Vetting The Senator

by Alex Elliott

  “Don’t start something that I’ll finish. On my own terms.”

  “You’re not the only one who can close a deal, Senator?” She wraps her delicate hand in my tie and pulls. Our lips are a whisper away, and my muscles lock in place, shaking from the supreme effort of holding back from delivering what we both want.

  “This isn’t the moment to thwart me,” I grind out a warning.

  “Oh no?” Her tone drips with insolence. “You’re more surly than usual, so maybe it’s the perfect moment.”

  She deserves an impromptu lesson on impertinence. I stare down into aquamarine pools, drowning. My heart pounds behind my ribcage. Taking a breath—fuck I feel like I’m ready to start gasping.

  “Let’s go!” I’m at the point of breaking and hold X by her elbow, a little more than roughly, and she doesn’t balk. The rapid need to thrust into her wet, warm silk blinds me. I target the glaring red exit sign, my pulse throbbing, and every cell ablaze. When we make it to the sidewalk, I relax my grasp. “You don’t know how close you just came to getting power-fucked on top of my car.”

  “I’m pretty sure I know. Feel better after the sprint?”

  “Don’t play games with me,” I retort. “Not after today.”

  “Who says I am?” Gone is her tough outer shell. In that instant, her wide eyes fix me with an unwavering look. Is she as on edge as I am?

  “X, we definitely need to revamp our agreement. Sooner than later.”

  “We’ve got company.” Her attention is trained behind me.

  “C’mon. This way.” I pilot her into the restaurant. We’re slightly ahead of the dinner crowd and we’re seated immediately in a booth in the back. The press will have to work at getting access, yet some have enough tech gear to take a gazillion photographs from the windows out front.

  “What’s your staple?” she asks, looking over the menu at me.

  “Shall I order for us?”

  She closes her menu. “Go for it.”

  “Spicy all right?”

  She arches her brow. “The hotter the better.”

  I order us doubles, complete with a fried goose egg and Gouda cheese, but this time minus the charred onions and garlic.

  When the drafts are brought over, she lifts hers. “Cheers,” she says.

  I raise mine and push aside another round of ruminating over North. I’m not going to allow that SOB to ruin another second of my time with X. “To our future.”

  Our frosted mugs tap together with a resounding clink. Afterward, I sip mine, watching her over the rim. Jesus, how many times have I done this move? Watching. Waiting.

  I can’t continue playing this game. In the beginning it felt right—rounded out my need to possess her, giving me clarity in a prescribed, forced distance.

  Not now. I can’t pretend that what we’re doing is contained within the category of hardcore fucking. I want her. All of her, beyond what we do in bed. We’ve spent almost a month together and I’m the one pushing.

  With her, I’ve always been the hungrier, greedier, and with the night ahead open, I don’t want to continue this dance of pretense we’re spinning for the world. I’m wholly cognizant that I’m falling—crashing for Xavia. I should get up and leave. For her. For me. For fuck’s sake, why don’t I move?

  “What are you thinking so hard about? So dark about?” she asks, a worried expression overtaking her face. “You’re frowning.”

  “I’m thinking... about us.” I glance at her. If only I knew how to gauge what she feels in return. Decipher an answer to a question that hasn’t been poised, but clearly exists. The elephant in the room we’re tiptoeing around.

  “Hmm, still glowering.” She notches up her chin. “Are you wondering about ‘us’ as in senator and staff? Or us as in X and overbearing brute?”

  I scratch the stubble along my cheek, then exhale, “Everything.”

  “And that line of thinking irritates you.” Our gazes are still locked, and silently for a beat, she stares unblinking into my eyes. “You’re worried. Why?”

  A ripple of awareness tears through me and heightens my need to possess her. “Aren’t you?” I ask.

  “Maybe. Sometimes. But not when we’re together. Then it’s easy.”

  “We’ve become friends,” I whisper only part of the truth.

  “Oh we’re more than friends,” she replies.

  I down half my beer and gaze at her. She’s right on many levels. It’s easy, just being with her and hard when we’re apart. For an instant, I tune in to the reporters, snapping photographs, then shutter off my thoughts as I’ve learned to do with the media all around, recording events.

