Blue Blooded (24 page)

Her heart plummeted to her feet. She understood him wanting to keep her safe because she felt the same way about him. That's why she hadn't left him when he told her to leave at the port. But it still hurt to hear that he wasn't sure he'd be able to accept her career.

She swallowed the threatening tears. “It doesn't happen often, and most of the time you won't even know until the story airs. As much as I want you to accept it, I understand how you feel. But before we return home, you need to decide if you're willing to try to make our marriage work or whether we should go our own separate ways.”

He plunged one hand in her hair and slipped the other around her back to press her against him. “I don't need time because I've already made my decision. I love you, Rachel Bradford, and I'm not letting you go.”

“I love you too. And I love my new name, although you should know, I'm keeping my professional name, Rachel Dawson. But that wasn't the name my parents gave me. I chose it when I was eighteen after watching
Titanic
. Before that, I was Rachel Kaczynski.”

His lips captured hers in a soft kiss. When he pulled his mouth away, he smiled. “You can call yourself whatever you want, so long as I can call you mine.”

R
ACHEL RODE HIS
cock, swiveling her hips then raising herself up on his hard length before slamming back down. Sweat slickened both their bodies from their hours of furious fucking. He'd already brought her to an orgasm both when he'd eaten her out and when he'd taken her ass while her pussy was full of an ice-cold glass dildo. He'd lubed up her chest and smashed her tits together, sliding his cock between them and bringing himself to an explosive climax, ropes of hot semen marking her breasts, neck, and chin.

Her nipples had turned a dark red from the sucking, licking, and biting he'd done to them, and she was pretty sure he'd left bruises on her inner thighs from the force of his thrusts. Her hair was a mess, she hadn't slept a wink yet, her interview was in two hours, and she never wanted to leave this bed.

After they'd returned to Paradise Lost from the FBI office, she'd quickly showered then made all the necessary phone calls to set up this afternoon's interview. Her boss had assured her he'd never believed all the reports accusing her of murder and that he'd been fielding phone calls from other networks and news outlets all week hoping for an interview with her. She was a hot commodity right now, and once today's interview aired with the senator, she might finally have made a big enough name for herself to catch New York's attention.

But now that the opportunity loomed, she wasn't sure she wanted New York anymore. While her job was important to her, it was no longer the only thing in her life. Over the past few days, she realized she'd used her career to keep herself from forming any meaningful relationships so that she wouldn't risk losing her heart. But she had formed relationships anyway. She had friends in Kate, Lisa, Danielle, and Gracie. And despite her best effort to avoid it, she had fallen in love. Her career fulfilled her, but it didn't make her happy. If she took a job in New York and moved away from those she loved, she'd be leaving a huge piece of her heart behind.

A hard smack on her ass tore her from her thoughts.

“Am I boring you?” Logan asked with a grin.

She flattened her palms on his chest. “No. I was just thinking how much I love you.”

He reached up and tugged the ends of her hair. “I love you too. And I'm about to show you how much.”

She squealed as he suddenly rolled them over so he was on top of her. He pushed her thighs farther apart and drove his cock back inside her, moving annoyingly slow. “I've fucked my wife all afternoon. Now I want to make love to her.”

“Missionary? Isn't that a little vanilla?”

His heated gaze snared hers. “There's nothing vanilla about my rock-solid dick inside your snug wet pussy. But sometimes, I want to slow things down, look into my wife's eyes, and breathe her in.”

He kissed her, their lips and tongues coming together in a sensual mating. In a leisurely rhythm, their bodies joined again and again, every downward stroke of his cock bumping against her clit. Hot pleasure coursed through her pussy, driving her higher toward climax.

Pulling back from the kiss, they stared into each other's eyes, their breathing in sync as if passing their breaths back and forth between one another.

His cock twitched inside her, signaling her to his impending orgasm. The muscles around his eyes trembled as if he was about to lose control, but he didn't close his eyes or look away. She drowned in the love reflecting in his gaze.

His hand snaked down between their bodies and to her clit, where he pinched it between his fingers. Tears rolled down her cheeks from the intensity, but she forced herself to keep her eyes open as a climax crashed into her without warning, the muscles in her pussy clenching hard on his cock. As waves of contractions racked her pussy, she watched as Logan lost himself in his own orgasm. His face contorted and his body shook before he collapsed on her with a low moan.

