Ace in the Hole (11 page)

He stared down at the blurry sheaf of notes, and the words swam into focus.

“Howdy, y’all!”

Bah-dum-bum. No reaction
at all
from the crowd. Oh, great. A hostile audience. Frowning in determination, he plowed into the speech.

The pauses—applause breaks, Christian had called them—got a tepid response at first. But as the speech progressed and he outlined a new and more lenient immigration policy that Jack was now supporting, the applause grew. By the end he had the crowd in the palm of his hand. And it was heady as hell. Sheesh. No wonder politicians got addicted to this stuff.

The front two rows, mostly reporters, rushed the stage and started shouting questions at him. God bless Christian and his position papers last night. One of the voices rose above the others, and the crowd of journalists quieted to let the most aggressive one have the floor.

“¿Qué piensa usted de que español se convierta en la segunda lengua oficial de los Estados Unidos?”

He actually felt Christian’s gasp offstage. Apparently Captain America hadn’t anticipated someone throwing a question at him in Spanish. Did Jack speak Spanish or not? Stone did, but he had no idea about the senator.

What the hell. Jack spoke Spanish now.

He said rapidly, “Creo que es importante que cada persona en Estados Unidos aprenda inglés. Sin embargo, muchas personas en Estados Unidos hablan español como su primera lengua. Si queremos que todo el mundo aquí hable inglés, entonces el gobierno debe pagar y proporcionar educación en la forma de hablar a todos los que viven aquí.”

The crowd went crazy. Not only because he was advocating that the government fund and provide English education to everyone in America but because his own Spanish was fluent and effortless.

Leery of being thrown any more curveballs, he dared not let the moment turn into a mini press conference. Instead, he walked directly off the stage and up the main aisle of the auditorium to a crowd line that had been set up outside. He’d gone off plan by exiting through the crowd, but he had to make a snap decision and avoid those reporters.

It was hot as hell outside, the height of the midafternoon heat, and now he got to shake a few hundred sweaty palms. Awesomesauce.

He was a strong man with an iron grip, but after a hundred or so people did their damnedest to crush his fingers in the name of machismo, he was close to crying uncle. Cripes. How did politicians do this day in and day out? No wonder they opted for kissing babies. Little rug rats didn’t try to break their metacarpals.

He’d almost reached the end of the line and Tucker waiting at the door of the SUV when a fast-moving body came flying out of the crowd at him. He caught the movement out of his peripheral vision, and his bodyguard instinct took over.

He whirled and absorbed the hit, grabbing what turned out to be a young man and using the kid’s momentum to carry them both to the ground, roll, and pin the kid under him all in one fast move.

He stared down into glazed eyes that showed no awareness of place or self as the young man muttered in an incoherent babble. Drugs or a psychotic break. Stone knew the signs cold.

Tucker shoved Stone aside—or at least tried to. But he shielded the kid from his security man until he could bite out, “He’s no threat, Tuck. Stand down.”

Tucker stopped. “You sure?”

“Look at his eyes.”

A brief pause. “Got it.”

Together they helped the young man to his feet. A woman stepped out of the crowd, wailing in panic. Stone muttered, “And there would be the mom. A hundred bucks says the kid went off his meds.”

“Not taking that bet,” Tucker replied.

The very fact that the young man stood passively between them now, mumbling to himself as if barely aware of them, confirmed Stone’s suspicion. Screams and shouts erupted around him, but Stone was only vaguely aware of the noise. He was wholly focused on the target and safely suppressing any additional outbursts.

A pair of policemen rushed up aggressively, Tasers drawn, and Stone physically stepped in front of the youth to protect him from the cops. He bit out to them that the young man was not dangerous and was likely mentally ill. It took a few tense moments to get them to focus on him and stand down enough to listen to what he was saying. But eventually they lowered their weapons.

By the time he got through to Miami’s finest, the mother was beside him, hysterically explaining the same thing and begging the police not to kill her baby. Stone put his arm around the distraught woman’s shoulders and guided both her and her son away from the police.

Christian rushed forward, and Stone pushed the pair at him, murmuring, “Get them inside and away from the police before the kid does something stupid to trigger a violent response.”

