After Hours Bundle (36 page)

Great. Now what do we do?
Marly and Alejandro exchanged another glance. He stepped to the plate.

“Ladies,” he said, “I have fallen in love with you all. Please allow me to take you home. I'll be heartbroken if you refuse.”

They giggled. “But we all live in different homes,” Denise said, gazing up at him from under her lashes. “Which one of us do you want?”

“All of you,” he said again.

Suzette's eyes widened. “Are you suggesting…?”

“No!” Alejandro looked alarmed. “No, no. That would be to disrespect you.”

“Bummer,” said Rebecca. “I'm kinda partial to being disrespected, at least in the bedroom.”

Natasha elbowed her. “But we're not ready to go home yet, anyway. Our husbands are on a hunting trip. We want to go to South Beach and party!”

“Yeah!”

“Yeah!”

“Will you take us?”

Alejandro's mouth worked. “Ladies, I don't think—”

“You're almost done here anyway, and we've seen you dance. C'mon, big guy! Let's
paaaaaarty!
” They all whooped and hollered and jumped up and down.

“Looks like I'll be closing by myself,” Marly said, her voice dry.

 

S
HE WAS PUSHING
piles of chopped hair around with a broom when Jack showed up and knocked on the locked door. His suit was immaculate, but he'd loosened the blue tie and the limo was nowhere in sight. Dark circles had settled under his eyes and he sported a five o'clock shadow over the lower half of his face.

She wasn't sure she could handle breaking up with the governor right now, not after this day from hell. She felt like sending him to South Beach to party with the not-so-Fabulous Four. Marly leaned on her broom and stared at him. What was he doing here at such a late hour, anyway?

He raised his eyebrows and gestured at the door, clearly saying, “How'd you like to let me in?”

God. If only she didn't know what he looked like naked under that suit. Because the problem with letting Jack in was that he could get her from zero to sixty sexually within three seconds. And then she'd really let Jack in, so to speak. In and out, and in and out, and in and out.

Her body was ready for him by the time she reached the damn door, and his tongue was in her mouth before she had it open more than a foot. His hands were up her shirt and his knee was between her thighs and she was charged with electricity and crackling under his touch.

She wasn't sure how, but she had the presence of mind to lock the door again once they were inside. She tried to force herself to remember all those breakup lines she'd gone over in her head, but with Jack's lips on hers it wasn't easy.

We need to talk.

But first, let's make love over and over and over again.

It's not you, it's me.

So not true! We both lunged at each other.

I don't think I can give you what you need….

Give it to me, baby! Give it to me now.

I think we should see other people….

Oh, God. There are other people! Outside the window! People with cameras and flashes and long, skinny notepads.
Reporters are swarming After Hours like flies and our hands are up under each other's shirts!

H
ORRIFIED
, Marly broke away from Jack and dashed for the drapes. She pulled them with one hand and shielded her eyes from the flashbulbs with the other, while he swore a blue streak and snatched his discarded jacket from the floor.

Fists pounded on the door of the spa, which was clear glass and didn't obstruct the view at all. A blur of jostling heads and lenses and suits appeared there.

They could hear shouted questions. “Governor, how long have you been dating the hairstylist?” “Jack, what do you think Carol Hilliard will have to say about this?” “Governor, how do you think this will impact your chances for reelection?”

“Goddamn it!” Jack exploded as they ran to the back room and closed the door. At the front desk, the phone started ringing.

“Marly, I'm so sorry. I didn't see anyone tail me here. I didn't take the limo because I didn't want to attract attention, and they still got me.”

She tried to get control over her breathing, but it was difficult. The shock of having her privacy invaded, having people screaming at them through the windows—it rattled her. She shook with adrenaline and her palms poured sweat. She blinked rapidly, which made everything seem as though it were occurring under a strobe light.

“Those pictures…Jack, I don't have to tell you that they're not going to be flattering.”

He closed his eyes and slumped against the wall. “No, they won't. Jesus, I had my hands up your—and I was, um, visibly turned on. I'll have to alert Martinez and Lyons, get them prepared. And we'll have to figure out how to spin this. I'll need to get you some security….”

She gulped for more air. “Surely not? Those reporters can't come into our place of business, can they?”

“Honey, you can ask them to leave, but that is a city sidewalk out there and you have a glass door. They can film and harass every employee and client who comes in here.” He thought for a moment. “I'll have somebody get butcher paper over here so you can cover the door.”