A minute later, he rolled off her, shifting them so her head rested on his chest. His fingers played with her nipple, his half-hard cock thickening against her thigh. The man was insatiable, but she'd never complain. He took her lips, forcing them apart. She couldn't get enough of him, would never tire of his touch.

Knocking on their door broke their revelry. “Logan, we need to talk.”

Logan groaned, catching the come dripping down her thigh with his fingers and pushing it back inside her pussy. He finger-fucked her, the sound of her wet tissues sucking those digits inside filling the room. “Not now, Sawyer. I need some alone time with my wife.”

“You guys need to come to Tech Central,” Sawyer said through the door. “We've got something you have to see.”

His fingers stilled. “Fine. Give us five minutes.” With a sigh, he pulled them out of her pussy and into her mouth. “Clean them off,” he ordered.

Sometimes, she didn't mind his bossiness.

Sticky and sweaty, they took another quick shower before dressing and heading down the hall to meet the guys. Now that the sexual high was wearing off, she wondered what was so important that Sawyer felt the need to interrupt them.

Sawyer, Oz, Rowan, and Hunter stopped their conversation the minute she and Logan stepped into the room.

Oz grinned at them. “Congratulations on your marriage.” He sniffed and pretended to dab his eyes. “It was a lovely ceremony. The only thing missing was your best man, Oz.”

Hunter punched Oz in the arm. “What makes you think you would have been best man? Maybe Logan would've asked me.”

Sawyer grinned widely. “Judging by the sounds coming from your room, it's too late to get the marriage annulled, so I'm guessing you've decided to stay married?”

She and Logan shared a glance. He looped his arm around her and tugged her into his side. “Why fight the inevitable?” He kissed her cheek before giving his friends a scowl. “Mind telling me what was so important you felt the need to interrupt our honeymoon?”

Rowan motioned to his computer. “I was able to trace the money given to Fink's mother. Whoever was behind everything really tried to keep it buried. There were several layers between the origination and the final destination. It came from a PAC Fund called A Better Tomorrow and was listed under an unclassifiable consulting expenditure.”

Her neck prickled with heat while a chill passed through her. Political action committees were primarily formed to pool campaign contributions and to donate those funds to help elect chosen political candidates.

Rachel didn't believe in coincidences. “So how do we figure out who authorized the payment?” she asked, her mind spinning with the implication of this new information.

“I checked the recipients, and this PAC oddly donates money across party lines,” Rowan said. “Guess the two senators who have received the largest contributions from this PAC.”

“Hutton and Byron,” Logan said through gritted teeth.

Rowan nodded. “Bingo.”

Oz dropped into his chair in front of the computer and spun it from side to side. “Senator Hutton wouldn't have put himself at risk of contracting a deadly disease. It doesn't make sense. And what motive would either of them have to do it?”

“Hutton has introduced a bill to increase spending for the prevention of biological warfare,” Logan told him. “Releasing a deadly disease like Leopold would support his position that additional funds are necessary.”

Seemed to Rachel like a drastic way to earn money. “But he'd be crazy to expose himself to the virus.” She'd met Hutton and had a hard time believing he could do such a thing. “What about Byron?”

Logan shook his head. “Why would he do it? Wouldn't it hurt his chances that his bill would pass?”

“Maybe he just wanted Hutton dead,” Hunter said, perched on the edge of a desk.

“There are easier ways to do that,” Rowan pointed out.

Suddenly somber, Oz stopped moving his chair. “You should also know that according to Byron's intern, Byron is also in Las Vegas.”

Rachel perked up at that bit of news. What reason did Byron have for being here at the same time as his senatorial nemesis? Surely, that couldn't be a coincidence. She didn't want to believe that the man she'd met at the FBI office could be capable of such an act or that Logan and she had gone to such lengths to protect a man who had possibly been behind the whole plot to release Leopold on innocent people.

“I'll research the treasurer of the PAC as well as Byron to see if there's something we're missing, but let's just focus on Hutton right now,” Rowan said with his usual logic. “What would we need to tie him to the Rinaldi or the agents?”

Logan squeezed her side in reassurance as if he sensed her distress over the recent revelation. “If we could hack into his computer, we could go through his files and emails. Maybe we'd find something there.”

