Choices (A Woman's Life)

by Marie Ferrarella

  He watched her eyes as he undid each one of the buttons on her blouse. They grew huge with anticipation and darkened with untried passion. He felt her tremble beneath his hands. “I won’t hurt you, Shanna. I swear I won’t hurt you. He touched her face for a moment, wishing he could read her thoughts. “Do you believe me?”

  She nodded slowly as if hypnotized. Her eyes never left his.

  Her blouse was hanging open. He slipped it from her shoulders in a gentle, massaging motion, until it was completely off. It drifted from her arms to the floor unnoticed. Her bra was a deep lavender, done up with black lacings in the front. He kissed her temple lightly and felt her sigh as he untied the lacing and slowly tugged it out. He heard her slight gasp as the bra fell open, exposing her breasts to his touch.

  “Shh,” he murmured, struggling to curb the heated demands of his own flesh.

  As much as part of him wanted her now, this instant, he couldn’t frighten her, couldn’t give vent to what he wanted selfishly. What was more important to him, what he wanted more than simple sexual gratification, was to bring her with him to the ecstasy that waited for them both. He found no satisfaction with racing there alone. The pleasure, the satisfaction came with seeing her reach it just a heartbeat ahead of him. Of watching her expression as she came with him.

  He stroked her breasts, his long, patient fingers arousing her almost beyond endurance. Anticipation gripped her in an iron vise, banishing Shanna’s fear to some faraway, seldom-visited corner of her soul. The only fear she had now was that he would stop kissing her, that this fiery, lyrical dance between them would end, casting her into cold, lonely despair.

  She had never been sexually satisfied. Jordan had been her first, her only lover, and he had always been sated long before she could be properly aroused. He had never taken the time to bring her with him.

  She ached to feel Reid within her, yet she didn’t want this wonderful sensation bursting along her body ever to end. This, this was the best part.

  She couldn’t remember when her skirt had pooled to the floor, or how she came to be standing before him completely nude. It was all happening within a hot haze of disorientation. Her only frame of reference in this strange, new world of fire and unspeakably wondrous sensations was Reid and the way he was making her feel.

  When he had first kissed her, desire had been the instigator. He had given in to it, meaning to pleasure them both. He had wanted to give her something of himself for what he would take. But he was getting far more than he felt he gave. Far more than he had bargained for. He was just as awestruck, just as dazed as she by what was happening between them. There was an innocence in the kisses she ardently returned that almost humbled him. A hunger in her touch, in the way her mouth took his each time he kissed her lips.

  “Slow, slow,” he cautioned, knowing he wouldn’t be able to hold out if she continued to press. So sweet, so incredibly sweet.

  She felt his smile against her lips and drew back, stung. Memories returned to haunt her. “You’re laughing at me.”

  The accusation stunned him. “Why would I do that?” He saw the hurt shining in her eyes. “Did he laugh at you?” he asked softly.

  She remembered her wedding night. She’d been so clumsy, so eager, so frightened. And when Jordan had discovered that she was a virgin, he had laughed, saying something about it being just his luck to find the only twenty-one-year-old virgin in Washington, D.C. He’d quickly covered his remark, but it had rung in her ears, mocking her, mocking her attempts at lovemaking.

  Shanna nodded, suddenly swallowing tears.

  Reid wished he could have had Jordan alone in the room for just five minutes. Five minutes to make the man pay for turning Shanna into a mass of emotional scars and pain. But there was nothing to be gained by beating the man into a pulp. He had somehow to undo the damage the other man had heartlessly caused.

  Reid kissed her bare shoulder. “I’m not laughing, Shanna,” he told her in a whisper that made her very skin glow. He had shed his own clothes quickly. His body ripe with wanting her, Reid took her into his arms. “I’m smiling. Because I want you so much it hurts. And you’re here with me now.”

  Placing both of his hands, palm up, against hers, he laced his fingers through hers, binding her to him. “Make love with me now, Shanna.”

  She tilted her head, awed at his words. “You’re asking me?”

  “I’m asking,” he assured her, and she knew that even now, if she said no, he would back away. Shanna cupped his cheek with her hand, her lingers feathering along his bronzed skin.

  “Yes.”

  He turned her palm up, kissing it. He saw her stiffen. “What?”

  It had come back to her in a cold wave. Deja vu. “Jordan used to do that.”

  Reid frowned. It wasn’t going to work for them if there were going to be ghosts in the room. Didn’t she see that?

  “I don’t want him here, Shanna.” Reid tapped her temple. “I want you to banish him from your mind. He has no place here between us. Not now, not ever. Do you understand?”

  She pressed her lips together and swallowed. The hesitant look in her eyes remained. She was completely different from the competent woman he had seen in the office. It was as if a hurt child still lived within the woman she had molded herself to become.

  “Let me show you how it should be done, Shanna,” he urged more gently. “Let me love you the way you deserve to be loved.”

  Tenderly he laid her across the bed, then joined her, his nude body next to hers, primed, ready. Yet he waited for her to give a sign.

