Chapter 5
A year and a half ago. Pittsburgh. Thanksgiving
Abigail is getting dressed at an unhurried pace despite not having all the time in the world — the flight from Washington to Pittsburgh leaves at ten, and Marcus is already in the shower, which means she has approximately twelve minutes before he starts calling her name from the hallway in that voice of his, the voice of a man who is never late for anything.
Twelve minutes is enough, because Abigail has known what she's going to wear for three days.
The harness has been sitting in the bottom drawer on her side of the closet for weeks, tucked under two sweaters she never wears anymore.
It's there because Abigail only brings it along from time to time — not because she doesn't enjoy using it, but because she knows how much Eleanor loves it when she does, and she's not about to give her that on demand.
She uses it when she decides to, and today is one of those days.
She puts it on while her husband is in the shower.
She adjusts the straps snug against her hips, then pulls on the black pants — the ones with the perfect drape and enough fabric to hide everything once she slips the silicone on in her parents' bathroom as soon as they arrive.
She tucks in a white button-down and shrugs on the blazer before checking herself in the mirror and smiling with quiet satisfaction.
The harness waistband over her own underwear is invisible, and it'll stay that way even after she's fully equipped — though she'll make sure at least one person knows.
Carol has been cooking since eight in the morning by the time Abigail arrives with her husband, and when they walk through the door the smell hits her so well that Abigail breathes it in with pleasure.
Marcus rushes straight to the bathroom while she listens carefully for the voice she's been looking for somewhere in the house.
"Sweetheart," Richard says when Abigail steps into the kitchen.
"Hey, Dad," she answers, pulling him into a hug she lets herself hold for a few seconds.
She does the same with Carol, who steps away from the stove to greet her.
"Need any help with anything?" Abigail asks.
"I've got it all under control, don't worry," Carol says — and at that exact moment, Abigail hears the front door and the roll of a suitcase across the floor, and she knows without turning around that Eleanor has just arrived.
She stays with her back to the kitchen doorway.
She hears Daniel's voice greeting her father, who has gone out to meet them; she hears the sound of coats being hung up, and then footsteps across the hardwood.
Unmistakable — only Eleanor has that kind of elegance even when she makes noise — and then, silence.
Abigail's pulse spikes instantly. She knows Eleanor is right behind her; she can sense her outline and she can smell the floral perfume Eleanor always wears, the soft one, always the same — is it because she knows strong scents bother Abigail?
"It smells amazing, Mom," Eleanor says, in that warm tone she keeps for her mother and stepfather, which is never quite the same one she uses with Abigail.
With Abigail she's clipped when she says hello and rough-voiced when they fuck.
Carol hugs her and squeezes her tight, and it's only once she lets go that Eleanor turns.
"Abigail."
"Eleanor."
The Thanksgiving table is the biggest of the year.
Carol hauls out the extension leaf she keeps in the basement and adds it to the dining room table, giving them room for twelve — perfect for tonight's eleven: Richard and Carol, Eleanor and Daniel, Abigail and Marcus, Richard's sister with her husband and their two teenage kids, and the neighbor from across the street who's been a widower for three years and whom Carol always invites because she says she can't let anyone spend Thanksgiving alone.
Abigail is seated next to Eleanor. She didn't arrange it herself, but if Carol hadn't placed them that way, she would have found a way to end up there regardless.
She slipped away to the bathroom just before sitting down to dinner, bag in hand, with the excuse of touching up her makeup.
She didn't touch up a thing — but she did fit the strap-on she plans to use on Eleanor.
She came back out unhurried, loosened the straps slightly so it hangs alongside her thigh, firm enough to be felt against someone if she presses close, and Abigail intends to press close.
Dinner proceeds normally. Abigail talks with one of her teenage cousins who wants to study law and has a thousand questions, which she answers happily. She responds to her husband when he says something and passes the bread when it's asked for.
