Peter's Christmas

by M. L. Buchman

  Katherine had staked out her territory with her vivacity, her immense popularity, her slap-you-in-the-face sexual power, and a conniving streak a mile wide that had been her ultimate undoing.

  Geneviève carried an air of quiet sophistication about her. Her temper was as placid as a mountain lake. Granted, one of unknown depths, but she was a center of calm. He felt better just for sitting with her. Even the first time Peter had met Katherine, she’d left him feeling drained.

  He had to give his dead wife some credit, he wouldn’t be President without her. She’d pushed and driven, arranged and maneuvered until he’d met all of the right people and been in all of the right places. Her sense of politics had far exceeded his own. In that one way, they had been a good team. She navigated the political landscape as if she had her own personal, private, executive roadmap.

  His interests had lain elsewhere. What drove him to the Presidency was the opportunity to make a difference. He’d been a key player in dozens of corporate rescues, eventually including the restructuring of NASA and recovering whole sections of the auto industry that had teetered on the brink of bankruptcy. It’s where he’d made his name and where he’d found his joy.

  And it had nothing to do with Katherine. That part of his life, at least, was clean from the blemishes she had laid upon so much of his life.

  But he didn’t want to think about her. He wanted to know more about the passions of the woman sharing his dinner table.

  “Tell me more about your Heritage Sites, Geneviève.”

  # # #

  Over the long-finished meal, a very passable Thai curry on red rice and magnificent coconut ice cream, Genny told the President of a few of the dozens of wonders she’d toured, both in Southeast Asia and other places around the world. From the Phong Nha-Ke Bang Park of Vietnam, the largest karst limestone cave system on the planet, where the largest cave in the world had only been discovered in 2009, large enough to hold a New York City block, including its forty-story high skyscrapers. To the Buddhist Temple of Borobudur in Indonesia, lost for six hundred years in the jungle and second only to Angkor Wat. She’d also entered the Caves of Lascaux, not the replica that had been set up for tourists, but the original, now so carefully protected against further degradation due to moisture.

  “I had to wear a rebreathing apparatus simply to keep the moisture from my breath from touching the paintings.”

  “And I’ll bet you looked fetching in it.”

  Genny was beginning to trust her perception of the President’s thoughts. By his smile, he clearly was thinking of how she must have looked in some sexy James Bond movie heroine fashion. It was hard to complain that he saw her in such a way. Though eventually reality would disappoint. But in the favor of his more practical side, his constant questions and interruptions proved he was also paying attention to her words.

  Not only did he appear interested in her, he had made her interested in him. They had talked around a dozen topics and she could think of a hundred more that she would enjoy exploring with him. Never had she so appreciated a man’s company.

  “Do you have a music player in this White House home of yours?”

  “Uh, sort of. I have a speaker system in the other room that I can drop my iPod into. But it’s loaded with lectures on governance, international law, documents I don’t have time to read unless I’m exercising or something. That sort of thing.”

  “Show me.” She stood and waited for him to gain his feet. He sounded as compulsive as she was. Her own playlist included the complete recordings of the latest World Heritage Conservation Conference with a special focus on overly-rapid urban development and its effect on the present sites. She’d only heard the sessions at which she’d spoken or been on a panel, now she was trying to catch up with all of the other tracks.

  But she did have one other thing stored there.

  He led her across the Central Hall. Their Scrabble set had been cleaned up, though the board still remained on the low table from the prior night, as if awaiting another game. Another time perhaps. Directly opposite the kitchen was a small living room. Well, small in comparison to the vast expanse of the hall. Two sofas, several armchairs, a pair of low tables scattered with magazines and file folders. A space shoved clear where he was obviously used to dining when eating alone. It had been decorated in dark greens with a tasteful eye.

  “The previous First Lady,” he remarked, noticing her attention. “Not my wife. Not my former wife, er, deceased wife. She decorated this room for her husband. I liked it and made Katherine leave it alone when she was doing the rest of the Residence.”

  “It looks comfortable, and very masculine.”

  “If that’s an ego stroke, I’ll take it. If patronizing, I’ll ignore it. There’s the player, but it doesn’t even have radio.”

  She’d retrieved her purse as they passed through the hall and she fished out her iPod. Plugging it in, she found what she was looking for and pressed Play.

  Genny set aside her purse and moved to stand before the President. “It is not the best music for a first dance together, but perhaps it is good nonetheless.”

  A Christmas carol came out of the speakers.

  # # #

  Geneviève moved into his arms. Peter didn’t know what to do with the surge of energy that coursed through his body. Other than when he’d taken her hand to help her out of The Beast and the briefest of kisses last night, they had barely touched. He didn’t count her hand tucked in the crook of his elbow.

  Well, okay, he had counted it, until he suddenly had his arms full of luscious woman.

  Her idea of dancing was not some stand-offish American form of dance. It wasn’t even a waltz distance. She simply filled his arms.

  She placed a hand around his back and her cheek on his shoulder. With no other choice, he tentatively slid his hands around her waist. Never had he felt such a thing. “Thing,” there was a good word. Mr. Scrabble King had just lost all his words.

