The Phoenix Candidate

by Heidi Joy Tretheway

  “Then I guess you’ve already decided.” I cross my arms. “I’m too much trouble. Maybe I’ve got too many opinions of my own? Too much thinking for myself? You can’t pick apart my closet and rewrite my life and expect I’ll just fall in line.”

  “That’s exactly what I expect, Grace.”

  “Then what was last night in the bar? Were you testing me? Did you want to see if I was easy? If I’d be a liability? Or was picking me up and fucking me just for your own personal amusement?”

  He spins and stalks toward the door. “I think we let that get out of hand.”

  “Out of hand?” My rage builds. “I’ll tell you what’s out of hand. You making decisions for me like I’m something that can be traded for political capital. I’m not a puppet, Jared.”

  That last line lands like a blow to his chest and I see him physically shrink back. His eyes dart to my door, then back to me. He gives me a hard look, a challenge that threatens to take me out at the knees, but I stand my ground. I’m not giving him an inch.

  He opens my front door. “Then I have my answer.”

  ***

  I toss and turn in a tangle of sheets. I did the right thing. Right?

  I stood up to Jared, stuck to my guns, owned who I am and what I stand for. So why does it feel like I just flushed the most important opportunity of my life?

  My clock glows too brightly at 2:18 a.m. My head pounds from the wine and not enough water today. And my body still throbs with all this want, these foreign, lusty hormones crashing through my system after being on ice for so long.

  Even though I was ready to dick-punch that bastard Jared, I want him again. I let my hands skate down my stomach to touch where he touched me, trying to feel what he made me feel on the island, and last night.

  I can’t do it. Touching myself only leaves me frustrated.

  I toss off the covers and flick on the light, determined to salvage tonight by getting some work done. The e-reader Jared gave me is lying on the bedside table by my phone, but I don’t have any reason to turn it on.

  It’s done. I’m not going to be his puppet. The Conover-Colton ticket is not going to happen in 2016, or ever.

  My phone trills and I stare at the screen. Jared.

  “You should be sleeping.” His voice is husky, low. I hear sounds of traffic in the background.

  “I am sleeping,” I say grumpily.

  “Then why is your light on?”

  Why is my light …? “How do you know my light’s on?”

  “Because I’m sitting down here, trying to figure out what the hell to do with you, and you turned your light on. So I want to know if you’re up there trying to figure out what the hell to do about this ticket, or if you’ve already made up your mind?”

  I fly to the window and look down. He’s there on a sidewalk bench, his legs neatly crossed, the phone casting a soft blue glow in his hand.

  “I thought you already made up your mind.” I say.

  “I did. And you changed it.” He’s quiet for a moment, and I watch him stand and cross the street, disappearing beneath my building’s entry awning. “Let me in.”

  Chapter Twelve

  I hear a click on my line, the signal from my building’s front door panel that Jared’s buzzing to be let in. I hesitate, then press the button to grant him access.

  I changed his mind. I don’t know what to do with that information, and I don’t know what it means. Does Jared want to recommend me for the ticket? His knock comes too quickly, before I can change into something more appropriate than my sleep shorts and tank top, and before I can formulate a new argument.

  I open the door and he enters in a rush, closing it behind him and killing the hall light so we’re in near darkness. Dim city light and moonlight filters in through my windows.

  “What did you mean when—”

  “Shut up, Grace.” Jared grabs my waist and presses me against the wall, his teeth finding the base of my neck. He bites down.

  I whimper, but my body melds to his. The length of his cock juts from his trousers, digging into my belly. He wraps both of my wrists beneath one hand, pinning them above my head to the wall, then his free hand hitches up my knee, wrapping it around his hips.

  I moan as his teeth and tongue torture my neck, biting and sucking, and I’m certain he’s leaving marks I’ll see in the morning. I angle my hips toward him, pressing his cock harder into my center, and his hand on my knee travels up the back of my thigh, beneath my loose sleep shorts.