Christian hurried mother and son away, and for the first time since the kid came out of the crowd, Stone looked up and became aware of all the people staring and pointing their cell phones at him. Aww, hell.

To take matters from bad to worse, a reporter stepped forward and jammed a microphone under his nose. “What just happened, Senator? Will you press charges?”

He didn’t stop to think. He just said scornfully, “Of course I won’t press charges. The way we treat the mentally ill in this country is deplorable. We could all use a little more compassion and a whole lot more funding for treatment and care of them.”

He spun, muttering over his shoulder at Tucker, “Get me out of here.”

The ex-Marine hustled him into the waiting SUV. This one was set up like a limousine with only one bench seat in the rear, set well back from the side doors. He stretched out his legs and rolled his head, trying and failing to release the tension from the appearance.

After a short delay, Christian slipped in the back beside Stone and reached over low, out of sight of Tucker and the rearview mirror, and squeezed Stone’s hand.

It was as if Christian’s touch released all the stress he’d been forcing down. He let out the breath it felt as if he’d been holding for the past two days.

“When I saw that kid rush you—” Christian started.

“It’s all good. I handled it.”

“Speaking of which. That would not be your job. You’ve got to let Tucker take care of stuff like that.”

Unfortunately Christian was right. He was supposed to be a senator, not a trained security operative. “Christ, I’m sorry. I blew it.”

Christian was silent. He looked as if he was still absorbing the relief of the attack having been nothing dangerous. Still. It had obviously been a hell of a scare.

To distract him, Stone asked, “Does Jack even speak Spanish? And then that kid. And his mother. Poor woman was convinced we were gonna kill him.”

“Stone.”

“And the cops. I wasn’t sure they’d listen to me and not Tase him—”

“Stone.” Christian spoke a little more forcefully this time.

Jeez. He was babbling. He never
babbled
.

“You did fine,” Christian declared. “Better than fine. And Jack speaks enough Spanish to proposition a whore, but that’s about it.”

“Crap. I’m sorry. I had to make a call on the fly….”

“Your call probably just got Jack an extra several million in campaign contributions. I’ve been telling him forever to support bilingual education, and he’s refused to listen to me. You’ve put him on the right side of the polls on the issue whether he wants to be there or not. And besides, now I can force him to learn some Spanish.”

“That’s what he gets for taking off with Senorita Chesty.”

Christian grinned.

“You know, we could rewrite a bunch of his positions while he’s gone,” Stone suggested.

“Nah. If he flip-flops on too much, he’ll lose his redneck voter base.”

“I dunno. You have to admit it’s an appealing idea.”

“Don’t tempt me,” Christian laughed.

Their gazes met, and there it was, that intense sexual attraction that hung between them any time they let down their guards for even a second. They both looked away hastily, and Stone stared out the window at nothing.

Last night… last night had been a shock. It proved that his memory of their first night together hadn’t been a fluke. That the sex between them was as hot and intoxicating as the first time. More so. That the more they got to know each other, the more they knew how to push each other’s emotional and erogenous hot buttons. Take Christian, for example. He was all about control. But Stone was secretly convinced that he wanted more than anything to give up control. How to get him to admit it, though?

He leaned forward. “Hey, Tucker, how long till the hotel?”

“In this traffic, at least an hour. Sorry.”

Perfect. “No problem. Take your time and be safe.”

“You got it.”

Stone sat back and ran up the privacy panel between the front and back seats. “Is this thing soundproof?” he asked casually.

“More or less. Tucker could hear if someone screamed.” Christian was frowning slightly, not seeing where this was going. Excellent. It was high time the man was ambushed and surprised out of all that self-discipline.

He reached for Christian’s fly and unzipped it all the way in one smooth, quick move.

“Hey! What are you doing?”

He didn’t bother answering. Rather, he just leaned over and freed Christian’s cock from his briefs.

“What the—” Christian squawked.

But then Stone closed his mouth around the abrupt spring of a fast hard-on, and Christian broke off on a gasp. His hips surged up against Stone’s face. Yeah. As he’d thought. All that control was a thin veneer at best.