It's when dessert arrives that Abigail decides the moment is right.
Richard has been in charge of bringing out the plates for the pie his sister baked, and Abigail is the one who offers to pass them around as the woman slices.
She stands up and serves the people nearest to her first, including Eleanor — but when the next guest is out of comfortable reach, instead of walking around behind the table, she leans across Eleanor, making sure what she has waiting for her presses up against her shoulder.
Eleanor was about to object — to point out that the room is plenty wide enough that she doesn't need to lean on her — but when she feels something hard against her arm, her mind goes blank and she feels a double clench between her legs that leaves her breathless, because Eleanor knows that what just pressed against her is not Abigail's keys.
It's that harness, the one the attorney uses to make her completely lose her mind.
"You okay? You look flushed," Abigail says as she sits back down, a smile full of wickedness pulling at one corner of her mouth.
"Eleanor?" Carol asks, having caught what Abigail said, and noticing when she looks over that her daughter's neck has gone red.
"I'm fine," Eleanor says flatly, not lifting her eyes from her slice of pie.
Then she lets a beat pass and turns her face toward Abigail.
She holds her gaze for only a second or two — to everyone else at the table it reads as nothing, just that cool expression of hers, her usual reserve — but Abigail knows this is a different look entirely, one that only she can recognize.
This is Eleanor hungry. Eleanor restless.
Eleanor waiting for her chance to get up.
Abigail has learned a great many things about Eleanor Montgomery in the twenty years she's known her.
She knows how she breathes when she's about to come.
She knows which muscles in her neck tighten when she holds herself back.
She can tell the difference between the silence Eleanor uses as a weapon and the silence she uses as a shield.
And she knows very well what Eleanor does when she's about to lose control.
Eleanor Montgomery doesn't lose control.
It's perhaps the defining quality of both her public self and her private one — that ability to stay impenetrable under any pressure, in any setting, in front of anyone.
Abigail has watched journalists try to rattle her at press conferences and fail.
She's watched political opponents talk down to her in debates and walk away with less dignity than they'd walked in with.
She's watched powerful men try to intimidate her and end up holding the discomfort themselves while Eleanor walked out, heels echoing.
Eleanor doesn't yield, doesn't give, and never loses. Except in one room, with one person, when Abigail Lawson looks at her and gives her an order — any order.
Abigail knows this. She's known it since that night in the car twenty years ago, and she's had it confirmed in every encounter since. This afternoon, with the harness tight beneath her pants and that half-smile still resting on her face, she knows it better than she ever has.
So she waits. She finishes her slice of pie and keeps answering her cousin's questions, until Eleanor moves.
"I'm going to step upstairs for a minute," Eleanor says, not bothering to offer an excuse because she doesn't need one.
Daniel nods without looking up from his conversation with Richard. Carol is in the kitchen slicing a second pie, and everyone else simply doesn't notice, too caught up in their own conversations. Abigail notices. She waits exactly one minute before excusing herself and standing up.
She goes upstairs and sees the guest room with the door open. It's at the far end of the hallway, the one farthest from the stairs. It has a queen bed with a dark wood slat headboard, a window that looks out over the backyard, and — most importantly — a lock.
Eleanor is standing in the middle of the room when Abigail walks in and eases the door shut behind her, clicking the lock. No lights are on, only what comes through the window, but it's enough to see Eleanor's perfect features when she turns around.
Abigail walks toward her, holding her gaze as she slips off the blazer, pulls the shirt free from her pants, and undoes the buttons until the center of her torso is exposed. Eleanor swallows, her mouth dry.
"Keep going," she orders, and Abigail, eyes burning, obeys and unzips her pants.
She pulls at the straps to settle the harness just right and frees the strap-on.
"On your knees," she says — and Eleanor Montgomery, who doesn't kneel for anyone, drops to her knees without a word of protest.
Being fucked with a harness by her stepsister is Eleanor's weakness, the highest level of pleasure she reaches with sex.