  “God, Grace. You’re so wet. You weren’t thinking about the ticket at all.” He shifts and boosts me up so both legs are around his hips, then he walks me back toward my bedroom, where my bedside light is still on. “You were thinking about me.”

  “Yes.” It’s the truth. And a plea. He strips me of my shorts and tank in efficient movements, then stands back from the bed to look at my body.

  I cringe a little, pulling my legs together, moving my arm to cover my breasts. I have stretch marks from Ethan, full breasts that have lost the perk of my twenties, and a wide scar just above my pubic bone from the C-section.

  “Stop it.” His firm hand presses my legs back on the bed, and a flash from his eyes forces me to remove my arm from my breasts. “I like to look.”

  He stands there, fully clothed, looking his fill. His eyes are black beneath dark brows, the light not reaching them, but his gaze crawls over my body. It’s almost more intimate than touching itself.

  Slowly, deliberately, he removes his clothes. I watch the final garment go, his boxers sliding over his hips. His cock, hard and thick, juts from his body. He opens his palm and tears open a condom, rolling it over his length, his eyes never leaving mine.

  All I can do is watch. Watch and let him come to me like this—full of need and desire and intent. Full of questions and demands and maybe even regret. He stands at the edge of the bed, wrapping my legs around him as I lie back, the head of his cock teasing my entrance.

  Once. Twice. Three times. I hold my breath, anticipating the rush of pleasure and sting of pain when he’ll fill me. When he’ll finally be inside me. But he hesitates, and I’m afraid he’ll stop.

  “Jared,” I beg. “Please.”

  Slam. He drives into me, one motion and we are united. My back arches from the bed as he drives us together, his fingers gripping my thighs as he grunts with effort. Harder. Faster. Deeper. He’ll split me apart.

  I ask for more. “Please.”

  My hands are useless, unable to reach him in this position, so I tentatively reach for my breasts, pinching my nipples into stiff peaks, flicking them between his thrusts.

  “Touch yourself,” he demands, and I hesitate. I’ve never touched myself in front of a man, not even my husband Seth, whose vanilla tastes never strayed beyond a few basic positions.

  Dirty talk? Nope. Sixty-nine? No, thanks. Toys? No way.

  Jared halts our rhythm, pulling himself almost completely out of me. “I said, touch yourself, Grace. I don’t like repeating myself.”

  I press my hand between my legs, delicately fingering my cleft.

  “Not like that. Touch yourself the way you want me to touch you.”

  I take a breath and close my eyes. I can do this. My finger traces my seam, two fingers parting my lips, honing in on the little bundle of nerves that sends sparks shooting through my body.

  He plunges inside me once, then pulls back again. “Make yourself come. Right now.”

  I part my lips to object, to explain that an hour ago I was frustrating the shit out of myself in this very same position. And I couldn’t come.

  “No excuses, Grace. I’ll give you my cock only if you can push yourself to the brink while I watch.” As if to show me he’s serious, he pulls back further, his cock almost out of me.

  I whimper and drive my fingers to do it. To take my pent-up desire and gather it into a single point, a ball of energy that drives straight into my clit. My fingers press harder, move faster, and Jared pulls out.


  He drops to his knees, his face between my thighs, and he pushes my knees to spread them wide.

  Embarrassment wars with my building orgasm. I feel his fingers trace my seam, from the cleft of my ass to my center. While my hand works my clit, he presses a finger inside me, curling and twisting to hit my G-spot.

  Another finger, and his face is closer to my pussy, his hot breath fanning across me. I start to forget, to let go of the ropes that bind me to reality and this bed, this room, this city. This being watched.

  I forget the embarrassment, the scar, the stretch marks. I think of skin and flesh and bone, the things that make us human. And energy and pleasure and pain, the things that make us alive.

  And my orgasm, the thing that makes right now so real it strips away all the noise, distills the moment into just this. Just us. My back arches up, my chest expanding fast to take in panting breaths. My core clenches around Jared’s fingers and my clit twitches beneath my fingers in agony.