  But now, I’m with her, and this isn’t a political affair but we’re followed nonstop. This is similar to what she’s known growing up. I’ve read the reports Archer has given me on X, but there are holes missing, and after today, I’ve got to start filling those to get a handle on the ties between North and her grandfather.

  “What’s it like growing up a Kennedy?” I ask, wanting to hear her side.

  Shrugging, she takes a sip of her beer, and licks a drop from her upper lip before answering me. “I don’t really know. My mom and I aren’t privy to the Kennedy clan as most people believe. We’re invited to some of the larger parties. My stepdad and mom are still friends aka fuck buddies to be crude. If anything, it’s just like Virginia said. My grandparents have all the power. A force that isn’t a tidal wave around D.C. on the surface, but exists if not more powerfully in its unseen form. But I gather after your fact finding mission, that’s not news. Look, don’t shut me out. Something occurred today and either you tell me what the hell happened or let’s go.”

  My eyes widen before I can steel my features and refrain from reacting. Then I snarl in frustration and decide to stop plotting and just be with her. “You’re right,” I admit. “I’m not sure what kind of hornet’s nest I’ve stepped in and when I find out, I’ll tell you. It’s the best I can do. Trust me.”

  “I do.” She nods and I feel the knotted muscles along my neck relax. “If there’s ever something you want to know specifically, you can always just ask me.”

  “I haven’t gone out of my way to investigate you, but you’re a club member, and it’s part of the requirement.”

  “So,” she says, sipping her beer.

  “So?” I reply, gauging what to relay.

  She rolls her eyes. “Why not ask me? If you’ve found out something responsible for the frown you were wearing, maybe I can help. I’ll be happy to tell you anything you want to know...if that door swings both ways.”

  In a ballbuster move, I let her go first. “Ask me a question. Anything.”

  The smile fades from her face. “Why no long term relationships? Even in college?”

  Lucky me, I’m not choking on my beer right now. Instead, I lean my elbows on the table, steepling my fingers. “This is where I normally purposely derail in relationships. Way back in college, when girls wanted to ‘get to know’ me, I’d politely smile, lie through my teeth, and sabotage that relationship. I intentionally forgot to call or got caught with another girl. I’d do something epically douchebag-like to fuck it up. Not textbook psychology, Freud id shit, just a hundred percent prick. Then I discovered that controlling all the facets of sex in a lifestyle that didn’t rely upon the standards of intimacy involving questions and history melded with my personality. Only you have any inkling that my life is less than stellar.”

  Only this girl is both the submissive I hunger to bind, break, fuck, and the doorway to my nirvana. Only with her am I willing to risk everything.

  Threading her fingers through mine, she squeezes. “You can trust me like I trust you. Now, ask me something. I’m an open book to you.”

  “We both are.” I nod as if I’m convincing myself that what we’re proposing is a step in the right direction. In the history of never, have I gone this route.

  The server returns with two baskets on a tray. After she sets them down, I ask for refills,
but make no move to take X up on her offer to spill any dark secrets.

  “This is humongous,” she says of her burger, while she unfurls her napkin, and lays it across her lap. “So is this one of your normal haunts?”

  I lift my burger, pressing my fingers into the bun, and shift my gaze around the restaurant, then back to her. “I come here maybe twice a month. There’s a few other burger joints around D.C. that I visit. Depends what I’m in the mood for.”

  “Burgers and moods,” she remarks, smiling when the server slides a bottle of A-1 sauce to her.

  I take a gigantic bite of my burger, not realizing until this moment how hungry I am. I chew as she cuts hers in half, and I scoff, “Light weight.”

  “Whatever. I’m not planning on wearing mine. Tell me about yourself, something I don’t already know but is general enough to make good press. I’m asked more and more. It’s like some game with them.”

  “Recent stuff? Or should I just start with my birth and bring you up to speed?”

  Right before she takes a bite, she says, “Pick something. Really the reporters will eat up anything and everything.”

