Mr. President

  “What would be exquisite?” he continues.

  He squeezes the mounds and in one jerk, pins me flat against his chest.

  “You.”

  He dips his head.

  And Matt is kissing me. Hard. Almost as if punishing me for the Mark thing, for tempting him, for I don’t even know what.

  His tongue thrusts, that first thrust wet and hard and oh so good. His grip tightens on my neck, possessive. He deepens the kiss, if that’s even possible. “I thought of this mouth all weekend. And these gorgeous breasts . . .”

  He curls one hand around my breast, the other on the back of my neck.

  His hand is warm and gentle on my nape and as he fondles my breast. The touch is so wanted, all I can do is absorb the feel of that large hand teasing my nipple, breaking me apart. While the other is cupping the back of my neck as if it alone holds my spine together, keeps my body from falling, my cells locked together.

  He looks down at me and pinches my nipple and pulls me closer a little roughly, and I hold my breath—a breath that is scented with him.

  His lips curl a little, and heat charges down my body.

  I inhale sharply when he lifts his hand and runs it up my curves, looking into my eyes as he traces the contours. Flesh and blood.

  But he looks at me as if he thinks I’m made of something else.

  His fingers edge into my waistband and then into my panties as he starts gently kissing me again.

  I open my mouth and breathe, “Matt.”

  He inhales me, then starts kissing my lips again. Hot. Firm. Urgent.

  I groan and wrap my arm around his neck.

  “Matt—I didn’t think. You need to go,” I groan, pushing my tongue into his mouth, grabbing fistfuls of his silky hair. “I know that this is . . . we can’t . . . are you going to stop or am I going to have to stop you? Please don’t make me stop you. I don’t know if I can . . .” I groan.

  I not only worry that my neighbor will hear us, that a scandal will erupt, but I also don’t know how much more of him I can take before I hit the point of no return.

  Or maybe I’ve already reached that point.

  There won’t ever—ever—be a man who excites me like this one.

  He’s all I breathe, all I see, all I want as he lifts me up to the kitchen counter, and I gasp in surprise but hang onto his shoulders for support.

  He reaches under my skirt to pull down my panties. His eyes meet mine and hold them in his penetrating gaze as he takes my mouth with his and starts rubbing my folds between his fingers.

  I don’t know how to feel, how to react—my world is fragmenting, piece by piece; there is no reality, nothing but my arms around his neck, clenching, and his hot mouth, and his expert fingers, giving me what I need.

  “Matt.”

  He holds me on the kitchen counter and my knees are weak as he opens up my thighs to make more room for his fingers.

  Need burns fiery bright as he slides two inside me. Cupping my breast in his hand, caressing. Pulling his mouth free of mine to roam down my neck, to suck on a nipple. I break apart in his arms, beneath his touch and his kiss.

  Only after I come, with him saying shh, I got you against my lips, do I seem to return to earth.

  I stand on shaky legs, and he grabs my hips and rests his forehead on mine. His eyes are lit up with heat and devilish mischief, melting me a little more—if that’s even possible.

  My voice comes out breathy. “Wow.” I lift my hand and set it on his jaw, stroking him with a tenderness I’m not sure I’ve ever shown him. “It never feels like enough. I keep craving more of you.”

  He turns his head, placing a soft kiss on the inside of my palm. Voice thicker and more textured than ever, he says, “We’re not done yet.”

  He gingerly kisses the inside of my wrist as he draws my hand to curl it around the back of his beck.

  As he brings me flush, he ducks his head and kisses me goodnight. The kiss slow and languorous, an underlying hunger in every thrust of his tongue. I’m trembling, weak from my orgasm, as he’s whispering, “I’ll see you tomorrow, beautiful,” and he pecks my lips, slowly, almost as if in gratitude, and he’s gone, telling me before he exits, “Lock up.”

  The next morning, I’m flushed as I dress for work, anticipating the moment when I see him.

