Retrosexual (Frisky Beavers Book 0)

by Ainsley Booth

  How much I want him never wavers.

  There’s something about him that tugs at me deep inside, and makes me wish that just once he’d cross the line in a late night work session. I’d take that secret to the grave if it meant I got a taste of the barely restrained beast inside him.***

  * * *

  FOOTNOTES:

  * This is a fictional erotic romance. No prime ministers or interns were harmed in the making of this book.

  ** Except it’s a BDSM romance, so they were hurt a little.

  *** Spoiler alert: she gets more than a taste. And she likes it.

  1

  Ellie

  The only thing worse than being late for your first day of work is when your first day of work is at the Parliament Buildings and your new boss is the prime minister.

  Who you have a secret crush on, except it doesn’t need to be a secret, because he’s single and hot and every other woman in the country also has a crush on him.

  You could wear a placard that says I want to bang the PM and nobody would even notice, because they would all be wearing variations on the same theme.

  Of course, it should be a secret because I’m going to be working for him.

  With him.

  Under him.

  Stop it, Ellie.

  It’s only a three month internship, and technically there’s a deputy director of communications and a chief of staff between us in the chain of command. But my nipples don’t understand that and they’re super excited about working so closely with Gavin.

  Mr. Strong.

  Like every other straight woman, gay man, or anyone in the middle of the Kinsey scale, I’ve got a crush on the man. Which is why I should have been early for work, and is also why I’m running late.

  I should have been focused on making a good impression.

  Instead, I’d changed my outfit three times and chose heels that made it impossible to hustle when I realized just how late I was.

  I squeak in the front doors at 7:59 by the clock on my cell phone. But of course there's a security line to get through and—

  "Ms. Montague?"

  I'd recognize that voice anywhere. Thick with humour, warm and rough enough at the edges to appeal to steel workers and farmers—that was the panty-melting voice of our nation's brand new prime minister.

  I know that voice.

  Until this moment, I had no clue he might know me.

  So I stare at him dumbly.

  This is not my finest hour.

  "Sir," I finally stammer out.

  The women behind me in line giggle.

  That's the effect this man has on people. I'm now officially blocking the security line into the building and nobody cares because Gavin Strong, The Honourable Prime Minister of Canada, is flashing his baby blue eyes at everyone in a thirty foot radius. He’s done this before—stop and talk to his staff on the way in, but I’m still flustered. I don’t think I ever expected to talk to him, and definitely not before my first day has even begun.

  “Shall we head inside?”

  “Yes, of course.” I yank out my wallet. “I’ll see you in there.”

  He holds my gaze for a moment, probably a second or two, but it’s the kind of second that stretches. Long enough to be meaningful for me but nothing for him.

  And then he’s turning, shaking hands with the people in front of me. Welcoming them all to work today.

  Who does that?

  Gavin Strong. Union lawyer, community activist, Habitat for Humanity volunteer. The most personable man in the entire country, possibly the smartest, too, although he likes to play that bit down.

  Surround himself with experts, he says.

  That’s where I come in.

  I’m hardly an expert, but I’m getting there. Bachelor’s degree in Women’s Studies and Sociology. Master’s in Women’s Studies. One year into my doctorate, which is loosely a business degree but specifically a communications specialty.

  And I’ve scored one of ten brand-new internships with the federal government. Cultural Change Officers, we’re called. I’ve taken a three-month leave of absence from my studies to do this job.

  To work under the prime minister.

  And I didn’t make it three minutes into the role without my panties getting wet.

  Fan-fucking-tastic.

  It takes five hours for my crush to die a miserable death.

  Gavin might be hot, and smart, but he’s also a perfectionist, and he expects that of his staff. Which is fine for me, because I haven’t pissed him off yet, but by lunch I’ve witnessed enough to know that if I don’t lock down my libido and bring my A-game, I’m going to get called on the carpet.

  The showdown he had midmorning with his Chief of Staff—Stew Rochard, my boss—over fundraising and lobbyists has the entire office in a panic, because we’ve got a private event in five weeks that might need to be cancelled if the PM decides to take a hard line on influencers.

  That’s how I’ve decided I need to think about Gavin. The PM. The Prime Minister.

  I’m not going to notice how good he looks in a suit or how his powerful thighs are outlined every time he sits down. The suit represents the position. It demands my respect, nothing else.

  Instead of taking me out to lunch for my first day, Stew gives me half of the ham and Swiss on rye that his wife made him, digs two cans of Diet Coke out of a box he keeps under his desk, and tasks me with figuring out how we can spin the $5,000 a plate dinner into something that won’t offend our boss quite so much.

  Because I’m a freak for these kinds of problems, this makes me happy. A nice lunch would probably be nothing but small talk, and I’m kind of awkward when it comes to that. Like I should have asked Stew about his wife and kids when he gave me the sandwich, but I was already poring over the file on the fundraiser—the history of it, the host, the criticism on the other events that led to the PM’s edict two hours earlier that we would not be in the pockets of the wealthy.

