Solace (Devastation Trilogy Book 2) Read online

  Even he admits it. It’s not uncommon for me or Casey to tie it for him, if he arrives to work without it tied. Even before he was governor, long before this change in our relationship status. If he tied it himself, one of us usually unties it and redoes it, because it drives us crazy.

  Casey told me Ellen used to tie it for him every morning. It was a ritual they shared between them. He’d put her day collar on her, and she’d tie his necktie.

  We’re both dressed and ready to go by the time Casey arrives to check on us thirty minutes before the security detail is due to pick us up. She looks stunning in a black, shimmering floor-length sleeveless sheath dress.

  I need no prompting to drop to my knees for our greeting. “Hello, Ma’am.”

  She leans in and rubs my head. “Hello, boy. Are you being good for Sir?”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “Yes, he is,” George says from behind me. Amusement fills his tone.

  I can’t see him, because my eyes are closed, my forehead resting on the tops of her shoes.

  “Up,” she says, and I scramble to my feet. She opens her arms to me and I go to her, tucking my head against her shoulder as she holds me.

  This, too, is one of our rituals.

  “My very good boy,” she says.

  Then she snakes one hand between us, feeling around between my thighs.

  My cheeks grow hot but she laughs, delighted.

  “George, you’re an absolute bastard,” she says, her admiration obvious. “You did put it on him. I’m impressed.”

  “Told you I was going to torture him tonight.”

  They’re talking about me like I’m not even there, or as if I’m a prized poodle or something.

  I fucking love it.

  “I thought you’d be too soft-hearted to tease him all night,” she says.

  “No, I warned him I’m engaging bastard mode.”

  She giggles. “Which can be very bastardly, indeed, from what I’ve heard in the past.”

  They both wistfully sigh, and I realize she means something Ellen must have told her.

  I feel him step behind me. He slides his arms around me, parting my jacket and unerringly locating my nipples, even through the fabric of my undershirt and dress shirt. He starts grazing his nails over them, making them hard and starting my cock throbbing again.

  “Very bastardly,” he agrees, his voice dropping into Dom mode. “We can torture him on the ride over and all the way home. I have a few…ideas.”

  I’m looking forward to hearing them, believe me.

  Remember, I have the ability to stop this at any time. Just because I can’t make myself safeword doesn’t mean I’m unable to.

  Masochist. Duh.

  “You can torture him,” she says, releasing me and tipping my chin for a quick kiss. “I’m driving myself.”

  “Why?” he asks. “Ride with us.”

  I’m glad they’re not requiring any coherent thought from me right now. Between my aching cock and what George is still doing to me, it’s switched off my brain.

  “No, I want to get there early and scout around. Make sure everything’s prepared. And I might want to hang back after you leave to talk to some people. You have your speech?”

  “Yeah. In my jacket pocket. I printed it out.”

  At least that’s done. I finished it yesterday and passed it off to Casey for her final approval before I left the office.

  “You sure you don’t want to let him go at least a few days without coming?” she asks. “He gets so adorably needy and submissive when I make him wait for it.”

  George stops torturing my nipples and wraps his arms around me, pulling me against his body. “No, because that denies me fun. Besides, he’s a very good boy, and I like rewarding him.”

  That fills the rest of my body with warmth to match my cheeks.

  Casey’s wearing a playful smirk. “Suit yourself. I have no trouble getting off and denying him for a while.”

  “Two weeks?” George asks, and there’s more than a little accusation in his tone.

  She rolls her eyes at him. “Yes, that was Domme-fail on my part. I admit it. I usually don’t make him go more than a few days without. Do I, boy?”

  “No, Ma’am.” I give in to the urge to tip my head back on George’s shoulder. He rewards me by brushing a kiss against my lips.

  I’m getting the feeling George is simultaneously the far heavier sadist, and, ironically, much more of a softy compared to Casey.

  Maybe it’s a contradiction to you, but it’s not to me.

  Casey has me walk her to the front door, where she gives me a hug and a kiss.

  “Do me proud, boy,” she whispers. “Promise me that tonight, no matter what, you’ll do me proud. And I don’t just mean with George. I mean as my deputy chief of staff.”

  Her tone confuses me a little, but I nod. “Yes, Ma’am. Of course.”

  “Good boy.”

  “Casey, are we really okay? After this morning?”

  She smiles and gives me one more long, followed by a lingering kiss. Not too much, because she’s obviously trying not to smudge her lipstick.

  “We’re fine, boy,” she whispers. “George and I sorted everything out. We’re good.” She straightens my bowtie for me. “I’ll probably stop by tonight to spend a little time with you before I go home.”

  My heart races as I eagerly process that. “I hope so, Ma’am.”

  “It’s not confusing for you having both of us at the same time?”

  “No, Ma’am. I enjoy it.”

  “You’ll be with George through Monday morning. Is that all right?”

  “Yes, Ma’am. As long as it’s all right with you.”

  She nods and pats my cheek before heading out.

  I return to the kitchen, where George is leaning against the counter and scrolling through his personal cell. He doesn’t look up from his phone, but he holds his left hand out to me, the meaning clear.

