After pulling a t-shirt over my swimsuit, I placed a bottle of water on the table for each of us. We sat down.

Mack barely glanced at me before turning to Brack. "There's been no change. I've run extensive computer searches on all her friends. Nothing out of the ordinary pops up. We know he's close to someone connected to her inner circle and-"

I cut him off. "I'm right here, you know? I'm a person and you're talking about me."

His eyes flashed to mine and his cheeks went pink. "Sorry."

"Go on," Brack said to Mack as he cast an irritated look my way.

"The senator-" Mack looked at me. "Your father is not making things easy." His gaze returned to Brack. "I need you to call and talk him down."

Brack didn't blink. "Sure. What else?"

Sure. What the fuck? No one talked my father down when he was on a roll. I couldn't believe Mack and Brack thought it would be so easy. I held back a giggle over their rhyming names. I'd save that for a time I needed a good insult.

"We're monitoring her-" now he looked back at me. "- your apartment twenty-four-seven. We're even keeping an eye on your internet connection in case he hacks in. Finding you at the hospital was easy. There were too many people who knew who you were and where you were transferred."

The flowers really freaked me out, but I wasn't telling them that. "What makes you so sure he couldn't find me here?"

Brack spoke before Mack could. "The three of us, at this table, are the only people who know you're here."

"What makes you so sure he couldn't trace you or Mack?"

Brack answered my question patiently. "We only handle high-profile cases. We keep our business off the internet and out of the media. That's what we're paid for."

They weren't telling me something. "What about my cell phone numbers? I changed them. How did he get the new numbers? The second time I changed it, I only gave it to my father."

I received another one of Brack's long indecipherable looks before he answered. "Mack discovered two cameras and microphones at your apartment."

"What?" I jumped up from the table. I forgot Mack was even in the room. "This creep was recording me?"

"Yes, and we have no idea how long."

I was too shocked to say anything. I plopped back into my seat and covered my face with my hands. It had been over two months since the last time I had sex at my apartment. We'd never made it into the bedroom. "What rooms were the cameras in?"

Mack answered, "The living room and your bedroom."

There was nothing funny about this situation, but I laughed. Lifting my head, I immediately saw the concern on Brack's face. "Don't fucking look at me that way," I snapped.

He grimaced. "It's called sympathy. No one likes having their privacy invaded. And, everyone wants to feel safe in their home."

"I'm not safe. This guy has been one step behind me for a year. Hell, he could have videotaped me longer than that. I'm surprised my sex tapes haven't been all over the internet."

Brack shook his head. "He's obsessed with you. If he showed them, the cameras would have been found long ago."

"Well hell. I feel so much better thinking about his masturbating to my sex files. He must know the cameras were found." My voice rose, "What's to stop him from broadcasting them now?"

Brack didn't blink. "Nothing."

"My father will be ruined." He'd worked so hard to have a sterling reputation. I worked hard to keep my private life private. This would destroy him.

"The senator will survive. You're not the first debutante something like this happened to."

I saw red. "What the hell did you just call me?"

Mack stood and interrupted Brack's reply. "I need to be going. Send me a list of supplies you'll need at the end of the week. I'm glad you're feeling better, Miss Stradmore. Please call your father when you have a chance." You would think Mack's ass was on fire by how quickly he headed outside and to his boat.

Brack held up his hands in surrender. "I take it debutante is a bad word?"

"Yeah, you could call it that." I stood up and stepped closer to his chair. "Parading young girls so they can find an appropriate husband should have gone out in the eighteen hundreds. I couldn't care less about parties or proms or anything that requires me to wear a formal dress." Well, not since I was six and imagined myself in a princess dress swirling around the ballroom with my dad.

Brack's smirk returned. "You're right. Those little half-ass tennis skirts are more your style."

He was such a jerk. He sat a foot away from the table, slightly tilted back in his chair with his long legs relaxed. Before he knew what I planned, I straddled his lap and the chair made a jolt as the front two legs touched the floor. I placed my arms around his shoulders and grabbed the hair at the back of his neck. His eyes stared intently into mine.

We sat that way for several minutes. His delicious, spicy scent filled my lungs and from the flare of his nostrils I guessed he enjoyed my scent too. I drowned in his eyesgreen ocean in one and blue sky for as far as you could see in the other. My nipples ached to be touched and hardened in anticipation. Slowly his cock responded. A wet tide dampened my bikini bottoms. I wanted this man so badly. "You want to fuck me," I finally murmured.

He reached behind his neck and grasped my hands. He brought them forward and held me still. "I told you, I don't always get what I want. It's not the right time. You're a job and you need to stay that way."

"After we fuck, I'll still be a job. Nothing will change. I need this." I reinforced my words by rubbing against his hard-on.

"No."

I wouldn't beg. I could see from the stubborn set to his jaw that it wouldn't get me anywhere. "Fine, let go of me." I twisted my hands from his and extricated myself. I walked over to the containers that Mack delivered. One sat on the floor and one up on the cabinet. "If you don't mind, I'll take care of it myself. And if you do mind, well, fuck you." I opened the first container and pulled out a cardboard box filled with vegetables. I set it to the side. There were more eggs, a few other kitchen supplies, and disposable razors along with a box that had a red Ray-Ban logo. That irritated me, but I bent to the other container. Filled with ice, it held bacon, steaks, and other assorted perishable foods. I went back to the vegetable container.

"We should probably talk about this."

I looked up. Brack had moved and now stood close to me. "Don't you dare tell me you didn't order me a vibrator. Don't you fucking dare." I pushed a few items aside and searched around on the bottom. Nothing. "I. Will. Kill. You."

The asshole smirked. "No, you'll improvise."

He had to be kidding. "Improvise?"

"There is every shape vegetable on the planet in there. One of them will surely do."

No. I did not hear him correctly. I looked closer at the box of vegetables. Several were phallic shaped. He wouldn't.

Ever so slowly, I turned so I faced him. My hands found one of the vegetables in question. Brack stupidly held his ground. The satisfying thunk when it hit his chest did nothing to alleviate my anger. I chucked the next one at his face. When he raised his arms to block it, I threw another.

"Stop," he said as he backed up a step.

Nothing on earth could possibly stop me. Brack danced around warding phallic projectiles as I unleashed one after the other. "I hate you. If you think for one second you're going into that bathroom again to masturbate, think again. I'll block the door closed and light this damn place on fire while you're inside. Peeing in the ocean would be your safest bet from here on out." When the vegetables were gone, I bent over and grabbed a steak.

Brack caught my arm before I could throw it. I dropped the steak while managing to fling my head to the side and connect with his mouth. He said I hadn't fought with everything I had the day before. Well, that changed. I screamed like a banshee. And when he tried grabbing my shoulder, I kicked out. I missed his knee, but connected with his shin.

"Son of a bitch," he yelled.

"You're the son of a bitch," I yelled louder.

He made another grab for me and I lost my footing, going down hard on my bad hip. It hurt, but my anger clouded the pain. Brack tried to pin me, so I rolled and kicked out again with my feet. He backed off.

He was breathing heavily. "Are you okay?" Deep satisfaction came over me when he wiped blood from his lip.

"Hell no I'm not okay. I truly hate you." This was just too much. My life was too much. My unused pussy was too much. The damn stalker was too much. I curled into a tight ball and cried.