Chapter Nine

 

Linda Owens' hands naturally want to move to cover her body. She shouldn't be here. This was a mistake, without a single doubt. She'd been expecting something else. That was the only word she could think of to describe it. Something that wasn't this.

Not a big room full of people, with the only real assurances being a little face mask and the knowledge that if one person goes down, they're all going down together. There must have been forty people here. More. Forty men.

She swallows hard and puts forth the mental effort that it takes to keep her hands at her sides, leaning up against a wall. She's got a good angle on a pair of lovers against a wall. Her leg is draped over his arm.

Linda can't see anything too graphic, but the way that he thrusts into her is suggestive enough that Linda can't look away. As the thrusts get harder, rougher, more ragged, her hands stop gravitating towards covering herself up.

Nobody else looks especially uncomfortable with the setup. Why should she?

She hears voices that she recognizes. Most of them from the television, but a few people who she knows professionally. And that concerns her. It concerns her maybe more than it should.

If there are massive sex parties like this, then anyone who is in Washington probably knows about them, and probably the ones who would need someone to run interference, like she does, would be the ones to show up to one.

A man steps between her and the couple she's watching. He's got a nice body, she's surprised to see. So many politicians don't. So many of the politicians here. He's got a tux jacket on, but his shirt is unbuttoned to reveal tight, separated muscles.

He puts a hand against the wall beside her and leans in. Linda's got too much experience with being intimidated to let it affect her, at least on the outside.

"Feeling lonely?"

She wouldn't have minded him, to look at him. If she'd met him at a bar she'd be walking towards the door right now. Something about the environment, though—

"I'm not—I'm just here to—"

"First time?" He leans back and straightens. "You'll do fine. Come on."

"I'd rather just stay here, if that's alright."

"You sure?"

"Yeah," Linda replies. He nods, and turns, and an instant later a Latina woman with the figure of an hourglass walks by. His hand reaches out to slap her ass, and she smiles at him. He follows her into a room.

She leaves the curtain open as she drops to her knees between the man's legs, and again Linda can't turn away. What on earth is going on here? What sort of people are these? This is absolute craziness.

How do people just… so casually? Sometimes without a word. Just a mutual understanding that everyone is there to do, you know. What they're there to do.

"God, your pussy must taste good," a voice purrs. She looks over. The man's got a square jaw and a voice that she recognizes.

"Mr…—-No." She realizes all of a sudden that names are almost certainly not appreciated here.

"Come on, why not?"

"Because you are who you are, and I am who I am." Eric Lang was at the very bottom of her list. He had good looks, but getting to know him was enough to remind any woman why not to go for him. Unless the only thing you cared for was money, of course, and there were plenty that went for that.

"Oh, that's a shame," he says softly. He smiles softly. "Here, I was hoping to finally taste you."

"Well, it's not going to happen."

"Just a little kiss?"

"Not even a little one," she answers. Maybe she's being a bitch, but that doesn't matter.

"Oh, come on," he says. His voice says he's teasing, but if she agreed, then the teasing would go out the window.

She braces to tell him more forcefully that she's not interested, when all of a sudden, he backs off. She has to look over to see exactly why. A hand on his shoulder.

He's not being pulled roughly. Perhaps not at all. But he reacts as if the force were irresistible. A man's hand.

"I don't think she's interested." The voice makes Linda's blood run chilled.

"No, I suppose not," Lang says softly. He looks into the other man's eyes. For a moment Linda almost wonders what is going on inside Eric's head. She wishes she could see his balls draw back up inside his body, as funny as that would be.

"You should move on." Tom Delaney's body language is strong. He looks like some kind of movie star. It was amazing that she hadn't seen him when she walked in, if he was there at all. He and her new boss both had the sort of presence that attracted attention whenever they were in a room.

The idea that she had to spend all of her time with both of them—

"I didn't mean nothin' by it," Eric says, before moving on. Tom's body stays the way it was before, completely relaxed. As if he never worried for a moment that he'd be contradicted.

He steps up to her, and there's that icy gaze. It sends a shiver down her spine. Linda's glad that she's leaning against the wall, or she might have buckled.

"What are you doing in a place like this?"

"Women have needs, same as men."

"Do you want me to call Eric back, then?" The way that his name rolls off the tongue, so easily disregarding any sort of propriety, is almost shocking.

"Him? No. Not a chance."

"Good." Tom turns away, back towards the room.

"You weren't—" The assumption she'd had was that Delaney was being territorial over her. Maybe she was right.

He stops in his tracks and turns back. His eyes stray away from hers this time. He looks up and down her body with a cold, analytical eye. There's a faint smile there.

"Oh, you thought I was—with you? I won't deny I thought of it. But not in a place like this."

She shivers at the sound of his rough voice. Which is why she's distracted enough not to notice someone else walk by. A hand snakes around her waist, feeling oddly familiar, and wheels her around.

Her feet move automatically to avoid falling, but her eyes move up.

What was Adam doing here?