Hard to Get Over

by Jenny Gardiner

  She’d been working in publicity for the senator for the better part of the last decade, and she was spent. Today had been a long day. Her boss’ challenger had held a press event earlier, in advance of a debate tomorrow night, at which he referred to the senator as a “dimwitted womanizing loser” or some such nonsense. The senator flipped his shit over that one (and while he wasn’t necessarily dimwitted, or a loser, he was certainly a creeper of a womanizer). Worse still, the publicist even called out Meghan as an inept press secretary who spread lies and misinformation. Even she was seething by the time she’d turned off the presser, and was this close to marching to wherever it was their headquarters were and telling his newest press person (the candidate seemed to have trouble keeping one in his employ for long) to cut the crap. Because that person could control this behavior and was failing to do so.

  Which was possibly why she found herself having one too many cocktails on her own at Bottoms Up, her favorite little local near her Capitol Hill rowhouse, and becoming engrossed in conversation with a handsome stranger who held tightly to every word she uttered. It was kind of nice for a guy to give her his undivided attention, even if whatever she was blathering on about was complete nonsense.

  At the moment her witty repartee had to do with the desperate need for another baby panda at the National Zoo, because, well, it was a conversation about as far away from politics as possible, which was exactly what she needed. And a baby panda would be something she could obsess on rather than how much of a loathsome bully her boss was. Earlier in the day, before that debacle of a presser, the senator had reamed her for something he’d said that he decided to blame her for—because isn’t that how it worked? Accountability was apparently for underlings. She was just over the whole damned thing.

  She’d taken on this job with absolutely no political skills whatsoever. She’d been working for a local television station in a miniature media market and yearned to be in a city. So, she ditched her reporting aspirations and took a job for which she had no great qualifications, except for bullshitting quite successfully during her job interview.

  “Maybe instead of breeding pandas, the National Zoo should breed something more exotic, like blue whales,” the cute guy next to her said with a grin. He had gorgeous, straight, white teeth. That worked well with his thick, light brown hair and eyes that vacillated between green and golden. Or maybe that was her third mojito that was seeing that. Cause who had golden eyes but for lions. Or billy goats?

  She swatted the cute guy on the shoulder. “That’s impossible,” she said. “Blue whales are, like, ginormous. They weigh over three hundred thousand pounds! What’re they going to do—have a holding pen in the Potomac River? And where do you get the mate for the girl blue whale?” She leaned closer to his ear. “Not gonna lie: I’d pay good money to watch two blue whales go at it—it seems like an impossible task! Once we were at a bar in Ocean City and stood on the back deck overlooking the bay and watched thousands of horseshoe crabs mate. It might have been the alcohol that made it fascinating, but whatever, it kept me mesmerized. That sword thingy, gets in the way.” She jutted her arm out from her nose, imitating it.

  She started to laugh and tapped the bar so the bartender would fill her up asap.

  Meghan tucked a few strands of blonde hair that had escaped from her tight bun behind her ears, then thought better of it and pulled the hair pins and elastic band out, freeing her long hair and giving her head a vigorous shake. She hadn’t realized it was bringing on a headache until now.

  The guy pulled out his phone. “We have to see how they do this.”

  Meghan saw him typing into his browser, “Blue Whale Sex.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Are we seriously going to watch blue whales fornicate now?”

  “Hell, yeah!” He laughed, then began to read. “...they begin to form pairs, where a male will follow a female around for weeks on end...though sex is not a foregone conclusion.”

  Meghan wagged her finger. “Dude, let me tell you: my girl ain’t putting out for just any old blue whale. Even if he does stalk her. She’s gonna hold out for a well-endowed whale—”

  “...sometimes a second male will approach the pair, at which point the trio will race along the surface of the water.”

  “I’m sorry, but you best not be suggesting a blue whale threesome. That would displace like half the water in the ocean.” She took a swig of her drink. “Besides, my girl is not a promiscuous whale.”

