Dressed in a pitch-black suit and black tie, his hands—long-fingered and tan—keep shaking those of the people who walk up to greet him. The outlines of his shoulders strain against his suit jacket. He stands among the crowd, wickedly handsome, his face animated as he speaks to them about something he’s clearly impassioned about.
Our country, I know . . .
And then his eyes lift and he spots me across a sea of heads. The touches of humor around his mouth and eyes fade as our eyes lock.
The intensity of his gaze hits me like a punch. His stare is so galvanizing, it sends a tremor through me. The harder I try to hide the way I feel about him, the harder it hits me. I glance away, anywhere, really.
That’s when my eyes fall on a couple wading into the ballroom. My parents.
My eyes widen in surprise.
My mother spots me and gives a light queen-like wave in my direction. My father’s eyes are on something—someone—else.
I’m so surprised my father agreed to attend, it takes me a few blinks to make sure he’s really here. Being a Democratic senator, it’s a huge testament to his support of Matt. Huge.
As I approach to greet them, I see Matt do the same. His walk is all confidence and vitality. “Senator Wells,” he says, as he greets my father. His handshake is firm and swift, full of grace and virility.
God, his voice. How can you even miss someone’s voice?
A warmth fills my stomach when I see the genuine respect in both men’s eyes as they greet each other.
I thought perhaps my dad being here meant he was supporting me as I venture into the world of politics, where my parents had always wanted to see me. But as I watch them, I know my dad is not only supporting me—he wants Matt to win.
To realize my father finally supports Matt—to know that Matt, his campaign, his touch with the people, has won him over like his own father did all those years ago—makes my admiration and awe of Matt grow.
I’m dying to talk to him, but it’s impossible with him being the center of attention. The center of everything. I step in to greet my parents as well, and I feel Matt’s eyes on me as I do.
For some reason, he shifts his stance to stand closer to me as he’s greeted by the mayor of D.C. and his wife, and instinctively I remain where I am and let him introduce me too.
Conversation swirls around us, and all this time, I’m only aware of the low, dull throb inside me. Matt stands casually beside me, an almost imperceptible tension emanating from his body.
He takes advantage the moment he’s free from the attention of others to look at me.
“That’s quite a dress.”
The room blurs around me as I lose myself in those espresso eyes.
I want to flat out go up on my toes and kiss him, do what a girl does with a guy she loves, tell him I missed him, want him, thought of him. I want to put his hand on my body. That’s all I want. Just his hand on my body, even if it’s just a light touch.
He reaches out to press his fingers into the small of my back to guide me away from someone who wants to pass. The move puts us in view of a group of chatting men, and one of them calls out happily, “Matt!” and walks over immediately.
“Ahh, yes, Congressman Sanders.” He greets the man who approaches with a firm shake of his hand. They start chatting and in between exchanges, he glances at me for three seconds. I meet his gaze and am aware of the excited nerves going through me.
I go up on my toes and say, “I want my pin back,” before brushing past him to say hello to someone else. When I look at him minutes later, he’s smiling at something someone says as our eyes meet. His smile falters for a minute as heat steals into his eyes, but he manages to keep it in place even as he looks at me.
The look in his eyes tells me exactly what he wants to do to me, how he wants me. Every female part in me feels it. Knows it.
Matt will be fucking me senseless tonight.
35
SECRET MEETING
Charlotte
Wilson drives me to a home in Washington, D.C.
He pulls over in front of a beautiful two-story brownstone, and because the Hamiltons’ empire consists of a vast billion-dollar real estate corporation, I assume it belongs to Matt. I walk up the steps as Wilson opens the door and lets me in.
“He’s upstairs,” Wilson says.
I follow the stairs and head toward the streak of light coming out of an open door.
Across from the door, Matt looks out the window. Black pants cover his long legs, topped by a shiny black belt and a white button-down shirt with the top buttons undone, and he holds a glass of wine in his hand. He turns when he senses me—how could he not?—and slowly sets the glass aside with a clink.
I shut the door behind me, and I’m lost in the swirl of bronze in his eyes. It’s like I’m in a subspace. No thoughts or reason, only need . . . just heat and desire and him.
Shadows dance across the room, playing with the candlelight.
Matt clenches his jaw as he looks at me. His eyes glow like fire in the night and he starts walking toward me with such single-minded purpose that I do the same.
“Tomorrow, this never happened,” I say urgently.
He catches me by the ass and lifts me, my legs curling around him as our lips smash together.
A part of me wants Matt to tell me that it could work between us, that though I’m a normal girl and he’s a man in extraordinary circumstances, we could work it out. But he’s not a man you get to keep. So at the same time, I want his assurance. I know it’s impossible. I know this is all we’ve got—the few moments I’ll have alone with him when he’s just Matt. The man I’ve fallen in love with.
“You don’t get to quit me,” he says, those dark of his eyes intensifying. “You don’t get to walk away from me. Next time you do, all you’ll have to do is look behind you to find me at your heels.”
He lowers his head again, opens my lips with his, and our tongues collide.
“You can’t have it all, Matt,” I breathe into his mouth. I’m kissing him wildly now, without restraint, biting his lips a little as I fist his hair.