  I cross the kitchen and he folds me against his body, his arm around me, kissing my forehead while still going through his phone.

  Since he makes no move to release me, I snuggle close, closing my eyes and enjoying this. He definitely seems infinitely more relaxed now than he did before this unusual situation shook out between the three of us.

  He nuzzles my temple. “Such a good boy for me,” he murmurs. “Just think of that thing locked on you as an extension of my hand, holding what’s mine and keeping it safe and ready for me later tonight.”

  Fuuuuuck.

  I can’t help but whimper, which makes him chuckle.

  It’s good to hear him laugh, to see him smile. He’s been barely functioning ever since his return. I can see it clearly as I look back and compare the man he is now to who he was just a few weeks ago, and again to the George I knew before the crash.

  The security detail tonight isn’t a massive one. I know there will already be a team in place at our destination, a private residence about thirty minutes away, in a country club development. We’re riding in a large, black SUV, a plainclothes officer driving, with marked cruisers ahead and behind us. The two cruisers are awaiting us on the street just outside George’s gate.

  When George and I exit the house and set the alarm, he makes me exit first. Then, even though I tried to stand aside and let him get into the SUV first, he cups the back of my neck and guides me inside.

  My cock’s throbbing inside its confinement.

  Once we’re belted in and ready, we’re underway.

  George takes the printout of his speech from of his pocket to go through it, but he reaches across the seat with his left hand and wiggles his fingers at me.

  Nervously, I reach out and take them.

  Like that, we ride all the way to our destination, holding hands while I listen to George in politician mode as he practices his speech. I’m so used to how he talks after years of being his friend and coworker that when I write for him, in my head I’m listening to the words in George’s voice. It
helps me tailor a speech to him, so it sounds natural when he says it aloud.

  Casey’s praised me for that many times, and so has George. It’s why I’m now his chief speechwriter. During his last Senate campaign, Casey was running a rough draft of an important speech past me that the hired speechwriter had put together, and I red-lined the hell out of it until she handed it off to me and told me to rewrite it.

  I did, in less than two hours, and even she admitted it was perfect.

  She then fired the speechwriter and handed those duties over to me.

  I’ve written every speech he’s given since then, except for the one he gave at the memorial. He and Casey wrote that one.

  Frankly? I’m kind of glad I wasn’t asked to write it. It was better they did, because they were the two people who knew her best in the entire world.

  Before he releases my hand he squeezes, holding on until I meet his gaze.

  He gives me a smile and a wink that I can’t help but return. He also hands off his personal and work cell phones to me to monitor. He doesn’t like having them on him during an event, because he’s too tempted to check them, especially if he gets a message or call from one of the kids and their special ringtone alerts him.

  When we arrive, he does exit first without arguing with me about it. It’d look weird anyway, me climbing over him to get out, since the EPU officer opened his door for him.

  Casey’s already there. I spotted her car parked in the field across the street from the house, where valets are ferrying them as guests arrive.

  George switches on the smile when applause and cheers herald his arrival. The house is a mansion surrounded by several acres of manicured gardens. They have a long, circular driveway, and there are already at least a hundred people present.

  Tonight’s fundraiser is a minimum of $250 a plate, with several people paying $1,000 a plate to sit at the dinner table with George and the hosts. I know many of the people in attendance from my law career, or from politics and being deputy chief of staff.

  Casey and I count as George’s plus-one and a staffer, and we get free alcohol at the cash bar, even though we won’t drink tonight. Not while working. I do ask one of the officers in the security detail, who also shadow George, to please grab me two sealed bottles of water. One’s for me, one’s for George. Until we’re seated, he won’t eat or drink anything I don’t hand him. Or Casey, if she was right there with us and escorting him.

  Upon spotting Casey and catching her eye, she tips her head toward George, her meaning clear—Shadow him.

  With George’s phones tucked into my left jacket pocket, and my work phone in my hand so I can take notes as needed, I stay behind him, talking with people as we move through the space but also making sure I’m paying attention to George and what he’s discussing.

  One of my jobs is to divert him if someone tries to hog his attention or talk to him about something inappropriate, to have another guest always in my sights to direct his attention to, should that happen.

  The problem is no less than four people considering their own runs for office, for various positions, approach me and try to pull me aside to confer about strategy, or outright offer to hire me away from George.

  Casey wasn’t kidding when she said she’d make me a political wunderkind. I have a reputation in this state of knowing my shit and being able to work miracles.

  I turn them all down, obviously. Plus, I’ve learned how to politely and quickly disengage from people so I can stay with George. Tonight is about him making the rounds, making the fundraiser’s host look damned good so the man holds more of them for George, and making sure the people here want to throw more money at George’s campaign.

  No sausage-making tonight. No deals being cut. No pork barrels being filled.

  At least, not by George.

  Schmoozing. That’s all.

  There are some members of the press here, too, and I make sure each one gets some time with George. But before I let them talk to him, I make sure they all understand questions about his ordeal, and about Ellen or the kids, are off-limits.

  Period.

  We still have to remind the press of that even this far out.