“How do we do that?” she asked, burrowing in closer to his side.

“I don't suppose he gave you his IP address,” Oz quipped.

She laughed. “No, surprisingly, that wasn't on the card he gave me. Isn't there another way?”

Sawyer rested against the wall, his feet crossed in front of him. “If he brought his computer with him and if it were on, there are a couple of different ways we could access it.” He looked at Rachel. “You can locate the IP address and give it to us. Then we could hack him remotely, but we'd only be able to do it so long as the computer was on. The other way is to hack it through the Wi-Fi. It's harder to trace that way, but we could download his files in a single swoop through an app on a cell phone.”

Her heart started hammering from the surge of adrenaline racing through her. While she didn't have the computer skills on par with the guys, she had experience working undercover. She could help them access Senator Hutton's computer. “That's what we'll do,” she said excitedly. “Give me a phone with the app on it, and I'll use it when I do the interview.”

Logan grew rigid against her. “Guys, can you excuse us?”

The room went dead silent for a beat. Then shooting each other looks that spoke volumes, Sawyer and the others left the room. A sense of dread fell upon her, and she braced for the words that would slice her heart in half.

Logan's arm fell away from her waist and he moved to stand in front of her. “I don't want you to do it,” he said quietly.

She inhaled a deep breath as if drawing strength into herself. “Why not?”

“If he is responsible for everything and you get caught, what do you think a monster like that would do to you? And if he's not responsible and you get caught, you'll have pissed off a powerful senator who will have you thrown behind bars. In both scenarios, you'll end up hurt.”

She placed her palm on his chest. “How about the scenario where I don't get caught and nothing happens to me?”

It pained her when, shaking his head, Logan took a step back from her. “It's not worth the risk. We can take what we know and pass it on to the FBI.” His tone gave her the impression that his decision was final.

She felt the hope of their marriage working slip through her fingers like sand. “Right, because they've been oh so helpful so far,” she said, laughing bitterly. “They want to pretend like none of this ever happened. They'll give their official statement and that will be it. We need to find something that incriminates Hutton before we can go to the FBI.”

He folded his arms across his chest. “We should wait until we have more intel before charging in and putting your life in danger.”

Was this about control? Or a result of his time in the army when incomplete intelligence had cost the lives of his fellow soldiers and an innocent civilian? Regardless, his traumatic experience had obviously affected him strongly.

“How are we going to get that intel?” she asked.

“I don't know.” Averting his eyes, he dipped his chin toward his chest and ran his fingers through his hair. “We'll figure it out.”

Frustrated, she clenched her hands. “And by then our chance to hack his computer will have passed.” Her voice came out louder than she'd intended, but he wasn't listening to reason.

He threw his hands in the air. “Then I'll do it. I'll come with you to the interview. Or I'll stop by his room another time and do it.”

This had nothing to do with waiting for more intel. He just didn't want
her
to do it. And while part of her knew he did it out of concern for her, the other part realized her greatest fear had come true. She'd fallen in love with a man who wanted to control her.

“You'll do it. It's too dangerous for me, but it's okay for you? You're not even thinking rationally. If you get caught, he'll assume I'm in on it anyway.” She waved her hand at him. “This is about you wanting to control everything. But you can't control me, and it scares you.”

“I'm not trying to control you.” He stalked forward and grabbed her shoulders, his fingers digging into her skin. “I'm only trying to keep you safe.”

A war raged inside her. She knew he was telling the truth, but it didn't matter.

The result was the same.

She blinked back the tears. “This isn't going to work. I told you my job is dangerous sometimes, and you promised you'd try to accept that. But the first opportunity to test that promise, you're forbidding me from doing my job.”

He took her face in his hands. “You haven't been out of danger for a day yet and already you're throwing yourself back to the wolves. I love you. My job as your husband is to protect you even if you don't want that protection.”

Wetness stained her cheeks. This didn't feel like a marital argument. This felt like good-bye. “Your job as my husband is to support me and my decisions. This is why I never wanted to get married. I'm never going to obey you outside of the bedroom, Logan. I'm not submissive.”

His throat worked over a swallow as he tenderly brushed her tears with his knuckles. “You say the word
submissive
like it means you're weak. You know that's not true. There's strength in submission.”