  I release. I fly. I scream.

  And before I can come back down Jared flips me, raises my hips, and drives his cock inside me. He reaches around my waist, his fingers finding my clit and he flicks the bud, extending my orgasm in wave after wave, through each time he plunges, until he finally crests and spills over inside me.

  We collapse, heaving, his chest against my back. He rolls us and wraps an arm around my waist, his hand searching to cup my breast. His breath tickles the back of my neck and his lips skate across the edge of my neck, teeth gently nipping where my neck meets my shoulder.

  When our breathing finally returns to normal, when I feel a deep sigh from his chest pressed to my back, I repeat the question that was on the tip of my tongue when he came in.

  “What did you mean when you said—?”

  “Shut up, Grace.” Jared chuckles. “We’ll fight about it in the morning.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  I wake to the sound of the shower and dawn light through my windows. The world seems suspended between who I am here and now, and who I could be.

  Vice president.

  It hardly seems real. And it isn’t, really. Not yet.

  Jared walks into my bedroom, a towel slung low around his hips, his hair still glistening with moisture. My eyes immediately go to the dark hair below his navel and I feel myself clench and squirm with the memory of last night.

  “We don’t have long, and your coffee maker is impossible.” Jared’s furrowed, grumpy brow indicates that this is unacceptable.

  “It’s easy. You just don’t know how to handle it.”

  I meet Jared’s glare and it’s a challenge. I haven’t forgotten our shouting match—well, it was mostly me shouting—and his firm declaration that this opportunity is over.

  So why is he still here?

  He turns his back to me and snatches his rumpled pants and shirt off the floor. I do what any human would do in this situation: I stare at his ass. Pop me some popcorn, I’m staying for the show.

  He flips a glance at me and his scowl melts into something … hungry. “You’d better stop looking at me like that or else we’re going to miss our flight.”

  “Our … flight?” I’m not going anywhere today.

  Jared lets his towel slide off his hips, snaking to the floor, and he crawls from the foot of the bed toward me. I squeak and pull up the covers, giggling, but there’s no laughter in his eyes.

  Only intent.

  “Look at me, Grace.”

  I raise my chin and let a coffee-colored curtain of hair fall away so he can see my eyes. He has me pinned beneath the sheet, and I feel my breasts tighten as his gaze sweeps over me.

  “It’s not over. You’re on the short list.”

  “I am?” I’m lightheaded, not fully comprehending. “I thought you decided. After I shouted at you and told you I was most definitely not going to fall in line.”

  “You’re perfect.” His hand cups my cheek, maybe the first tender touch I’ve experienced from this rough, intense man. “You told me everything I need to know even though you were telling me to go to hell. You told me you’re tough and brave and principled. You told me you were going to ask questions, and draw lines, and push back. That’s what we need in a VP.”

  “Yesterday was a test?” I feel my throat constrict with anger, and I’m again at war with myself over whether Jared is a man I can trust.

  Lust after? Abso-fucking-lutely. But trust? I still don’t know.

  “I know I should apologize for that, but I can’t. I won’t. I had to know what you’re made of.”

  I snort and borrow a hundred-year-old line from “Cactus Jack” John Nance Gardner. “And here I always thought a VP wasn’t worth a bucket of warm piss.”

  “Don’t discount the importance of this for your future. Even if we aren’t chosen at the convention—and Shep’s a long way in the numbers from Darrow—getting named matters.”

  I drop my eyes to my fingers tangled in the sheet. It hasn’t escaped my notice that Jared is very naked. But I’m not so much fired up as I am anchored. The words This is real peck at the edges of my mind.

  “Are we really flying somewhere today? I haven’t packed, and I haven’t looked at my schedule.”

  “Already done.”

  “You packed for me?”

  “And I called Trey.”

  My mouth drops open, somewhere between annoyed and astounded that he’s called my assistant in D.C. already. This guy knows how to move fast. In every way.