She stared at him hopelessly, still trying to regulate her breathing. “This is what your mother was talking about.”

He nodded soberly.

“How long are they going to camp out there in front of the door?”

He didn't answer, just twisted his mouth.

“They can't stay there all night!”

“Oh, yes they can.”

“But—how are we going to get out of here?” She looked wildly in the direction of the back door, but he shook his head.

“Trust me, they've already got people staked out there, too.”

“Jack! We can't sleep here—the couches are in the front room near the door. And the only other comfortable option is my partner Peggy's massage table.”

He put a hand on her shoulder. “We won't have to sleep here, but we're stuck for a little while. I'm sorry. I really am.” Inside his trouser pocket, his cell phone began to ring. Jack pulled it out and answered it. “Yeah, Martinez. We've got a regular shit-storm outside. Reporters are hurling themselves against the windows like the zombies in
Shawn of the Dead.
”

Under any other circumstances, Marly might have laughed at that. Not now.

He winced. “Yeah, I know. We're locked inside the building but it's not exactly comfortable. You think I should give 'em a statement?

“No? Okay. Martinez, you know what? I don't need to hear that right now. What I need is a security detail to get us out of here.” He listened for a moment, then flushed with embarrassment. “Yeah, no,” he muttered. “I sent Jimmy and Rocket to the store for a bottle of champagne.” Jack held the phone away from his ear. “Look, it's done now. They'll probably arrive any minute. Fine. Goodbye.”

Marly took the end of his tie and slipped it through her fingers. “You ditched Frick and Frack for me?”

Jack moistened his lips, staring down at her. He cupped her chin. “Uh-huh.”

“Because you knew they bothered me?”

He nodded. “And I just wanted a little bit of alone time with you.”

“That was sweet, Jack, but you could have been putting yourself in danger. Don't ever do that again.”

“What I'm afraid of is that I put you in danger. I had no idea anybody was on to us.”

She didn't remind him that he'd kissed her publicly on at least two occasions, and anyone who'd seen them could have passed on the word.

“Me in danger? I'm just a hairdresser. That's silly. But this is a mess.” She tugged on his tie. “They're going to say you have poor judgment, and that I'm some low-class slut—”

“Sh.” He put a finger over her lips. “I won't let them say that. And I've never had better judgment than the day I—fixated on you.”

“Fixated. That's an odd word choice.”

“Marly, sweetheart. You got upset when I mentioned love at first sight. You want me to say, ‘the day I fell in love with you'?”

There he goes again. He's got to be the most stubborn, misguided guy in the state—which is just what the media would say if they had a clue about any of this.

“You didn't fall in love with me, you fell in love with a picture.”

Jack put a finger over her lips and tugged gently on her braid. “Hey, we're not going off on that tangent again. You're more comfortable with the word
fixated
, because it's easier to criticize and disbelieve. You can't argue with love, really. It's mysterious and unexplainable and one person cannot tell another person that he or she doesn't feel it.”

She stuck out her chin. “Can, too.”

Jack settled the argument with a deep, sensual takeover of her mouth. He spanned her waist with his hands, caressed her breasts lightly with his fingertips, and managed to wipe her mind blank of anything but him and his scent—Gray Flannel and aftershave and just Jack.

“So let me show you just how fixated I am on you…” Before she knew it he'd lifted her up and set her on Peggy's massage table, rucking up her skirt to her knees.

She tore her mouth from his. “Jack, we can't! There's a pack of wolves howling out there, and Frick and Frack will show up any moment and—”

His mouth descended over hers again and he ate the end of her sentence. Her body lit like a human torch and she gave in to desire. He stroked the back of her neck, nibbled at her ears and circled her nipples with his thumbs. He stood inside her spread thighs, shoved his hands up under her cotton shirt, commandeered her breasts and reduced her to a whimpering puddle of need. He suckled them, licked them, nipped them with his teeth.

Without even being conscious of it, she reached forward between his legs, found his erection and squeezed.

Jack cursed softly as she unzipped his fly, pushed layers of fabric away from his cock and caressed it in her palm. She shrugged off his hands on her shoulders, slid off the massage table, knelt and took him into her mouth.

Jack reeled and had to steady himself as she rolled her tongue down the length of him, sliding over the soft skin easily. She closed her lips around him and sucked.

It seemed there was only so much Jack could take. Gasping, he pulled her up by the shoulders and practically threw her back on the massage table with her skirt around her waist. Pulling her panties to the side, he hauled her to the edge of the bed and plunged into her again and again.