  “One problem with him saying that over and over again is that he’s rich, too,” I point out as I lick mustard off my fingers. “And everyone knows it. Don’t get me wrong—most people like that about him. But he’s hardly one of us with the sandwiches from home.”

  Stew snorts. “Don’t let him hear you say that.”

  “He’s a man of the people in many other ways. He knows how much a loaf of bread costs, that’s all that matters. But he’s also comfortable with these donors, right? What if it wasn’t a fundraiser for the party? What if it was…like a kick-off for a community challenge?”

  “Keep talking.” He roots around in his lunch bag. “Chocolate chip cookie?”

  I shake my head. “But I’ll take another pop if you’ve got one.”

  “He shouldn’t shut himself off from business leaders. He needs to stay connected to them, and show them who’s boss. Canadians just want to know that he’s not in their pockets. They’ll be thrilled if he can turn it around, make them bend to his will.”

  “Shit.” He rocks back in his chair and shoves the rest of his cookie in his mouth. “That’s good.”

  The truth is, it’s not a new idea. It was a critique I wrote six months earlier for a class, as a response to a hypothetical case study that was eerily similar. I got lucky on my first day, but I’m smart enough to pretend that my luck is actually talent. “Thanks.”

  “It’ll need some work. You’ll need to present it with the repercussions forecasted out in all directions.”

  “Of course.” I’ve done that at school before, too. If I’ve got time, I’ll tap a couple of my profs and get their—

  “I want you to pitch it tomorrow in the morning briefing.”

  Oh, crap. So no time, then. “Tomorrow. Right.”

  “That a problem?”

  “No.”

  Stew opens his mouth, maybe to warn me about what the PM expects, or maybe to question how sure I am, I don’t know, because before he can say anything, in whirls a six-foot-three-inch hurricane wearing a
suit and righteous indignation.

  “This report from the Ministry of the Environment is fucking bullshit, Stewart,” the PM growls as he storms in from the hallway.

  Stew doesn’t miss a beat. “I’m in a meeting, Gavin.”

  The PM’s gaze swings around to where I’m sitting. “Ms. Montague. Would you step outside?”

  My immediate reaction is yes, of course. But that’s the wrong answer.

  That’s the woman inside me doing what a man has asked of her, because he doesn’t want to make her feel uncomfortable.

  Seriously? Fuck that noise. “I’d rather stay.”

  He gives me a hard, unreadable look.

  “Sir,” I add, swallowing hard. “I’d rather stay, sir.”

  His eyes flash in surprise and anger, and my palms go all sweaty.

  “Because…I’m the barometer, right? Without me, you’re talking in an echo chamber. That’s what you said in your announcement about these internships.” I turn to my boss. “I don’t think your office is an echo chamber, of course, Stew.”

  Gavin chuckles, an unexpected sound after a day that’s felt beyond tense. “No, Stew has no problem telling me when I’m wrong.”

  I take a deep breath. “Neither will I. Sir.”

  He gives me another long look, this one more complicated, but just as hard to read.

  Finally he nods. “But stop calling me sir. That’s my father’s name.”

  His father’s name is Vince, but I get the point. “Okay. So what part of the report is fucking bullshit?”

  He laughs and turns back to Stew. “This one can stay.”

  2

  Gavin

  By ten o’clock this morning, my day had completely derailed—not an unusual situation. Twice my assistant Beth quietly suggested that we change our estimated arrival time at the City Farm Camp. There’s a press conference at five thirty, after the kids have left for the day. I only need to be there for an hour beforehand to get a tour and have a photo op with some of the children.

  But I’m only three months into my first term as PM. I’m not interested in doing the bare minimum. I’ve heard amazing things about this program, and we’ve got a plan to greatly expand the tax credits and subsidies for ones just like it across the country.

  I’m not going to talk about that without actually spending some real time with the kids and the counsellors.

  Plus, horses and sheep and chickens. What’s not to love about that? It’s certainly more fun than a bullshit environmental report that completely misses the mark—

  I cut myself off. I’m not going to get worked up about it. The delightful Ellie Montague is going to tear into that report and tell me all the ways we can render it null and void, and justify spending the money on a new one.

  I need to have Substantive Fucking Policy tattooed on all deputy ministers’ foreheads, clearly.

  I’ve just finished the most intellectually stimulating conversation I’ve had in weeks in Stew’s office, with Ellie…Ellie, who I can’t get off my mind.

  Dangerous territory, I tell myself. I don’t listen. There’s something about her that fires me up in a long-dormant way.

  “It’s two o’clock,” Beth says as she strides into my office. She’s going to try again to rearrange my day.

  “You haven’t had a chance to return these four calls yet,” she says smoothly, sliding a call sheet on top of the report I was just about to open. Reading time is over—her message is clear.

  I give her a side-eye and she just smiles sweetly at me.

  Beth. She’s like the sister I already have. Between her and Pia, my actual sister, I don’t get cut any slack. So Beth is like the baby sister I never had, and when she’s not riding my ass about the damn itinerary, I like her a lot. Even the bossy parts.

  She’s adjusted amazingly well to the new role. I hired her on my first day in the city as an MP two years ago, and everyone said she was too young and inexperienced to be the executive assistant to a national leader. Everyone was wrong. She’s my secret weapon for keeping a tight schedule—every day except today.