  “Yeah, well, just like everything else in nature, the guys fight and whoever wins gets the girl.”

  “What female wants to end up with the pugnacious asshole, though?” She shook her head. “I mean really. What a stupid system.” She rolled her eyes.

  “Maybe it’s more romantic than that,” he said. “Maybe it’s that these two strapping, male, uh, leviathans, want her so much they’re willing to fight to the death for her. Or maybe one is defending her honor when the other one insults her.”

  “You mean like he called her fat?” She parroted her hands like a puppet talking. “‘Hey tubby, you better lay off the krill, sweetheart.’” She growled. “Men are the same the world over.”

  Meghan had recently gotten out of a relationship with a guy she’d dated since college. He actually had told her one time she needed to lose a few pounds or he’d leave her. She should have left him then and there, but she dragged it out longer until she found out he had been two-timing her with a girl like three years younger than her from her sorority who’d recently moved to DC. Whatever. She didn’t need that kind of toxic juju in her life. Maybe she needed to find herself a well-endowed blue whale instead.

  The guy frowned. “I resemble that comment,” he said. “Not all men are assholes.”

  She nodded, plucking a maraschino cherry from the nearby fruit station at the bar, and popped it into her mouth. “Okay fine. Not all of them. Only ninety -nine point nine nine nine percent of them.”

  She chewed on the cherry and swallowed it, then stuck the stem in her mouth, twisting it with her tongue and her teeth till she secured it in a knot, then pulled it out of her mouth. It looked like a tiny pretzel.

  “Ta da!”

  The cute guy’s eyes opened wide. “Whoa! You did that? With your tongue?”

  She laughed to herself. Likely his own tongue would be hanging out, drooling at the notion of someone with such lingual dexterity.

  She waved her hand. “An old party trick. Used to keep the free drinks flowing at parties.”

  “Aren’t drinks always free at parties?”

  She shrugged. “Good point. Maybe that skill didn’t help me as much as I thought it did.” She grabbed another cherry and repeated the stunt. “Nevertheless, I figured it was a talent I could employ when desperation set in.”

  “And you’re feeling desperate?”

  She shook her head. “Nah, just, oh, I dunno, in the mood to tie a cherry stem with my tongue.”

  “Can you teach me how to do that?”

  She pursed her lips. “Hmmm... you have to pinky swear if you succeed that you’ll not share this with anyone. Only a select few can join the club.”

  He arched a brow. “Ahhh... it’s like a secret society?”

  She nodded, pulled another cherry as the bartender scowled at her, and popped the cherry in her mouth.

  She gave a tug on the uncomfortable underwire of her bra, sat up straighter, then held up her pointer finger. “Okay, first off, you need to have a long stem.”

  “The bigger the better, then?”

  Her mouth lifted at one end. “That goes without saying.”

  “Are we talking about the same thing here?”

  “If you have to ask...”

  He windshield-wipered his hands as if erasing the discussion. “Continue.”

  “Obviously you have to pop the cherry gingerly.” She burst out laughing.

  “I had no idea this was going to be such a sexual thing.”

  “Everything is sexual. Even blue whales. Wel
l, maybe not baby pandas.”

  He shrugged.

  “Now this is counterintuitive, but if it’s stiff, you want to make it soft.”

  “Well, that is totally not sexual.”

  “Truth.” She high-fived him. “Rarely is limp good. Okay, now’s when your tongue gets busy.” She could see his eyes growing wide. She was having fun fucking around with his head. She also kind of worried she’d grown too hardened and cynical with her job that she would talk this way to a complete stranger in a bar because she was so fried from work. But oh well... “Press the center of the stem to the roof of your mouth with your tongue, forcing the two ends toward your front teeth. You’re going to clamp down on them as you sort of force them to criss-cross with your tongue, forming a little loop. Then you take one tip and coax it through the hole—”

  “This is definitely no longer PG-rated conversation.”

  “We’re talking about cocktail fruit.”

  “But are we, though?”

