“Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” I pressed my lips to his, our breath tangling, the feel of his mouth slanting over mine, familiar now.
“I love your mouth.”
Will grinned. “I’m pretty partial to yours, too.”
He ran his hands through my hair, fisting my locks while his gaze devoured me.
“What?”
He stroked my hair, pulling it forward, laying the strands out so they covered my breasts, the edges teasing my nipples.
“It’s like liquid gold.” He flashed me a crooked smile. “Sunshine.”
I laughed, fighting back a blush. “Way to be sensitive.”
Something wicked flashed into his eyes. “I can be sensitive.”
He reached out, his gaze intent, his fingers grazing the underside of each breast, stroking down and back again, tracing each swell. Another shiver tore through me. His fingers drifted higher, drawing patterns on my skin, pushing my breasts together, stroking them, teasing them. His caress was little more than a whisper on my skin, and my hips jerked at the sensation. With each touch he purposefully ignored my nipples, his fingers getting closer and closer without giving me what I wanted. It was a delicious sort of agony that had me growing wetter with each touch.
That same devilish grin spread across his face. “See, sensitive.”
“Cute.” My breath hitched as he reached out, his thumb rubbing my nipple. Finally.
“I love watching you like this.” His voice unraveled something within me. “I’ll never get tired of looking at you. I love your eyes. The first time I saw you, I noticed your eyes. They’re just like the ocean.”
As far as lines went, it was a cheesy one, but my heart didn’t get the message. It skipped and stuttered at the words leaving Will’s mouth, and the desire in his gaze, and the magic in his hands.
I reached up, grabbing his biceps, pulling him closer.
“Come inside me.”
He laughed, the sound throaty. “What about foreplay? I just began touching you. I could touch you all night.”
I shifted my hips until he settled between my thighs, rocking myself against him.
He kissed me, his lips teasing another moan out of me, his hard arousal at odds with his casual words.
“I think we’re past the point of foreplay.” I broke away from his mouth, reaching down, gripping his hips, pulling him closer as if I could take him into my body by sheer force of will.
Our gazes locked as he pinned me to the bed. There was something about having the weight of a hot, aroused man on top of me. Something utterly delicious.
Will reached down, fingering my lace underwear, ignoring my haste. Whether I liked it or not, he was setting the tone tonight.
“Have I ever told you how much I love your lingerie?”
His head bent, kissing my stomach while he hooked his fingers under the lace boy shorts, sliding them down my legs.
Anticipation filled me.
“You have the sexiest lingerie. Every time I see you in it, I imagine you dressing up for me, parading around in those high heels you love to wear.” The visual was enough to bump my arousal into a whole other level. “I love you in satin and lace.” He ran a hand down my hip. “You’re so fucking sexy. I noticed it that night at the Hay-Adams. You were in that skirt, and all I could think was that I wanted to strip you naked and have you right there on the bar.”
Goose bumps spread across my skin.
Will pulled back, his voice hoarse. “You have me tied up in knots. I know I’m not supposed to say it. I know we’re supposed to keep dancing around it, flirting with it, but when I look at you I can’t hide it. I don’t want to.” He captured my mouth in another devastating kiss.
It was as if something tied me to him, something that pulled me toward him and marked me as his. After everything tonight, he made it impossible for me to imagine being with a guy like Trap. Made it impossible for me to imagine wanting anyone else. He’d claimed me ever since that first night at the Hay-Adams. I was his whether I liked it or not, for as long as he would have me.
Passion crested in the air between us. It filled our bodies, simmering, surging, bringing us crashing into each other. There was no more laughter, no more teasing, no more words. Our bodies spoke a language all their own.
Will settled between my legs, pausing to remove his pants before climbing back to join me on the bed, hooking my leg high above his shoulders, opening me wide before him. I closed my eyes, my head falling back on the pillow, giving myself over to the heady sweetness of his body. And then I felt him, pressing against me, thick and hot, teasing me as he rubbed over me.
