by Aubrey Irons
She shakes her head and tries to push past me, but I stop her with a hand on her arm. “You’re dodging the question.”
“What question?”
“That night? You, there?” I shrug. “I’m just curious.”
She purses her lips together. “Well, be curious to yourself,” she hisses, glancing around the hallway again. “And why are you following me?”
“Um, because it’s my job, doll, that’s why. I’m your detail, I thought we’d been over this back there with our parents.”
Her face cringes. “Please never say that again?” She pinches the bridge of her nose with one hand, her arms crossed tight across that cream blazer. “So my detail needs to linger outside bathrooms for me?”
“Gotta make sure you’re okay in there,” I say with a grin. “Never know when you’ll need a fresh roll of TP. And what happens if you sprinkle on the seat or something?”
I flash her another grin and she wrinkles her nose at me again in return. “You’re gross, and I’m sure I’m safe peeing in the most fortified house on the planet.”
“Well, yeah, thanks to guys like me keeping an eye on you.”
“Well stop keeping an eye on me when I’m in the bathroom, okay?”
“What, you worried about me seeing something I’ve already seen?”
Madison’s face goes bright red and she audibly groans and drops her face into her hands.
She tosses her head back, her dark hair framed wild around her shoulders and her chest heaving. Her lip is caught between her teeth, looking something between cute and mind-blowingly sexy that has me growling deeper and gripping her hips even tighter as she rocks them against me. Her eyes squeeze shut and her fingernails drag over my chest as she cries out, her body shuddering above me as I drive up into her again, and again, and-
“Please tell me why you’re here.”
I blink and furrow my brow at her. “You know, for a smart girl, you really don’t pay attention much.”
“Cute. You know what I mean. Why here? Why this job?”
I shrug. “Military family, my dad served, I served.”
Her scowling look softens for a second. “I forgot you’d served.”
“Yep,” I tap my shoulder, where the bullet went clean through. “God and country and all that.”
“Oh.”
I laugh. “What, feeling bad about sassing a vet now?” She rolls her eyes and starts to turn away again, but I pull her back gently by the arm. “Listen, I know you’re pissed about being here.”
“You have no idea.”
“Oh? I don’t?” It’s my turn to frown at her now. The sass is one thing, and the backtalk and the shitty attitude I can take. But the holier than thou ‘woe is me’ bullshit from spoiled little rich girl Madison Adams? Yeah, that I’m going to have a real fucking problem with. Because I’m here to do a job, not babysit a brat like her. And even if that job has a rapidly approaching expiration date, I’m going to damn well do it to the best of my abilities until they make me stop.
“You think I don’t know what it means to not do what you want? You don’t want to be here, and then you have to be. But you see I want to do this job. I want to be here at the White House, but then I won’t be able to.” I arch a brow at her, hardening my look. “Life is unfair, princess; deal with it.”
“Yeah, well I’ll deal with it without perverts like you lingering outside the bathroom listening to me pee, got it?”
My stern look cracks into a grin as she points a finger at me before whirling to stomp away. And I can’t even help it — even if this little brat’s just managed to get under my skin and piss me right off — when my eyes drop to that perfect, sculpted ass encased in that tight little cream skirt. The jacket, the nude heels, the pantyhose, the fucking Kennedy pearls — all that formal shit just somehow gets my cock rock hard in my suit and my brain a million miles from where it should be, which is not thinking about my new stepsister’s ass like I am at this very moment.
“And quit staring at my ass, dick.” She hurls back over her shoulder, before she ducks into one of the side offices and slams the door.
Yeah, this is going to be an interesting job alright.
5.
This whole situation is ridiculous.
All of it. As if being the first daughter wasn’t going to change my life enough, I’m walking into it on day one with one of the biggest secrets in the county.
I slept with my new stepbrother. Well, or at least a man who now happens to be my stepbrother. Oh, and who also happens to now be my fucking bodyguard.
Wonderful.
I have a secret bottled up inside that could topple a government if people knew about it, not to mention ruin me. And that’s a terrifying thought, especially in a place like this which is designed to suss out secrets. I mean the White House is the central nervous system of the whole government; this is a place where you’re not supposed to be able to keep things from anyone.
I glance nervously around my new bedroom — my lavish, elegant, princely and practically fairy-tale-esque bedroom in the East Wing of the White House. Yeah, I’m living in a place with wings; it’s all a very far cry from my one-room student housing in Chicago with a view of a brick wall, I’ll say that.
But as nice as it is, as elegant as the cream-white accents, the tastefully framed black and white photographs of former residents, and the carefully arranged flowers in the crystal vase by the window are, as much as I grin like an idiot at the four-post bed that looks like something directly out of every princess fantasy I’ve ever had, something seems off.
And just like the tick-ticking of the heart beneath Poe’s floorboards, I know what it is.
It’s guilt. Guilt and shame, and they’re gnawing at me, clawing at me, and maddeningly making me paranoid as I sit in the silence of this room. I find myself frowning at the flowers by the window, wondering if there’s some sort or listening device in there — something that’s going to read my mind and let everyone know about my horrible little scandal.