  Jared’s hand skates across my shoulder, then down my arm. “The things I’d like to do to you right now.”

  The look from his hooded brown eyes and his face full of stubble would incinerate my panties right now if I were wearing any.

  Regretfully, he pulls back from me, dragging the sheet along with it. I immediately move to cover myself, and he raises a brow.

  “Grace. We’ve been over this.” He stands, wraps the towel around his hips again, comes around to my side of the bed and extends a hand. I take it and grab my robe as he leads me to the kitchen.

  “Priorities, Grace. Coffee. Then shower. Then flight.”

  “You haven’t told me where we’re going.”

  He crosses his arms over his chest. “That’s on a strictly need-to-know basis.”

  I open my mouth to protest but a smile teases the corner of his mouth. “Bastard.”

  “Mouthy broad.”

  “Controlling ass.”

  Jared snorts. “We can go like this all day. You want to play that, or do you want to show me how this stupid machine works?”

  I grab a couple of espresso capsules and hit a switch on the side of the machine to warm it up. When the green light stops flashing, I pop a capsule in, shove a mug under the spigot and press a button to start the creamy brew.

  “I can take it from here. You shower.” Jared’s command brooks no argument, so I work through my morning routine. I go back to my bedroom to dress and find a suit laid out for me: medium gray, single button at the waist, with a dark teal silk shell and black patent heels.

  It’s a power look. Serious, but with enough feminine details that I don’t look like I’ve shopped in the men’s section.

  I’m fully dressed when I hear my front door open and close. Jared’s in a new suit, no tie. His rough stubble is in stark contrast to the suit’s neat pressing and tailoring.

  “Ready?”

  “For what?”

  “Seriously, woman? Can you just follow directions for one fucking minute without asking questions?”

  I raise a brow and he has the good grace to look a little chastened. I’m not accustomed to just following directions. For five years, I’ve been flying solo, so other than the expectations placed on me by constituents and my congressional calendar, I make the rules.

  I am the standard.

  And I won’t be bossed around. “Jared, I put on the suit. If you think you’re going to get me to budge from this condo without an explanation, you’re sorely mistaken.”

  H
e paces toward me, appraising me, getting in my space. I square my shoulders but he backs me up against my kitchen bar, boxing me in between his arms. I feel his breath sweep across my cheek as his voice rumbles low. “I already took your suitcase down to the car when I went back to the hotel for mine. We are getting on a plane. We are going to meet Shep in Denver, and you two are going to discuss terms and what it’s going to take to get you on the ticket. If he even chooses you.”

  His lips are dangerously close to mine, but his face reads all business.

  That word if scares me a little. I might actually want this. “OK,” I whisper.

  He draws back. “Good.”

  “But aren’t we—?”

  He silences me with a glare. “One fucking minute, Grace. Give me that.”

  I open and close my mouth, a thousand questions bubbling up. I grab my keys and purse from the table by the door, touch Ethan’s picture, and flick off the lights.

  In ninety minutes, we’re airborne.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Yesterday was a test.

  Today is another.

  As soon as we’re seated on the plane, Jared produces the e-reader from his briefcase. “I assume you haven’t dug into this yet?”

  I shake my head. It seemed pointless after our fight.

  “Read.” He sets it on my lap. I open my mouth to protest and he growls, “One fucking minute, Grace.”

  Passengers boarding the plane shuffle past us, and Jared’s phone rings. He turns away from me, toward the window, speaking in short, clipped sentences. I catch “Denver” and “Miami” and “it’s not going to happen again” and “none of your business.”

  Jared’s tone is harsh, but his pitch wavers. He hangs up with a scowl and powers off his phone.

  “Who was that?”

  “The competition.”

  “What do they—?”

  Jared cuts me off. “It looks like we’ll have some company at the events, but you can handle it. What we do is none of their business, because until the Democratic National Convention, it’s every man for himself. We’re not friends, we’re competitors.”