She came almost at once, excited by the sheer need he seemed to have for her and the sight of him out of control. He might be trapped in a suit and tie all day, but he was not quite civilized underneath.

Jack was overwhelming in a hundred different ways and made her forget everything but him. She forgot about the media shit-storm raging outside, and her worries about how this would affect her career, and the salon, about what her parents would think….

All she could focus on was him filling her, over and over like a well-oiled piston, the look of intensity in his eyes, of primal connection, shattering her control.

She arched against him helplessly as he stroked her breasts and toyed with her nipples. Eight inches of Jack streaked across her clitoris and she dissolved into bliss yet again.

He gripped her bottom, digging his fingers almost painfully into her flesh, and impaled her one last time, his own back arching. He ground his pelvis into hers and spilled into her with a groan—just as his cell phone began shrieking again.

He slumped over her, pressing his cheek to hers, and she felt their hearts pounding in sync.

The cell phone stopped and then started ringing again.

“You'd better answer it,” she whispered into his ear. “It's not like they don't know where you are.” She handed him a towel from the pillow next to her, and he pulled out with a sigh.

But he leaned forward and kissed her deeply, possessively and thoroughly. “You're not breaking up with me,” he said. “You got that?”

She stared at him, at his loose tie and rumpled hair and crushed shirt. His blue eyes burned into hers and she still lay open to him, in the most vulnerable position. Her heart turned over.

And then Jack Hammersmith, governor of the state, said the most peculiar thing. “I need you, Marly. You're it for me. Perfect in every way.” Stunned, she didn't know what to say.

Finally, with pants zipped and shirt tucked back in, he answered the phone in clipped, efficient sentences. Marly sat up and straightened her own clothes, still wobbly from his touch. When he hung up, he said to her, “They're on their way to pick us up, but there's no way we're getting past the phalanx of cameras out there without them taking more shots. You're either going to want to smile and stand proud, or use something to cover your face.”

“Yeah…I can make a space helmet out of one of the stationary blow-dryers.”

Jack's lips twitched. “Add some aluminum foil antennae, maybe? Paint your face green.”

“And tell 'em I've been taken
by
their leader, over and over again?”

He cracked up. “See, you're perfect.”

“I'm not,” she insisted. “I'm a Democrat. You're a Republican.”

“You show me the other side,” he said, leaning against the wall. “Next argument.”

“I'm blue collar. You're blue blood.”

Jack snorted. “Blue blood? Hardly. My ancestors came to this country without two cents to rub together. You'll have to do better than that, honey.”

“I drive around in a Mitsubishi. You travel by limo and private jet.”

“Tell you what, Jimmy and Rocket will love being squashed in the back of a compact.” He grinned. “You give me your keys, and I'll give you Mike and Alan. Or better yet, you can just travel around with me.”

“And what would I do while you're running the state?”

“Paint,” he said promptly. “Draw. Design things.”

That shut her up.

“You could do that for four years…and afterward do anything you want.”

His phone rang again. Jack sighed and flipped it open. “Yeah. Okay. Thanks. We'll go out the back door.” He flipped it closed.

“Frick and Frack, as you call them, are out back. The limo and more security will be here in about two minutes. You need to decide where you want to go—they're suggesting you don't go back to your apartment, though, since the media has dug up your address.”

“Oh, God.” She put her hands to her face.

“You want to come back to Tallahassee with me?”

“How would I get to work in the morning?”

Jack put a hand on her shoulder. “I don't advise you to go back to After Hours for a couple of days. It'll be rough.”

“It's my job! I'm fully booked. I can't just let down my clients like that.”

“Again, Marly, I'm sorry. But this is a little bigger than trims and highlights.”

Was his tone just a little patronizing? She couldn't be sure—she was too upset to catch subtleties at the moment.

“So what do you want to do?”

“Take me to Alejandro's. He's not there, but I know where he keeps a spare key.”

“Who's Alejandro?” Jack's voice tightened.

“My husband.”

“Your
what?!
”

“Kidding, dude. Alejandro is my business partner and friend. You've met him. I've known him since I was ten.”

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

“It is a very bad idea for you to go to a man's house to stay. If a reporter figures it out, then the shit will
really
hit the fan. Think about the headlines—Governor Two-Timed By Miss Snippy.”

Marly cringed. “Oh, God.”

“Look, I know you don't like it, but you're coming back to Tallahassee with me.”

“Yeah, great. I'll take tea with your mom.”