The Phoenix Campaign (Grace Colton Book 2) (2 page)

“So when are you going to tell him?” Aliza asks.

I freeze.

“
Are
you going to tell him? I thought you told me things were good between you two? Didn’t he say the L-word?”

My pasta rebels in my stomach and I debate lurching for the bathroom, but I clench my lips together and keep the food down. If I wasn’t already freaked out about being pregnant, the idea of telling Jared is terrifying.

“He did. It’s just … he said he loves
me.
Not that he loves the idea of having a family. Not that we’re together forever or some mushy shit to make me believe this is permanent.”

We’re in limbo, the nether-state that relationship words are too dim to describe. Lover? Boyfriend? Partner? Nothing fits.

Aliza’s face falls. “He said he loves you. That’s it?”

“I said he could sleep over at Number One Observatory Circle if I become vice president.” My tone is defeated. There are no commitments, no promises that this will last. In fact, Jared’s never brought up our future together except where the campaign is concerned.

Aliza agrees. “That’s not enough.”

It isn’t. I love Jared, but there’s nothing to make me believe he wants this to be as permanent as marriage. As permanent as
having a child together
.

“So what are you going to do next?”

“I’m going to figure him out,” I say. “Before I tell him and he has to react—and maybe pretend he’s willing to have a child—I need to know what he really thinks. He’s never said he wants a family. Like, ever. I think maybe it’s because he was raised by a single mom and never knew his dad.”

Aliza nods. “Any idea how to figure him out?”

I shake my head. There’s something else that I can’t admit. I don’t even know how permanent Jared wants
us
to be.

CHAPTER THREE

One of the perks of being the vice presidential candidate is not having to get up at five a.m. on a Sunday morning to drive my friend to the airport. Mac insists that it’s easier on their team if they take Aliza and I stay in my condo.

It feels like a cage.

I get up with Aliza anyway, make her coffee, and give her fierce hugs before she rolls her suitcase out my front door. After our dinner last night, she even made a pit stop at the local pharmacy and stocked up on prenatal vitamins.

I go back to bed for a few hours, but I’m unable to sleep, tossing and turning as I think of how I can find out Jared’s true colors when it comes to marriage and kids. Does he want a family? Does he want one with me? There’s no simple way to ask and I suspect I’ll get anything but a simple answer.

I get up and start a full pot of coffee before I realize that I’m not supposed to drink that much. Sixteen ounces—that’s all I’m allowed. I should have asked Aliza to buy me more decaf tea.

I work through my email, read articles, and follow up on the schedule that my assistant Trey planned for the coming week. The most important thing is my speech at his old high school about gun violence. Jared pushed me to take a pass and instead speak at a medical convention in Dallas about funding for prenatal care, but I promised Trey I’d speak long before I was the VP nominee, or even before I joined Shep Conover’s ticket.

Trey and his Mama Bea are the closest thing I have to family besides Aliza, so I’m honoring my commitment.

I make several failed attempts at starting my speech on my laptop, but I’m frustrated, so I call Trey.

“Baby girl! Just a sec.” I hear rustling through the phone and Trey’s voice is muffled while he tells someone to wait a minute. “You’re supposed to be relaxing this weekend. How was Aliza’s visit?”

Trey’s warm, infectious smile infuses his honeyed voice and I feel brighter.

“Awesome. Too short. And I
am
relaxing. I’m in yoga pants on my couch working on the speech for your high school.”

“I owe you one.” I hear the sounds of city through the phone, traffic and construction, and I wonder what Trey’s doing with his weekend. I don’t ask. Most of the time he’s a workaholic like Jared and I hate to drag his mind back to work right now.

“You never owe me. I just wanted to check if Mama Bea still wants me for dinner tomorrow night?”

“Only if you’re bringing Jared. I think she’ll murder both of us if you put her off one more time.”

I haven’t
meant
to hide Jared away from them. We’ve been busy and he’s been on airplanes more than I’ve been in my office, so it’s tough to coordinate schedules. But Jared should be back in Washington sometime late tonight.

Tomorrow’s the first time he’ll meet Mama Bea, beyond a quick hello at the convention. I’m nervous.

