Fatal Affair: 1 (Courthouse Connections) (8 page)

“No.” What if he’d made her pregnant? She
didn’t think the time was right but she wasn’t sure. “How would you feel if—”

“I’d be over the moon, but only if you quit
pandering to the senator and suddenly broke free from your past so you could
give yourself fully to me.” He pulled away from her, obviously nowhere near
“over the moon” as he’d said at the idea that he might have put an indelible
mark on her—the woman whose body belonged to him but who still was the property
of somebody else, at least in name.

“Master, I’m sorry. I’m doing everything I
can, but I can’t let Bert destroy whatever future I’ve got. I can’t let him
drag your good name through the mud.”

JD looked down on her, a frown marring his
beloved features. “You trust me to see to your pleasure, sweetheart. Why won’t
you trust me to take care of Bert? I’ve made him back down for my clients more
than once. I see no reason I can’t put the fear of God into him over this.”

Lanie had a moment’s satisfaction when she
pictured her master taking his fists to the fat, soft-bodied bastard who pulled
Wayne’s strings. She’d love to see Bert’s ugly face shoved into the mud he
loved to sling. But while she imagined that JD could tear Bert limb from limb
without breaking a sweat, she also knew that wasn’t his way. As much as she’d
like to turn her problems over to him, she couldn’t do it.

While she had confidence in JD’s abilities
of persuasion, she couldn’t count on him being able to use threats and
persuasion to enforce his will on the wily political manipulator. She’d
observed Bert and the no-holds-barred ways he dealt with people who wanted to
stand in his way.

Lanie got up, faced her master with feigned
confidence. “I’ll go back to Tampa and try to talk to Bert tonight. Maybe he’ll
finally see that dragging out this mess won’t serve him or Wayne the way he
seems to think it will. I appreciate you offering to step in but I don’t want
you to be involved with the problems I’ve caused myself. You can be my master
in bed but I can’t count on you to take over my entire life.”

When his arms came around her she lifted
her face and accepted a kiss that stoked her fires again. Reluctant to give up
his heat but determined to do what she had to do, she pulled away and started
to get dressed. “I’m going to leave now before I let you take me back to bed.
To heaven.”

His expression grew taut and she saw how
his hands closed into fists. “I shouldn’t let you go. I should just lock you up
and make you my slave, to do with as I will not just for a day but—”

She covered his mouth, stopping whatever it
was he was about to say. “Don’t. Not now. Not unless—until—we can think about
the future. I’ll call you and let you know when I dare to be with you again.”

When he got back to Tampa, JD tried to
distract himself with work, searching through an agreement he’d fashioned until
he found and marked the clause he’d been looking for. Restless, he closed his
laptop rather than starting on another of the projects he’d loaded to work on
at home.

Tonight he wasn’t getting that “oh yeah”
surge of satisfaction that usually came with finding that his meticulous
attention to detail had once again saved somebody’s neck from a costly
lawsuit—or a corporate chopping block. He knew exactly why.

Lanie. Every hour he spent away from her
felt damn near like forever. He couldn’t help imagining her here, curled up in
that lounge chair by the window. She’d have her dark hair loose, and it would
stand out against the pale upholstery. He pictured her sensual lips curved in a
contented smile as she held her tablet and read one of the romances he teased
her about—romances she’d told him she’d started to read when she found they
helped make up for the lack of happily-ever-after in her life with the senator.

She’d read awhile, being quiet so as not to
disturb him. Then, with a sexy as hell stretch of her dynamite body, she’d set
the tablet down and come to him, a welcome diversion from the dry legalese he
stored on his laptop.

His dick hardened at the mental picture of
her, so real he almost stood to welcome her into his arms.

Scat looked up at JD from his spot on his
lap as though saying, “Hey, you’re disturbing my sleep.”

JD gave the purring feline a scratch behind
his ears. “You may be my only live-in buddy at the moment, but you can’t hold a
candle to Lanie for companionship.”
Or other things.
After ruffling
Scat’s soft beige fur, JD set him on the floor and watched him stretch before
padding in that ridiculously elegant way of his toward the kitchen—and his food
bowl.

Restless, JD got up and moved aimlessly
through the condo. It was too empty tonight, no longer a refuge where he’d come
to spend precious hours with his dying wife. For a long time after her death,
he’d found fuel here to feed the tearing grief that had nearly overcome him,
surrounded by the things Miriam had treasured.

Their forever had come to a grinding halt
the year they’d turned thirty-four. He’d always miss Miriam and be sad that
fate had decided they wouldn’t grow old together, the way they’d planned to
since high school. For over a year after he’d lost her, he’d wanted to die too.
He’d even thought of jumping off that pier in Key West and swimming out toward
oblivion in the clear green water of the Gulf, one slow stroke at a time until…

Until a beautiful lawyer he’d met during
the continuing education seminar they’d both been attending came up to him and
drew him back from that dark place he’d been almost ready to embrace. She’d
brought light back into his life at a time when he’d desperately needed it.