“Please.” My voice shook with need.
Will pushed inside me, filling me in one long, slow thrust.
Our gazes locked, and for a beat, emotion swelled, leaving my heart raw. He looked at me like I was everything, as though he saw inside of me, past all of my fears, all of my bullshit, all of my attempts to push him away. He looked at me like he wanted to spend the rest of his life looking at me.
Will’s hands reached out, clasping mine, our fingers linked as he pushed into me, as our hips undulated. Our bodies moved together as we stared into each other’s eyes. When I came, when he came inside me, it was the look in his eyes that rocked me the most. The knowledge that I’d put that look there, and the hope that it would stay, long after my secrets came undone.
Will
I woke in the morning with Jackie’s arms around my waist, her naked body against my side, her hair spread out on the pillow. Her eyes were closed, her torso curled up while she slept, the sheets pooled around her waist, her legs sprawled out across the bed. I looked at the nightstand, struggling to make out the alarm clock.
It was just after ten in the morning.
I stretched my body, my feet hanging over the edge. She hadn’t been kidding; the bed was anything but comfortable. I was too tall, my limbs too long. My neck had a crick in it that made me wince as I sat up.
Jackie groaned at the movement, throwing her hands over her eyes to block out the sun before turning onto her side. She wasn’t a morning person under the best of circumstances, and neither one of us had gotten much sleep last night.
I rolled out of bed, grabbing my boxers off the floor, sliding them on and walking toward the bathroom, needing a moment to feel more human. I cleaned up and headed to the kitchen in search of coffee, hoping to hell Jackie’s roommate hadn’t come home.
The kitchen was small, and by the look of it, neither girl did much cooking. I found a couple of clean mugs and the coffee pot, then scrounged around for coffee. No wonder Jackie existed off of pretzels and Diet Coke. It looked like she barely remembered to eat.
There was a grocery store up the road. I wanted to buy her food, wanted to cook for her, even if it was just an omelet.
I was, once again, out of my element. Something had changed between us last night. It felt like she’d opened up to me, like she was finally giving me the chance I wanted. On one hand, I didn’t want to take it too far, didn’t want to scare her off. At the same time, I wanted to spoil her, wanted to give her everything. I was stuck in between where I was and where I wanted to be.
I’d always been a generous boyfriend. There wasn’t much of a point to having money if you couldn’t share it with the people you cared about, if you couldn’t make their lives better. But it was different with Jackie. The shit with her mother affected her, and I didn’t blame her, but at the same time, I didn’t understand how she could possibly think I was anything other than utterly, completely hers.
My cell rang from the bedroom. I walked back to the room, Jackie still sleeping, and grabbed the phone out of my trouser pocket, staring at the screen.
Mitch.
I moved out of the room, shutting the door behind me as I answered.
“Hey.”
“Where are you?”
“Out. What’s up?”
Mitch sighed on the other end of the line. “Do I even want to ask?”
“Probably not. What’s up?”
“Have you seen the latest Capital Confessions?”
I groaned. “No. What now?”
“You’re in it. There’s mention of you and a girl.”
Fuck. “Did they name Jackie?” She was going to freak out.
“No. But it’s only a matter of time, isn’t it? Tell me you aren’t at her place right now.”
“This all-knowing thing is getting a little creepy, Mitch.”
“As far as you’re concerned, I might as well be. That’s why you pay me the big bucks, remember? This Capital Confessions stuff is a pain in the ass. They have someone feeding them this shit. Someone on the campaign. We need to call a meeting and figure out what’s going on with your staff. There’s no way a blog of Capital Confessions’s size is this interested in a state senate race. They’re building up for something bigger.”
“Maybe.” I hesitated. “I’ve been out in public with her, so maybe they saw us. At the benefit or something.” I didn’t add, or last night at a bar in Alexandria.
