moment to listen. Nothing. And for that matter, if she did hear something, stopping to listen would probably be about the most stupid thing she could possibly do. Better just to keep walking…
There it was again. Footsteps, and not hers. Of course, that was no cause for concern, even at this time of night. There were other cars in here. She didn’t expect a lot of traffic this late, but it was certainly possible.
Belinda resumed walking. The footsteps returned. Okay, that was a little creepy. She walked faster. At this point, the smartest thing she could do was get inside her car and get the doors locked. It was ridiculous to be scared, wasn’t it? She was a senator’s wife. She wasn’t that far from the Senate. Even in a city with a skyrocketing crime rate like D.C., it was absurd to think that anything could happen. She was perfectly safe. She was letting the lateness of the hour and the darkness and her imagination get to her. She was as safe as a pearl in an oyster.
She was still thinking that when she felt the hand clamp down on her mouth.
“Don’t scream!” a male voice barked into her ear. She tried to resist, but he had both arms wrapped around her, holding her immobile.
When she gave up trying to struggle, he spun her around. He was tall, thin, younger than she was. Dark, in his eyes and his hair and his…manner.
He pulled a knife from a sheath and pressed it flat against her neck. She shuddered, involuntarily recoiling from the cold blade. It was a large curved knife with a jagged edge-a bowie knife, she thought.
“I could skin you alive,” he whispered. “And I will unless you give me everything I want. Without hesitation.”
She started to speak, but he pressed the knife down harder. She felt the tip prick her neck. “Whisper,” he commanded.
She complied. “What-what do you want?” As she spoke she tried to look and listen for signs of other people. There were none. As far as she could tell, they were totally alone. “What are you going to do to me?”
“It’s not what I’m going to do to you, at least not at first. It’s what you’re going to do to me.”
“Look, my name is Belinda DeMouy. My husband is a senator. Senate Majority leader, in fact.”
“I know.”
“Are-are you some kind of terrorist?”
A thin smile curled on his lips. “Not in the way that you mean.” He removed the knife and took a step back, looking her up and down, letting his eyes linger where they would.
He poked the knife toward her blouse. “Take that off.”
“Here? I can’t do that.”
“You take it off or I’ll cut it off,” he growled.
Belinda’s throat went dry. “Look-I’ve got money. Lots of it. Plastic, if you want it. More in the car.”
“That’s not what I’m after.”
“If you’ve got some kind of…habit…I can get you what you need. Drugs, booze, anything.”
“That’s not what I want.”
Desperation crept into her voice. “What do you want?”
All at once, he grabbed the back of her hair and pulled her head back harshly. He pressed his lips against her ear. “I want your clothes off. I want your panties in my teeth. I want inside you.”
Oh, God. Oh, God God God God God.
“Now take off the damn blouse.”
Belinda trembled. His eyes were fierce and unrelenting. She knew she had no choice.
Her hands shook as she pulled the black silk blouse over her head.
“Are they real?” he asked, none too subtly.
She tried to cover her breasts with her hands. “I’ve…had some work done.”
“Thought they were pretty damn perky. Not that I mind. Take off the bra.”
“Please, no. Don’t make me.”
“Take off the bra, woman. Now!”
“No. God, God, no.”
“Then I’ll do it for you.” He pulled her hands away and then slid the tip of the knife under the right shoulder strap and cut it. He cut the other strap, letting his hand linger, pressed against her. He leered at her, then sliced the rear strap and watched the pink brassiere tumble to the concrete floor.
She tried to cover herself. He slapped her hands away.
“Are you-are you going to hurt me?”
“Depends on what you mean,” he said, pulling back her head by the hair again and burying his face under her chin, biting her and sucking on her skin. “I like it rough.”
“Oh, Goddddd…”
A second later, his hand was up her skirt. He shoved her down onto the hood of her car. He ripped her panties off in one quick violent motion.
He pressed himself on top of her. “Are you ready for it, lady? ’Cause that’s what’s going to happen now. I’m going to take you again and again, long and hard. I’m going to pound you and pound you until you just can’t stand it any longer, because it hurts but it feels good, too, ’cause you’ve never had anyone like me and you love it and you want more. You’ll beg me for it. You’ll beg me for more.”
“Oh, Goddddd…”
“Are you ready, lady?” With the tip of the knife, he drew a line up her exposed torso, drawing circles around both breasts, then moving upward and toying with her face, her lips. “Are you ready to find out what it means to have a real man?”
She was breathing so hard and heavily, she could barely speak. “Goddddd…”
“I’m going to take you now. You’re going to do everything I tell you to do, everything I want. And then next time…”
“Yes? Yes?”
“Next time,” he whispered in her ear, “next time remember to tell me where you parked before you leave the office. It took me ten minutes to find you.”
“Oh, God, yes. Oh yes. Oh, God, yes yes yes yes yes!…”
Her eyes rolled back into her head and she surrendered herself to him. She was going to come; she could feel it already building up inside her, with such speed that it frightened her. And felt so damn good.
“God, yes, Jason. God, yes. Don’t stop. Don’t stop…”
Her husband’s chief of staff, Jason Simic, always took care of her. He was very good at what he did.
11
President Franklin M. Blake sat in the Oval Office, his head resting on the historic Resolute desk, feeling nothing so much as exhaustion. The past few days had been filled with grief, coupled with a profound need to take action. The rest of the world thought he was secluded in mourning, but this office had been the site of frenzied activity, many heads working together to produce a proposed constitutional amendment in less than a week. He had been driven, and not only by the need to fulfill his duty to serve and protect this nation.
He gazed down at the framed photograph still clenched in his right hand. It was an AP shot of the two of them on the stage at Springfield the night he was elected by a sweeping majority, their outward arms raised in triumph, their inward arms wrapped around each other.
He and Emily.
What had happened since that glorious day? Of course he had been busy-he was the leader of the free world, for God’s sake. She had been busy, too. A first lady’s agenda is almost as busy as a president’s, and in many ways
