Radclyffe - Oath of Honor

Evyn’s fingers curled around Wes’s wrists, gently stilling her.

“Then maybe you should take a minute.”

Wes looked up so Evyn could see what she knew must be in her

eyes—wonder, desire, need. “I’m sorry, I said that wrong. This is more

me than anything I’ve ever experienced—I’ve just never done anything

without knowing what would happen next. I feel like I’m walking off

a cliff.”

“Let’s fall together, then.” Evyn threaded her fingers into Wes’s

hair and tugged her mouth close. The kiss was hot, urgent, hungry. “Oh

yeah.”

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The need kindling in Wes’s stomach burst into flame and she

grabbed Evyn’s shirt and pulled it up and off. “I want you under my

hands.”

Evyn moaned. She was as tremulous as a virgin, and her first

time was so long ago she didn’t remember—but she knew it’d never

been like this. She’d never wanted so much to be taken, needed to give

herself so completely. “Hurry.”

“I don’t want to,” Wes muttered, her mouth against Evyn’s chest.

She kissed the slope of Evyn’s breast, brushed her cheek over the tight

peak of her nipple. Evyn moaned again and Wes shook inside. She took

a nipple into her mouth and pushed down on Evyn’s jeans.

Evyn’s hands clenched in her hair. “That’s so good. God, Wes, I

need you to make me come.”

Wes’s heart leaped into her throat. She couldn’t breathe around the

swell of desire, and she didn’t care. She’d live without air as long as she

could taste Evyn. She shoved Evyn’s jeans lower. “Off. Get these off.”

Evyn braced her hands on Wes’s shoulders and kicked her boots

and pants aside. She pushed Wes back onto the bed. “More. I want

your mouth on me more—everywhere. If I don’t come soon my head

is going to explode.”

Wes stretched out on top of her, the first press of Evyn’s body

sending shock waves rocketing through her. She entwined her legs

with Evyn’s, felt the hot caress of skin against her clitoris. Leaning on

her forearms, she gripped Evyn’s wrists in her hands, holding Evyn

beneath her. She stared into the bluest eyes she’d ever seen, fathomless

and vulnerable. “You’re so beautiful. I don’t ever want to move.”

“You better—God, you better.” Evyn arched, her legs tightening

around Wes’s thigh. Evyn’s wetness slicked Wes’s skin. “I want to

come, so close.”

“Yes.” Wes thrust, watching pleasure flow across Evyn’s face.

“We’ll go slow the next time.”

Evyn caught her lip between her teeth as she struggled not to

come.“Don’t hold back,” Wes murmured, pressing harder between

Evyn’s thighs, raking her teeth down Evyn’s neck. “I need to feel you.

I want to hear you. I need it. Please. Trust me.”

Trust me. Wes asked for so much. Terrifying words. Evyn couldn’t

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say no. Not now. She wrapped her arms around Wes’s shoulders and

pressed her breasts to Wes’s chest. She brushed her mouth over Wes’s

ear. “Yes. Yes, please. I can’t…I have to…”

“Now.” Wes groaned at the pleasure flooding through her. “Now,

please…With me.”

Evyn cried out and buried her face in Wes’s neck, losing herself

for the first time ever.

When Evyn’s fingers dug into her back, Wes let go. She stepped off

the cliff not knowing where she would land, only knowing she had to

let go or lose something more precious than safety. Soaring, tumbling,

exploding, she pulled Evyn to her.

“Fall with me.”

“Yes,” Evyn cried. “Yes.”

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chapter twenty-twO

At five a.m. Blair poured two cups of coffee from the urn the

valet had wheeled into Lucinda’s office in the West Wing. A

minute later Lucinda walked in. Wordlessly, Lucinda hung her snow-

dusted black wool coat on the coat tree just inside the door, draped

her scarf over the collar so it hung down along the lapels, and placed

one glove into each front pocket. She crossed to her desk and put her

overstuffed briefcase on the floor beside her chair. In deference to the

blizzard, she wore stylish brown boots beneath her chestnut pants

instead of her usual low heels. The hems of her tailored pants were

damp—she’d walked a ways in the snow.

Blair placed a coffee cup along with utensils and a small crystal

bowl of sugar cubes in the center of the desk. Balancing her own cup

and saucer—no mugs in sight—she turned one of the centuries-old

stuffed chairs to face Lucinda, sat down, and took a sip of coffee. She

closed her eyes for a moment of thanks. The White House kitchen made

great coffee. She waited until Lucinda stirred in one sugar cube and

took her first swallow. “Morning.”

“When did you get in?” Lucinda set a teaspoon onto the napkin

Blair had provided along with her morning coffee. “Airports are a mess,

I hear.”

“We caught the red-eye last night. Beat the front.”

“Where are you staying?”

