Page 88 of Where Quiet Hearts Scream
My eyes twitch in gratitude, imperceptible to anyone but my wife. Then, out of nowhere, Secretary Olsson leans across the table and wipes something invisible from the side of my mouth with her thumb. It’s an affectionate moves that shatters any modicum of respect she should have for my wife and my marriage.
Sera sees it, and though it wouldn’t be evident to the naked eye, she stiffens at my side, her blood pumping hard at her temples. She doesn’t say a word, just picks up her wine glass and takes a slow sip, her gaze fixed dead ahead.
She didn’t learn this silently violent behavior from me. It’s instinctive. She knows Olsson could die for this. It’s an act parallel to that which Grayson committed when he felt her up right in front of me. She knows all I need is Olsson’s signature. Then the Secretary is dispensable.
I excuse myself and Olsson follows me out of the room into a hall. I sense my wife flashing a sidewaysglance as we leave, but she knows she has nothing to worry about. She knows I’m entirely hers. I wouldn’t dedicate my waking hours to making her love herself, making her unravel to her core, if I wasn’t.
The second we’re alone, Olsson turns to me with a dark laugh. “I couldn’t have you blustering through dinner with food on your face.”
“There was nothing on my face. I’ve hardly eaten anything.”
“Come on, Andreas,” she whines, rolling her eyes. “What happened to us being ‘old friends?’”
I shrug. “It’s how I refer to our relationship when I don’t want to explain the technicalities. It would help if you had some respect for my wife.”
“What can I say?” She drops her gaze and peers up at me with a poor attempt at innocence. “I miss the physical contact.”
“It was inappropriate and you know it.”
“Well, I didn’t take you for the moralistic type, Mr. Corioni.”
I glare at her, unmoved. “I’m surprised you took me for a ‘type’ at all.”
She shrugs with the nonchalance of a woman who is used to playing with weak, compromising men. Her eyes narrow. “I don’t have to sign anything, you know. Maybe Boston doesn’tneedyour little empire.”
I step into her cold, frigid orbit. “Secretary Olsson, let me make something clear. I don’t need your approval, and I don’t beg. You want to play games, I can dig up everything you've tried to keep buried—yourbrother’s defense contracts, your backchannel investments in data encryption firms, even the intern who went missing and turned up in the Potomac three years ago. You sign those papers. You smile while you do it. And you keep your wandering hands to yourself.”
Her breath catches, just slightly, but enough.
I take a step back and run a hand down my tie. “You don’t want a war with me, Secretary. You want a legacy. Sign those papers and you’ll have one.”
Her throat bobs with a swallow and I leave her to contemplate that while I walk back to my table and sit beside the only person in the room I don’t have to lie to.
She doesn’t ask what just happened, or what was said. She simply smiles and reaches for her wine glass again. She knows what we came for and what we’re leaving with.
Hearts light and full, fingers tingling with want, and a city that is already ours.
Serafina
We fall through the door into the hotel suite, hands grabbing at each other like feral animals. That dinner stoked something inside me that’s been hidden my whole life. Watching my husband drag a bitter signature from that woman’s hands while feeling me up under my dress, and hearing his twisted threats muttered beneath shadowy breaths made me flustered, proud and power-hungry.
I don’t think I’ve ever felt so strongly for someone in my life. I wanted to get on my knees for him in that room, toast his victory with his cock in my mouth. Not that he’ll give it to me. He won’t give it to me in any shape or form until I’ve loved every one of my scars. And I still have six more to go.
He tears the dress off my bodywhile I grope at his shirt, yanking it until buttons pop across the room. With our mouths locked in a passionate frenzy we somehow make it to the bedroom. He falls back onto the mattress while I crawl over him like a wildcat, eager to devour my kill.
“Pick one,” he orders.
I have one ready. I’ve had it ready since we left the dinner.
“Here,” I whimper, resting a finger on one of the few scars I have left.
He issues a rough demand into my mouth. “Now take out my cock.”
What?
Oh shit. I’ve never handled one before and I’m not even sure how to “take it out.”
He senses my pause and pulls back, staring at me with red-rimmed and wild eyes.