  She squinted at him. “Honey, I don’t even know you.” She laughed. “Now push the stiff part of the stem into the hole, then press down with your teeth to secure it. Et voila, you have a tied stem that will make all of your friends green with envy.” She quickly popped the straight stem into her mouth, tied it in a matter of seconds, and held it up for him to see.

  The cute guy leaned forward, his lips inches from her ear. “In about three seconds flat I’m afraid my tongue is going to be green with envy that that inanimate cherry stem is having all the fun around here.”

  Ahhh... the moment of truth. Until Now, Meghan was having fun just yanking this guy around. But he was awfully cute. And had a fun sense of humor. And when he got up close to her like that, he smelled rather delicious—like a crazy good combination of sandalwood and the Mediterranean Sea and maybe a hint of bergamot and lime. Although that lime was likely just her mojito. Whatever. Maybe it would be fun just to see what he tasted like too. She grabbed one more cherry, popping it into his mouth. “Meet me at the end of that hall, just after the exit to go downstairs to the rest rooms.” She tapped the tip of his nose with the cherry stem and hopped off the barstool.

  HOLY SHIT. WAS SHE for real? Well, yes, she was for real in that she was unbelievably beautiful—that wavy, blonde hair, once she pulled it out of that tight bun, made Kirby McCaffrey want to fist his hands in it while doing unspeakable things with her. And those aquamarine eyes, so clear you could see down to her soul. Her body was nothing to scoff at either—granted she was sitting so he couldn’t quite tell the whole effect, but she had a nice set of tits. And Kirby was decidedly a breast man, so that’s all he needed to stir things up. But when she got up and walked away and he was able to take in the bigger picture, yowza. She was stunning, with that form-fitting wrap dress hugging her ass, and those sexy heels that weren’t too high—but instead looked professional, which is the look he preferred. Not stripper heels, which left nothing to the imagination.

  He couldn’t believe the turn of fortune he was experiencing tonight. Never in history had such a cartoonishly unnatural piece of pseudo-fruit become such a turn-on. He almost felt like a pervert, like he just discovered he had a cocktail fruit fetish or something.

  He looked at the bartender who tossed him another cherry. “Go get ’em, boss.” The guy said with a grin. Was it that obvious? He had to wait a minute at least to tamp down the burgeoning hard-on that was making it hard to stand. But he couldn’t risk her slipping out a fire exit, so he stood, took a deep breath and advanced the troops, as it were.

  He wandered down the narrow, dark hallway, passing a few folks returning from the bathroom. He walked past the exit door and the passageway grew dimmer still. His eyes adjusted to the dark and he looked about ten feet away and she was standing there, waiting for him.

  He approached her and removed the stem from the cherry, slipping the fruit between her lips as he took in the stem between his, manipulating it with the tip of his tongue with no success.

  “Let me help,” she said, leaning forward and slipping her tongue inside his mouth, coaxing the stem away with her tongue. Somehow as she stroked his tongue with her own, she managed to maneuver the stem into a knot, then passed it back to his mouth. “See. I told you my party trick could come in handy.” She grinned.

  He pulled her closer and angled his head as he pressed his lips to hers, savoring the tiny moan she let out as their tongues tangled, taking the place of that now-discarded cherry stem. Kirby ran his hands up and down the woman’s back, trying to find purchase somewhere, anywhere. His mind was running crazy with longing and while he couldn’t believe he was suddenly mashing faces with this strange, gorgeous woman in the grimy back of a bar, he wished he was doing it within footsteps of her bedroom.

  She paused for a moment, breathing hard. “I don’t even know your name,” she said, her eyes looking momentarily startled. “Although maybe it’s better that way.”

  Was she suggesting anonymous sex? Which sounded alluring, but he wanted to know more about this woman, not just have a wham-bam moment with her.

  “I make it a point to not get past first base without knowing a woman’s name,” he said, reaching for her bottom and pulling her toward the telltale bulge in his pants.

  “So, is this what this is, first base? Making out wildly in a dive bar in the dark?”

