by Cassie Cole
“I came out here to offer you some food,” she leaned forward, squinting at my badge and revealing a bit of cleavage. “Officer duBois.”
“I’m not hungry,” I lied.
She arched an eyebrow at me. “Then I’m offering you some warmth. Come inside, have some food to be polite. Then you can go back to sulking out here like the kid who got put in timeout.”
I set my jaw. “I’m not sulking.”
She barked a laugh. “Okay.”
She had a wonderful sparkle in her eyes. Her silky hair cascaded down her neck like a waterfall of smooth honey.
Fucking hell. I wanted to do a lot more than just watch her apartment tonight.
“Alright,” I finally said. “If it’ll make you feel safer, I’ll keep you company inside for a little while.
She rolled her eyes and strode toward the apartment without another word. I followed close behind, tugged along by the smell of her flowery perfume.
What trouble was I going to get myself into tonight?
Fucking hell.
6
Elizabeth
I could feel him following behind me as we went into my apartment. He had a presence about him that was impossible to ignore. Boots that clomped heavily on my hardwood floor. It reminded me of Ethan walking into the hotel room last night, feet heavy with purpose.
“Take those boots off before you track dirt everywhere,” I said as I went into the kitchen.
“Whatever you want, sugar.”
I grabbed my wine glass off the counter and gestured. “That’s the kind of thing that got you in trouble today, dude.”
He grinned that knowing grin. “But it didn’t get me in trouble.”
“It’s not too late for me to file a complaint,” I said. “Seriously though. Is this your first day on the job, or do you really think you can get away with addressing a senator like that?”
He removed his leather jacket, then shrugged his shoulders underneath the cobalt USCP uniform. “I thought you were worth complimenting.” His eyes were laser-focused on mine, but I had the impression he was imagining my body at that moment. It made me shiver with a strange mixture of annoyance and excitement.
The oven timer went off. I bent over in my silky pajamas to pull the dish out of the oven, and wondered if he was staring at my ass. I paused extra long before standing back up and closing the oven.
“Hope you like lasagna,” I said.
“You kidding?” he replied. “My first name’s Anthony. My mom’s a second-generation Italian. Growing up, I ate lasagna as often as most kids drank water.”
He did look vaguely Italian, now that I got a better look at him. That olive skin, the aquiline nose. I pulled out a serving spoon and pointed it at Anthony. “I know exactly why you made that comment to me on the Hill this afternoon.”
“Because women like you should be told every single day how beautiful they are?” He began rolling up his sleeves, revealing those delicious tattoos. A dozen butterflies suddenly spun in my stomach. I fought them back down.
Get a grip, Elizabeth. You’re 10 years his senior.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You made that comment because you didn’t know I was a senator. You thought I was an intern.”
“Or a congressional aide.” He burst out laughing and put up his hands in surrender. “But yeah, you got me. Forgive me for judging a book by its cover, but you’re not like the other members of congress.”
“Damn right I’m not,” I said. He grinned like I’d made a dirty joke. I bent over the lasagna to cover my blush.
While I dished out the food, he helped himself to a glass from the cupboard and filled it with water like he was at home. Like everything else about this young motorcycle cop in my kitchen, the presumptuousness was simultaneously refreshing and annoying. Rather than sit at the table he took his plate standing up at the kitchen island, so I did the same on the other side.
He took a bite and moaned. The sound gave me the phantom twitch of a lady-boner. “Fucking hell, this is good.”
“It’s my mother’s recipe,” I said while blowing on a forkful of food. “She’s not Italian, though.”
“Could’ve fooled me.” He took another bite, ignoring that it was piping hot. “What’s different? Something’s different. I can tell.”
I leaned forward on the counter. “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”
“Then I’ll die happy.”
“It’s made with half ground beef, half ground sausage.”
He chewed, staring off in thought. “This flavor’s insane. Mom’s gonna be furious when she finds out her lasagna’s no longer my favorite.”
“Then you’d better not tell her,” I said. “Our little secret.”
He grinned. “Our secret.”
I poured another glass of wine, which almost finished the bottle. I was in that perfect place where I was buzzed, but not drunk. I would need to drink this last glass slowly to make sure I didn’t have a hangover in the morning.
And to avoid making other mistakes.
I hadn’t had a man like this in my apartment for a while. And never someone so gorgeous, not to mention flirty and forward. Was it just playful banter from someone killing time at the beginning of a long, cold shift? Or was he aiming for more?
I was the one who invited him inside. He could have stayed out there and none of this would have escalated. I’d be eating my lasagna alone watching reruns of Seinfeld on Hulu.
“Hey, what’s this?” He picked up the birthday card.
“Don’t,” I said.
He grinned at the card. “I love these stupid cards. If a puppy says you’re awesome, then you know it’s true. Dogs can tell that sort of thing.” He opened the card. “Oh shit. Was it your birthday recently?”
I raised my wine glass. “Today, actually. 35 years young.”
He took a long look at me. “Damn, Senator O’Hare. I wouldn’t have guessed you were older than 30.”
“You’re sweet.” Then I added, “I was mostly joking about the Senator O’Hare stuff. You can call me Elizabeth.”