Lanie made him feel alive and young again. That
first time they’d walked together on the warm sand, holding hands, talking
about mutual acquaintances and their respective career paths, had done more to
restore him to the human race than a year’s worth of weekly sessions with a
shrink had. She’d awakened long-denied sexual urges, so much so that he’d
searched out a deserted stretch of beach and satisfied that desperate need
beneath a cool autumn moon.

There was something about Lanie, something
that made him forget civilized rules. He’d had to have her that night where any
passerby could have watched them humping like horny teenagers. His dick got
hard again replaying that night in his mind, and he wished he could have her
here. Now. Even though she’d surrendered her gorgeous body to him so thoroughly
less than eight hours ago.

Fuck propriety. Fuck every word his parents
had ever taught him about what was right and wrong when it came to personal
relationships.

JD wanted Lanie, not just for kinky sex
games but for always. It wasn’t enough that he’d marked her as his with the
rings for her sensitive, pierced nipples. He wanted to sleep with her every
night and wake up with her to see each new day. He wanted to put his rings on
her finger, the kind that everyone would see as his own symbols of possession—rings
as simple and elegant as Lanie herself.

For the first time in years, since the
doctors had told him Miriam’s cancer was terminal, he allowed himself to dream
of the future plans that he’d set aside, imagining a real home instead of this
sterile condo—maybe even a big yard, a frisky pup and a couple of kids to keep
himself feeling young.

He looked out the window at the new moon,
bright in the January sky as it hung over Tampa Bay. Somehow, some way he’d
triumph. He’d have the only living woman who made his life not only worth
living but also worth savoring to the fullest. He had to believe that or he
couldn’t look forward to his next forty or fifty years.

* * * * *

Lanie wanted to scream. She’d come here
tonight not so much to keep her promise to Wayne about appearing with him at
important events as to have the opportunity to confront Bert face-to-face about
the stupidity of him insisting that she and Wayne must keep up the fractured
façade of a happy marriage.

Just her luck. For the first time in recent
memory, Bert wasn’t at one of Wayne’s political rallies. Frustrated, she
slipped away from the crowd at the Strawberry Festival grounds. She needed
fresh air—and she needed to daydream about how she’d feel right now if she were
with JD.

If he were out here with her, they’d be
looking up at the stars. He’d put his arms around her, whispering in that sexy
voice of his about the scandalous things he wanted to do to her, about how he
wanted to take her away, have her all for himself. She breathed in the cold,
fresh air, sensing a hint of the farm animals that would soon be brought in for
the festival mingled with the mixed fragrances of nearly a thousand supporters
who’d flocked here to back their senator’s re-election effort.

Then she thought she heard Wayne’s voice.
Couldn’t be, though, because he was schmoozing inside. It surely sounded like
him though. Maybe Bert was here after all and they were having a private talk.
She moved closer and the voices became more distinct. Definitely Wayne and
another man whose voice she couldn’t place, other than to be sure it wasn’t
Bert.

She should walk away but her feet seemed
glued to the ground when she heard what the two were discussing. She’d heard
Wayne rail against legalizing the proposed casino that he was now pledging to
support in exchange for what seemed to her like an obscene amount of money.

Bile rose in Lanie’s throat. She’d known
Wayne was a political animal, not always ethical in his dealings. She’d turned
her head when he’d said one thing and done another, but she’d never thought
he’d literally sell his constituents out.

Call it what it is, Lanie. The man
you’ve respected as a human being, the one you hated the idea of losing
political muscle because of the divorce, is potentially a felon. A racketeer
who’s risking imprisonment under the federal Rico statutes. Those gangsters not
only deal in legalized gambling, they also traffic in hard drugs and organized
prostitution.

Why should she have thought Wayne was too
nice to consort with gangsters? After all, she’d known for a long time that he
let Bert sell his influence, however subtly that influence was peddled—that was
why Bert was so dead set against Wayne doing anything that would hurt his
chances of being elected year after year.

She had to get out of there. Now, before
she threw up all over her brand-new Donna Karan suit. Out of control, she ran
blindly toward the parking lot.

And ran straight into Bert as nausea
overcame her.

“Excuse me.” She turned away just in time
to avoid vomiting all over him, but when he grasped her by the shoulders and
whirled her around, he ended up spattered with the bile that had refused to
stay inside her body.

“Why you—” Bert changed tactics midstream, apparently
deciding that her nausea was a manifestation of some physical ailment, not a
deliberate effort to ruin his suit and the successful rally he’d orchestrated.
“Goddamn it, Lanie, you look like something that cat of yours dragged out of
the pond. Can I help you? Water? A drink?”

“Nothing. Just give me a minute. I’m sorry
about your suit.” She wasn’t, not really, but there was no use pissing him off
unnecessarily.

