“Such a warm invitation.” He didn’t move closer, but he didn’t let her go either.
“You can’t always have what you want.”
“Is that your excuse for not trying?”
Now she was mad, and she wrenched her wrist free from his grip. He moved toward her and backed her against a wall. He stood close, but not touching. Towering over her, he knew he was trying too hard. He schooled himself to calm his blood and slow the pounding in his chest. She was another matter. She appeared anything but calm.
“Grow up. Life is hard,” she insisted. The quiet words were angry and tense, but she didn’t turn her face or back down.
“Some of the best parts are hard.” He wanted her to be as desperate as he was. He raised his hand to stroke her cheek. It was a good sign that she didn’t flinch. There was a slight sheen of moisture on her brow and across her upper lip. He was close enough to see it and tense enough to want to taste it.
“I…I can’t do this Peter.” Her words were whispered.
He moved his hand to grip the hair at the nape of her neck and whispered in her ear, “You mean you can’t not do this.” He hoped he was right. He needed to believe it. This was not good. He couldn’t let himself be vulnerable. Again.
His jaw clenched. Now he was speaking without thinking. Damn, that was something they both knew was against the rules he lived by.
At least she now looked less sure of herself. That was the final push he needed. He was no longer confused. She was his prey, no longer only on a professional level, but in every sense of the word.
He covered her buttocks with both hands and pressed her firmly to him leaving no room for her to move or to misinterpret his intentions. Caressing her bottom as he moved himself rhythmically against her, he stared into her eyes and watched them gloss over with desire. Watching her pupils dilate, he felt the heat rise in her through his fingertips as it reached her face and turned it pink.
“God, I love watching you become aroused.” His voice was tight as he held himself in check. He stopped the groan rising in his throat. His jaw trembled with the strain. The urge to jack up the rhythm was overwhelming, but he squelched that too. He increased the pressure of his fingers on her buttocks.
“Peter…this isn’t fair…”
“What’s not fair? Tell me.” Commanding her to speak when he knew she could not, he watched her. He needed her to be desperate before they had each other.
Pressing against her, he burned against her belly like a branding iron. He needed to get inside her. Fear that this may be all they had pushed him.
The zipper gave way under his tug and he took a breath for control as he glided the skirt from her hips, dropping it to the floor. She didn’t resist. Her gaze didn’t waver from his, nor did it let up in its intensity. She breathed the same air as he with her parted lips not quite touching his. Her hands clutched at his back as if she needed his support to stand.
He let his hands pull her silky shell up over her head so she was left standing in his arms in her bra and panties. The breath he took then as he crushed her to him was uneven. The struggle to maintain his control took all his focus.
Then she pulled her head back from his shoulder and, with her eyes open, locked her lips onto his, caressing his mouth in a slow stroke of her tongue. Grabbing her hair in one hand to better assault her mouth with his, he yanked her panties down with the other hand. He pressed himself forward until he indented her flesh.
“I want you now, Mad.” He ground out the words as a last warning that his control was gone. But he realized she knew. And that realization shattered him as he dragged her to the bed, half tossing her down and coming down on top of her as he stroked her.
“I want you too.” The breathless words came as she met his stare. He felt the hot melting butter of her desire with his finger tips and saw it in the glaze of her eyes. Then he thrust himself inside her and she cried out her pleasure in a blind shudder. He held her face in his hands, his eyes still on hers to watch the ecstasy flash across her features as intense as blinding pain.
He thrust inside her again and again and didn’t stop. He felt himself grow and saw nothing but red haze and heard himself call out as the excruciating burst of his pleasure came in a great gush.
Staring at the ceiling, he was not as satisfied as he wished he were, as he should be. He was concerned—not about the media or his campaign. He was most worried about her reaction. He knew she would say something, any second now, to let him know exactly how she felt about all this, and he anticipated that she wasn’t going to like it. He couldn’t even enjoy these few moments before the storm of her emotions hit, knowing that they would.
“Well that does it, Peter. I’m now just like everyone else in my profession. I’m going to have to call a colleague and get professional help to straighten out my own head.” She turned to him, and much to his surprise, she was smiling. “I hope you’re satisfied.”
He smiled back and pulled her in for an intimate kiss, thinking maybe he could be satisfied after all—if she wasn’t so damn confusing.
After she closed the door behind her, carefully looking around to make sure there was still no sign of media or any other attention, she sighed and attempted to erase the grim line she knew played on her face. She accomplished nothing here this morning, unless she counted confusing herself—and him—more as an accomplishment.
They were supposed to agree that they could have nothing but a professional relationship. Instead their relationship was more unsettled than ever.
And so was she. As a professional, she knew better than to ignore her emotions. This was a problem.
She looked up from the ground she had been staring at as she walked to her car. It was a perfect summer day. She forcefully squared her shoulders and determined that it was eminently healthy to postpone dealing with this problem for a couple of months while the minor detail of the campaign for governor was going on.
She wanted him, and it didn’t help her to know that she wasn’t immune from the earth-shattering sex. But being with him would be self-destructive. All the ambitions she had for herself would melt away, and it would feel like she’d lost her very identity. It would be six years ago all over again. The prospect made her shudder.