“No way,” he said, putting up a hand. The motion showed me more tattoos on the inside of his arm. “I don’t want you reporting me for inappropriate behavior! You’re Senator O’Hare from now on.”
I smiled and took another bite of lasagna. It was a good batch tonight.
“Hey,” he said as he set the birthday card down. “Now you can be president!”
I almost choked on my food. “What?”
“That’s one of the requirements to be president,” he said, like a third grader reciting facts from a textbook. “You have to be a natural born citizen, you cannot have already served two terms, and you have to be 35 years old.” His dark eyes widened. “What’s wrong?”
Shit. He didn’t know anything—he was just making conversation. But now I was acting alarmed and suspicious…
“I never knew that,” I said. I hoped I sounded nonchalant. “You only have to be 25 to be a congresswoman.”
He gave me a funny look. “Seems like something a senator like you should know. Guess you’ve never thought about running from president then, huh?”
“Guess I haven’t.”
He looked at me longer. Studying me. Like he was going to figure it out…
“Hey.” He looked around the kitchen. “Where’s the birthday cake?”
“I didn’t get one.”
“No way. You’ve got to have cake on your birthday. How else are you going to blow out candles?”
There’s something else I’d like to blow. The dirty thought came drifting across my mind, urged on by the wine. And although the thought started as a cheesy pun, it held an allure more delicious than any lasagna or cake.
“Want me to run out and get one?” Anthony asked. “I can get the bakery to write Happy birthday, now you can be president!”
“If you leave,” I pointed out, “who’s going to protect me from these imaginary bad guys intending me harm?”
&nb
sp; “Easy solution: you hop on the bike and come with me. It’s not every day I pick out birthday cake with one of the most powerful women in the country.”
I chuckled. “I’m good, thanks.”
“You ever ridden on a bike before?”
I imagined straddling his bike, my body pressed against his while the engine rumbled underneath us. My arms wrapped around his chest while we hugged the turns in the night…
“I have not,” I said. “But I’m happy staying inside where it’s warm, no matter how tempting cake is.”
“I guess you have to be good at resisting temptation,” he said casually. “When you’re a politician, I mean.”
“You have no idea.”
He smiled like he knew exactly what I meant.
It felt wonderful to be flirty with a good-looking guy. Heck, it felt great just to look into an attractive man’s eyes. No mask. Just two people being real together.
Even if it was just harmless flirting, it was nice.
It can be more than just flirting.
The thought purred in the back of my head. Anthony had already insinuated—as bluntly as possible—that he was attracted to me. And I sure as hell thought he was sexy. It wasn’t an opinion. He was sexy. I felt the pull of him from across the kitchen island that separated us, like there was a lasso around my chest that he was pulling. I wanted nothing more than to give in to temptation, to throw him to the ground and mount him right here on the kitchen floor.
Soon, my life was going to irreversibly change. I would forever be under intense scrutiny, far more than any mere senator suffered. If I was going to do something, now was the time. Before Megan and I made our final decision.
I can’t.
I knew I couldn’t do it. Things had to be the way they were in the hotel room last night, masks and secrecy and then departing without so much as a goodbye kiss. I had too many aspirations to throw it all away for a night of passion.
Oh, but what a wonderful night of passion it would be.
Anthony’s smile deepened as if he could read my mind. He stalked around the side of the kitchen island, reaching for me. But then his hand moved across me to grab the bottle of wine from the counter. He took a swig straight from the bottle.
“Are you supposed to drink on the job?” I asked.
“There are rules,” he admitted. “But a sip won’t hurt. It’ll help me stay awake to watch you all night.
Watch me all night. Touch me all night. Kiss me all night.
“Alcohol’s a depressant,” I pointed out.
He took another swig. “Not for me. It gets me all rowdy. Tell me something, Senator O’Hare. Why didn’t you file a complaint against me today?”
“I’m a busy woman,” I said. “If I reported every cocky guy who made an annoying comment I’d never get any real work done.”
“Is that the only reason?” His smile deepened. He was leaning on the counter, so close to me I could practically feel the heat coming off his body. What did he look like underneath that crisp uniform?
“I also don’t like punishing people for making dumb mistakes,” I said. “Unless they’re a political opponent I’m trying to crush.”
He studied my face. Waiting for me to say more. “Wanna know what I think?”
“Not particularly, but you’re going to tell me anyway, aren’t you?”
He pointed the bottle at me and leaned in close. I had to tilt my head up to look into his eyes. “I think you didn’t file a complaint because you liked it.”
I sputtered a nervous laugh.
“Deep down, underneath all the layers you politicians put up, I think you loved being flirted with. I bet it made you feel like a real woman. Because you never let anyone close enough to make you feel that way. So when someone like me comes along and treats you the way a woman of your beauty deserves to be treated? Like someone sexy enough to peel the paint off the Capitol rotunda?” He took another swig of the wine. “It was the one thing you’d been craving. You can’t file a complaint against someone who made you feel so good.”
I was hardly breathing by the end. It was like he’d cracked open my head and was reading my thoughts back to me. In my world of politicians and lobbyists and sycophants, it was rare to talk to someone who spoke exactly what they were thinking without caring how blunt it sounded.