  Geneviève began a slow shuffle to some song he couldn’t make heads or tails of. Not because it was unfamiliar, but because he didn’t have sufficient attention span to identify what he was hearing.

  The scent of her filled him as much as her warmth. She wasn’t that much shorter than he was, so her head on his shoulder nestled up against his neck.

  “Hmm, you are smelling very good.”

  He couldn’t have said it better. “I took a shower.”

  Her laugh was soft and welcoming.

  Then he lay his cheek on her hair. It was even softer and thicker than it looked. It was impossible to tell when he first came in contact with it. He brushed a hand over its length, and down onto her back. He stroked it again, pulling some of it aside so that her face would not be lost in it.

  “I know, I need to cut it off. I just never get around to it.”

  “If you ever do that, I will immediately cancel your visa to our country.”

  “Hmm,” it was practically a purr of satisfaction.

  He could feel the sound ripple from her chest to his.

  “You certainly know how to make a girl feel welcome.”

  All he could think about was his need to kiss this woman. And then it struck him that if she weren’t willing, anticipating just that, she’d not be in his arms.

  Sometimes he was a little stupid, but that didn’t mean he was slow once he figured out what was going on.

  # # #

  Genny sighed with pleasure as he kissed her. She’d wanted it to be his choice. She’d wanted it to be his choice during dinner, and before that in the museum. Truth be told, she’d wanted it to be his choice since that very first chance meeting at the U.N. in the Dag Hammarskjöld Library six months before. Though she’d have laughed at anyone who had told her so at the time.

  She didn’t need a man. Her life was too full. Her last lover had been Klaus. He had been a good lover, r
ight until she was named Chief of Unit for Southeast Asia World Heritage and he was passed over as Assistant Chief of Northern Africa. Then he had been not so good.

  Perhaps the President would be her next lover. The way he kissed her made that a definite possibility. He might be a world leader, but he also smelled and felt wonderful. He held her with a gentleness of wonder. Did he also possess an animal side hiding down behind all of those defenses that were ever so polite and ever so careful?

  For she could see his defenses as clearly as she could feel his lips searing against hers. That had been clear to her from the first moment of their meeting. He hid behind layers of hurt, of Scrabble games and ex-wives, of his past and most definitely of his job. Well, she might as well start there before his kiss melted her into an absolute puddle.

  She broke the kiss and snuggled back against him as they moved softly to a slow rendition of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.

  “So, Mr. President, do you have a bedroom nearby as well?”

  He laughed, a delightful sound that rumbled against her ear. “How can you ask that question and still not call me by my Christian name?”

  Genny pulled back as if in surprise and looked up at him from the circle of his arms. “Oh, Mr. President, this isn’t about you. This is about the most powerful leader in the world.”

  “So, if I lose my next election in two years, it will be over between us?”

  “Absolument!” With a sly smile, she crossed her fingers and spit over them, a child’s promise. “It is only the President I want to be making love to.”

  He scooped her up in his arms and moved toward a side door. “I’d better win the next goddamn election, that’s all I have to say.”

  In the darkened bedroom, he began to undress her to Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus.

  Chapter 5

  Genny was going to miss her luncheon meeting at the U.N. and she didn’t care in the slightest. Merde! The way she felt, she didn’t care if she never moved again.

  The room was dark, but the man beside her was moving. “Where are you going?”

  “Good morning. I was trying to leave without waking you.”

  “Oh, you are the love them and leave their bed in the middle of the night sort of President.”

  “No. First, you’re in my bed, not the other way around. Second, I have a job.”

  “As do I. So, you are saying that you would leave your bed without even kissing the woman in it?”

  “I can’t even see where you are.”

  “Turn on the light.” While he fumbled for a moment to do so, she pushed down the covers she’d been so comfortably ensconced in a moment before.

  “There. I—” He turned to face her even as she blinked hard against the brightness. “Holy shit!”

  “What is ‘Holy shit!’?”

  “You are!”

  Genny had meant to tease him, but his reply was so emphatic. She squeezed open one eye enough to see that he was sitting up, his feet off the other side of the bed, and gaping at her over his shoulder. Though they had made love in the shadows of what little light washed in from the living room, she had known he had a good body. He had proved it many times throughout the night. But now that the light was on, she could see that the definition of it wasn’t merely tactile. He really looked wonderful.

  She especially liked the look of total shock on his face as he inspected her body. Inspected? Not the right verb. Perhaps ‘devoured with his eyes’ was better. She felt last night’s heat slowly rekindling deep within her, a heat that he had stoked far past any level she had ever known.

  “Why aren’t you a model or something?” His voice was breathless.

  “Because then I would not have ended up in your bed and we would not have had last night.”

  “Okay, you win that one.” He reached out a hand, so tentatively it almost hurt to watch.

  She finally took his wrist to pull his hand towards her.

  Rather than reaching for her body, he stroked her cheek and down her arm.