  We talk about our childhoods. Mine in Atlanta with a family that enjoyed Southern gentile cocktail parties on Saturday evenings, followed by long drawn out church services on Sunday, followed by hunting with dogs, confederate flags in trucks, and drinking moonshine miles away from the women who’d complain it was crass.

  “Senator Stone, are you a camo wearing hunter?” she asks, tipping her beer mug against her pink lips.

  “I can handle a rifle but I don’t enjoy hunting if it means sitting for hours in the dark, in the cold, waiting for a defenseless animal.”

  “What do you hunt?”

  “You have to ask?” I laugh and she gasps.

  “Do you own a gun?”

  I pick up a fry, and chomp on the end. “A few. When I was young, before high school I had a borderline obsession with weapons. Marksmanship. Surprisingly, it wasn’t my father’s family who supported this fascination.”

  “Then who?”

  My uncle, Mezzo Aldebrando Denario. This is one door I can’t open. Not even with her, so I give her a version of the truth. “My grandfather on my mother’s side. The one we spoke about before.”

  “Antonio Aldebrando,” she replies. I nod and she asks, “Do you enjoy competitive shooting?”

  “Did. High power rifle. But not enough to join the NRA. That’s in my past.” I avoid a discussion of who my instructors were and why they were skilled. My uncle and a few cousins hover on the periphery of my life then and now. They taught me to use a twelve-gauge shotgun with a target that had nothing to do with camo, eating beef jerky, or bragging. By the time I was a teenager, I could fling a knife—with either hand—and had enough experience with assault rifles and semi-automatic weapons to memorize the weight of a gun against the heel of my hand.

  “What was your mother like?” she asks without warning.

  Her question comes at me, hitting me between the eyes. “My mom...she was a lot like you. Full of energy. Unafraid. Classy.” I tell her what I remember in a tumbling stream. I don’t stop for minutes and she listens, holding my hand as my past pours out of me. When I’m done, my chest is hollowed out. I stroke my fingers across hers as though stunned but also relieved in a way.

  “You know more about me than anyone else,” I say and meet her crystal eyes. “Tell me something about you...something I don’t know.”

  “It’s not easy to deal with the past. I have no idea who my father is.” She holds my gaze, unblinking and smiles. “I hope this doesn’t put you to sleep.”

  I listen to her describe her life as an only child who grew up surrounded by Grace and Stan Stillman as those two overtly sought to contextualize her life. Put her into a box, then decide that box wasn’t good enough, and tried to thrust her into another. I’d already found out that she isn’t aware of her father’s identity, but I don’t know if she wants to find him. She speaks dispassionately about her personal history, giving me the bare facts.

  “After husband number two, my mother traveled and stayed a year in India and Tibet, and returned pregnant. My cousins are a mixed bag. Two closest to me in age, landed in Midtown a couple of years ago, and are making names for themselves in the Stillman world of high finance on Fifth Avenue. Colin—my mom’s sister’s son—as you’re aware doesn’t do much except exploit our family’s dirty laundry.”

  “Were you lonely?” I ask, running one of my knuckles along her jaw, and observing the slight flare of her nostrils. “Even with a sister, I was. Large houses don’t lend themselves to making neighborhood friends.”

  “Not really. My mother’s got lots of acquaintances. Sometimes, I wished for less people coming and going. It would have been nice to have an anchor, which probably sounds dreadfully boring. Off and on I’ve wanted to find out who my father was, but not enough to fret and act.”

  Hearing the poignant note in her voice, I toy with the idea of pressing her to let me hire Archer and solve that mystery. “There are plenty of private detectives who specialize in locating missing parents. Depends on why you want to find him, and if you’re ready for the truth.”

  “What’s that going to get me?” Pushing her basket back, she groans, “I’m full.”

  “Is that a yes or a no?” I refuse to let her off the hook.

  She tilts her head to the side. “It’s an I don’t know.”

  I squeeze her hands and interlace our fingers. “If you ever do, just tell me. I can help.”

  “If that day ever arrives, you’ll be the first person I contact.” Her lips curve up into a precocious smile. “This is fun. Being out with you. On a date.”