The shadows of dark memories from that time threatened to crowd her mind and churn her emotions.
No. She could not deal with all that now. It was not a good time. It was perfectly healthy to wait until after the election.
And even if it wasn’t healthy, that was what she was going to do anyway. Peter John Douglas be damned. Marshalling her resolve to ignore her memories and his charms for the duration, she thought surely she was up to that. She had her ambitions, after all. Her mouth turned again to a grim line.
He watched her out of his front window while sipping his coffee. She looked too thoughtful for her own good. He banged his mug down on the nearest heirloom table and turned from the window. Determination twisted his muscles into knots of tension. He had to make her listen; he had to get her to agree to be his lieutenant governor—for her own good more than his. He was so sure of this, and yet he knew how she would see it.
He knew from her perspective it would look like he was being opportunistic and controlling. That would annoy her. No, that was much too mild a term. It would anger her that he thought he knew what was best for her. But it was true. He may not know everything. He may not even know what was best for himself. But he was absolutely convinced that it was far better for her to be his lieutenant governor than to continue with this race against each other.
And then there was the personal relationship. He was confident she knew he wasn’t using her, that he had strong feelings for her, but what was he going to do about those feelings? It was imperative to win her over. He’d have to use his charm to do it. His mouth turned to a grim line.
Bad Vibes
“My one compromise and it’s going to haunt me forever, Clever Dennis,” Madeline said as she hung up the phone. Her nerves were starting t
o jangle.
“Who was it?” Dennis asked.
She’d taken to calling him “Clever Dennis” all week, partly in order to help the staff accept his attitude of superiority and partly because he actually was clever. He certainly didn’t seem to mind.
“It was Bertrand St. Cyr. He can’t believe I’m actually going through with this insanity—no ‘madness’ is the word he used. He thought I understood the ‘political realities.’” She paced as she spoke.
“At least he wasn’t asking about your romance with your opponent.”
“A small reprieve. I can’t wait till he gets hold of that story. He’s already labeled me a mad woman. He’ll add flighty to his list.” She stopped in front of Dennis. “He says I’m too much of an individual, but I insisted it is still possible for an individual to make a difference. He insisted there is no room for individuals in this democracy, that I’ll get crushed by the sheer weight of the numbers. Statistics and the lack of past precedent will work against me—no matter what the message is. And then he said it’s a good thing too.” She looked straight at her new press secretary now. “Because no one wants some mad woman riding in like Joan of Arc to save the day.”
She took a deep breath. It was ridiculous, but she needed to hear Clever Dennis’s relatively objective take on it all. “Can you believe that comparison?” she asked. “Who’s the mad one here, him or me? The guy’s starting to believe his own rhetoric and he’s separated so far from reality he’s off in another galaxy.”
“One less supporter, eh?” Dennis sat reading from a sheaf of clippings. She gave him a disgusted glance. He wasn’t getting it.
“Seriously, he’ll print this stuff, or something close to it, and since he was a former supporter it will be twice as damaging.” She continued to pace.
Dennis finally looked up from his papers and eyed her thoughtfully. “Of course he will. We should turn it to our advantage. He’ll label you Madeline the Mad Woman going against Peter the Rock of Gibraltar. We’ll just have to paint our own picture over it. We’ll compare you to Joan of Arc, save him the trouble. You’re the noble heroine going up against great odds to fight against the tyranny of injustice, to stand up for the rights of the individual.”
“Joan of Arc? Not you too?” She laughed, but since he was looking serious she stopped. There was getting to be too much melodrama in this campaign.
“Yes. Joan of Arc. She was seen as a mad woman at the time. They were afraid of her because she was thought to be so strange that she must be a witch—definitely considered a pariah by the establishment—burned at the stake for it. I see a lot of parallels here. We’ll have to stop it short of the stake-burning thing, though.” He turned with a grin.
She could feel the excitement oozing from him, and it was contagious. She was back to laughing—God help her.
“Joan of Arc? That’s great, but you realize Peter ‘the Rock’ will never sell as the villain, and this spin is a pretty tough sell without a villain.”
He shook his head in silent agreement. She started pacing again, then stopped suddenly.
“We’ll make it a fight against the tyranny of the two-party system, that way the candidates don’t have to be the bad guys, their parties are. It’s not exactly the outsider versus the establishment. I don’t want to be too far out there, just maybe on the fringe. Accepted, but an underdog.”
“And that, ladies and gentlemen, will sell like hotcakes. People will buy that as the ‘unadulterated’ truth. And do you know why? Because it is true. I love when a spin isn’t really a spin; the press gets so confused.” Then he laughed out loud and jumped from his chair. He scribbled the first words on the white board. “Mad Madeline aka Joan of Arc slays Peter the Rock aka tyrannical two-party political dragon.” Then he turned.
“Madeline Grace, you really are as brilliant as they say you are!” He left the room shouting for the staff and clipping off orders like rounds out of a machine gun. She smiled and thought she’d have to dig up some military gear for him just to make it official.