  When the hectic pace of our campaign catches up with me and Matt spends all morning running, I almost think I made it up, it didn’t happen, all the things he said, all the ways we keep sinking deeper, but my mouth feels that last lick of his lips on mine.

  And when Matt finally gets into headquarters and looks at me, the look in his beautiful dark eyes keeps reminding me that it definitely happened, and that he means for it to happen again.

  26

  NEVER ENOUGH OF YOU

  Matt

  I can’t seem to get enough of her. I’ve been biting, nibbling, kissing her, sucking her . . .

  We’re in the shower and I’ve got her stripped to a camisole and flimsy white underwear.

  I shift the showerhead and aim it toward Charlotte, then watch the water slide down her curves.

  I take in the pink, hard little peaks of her nipples against her top. The cotton clinging to her wet body. My eyes trail downward, to the lace of her panties and her pussy visible through the wet cloth. My eyes rise, slowly, to her face, and her tongue darts out, her eyes wide with concern. There’s more than concern there. There’s yearning, and a little recklessness.

  “Matt?”

  My throat feels thick as I reach up to touch her cheek with my thumb, trailing it down her jaw as I lean toward her ear. “Yeah?” I say, looking into her eyes, then at her sweet mouth.

  The mouth I want beneath mine again. Here, there’s no reason for me not to take it, devour its softness until she gasps. I inch down and slide my arms around her waist, pulling her closer, then I brush her wet mouth with my lips.

  I’m using her. I can’t use her like this. But I can’t stop myself.

  My alarm wakes me.

  I jerk my arm out and shut it off, then pull back the covers and head to the shower stall. Ten minutes under the cold water and I still can’t cool down, counting the hours until I can get her alone again.

  “I want to see Charlotte tonight. I need your assistance again.”

  Wilson glances at me as we have coffee in my suite at The Jefferson, waiting for the rest of my team to get their asses over here.

  Wilson eyes me in silence, then drags his hand over his bald head. “What are you doing, Matt? I thought you worked this shit out of your system in college, man.”

  I shake my head. “It’s not what you think—it’s different with her.” I meet his gaze. “I want you to treat her differently. I want you to protect her as if she were me. If this shit gets out, I don’t want Hessler or Carlisle throwing her under the bus.”

  “It won’t get out. Not on my watch,” Wilson states.

  I clench my jaw and stare into my coffee and just see her. Only her.

  “I can’t not pursue her. I can’t give her up yet.” I laugh sardonically. “You probably think it’s an obsession . . . but it’s more than that. She means more than that.”

  She grounds me.

  She obsesses me.

  She fuels me.

  This woman not only makes me want to be a great man, she makes me want to be the best goddamn president that ever lived.

  She’s what I never knew I wanted and have discovered that I need.

  I know full well I’m going to have to give her up soon—but I can’t bring myself to give her up yet.

  Wilson nods. “I got your back.”

  27

  INTENSE

  Charlotte

  Before we left D.C., Matt booked us a suite at a small five-star hotel, where he had one of D.C.’s best restaurants deliver an amazing dinner. It felt like a very secret, very wonderful date with the man the country swoons over and the one that I am slowly and secretly falling for, and now each time our eye
s have met afterward, it seems like we’re both remembering that evening and the night of hot sex we shared.

  Unfortunately, the last time for a while.

  Over the past two weeks, we’ve been intensely campaigning. The race feels so real now. We’re in Matt’s suite at the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas. The work has been so consuming, we haven’t had the opportunity to enjoy any more private moments save for one—all the others have been stolen seconds that almost always happen with a room full of people.

  A kiss here.

  A brush of his fingers there.

  Hessler, a man with even less sense of humor than Carlisle, seems to have cracked his first smile in all the months that I’ve known him as he skims the most recent poll results. “Polls are giving you the lead.”

  “No time to sit back and sing a victory song just yet,” Matt says, his Starbucks in hand.

  I’ve already finished my coffee.

  When coffee fails to do the trick to keep you awake, it’s really time to switch to Red Bull.

  I’m barely awake right now.

