’s what I’m here to find out. No more questions.”

She peered out the window again in time to see him nod at Brady, who crossed his arms and stood in front of the door, acting as a human barricade while Stephen disappeared inside.

“Shit.” She looked around her apartment. Boxes everywhere. Tape and cartons of takeout and boxes.

She knew she didn’t look much better. Her hair was a mess, she was in her oldest t-shirt and shorts, and anxiety about those pictures hadn’t given her much opportunity for beauty sleep.

He’d come to see her in front of those reporters. Basically admitted that they were in a relationship, without apology or explanation.

And the world was still turning.

It wasn’t. It was spinning. So fast she was dizzy and scared and wanted to cling to the ground so she wouldn’t be thrown into space.

He knocked on her door. “Are you going to open up this time, Natasha, or will you let your neighbor call the police to haul me away in front of all these reporters?”

She opened the door and took several steps back.

He looked good. He always did. Senator Stephen Finn in his wrinkle-free suit, with his perfect hair and his made-for-television good looks.

She’d missed him more than she’d thought possible.

He closed and locked the door behind him, watching her as he reached up to loosen his tie.

“Congratulations,” she offered, when she couldn’t take the silence. “On Burke.”

“It’s time, Natasha.” He tugged the tie through the collar of his shirt and dropped it on the floor.

“For what?” She took another step back. “How’s your father?”

“He’s fine, which you know because you talked to him yesterday. It’s time for that serious talk we were going to have, right before the FBI asked me to start sucking up to Burke.” He took one step closer, unbuttoning his shirt slowly. Methodically. “That’s why, you know.”

“Why what?”

“Why we didn’t talk sooner. You never asked. You just assumed that I changed my mind after it blew over, didn’t you? That or I was never serious to begin with.”

Tasha swallowed. “No, I just—you came here to diffuse this, I know. The blog frenzy. Thank you. I have no idea who did it but—”

“Of course you don’t.” He shook his head, reaching the last button and slipping off his shirt along with his suit jacket. “Because I didn’t tell you.”

“You know?”

“Do you want a written confession?”

She crossed her arms, stepping back until she scraped her heel on the corner of a cardboard box. “Ow! Damn it, Stephen, are you actually trying to say you posted that?”

“I had help.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. Why would you do something like this?”

“I spent the first month after you disappeared from Burke’s house feeling sorry for myself and learning to loathe hangovers. If I ever take a drink again, remind me to tell you about being found under my desk by one of my volunteers. She’s never going to forget it, or get that stain out of her Finn Fighter shirt.”

Oh dear.

His smile at her expression was self-effacing. “Then these last few weeks, I’ve been surrounded by federal agents who are physically incapable of cracking a smile. Those people make me look impulsive and sloppy.”

“Were they there because of—”

“But more interestingly,” he interrupted her again, making her frown. “Do you know how Brady and his new pal Ken Tanaka have spent the last two months?”

She shook her head. “No idea. I’d guess it wasn’t teaching you about letting people finish their sentences.”

“They pooled their not inconsiderable talents and set about resolving the problem. The FBI spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on manpower and resources to go after Burke, and those two did it with a computer and some shady contacts I’ll never ask them about in half the time. Of course, the feds will take credit, since Tanaka was on their payroll. But I understand my cousin’s connections provided some vital intel. I owe him another apology.”

She frowned. “I don’t understand.”

He sighed and used his toes to push off his shoes, stepping out of them and closer to her. “They did this. Made it possible. They dismantled Burke and took away everything he had on me in the process. Tanaka turned off the surveillance equipment at the party—”

“I know.”

“What you didn’t know was that later that evening, he placed a device of his own design into Burke’s office. Realizing it was the only place the man didn’t have wired, he rightly concluded he would feel free to say something incriminating.” He paused, studying her. “Which he did with you the next day.”

Ken had bugged the office? That meant the FBI had heard everything. “Why did it take so long to arrest him?”

His expression said he understood what she’d been through. They’d both been suffering. “They needed more. So Tanaka and Brady made sure they got it, while at the same time finding and destroying all copies of the pictures taken in my home, getting Seamus a lawyer and locating Mira…and making sure Trick didn’t inform me of Jen’s pending arrest.”

“What?!”

He grimaced. “I wasn’t thrilled with that either, but I can’t say I’m unhappy Jen is heading back to college.” She glared and he held up his hands. “You told me I needed to let her make her own mistakes. They didn’t make her hit that woman, Natasha. That was her choice.”

