Chapter Ten

 

Linda's heard leapt into her throat. There was no way—was there? Adam wasn't the kind of man to ask. Not like Eric. If she fought him or told him no, then he'd stop. But he wouldn't ask. He wasn't that kind.

Did she want him to stop? Or did she want him to pull him into one of these rooms and have his way with her?

Her mind answered the question before she had spent an instant thinking about it. Yes. Of course she did.

And then he was pulling her into the front hall. His hand fell heavy on the door by the exit. The coat room, where she'd left her clothes and her privacy behind.

A man with military bearing and close-cropped hair opens the door from the inside.

"The young lady will be leaving," Quinn says. His voice is hard and holds something that she hadn't expected. Something that might have been anger.

The man nods and steps over to a rack, where several dozen dresses hang. He grabs Linda's without much thought and hands it to her.

Linda slips it on and Adam works the zipper without being asked.

"Go home," he says, with a voice that says that it's not a question, and there won't be further discussion. He steps through the door beside her, and for a few short paces their directions happen to coincide.

She might have asked what he was doing there. She might have asked why he was acting like this. She might have asked why he thought he could tell her to leave. She might have asked any number of questions. She doesn't ask any of those things. He doesn't look like he's interested in questions.

She slips into the rental car and finally, her anger is allowed to flare up.

What the fuck did he think he was doing? What the fuck was his problem? What gave him the right to tell her what to do, even a little bit? Not a god damn thing was what.

Not a god damned thing.

He couldn't stop her if she wanted to go back inside. And part of her wants to. Part of her wants to drop right to her god damned knees and let Eric Lang do whatever he wanted to as long as it ruined her mouth and she couldn't walk right for a month.

That would show him. Honestly, fuck Adam Quinn. He had no right at all.

She slipped the keys into the ignition instead. Turned the key, even as her mind screamed at her to get back in there. To go, and go now, to prove to herself and to Adam that he wasn't in charge of her life.

She closed her eyes, and her fingers turned the key without her permission. Her hands moved automatically to put the car into reverse, and then drive, and she pulled out onto the road and started the long drive home.

The entire thing seemed strange. By the time she was back into downtown, the entire thing seemed remarkably like a dream.

What were they all doing there? On the same night, the same time? They couldn't have gotten more of the Quinn campaign in a room together if they'd had a group sex party specifically for the purpose, it felt like.

By the time she pulled into the parking lot outside her apartment, it seemed unlikely that it had happened at all. It was a dream, maybe. Or she'd imagined it, in an anxiety-induced haze.

Either way, she settled into the chair by the dining room table and pulled out a pen and pad. It was a risk. A big risk. It would be throwing a hand grenade into the DC. press corps.

But in the morning, Delaney would look at it, and he'd agree that it was the right idea. Telling everyone that he'd been caught at a sex party was exactly the sort of thing that sounded exactly right about Adam Quinn.

It was the sort of rumor that stuck. It was the kind of thing that painted him in exactly the light that he wanted to be painted. Aggressive, sexy, in high demand. And scandalous, dangerous, a risk.

Not only that, though. It was exactly the sort of story the media couldn't take their hands off. Tom would look at it and if he hadn't thought of it himself, he'd be kicking himself for it.

Because a hand grenade was exactly what Adam Quinn wanted. It was what the voters who were supporting his early poll numbers wanted. It could ruin anyone else. But Adam Quinn had an exclusive next Thursday. A chance to tell the world the whole truth about the story.

And then he'd be able to walk out of a big god damn mess that would have ruined any other man's career, without a single consequence.

Now if only she could say the same thing about herself. Her body felt like it was on-edge. She could still feel his arm around her, could still feel the fabric of his clothes against his skin. She could still feel the cold, steely, intense gaze that he raked over her body, instants before she left.

Tom Delaney had looked at her and seen something he had liked. But Adam—Adam had looked at her and seen something that belonged to him.