His eyes are heavy-lidded as he peels free and starts unbuttoning his shirt. He looks hot as heat itself, his lips red from me.
My heart lurches as he spreads open his shirt. I see an expanse of tanned, smooth skin and muscles. He shrugs off his shirt, his shoulders and biceps flexing with the move.
I’m fumbling as I quickly unzip my dress. I shrug it off and let it whisk down my legs.
He pulls off his belt and sends it away with a clatter, and before he can remove his slacks, I’m back on him and we’re kissing.
We’re kissing without restraint, wild, our hands and mouths all over each other. He groans between his wild, fierce kisses, “I can’t even find the words to describe how perfect you are.” He holds my face and kisses me, and I hold his jaw and kiss him back, then push him away and ease toward the bed.
He follows me. “I’ve missed those blue eyes. I even missed the way you scrunch your nose at me.”
I scrunch my nose.
His eyes laugh silently, and I laugh out loud, but we go sober.
I’ve missed his eyes too.
My calves hit the bed and he reaches for me, his hand curling around my waist as I grab his shoulder to brace myself.
His chest jerks with a breath, as if my touch singed him. He’s smiling as he pulls me flush to him. My torso touches his and fire streaks through my veins.
A tremor runs through my nerve endings as his fingers spread on my back. Plastered against his chest, my nipples have turned hard as rubies.
I want him to take my bra off and bare them to him.
I want him to take them in his mouth and taste them.
I want him so much, I burn for him, in my veins and my heart and between my legs.
He slips his fingers into my hair and exerts just the right amount of pressure to tug my head a little closer—even as he leans his head to mine. A muscle tics in the b
ack of his jaw as he presses his lips to my cheek, dragging them down my jaw, my neck. His breath is warm on my skin as he whispers, “Perfection.”
Before I know it, he’s worked off my panties and is pulling off my bra. Shivering when the air brushes over my skin, I lean back on the bed—naked. Letting him look at me while I look at him.
His body could be in a centerfold—and yet it’s real. It’s here, and it’s all for me.
One last time . . .
He’s over me the next instant, hungry. So hungry.
He suckles my nipple and draws my legs apart with his hand, caressing the inside of my thighs as he heads upward.
I’ve never wanted to devour another human being the way I want to devour him.
I kiss his jaw and rock my hips to coax him to touch me. He complies, first stroking his finger along the folds of my sex. I can hear a wet, slick sound as his index finger trails up and down, up and down. Then he eases the tip inside me.
“God . . . Matt.”
“Say it again. Say it again just like that,” he says, kissing his way to my other breast and taking the nipple. Sucking. Licking. Laving. Tasting.
My voice cracks. “Matt.”
He grabs my hair and keeps me in place as he drags his mouth lower, his shoulders flexing, the candlelight making love to his muscular chest as he starts kissing me between my legs. He runs his tongue along my folds and I groan, his tongue dipping inside of me.
I move urgently beneath him as he works my body into a frenzy, works me into a frenzy.
The pads of his thumbs stroke over the tips of my breasts, caressing my nipples. I groan deep in my throat again. He curses low in his throat, eases back, and strips the rest of his clothes off fast—never taking his eyes off me.
God, his cock is so thick and long, so huuuge. . .
He crawls over me and I’m panting, our eyes holding.
His fingers curl around my hip, holding me still. And then with a slow but powerful rock of his hips, Matt thrusts inside me.
I nearly come when he drives all the way in, every inch of his cock caressing every inch of my channel. I gasp, clutching my limbs around his body as my sex clings to every inch of him.
We’re not speaking. Leaving unspoken the fact that we are stealing, flat-out stealing this moment, and we both seem to want to savor it with our every sensation. Sight, sounds, touch, taste, scent.
I move with him as he drives forward purposefully. I’m writhing and twisting, kissing and touching him as much as possible even as Matt kisses and touches me. Exquisitely does what any living, breathing, red-blooded man would do with a girl like me.
My eyes hold his, cling to his, widening as I take him inside me—long, hard, pulsing with life. He won’t take his eyes off me. They’re heavy and so male, and looking at me as if I’m some living Mona Lisa, a breathing Statue of Liberty. There’s not enough air in the world to fill my lungs right now. He’s breathing just as hard.
He rocks his hips and keeps entering, watching me. My body contracts with aching need, and every time I feel him rock—so hard, so big, so close—I get wetter and wetter, absorbing everything. The soft sucking motions of his mouth on my nipples arrow down to my sex, which keeps squeezing around him.
I run my fingers up his chest and let my own mouth wander, tasting, tasting, tasting. He’s warm, sweaty, and salty. He groans and thrusts back inside, pulling my head back, watching my neck arch, and he tells me to keep making those sounds, that they’re driving him crazy.
I’m the one who’s losing my mind now. I’m loving the way he groans, looks at me, feels, tastes, as we move without control.
He drives into me again, deep and hard, his hands holding me by the hips, our hips rocking, our bodies arching, and our mouths twisting around each other.
“Are you with me? Charlotte, are you with me?”