Anthony planted a hand on the counter and leaned toward me, a smug look spreading on his face. Waiting for me to admit he was right.
“Yes,” I breathed. “Maybe I did want someone to appreciate me. A little bit.”
He didn’t gloat about being right. He only nodded.
I turned to face him directly.
Don’t do it, Elizabeth.
“Now it’s my turn to ask you a question,” I said.
This is a mistake.
“And I want you to think very carefully before you answer.”
“Yeah?” he asked.
You’ll regret it later.
But I wanted it too badly to listen to the voice in my head.
“What do you want, Anthony?” I asked, voice soft and vulnerable. “What do you want, right now, at this moment in my kitchen while you look at me?”
He didn’t take any time to think at all. A hungry smile tightened his beautiful face.
7
Elizabeth
Anthony’s kiss was hard and forceful and tasted like sweet wine. One tattooed hand slipped around my neck and pulled me into him, against his warm body, and I felt every bit of him through my thin pajamas. His beard rubbed against my chin, smooth and then scratchy and manly, it had been so long since I’d kissed a man like this and it was what I needed more than anything.
I unbuttoned his shirt so he could shed it, and then he pulled his white undershirt up over his head. The tattoo on his neck ran down his chest into swirling tattoos of machine parts: gears, pistons, cannisters of steam. Interlaced in the machinery were roses, red ink among all the black.
I touched his chest, feeling the heat come off his skin. He began unbuckling his belt.
“You want to know what I want?” he answered in a deep, commanding voice. “This is what I want.”
Anthony removed my pajama pants and then whirled me around. He bent behind me and dug his teeth into my ass cheek. Not painfully—just the right amount of pressure on the skin. The bite turned into a kiss as his fingers curled under the fabric of my panties, pulling them down. He took me immediately, just how I loved it. I bent over the counter and his cock was suddenly inside me, thick and hot and widening my inner walls in that wonderful ache of lust. I moaned loudly and looked back at him. He gazed back with pure desire in his eyes. The same look when he first saw me on the Hill today.
“Fucking hell,” he moaned while gripping my waist. “You feel exactly how I imagined.”
I closed my eyes as the Capitol Policeman fucked me from behind, a steady rocking from his hips. Faster and faster he went, our mutual moans echoing off the kitchen tile.
And as incredibly, tremendously, and wonderfully as it felt, I wanted something else.
I let him take me for a few more strokes before I twisted around to face him. I kissed him this time, forcing my tongue into his mouth to taste him some more. His own tongue writhed against mine wetly, making me wonder how it would feel against my clit.
I put my hands on the counter behind me and lifted myself up. Anthony grabbed my legs and held them in the air, then moved forward so that I could grip his cock and guide it inside.
Tonight I was going to look my lover in the eyes while he fucked me.
I touched myself with one hand, and ran my fingers over his tattooed chest with the other while he pumped me with his hard cock there on my kitchen counter. His eyes were dark pools filled with pleasure, intense pleasure for me, and it was better than a thousand nights with a stranger in a hotel.
It didn’t take me long to climax, and when I did my orgasm was as intense as a white-hot sun, blinding me and blocking out all sound until I came down, trembling a
nd panting.
Anthony grinned a feral grin. “Fucking hell, you’re hot,” he said.
I bit my lip as I watched him have his way with me. The veins in his pelvis bulged out against the bone. “This is better than birthday cake.”
His fingers dug into my thighs as he gripped me tight. “This is better than most things.”
His own groans of pleasure began rising, a steady warning siren of passion that I accepted with all my senses. This wasn’t a man being paid to fuck me to completion. He was doing it because he wanted me. He needed it with as much immediacy and passion as I needed him.
When his deep moans reached their peak, I pushed him back and fell to my knees before him. I took the head of his cock in my mouth and stroked him while looking up at him through my eyelashes. His six-pack and muscular chest looked incredible from down here as he watched me suck him off, eyes growing wider with ecstasy.
“Oh fuck,” he cried. “Senator O’Hare! Elizabeth!”
His jaw chewed at the air as he filled my mouth with his salty come. I took immense pleasure watching him enjoy it as rope after rope squirted into my mouth, his hips thrusting involuntarily with each one and his toes curling inside their socks.
I swallowed most of the load, but some still lingered on my tongue as I rose before him. I licked my lips to let him see it, then leaned in for a kiss. He didn’t recoil or seem repulsed; if anything he enjoyed his own salty taste, his tongue rubbing against mine hungrily.
“Is that what you wanted?” I asked innocently.
He grinned. “Happy birthday, senator.”
8
Elizabeth
“I bet you lied,” I said.
We were sitting on my kitchen counter next to each other, passing a fresh bottle of wine back and forth. Anthony took the bottle and frowned at me.
“About being assigned to watch my house,” I clarified. “That was just an excuse. You came here all on your own because you wanted to fuck a senator.”
His laugh was rich and deep. “I can’t say fucking a senator has ever been high on my list of things to do. But now?” He took a swig. “I’ve been missing out.”