  “It’s not over,” I whisper, leaning forward. “Tonight, I’m going to make love to you.”

  Chapter 16

  BEAUTIFULLY BRUTAL

  “MAKE LOVE?” I whisper the words echoing in my ears.

  It feels like Ben’s shouted them. I sit here dazed from the effects of a billowing cloud of heat that spreads underneath my skin, emanating from between my shoulder blades, then outward across my nerve endings.

  “Yeah. For hours,” he replies, shifting his gaze from mine upward, snagging the server’s attention with a gesture of his hand for the bill before he fixes me with his intense stare.

  “That’s not what we’re supposed to be doing,” I remind him.

  Throughout dinner, he’s vacillated between surly and solemn to flirtatious and possessive. And somewhere in between, when he spoke about his mother. Her sudden death. I was touched—branded with an impression of why he acted out in college and his decision to become an attorney. It’s like we’ve crossed a threshold. Might be my imagination or the mugs of microbrewed beer, but after spending the evening talking, I feel closer to him as if tiny threads connect and hold us in the same orbit.

  “Isn’t it?” He wipes his mouth with his napkin, and cocks his head toward the window. “They might disagree.”

  “But they’re not us,” I’m quick to point out. I swing my gaze toward the window, then back as a few dozen flashes go off.

  “It’s time to renegotiate the rules.”

  “Because you say so?”

  A wolfish grin tugs at his lips. “Because your body says so. Because you and I aren’t rule-driven by nature. Truthfully, don’t you want to be together more than once a week?”

  “That’s not a question.” My rebuttal is poor and he knows it. I raise my own napkin to my mouth, shielding my retort from those I imagine are well-versed in reading lips. “Of course I want more time with you, but that’s not safe.”

  Tossing cash onto the table, Ben stands with his back to the window, preventing the entourage out on the sidewalk from dissecting our conversation. “We’re out of the box. Sitting here. This isn’t what we envisioned in Boston. The smart thing is to find out what works for us. I’m willing to keep searching.”

  I follow right back with, “Don’t make it seem like I’m n
ot.”

  “Okay.” He plants a hand on the table, bowing forward, and lowering his voice, “Time to come clean. How far out of that gilded box are you willing to come?”

  My forehead tightens. “Do you realize we’re setting ourselves up for—” Before I can finish, he pulls me out of the booth. We’re standing close enough for me to discern the golden flecks in his green eyes.

  “Up for one hell of a relationship. Yeah, I got that the first time we kissed. I want more. You said you want secrecy, I’m sorry I haven’t delivered. But since we’re both fine with not hiding in the shadows, let’s enjoy this ripple in our plans.”

  Why does everything he suggests sound utterly convincing? I grip the side of the table, silently beseeching him. I must be tipsy because all of a sudden the effects of the beers broadside me. “We aren’t two corks adrift in the ocean. We had a plan. It changed. But we still need structure. A safety net in place.”

  He tugs my hand, guiding us to the front of the restaurant. “I don’t believe for a second that’s what you want. If it was, you would have stayed in Boston, and allowed Grace to rule your life.”

  Pastels and pearls, martinis and I’d be another marionette. He’s right. “You’ve made your point.”

  “Until I get you naked, without an argument, we aren’t done.”

  Out on the sidewalk, the troupe of reporters and photographers calls out his name. A few semi-shout questions and Bennett goes into his media savvy mode. Charming, he smiles, laughs and talks the talk. He defers to me and the questions center around how long we’ve known each other to what we had for dinner. Within fifteen minutes—an eternity for this type of neighborhood media spotting—we’re walking into the garage. Because he’s given the press his time, no one follows us. “You’ve learned to curtail being hounded.”

  “Had to make up for earlier. At the office when we gave the press the slip.” He unlocks his car, and opens my door. “We aren’t going to be ruled by the House. Agreed?” His voice comes out terse and I stall answering him.

  When he gets in, I turn to him, and open up the discussion on bending our rules. Again. “Point of fact, we’re under an agreement. What about that?”