Private Politics (The Easy Part) (11 page)

“You have to say it,” he instructed.

Say it? Say what? She could scarcely remember her name. She arched her lower back and rubbed against him, trying to make an argument bodily she couldn’t possibly articulate right now. She felt him twitch, but he didn’t budge in the way that mattered: he didn’t kiss her. The guy had more patience than anyone she’d ever met and it was going to kill her.

In an exhalation more breath than voice, he urged, “Tell me what you want.”

That was all? Then he’d do it?

“Kiss me.” Her voice was husky, needy and desperate. Damn transparent voice.

Still he didn’t move. “Say my name.”

She trembled. “Liam, kiss me.”

Triumphant and relief and uncloaked hunger flashed in his eyes. Before she could untangle and name all the things in his eyes, he lowered his head.

She had imagined he would be gentle, playful and shy. In this case, surprise couldn’t have been more welcome. His mouth was soft but not even a bit hesitant as it wrapped around her lower lip. She shuddered, responding to the tremor she felt in him. He tugged at her lip and then released it. She gasped and he kissed her again. And again. Each time moving from side to side until he’d touched every part of her mouth. His tongue darted across and she opened for him without thinking.

That wasn’t true. She couldn’t stop thinking about the way he tasted, the lingering citrus and juniper from his martini. About how he smelled, like laundry and optimism. About how the feel of his hands running over her sides set off a current of need that couldn’t possibly be satisfied. At least not while they were still wearing so many clothes.

She pulled her hands around to unbutton his shirt. She got one button undone before he trapped her wrists and pinned them at her sides. She pulled against his hold, but he pressed her into the couch.

“Don’t rush me.” He almost growled the words and her body responded to his command in the stupidest way. “This has been a
long
time coming. I’m not in a hurry.”

Alyse tried to square his words with the clawing demand in her stomach. Nope. It was impossible. Now that she’d given in to wanting him, she needed him. “
I’m
in a hurry,” she whispered. “Liam, I...”

She paused and tried to find the words. When they wouldn’t materialize, she rolled herself against him again. The core of her, the part that was practically screaming for him, quavered. The friction was good, but it was so not enough. She pressed herself against him twice more, the second time in near freeze-frame.

A moan rumbled in both of them. The same moan, they were sharing it. She was going to come like a teenager making out with a boy for the first time if they kept it up.

“Babe.” He was at her neck now. The vibrations of his voice, the way his lips caught on her throat and the warmth of his mouth, were everything. “I
know
—” The way his voice broke was gratifying. She knew she wasn’t alone in her state of frenzied arousal. But then he said, “I...don’t rush me.” And that didn’t help.

Keeping her hands trapped and her body immobile, he kissed her again and again, until her hunger abated an inch. This was not enough, but it was something. At the moment, she’d settle for crumbs.

For what seemed like an ice age, they kissed. His mouth was a revelation. So wet, so delicious, so present. He pulled her into a sitting position and into his lap. Her skirt knotted around her waist and she sat straddling him. His fingers flexed on her hips and Alyse buckled slightly against him. Her eyes had adjusted to the dark. She could see all the variegation of his irises now. Could count his eyelashes or his freckles. Could appreciate his smile lines, the confidence playing on his mouth. He was pretty fucking pleased with himself.

He held her gaze as he reached up and pulled the zipper on her shirt down. Somehow the shared look ratcheted up the eroticism. Then he whipped the entire thing over her head so fast the silk snapped.

As frustrated as she felt, as badly as she wanted to be sweaty and under him right now, the reverent look in his eyes as he took in her cleavage was worth it. Now she was suspected she was the one who looked a bit smug. She’d always felt disappointing when it came to filling out a bra. Millie had a figure like a lingerie model. Alyse’s assets were much more modest. But Liam drank them in with his eyes like a runner after a marathon. She was glad she’d put on something lacy this morning.

He pushed her hair back from her face, framing her head in his hands. “I have pictured this so damn many times.”

She laughed, the sound a relief. “And?”

“You’re even more beautiful than in my fantasies.”

Beautiful was such a stupid word. Overplayed and clichéd and worn out. But when Liam said it, looking at her like that, his fingers digging into her back so hard it almost hurt, she believed.

He stood up without pausing to steel himself. She wrapped her legs around him as he carried her toward his bedroom, so grateful for the roll of his hips against her that her head lolled back a little.

But then he paused, resting her against the doorway and kissing her again until they had to gasp for air. It took a while; she might have misjudged his physical prowess—also how much the man enjoyed kissing.

As they leaned forehead-to-forehead, he said, “I...we can stop if you want.”

“Don’t you dare!”

“I can’t make love to you tonight.”

She glared at him, daring him with her eyes. He took a few steps before depositing her gently on the bed. In contradiction of his surprising declaration, he crawled over her, one hand sliding into her hair and the other brushing over her exposed stomach.