“I promised. And I think Jared knows I’ll murder him if he finds one more campaign thing to keep him from showing up.”

***

Maybe it’s the pregnancy, maybe it’s the lack of coffee. Either way, I crash early and hard as soon as night falls with my speech for Trey’s school still unfinished.

September’s chipping away at the humidity of summer so I leave my bedroom windows open to the cool air. When sleep claims me, I’m borne up on a raft of dreams, tossed in the ocean of mixed emotions and circumstances beyond my control.

Jared, fire in his eyes, demanding that I follow his command.

A sea of people, faces turned up, watching me expectantly at a podium.

Secret Service agents in suits, guns bulging beneath their arms.

The hollow eyes and pockmarked cheeks of the shooter who killed my family.

A baby, fresh skin perfectly smooth, its chocolate brown eyes so much like Jared’s.

I wake to hot hands reaching for me, Jared pulling me close to his chest between the sheets, and the scent of him, rich and dark. His hands skate over my breasts that they feel heavy and tender, a sensation that flashes back to my twenty-something self, when I was pregnant with Ethan.

“It’s the middle of the night. Don’t open your eyes.” Jared’s voice rumbles through his chest and I snuggle closer.
He’s home.
He brushes a kiss on my cheek and chases the dreams away until morning.

***

“She doesn’t like cursing. Or taking the Lord’s name in vain,” I explain as the Secret Service SUV pulls up to Trey and Mama Bea’s apartment.

Jared opens the car door for me. “So if I say, ‘Jesus Christ, Grace. Give me one fucking minute,’ that won’t go over well?”

There’s mischief and light in his eyes as I get out of the car and I wrap my arms around him. I love Playful Jared, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he winks at me and pinches my ass.

“Under no circumstances will you say that unless you want Mama Bea to punish both of us!”

“I know a girl who likes a little punishment.” Jared’s voice is a low, dirty growl. “Something to suit her crimes.”

I’d been up and out of my apartment before Jared woke this morning, a reversal of our usual roles. He sent me more than a few dirty texts today to show his displeasure at not getting me naked immediately after his trip:

I’ve been thinking about the way you taste for two days.

I want to dig my fingers into your flesh. Remind you you’re mine.

I’m going to make you beg for every stroke, and I’ll relish every scream.

I twist out of Jared’s reach and compose myself as we walk up the steps, glancing sideways as if there are paparazzi in the bushes to catch that ass-pinch. There are none, but it’s a stark reminder that most of the tabloid press wants to know who I was making out with in pictures that went viral.

So far, they don’t know.

“Grace! I’m so glad you brought your new gentleman friend,” Mama Bea’s smile is wide. She wraps large arms around me in an embrace that’s warmer than anything I experienced from my biological mother.

She gives an extra squeeze before releasing me and when Jared puts out his hand to shake, she ignores it and hugs him too. His shoulders pinch at first, but then he relaxes. He hugs her back.

He’s a good man.

Trey lopes out of the back bedroom and greets Jared with a strong shake, a bro’s shake. “Glad you could come.”

It’s their second meeting, though they didn’t have much time to speak at the convention with Jared running point on a million details for Shep.

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

A glance passes between Trey and Jared. It’s a warning—they both know Jared skipped a couple of invitations last week from Mama Bea. She cuts the tension by inviting us to the living room, telling us to sit, bustling around like a good hostess.

“I brought this for you.” Jared offers a wine gift bag to Mama Bea and she withdraws the bottle of red. “I thought we should celebrate. We’ve been going so hard and fast since the convention, we’ve hardly had time to think straight, much less take a minute and enjoy Grace’s success.”

“And yours,” Trey adds. “You put Shep one election from the White House. That was some major juggling in the eleventh hour.”

Jared nods but his mouth is tight. “We made a lot of trades in those last few days. But what’s important is we got here, and we’ve got a ways further to go.”

Trey eyeballs the label and gives a low whistle. “That’s some
nice
wine.”

“Since when do you know about wine?” I ask.

“Since I made friends with a sommelier.” Trey trips over the word
friends
and I give him a raised brow, just between us, but he shakes his head slightly to say,
Not now.

