Damien's Christmas

by M. L. Buchman

  And she shifted ever so slowly. Sliding from huddled warmth inside the protective circle of his arms, to a lover holding him as well.

  By the time he slipped the flannel nightgown off her, her breath was no longer so calm and steady.

  When he finally rolled her onto her back, it was short and choppy with rough gasps.

  And when the ultimate release rocked through both their bodies, he didn’t feel merely strong, he felt triumphant.

  Chapter Nine

  After another four hours of sleep and then delivery Chinese food, Damien had slid back to sleep. But that escape eluded Cornelia.

  Ultimately she wasn’t going to solve anything lying next to Damien while he slept. Half an hour later she sat at her desk in the West Wing. Nearing midnight on a Sunday night, there was no one to disturb her thought processes. Or her body. Disturbing her body? She wasn’t some sacrosanct temple. Damien wasn’t disturbing her body, he was messing with her emotions.

  She sighed and pushed back from her computer before she even got started. It was clear that she wasn’t going to find a way to compartmentalize Damien Feinman unless she assigned him some concentrated thought.

  Then she pulled herself back to the computer because thinking about Damien was a one-way road. If she was going to go back to thinking about her fantasy lover—he wasn’t the only one allowed to have happy fantasies—then she might as well have stayed in bed with him.

  How could he even think she was asleep? She could feel his thoughts churning away almost as strongly as his arms had been embracing her. No man ever held a woman that way. She was used to…compromising. It was a sad statement on her past, but it was true. Damien had certainly spoiled her for average men. Whenever this ended, she was going to mourn the loss, and then become a nun and take a vow of celibacy so that she could concentrate on her work once more.

  First she pulled up the latest from the NSC.

  Only two things in the queue, starting with the report of her own interview. She ran through it, making little more than a few proofing marks. The last lines stumped her, they were not what she had reported. Cornelia’s version had included that they were invited to visit Tehran as a guest of the President.

  But this version included the entire exchange about President Madani’s complimentary mock proposal to her, Damien’s statement about having common sense, and Madani’s invitation to Damien “and his wife.” She knew she hadn’t said that in any of the debriefings—she’d been very careful not to even think about that, never mind say it aloud.

  And it wasn’t word for word, so it couldn’t have been a clandestine recording arranged without her knowledge. It must have been from Damien. Him she could kill. Perhaps not President Matthews for getting her into this mess in the first place, but any compunction she might have had about committing bodily harm on the NSC librarian had just gone out the window.

  Didn’t he understand who would see this report? It was already far more obvious than she would like that they were having a relationship. Then she remembered him holding her hand as he led her from the Sit Room this morning. He’d done that in front of her current boss and her future one. She’d now flaunted it in front of the President and the President-elect—never mind the NSA, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Arnson, and Damien’s own staff—that she was sleeping with a man she’d known barely a week. Worse, with someone who had made what now amounted to a public declaration that he could envision them married.

  This was spiraling out of control and it was time to end it.

  When he came in this morning, she would call him into her office and simply announce that it was over. She would miss him. The incredible sex, the charming companionship, and the way he held her—she’d especially miss that—but she had to be practical and get her life back under her own control.

  No need to make a note on her to-do list, she wouldn’t forget.

  That aspect of her life resolved, she digitally signed the stupid memo—with its ludicrous happy-ever-after statement—as being reasonably complete and adequately accurate. She’d learned to stop fighting that battle years ago. The only way to guarantee completely cogent reporting was to write it herself and there was never enough time for her to do both that and her job.

  Good enough, moving on!

  The second item in the NSC queue for her attention was the action report from yesterday’s meetings. There was the usual batch of naysayers, denying that an “enemy” country might ever reach out to help. Instead, it was purported, the Iranians must be instigating panic as a distraction from whatever their true purpose might be. Follows: gross speculation and wild conjecture. Cornelia skipped that section.

  The President’s response, included in the memo, had been less than kind in the words he’d used.

  The catch was that those who did believe in President Madani’s willingness to help hadn’t been able to make any more sense of his warning than she and Damien had.

  Then, there’d been a debate on how to prepare for an unknown threat at an unknown time. The NSA and CIA reported no increased chatter on suspected terrorist networks or known terrorist phones. Had they simply become wiser in their communications or were there really no communications to hear?

  She went back to Madani’s warning itself. Not a gulf this time, but bay. She reviewed his words carefully. He hadn’t said DC, she was the one who had jumped to that conclusion. Madani hadn’t denied that conclusion, but neither had he confirmed it. Was there some question? Had he shrugged uncertainly? She couldn’t recall.

  Damien’s desk phone rang. His shift was still five hours away, but that didn’t mean much when there was a crisis in the Sit Room and he’d come into work after waking alone. What was it about their schedules that kept leaving him in Cornelia’s bed without Cornelia?

  Maybe he should try taking her to his place. It was out in Tenleytown, but with the Metro, it wouldn’t take much longer to reach the White House than walking from her Georgetown condo. Maybe he could keep her in his bed with more success than he’d kept her in her own.