“It’s been a long time for me,” he said at last.

She hadn’t slept without anyone in more six months, not that she was going to explain that right now. All she said was, “For me too.”

“Then you know what I mean when I say I need to know you want me in the morning before I can.”

Alyse growled, actually growled, before snapping, “Jesus Christ, of course I’m going to want you in the morning.”

“I’ll make love to you then.” He leaned down and began kissing her face in a lazy circle, as if each brush of his mouth marked hours on a clock face. “But I can’t right now. I’m vulnerable here. For months I pictured exactly this. Pictured falling into bed with you knowing it was just the once. And I was okay with it. But now, I know that I can’t. I won’t. From this—” he made a motion she thought was probably supposed to represent the making out, “—we might be able to go back to being friends without permanent damage. But from that I couldn’t.”

His tone was remarkably matter of fact and the words made sense. This was all so...unconsidered. But she needed. She needed in all her soft places. He’d made her need him and now he was trying to use logic to tell her no. It wasn’t fair. She whimpered and rocked against him.

“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you.”

His hand brushed over her no-doubt soaking core. She shook from the contact. She knew what he meant but that didn’t make her any less frustrated with him.

He slid a finger inside the gusset of her panties and her objections evaporated. “Tell me yes.”

“Yes.” As if there were any other way to respond to that question?

At the word, he explored the most frustrated part of her, the part that wanted to repeat the exploration with something else. His fingers caught on the folds of her body and his thumb pressed down against her clit, until she was gasping and writhing beneath him. She clawed at his back and came in a big rush.

His hands stroked over her hair and he kissed her repeatedly, saying soft sweet things that she didn’t begin to understand until she returned to herself.

When she was finally able to look him in the eye, she asked, “And how are you? Do I need to, how did you so charmingly put it, take care of you?”

He rolled on his side, laughing at the frustration in her voice. “No. This is embarrassing, but the sight of you coming did the trick.”

A glance confirmed he was telling the truth. She glared at the ceiling.

“I know you’re pissed.” The words were so gentle Alyse felt like an idiot. “But this isn’t one night for me.”

Was that what he thought? She sat up a bit and looked down at him, scowling. “It isn’t one night for me either.” As soon as she said it, she knew it was true. This was the start of something, or maybe the middle of something that had started a while ago. It was impossible to say.

“I’ll have recovered by tomorrow,” he said.

He kissed her firmly on the forehead, then shuffled around on his nightstand for a tissue. Once he’d cleaned up, he fell onto his back. For a long time, they stayed like that. She listened to his breathing and felt her body relax, the frustration eventually leaving her frame until she draped herself across him.

He wasn’t wrong, precisely, to pause their physical relationship, but she wasn’t sure he was right either.

In a soft voice, he asked, “Do you want me to make up the couch?”

“No.” She shoved him, hard, and he tightened his arms around her.

“Good.”

A few minutes later, they showered—separately—and got ready for bed. Tucked into the crook of his body, his breath stirring her hair, she tried to turn off her thoughts as easily as he evidently had. She wasn’t sure if what had happened was a good idea, but it had become pretty damn inevitable and she hadn’t ever been good at avoiding the inevitable.

With surprising speed, she found sleep.

Chapter Eleven

Liam watched Alyse’s breath move the sheaf of hair hanging over her face. She was not a delicate sleeper. She kicked and tossed, struggled and turned. She did not like to cuddle. She took up about twice as much space as someone her size should. She also tended to take all the blankets and construct a cocoon around herself.

Somehow, none of that mattered. He thought his heart might break at the sight of her shoulder peeking out of the covers. The strap of her tank top had been pushed down in the middle of the night. The inches of skin were unmarred, an unbroken golden wave rising from the comforter. His comforter. She was sharing his bed.

He hadn’t slept much. He wasn’t accustomed to sleeping with someone and every touch jarred him awake. He would remember who he was touching, remember everything that had happened before they’d fallen asleep, and would jerk all the way awake.

A week before, he hadn’t suspected his crush would end any way other than him eventually giving up hope. Or perhaps burning itself out. Instead, she’d reversed everything he thought he knew.

He’d never allowed himself to imagine that she would want him as badly as he did her. He never dreamed that he’d be the one stomping on the brakes, that she’d beg him—okay so she didn’t beg, but still, she’d made it difficult to refuse—while he’d been the voice of reason. He’d never envisaged this.

Even now, with early morning light filtering through the shades, he was afraid to breathe too deeply, to come fully awake and to discover it had been a very wild dream.

Just then, she startled, pushed up on her forearms and shoved her hair out of her face, blinking furiously. He could see the moment when she realized where she was. When she turned and made eye contact and a smile settled into her features, he let himself sigh. It had happened and was still, for a few minutes more at least, happening.