  “Maybe the bases are loaded, and we’re waiting for that swing and a hit to send that fly ball into the stands?”

  She shook her head. “Sorry, no home run tonight. Not simply because I still don’t know your name, but also because my boss has a big debate tomorrow. I’ve got to get some shut-eye cause tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”

  She pulled back and extended her hand to shake his. “Name’s Meghan, by the way.”

  He squinted. Fuck to the fuck. She was seriously about to walk away, leaving him with a bad case of blue balls for his troubles? Impossible.

  “Meghan. I’m Kirby. Can I maybe get your number and we can get together some time?” Fact was he, too, had a crazy day tomorrow, as his new boss also had a debate. Only in a town like DC would you have a coincidence like that.

  She waved her hand. “Thanks, but I’m really not interested in anything. I just got a little carried away. Must’ve been the maraschino cherries. Or the copulating blue whales. Whatever. Great meeting you, Kirby. Have a good life.”

  With that she turned and walked away, leaving Kirby to groan and curse his bad luck. Then again, this was his first day in Washington, and his boss scored big points at his presser today, and he got to make out with a hot woman for no apparent reason. No reason to not see this as a win.

  Chapter Two

  MEGHAN KEPT THINKING about that Kirby guy the whole day long. Even while she nursed a mojito-induced hangover, still he was lurking in the recesses of her throbbing head. Speaking of throbbing, it was impossible not to notice the guy was packing an impressive appendage. Maybe she should’ve taken that thing out for a test run. Except that she didn’t have time for boys and their toys right now. Work was all-consuming, and she and men didn’t mix well. A fleeting handful of kisses in the dark with a stranger would have to do.

  Her desk phone buzzed and she picked it up.

  “The senator wants you down here now!” It was Theresa, his bitchy and demanding secretary, happy to yell into the phone and accelerate her pounding headache. God forbid she start out the call with something a bit more genteel. Like maybe “Hey, Meghan! How’s it going? I’m sorry to bother you but just FYI the senator is being a raging asshole right now, and he’s screaming for you, like, yesterday. Good luck and I’ll keep you in my prayers!”

  Instead, she just served as his surrogate of vitriol, paving yet one more layer nastiness Meghan had to navigate her way through.

  She grabbed her iPad, her purse and her notes and raced down the steps and into the senator’s private suite.

  “Where the hell were you? I was yelling for you! Don’t you come when you’re called?” The Senator h
ad a scowl on his face, as usual. His bad combover was dangling on his forehead, and he looked like Squiggy from that old show Laverne & Shirley.

  She straightened her dress and combed her fingers through her hair. “Sorry, sir. I came as quickly as I could.”

  “Where are my talking points?” he stepped into his bathroom, not even shutting the door, and started to pee. What was proper protocol for when your boss didn’t have the common courtesy to shut the door when taking a piss? And was she supposed to hand him the file folder with his talking points while he had his hand on his little wee wee, taking a wee wee? And how could she do that without looking at it. It was gross enough that he’d tried plenty of times to interest her in said wee wee. Blech. He was old and ugly. Nothing about that man’s penis would ever come in contact with her. She’d opt for celibacy instead.

  He reached his free hand behind him, demanding his papers. “Hurry up, I don’t have time to waste.”

  Evidently not if he was still urinating. She wanted to see how he’d get the papers out of the folder one-handed.

  Instead, he finished peeing and zipped up, not even bothering to flush or wash his hands as he grabbed the talking points. “Come on, you’re making me late.”

  The debate was being held at a network studio about three blocks away. Normal people would walk, but instead his driver was at the ready to hasten them off.

  They popped into the car, raced the three blocks to the studio, the driver opened the senator’s door—so much for chivalry—leaving Meghan to scurry after him like an abused dog seeking the attention of her cruel owner. A handler named Janie from the studio greeted the senator and didn’t even bother with Meghan as she led them to an elevator. They took the elevator to the eighth floor and got out.