  She felt the heat, the all-consuming heat along her body as his clever fingers found all her secret places, secret places she never even knew she had. She vibrated against his touch, arching, moaning, twisting so that she could feel him against her. He was causing things to happen. Strange things. Tiny explosions were erupting within her. Was this what making love was really like?

  And still he held back, though it was taking almost superhuman strength to do so when all he wanted was to lose himself in her.

  He made her ready for him. With his lips drugging her, his hand dipped down between her legs, slowly working her into a frenzy. He brought her up, each time higher. She gasped, her nails digging into his back, as the explosions increased in magnitude. She fell back, dazed. Her lungs felt as if they were bursting as she struggled to pull in air. And then he’d do it again. Agony and ecstasy, tangled together.

  When he finally slipped into her, she felt herself spiraling upward to a place she had never been, had never imagined. Their hips joined in an ancient dance that was as new as the next sunrise, as old as the dawn of time. When she cried out, it was from joy, not from a plea for him to wait, the way she had with Jordan.

  Nothing was the way it had been with Jordan.

  “Where are you?” he asked, amused, as she opened her eyes. He had watched her lightly doze off and on for an hour.

  “Wonderland. Paradise. Xanadu.” She breathed out each location with a contented sigh.

  He laughed softly, lifting her hand to his lips as he pressed another kiss there. “I take it it was good for you.” He assumed a very comical French accent. “Eet was good for me, too.”

  “The best,” she answered. And it was. The very best, exceeding anything she had ever imagined.

  He shifted her so that she was suddenly on top of him. “Oh, no, the best, my dear Ms. Brady, is yet to be.”

  Her eyes opened wide as she felt him suddenly hard beneath her. “Again?”

  “Again.”

  “Oh, boy.”

  He laughed, his arm tightening around her. “Spoken like a woman after my own heart.”

  She grew serious. She wanted him to know. To understand that she understood the rules. “I won’t be,” she promised.

  “Won’t be what?”

  “After your heart. No strings attached. I know that. You don’t have to worry that I think this means more than what it is.”

  He wondered if she was sa
ying that for his benefit or for her own. In either case, they’d resolve that when they came to it. But not now. “Just shut up and kiss me.”

  “With pleasure.” Shanna had never meant anything so wholeheartedly in her life.

  Chapter 24

  “Shanna, could you come to my office, please?”

  Shanna looked up from her computer monitor. She had been going from screen to screen, searching for a data file she had saved some time ago. The information there would help substantiate the conclusions of her report. The senator needed this report to support a legislation proposal he was putting forth. The report had to be as clear, as definitive as possible. Damn, where was that file?

  Her father was standing in the doorway of the office she had occupied for the last six months. She had initially protested that she didn’t need so much space. Now there was no available space left. It was all taken up with boxes crammed with files and various reports and pieces of information that hadn’t yet been inputted into the computer.

  “Sure. What’s up?”

  Normally he didn’t stop by her office, unless it was to take her out to an occasional lunch. He was so busy that there wasn’t time for a conversation during the day. If he wanted her, he just buzzed her on the phone. Something was in the wind.

  “There’s something I want to discuss with you.”

  There was a pregnant note in his voice that made her curious. She wondered if it had anything to do with next year’s national elections. So many people they both knew were stepping down or retiring, afraid to lose in the next public vote, or just tired of the stress that went hand in hand with the job if it was to be done well.

  As she followed him to his office Shirley raised a quizzical brow in her direction. Shanna lifted her shoulders in response as she walked through the entrance of the corner office. She was just as much in the dark as her assistant.

  Shanna crossed to the chair before his desk and sat down. It was the same chair she had sat in when she had asked him for a job. It seemed a lifetime ago. And it had been. Except for an occasional lapse, she no longer resembled the girl who had asked. Funny, she had anticipated a struggle with lapses. Yet it hadn’t been that difficult for her. There had been a rough transition period. She had felt a little awkward at first, but that had been a normal reaction to a new situation, new people. It had passed quickly.

  She had learned something about herself in the interim. She had met the real Shanna and was basically pleased with the woman she had found.

  The senator closed the door behind him and walked slowly to his desk. Sitting down, he steepled his fingers before him and studied the only child he had ever created. He had provided good schools and good teachers, but she had more or less raised herself. And turned out pretty damn well. Far better than he knew he had had a right to hope for. By the time he had realized his error, she was a woman, more in need of a mentor than a father. She had made him proud.

  But he had no way of knowing how she was going to react to his proposal. Never one to rush right in, he had given it a great deal of thought before arriving at this conclusion.

  It had.been a long time since she had seen her father this serious. “You certainly are making a mystery out of this.” Was it his health? “Is something wrong?”

  “Brideen’s retiring.”

  So that was it. “You’re kidding.” Congressman Jack Brideen was her father’s best friend. It was because of Brideen that her father had gotten into politics in the first place. They had been junior congressmen from Illinois together, bolstering each other’s confidence in the early days as they learned the ropes. When her father had gone on to run for the Senate, Brideen had been his staunchest supporter. It was Brideen who had brought Whitney into their corner. It just wouldn’t be the same for her father without him.

