But really, it’s that I know what’s on underneath — or maybe what’s not — that has me gritting my teeth and thinking all manner of dirty, dirty sinful thoughts about her and that four post bed beside us.
The beast inside of me roars as I take a step towards her, and before I can stop myself, my hand is on her hip, sliding around and pulling her towards me. She gasps, and those big green eyes go wide, but she doesn’t stop me. She doesn’t stop me as I slowly pull her against me, or when my other hand slides up to cup her jaw, tilting her head up to mine.
“We-” She swallows thickly, blinking rapidly at me as the pink flush creeps up her neck. “We should go,” she whispers.
And just like that, the spell and the momentary insanity is broken, and I quickly drop my hands and move away from her, blinking in the reality of the moment.
“Yeah, yep.” I nod quickly, frowning as I jerk my wrist up and glance at my watch. “Yeah, lets go.”
7.
The tent is gorgeous, all lit up like a crystal ball sitting on the lawn of the White House. It’s surreal to say that, and truth be told, I don’t think it's ever going to not be surreal saying that. The White House; I live at the White House.
Hunter was grumbling about security stuff earlier, but after the close call — the encounter — in my room, he’s silent as he leads me out the side door and across the lawn to the tent.
I want to forget what just happened; a lapse in judgment, another moment of temporary insanity where I let him get too close and let myself be taken in again. But it’s hard. It’s impossible, actually, because he’s there, physically, right next to me the whole night.
I’m trying to forget it, and trying to pretend the lingering feeling of his hand on my hip, his lips so close to mine for one brief second, the heat of him surrounding me, isn’t everything I’m thinking about as I smile for reporters, and Congressmen, and Senators. But it’s impossible.
It’s his touch on my arm for half a second as he leads me. It’s his voice in my ear when we move from the house to the lawn tent. It’s his hand at the small of my back, helping me through the crowd and into the glittering lights of the tent past the throngs of people there to smile and shake my hand.
And it's how damn wet I am, and how it won’t go away. From that moment in my room, to the silent walk through the house, to the move across the lawn to the tent. Even as he sits me at the banquet table at the front of the room, I’m utterly, completely, and hopelessly turned on.
And it’s because of him. I want to deny it; I mean I really want to deny it, but there’s no avoiding the wicked thoughts going through my head or the raw heat between my legs.
You’re sick, or feverish or something. You should go lie down.
Except the thought is immediately followed by who exactly would be taking me back to my room, and back to my bed, and the heat immediately flashes in my face.
It’s like this horrible thing, and I want to ignore it or push it away but there’s no ignoring this. There’s no escaping the effect this man has on me; an effect no one else has ever had over me.
I can still picture him that night, the way he moved me, the way he invaded every facet of me, and the way he dominated me. I feel my face burn as I bite my lip at the memory. He was both nothing and everything I was looking for there in that dark room, if I even know what it was I was looking for that crazy night. Meaningless, casual fun sex, I guess. One night of freedom before everything changed; one night of escape before there was no escape.
Except no sex I’ve ever had had been like that. No one had ever talked to me like that, and moved me like that, or made me feel like that, and that’s the worst part. I want the memory of that night to be average, or fine, not fucking mind-blowing.
The situation we’re in is bad enough, and horribly scandalous as it is, without also having to remember that time with him as, by far and away, the most memorable, powerful sex I’ve ever had. The way he growled, the way he demanded, the way he held me down and fucked me like I’d never been fucked before.
I can feel the heat in my cheeks creep down my neck, and over my chest in that embarrassingly splotchy way I know I get. And then I realize I’m staring right at him, and what’s worse, he’s looking right at me, and grinning, like he’s reading my thoughts; like he knows exactly what dirty little thoughts were just roaring through my head.
Yeah it's thoughts like that make it so I can barely talk straight all night. It’s why I only barely manage to get through a conversation with Angela, Vice President Reed’s wife who’s sitting next to me at the dinner, with no recollection of what we even discussed. It’s why I’m barely cognizant of walking around the room later, smiling and dishing out the canned “Oh, I’m here to explore opportunities in Washington the semester” response to the CNN correspondent asking me why I’m not still in Chicago getting my law degree.