  “You planning on answering that?” Bettani was also in early. He’d sort of blocked out the phone. Some memory was itching at him and he hadn’t found it yet.

  “Damien,” he didn’t even look at the caller ID as he answered.

  “Bay. He didn’t say which bay,” Cornelia’s idea of a Good morning, lover moment—at least when she was in Chief of Staff mode.

  “That’s it!” Damien jolted upright in his chair. “That’s what was bothering me. Thanks, you just saved me a world of heavy thinking.”

  “I’ve been doing it for hours,” she sounded weary of it, but also energized. Her mind was awake, even if she must be physically exhausted.

  “Come on down and we’ll look at it.”

  There was a long pause that puzzled him. She sounded a little resigned when she said that she’d be down in a moment.

  Damien shifted to the Briefing Room itself. He shut down room’s microphone, so that he wouldn’t disturb the duty watch—he could do his own damn searches.

  Cornelia joined him soon enough, but she didn’t sit. Instead she came into the room and stopped, standing still and looking at him.

  “How do you look so amazing at three in the morning?” Her attire reminded him simultaneously of the woman and the lover. Her tailored suit was impeccably professional—not unisex by any means, but alone it would have made no statement beyond “feminine.” However, around her collar she wore a brilliant red scarf of some flimsy material that added a flair that she didn’t normally show. A flair that reminded him of the stunningly sensual woman who presented a neatly professional demeanor.

  The look on her face at his compliment wasn’t what he’d anticipated. No brilliant smile, not even the small quirk of one. Instead she was studying him with all the enthusiasm she might study a report on the latest requisition for a US Coast Guard ice breaker.

  “There are over a hundred significant bays around the continental US.” He decided that dir
ecting her attention to the screen was probably the safest choice at the moment.

  She moved slowly to the first seat on the left-hand side of the table and sat across from him. But she didn’t look at him, instead inspecting the map of the US that he’d put up on one screen and a USGS list of bays on another. Cornelia didn’t say anything about what was on her mind.

  “I think,” he struggled not to ask what the hell was going on, “that President Madani meant Chesapeake Bay, but we don’t know that for sure. And from what I can remember, he wasn’t sure either. So let’s look at major bays and how they might relate to: We shall cut out their heart with their own words.”

  Cornelia nodded, “Also, it would have to be a significant attack, with meaning. A terrorist wants everything to be showy.”

  “So Seattle Public Library would be out even though it sits just five blocks above Elliot Bay.”

  “Why are we starting at the bottom of the alphabet—Washington State?”

  “I always do that, though I’m not sure why,” Damien puzzled at it for a moment. “I think that it forces me to adopt a fresh view. Looking at everything backwards.”

  Cornelia glanced his way for a moment at that, then nodded for him to continue.

  State by state they rolled up the list.

  “I’ve always been partial to Depoe Bay in Oregon,” he told her when they got to Oregon.

  “Why? It’s tiny.”

  “It’s the smallest navigable bay in the world, at least according to the locals. They have a fishing fleet, and I use the word loosely, of less than a dozen craft. That plus a couple of whale watching boats.”

  “Not a likely target,” Cornelia pointed out.

  “Didn’t say it was. Just said I was partial to it.”

  Cornelia covered her face with her hands for a moment. He wasn’t sure if she was trying to hide a smile, or was about to go looking for a gun.

  When she did neither, he continued.

  New York was a harbor.

  Long Island was a sound.

  Massachusetts Bay outside of Boston was a maybe.

  The Chesapeake still ranked as a most likely.

  Maine had hundreds of bays along its craggy shores, but who could possibly care unless they lived there.

  Hawaii seemed too remote to feel threatening, as did Alaska.

  By the time they were done they had added only San Francisco and Delaware—and the only interesting thing up the latter was Philadelphia and it wasn’t technically on the bay, but rather on the river. Of course, DC wasn’t on the Chesapeake either, but rather up the Potomac River from the bay.

  “Are we overthinking this?” She asked when they had their list of bays down to just three. “Are we putting too much emphasis on the word bay?”

  Damien didn’t know. “It’s about all we have to go on.”

  “All we have to go on,” Cornelia sighed.

  Damien had often been accused of being a little oblivious when it came to women. Bettani or Marko were always telling him that he was missing all the signals, both the Come here, boy and the It’s about to be over!

  Not this time.

  He heard Cornelia’s subject change loud and clear.

  “All we have to go on?” he prompted her cautiously. Just because he heard the subject change, didn’t mean he had a clue what the new topic was.

  “Damien,” her tone sounded dire and she was looking at her folded hands, not the screen or him.

  Her hands, that he so enjoyed looking at, even when he wasn’t thinking about the incredible sensations they could draw from his body, were clenched together bloodlessly white.

  “We—”

  “Nope!” Damien cut her off.

  “What do you mean?” That forced her gaze up to study him.

  “I mean that if you’re thinking about what I think you’re thinking about, don’t think about it because you’re completely wrong.”

  “That didn’t make any sense.”