  “Did she hurt you so much? This dead wife of yours? That you are afraid to touch me.”

  Peter startled and his gaze jumped to hers.

  “It is written on you, my lover. You think that you have secrets from a woman who has done what we did last night? Non! You do not, so you may let that go, Mr. President.”

  He opened his mouth to speak, once, twice, three times. Then he burst out. “I have never met a woman like you, Kim-Ly Geneviève Beauchamp.” Then his kiss stopped any reply she might have made. A kiss that he didn’t release until he had once more driven them both up and over heights that she had never imagined possible.

  He collapsed back into sleep, his exhaustion overcoming the four a.m. time on his clock. Her leg across his hips and her head cradled on his shoulder were not enough to keep him awake.

  A job where the man must work so hard was not a good thing. But what he did at his job was a good thing. It was a strange contrast.

  Genny slowly traced a hand over his chest, feeling the even rise and fall of his breathing. His heartbeat, a soft song in her ear.

  She knew she was in trouble as she lay upon him and sleep eluded her. She closed her eyes and relished once more the warmth and strength of him. As if he could conquer the world. As if she could too for simply being with him.

  Then she spoke words that she knew she would wish to take back some day. Words that left a mark upon her that she swore no man ever would again.

  “I have never met anyone like you, Mr. President.”

  # # #

  The phone blasted Peter awake. He grabbed it out of an instinct of self-preservation. At that volume, another ring might kill him. He was a very heavy sleeper and it took a very loud sound to awaken him. But it made the second ring hell.

  “Uh,” was all he managed. The clock read five a.m. Normal call. No need to panic.

  “Good morning, Mr. President.” Daniel. “Time to get up. Also, I was going to drop off some papers on my way to the office, some things I think we could review over breakfast.”

  “Uh, sure, I…” He trailed off as a vision walked around from the other side of his bed. Clothed in nothing but a tiny silver medallion at her neck, she looked like a goddess walking upon the newborn world. Geneviève strode across his bedroom carpet long, lean, and golden with a confidence most women couldn’t muster in a thousand-dollar power suit. Her hair even billowed as she moved. She disappeared into his bathroom. He hoped to god he wasn’t hallucinating.

  “Sir?” Daniel’s question buzzed in Peter’s ear.

  “Sorry. Let’s, uh, not do that today.”

  “Absolutely, sir. I’ll see you in the office.”

  “Wait! Daniel?”

  “Sir?”

  “Could you have someone fetch Ms. Beauchamp’s clothes and other belongings from the Hay-Adams?”

  “I’ll, uh, see to it, sir. And may I say, about time, Mr. President. I’ve only been hearing about her for six months.”

  “Go to hell, Daniel.”

  “After you, sir.”

  Peter may or may not have hung up the phone. His next clear thought was leaning against the door jamb and watching Geneviève stepping into his shower. A simple, ordinary movement that might occur a thousand times in a couple’s life. It fired both his body and his imagination.

  It had been but a single night, but she made him want ten thousand more.

  # # #

  “I swear that I’m not stalking you. I simply forgot today’s schedule.”

  “There are many coincidences in your life, Mr. President.”

  “And still it’s ‘Mr. President!’” Peter faced a highly skeptical Geneviève across the island in the kitchen where he’d had dinner removed and breakfast delivered while they showered. On finding that her suitcase was soon to arrive, she had wrapped herself in h
is terrycloth bathrobe and nothing else. Katherine would have had on a nightgown, underwear, slippers, makeup, and who knew what else.

  Geneviève wore only his bathrobe; her hair still hung wet down her back. He couldn’t tell if she was angry or suspicious or quite what she was feeling. Like last night, she was several steps ahead of him and he trailed far behind.

  “I have a luncheon speech at the Eastern Governors Association Conference in New York. Then several meetings on Wall Street this afternoon. So, I’d be glad to give you a ride to Manhattan.”

  “And what will your press think when I come out of the White House with my suitcase and climb aboard your Marine One helicopter? What then, Mr. President?” She crossed her arms over her chest.

  “They’d think I was just about the luckiest man on the planet.”

  He could see her gathering for the next round of protest. Couldn’t the woman just take a compliment and be happy about it? No. She was as tenacious as he was. Though he did seriously like the image of them as a couple.

  “Yes, Geneviève, I know all of the arguments. Trust me on that. The President’s private life is anything but private. So, I must live at least part of my private life in public. If you don’t choose to, I understand absolument. I am glad to have you escorted out through the Treasury Building garage and delivered wherever you would like to go. We can try to keep it as quiet and private as we can. Frankly, I wouldn’t blame you for running in the other direction entirely, though I truly hope that you won’t.”

  She was listening. She wasn’t raging or interrupting or jumping ahead. She was actually allowing him to speak his piece. And he’d wager a fifty-point headstart for their next Scrabble game that it wasn’t because he was President. This was simply how she would be in a relationship, a startling concept in itself. Her simply treating him as if his thoughts had value evoked an answer that was surprising even to him. He didn’t speak from what he thought, but rather what he felt.