  Today, I’m going to camp whether she likes it or not.

  She doesn’t.

  Oh well.

  I grab the call sheet and wave it at her. “You sure you don’t want to come with me?”

  She gives me a look of great alarm. “To muck out barns?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No. Make those calls or I’m coming to find you later! Remember I can see who you call on your cell phone.”

  Yeah. That’s why I have two phones. The official phone of the Prime Minister of Canada, and the burner phone I use to call my best friend, Max, when this all gets to be a little too surreal.

  As I hop in the back of my armoured town car, I think this should be one of the times I call him. But I’ve got four phone calls to make in a thirty minute drive to the Agriculture Museum, and I have a certain doctoral candidate to do a little more research on, too.

  Ellie Montague.

  I try to tell myself that my interest is purely professional. She’s smart and capable and she’s only on loan to us for three months from the University of Ottawa. If she’s impressing Stew on her first day of the job, we need to be amping up her responsibilities while she’s here.

  But first, phone calls.

  Camp is in fact more fun than reading reports or even fighting with Stew.

  I find myself wondering if Ellie likes animals, and shove that thought away as fast as it pops into my head.

  The most amazing discovery about the camp I make this afternoon is what a difference the experience makes for kids who are struggling in school. So, after I spend nearly three hours being taught by children how to care for the animals and manage the other farm chores, I get a little pissed off when the first question I get from the press is about how much my shirt cost—because it’s now smeared with mud.

  “I’m going to be lucky if that’s mud. Pretty sure I got that when we were mucking out the horse stalls,” I tell Rick Stupes, a reporter with CAN News who is always out to make me look like Richie Rich. I don’t respond to the rest of his question because it’s stupid.

  He tries again. “When your staff set up this photo op up, did they advise you to wear anything different?”

  Seriously, what is this guy’s problem? I’m only slightly more GQ than the last guy.

  Okay, no, I’m a thousand times more GQ than the last guy.

  I kick my foot out from behind the podium. “I’ve been wearing these boots since I left the house at half past five this morning, because I’m not a toddler, and I know how to dress myself appropriately. As a side note, they’re the boots I hiked Golden Ears in after we won the most recent election.” Take that, Rick. “Nobody had to remind me to put them on. Coming to City Farm Camp has been the highlight of a difficult week, something I’ve really been looking forward to, and if I didn’t have a full day of work tomorrow, I’d be back in a heartbeat.”

  The next question is similarly off-topic. Inside my head, I’m calling the press corps all sorts of names, but we’ve practised this over and over again. My natural propensity to snap at stupid people is well and truly beaten out of me now. Or at least well internalized.

  I smile and give a short answer. Rinse and repeat, until the fifth question gets to the heart of the announcement I’ve just made, about funding for such activities needing to be a two-fisted approach, because not all parents can wait for a tax credit to justify the upfront expense.

  And sometimes, those are the kids who need the alternative learning experience the most.

  I smoothly reiterate what the camp director has already said, about how the hands-on care of animals instills empathy and compassion that translates well back to human interaction.

  I know as soon as I finish the spiel, with an extra charming smile for the reporter who asked the right question, that’s the clip that’ll run on the news.

  We don’t always nail it this well, but when we do, it makes the rest of
it worthwhile.

  3

  Ellie

  I don’t leave the office until after eight. I only stumble as far as a sushi restaurant three blocks away, where my roommate, Sasha, is waiting for me.

  “That bad?” she asks, flagging down the waitress. “We’re going to need sake.”

  “No sake. Green tea. And then I’m hitting the last yoga class of the night.”

  “Ew.”

  “I’m not making you come with me.”

  Sasha’s a runner. Uptight, controlled…she’s practically allergic to finding her resting place and just breathing.

  Me? I’m spastic, anxious, and a chronic worrier. I hold it all at bay by doing yoga five days a week.

  Not usually this late at night, but hello real world. I’ve been spoiled by being a grad student—it’s hard work, but I can mostly do it on my own schedule.

  Not anymore.

  I have to be back at work at six thirty tomorrow morning. Tell the PM he’s wrong at seven. Then probably fight with people all day as I convince them I’m right. If I don’t centre myself and get a good night’s sleep, that’s not going to go well.

  4

  Gavin

  The first thing I notice when my senior team files into my office for our daily briefing at seven is Ellie Montague. This doesn't surprise me, because I haven't been able to stop thinking about her since yesterday. She looks tired and my imagination takes off in search of a likely explanation. Most of them involve her being kept up all night by a man. Narrowing down her type was proving problematic. She didn’t seem like she’d go for the muscle-bound studly type with more balls than brains, but I’ve been surprised more than a few times by what can get a woman wet and needy.

  I watch her from the corner of my eye as Stew talks to my staff—his staff—about what's come up overnight, what our priorities are for the day, and a number of other things that he doesn't need me to listen to. Which is good, because I'm too busy cataloguing all the ways she fascinates me. What I notice most is Ellie’s fidgeting. She keeps catching herself, and I find it hard not to smirk.