She finally stopped her pacing and sat down at her notebook computer to begin banging out the column she promised. She was once again in her element—writing down all the thoughts, forcing them to coalesce in her mind to the ordered and wonderful pictures of man and the universe as she saw it, what she was famous for—the reason she was treated with respect. Her writing.
“Hey.”
She jumped when Dennis stormed back, interrupting. Madeline looked up at him and refocused.
“Wow, what I wouldn’t give to be able to concentrate like that, so totally absorbed.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. What?”
“What did you say to Bert after he accused you being Joan of Arc?”
“I laughed and accused him of assigning a flattering amount of influence to me, unduly of course. Don’t worry. I did not get ruffled and I did not give an inkling of serious consideration to him. Maybe that’s why he went so far. But he’s smart. He’ll stay this side of crazy when he crafts his story. He’ll make it gradually spin out of control so the message won’t get lost as complete drivel. I’ve seen him do it.” Then she smiled widely at the very concerned look on Clever Dennis’s face.
“What?” he asked.
“You realize, of course, that Joan of Arc actually was a mad woman of sorts. The current theory in the psych establishment is that she was probably an epileptic. Had hallucinations.”
“You don’t plan to share this theory with anyone outside this room, do you?” Clever Dennis asked.
She laughed again. “Don’t worry. I can out-write anyone’s spin.”
“So I’ve heard,” Clever said.
“What’s more, St. Cyr knows it too—which may account for some of his hostility. It’s professional jealousy. People hate you when you’re too good.” She mocked a sigh.
“I guess you would know.” Dennis sat down at the table and leaned on his elbows, but didn’t say anything for a minute. Serious at last.
“Look, this will get ugly. They won’t fight fair. Where you rely on your intelligence, others will rely on cheating and lying and all kinds of other nastiness. There’s a reason the romance story is still simmering after a week without a word, no doubt for some evil purpose.”
She smiled at him again, as she would at a little boy. “I’m telling you I know all this. I’ve lived it my whole life. Do you want to know how I got my PhD?”
He shook his head no. She reached for a Lindt truffle ball before launching into her story and tossed one to Dennis to signal that it was a rare treat and privilege to hear this from her.
“There was a faction at Harvard, a very large faction, who did not want to give me the PhD. Actually, everyone in the department except one person. Partly it was professional jealousy, but there was something else. Because what I had to say went against what a lot of people believed, wanted to believe, had to believe, they’d convinced themselves, for their very survival, that I was wrong. More than that, that I was evil incarnate and had to be stopped. Their fear was palpable. So when it came time to defend my dissertation, the handwriting was on the wall. Maybe that’s when I started to strategize as if I were in a war. But it was tough; it looked like I was surrounded by the enemy and there was no way out. The only way out was to convince them I wasn’t really a threat.
“I enlisted the help of the one person who wasn’t against me, my very dear friend and supporter to this day, Dr. Barrett. We came up with a way to convince them that since I was just this one little pathetic lone voice—a lowly woman, and a pretty one at that—it would be an act of charity of greater minds, a tribute to their professional superiority and confidence to show tolerance to such a divergent view of matters. It took a while, and that’s where I learned patience and persistence. The notion that losing a battle did not mean losing a war.”
“So you won. They gave you your PhD and they’ve regretted it ever since,” he guessed.
“No. They gave me my PhD and adopted me as their risin
g star. They’ve conveniently forgotten they were ever opposed to me and brag constantly about nurturing such a brilliant mind in the hub of their genius-incubating department—which of course has now been again stamped as the best ‘cutting edge’ program in the world,” she said. He laughed.
“You’re a kick, Mad Woman. I may not regret working this campaign for next to nothing after all.”
“You like to win, don’t you?” She dismissed him with an arch of her brow, and looked back at the computer screen, awaiting her, gaping open and ready. Although she had to admit to herself, watching him as he walked out the door with a salute, that Clever Dennis would be the last person to worry about. He was a professional. He was about winning only.
It was her job to keep the principles in mind and in the picture. Now she focused on her favorite issue as she began typing. Justice.
It was not right for us as human beings to merely accept that “there is no justice” in this world, in nature. It is the nature of the human being to seek it out and create it.
She was back to work. Where nature shows no concern for justice, humanity, by its very definition, must keep justice as the pinnacle of their achievement, creating in space and time a place with their own rules, their own order, justice in defiance of the universe and in celebration of that very distinct thing which makes humans human: the justice gene.
Dennis popped in one more time. “Don’t forget our date later.”
“Lions Club. Statewide banquet. We’re with the Marblehead contingent,” Madeline said without looking up.
“Your nemesis St. Cyr is at the head table as the featured speaker.”
“No need to remind me.” She felt her insides turn rigid and ready to steel herself for God knew what kind of assault.
“Later.” Dennis disappeared.
She clicked off her computer. This was getting dicey. How would she convince the media that there was no romance between her and Peter when she was having such a hard time convincing herself of it?
She didn’t know, but one thing she knew for sure, she was not, under any circumstances, going to get sucked into running as his lieutenant governor. That would be worse than giving up. That would mean betrayal. Betrayal to herself most of all. She was not a quitter, and she most certainly was not a traitor.
The Scotland Yard Exchange Series Page 10