  I’m sitting on the couch, and my head is leaning on my hand as I try to keep my eyes open. I don’t want to miss a single word from the anchors on TV, and at the same time, hearing the men’s conversation swirling around me lulls me to sleep. Since we’ve started, it’s been so many months of extensive traveling and nights like this.

  Brainstorming, planning, thinking, and, for me, wanting. Wanting him . . . so much.

  I thought that with time, it would get easier. His proximity.

  And instead it’s grown harder.

  We still have a few months of campaigning left. Odd how I yearn for it to be over so I can get over him, and at the same time, I’m so alive—I feel like I’m participating in something historical, something that will define our collective futures—I just don’t want it to end.

  “Charlotte, go get some sleep,” Matt says.

  I try to shake myself awake when I hear the command nearby.

  God. I was snoozing on the couch?

  I crack my eyes open and Matt is leaning over me, his shadow covering my whole body.

  His eyes are a swirl of bronze, and I wonder if they see right through me. His hand is a brand of its own kind, one that penetrates my skin. Like the touch of a live wire, his grip on my shoulder shoots sparks through my body. How I can possibly sit here and remain still while all this happens inside me is a mystery.

  “I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” I say, smiling halfheartedly.

  A brief smile touches his lips.

  It’s his amused smile, the one that makes his eyes a shade lighter.

  I sit upright, glad that the campaign managers are busy taking notes. Matt hands me a cup of coffee, and I know it’s his because I was the one who brought them and marked each with a felt-tip pen. His has the word Matt inscribed in my own handwriting.

  I lift his cup, and it’s still warm. He takes a seat beside me and my tiredness fades a bit.

  It’s hard not to feel the things I do for this man when we’ve traveled together for months. When I’ve seen him holding babies, dancing with old ladies; when I’ve seen him stir the crowds into a roar; and especially when I’ve seen him with his hair rumpled and a pair of reading glasses on as he skims the morning newspapers, tactically gauging the effects of the campaign we’re waging against the Republicans and the Democrats.

  Jack bounds up onto the couch between us so part of his head is on Matt and his body is fully on me.

  It’s amazing how much I’ve grown to love his dog, considering the way we met was less than stellar. Now I crave his fuzzy warmth, the lick of his warm, wet tongue on my cheeks. As I sip my coffee, Matt reaches down to pet him at the same time I do.

  Matt’s thumb traces the back of one of his dog’s ears, stroking slow and long, as I stroke the other, both of us looking down at Jack as we pet him.

  I steal a look at Matt’s profile and he looks thoughtful, a muscle working in the back of his jaw.

  I’m remembering our last time alone, a fifteen-minute tryst where he followed me to the women’s bathroom, locked us in, and kissed me like crazy as he eased his fingers into my panties. He licked his fingers afterward, and I spent all day swooning whenever he met my gaze, brought the tip of his finger to his lips, and then brought out his tongue to lick it.

  His smile after he licked it?

  His smile was sexiest of all.

  I’m thinking of all this, when his thumb moves from the back of his dog’s ear to brush over mine.

  I lift my eyes, and he smiles at me, a smile I feel everywhere, and I smile back, petting Jack more vigorously, electrified every time Matt purposely passes his hand over mine as he does the same.

  “You’re a good dog, aren’t you? Very sporty with your flea necklace,” I tell Jack, and I look up at Matt.

  The smile on his face is amused. Tender. I start flushing, and his smile starts to fade, and his gaze becomes a little dark and a whole lot intimate.

  Of course he knows his effect on me. He knows his effect on every woman, and though I know he dislikes his physical beauty to detract from the issues he wants to discuss, it doesn’t seem to bother him one bit that it has this effect on me.

  Worst of all, it’s not just his beauty. It’s his mind, his passion, his dedication, and the way he makes me feel alive, ambitious, hopeful, vital.

  I duck and focus back on Jack.

  Soon, the team starts shuffling out. I keep playing with Jack, loath to leave until I hear the last of the team head out the door and Matt speaks to Wilson, who’s just outside, standing guard.