  Everything’s going great, his speech totally slays—it sounds like Casey made only a few subtle tweaks to it—and then they’re seating George for dinner at the special table.

  That’s when the bottom falls out of my world and it takes everything within me not to launch myself over the table at the man seated directly across from George.

  Terrance Ronald, Junior.

  Chapter Seven

  Then

  Walking out of school that day, I shivered as a blast of wind knifed right through me. It felt bitterly cold, especially for the middle of March. But one of those late-winter storms came barreling down from Canada and made it all the way to Nashville. Ice and snow and freezing rain. Mom couldn’t even drive to work that morning because she couldn’t get her car out of the parking lot. She’d had to take the bus.

  Our little apartment was only three blocks from my school, so I walked it, regardless. But I didn’t exactly have the kind of heavy coat today called for. Even in the dead of winter we rarely have weather as brutal as this.

  So I put my head down, jammed my gloved hands deep into my pockets, and started walking.

  I was a senior, and I would be graduating at the end of this school year. I already had two college credits, thanks to dual-enrollment classes, and I’d earned myself an academic scholarship to Vanderbilt.

  The letter Casey wrote for me helped, I’m sure, but I’m far more certain that the other letters she had people write on my behalf—judges, attorneys, and even a famous country music producer I’d never met—put me over the top.

  Mom worked at a hotel nearby. Better pay than what she used to make, and she was even taking English classes now so she could try to become a shift supervisor. But she needed to be able to read English. I was tutoring her in my spare time, which wasn’t much. When I wasn’t studying, I worked part-time on the weekends for Casey.

  Don’t make it creepy. I was doing stuff around the house for her, like chores and home-repair projects. Yardwork, in the summer and when the weather was better.

  When she didn’t have me doing that, she was paying me to read.

  No shit, she was.

  Well, legal stuff—briefs, rulings, case law. Things she said I’d have to know if I was serious about being a lawyer. Stuff she assured me would give me a leg up on my fellow law school applicants.

  When I wasn’t reading up on that, she had me researching Tennessee election laws. And she quizzed me on everything, had me write reports—an education I’d have to pay dear money for in a few years, unless I landed me a scholarship to law school.

  In fact, I had a book in my backpack I’d taken with me to school today, to read another chapter of it at lunch.

  I carefully trudged my way along a sidewalk that was slippery in places. I tried to avoid the shaded areas, but there were a few times I nearly busted my ass. It was too slushy to try to walk in what was usually grass, though.

  Even saw an accident happen a half a block from me. Car tried to stop for a light and skidded right through the intersection in slow-motion as it fishtailed. Got caught in the passenger door by another car that couldn’t stop, either.

  Fortunately, I managed to cross intersections between me and home without getting run over or falling down. I couldn’t take my usual shortcut across the apartment complex’s parking lot, though, because of a pile of slush and snow that had been plowed out of the way.

  So I took the long way. Instead of coming up from the rear of our building, I walked the salted sidewalk, finally able to have secure footing. Our complex was four two-story buildings, the front doors of every unit opening toward the center courtyard area, with open breezeways instead of enclosed halls.

  Our unit was on the second floor. Before taking the stairs, I thought I saw someone standing in the breezeway near our apartment, but I
couldn’t tell for sure.

  Until I exited the stairwell and realized it was two uniformed deputies, a man and a woman. As I got my keys out and approached, hoping they weren’t by our apartment, they took note of me.

  “We’re looking for Declan Howard,” the woman said.

  I nervously swallowed. I’d never been in trouble with the law, but I couldn’t help my fear. “Th-that’s me.”

  “Can we come inside and talk for a minute?”

  I fought the urge to spit out one of Casey’s favorite lines, “Do you have a warrant?”

  Even though, yeah, that’s what I should’ve asked.

  Instead, what I asked was, “Why?”

  She smiled, and…I knew. It was the same smile I saw social workers and shelter workers wear. The same smile the woman at the funeral home wore.

  A sad, knowing smile, trying to look concerned—and maybe she really was—but also trying to mask a bitter pill.

  “We really need to talk to you, hon,” she said. “And it’s cold out here. This is a conversation we should have inside.”

  “You’re not in any trouble, son,” the male deputy added.

  I think I was already crying as I tried to get the key into the lock. His tone told me too much.

  Pity.

  I did wait until I got inside to start sniffling. “What happened? Where’s my mom?” Because in my gut I already knew that’s what this was about.

  They exchanged a glance and the man got to do the honors.

  I remember collapsing to my knees as they told me about the accident, a car hitting her as she crossed the street to leave work and walk to the bus stop. And then I…checked out. They asked me if I had any close family, and I shook my head.

  Then they asked how old I was, if I had any family friends or any relatives I could call, and of course, I had one of those.

  Only one.

  I fumbled the cell phone—that Casey paid for, but I only used it for her—out of my pocket and somehow got it opened and dialed. When she answered, I broke down sobbing.

  “Declan? Hello? What’s going on?”

  The male deputy, and to this day I couldn’t tell you either of their names, took the phone from me and stepped into the kitchen while the woman knelt there with me and held my hands. She was a little older, and I got the impression maybe she was a mom.