Adams choked with fury, the harsh sounds of his anger and his fight to breathe filled the room for long seconds before Jared loosened his hold enough to allow him to take a breath.
“You understand me, Adams?” he repeated the question, keeping his voice soft, deadly.
“He’ll find out,” Adams gasped. “She won’t get away with it.”
Jared smiled tightly. “As long as she remains a virgin, she can get away with whatever the hell she wants to, right?” He tightened his hold as Adams struggled vainly for release. “Answer me, boy, before I break your neck now.”
“Yes,” Adams hissed.
“Exactly.” Jared loosed the grip on his neck further. “But whether she does or not, you’re not going to be spreading any tales are you, pissant? You want to know why? Because you know who I am. You know what I can do. And you know I will kill you. Don’t you, Adams?”
“Yes.” Raw helpless rage echoed in the voice.
“Good boy,” Jared commended him mockingly. “Now, you make sure you remember this little lesson, because I would sure hate to have to spill blood in my house. My housekeeper gets real testy when she has to clean up the mess. We wouldn’t want that, would we?”
Jared released him slowly, watching with narrowed eyes as Adams tore out away from him. The smaller man turned back, his eyes flashing with anger.
“Do you think the Senator doesn’t know what she is?” Adams snarled. “Do you think he won’t have her checked first thing after this assignment?”
Jared stilled the need to kill the other man. Hiding the body would be a pure pain anyway.
“Won’t matter,” he finally said, his voice chillingly cold. “She’ll be a virgin. He won’t win and neither will you. I’ll make certain of it. Now get the hell out of my office before I lose my control and show you just how far you’re pushing me right now.”
He evidently didn’t have to give a second warning. Adams shot out of the room, the curse that fell from his lips echoing in the room behind him.
“Get fucked.”
Jared sighed wearily. If only…
Chapter Eleven
Kimberly admitted she had little experience with the male of the species. And she had even less experience with this relationship deal that Jared seemed to want. She felt unprepared for him, inadequate in the face of the experience she was beginning to suspect he had.
She had merely played at The Club. A visit every three months, a quick tumble across whatever table was handy and off she would go. There had been no emotional attachment, no sentiment. And she hadn’t wanted any, couldn’t afford any.
But she was learning that Jared intended to play the game by a whole other set of rules. The truly frightening part was the fact that rather than feeling intimidated or threatened by the intimacies he had warned her were coming, she was instead, excited, nervous, balanced on a laser point of uncertainty and exhilaration that should have been terrifying.
As she stepped from the shower later that evening and toweled off slowly, Kimberly admitted she was in deep trouble where Jared was concerned. But she had known for months now that he represented a danger to the goals she had kept firmly in mind for the past six years.
She had only five years left to go. Remain a virgin for five more years and she would win. She would do what no other woman in her mother’s family had been able to in five generations. She would laugh in the face of the edicts that had governed her life since adulthood and in her father’s face in particular.
Five more years.
She sighed deeply as she smoothed lotion over her body, paying particular attention to the waxed folds of her cunt and her firm breasts. Her nipples were peaked and hard, her flesh sensitized as she remembered Jared’s touch.
A small smile tipped her lips as she shook her head, drawing her hands firmly away from her body and picking up the blow dryer. The unruly mass of long, red gold curls took forever to dry. But she loved the sensuous feeling of it as it slid over her bare back and curled around her shoulders. She felt feminine, desirable. And when Jared’s fingers threaded through it, flexing and tugging at the long strands, sending shards of pleasure and intense sensuality erupting along her nerve endings like wildfire, it increased the wanton sensations.
He was a creature of sexuality, of pleasure. A grin tugged her lips at the thought. Jared would understand why it felt good to lay naked in the sun, or to swim nude in the ocean. He might not do it, man that he was, but he would understand her need to do it.
A frown tipped her brow at that thought. Why should she care if he understood? He wouldn’t be a part of her life; she couldn’t allow him to be a part of her life. Five years could be an eternity if she let her emotions for Jared get out of hand. Or it could slide by without a ripple if she kept her heart free.