  “It did when I said it,” he puzzled over his own words for a moment. “Just not when they came out.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying…” And he was about to put his foot in it, but he was afraid of what she’d say if he let her have the initiative. “I’m saying that if you’re thinking about me not falling in love with you, you’re already too late.” Which sure as hell wasn’t anything he’d meant to say.

  Cornelia could feel the silence slide over her. That cold clear wash of Vulcanesque logic that she had cultivated as a little girl. The one that had made her the most deadly debater at Claremont McKenna—a school known for its debate-style instruction. The one that she used when faced by unfriendly congressmen or demonstrably overly-friendly congressional aides.

  Cut it off! Lock it away! Be safe!

  None of that garbage out there was about her. She was safe inside herself. Safe from…

  Damien watched her carefully across the President’s Briefing Room table. He looked as surprised by what he’d said as she felt—if she was letting herself feel.

  Which she wasn’t.

  But she did.

  Feelings that she wanted to deny as impossible, except they were his feelings.

  You can never simply know what someone else is thinking. Your job is to find out. It was one of Zachary Thomas’ favorite sayings.

  “I think I just found out.”

  “Found out what?” Damien asked softly. His deep voice sounded as if it was being strangled somewhere deep in his chest.

  “That you’re feeling what—” Cornelia couldn’t quite bring herself to say it. “you say your feeling.”

  “I seem to.” He dragged a hand through his hair, mussing it completely. It was one of his more endearing habits. “It’s surprising the crap out of me if that’s any comfort.”

  “Actually, it is.”

  “You—”

  “Nope,” she cut him off this time. “Don’t give me any clichés about my not having to respond or if the next line isn’t obvious or any of that.”

  “Okay,” he shrugged and offered one of his smiles. “I’ll just wait you out then.”

  “It may be a long wait, Damien.”

  “The President of Iran didn’t seem to think so.”

  “He is also arrogantly male. He practically proposed to me over a pastrami sandwich.”

  “Corned beef.”

  “What?”

  “I had a Reuben. You and President Madani had corned beef. Pejman was the one with pastrami and he didn’t propose to you.”

  “As I said, arrogantly male,” but she was having trouble hiding her smile.

  “Something one arrogant male can appreciate in another.”

  “And on what do you base your own arrogance other than being a Marine?”

  “And a librarian. Makes me a pretty special guy.” Then he leaned forward as much as the table would reasonably allow. “But do you want to know the real reason?”

  “I think that the answer to that would be no.” Cornelia could feel her magnetic, unthinking, purely emotional draw to him and didn’t like it. Actually, she did like it and that was even more unnerving.

  “I figured, but I’ll tell you anyway. The real, heretofore unexpressed reason I feel so comfortable with being an arrogant male is quite simple.”

  “What’s that?”

  He reached out and rested one of his big strong hands over her clasped ones, enveloping them both with his warmth and power.

  “See? I knew that you really wanted to know. But it’s a secret,” he whispered.

  “We are in the Sit Room,” and her smile did escape her control at his laugh.

  “Lean closer and I’ll whisper it.”

  Even as she told herself that wasn’t going to happen, her body decided otherwise and she leaned in.

  “I’m the guy who gets to tell Cornelia Day that he loves her.” Then he leaned back and returned his voice to normal as if it was too much even for him. “If that isn’t an excuse for unremitting arr
ogance, I don’t know what is.”

  “Males,” Sienna spoke from the doorway, “don’t need an excuse to be arrogant. But what was yours? I couldn’t quite hear it.” She continued into the room and dropped her files at the chair beside Cornelia.

  “I—”

  “Any doubts,” Sienna talked right over Cornelia’s attempts to protest, “just go up to the roof and ask my Secret Service sniper fiancé. That man actually thinks I’m going to happily marry him, bear his children, and grow old together.”

  “You aren’t?” Cornelia couldn’t hold back her surprise. They were so obviously in love.

  “Oh, I am. Christmas Day. You’re both invited if I didn’t remember to send you invitations. Not a chance am I going to let a man that good out of my sights. But I’m not going to tell him that just because I said ‘yes’ when he proposed, all the rest of it is true.”

  “But—”

  “So,” Sienna kept talking. “Anything new to report, other than the obvious?” She nodded toward where Damien sat with a perplexed look on his face.

  Cornelia managed to control her voice. Less sure of her hands, she tucked them in her lap under the edge of the table. “Unless terrorists are going to be attacking the world’s smallest fishing fleet harbor, we’re still thinking that the Chesapeake is our primary candidate.”

  “Darn it! I didn’t even think about the target not being DC. I need to get my head fixed.”

  “Actually,” Cornelia couldn’t help but feel a little envious of Sienna’s clarity of thought and awareness of her own emotions, “your head seems like it’s just fine to me.”

  Cornelia risked a glance over at Damien, but he was once again concentrating on the screen as if to verify their conclusions. It was hard not to wish that she too could talk about Damien with such heartfelt passion.

  She almost laughed at that.

  She hadn’t just thought about being able to say such things about “someone,” she’d targeted Damien. Perhaps she did need to keep her overly logical thoughts to herself and simply give her “human half” feelings time to be recognized. As she watched Damien work, she suspected that she knew what those feelings would be when they finally crystallized.