All In (The Blackstone Affair 2)

nnounced as she emerged with a blue tie in her hand. She sauntered up to me and draped the silk around my neck. “It matches your eyes and I love the color of your eyes.”

I love when you say the word love in reference to anything about me.

I watched her expression as she worked on knotting my tie, biting just the corner of her luscious, bottom lip in concentration; loving her attentions and not loving the fact that she had obviously practiced on somebody else. She had stood right up against some other bloke and tied his tie for him. I knew it. I tried not to envision that it was morning when she performed this service for the cocksucker and that she’d not spent the previous night sucking said cocksucker’s cock. I was such a jealous bastard now. I’d never been jealous with any of the girls I’d dated before, but then again, Brynne was not just a girl to me. Brynne was the girl. My girl.

“I love that you’re here doing this for me,” I told her.

“I am too.” She smiled up at me for an instant before returning to the task at hand.

There was so much more I wanted to say but I didn’t. Pushing her never worked out, and I’d learned my lesson in that regard, but still it was hard to take things slow. I didn’t want slow with Brynne. I wanted fast and intense and all the time. Thank Christ I didn’t say that aloud.

“What’s your day look like, Miss Bennett?” I asked instead.

“I’m having a lunch meeting with colleagues from the university. Keep your fingers crossed for me. I have to start thinking about getting that work visa and there could be something in this for me. Like a conservancy appointment at a major London museum.” She finished my tie and patted it. “There. You look very spiffy in your blue tie, Mr. Blackstone.” She held her lips up to mine with her eyes closed.

I kissed her with just the tiniest peck on her puckered lips. She opened her eyes and narrowed them, looking a tad disappointed. “Expecting something more were you?” I loved teasing her and making her laugh.

She fronted like she didn’t care. “Meh,” she said with a shrug, “Your kisses are…passable I suppose. I can do without.”

I laughed at the expression on her face and tickled her in the side. “It’s a good thing you conserve paintings, my darling, because you can’t lie worth shit.”

She shrieked at the tickling and tried to get away.

I snaked my arms around her and hauled her against me. “No escape for you,” I muttered against her lips.

“What if I don’t want to escape?” she asked against mine.

“That works too,” I answered with real kiss. I went slow and thorough, enjoying this early morning moment together before we had to go to our jobs. She melted into me so sweetly I had to remember we both had work and there was no time to take her back to bed now. The nice part was that we would be here at the end of the day again, and I could make good on my very vivid imagination.

I got to kiss her goodbye a few more times before we went our separate ways: waiting at the lifts, in the parking garage up against the Rover, and when I dropped her off at the Rothvale. Such are the benefits of having somebody you want to be with so madly in your life. Again, I am a lucky, lucky man. At least I am smart enough to realize it.

?

I went through the front entrance today after parking because I wanted to buy every major US newspaper and have them scoured for any small thing. They’d be crammed with political mudslinging by now, but the full bore fight between candidates was a ways off yet. Presidential elections were held the beginning of November in the US, so five months more of publicity. I felt a pang of worry and pretty much ignored it. I could not fail in protecting her. I wouldn’t allow a failure.

Muriel grinned at me when I paid for the papers. I tried not to shudder at the sight of her teeth. “There you go, luv,” she said, holding out a stained hand with my change.

I got a look at that grimy hand and decided she needed the change more than I needed to contract a contagion. “Keep it.” I looked into her oddly beautiful green eyes and nodded once. “I’ll be getting all these US papers regular from now on if you want to have them ready,” I offered.

“Oh, you’re a darling, you are. I’ll have ‘em. G’day to ye, handsome.” She winked at me and showed a bit more of those horrifying teeth. I tried not to look too close, but I think Muriel could compete with me on beard stubble. Poor thing.

When I got into my office I started on the intel in earnest. I listened to the message of the man who’d called Brynne. I played it several times. American, very matter of fact, non-confrontational, nothing revealed in his inquiry gave anything away about what he might know. “Hi there. This is Greg Denton from The Washington Review. I’m trying to find a Brynne Bennett who attended Union Bay High School, San Francisco…”

His message was short and utilitarian, and he left his information for a call back. The history showed he’d only rang her the one time so there was a very good chance he didn’t know much, or if Brynne was even the right person he was attempting to contact.

I briefed Frances without giving away specific details, told her to look into this Greg Denton at The Washington Review and also to see what else she could scrub up in the newspapers I’d bought this morning.

I was just sitting back down, eyeballing my desk drawer where the smokes were stashed when Neil came in.

“You seem rather…human…this morning, mate.” He sat in the chair and looked me over, a bit of a smirk going on his square jaw.

“Don’t say it,” I warned.

“A’right.” He pulled out his mobile and looked busy with it. “I won’t say I know who stayed over last night. And I definitely won’t say I saw you two snogging while waiting for the lift this morning on security cam—”

“Piss off!”

Neil laughed at me. “Hell, the office is thrilled, mate. We can all breathe again without fear of disembowelment. The boss got his girl back. Praise the gods!” He looked upward and held his hands up. “It’s been a fucked-up couple of weeks—”