Brady and Ken had done this? Everything? “And what about the blog?”

Stephen was staring at her legs, his hands on his belt buckle. Tasha’s body started to warm.

“Ken and Brady filled me in a few weeks ago.” His voice lowered dangerously. “As soon as you let Jeremy know you were planning to move.”

She bit her lip. “It seemed like the right thing to do.”

“After I got over my shock, I wanted to help. Tanaka put the blog together and routed it through so many IP addresses that no one will ever be able to trace it back to him. I chose the pictures from the surveillance footage he’d confiscated.”

Ken hadn’t even hinted that he knew. “Why?”

“So you couldn’t use it as a reason to run.” He’d moved so close she could reach out and touch him. “You’ve been using my reputation, my decision to pursue public office, as an excuse to keep me at arm’s length. That ship has now sailed. You walked away…” His voice broke. “I heard everything, Natasha. What you said. How you stood up for me. I know you walked away to stop those pictures from being used against me. But now those pictures no longer exist.”

He reached out and took her hand, caressing her wrist with his thumb. “If you leave me now, Natasha Rivera, I’ll know it’s because you genuinely don’t want to be with me. That you don’t love me the way I love you.”

A sob escaped her throat and she covered her mouth. “You never said it before.”

“That I love you? That even when I believed stolen moments were all you’d give me for the rest of my life, I still knew I would take them rather than lose you completely? You never gave me the chance.”

Stephen pulled her close and kissed her. The moment his lips touched hers she was lost. She jumped into his arms, not doubting for a moment that he’d catch her as she wrapped her legs around his waist.

He groaned, his mouth fierce, his tongue tangling with hers in a way that had her hips rocking against him. It had been so long.

Two months.

Too long.

Tasha was dimly aware of him moving as she sucked his lower lip into her mouth and nibbled it the way she knew he liked. Then he turned his head and let go of her with one hand to slide the window up.

“The answer is yes,” he yelled to the reporters stilling milling about on the grass. “I’m definitely off the market.”

He slammed the window shut again as questions and shouts rang out, then laughed when she buried her face in his neck. “What? Don’t you want Senator Lark’s daughter to know I’m no longer available?”

Yes, of course—she wanted everyone to know. She looked up to tell him as much, but his mischievous expression was the only warning she got before she was tossed onto her bed.

“You left me.”

He was smiling, but his words still resonated with pain.

She bit her lip. “I’m sorry.”

“Words aren’t going to do it, Natasha. I need you naked and kneeling and ready for your punishment.”

Tasha didn’t even have to think. “Yes, sir.”

His blue eyes darkened with desire. “Now.”

She tore off her t-shirt and rolled onto her back to shimmy out of her shorts and underwear. Stephen watched her with hungry eyes until she was kneeling on the bed, head down and hands on her thighs.

“I’ll never get used to how sexy you are. Never get tired of this. Not in a week. Not when we’re eighty and waiting for our grandchildren to leave so I can tear your clothes off.”

A fine tremor ran through her at his words. “Never is a long time, Stephen.”

He sat down beside her and she realized he’d taken off his pants. She licked her lips. She’d missed him so much.

“Lie across my lap, Natasha. Bottom up.”

Her eyes widened, but she did as he asked. He groaned, skimming his hands over her ass cheeks, squeezing and caressing each one in turn. “Two months. That’s how long your tortured me this time. Two months when I couldn’t touch you whenever I wanted. Take you whenever I wanted. Spank you.”

His hand came down with a loud crack and she cried out. “Yes, sir!”

He spanked her other cheek. Then again. He started a rhythm that made her squirm against him, heating her skin until it was blazing to the touch.

“This is mine, Natasha. Tell me.”

“Yours.”

“Spread your legs.”

When she did, Stephen gave her soaking sex the same treatment, and both of them moaned each time his hand connected with a wet smack. “This is mine too. You gave it to me.”

“Yes, sir,” she cried, so close to coming she was ready to beg for more.

Stephen stopped abruptly and moved her until her back and stinging ass were pressed against the bed and he was position between her thighs. He thrust inside her, baring his teeth while she gasped at the tight fit.

“Yes,” he growled.

He lifted one hand to place it over her heart. “What about this?” he asked, rocking deeper. “Is this mine, Natasha?”

“Yes, sir,” she whispered, breathless. Her heart was his too. It had always been his.

He closed his eyes for a moment, reacting to her words, and when he opened them again, they shone with an emotion she couldn’t deny. “Tell me.”