  Shanna watched her father as he shifted in his chair. He looked old to her. His face was drawn and she could see where the years had touched him.

  “No, I wish I was. Jack’s tired of the good fight, he says.” The senator leaned forward, studying her face. She was a good-looking woman. Where had that little girl gone? He had to stop this. He was beginning to behave like an old man. “He wants to pass the mantle to someone younger, someone with the same interests we share. Someone who would continue to fight for and push for the same things we believe in.” Her father dropped his hands, palms down, on his desk. He made Shanna think of a preacher at his pulpit, about to come to the crux of his sermon. “Jack asked me to do some scouting around and see if I could find that kind of a person.”

  Did he want her to get involved in someone else’s campaign? She already had her hands full. Campaigning along with what she was already working on would require an eight-day week.

  She saw a smile begin to nudge away his serious look. “I’d say that by your expression, your scouting trip was successful.”

  “If you mean do I think I’ve found the right person, yes, I do.”

  Why was he looking at her like that? Unconsciously she placed her hands on the armrests for support as she leaned forward. “Who do you have in mind?”

  Diamond Jim Brady’s smile lived on in her father’s face. It almost lit the room. Someone had once said that when he smiled, Roger Brady could have gotten a tree stump to vote for him. “You.”

  “Me?” He couldn’t possibly mean that. She must have missed something vitally important in the conversation. “To do what?”

  The senator rose, excited by the idea now that it was out in the open. He leaned on the edge of the desk, his arms crossed in front of him. Bradys in both houses of the government. It would be wonderful. “To take Brideen’s place.”

  “Brideen’s from Illinois. I don’t live in Illinois.” It was crazy, absolutely crazy. His best friend’s departure had caused her father to temporarily lose his common sense. She couldn’t possibly run for office.

  Brady saw the stunned look in his daughter’s eyes. She had absolutely no ambitions, he realized. All that dedication, all that energy, and no thirst for power. It made her perfect for the job. The party needed people like her.

  “Technically you still live in Illinois. You’re registered there, even though you live here. And you certainly put in enough time there. Besides, get some mail at the house, don’t you?” He was referring to the family residence. It was a rhetorical question, but she answered it anyway.

  “A few pieces occasionally, yes, but—“

  Run? For a political office? Her? It seemed absolutely incredible.

  “That qualifies it as a place of residence,” Brady concluded. His voice was soft, lulling. It was the same voice that inspired confidence and trust within his constituents. “The election is over a year away and we have primaries to face first. You have time to get a place of your own in Illinois to make it official.”

  He saw the doubt lingering in her face. She still wasn’t convinced. Persuading her was going to take some time, but he was certain he had made the right choice. “Shanna, you care about the same things I do. I’ve seen you out on the street, talking to people during my reelection campaign. You weren’t just not mouthing platitudes, you believe in what we stand for.”

  Believing wasn’t enough. “I don’t know, Dad.” There were a hundred obstacles. Including her own insecurities. “I don’t think that I’m that qualified to run.”

  “Because you’re not a lawyer?” he guessed, knowing the way her mind worked. “Hell, Shanna, the government’s filled up to here with lawyers.” He passed his hand over his head, frowning. “A few honest, caring citizens are what’s really needed, not lawyers. The original signers of the Declaration of Independence weren’t all lawyers, they were people. People who cared enough to get involved.” He could see by her eyes that he had her thinking and that was all he could ask, for now. “I know it’s too soon for a decision, but at least tell me you’ll think about it.”

  She rose and smiled. “I’ll think about how crazy it all seems.”

  “No.” Brady placed his hands
on his daughter’s shoulders just as she was about to walk out. “Think about the good you can do, Shanna. If the wrong person is elected, it can undermine all the good we’ve managed to do.” He shrugged. “People have different priorities. They can see the allocation of funds as being needed in different areas. The educational and social programs we’ve worked so hard to implement can be cut in a year if I don’t get the backing in the House that I need. Brideen’s leaving means I’ll have one less man on my side. One less person,” the senator amended with a smile. “I need your enthusiasm working for me in the House.”

  “All right.” She nodded reluctantly. It still sounded farfetched, but it was beginning to grow on her ever so slightly. And he was her father. This was the first time he had ever asked her to do something. Why did it have to be something so completely alien to her? “I’ll think about it. But the idea of running scares the hell out of me.”

  He wasn’t taking that as an excuse. They’d all been there. And he was convinced she was going to make one damn good congresswoman. “Good. Overconfidence is something I never trusted in a candidate.”

  She stopped in the doorway, one hand on the door. She had to know. “Then why did you back Jordan in the beginning?”

  “Because he was your husband and I thought you wanted it,” he said honestly. Though Jordan had the charisma to charm both the voters and his fellow politicians, Brady had had the feeling that Jordan would support anything, align himself with anyone, to achieve his goals. The end justifies the means was his credo. Watching the man’s voting record in the last two years had proven him correct.

  Her father’s answer couldn’t have surprised her more. “What about your principles?”

  “Sometimes, when you love someone”—affectionately he stroked her cheek, thinking of all the time he had stupidly let slip by, time he could never recapture— “they get a little bent.”