Chapter Twenty-Four #2
“We do,” she said, feeling and sounding breathless. He was the only man who’d ever made her breathless. “Soon.”
“So what you’re saying is we need to be quick?” As he spoke, he continued to move against her, making her crazier with each thrust of his hard cock against her sensitive flesh.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“I can do quick.” He slid into her, giving her all of him in one deep thrust that made her cry out from the shock and the thrill.
One thrust was nearly enough to make her come, and that had certainly never happened with anyone but him.
Nick moved slowly, reverently. This was still more about comfort than it was about sex, and it was exactly what she needed.
Sam clung to him, the way she so often did when the life she had chosen got to be too much for her.
He held her tight against him and made slow, sweet love to her, giving her everything he had the way he always did. “Samantha,” he said on a gasp that told her he was waiting for her.
Her emotions were such a jumbled mess tonight that she wasn’t sure she could let go enough to come, but of course he knew that and used every trick he had to ensure a satisfying conclusion for them both.
Sam’s head spun, and her body quaked in the aftermath. How did he do that so easily? He played her like a maestro every single time. Completely spent, she had nothing left for the walk downstairs.
“Wake up, babe. We need to go down.”
“I know.”
“Now, Samantha,” he said, kissing her until her eyes popped open.
“There you are. One minute until sleep. Come on.” After withdrawing from her, he helped her up and into her robe, tying the belt around her waist before he got dressed and blew out the candles.
“I’ll go down first and ask the agent to take a break. Don’t lie down again.”
“Yes, Dad.”
His playful scowl was the last thing she saw before he disappeared down the stairs in full vice president mode to get rid of the agent in the hallway. A minute later, he called up to her. “Coast is clear, my love. Let’s go.”
Yawning her head off, Sam got up and half walked, half staggered to the stairs where he waited at the bottom for her.
“Should I be prepared to catch you?” he asked as she descended with the finesse of a drunken sailor.
“Quite possibly.”
He kept an arm around her until they were in their bedroom with the door closed.
Sam went directly to the bed and landed at an angle across the mattress.
“Samantha.”
His voice was the last thing she heard before sleep claimed her.
For a long time after Nick got Sam into bed, head on pillow and under the covers, he was awake staring at the ceiling, thinking about Alden and Aubrey and wondering what would become of them—and what had become of him and Sam and their family since the children had entered their lives just over twenty-four hours ago.
One day.
So much could happen in a day.
In his life, some of the biggest events had happened in a single day.
When he met John O’Connor at Harvard and made a friend for life in the course of an hour.
When he met John’s father, Senator Graham O’Connor, and found his life’s work.
When he met Sam and fell irrevocably in love with her—and stayed that way for six long years until he saw her again and discovered that nothing had changed after all that time.
When John was murdered, which ironically had launched him into the political spotlight—albeit reluctantly.
When he met Scotty and knew, almost instantly, that the boy was going to change his life.
When President Nelson asked him to be his new vice president.
Single days that changed his life.
Strangely enough, he’d experienced a similar tilting of the axis beneath him when he met Aubrey and Alden.
Maybe they were intended to be a short-term lesson, to remind him of his many blessings.
But he couldn’t shake the feeling that they were intended for more than the short-term, despite how things seemed to be turning out.
He’d meant what he told Sam that it was in the children’s best interest to be taken in by family members, or at least it seemed like it would be.
But he also meant it when he said he wished they could’ve kept the children with them.
They could give them a nice life, surrounded by people who would love and care for them as if they were their own.
Would the aunt and uncle do that? How well did Alden and Aubrey even know them?
A sound from the hallway had him up and out of bed, heading for the door to see what was going on. He found Elijah carrying Alden, who was sobbing uncontrollably.
“So sorry to bother you,” Elijah said. “I was hoping I could get him downstairs before he wakes Aubrey.”
“No bother,” Nick said. “Let me get the lights for you.” He went ahead of them and turned on lights.
They went into the kitchen where Elijah sat at the table with his brother still clinging to him as he cried his little heart out.
Uncertain of what he should do, Nick poured glasses of water for them and put them on the table.
Elijah sent him a grateful look before returning his attention to Alden. “Did you have a bad dream?”
Alden shook his head.
“You want to talk about it?” Elijah wiped the tears from his brother’s face with the paper napkin Nick handed him.
Alden nodded.
Nick wondered if he should leave the room, but something kept him there, afraid to move out of fear that even the slightest distraction might prevent Alden from speaking.
“What’s wrong, Alden?” Elijah asked gently. “Are you sad about Mommy and Daddy.”
“Uh-huh,” Alden said.
That was the first word Nick had heard from him since he arrived. To his knowledge, Alden hadn’t spoken to any of them.
“I… I saw them.”
Nick’s heart rate slowed to a crawl as he waited to hear what else the child would say.
“Who did you see?” Elijah asked.
“The bad men.” He buried his face in his brother’s T-shirt and began to cry again.
Electrified, Nick met Elijah’s panicked gaze.
“Let me get Sam.” Nick left the kitchen and quickly went up the stairs. He sat on Sam’s side of the bed, hating to disturb her, but who knew if Alden would be able to speak about this twice. “Sam.” He gave her a gentle shake. “Samantha.”
“Mmm, what?”
“It’s Alden. He saw something that night, and he’s talking to Elijah about it.”
Her eyes popped open. “Now?”
“Right now. In the kitchen.”
She sat up, and he moved so she could get out of bed.
“Sorry to wake you, but I thought you’d want to know.”
“Definitely.” She tightened the knot of the robe around her waist. “I need to use the bathroom, and then I’ll be down. See if you can hold him off until I get there.”
“Will do.”