  “Wilson, will you come in for a moment?”

  I stand to leave as Matt leads Wilson inside.

  “Stay, Charlotte.”

  I turn to him, and Matt cups my face as he looks into my eyes. “It’s been two weeks. I need to see you. I need to touch you.”

  “We’re exhausted.”

  He smiles, nodding.

  Wilson shuts the door behind him, and Matt raises his head. “Wilson, think you can get us out of here? I’d like to take Charlotte somewhere private. Not a hotel.”

  “I’m on it. Any idea where?”

  “My dad’s place.”

  Wilson lifts his brows, then nods and leaves.

  “We can’t stay here—the staff can walk in at any time,” Matt tells me.

  “Where are we going?”

  “My father had a secret getaway and we never sold it.” He heads over to grab his room key and his phones, and fifteen minutes later, we’re each leaving through a different hotel exit.

  It turns out President Law Hamilton’s getaway is in Laguna Beach. We board an aircraft that flies us from Vegas to Los Angeles, and the pilot is an old friend of Matt’s and sworn to secrecy. Matt and I fly alone in the cabin while Wilson rides with the pilot. The rest of Matt’s detail was told he needed no covering for the evening as he would be staying in. The pilot seems happy to see Matt with me. He smiles as he greets us and says farewell with a “you go, man!” expression.

  Once we land, there’s a black BMW SUV waiting at the hangar, and Matt leads me to the passenger door, then climbs behind the wheel, telling Wilson, “Take the night off. Meet us there early morning.”

  “You got it.”

  Wilson shakes Matt’s extended hand, then he peers inside and smiles at me. “You take good care of him, all right?”

  “I will,” I say, laughing.

  Wilson grins and shuts the door once Matt is settled behind the wheel.

  We drive for thirty-five miles to the beach, taking in the scenery, Matt reaching out to take my hand and bringing it to his mouth so he can brush his lips across the back of my palm. “It’s almost worth having waited to get you alone again.”

  “I almost feel odd that we’re completely alone.”

  He chuckles, then squeezes my hands and continues driving with this soft, satisfied smile on his lips, frequently bringing my hand up to kiss the back of it or lick the tips of my
fingertips.

  He pulls into the garage of a beautiful modern home sitting right at the beach.

  “I thought the Hamiltons had a home in Carmel, not Laguna.”

  “We do. This one’s my dad’s secret place. He used to come here to get away from it all, hear himself think. Now it’s mine.” He winks as he opens the car door to hop out.

  He leads me inside through the garage door and with a command, “Lights,” gets the lights to immediately turn on in the living room and kitchen.

  As I follow him inside, I’m struck by how unpresidential the home is. How normal. Modern and simple, it’s also very homey, with filled bookshelves to one side, family pictures dotting the shelves, and instead of artworks, maps from around the world decorate the walls.

  His father loved the world, like Matt does.

  “I come here sometimes. Reminds me so much of him. I come here to be close, and to get away and think.”

  Moved by his words, I follow him past what seems like the library and wander into the living room, breathlessly taking in the view.

  “This is like another monument you come to think at.”

  He laughs, then heads into the adjoining kitchen and opens some cabinets. “Nothing fresh here, but would you like some . . . canned beans? Spam?”

  “God, what is this?” I laugh, then I watch him pull out a bottle of wine.

  “Wine is good. I’m not hungry, though.”

  “You tired?” He pours two glasses, sets them aside, and opens his arms. I walk inside those arms and press my cheek to his chest. I exhale, letting loose.

  “How do you do it?” I ask him.

  “Sometimes, I don’t know.” I’m charmed by the honesty in his voice, but he also sounds confident, as if he does know, as if he has no doubt about being able to do it every day. He settles us into one of the couches, his arm still around me.

  “I sometimes think I’m going to just collapse.”

  He shifts to get us comfortable—and closer—stroking a hand down my hair. “Feel free to collapse here. You’re safe, I’ve got you.”