I’m dying to change out of my ridiculous get-up and back into something I can relax in like jeans and a sweatshirt, but I also realize with a chill that I’m actually not sure if I’m really alone in here. I mean this is the White House; who the hell knows where the hidden security cameras are?
You’re being paranoid; there are no “hidden cameras” watching the first daughter change.
Maybe not, but I also know that Hunter is probably right outside my room, that cocky little shit-eating grin on his face.
‘What, afraid I might see something I’ve already seen before?’
I groan for probably the hundredth time in the last hour, slumping back onto my lavish new bed and scowling at the door on the far side of the room. It’s as if glaring hard enough will somehow erase the man and the history and the horrible, dirty little secret standing right on the other side of it.
I knew the party was a mistake.
“Maddie, these things are SUPER exclusive.”
“Yeah, and it sounds sketchy as shit! I mean they flat out told you it was a SEX party?”
She rolls her eyes and shushes me, as if anyone can even hear us in the back booth of the practically empty mid-afternoon bar. “Okay, YOU’RE saying ‘sex party’ and that makes it sound super gross, by the way.”
“It is gross!”
“It is not!” She laughs, sipping at her chardonnay. “Dude, it’s like nothing you can even imagine. It’s all gorgeous people, everyone’s rich, and vetted for, the drugs are fantastic, and the whole thing is all really safe.”
“Do you even hear how crazy what you just described sounds?”
“I’m telling you, the one I went to before was AMAZING.”
“Jess, who even goes to something like this?”
“Um, me, Mads.”
“Yeah, but you’re-” I stop, shaking my head and biting my tongue.
Jess giggles. “Oh c’mon, say it! What, ‘slutty’?”
“I did NOT say t
hat.”
“Whatever, it’s kind of true.” Jess grins. “So I’m in my slut phase, big deal.” She leans across the table at me. “Look, my casting agent got me in last time, and I know he can get us in again tomorrow.”
“No way.”
“Mads, you need this.”
“Like I need another hole in my head.”
She laughs and pokes me in the arm. “Look, you’ve had a rough fucking year, okay? No, stop, you have, and you deserve an escape. Do you have any idea how much your life is about to change?”
“Jess I’m living in a hotel under an assumed name, in a city I don’t even know, a week before the the inauguration of my mother as the first female President of the United States.” I stick my tongue out at her. “Yeah, I’ve got an idea.”
“So come with! Dude, you’re going to be the most closely watched person in the fucking country in a week; do you have any idea how hard it’s going to be to get laid?”
I laugh.
“I’m serious! You need to bang Harry right out of your head with one last night of crazy with your wild slutty friend who’s NEVER going to get to see you after next week.”
“It sounds super dangerous.”
Jess breaks into a huge grin, and I know her well enough to know that SHE knows she’s got me. “It’s exciting, and crazy, but it’s safe, I promise. It’s a certain class of people they let in.”
“I can’t believe we’re still talking about going to a fucking SEX party, Jess. This is nuts.”
“Oh stop calling it that, you’re making it sound so tawdry. And besides that, GO nuts, because after this, your life is planned to the letter.”
The knock on my door brings me back to the now, still slumped back on my bed,wearing my whole outfit from before; pumps, pearls, and all. I glare at the door to my room. “Oh fuck off, I’m not even peeing!”
The door opens and Emma, my new publicist-slash-personal assistant comes in, looking very confused. “Is that a new slang or something?”
I smirk. “Sorry, forget it.”
I’d call Emma my “handler”, but that’d be mean. And she’s actually been great so far this past week with gearing up for the inauguration, as well as making sure I’m aware that all family members of Presidents get people like her, and that it has nothing to do with my issues from school.
She’s young — probably barely older than me, bookish, timely, on schedule, and efficient like a well-oiled machine. And quite honestly, I could use a whole lot of all of that in my life.
“You okay?” Emma raises an eyebrow behind the thick black rims of her glasses, just a hint of a smirk teasing her mouth as she eyes me lying like a Jackie-O rag-doll across the bed still in my skirt-suit. “You look worn out.”
“I’m fine, it’s just my mom. It’s nothing, just remembering why I don’t live with her anymore.”
“Ah, yes, well, the President does have a lot on her plate.”
I roll my eyes. Okay, so Emma can be a bit formal and machine-like.
“Do you want to change or something? You know your schedule is cleared the rest of the night, you can relax if you’d like.”
“Oh, yeah, I was…uh,” I suddenly feel like a complete weirdo being worried about hidden cameras and spy-listening devices in my flowers.
It’s just the guilt, that’s it.
Yeah, the guilt and the physical, living reminder of that night that’s going to be following me around like a damned shadow for the next few months.
Fantastic.
“Are there cameras in here?” I blurt it out before I can stop myself, and immediately feel like a complete moron for letting it out. Emma and I are basically the same age, but while I’m a petulant, sulking hot mess of a law-school drop-out, she strikes me as someone with multiple ivy league degrees and her shit together.
Right, which is why she WORKS here and you’re COMMITTED here.
Emma does have her shit together, and people with their shit together tend to put your life in very sharp perspective, first daughter or not.
