Knights and Kink Romance Boxed Set by Jill Elaine Hughes Page A

could get another word out, Rodney hung
up.
    This was really irritating. Here I was, potentially
putting my entire career on the line for a crazy undercover job
working for a man I only knew because I had out-of-this-world sex
with him last night—and I didn’t even know what that crazy
undercover job entailed. I had priceless Chinese antiques shoved up
my genitals, and I was fighting to control myself while those
priceless Chinese antiques sent my body out into the far reaches of
the sexual solar system. My surely very angry boss had just been
busted out of jail by a sleazy tabloid publisher and was probably
waiting in his office to kill me with his bare hands.
    And to top it all off, I wasn’t wearing any
underwear.
    Had I completely lost my mind?
     
     
    Chapter
8
    Senator Grayle sat across from me behind his massive
teak desk, his bushy gray brows knitting. “I don’t suppose you got
any bright ideas that might get the goddamn media off my back,
Jasmine. I swear, I think I’m up shit creek with this one.”
    I coughed to keep from laughing. “It is a
very—difficult situation, sir.”
    Senator Grayle took a glass paperweight shaped like
a stalk of wheat off his desk and tossed it from hand to hand. “I
hope you don’t think I’m some kind of pervert after what’s
happened, Jasmine. Because I ain’t. I’m still a decent, stand-up
North Dakota fella.”
    “Of course you are, sir.” I crossed my legs, and
chimes rang out.
    Senator Grayle looked up, startled. “What the hell
was that? Where’s that ringing noise coming from?”
    I gave him a blank look. “What ringing noise, sir?”
I uncrossed my legs, and the chimes rang again.
    “ That ringing noise. You didn’t hear that?”
Senator Grayle picked a paperclip out of a tray on his desk, and
began to unfold it.
    “No sir, I didn’t hear anything.” I clamped down on
my vaginal muscles with a vengeance.I couldn’t have any Chinese
funny business going on in Senator Grayle’s office. No way.
    “My ears must be ringing,” the senator drawled. “I
swear, the noise going on in that jail was so loud last night, it
near to split my eardrums. People were yelling and carrying on in
there like it was some kind of madhouse.”
    “I’m sorry to hear that, sir,” I said. “But you’re
out of jail now, so it’s time to start damage control with the
press. I’ve already written up a list of talking points—“
    Senator Grayle cut me off. “I don’t want to hear
about any phoney-baloney talking points right now. First things
first. Jasmine, I am not gay.”
    I coughed again. “I never said you were, sir.”
    “Maybe not, but everyone in the goddamn media is
saying that I am. My wife even ran out on me because of it. We need
to do something about that, pronto.”
    “You do realize, sir, that you were caught in a
rather—ahem— unsavory position in Rock Creek Park the other
night. Some people were bound to draw certain. . .conclusions.”
    Senator Grayle pursed his lips and looked at the
floor.He tugged on his tie, which was printed with tiny drawings of
bison and wheat stalks—two symbols of North Dakota. The lines on
his face had deepened since I’d seen him last; it seemed he had
aged ten years in the past two days. “My career’s over, Jasmine.
You know it, I know it. Let’s just try to bow out gracefully, shall
we?”
    My heart sank. I knew this was the inevitable
conclusion of Senator Grayle’s latest gaffe, but I hadn’t expected
that admission to come direct from him. Maybe that meant I wouldn’t
have to betray him—or Rebecca—after all. “If that’s really what you
want, sir. Does that mean you’ll be dropping out of the
election?”
    Senator Grayle picked at his cuticles. “Naw.
Election’s only a month away, we’ve got way too much invested in it
to drop out now. We’ll just lose, is all. That’ll be it.”
    My boss looked sad and defeated. He picked up his
coffee cup, swirled around the dregs inside it, set it back