“Jesus. I can’t deal with this right now. For the love of god, lie low this weekend. Do not go out in public with her. Keep your dick in your pants.”
Mitch ended the call with a click before I could even respond.
I ran a hand through my hair. Okay, this was bad. I had no idea how Jackie was going to react. What if they did name her in Capital Confessions? Then what?
I realized asking her to be part of my lifestyle, to live her life so publicly, might be asking too much. If I won the election, I’d be under even more scrutiny, and she’d be right there next to me.
I grabbed her laptop sitting on the table, flipping it open, trying to pull up the blog page. The screen flashed in front of me, the last thing she’d been working on staring back at me. I moved to minimize the page, not wanting to lose her work, when two words caught my eye—
Capital Confessions.
It took me a moment. I scanned the screen, my mind struggling to process the words on the page in front of me. It was a draft of a blog post—a draft of a Capital Confessions blog post—on Jackie’s computer. Jackie’s post.
The bedroom door opened, my head jerking up at the sound. Jackie stood in the doorway, wearing a short white robe. Her eyes twinkled, a smile lighting her face. I watched with morbid fascination as her gaze dropped from me, to her computer, and back to my face again. The smile slid away as horror filled her eyes. Her reaction was all I needed, the final confirmation and twist of the knife.
I’d been falling for her, had fallen for her, and it had all been one big lie.
Chapter Nineteen
Senator Reynolds was the first person to speak out—quite loudly—against allegations that Congressman Johnson solicited prostitutes. You know what they say, “methinks he doth protest too much.”
—First draft, Capital Confessions blog
Jackie
I’d wondered how it would feel when Will stopped looking at me like I was special, when I watched the magic die out of his eyes. Now I knew. It felt like the air had been sucked from the room, like I’d been punched in the chest. It felt like I’d just lost everything.
“Will.” I moved toward him, a thousand apologies, explanations, pleading words pushing to get out. “It isn’t what you think.”
It was the lamest thing I could possibly say, the worst sort of cliché, but it tumbled from my lips before I could hold it back. I was desperate, and I struggled to fix what I feared I’d broken.
“Really? What the fuck is it, then? Because it looks exactly like what I think.”
There was no warmth in his tone now, only anger, and disdain in his eyes.
“I’ve never blogged about you. Ever.”
He didn’t speak, just stared at me with that harsh gaze. With each second that passed, I felt him slipping through my fingers, and suddenly the hold I kept on my emotions, the wall I used to keep everyone away, came crashing down.
“It wasn’t about you. It was never about you. That first night we met at the Hay-Adams, I didn’t realize who you were. I didn’t even recognize you.” I gestured toward the computer. “That’s my pen name on the draft. It’s never shown up on any posts about you. I’ve never written an article about you, never sold a story about you. I would never do that.”
His jaw clenched. “But you’re part of Capital Confessions.”
I nodded.
“For how long?”
“Since the beginning. Since my senior year of high school.”
“Are you feeding them information about me?” His voice cracked. “Is this—the sex, all of it—just a chance for you to get close to me, to gather dirt on me?” His words lashed like a whip. “Is this what you do? Screw guys so you can exploit them later?”
I paled. Of all the things he could have said to me, that was the worst.
My voice broke in time with the cracks spreading through my heart. “Is that what you think of me? Really? After everything?”
“I don’t know what to think anymore.” Bitterness filled his voice. “I trusted you. And now I find out you’re part of a gossip site, one that’s been damaging my career. How am I supposed to understand? How am I supposed to understand any of the choices you’ve made? Forget about me, do you realize how much this can fuck up any career you hope to have in this industry? Or is political consulting just your cover for exposing people’s secrets? Is everything about you a lie?”
Yes and no.
“It was never about you.” My voice rose, perilously close to begging. “I never wrote about you. Ever. When they started blogging about you, I went to my editor and asked him who his source was. He wouldn’t tell me, so I asked him to let me take the lead. He said yes, but I guess he lied. I never wrote about you. I wouldn’t have done that to you. I . . .” My voice trailed off.