“It’s okay. It will clean up, and I’ve got
a fresh one out in the van. Did you eat something bad?”

Lanie shook her head. “I didn’t eat
anything at all.”

“Okay, if you’re sure. You wouldn’t happen
to be keeping a secret from old Bert, would you?”

When he laid a puffy hand on her belly, her
nausea came back a hundredfold. “No.” The sonofabitch knew damn well she
couldn’t be pregnant—at least not by her husband.

“It wouldn’t be a bad thing if you were,
you know. A little one would go over real well for the senator’s image.” Bert
grinned as though he’d just thought up another angle that would make his puppet
look good with the voters.

The evil grin on the bastard’s face made
her think about the fact that he’d always scared the shit out of her, but she
willed her stomach to settle down and steeled herself to try to talk sense to
him.
Talk sense is too weak a word, Lanie. Threaten him in a way he’ll
believe you mean it.

Lanie wanted to run but she stood her
ground. “I want to talk to you. That’s why I raced over here as soon as I got
through in court.”

“Anytime, sugar. Only thing is, I need to
get inside to make sure the rally’s going the way we planned.”

“We’ll talk now, or I’ll go in there and
raise such hell that you’ll be lucky to get Wayne elected as county
dogcatcher.” For eight years she’d kowtowed to this nasty little man. She
wasn’t doing it any longer.

“Okay. Make it fast, though.” Bert scowled
but Lanie refused to let him intimidate her.

“Your fair-haired boy just made a deal to
support the legislation to bring a casino here, in return for a huge bribe. I
heard him with my own ears. Bert, nobody but the mob has that kind of money to
throw around.”

Bert patted her shoulder, that kindly uncle
gesture that was a favorite of his when he had to deal with “the ladies” as he
derisively called them. “Don’t you worry your pretty head about that, sugar.
Ol’ Bert knows all about it.”

She took a deep breath and let it out
slowly. “What if I let those little old ladies inside know their senator was
talking to them out of one side of his mouth while lining his pockets with mob
money?” It was a bluff and she knew it, but she had to try.

“Tell me, honeypie, what do you want to
keep your pretty mouth shut?”

“Quit threatening Wayne and me so we’ll
stay married when neither of us is willing to keep up this charade any longer.
And leave me alone.”

“Let me have a day or two to think about
it. Gotta admit, you’ve sort of caught your hubby with his pants down around
his ankles, so to speak.” Bert sounded uncharacteristically accommodating.

That set alarms off in Lanie’s head but
she’d let this play itself out. It was possible if not likely that Bert was
more afraid of his cash cow being prosecuted as a racketeer than he was afraid
of Wayne being voted out of office if she were no longer playing the perfect
little wife. “I want to know by tomorrow.”

He held up his hands as though admitting
she had him. “You go out to see Wayne tomorrow after work. I’ll make sure he’s
there by himself before six o’clock. He likes you, thinks you’re pretty savvy ’bout
politics, so do what you have to do, but talk him out of going public about his
boyfriend. Succeed and I’ll let you get your divorce so you can fuck around
with Ackerman to your little ol’ heart’s content.”

* * * * *

The next afternoon, JD looked up from a law
review article he was reading when Leah, his secretary, poked her head through
his door. “You’ve got a phone call, boss.”

He didn’t understand. Leah usually buzzed
him instead of getting up and coming in. “Who is it?” he asked.

“Elaine Winstead, and she said the call is
personal.” When Leah delivered that news she shot him an inquisitive look.
“Welcome back to life, my friend.”

JD felt his cheeks grow warm but he
couldn’t help smiling. “I’ll take the call. Go back to whatever it is you were
doing, nosy one.” He waited a few seconds until he heard her footsteps fading
away before picking up the phone on his desk.

“Hi, sweetheart. Why didn’t you call me on
my cell?” he asked, conjuring up a mental picture of her in her Ybor City
office.

“I did. You must have it on silent.”

He’d forgotten about a call he’d gotten
earlier, someone trying to sell him a “free” Caribbean cruise. Disappointment
that it wasn’t Lanie had made him silence the cell phone. “I’m sorry. Are you
able to get away tonight?”

“I can hardly wait to see you again. It’s
been almost three days. If you can meet me somewhere around ten o’clock…”

Why so late?
he wondered. “Where would you like to get together?”

“I’m supposed to go to a Bar Association
committee meeting at the downtown Marriott at eight o’clock. It ought to be
over by ten. How about there, in the bar?”

JD was thrilled that she seemed willing to
be seen with him now, in a public place where at least a handful of their
mutual acquaintances might spot them together. “Fine. We can have a late supper
and then I’ll take that rain check you offered last week when you had to cancel
out on going to play at the club.”

“All right. I talked to Bert at Wayne’s
rally last night. He said he’d drop the threats to keep me and Wayne together
if I can persuade him that his thoughts about coming out amount pretty much to
political suicide.”