Somewhere between the turkey dumplings and the pie, Jared relaxes with my adopted family. Even Trey’s sly ribbing and Mama Bea’s not-too-subtle inquisition don’t throw him off. But when I leave my very expensive wine untouched except for a few tiny sips, he gives me a questioning look.

“Are you feeling OK?”

“Fine.” I say as the Secret Service drives us back to my place. He glances at me, then back out the window, so I feel like I have to justify myself. “I’m just tired. The campaign.”

“You’ve been saying that a lot.” The SUV turns onto my street and enters the underground garage. When both agents are out of the car, he murmurs, “You want me to get a hotel room tonight so you can have some quiet time?”

“No!” It feels like he’s pulling back and his eye crinkles are absent. “You can stay.”

“Good. Because I need you. I’ve been thinking of all the things I want to do to you while I’ve been gone. And I want to do them
right fucking now
.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Electricity buzzes through me as I follow Jared to my front door, Secret Service in our wake.

Jared flicks on the light and I pass Ethan’s photo in the entry, my routine of touching it holding a different kind of tenderness now that I know that he’s not my only child.

I could be a mother again.

The thought knocks me back a step, makes me look at Jared with new eyes.
He is a father and he doesn’t even know it.

Maybe I’m cruel to hold this information back from him, but it’s still so fresh in my mind, it hasn’t knit with the fabric of my reality yet. Jared takes my hand and leads me to the bedroom.

“Stand here. Close your eyes.”

I do, and I feel Jared’s warmth as he draws close to my body, as his familiar hands caress my cheek and grasp my neck. They slide lower, between the folds of my jacket and blouse, disrobing me piece by piece.

I let blindness amplify everything else about the here and now. His hand skims down the back of my legs and he eases my feet out of my heels. I drop a few inches in height.

His breath skates across my collarbone. I hear the cadence of it catch as he unclasps my bra and lets the lace fall away from my breasts. He eases my panties over my hips, down my legs.

“So beautiful. So precious and wild.” Jared’s voice aches with need as his hands explore me, across my shoulders, down my ribcage, circling my hips and pulling me against his body. “Grace, you are fucking perfection.”

His fingertips circle my breasts, then he cups them in his hands, testing their weight. I can feel my nipples harden in response, my breasts heavy and tender.

I shiver, the electricity crackling in the air as anticipation builds. What will he do to me tonight? Will he take me hard and raw? Or sweet and soft? I can’t gauge his mood just from his voice, so I open my eyes without permission.

They are
voracious.

The intensity of his focus floors me, arrests me, sets me on fire. His jaw tightens as if he’s a predator, coiled to spring, and I straighten my spine, ready to take whatever’s coming.

“I told you to close your eyes,” he growls.

“I needed to see you, to know what you’re thinking.” I reach for the buttons on his shirt, fumbling to open them and feel his skin, the soft curls and hard planes of his chest.

“I think you know what I’m thinking. What I want.”
Want.
The word ripples with meaning, speaking to the taboos I’ve only just started to explore with him. “What do you want?”

“I want your skin. I want your mouth.” I pull the shirt from his arms and drop it on the floor, then dive for the button on his slacks. I want him naked as quickly as possible, want to skip this foreplay and just
do it
so I can feel the fullness of Jared inside me.

“You have all of me, already. For the taking,” Jared says, shedding the rest of his clothes. “But tonight, I need to take you.”

In a whirl, he spins me facedown on the bed, pulling my hips up high so my ass is in the air. He enters me and my jumbled thoughts unspool as I feel him fill me.

It clears the clutter.

Kills the noise.

Removes the static of the Secret Service and Mama Bea’s inquisition and what’s on our agenda tomorrow and next week.

But it can’t take away the one true thought that’s become core to who I am in the last twenty-four hours.

We have a child.

Jared thrusts, his rhythm increasing in tempo as his breath comes hard. I grasp the pillow in front of me and try to focus, try to relish this moment when I am finally with my lover again. I’m finally whole, and home.

And yet I am not. Jared’s balls slap against me, our skin smacking together as he finds the deepest place inside me. His cock feels impossibly thick, impossibly hard, and I squeeze my muscles around him as I try to let my orgasm come.