“I love you, Stephen.”

“You never said it.”

“I didn’t want to go first.”

He took her hands and held them over her head with one fist, closing his other hand over her throat in sensual warning. “Do you want to come?”

“Please.”

“Then say yes to my next question.”

Something in his tone made her still. She studied his face. “What question?”

“Marry me.”

“That isn’t a question.” She tightened her legs around him, holding on while the world spun again and her heart tried to race its way out of her chest.

“Say yes.” His hips pumped against her once. Twice. Then he paused again. “Marry me, Natasha Kathleen Rivera.”

“We can’t just…it’s too fast, Stephen.”

“It’s been a lifetime. I can’t spend another day away from you. I don’t want to wait another year to touch you, to talk to you. Marry me and let me love you for the rest of our lives.”

She gasped when he rolled his hips, pressing his erection against that spot that drove her wild. “I don’t like your house.”

“We’ll move.”

She moaned. “I don’t want to be the first lady.”

His chuckle was thick with lust. “I’ll add ‘never run for higher office’ to my vows. This is where I want to be and I want you with me. Marry me.”

She struggled against his grip. “What about children?”

“I’m for them. As many as you want. Marry me.”

“Stephen, I’m serious.”

His expression was determined. Wicked. “So am I. If you don’t say yes, I’m tying you to this bed and taking you until you’re pregnant and forced to marry me so your child can have a father.”

Too late. She smiled, desire and love bringing tears to her eyes. “Will you spank me whenever I’m bad?”

“And when you’re good.”

“Ask me again.”

“Marry me.”

“Yes, sir.”

Please.

 

 

Hours later she woke with a start, realizing she was alone in bed. “Stephen?”

“I’m here.” He was standing in the kitchen, eating a raspberry tart. He was also still naked. “There is nothing in your refrigerator but baked goods.”

She noticed how dark it was in the apartment and gasped. “Is Brady still outside?”

Stephen swore and peered out the window, one hand between his legs. “I completely forgot. Yep. He’s still down there. He’s playing cards with two reporters. Oh.”

“What?”

“Tanaka just showed up. He brought chairs and beer and... We should get dressed.”

She pulled the sheet up higher. “Why? What’s wrong now?”

Stephen smiled at her and her heart responded. “Nothing’s wrong, angel. Not today. If I’m not mistaken, your friend has brought us dinner from Ruby’s. There seems to be no end to his talents.”

“I really love him right now,” she sighed. Stephen narrowed his eyes and she laughed. “Not as much as my senator, of course. Besides, I think he has a crush on your cousin.”

Stephen laughed, looking for his pants. “I think you’re right. Maybe telling them about our wedding will give them ideas. If not them, hopefully it’ll light a fire under Owen. Mom has been throwing hints so hard he and Jeremy should have concussions by now.”

Wedding. She was actually getting married. Maybe she would send an invitation to her father. She didn’t expect him to respond, but at least he’d know. She’d like to think that even if he couldn’t walk her down the aisle, it would make him happy that she was marrying a good Irish boy from a wonderful family. The best family who would make sure her child was raised in love.

She needed to tell Stephen about the baby. But for now? This was just about them. Stephen loved her for exactly who she was. He didn’t ask her to change to suit his career or be less of who she was. He just wanted her. He’d asked her to marry him before he thought he had to. He’d followed his heart and it had brought him straight to her door. Knowing that took away all of her fears and doubts.

Some people would say it was too soon to get married. When they found out about the baby, they would nod and say, “Oh, that explains it.”

But they’d be wrong on both counts.

Stephen was right, this had been a long time coming, and now that everything she’d never allowed herself to dream about was at her fingertips? She planned to grab it and never let go.

“Hurry up, Spanky. Ruby’s awaits.”

She laughed, jumping out of bed and running to her closet as he chased her.

“Chocolate princess,” she parried, grabbing the first pair of clean shorts she could find.

“Brat,” Stephen sighed, pulling her into his arms. “Beautiful, irresistible brat.”

“You love it.”

“I love you. Now kiss me before I lose you to Ruby’s irresistible secret recipe.”

She kissed him, trying to show him without words how she felt. How much. How completely happy he made her. She smiled when he lifted his head. “Stephen?”

“Yes?”

“I love you. More than Ruby’s three-cheese lasagna.”

He sent her a heated look. “Are you telling me you want to skip dinner and stay in bed?”

She kissed him one more time and then slipped out of his arms with a joy-filled laugh. “I’m in love, honey. I’m not crazy.”