Radclyffe - Word of Honor

“I never want to hurt you,” Cam murmured, her eyes black with need. She brought her hand between them and cupped Blair’s breast.

“Enough,” Blair groaned, covering Cam’s hand with hers. “I’ll bet you any amount of money Cliff is right outside that curtain.”

“I wouldn’t care except I don’t share.” Cam forced herself to step back. “Thanks for letting me know you went to Diane’s last night.”

“I just needed to vent,” Blair said, reaching for a clean T-shirt with shaking hands. She laughed unsteadily. “God, I’m a mess.” She glanced at Cam, her mouth curling into a half-smile. “What I really need is for you to fuck me.”

“I’ll make a note of it.” Cam pulled on briefs and then her jeans, never taking her eyes from Blair. “It’s mutual, by the way.”

Blair raised an eyebrow. “Which part?”

“All of it. I need you inside me right now. I want to marry you. I want our wedding to be as special as what we share.”

“Damn you, Cameron,” Blair whispered, tears brimming on her lashes. “I’m not done being pissed off yet.”

Cam brushed her thumb beneath Blair’s eye, catching her tears. “Okay.”

“Finish dressing. I don’t trust myself.” Blair grabbed Cam’s wrist and gently bit her thumb. “And your note? Mark down I want it more than once.”

Cam laughed. “Got it.”

A few minutes later, they were ready to leave. Cam gripped her gym bag and wrapped an arm around Blair’s waist, stopping her just before they left the locker room. “I may be flying out later today.”

“Until when?”

“Hopefully just tonight. Possibly until tomorrow.”

Blair searched Cam’s face. “Is it anything I need to be worried about?”

“Absolutely not. Just some routine information gathering.”

“That requires the deputy director to do it personally,” Blair said sarcastically.

“There are some things I need to do myself,” Cam replied.

“I’m being an ass.” Blair gave Cam a quick kiss. “I know you should be at a briefing right now instead of chasing down here after me—”

“I’m exactly where I want to be.” Cam took Blair’s hand. “I needed to kick a little butt to get my day off to a good start.”

Blair snorted. “Dream on.”

Cam flashed her grin. “I’ll be too busy making those notes.”

Chapter Seven

“Let me out on the far side of the park,” Dana instructed the cabbie as she extracted money from her wallet.

The taciturn driver swerved to the curb and she handed him a handful of bills. “Got a receipt?”

Wordlessly, he tore off a blank square from a coffee-stained pad and handed it through the divide between the front and rear seats. She pocketed it, grabbed her duffel, and stepped out into a cold misty rain a little before eight a.m. Hunching her shoulders in her too light nylon windbreaker, she hiked to the corner, dodging early morning pedestrians, and stopped on the corner to study Blair Powell’s apartment building across the way. She’d spent most of the previous evening scouring online sources for information on her new subject. She never undertook any assignment without doing the background work herself. A lot of reporters used assistants to prepare profiles and gather data, or didn’t bother at all, but she did the legwork. She never knew what little nugget of information might spark a story, and she trusted her instincts more than anyone else’s. If she was going to spend the next ten days with the first daughter of the United States, she wasn’t going to be writing about Blair Powell’s fashion sense. She was going to write about what she had discovered was surprisingly absent in the media. An in-depth look at the woman behind the glamorous façade. Thumbnail sketches abounded—wealthy only child, glamorous and sophisticated first daughter, notorious bad girl. All too easy and all supported only by superficial glimpses, as fleeting as a reflection in the surface of a fast-running stream.

Who was Blair Powell? That’s what Dana planned to find out.

The apartment building was a typical New York City building— plain-faced stone façade, short green awning above double glass doors with the shadow of a doorman just inside. The exact location of the first daughter’s apartment was not public knowledge, but a quick search of the reverse directories indicated that most of the units in the building were held as corporate rentals, and she was willing to bet they were empty or used intermittently for vetted government officials and visiting dignitaries needing temporary housing in the city. She was also willing to lay money that she would never find out. She crossed to the wrought iron fence that enclosed Gramercy Park and peered through the gray drizzle into the impeccably maintained postage-stamp park. Not surprisingly, it was empty. With a practiced eye, she swept the streets looking for anything suspicious. She might be back on American soil, but the habits she’d developed in combat zones around the world were permanently ingrained. Never take anything for granted and always question the unusual.

Dana didn’t see anything she hadn’t expected to see. A news van was parked diagonally across the street from the entrance to Blair Powell’s apartment building and another down the block. Security cameras swiveled lazily above the front door and high up on the corners of the building. A black Suburban with dark tinted windows and a short, subtle satellite antenna bookended the van on the opposite side of the entrance. Two opposing forces—the media and those devoted to secrecy.

“It’s going to be a fun week or so,” Dana muttered as she slung the strap of her duffel over her shoulder, jammed her hands in the pockets of her black chinos, and headed off to start her new assignment.

Dana hadn’t quite reached Blair Powell’s front door when it swung open. She couldn’t make out the features of the person just inside, but she got the impression of big. When she stepped into the lobby, she saw that she was right. Tank would have been a good nickname for the clean-shaven, square-jawed man with the inscrutable dark eyes. The flesh-toned curlicue wire leading from his right ear down his neck and disappearing under the collar of his nice white dress shirt spelled Fed.

“Good morning, Ms. Barnett,” he said in a pleasant baritone. “I’m Agent Ramsey. If you’d step over to the desk for a moment, please.”

A bank of elevators made up the wall to her left, and the last one was keyed. To her right a freestanding waist-high counter stood out from the wall. Dana hefted her duffel on top and walked to the end of the desk. She preferred not to be frisked in full view of the front door. Agent Ramsey joined her, his expression still pleasant, and quickly and efficiently patted her down. He wanded her and the duffel. “Would you open the bag, please.”

“Sure.” Dana unzipped and opened the duffel to reveal her clothes neatly rolled and stacked inside.

Ramsey methodically sorted through the contents, then stepped away. “Thank you.”

While Dana secured her clothes, he murmured into a wrist unit.

“If you’ll wait here for a moment,” he said.

“Right.” Dana stared at him while he divided his attention between the front sidewalk and her.

Five minutes later, one of the two unkeyed elevators opened and an athletic woman a few years younger than Dana stepped out. Her dark collar-length hair was plainly styled and her brown eyes sharp despite the faint shadows beneath them. She approached quickly with her hand outstretched. “Morning. I am Agent Stark.”

Dana shook her hand. “Dana Barnett. I take it you know why I’m here.”

“Yes.” For a brief second, a smile flickered across the agent’s face. “I’ll let Ms. Powell know that you’ve arrived. Before you meet with her, there are some things we should review.”