But she only chortles; chortles. “Oh, my, no.” She smiles genuinely at me. “No cameras in the living quarters, I can assure you.” She winks. “The public bathrooms on the ground floor for tours and stuff though?” She wags her eyebrows at me and grins, and I decide right there that I like Emma.
“Feel free to change, Madison.” Emma says, tucking a lock of hair behind her eyes. “Relax and take it easy tonight, and tomorrow we’ll worry about how complicated things are about to get for you.” She gives me a little nod and a smile before she walks out.
Right, things are about to get complicated for me. I groan as I flop back on the bed and try to force the image of Hunter Ryan out of my head.
Way ahead of you, Emma.
6.
“Jesus, they’ve got you wearing the earpiece and everything, huh?”
Dexter; my younger brother, my best friend, my exact fucking opposite. The lip piercing, the rock t-shirts in the fucking White House, the “I stand for nothing so I’m above it all” bullshit attitude. Okay, so I was basically exactly like that before the Marines. Shit, I was worse back then when Mom was still around. But still, the kid’s gonna have some serious fucking growing up to do when he’s suddenly in the spotlight.
“It’s my job, Dex.”
“Sir! Yes sir!”
I roll my eyes at his goofy-ass salute and shove him back onto the couch. “Dude, you better get your shit in line man.”
He pulls a face. “For what, my ‘presidential duty’ like dad? Fuck that, I’m not marrying a President.”
“Guilty by association buddy, get used to it.”
It’s two days after the inauguration, and the whole house has been a whirlwind of new staff, new protocols, and even new decorators. Eleanor is having everything from the Lincoln bedroom to the Oval Office redone, which apparently is pretty standard for incoming Presidents, but it still has the place charging along like an absolute shit-show.
On the upside, the fact that my dad and Eleanor have got Dexter and me quietly set up in rooms in the apartment quarters of the White House — separate from the main living quarters, but still — seems to have gone fairly unnoticed.
“So, what’s the deal with our weirdo stepsister?” Dexter pulls out a pack of cigarettes, which I promptly snatch out of his hand. He makes a face. “What was that freakout man? She looked like she was going to hurl right in the Oval Office.”
“Hey, chill. She’s just put off by the whole thing. It was a surprise for her too, man.”
Holy shit was it ever.
“Oh there’s that chivalry.” His eyes flash as he grins at me. “And hey, don’t get weird with it, dude. “
“What?”
“Oh c’mon,” Dexter reaches for his cigarettes but I hold them up high over my head. “Hunt, like neither of us thought it.”
“Thought what?” I know where he’s going with this and I can feel myself tense up, even if I know I need to play it cool.
“Uh, that she’s hot?”
“Don’t be disgusting, Dexter.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m telling you!” He makes a last snatch for his smokes, and I’m too on edge by the direction of this conversation to yank them back this time. He shakes them triumphantly as he heads for the door to one of the side garden patios. “Thats off limits, pal.”
I roll my eyes. “Of course it is.”
“Hey, you’re the one that can’t keep it in his pants.”
Oh you have no idea.
But the job comes first; that’s the first thing you learn when training for the Service. The job is all that matters, and I have to put what happened with Maddie that night out of my head and just move on. We’ll get over it.
It sounds a whole lot less convincing by the third time I repeat it in my head.
As if staying on top of security during a massive redecoration of the most iconic house in the western hemisphere wasn’t crazy enough, Eleanor has also decided that day three of
her presidency will involve a charity event on the lawn of the White House.
The lawn, in Washington D.C., in January.
Okay, yes, there’s a tent, and it’s clear and the whole thing is heated with the solar technology stuff she’s been pushing as part of her platform, and won’t it just be the perfect media event. Yeah, well, it’s also going to be a major pain in the ass, security-wise.
And speaking of ass pains, it’s yours truly’s job to make sure the royal princess herself is ready to stop sticking her head in the sand and act the part. She’s been avoiding me — well, me and anything else that involves leaving her living quarters — for the past two days. But let’s be real: her mom is going to be President for at least four fucking years; she’s gotta come out sometime before then.
One conversation, two days ago, and that’s it. One snippy little accusatory bullshit conversation where somehow I’m the bad guy here for having sex with a very hot, very willing girl in a fucking mask who was explicitly at that place to get laid. Somehow I’m the dick for not divining with my sixth sense that that same girl would be my stepsister at some point in the future.
Goddamnit, why her? Why the fuck did I sleep with this girl?
The absurdity of even thinking that actually gets me heated as I stomp up the back staircase towards her quarters. So heated, in fact, that it doesn’t strike me that I should knock until I’ve already swung the door to her room wide open to the sound of her shrieking.
Well, fuck.
She’s wearing black lingerie. Well, at least I’m pretty sure she is before she jumps behind one of the thick posts of her four-post bed.
“Hunter! What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Hey, I was coming to see if you’re ready to go!” I say, turning away.
“Well close the door!”
“Fine, Jesus.” I growl, frowning as I step into the room and shut the door behind me.
“With you on that side, ass,” she hisses from her shitty hiding place.
This time I turn back to her, and suddenly I’m forgetting I was even scowling as I just stare.