She turned her head toward the mattress and rubbed her nose on it, as if she were trying to mark it as hers. Or maybe that was just a hopeful interpretation. Laying her head on the crook of her arm, she looked up at him. Toward the end of the night, or the beginning of the morning rather, she’d scrunched herself down in the bed. He felt like they were a long way apart even though he could feel the heat radiating off her.

For several long beats, neither spoke. The moment was pretty close to being perfect without words—why risk screwing it up?

Finally, she whispered, “Good morning.”

He wasn’t sure how Michael did it, how Parker had done it, sharing this moment with someone they didn’t care about. He’d tried to have a one-night stand in college once. He’d ended up dating the girl for eight months.

Even now, having not truly consummated a relationship with Alyse, without even being totally certain where they stood, the sheer intimacy of what they’d shared stunned him. All he could think about was sharing every morning with her until, well, basically forever. That would probably be enough to fill the longing in his chest.

“Morning.” Inadequate though it was, this was the sensible choice of words. Better than,
I
adore you.
Please stay.
Last night was the greatest night of my life
,
even if it didn’t go exactly as planned
. Yeah, “morning” was much, much more reasonable.

With the daintiest grunt he’d ever heard, Alyse sat up tailor-style. The covers pooled around her and his inner monologue nearly came tumbling out. She was so absurdly beautiful.

“How did you sleep?” he asked.

“Good. Did I beat you up? I’ve been told I’m an active sleeper.”

“Who told you that?” It was true, but he was jealous of any other man who had that knowledge.

“My cousin. We used to share a bed when we spent summers at my grandparents’ place in Maine. She always complained.”

Not another man, then. Good.

He reached out and pulled her against his chest. She went willingly and that, that, was the best feeling in the world, he was pretty sure. He still had some other scenarios he wanted to explore with her; he was open to the possibility that there might be something better, but honestly, he doubted anything could top wanting to touch her and knowing he could.

She brushed her fingers over his cheek. “Your mind just went on vacation. Did it go someplace good?”

“Do you want to talk about what this—” he gestured to their intertwined bodies, “—means?”

“Ah. Yes.” Her head dropped to his chest and her hand started to draw lazy patterns on his T-shirt. Not looking at him, she said, “I haven’t been in a relationship in a while.”

He drew his hands over her hair trying to gently untangle the mess she’d worked it into in her sleep. “Why is that?”

“There were guys. Lobbyists. Bankers. An assistant DA. I had been seeing someone when Millie and Parker...” she trailed off, but what she’d said made sense. Millie and Parker were a couple that made you recalibrate relationships. She shrugged. “Well, I decided to hold out for something more. For a spark.”

“Not that I’m complaining, but we didn’t spark right away.”

She looked up and smiled. “You did.”

The moment he’d first seen her was carved in his brain in bas-relief. Millie and Parker had arranged a happy hour for their friends to meet. Alyse had walked into The Front Page and his heart had twisted into a knot and she’d woven across the room.

It wasn’t just that she was pretty. It was the sheer intention with which she’d moved. How she’d slammed her purse on the table and announced, “The global gag rule can kiss my ass” and stalked off to the bar for a drink. Something had been going on with a project YWR funded and she had been steamed.

He’d spent most of the night staring at her, silent and openmouthed, and the rest babbling about the UNFPA. As one does when he is totally and completely striking out with a girl.

Rather than remind her, he said, “Yes.”

“Why?”

“First, because you’re beautiful.” There was no use denying that, at some level, his attraction was physical. He went on, “But then because of the moments when your mask slipped. The strength, the intelligence, the humor and the ways you choose what to show and what to conceal. Being you must be exhausting.” He ran a finger along her jawline. “Every part of you, every mood, every thing I saw made me want you. I wanted to make your life easier. I wanted to be the one person who knew every side of you.”

This seemed to satisfy her. She favored him with a truly dazzling smile.

If she were going to dig, turnabout was fair play. “Why did you finally choose me?”

It didn’t make sense, really, what had happened between them. It had been miraculous and unexpected—the fairy tale come true he wouldn’t have wasted a birthday wish on because it was so far-fetched. He steeled himself in case the answer was that she didn’t know or that she just needed
someone
and he’d been close by.

“Because you make me feel seen,” she said. He drew in a sharp breath and she kept talking. “It’s been...it’s been a long time coming, sure, but you make me feel cared for. You have since I met you. You make me
feel
. I know that you think I’m here because of jealousy.” With a wince, he remembered what an asshole he’d been to Molly.

She touched his face softly and continued, “Or what’s happening at YWR. And that may have sped things up a bit, but it might have happened regardless. At Millie and Parker’s wedding, I doubt I would have been alone.”

