Page 35 of Grift

My jaw tightens and my fists clench. "You first."

"I am sorry about what happened," she says, her voice soft. "I shouldn’t have gone snooping like that."

Leaning against the door jam, I watch her face, ignoring the ache in my chest. “What can you tell me about the tapes? What do you know?”

She visibly tenses and immediately I regret asking. This is part of why I want to handle this on my own, to spare her. But that’s not fair to her. I can do better than her family did. I can trust her, and then I can help her.

When she answers, her eyes stay on her computer screen. “Not much. It was college. One night I was at a party and had a bit to drink. Maybe one drink. I woke up the next morning back in my room, with basically no memory of anything in between. My father called me a couple of days later, and put me on the first plane to Washington. He’d gotten a copy of the recording, along with a blackmail demand. The first of many. Apparently, I made some kind of awful sex tape while I was drunk, and his enemies threatened to ruin his career with it.”

“You don’t remember anything?” A chill stabs through me at what those words might imply.

“Nothing. He never let me see it, saying it was too depraved. At first, I demanded to see it, but then I stopped asking.” She’s visibly trembling.

“Jessica,” I try to interrupt, but she keeps talking.

“You don’t know how bad it was. They had to mortgage their house to pay the bribes. It was before my mother came into her inheritance. Everything was so bad. It didn’t seem like I could ask for anything else,” she says, still not looking at me. “I’d already taken enough, Patrick. I wasn’t raised that way. My parents had clear expectations, clear values. It just wasn’t acceptable.”

I don’t doubt Kensington felt like he was in a bad position. A conservative senator running on a family values platform? His career could have been upended by something like this. There were many ways he could have handled this, and he’d chosen the road that protected him personally. But at what unimaginable cost to his daughter?

“No matter what happened,” I say evenly, “you know that it’s not your fault, right? Not any of it. Whether you were drunk or sober, whether you decided to make that tape willingly or whether someone filmed you without your consent, you’re not to blame in any way. In any way, Jessica. The fact that your parents reacted the way they did–”

The fact that they’d turned against her, instead of finding the person who was behind this, might be the most devastating piece of all. The worst part is that if something like this happened to one of my sisters and it landed on my father’s desk, I could envision him acting the same way. Just the thought makes me sick.

Her eyes are wide and bright with unshed tears. “I could have destroyed my father’s whole career, Patrick,” there’s a long pause while she catches her breath. “Anyway, that’s everything I know.”

“Thank you for telling me,” I say, not moving from where I’m standing. “I want you to know that I got the copy my father had, and I have someone looking into where it came from. Where it originated. If we can track that down, we can decide what to do next.”

She looks at me then, eyes wide.

“I should have just talked to you,” she says quietly. “No one’s ever wanted to hear my thoughts on this. At some point, I just stopped thinking I could talk about it.”

“You can talk to me about anything.”

“I know.”

At her words, a tension I don’t realize is there releases. She's changed out of the dress she wore earlier and dark yoga pants and a tight tank top hug every inch of her curves, the swell of her breasts nipping down to a waist and the rise of her hips and delicious ass. Her long hair tumbles over one shoulder and her huge gray eyes hold me completely arrested.

Instead of sitting across from her, which is what I should do, I pull up the chair next to her and slide into it. My knees are touching hers and I sense the familiar electric jolt through my body.

This isn’t going to work. That shouldn’t have happened today. She's not really my wife. Exploring those edges together, no matter how willing she is and no matter how attracted I am to her, is only going to confuse things.

But all I can think about is my hands on her skin and how damned responsive she is. There’s so much there, so much restrained potential. The possibility of unleashing it – and how much pleasure it might bring – threatens to outweigh my commitment to making good decisions here.

"Patrick, I want to find a way to make this work at least while we figure everything out," she says, her voice tentative

I don't want to misinterpret what she's saying, although I’m even more afraid that I do understand what she's saying.

“Today was unexpected. But I liked it.”

I liked it too. Hell, if I’m honest I fucking loved it.

“Good, because we aren’t finished from earlier.” M y eyes narrow, as I try to decide how to move forward. Her eyes light up in a way that tells me everything I need to know.

Her pleasure is the only goal. Seeing her taken to the edge, using my hands and my tongue to bring her the brink is enough to satisfy me. It’ll have to be enough. And in denying myself, it only stokes my desire more. Control and edge play are interesting. Another thing I could explore with her. Christ.

"Take off your clothes."

I don’t move, waiting for her to pull back, to tell me that I’ve misunderstood. It's a terrible idea. Getting in deeper, getting involved, is only going to make this more complicated.

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