He circled the bold head of Christian’s cock with his tongue and then stroked the length of it, drawing his tongue along the underside and back up in a delicious slurp. Sucking gently, he drew it into his mouth while he dipped his hand lower, cupped Christian’s balls, and pressed his fingertips into the sensitive spot just behind them. A tug with his hand in time with the sucking action of his mouth, and Christian’s anus, balls, and dick all clenched in unison.

“Jesus, Stone. Not here.”

He lifted his mouth away just long enough to mutter, “Wrong answer. Sing for me, Christian.”

“Huh?”

He closed his mouth around Christian’s now rock-hard, heavy cock. The man was prodigiously endowed. Stone took enough of it into his mouth that the head bumped against the back of his throat. Forcing his throat muscles to relax, he sucked up the shaft and then back down on it, hard and deep.

Christian’s hips bucked again and breath hissed in between his teeth.

That was more like it. Stone grasped the base of Christian’s cock with his left hand while he continued squeezing and tugging rhythmically at Christian’s balls with his right hand. And then he set up a merciless rhythm with his mouth, up and down, deeper and deeper with each downstroke. And every time he retreated, he swirled his tongue around the straining head of Christian’s penis.

Christian started making strangled sounds of pleasure that were so tortured and sexy they nearly drove him to come in his own pants. The moans became a steady stream of cursing from behind clenched teeth.

He kept up the rhythm, neither speeding up nor slowing down, just steadily, inexorably, stripping away the layers of Christian’s self-control. Christian plunged his hand into the short hair at the back of Stone’s head and tried to pull his head against his lap faster, but Stone resisted. Oh no. They were doing this on his terms, and Christian was going to lose his mind before he was done with the guy.

“Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck,” Christian chanted in a breathy whisper.

His dick strained up against Stone’s throat, rising eagerly now to meet each downthrust of his mouth.

Christian’s breath became ragged and then devolved into hoarse pants.

Soon, now. Smiling around the base of Christian’s dick, Stone squeezed everything a little tighter, sucked a little harder, drove a little deeper down his throat. Christian was large enough that a true deep throat wasn’t feasible, but with a combination of fist and mouth, he was able to envelop the guy’s entire package in a tight, wet, hot glove of relentlessly pumping stimulation.

He felt Christian’s balls tighten in his hand. Beneath him, the guy’s entire body tensed. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Christian yank up his tie, shove a length of it between his teeth, and bite down on it as his entire body exploded. He surged up off the bench seat into Stone’s face, his cock pulsing and pulsing and pulsing as he emptied himself in a massive ejaculation.

Christian collapsed, limp against the seat, sweat rolling down his face. “What the… hell was… that for?”

“It’s about you giving up control.”

Christian’s right eyebrow arched skeptically. “Looks to me like you’re riding a hell of an adrenaline rush after that kid jumped you. You sure you’re not the one who needs to let go of the reins a little?”

Stone stared at him. Damned if the man wasn’t spot-on. It was getting a little freaky how Christian seemed to know him better than he knew himself sometimes. “What do you suggest?”

“What do you need?”

Such a simple question. And yet packed with so much significance. Recognition that he was wired tighter than a spring. Willingness to help. An offer of his body to fulfill Stone’s needs. Lord, the generosity of it. Did he dare accept the gift? His knees went weak at the prospect. And yet….

Fear trembled low in his belly. He was starting to need this man a hell of a lot more than he wanted to.

Christian rolled off the seat and onto his knees. He pulled his trousers down around his ankles and planted his elbows on the bench seat. Looking over his shoulder, he said soberly, “You know you want to. And I know you need to.”

Christian’s rear end stuck out impudently. The man really did have great glutes. They were round and firm, with white, smooth skin sandwiched between dark tan lines on his hips and thighs. Reluctantly, Stone trailed his fingertips down the deep indentation of Christian’s spine from his waist to the crack between those muscular cheeks. Christian shuddered a little, and Stone’s entire body clenched with desire.

This way lay madness. But damned if he could do a thing to stop himself from racing down the road to hell. It was
Christian
. Handsome, classy, brilliant, Christian. Strong, graceful, elegant Christian.