How he wanted to trust in what she was saying! But something held him back. She might even believe they would have ended up together eventually, but he wasn’t so sure.

Not sure how to respond, he whispered, “I—”

“However,” she said, interrupting him with a hand over his mouth, “when you tell me you can’t sleep with me unless you know I’ll want you in the morning, it makes me nervous. I mean, it’s morning and I still want you, but I don’t know what guarantee you’re looking for from me. I’m shit at relationships. It’s not that I don’t want this, it’s that I don’t know how to have it.”

He kissed her fingers. “That’s fair. I...you shouldn’t be confused by who my friends are. I’m not Michael. I’m not Parker. It’s been a long, cold, anti-streak for me. And in the past, it was always in a relationship. I’m not asking for...I don’t know what I’m asking for, but I’m not sure I can sleep with you until I don’t feel so exposed.”

“Margot’s floors should be done now. Would it be easier if I bunked with her?”

He rolled Alyse to her back swiftly and pinned her to the bed, kissing her neck. “No. Stay.” He left “forever” unsaid.

* * *

On the sidewalk in front of his apartment, Liam kissed her thoroughly. Alyse suspected he needed to mark her in public, to make sure they were truly on the path to a relationship. And she thought they were, even as she was projecting a confidence that she didn’t feel with him.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay in bed?” He’d proposed playing hooky together with some seriousness. He probably had fifty things to do, but she knew he’d happily spend the day being distracted by her.

“Nope. You have that Ryan Scott interview. And I am very busy and important, too, I’ll have you know.”

The last part was only a tease, sadly. Once she got to Dupont Circle, she’d hesitated to go into work. Stopping on a bench near the fountain, she’d fished out her phone.

She should call her dad and tell him everything. She really should. But doing so would be tantamount to declaring,
I
can’t handle this.
You were right.
And yes
,
please do plan the rest of my life
. Okay, so maybe not quite, but close.

Indeed what rankled the most about what had happened, what was happening, at work was that it had happened on her watch. She should have known, or at least figured it out on her own before Fred had shown up and proven that what everyone had suspected about her all along was correct.

She might be vacuous or, at some level, awful, but she had always suspected she was professionally competent. She was good at the fundraisers and the details, good at delegating but also at taking responsibility. To find out that this wasn’t true was...jarring, and doubly jarring because it made her so angry.

Being good at her job—secretly good at her job—had been like a fallback. If she decided she didn’t want to go back to New York, if she didn’t find anything else she wanted to do more, well, maybe she would make a career in Washington: raising money, doing things that mattered and living her own life.

Now, well, it didn’t feel like a fallback. It felt like the future she hadn’t known she wanted and now probably couldn’t have because somehow she’d missed the part where YWR was laundering money. Even the slightest whiff of scandal could ruin the marketability of someone like her. In her line of work, where handling money was what you did, the margin of error was enviably slim.

Even by the standards of her life, she’d botched it meticulously. Discovering she really was ambitious but that it didn’t matter because she’d destroyed her professional reputation was almost as surprising as ending up in Liam’s bed.

In other words, not at all.

With a sigh, Alyse decided to put the inevitable off. She could avoid calling her dad for one more morning, but having decided that, she glanced at her phone and found a text message from Millie.

Call me
.

That was fairly ambiguous. Was it, “Call me because Liam couldn’t keep his mouth shut and I found out from Parker that you’re sleeping with his best friend”? Was it, “Call me, I’m having a wedding-related emergency”? Was it, “I’m checking in because someone left a threat on your bed”? Was it, “Oh my God, have you seen the news—Miley Cyrus did something appalling”? So many possibilities.

Before walking into a trap, she sent Liam a text.
Did
you tell Parker?

His reply was almost immediate.
No.
Did you tell Millie?

No
,
but she wants me to call her.
When he didn’t respond immediately, she added,
Do you want me to tell her?

Were they a couple? Had they merely hooked up? Could they really decide while texting? Before she’d figured out which response she was hoping for, her phone buzzed.

That we hooked up?
I
want to paint it on a billboard.
I
want to shout it from the rooftops.
I
want to sponsor a bowling team just so I can put it on their shirts.

Her cheeks stung from her efforts not to smile. He was so gosh darn cute. Sidestepping the issue, she wrote back,
You’re a very fast texter.

I
will prove to you soon I can be slow when it’s necessary.

I’m looking forward to it
.

She angled her face into breeze whipping across Dupont Circle. While she’d been frustrated the night before at his withholding, without lust and need addling her brain, she could see his point. She was a mess when it came to relationships. He was clearly very into her. There was no advantage to exposing them both to more potential for heartbreak.

Not sure how to handle things with Millie, she sent her a text promising to call during lunch and headed in for another day of fun and tension at YWR.