Page 81 of Wicked Sin

Then he lets me wrap my hand around his cock and jerk him off—what I missed out on the first time. He’s big and warm in my hand, throbbing as I rock my fingers up and down his length.

Again, he’s pressed right up against me, like he likes it when we don’t have quite enough room for this. When he comes, it’s in a messy spray against my skin, my belly. And that feels good, too.

Later,Luke and I work out together. He’s got some heavy weights in his basement, and it feels good to lift them, to test my body in a good-stress kind of way.

And the whole time, I think about what he’s put in front of me.

Kinky sex. Hurt-y sex.

Nice, happy, healthy sex.

And how much of an idiot am I that I genuinely didn’t realize the two could go hand in hand?

I don’t miss how his eyes smolder when I make little unhappy noises at the end of a set. Push myself to lift a little more, tax my body to the limit.

He wants me to make those noises for him, because he hurts me because I want him to hurt me, andI do.

The kernel of what I might confess to him, what I really want more than anything else, has started to form. The words seem still so far out of reach, but for the first time in my life, I can see a path between where I am and what I secretly want more than anything else.

“Having fun?” he asks as he collapses on the mat next to me.

“Yes.” And it’s the truth.

He showers first, while I’m still stretching out, and when I finish going through my whole body routine, I find him already in the kitchen prepping dinner.

“I’ll be back to help you soon,” I promise before I head upstairs. But when I stop in my room to grab my shower supplies, there’s a message on the pager from Wilson.

Watch the news tonight if you can. Video leaking of Gerome Lively and Victor Best. Chatter says leak is internal Secret Service. Timing is suspicious. Cole is still in L.A. if you need him.

If I need him for crisis management. If I need him to twist the world’s perception of me…again.

My stomach rolls over.

I never want to be in the public eye ever again. But definitely not tonight, not when I’m so close to a real thing with Luke.

Maybe I should try to go back to thinking of him as Detective Vasquez.

If it’s on the news, it’ll be there later, too. It’ll loop for days, and racing back downstairs without a shower is not a good choice for my mental health. I cannot succumb to the sick feeling in the pit of my belly to go and see what the video is. First I need to take care of myself, recenter myself as fine and whole and healthy, exactly as I am.

Who I am has not changed. If something from my past is dredged up, that’s still in the past, even if for others it is in the present.

I am a good person.

I am a kind person—at least most of the time. I try, and that’s all anyone could ever ask of me.

But the whole time I stand under the hot water, the panicked worry refuses to budge from the base of my throat.

Finally, I give in, get out, dry myself off, and pull on leggings and a t-shirt.

When I open the bathroom door, Luke is waiting at the top of the stairs. Extra casual, like he doesn’t want to alarm me.Oh no.

“What’s up?” I ask as normally as I can.

“There’s a video you should see. From a few years ago, before the election campaign. Victor Best was a guest on Gerome Lively’s yacht.”

I desperately try to do the math. “Oh?” I make it sound like I’m trying to make a joke, even though I know it’s not funny. And it’s not really a joke. “I’m not in it, am I?”

“No.”

---