“Cameron’s condo.” Blair smiled. “I’d forgotten how much I like

that place. We had some of our best fights there.”

Lucinda leaned back, holding the bone china cup between the

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fingertips of both hands as if the small fluted handle were too delicate

to use. “I can imagine.”

“Oh yeah? I never would have guessed.”

Laughing, Lucinda shook her head. “So. What’s on your mind?”

“You have to ask?”

“I can think of half a dozen things—but you might as well start

with what’s at the top of your list.”

“Who do you think has betrayed my father?”

Lucinda nodded slowly, her gaze turning inward. “That’s the

question at the top of my list too, and I wish I had an answer for you.

We don’t know. We really don’t.”

“How bad is it?”

“We’re not sure of that either—the whole picture is still coming

together.”

“Come on, Luce. Don’t play press corps with me. You have to

have some good ideas—this is the president’s inner circle we’re talking

about.”

“Believe me, I know.”

Lucinda’s tone was mild but her eyes flashed. She was pissed, all

right. Someone—or probably any number of someones—had to have

dropped the ball for something like this to even be possible. Blair said,

“Okay—best guess, then.”

“What we do know is domestic protests have escalated at every

one of his public venues, and we’ve observed a greater presence of

individuals from radical watch-list groups in the crowds. We don’t

publicize most of his calendar for exactly that reason—to limit his

exposure to hostiles. That, combined with what we’re picking up

from online communications, suggests extremist factions are gaining

advance intelligence.”

“So he’s the specific target? We’re not talking about national

security—we’re talking about his personal security being threatened,

is that it?”

“That’s what we think, yes. I wish I could tell you more.”

“Do you think there’s going to be an assassination attempt?”

Lucinda set her cup down carefully, aware that the china was

fragile enough to break if her grip was hard enough. She rested her

hands on the desktop. “Probabilities are high—higher than we’d like.

Yes.”

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Blair stood and set her coffee cup on the edge of Lucinda’s desk.

The icy blast of terror left her breathless. How could this happen—

here, in the most advanced, sophisticated country in the world? How

could they have let this happen? She paced to the wall of windows

that looked out on the gardens. The carefully tended shrubs and bushes

were nothing but shapeless mounds beneath snow. If she spoke now,

she’d probably regret what she had to say later, and she’d learned long

ago the only way to get information out of Lucinda was to keep a cool

head. Lucinda was so good at what she did because she couldn’t be

bullied into revealing information, or pressured into using her power

to influence the president’s decisions, or coerced into paving the way

for anyone who hoped to subvert channels. No matter that Blair had

served as her father’s confidant and official representative countless

times in countries all over the world—Lucinda still told her only what

she wanted her to know. And as much as that pissed her off, she trusted

Luce like she trusted few others—and Lucinda loved her father as much

as she did. Calmer, she walked back around the desk and dropped into

the chair. “Does he know?”

“Of course.”

“And he doesn’t care, right?”

Lucinda smiled. “He told me we have plenty of people whose task

it is to see he isn’t bothered. He intends to do his job and let others do

theirs.”

Blair rolled her eyes. “Doesn’t he drive you crazy sometimes?”

“Frequently.”

“And you can’t change him. Can you get him to change his

itinerary for a while? Travel less, limit his public appearances?”

“Even if it weren’t an election year,” Lucinda said wearily, “he

wouldn’t. If we don’t give in to terrorism, we can hardly give in to

vague threats and uncertain possibilities.”

“I take it that’s a direct quote?”

“More or less. It’s business as usual—which means we have to do

our jobs even better.”

“So you called Cam.”

“I need someone I can trust,” Lucinda said softly. “There isn’t

anyone I can name close to Andrew who I don’t trust—and that’s the

problem. Because it must be one of them. I need Cam on this, Blair,

I’m sorry.”

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“Why?” Blair asked, surprised. Lucinda never apologized for or

qualified any decision she made.

“I know it’s not what you want Cam to be doing, and you just got

married—”

“Cam decides for herself what she wants to do.” Blair laughed

and shook her head. “Okay, to be fair, she does think about what I

want, you’re right—and that still amazes me. That she would do that

for me.”

“You’re lucky.”

“I know.” Blair turned her wedding ring with her other hand, a

comforting reminder of what she knew in her heart. Cam loved her.

“All the same, she’d already decided to do this before she told me. You

knew she would.”

“I thought she would—and like I said, I know it’s not what you

would’ve wanted.”

“I don’t want Cam getting hurt. I don’t want my father getting hurt

either.” Blair rose. “That means you have two people to worry about,

because if anything happens to either one of them, I swear to God,

Lucinda, I’ll make someone pay.”

Lucinda studied her steadily, her deep gray eyes unblinking.

“Averill and I think the most likely source is in the military office—the

duty officers know his schedule in advance and are in a perfect position