Read The Savage Dead for Free Online

time. The whole world, for a moment, was forgotten. All that mattered was this moment . . . and at the moment, life was pretty damned good.
    Playfully, she bit at his nipple, giggling as he convulsed.
    “Hey!” he said.
    “That was very nice,” she said.
    He laughed again. He ran a hand through his hair, both surprised and proud of himself that he had worked up such a sweat.
    “Very nice, indeed,” he said.
    “You liked being with me?” she said.
    He turned toward her, brows furrowed. Those eyes that had thrilled him so were now looking at him for approbation, and not for the first time that evening he felt everything that made him a man melt into a puddle of goo. She was simply amazing. Absolutely and unequivocally divine.
    “God, yes,” he said, the hammering in his chest finally subsiding. “You were so nice. So very nice.”
    “You made me feel good,” she said, and once again she cuddled against his chest, contented as a napping cat.
    He didn’t speak. This was a moment of victory. It didn’t need any words, just his fingertips lightly dusting over her olive skin.
    She smiled and closed her eyes with a sigh.
    He was still running his fingertips over her hip when “Here Comes the Sun” started playing on his iPhone.
    Monica looked up. “What is that?”
    “That’s the senator,” he said.
    “You have ‘Here Comes the Sun’ as her ring tone?”
    “Long story,” he said. Actually, it wasn’t all that long of a story. She’d told him once that she’d been moved to tears watching the Clintons onstage as they’d learned he’d won the presidency, Fleetwood Mac’s “Don’t Stop” playing over the PA, and how she’d confided in him that she wanted “Here Comes the Sun,” the Richie Havens version, for her magic moment. He’d changed his ring tone that very night.
    “Here, let me up,” he said, pulling his arm free from under her.
    He went over to his pants and fished out his phone.
    “Jesus, Paul,” Sutton said, not even waiting for him to say hello. “What are you doing?”
    Paul looked back at Monica. She had rolled over onto her stomach, slender legs in the air, crossing and recrossing as she watched him. She put her lower lip between her teeth. A come on over here and fuck me smile was on her face.
    “I . . . uh, I . . . well . . .”
    “Damn it, Paul. I need you here. I’m at the Colson. Finally got Wayne to bed, the drunken bastard. But now I’ve got CNN calling me. They want a press conference. Where are you?”
    “Okay, okay,” he said, trying to marshal his thoughts. “Hold on a sec.”
    He held the phone in front of him and scanned through the missed calls. Shit, he thought. A ton of them. He’d silenced everything but Senator Sutton’s ring tone right before he got in the elevator with Monica, but he could see now that he’d missed calls from all the major news outlets. Christ, even Fox wanted to talk to him.
    What in the hell was wrong with him? Any idiot should have seen this coming.
    “Paul?” Sutton said.
    “I’m here,” he said, putting the phone back to his ear. He went into scramble mode, and suddenly, his mind cleared. This was where he lived, where he was in his element.
    Okay, he thought, Sutton’s at her apartment in the Colson. She wouldn’t want to move. And besides, bringing the press to her would put things on her terms. She would be the one calling on them, not them ambushing her. And with a dozen or so of them together, none of them would be able to dig too deeply. It would be perfect for the kind of sound bites the press, and the American public for that matter, had come to love Senator Rachel Sutton for.
    “You should stay there,” he said. “Let’s use your office for the press conference.”
    “Well, of course, we’re going to use my office,” she said. “I’m not going back to that hotel, not through those crowds.”
    “Of course not,” he said. He was nodding to himself. This was already coming together. “Listen, just stay