“What? You what? What am I to you, Jackie? Because you give me this shit about not wanting a relationship, and I’m standing here, waiting for you to grow the fuck up. I’m waiting for you, and I don’t know what to do anymore.
“How am I supposed to trust you with this between us? I know what it’s like to be with women who want me because of my family, my money, because of everything that comes with it. I thought you were different.”
Will turned away, and I moved forward without thinking, wrapping my arms around his back, pulling him toward me.
“I swear to you. This is different. I’ve been trying to keep you out of Capital Confessions from the beginning.”
He evaded my grasp. We faced off across the tiny living room, my apartment too small to contain the storm brewing between us. Will crossed his arms in front of his chest, studying me, his expression impossible to read. For a minute neither one of us spoke, and when he finally did speak, I couldn’t decipher the emotions in his gaze.
“Why didn’t you just tell me from the beginning? Why didn’t you explain any of this to me?”
“Because I knew you wouldn’t understand. And I was embarrassed. I’m a political gossip columnist. It’s not what I wanted to do with my life, but it pays the bills, helped with college.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me that? Why all the lies? Why didn’t you trust me?”
“I couldn’t tell you. I didn’t know if I could trust you.” I sank down onto the couch, the anger and fear winding through me giving way to exhaustion. “No one besides my editor, Sean, knows about my work for Capital Confessions. At least, I haven’t told anyone else. I think my mother figured it out; I get a lot of my leads from her. But I don’t talk about it with anyone; everything is anonymous. You don’t think I know that Price would dump me if they found out?”
“Then quit.”
“I’ve been planning on it. I just thought I’d wait until I graduated, until I got an actual job. The money isn’t easy to walk away from. It’s complicated.”
I didn’t know how to explain to him what it was like to fight for everything you had. I could have chosen other jobs, but it would
have been tough to come up with one that afforded me the same flexibility with my class schedule, and the same kind of money. That was what I told myself, at least; that was what I could have told him. But the truth was so much worse.
I was pissed off. I’d lived my life watching my father lord around this town, seeing his face on TV, hearing his voice lament the loss of family values. He had the perfect family, two beautiful daughters, the proper wife, the long, distinguished political career everyone admired. He was always the first to speak out against politicians embroiled in scandal, always the loudest voice on the Senate floor. He looked down on the world from his little Camelot, and everyone watched and worshipped as he did.
And then there was me.
Maybe I should have been above the muck and the filth; perhaps I should have been better than all that.
But I wasn’t.
I wanted to expose them all, all of their secrets, all of the scandals like me, hidden in the shadows. That was the worst part of it, the part someone like Will would never understand. It would have been easy if I just did it for the money. I could explain that. But I couldn’t explain liking it. Not to him.
Will
I stood there, listening to her, trying to read the emotions on her face. I wanted to believe everything she said. Wanted to trust her. But like always, there was a part she held back.
Mitch had warned me, told me she had a past. I didn’t have anyone to blame but myself. But I wasn’t upset about the fact that she had a past; I wasn’t even upset about Capital Confessions. I was pissed she’d lied to me, that she wouldn’t let me in. Angry that she didn’t trust me. We were stuck in limbo. I wanted more than she was willing to give, and I wondered if it would always be like this, me with my heart on the line, worried she would crush it.
“You have to give me more.” I sank down onto the couch next to her. “You have to trust me; you have to let me in. If we’re going to be together, then I have to know you. You’re not the only one risking everything here. Mitch called because there’s mention of me and a girl in Capital Confessions.”
Jackie paled.
“Mitch told me you had secrets. I said I didn’t care, that I wanted to hear it from you. But you won’t give me that chance. We can’t move forward, can’t try to have a relationship, when you’re constantly putting this shit between us.”
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