It simply is what it is — knowing that it's Abigail who fills her completely, who comes while she fucks her.
Because if that's Eleanor's weakness, Abigail's is fucking her mouth before putting her on all fours.
"Open your mouth," she whispers, so turned on by the sight of Eleanor on her knees that her voice comes out unsteady.
Eleanor obeys, letting Abigail take what she wants for a few seconds while she holds her gaze.
When the attorney decides the strap-on is slick enough with Eleanor's saliva, she takes her by the chin — firmly, even though she'd rather take her by the hair, but she can't mess it up — and pulls her to her feet, then guides her to the bed.
They hold each other's eyes for a beat before Abigail gives a single small nod.
Eleanor knows what it means without being told, and Abigail has to dig deep not to come right then when Eleanor climbs onto the bed on her knees, leans forward, rests her elbows on the mattress, and wraps her hands around the headboard slats.
Abigail steps up behind her and lets herself have one second — just one — to look. To watch her offer herself like this, to watch her back rise and fall with Eleanor's quick, shallow breathing.
"Don't move," Abigail whispers, her mind blurred with want.
She pushes the dress up and drags Eleanor's underwear down to her knees with very little care, because they're never careful with each other — if they were, it might be mistaken for tenderness, and they can't afford that.
When Abigail pushes inside her, Eleanor bites down on the pillow and swallows a sound that raises every hair on the attorney's body, because the woman who speaks before cameras and microphones, in rooms packed with people, would never let a sound like that leave her lips in any other context.
It's a sound that comes from somewhere deeper than her voice, from the place where Eleanor keeps everything she can't be in front of anyone else — but can be with Abigail.
She moans again, low and muffled, and Abigail picks up the pace because she knows Eleanor's body with a precision that should unsettle her and instead feels like the only thing between them that's ever truly natural.
She knows the rhythm, the depth, when to push harder and when to hold back, and she can read everything in the tension of Eleanor's back and the sound of her breathing.
She knows what she needs at any given moment.
She's learned it in stolen fragments over twenty years, and even though they barely speak, she feels like Eleanor is the only person in the world she truly knows.
Eleanor comes with her face pressed into the pillow, her hands white-knuckled on the headboard, and a sound that dies before it becomes any real noise — a tremor in her throat while her body holds itself rigid.
Abigail doesn't stop immediately; she keeps going through Eleanor's orgasm for the few seconds she needs to reach her own, and when she does, she folds forward over Eleanor's back, closing her hands around her arms hard enough to leave nail marks, and buries her own sounds against Eleanor's shoulder.
The silence afterward is the usual one — a silence that isn't uncomfortable because they've never had the habit of filling it with words.
Eleanor stays face-down for a moment, cheek against the pillow, eyes closed, and Abigail sits on the edge of the bed and starts working the straps loose, watching her own hands shake.
Thirty seconds. Maybe forty. And Eleanor sits up, pulls her underwear back on, smooths her dress down, calculating that everything has taken barely five minutes, and runs her hands through her hair and becomes Congresswoman Montgomery again.
When she's done, she turns toward Abigail, who is still buttoning her shirt, and she waits for her to finish — because this time she doesn't want Abigail to stop her before she leaves to fix her collar, her hair, or whatever else has gone wrong, it's always something.
What Eleanor will never admit is that the gesture always raises every hair on her skin and squeezes her chest in a way that leaves her breathless, because she loves receiving that attention from Abigail, even if it's only for the sake of appearances.
"Come here," Abigail says, already watching her.
Eleanor steps in front of her while the attorney finishes tucking her shirt in.
This time it isn't her hair or the collar of a shirt she isn't wearing — this time it's the chain Eleanor wears around her neck, which has slipped over her shoulder instead of hanging straight. Abigail sets it right, letting her finger graze Eleanor's chest before drawing back.
"There," she says, and Eleanor turns and walks out of the room.