I answer him with a whisper, just “yes” as my body thrashes in orgasm.
He presses a kiss to my earlobe, tensing his body as he comes as well.
We’re breathing hard as we turn on our sides, facing each other. He props himself on one arm. I don’t have the energy to do that. But in our eyes, we’re both communicating.
“Matt . . .”
“Hey.” He takes my chin, sober now. “Don’t think about it. We’re being careful.”
I close my eyes.
Rolling to his back, he exhales and stares at the ceiling. “When this whole campaign started, I had no idea.” He looks at me. “No idea about you, C.”
“C? Do you want me to call you M?”
“No, but I look forward to having a major hard-on the day you call me Mr. President . . .” He rolls back to his side and touches between my legs and I really can’t complain anymore.
“God, Matt . . .”
“I’m a man. I’m flesh and blood. And I want you. Have you been sent here to torture me? Sent by Jacobs or Gordon to ruin me?”
“You’re the one who’s got it in his head to be torturing me. Making me travel with you, always so close to you. What do you think it does to me? It makes my job difficult.”
“But it’s not just about me, Charlotte.” He glances at the window. “That—from the moment I decided this is what I want to do above all else. It’s not just about me.” He cups my face, some silent torture in his eyes even as he moves his finger inside me.
“I know.” I swallow, and my cheek burns under his warm palm as my hips rock involuntarily. “So take your hand away. The more I stay here, the more dangerous it becomes.”
He moves his other hand to the back of my neck, whispering as he rubs his thumb over my clit, “I will, after you kiss me. Tonight is about you.”
I close my eyes, raising my head. His breath bathes my lips. “You make me want to be the best version of myself I can ever be.” He licks my lips.
I kiss his mouth. I kiss his mouth and then roll him over and drag myself down his length. Lower. And lower. Kissing a path down the line of silky dark hair that travels down his chest, the smooth skin above his navel, and then down to the thickening mat of hair that leads to his cock. I take him in my hands. Full. Thick. The crown of his cock swollen to the max and dripping with desire for me.
I lick the drop.
Matt is watching me, a predatory look in his eyes as he cups the back of my head and tugs me closer—closer to his cock, until I grip the base with my hands and take him into my mouth.
36
MORNING
Charlotte
I slip into a comfortable gray sweatshirt that belongs to Matt as we have coffee very early the next morning. I’m curled up on the couch while Matt stands by the window, one hand holding his coffee as he stares thoughtfully outside. He wears only pants, and I can see a streak of nail marks down the back of muscled arms.
Did I do that?
“Are we still set to leave for the last campaign stretch on Monday?” I hear myself ask.
He turns to me then, his expression thoughtful. “All set.” He pauses, his voice gruffer. “Do you realize how difficult it is to give the last of the campaign my all when I know that if I win, I lose you?”
“You’d run again. If you lost.”
He clenches his jaw.
I quickly blink back the tears and strengthen my voice.
“Matt, I was on the sidelines for months, looking at a thousand and one strangers, and I realize we all have something in common. You. You’re like a part of this country’s history. You represent a painful moment, and the strength to go on and thrive. You inspire people just by being who you are. Matt.”
I walk over to him, and he sets his coffee mug aside. He takes my hand and lifts it to his lips, kissing my fingertips. “In so many ways I ran for you.”
“What?” I laugh incredulously.
“Thinking you and people like you are out there. Deserving more.”
“Then give us more.”
His gaze slides to the window, face etched with thought. “How much more is enough? How many monsters will
need to be slayed? How many dissident voices will need to be quieted?”
“I don’t know, but you’ll figure it out along the way.”
Matt clenches his jaw and lowers our hands, squeezing my fingers.
“Matt, if anyone is worthy of anything, it’s you. If anyone is worthy of leading our country, it’s you. Who do you want it to be? Thompson? Jacobs?”
“God, no, fuck, no.”
He turns to me, and I meet his gaze head-on, knowing this is goodbye. Knowing this is the last morning I let myself wake with him, and seeing in his eyes that he knows it too—even if he doesn’t like it.
I inhale shakily. “You’re two points away from the lead. Go out there and get it, Matt. Because you know what? I won’t be helping you next year.” I scowl then and push at his chest as if he’d bullied me into saying it.
He laughs then, grabbing my wrist and drawing me against the flat planes of his chest as he looks at me. “What’ll you be doing then? Next year?”
He watches his hand as he strokes his fingertips along my cheek, making me breathless. I swallow. “In a year? I’ll be living the American dream, because you’ll be my president.”
He clenches his jaw and whispers, “Come here,” wrapping both his arms tightly around me as he lowers his head.
“You cannot kiss me again, not anymore,” I halfheartedly protest.
But as I speak I go up on tiptoes and let him kiss me, slow, a goodbye kiss. I tremble when I think of it being the last time I feel his lips on mine.
“Are you crying?” His voice is a murmur.
I blink back the tears proudly, but he’s faster than I am and wipes them away.
“Charlotte . . .” His voice seems both surprised and protective. His eyes darken as he looks at me and he strokes a hand down the back of my head. “Fuck me, this isn’t goodbye. I could lose. I could fucking lose.”