His eyebrows arch. “That’s a pretty mercenary assessment. And I expect no less from you,” he adds, his tone leaving no doubt that he’s impressed. “But let’s be realistic, Madam VP. You are so, so out of my league.”
“That’s bullshit, and you know it.” The man who takes such good care of her, who sees to her every want and need, is talking about leagues? Please. She reaches for his hand, interlaces their fingers. His grip is so strong and so sure. She knows he’ll never let her go. Not willingly. “You made yourself indispensable to me, Agent Shahzad Ali Khan. You can’t un-ring that bell now. You can’t pretend I’m on some pedestal that you can’t reach. Because you reached me. You made this happen.”
He is the highlight of every hectic day, the bright spot in her jam-packed schedule. Like the Auden poem goes, he’s her North, her South, her East, her West. Her working week and her Sunday rest. She doesn’t want to consider 2024 without him. She doesn’t want to consider tomorrow without him. But maybe, just maybe, he wants more for himself.
Her stomach twists, but she makes herself say it. She hasn’t gotten this far in life by bending to cowardice. “Maybe you want to stay in the Service. Maybe you’ll want kids someday. It’s all right. I’m not going to order you, to force you, to be with me.” They’ve never called it “BDSM.” He doesn’t refer to her as “Mistress.” There are no contracts or safe words. Nothing that binds him to her will. “You’re free, Shahzad. You have no obligation to say ‘yes.’”
“No obligation?” He is a gentle man. Quiet. Intense. She’s only seen him angry a handful of times in three years. The emotion darkens his eyes, flushes his cheeks. His entire body vibrates like a lean, live, wire and he squeezes her hand hard enough to hurt—until he realizes what he’s doing and releases her entirely, scooting three feet back on the queen-sized mattress in abject horror. “I’m sorry. Fuck. I didn’t mean to—” He scrubs at his face. That earnest, handsome face that, just hours ago, was buried between her thighs. She tries to offer a soothing touch, a reassuring murmur, but he flinches away.
“Don’t you get it?” he demands. “This is not an obligation. You can’t force me to do anything. You never could. I am in this with my eyes wide open. I am in this with my whole heart. Letitia…Letty…I love you.”
It’s not news. She’s known how he felt for some time now. But hearing it…oh, hearing it is something transcendent. Angels singing and flowers blooming and warmth settling into her bones. This boy, this man, is in love with her. “Then why is marrying me such a bad idea?”
He bows his head in that penitent pose that’s become so dear to her. But the knot of his hands together betrays the conflict that he’s struggling to voice.
“Because you don’t love me.” It’s barely a whisper. “Not like that. And it’s okay. I never expected you to…I-I’m not your late husband. I can’t be what he was to you. I can’t give you the same things. You deserve those things. You deserve to be happy like that again. Especially if you’re going to be vice president for another four years. You deserve a real partner.”
Oh, Lord. “Baby, I know you’re not my late husband.” She doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Michael Hughes was a Hampton poli-sci professor. A skinny-ass nerd who never held a gun in his life. Cancer took him during her first term in Congress and left emptiness in his wake. She loved him with every fiber of her being, but she’s never operated under the illusion that he and Shahzad could play similar roles in her life. She doesn’t know where he got that idea. Maybe those biographical specials they sometimes run about her on TV. The ones that tout her grand romance and her great tragedy as elements forging her into the woman she is today.
“I don’t need you to be anybody but you.” More importantly, “I do love you. Exactly like ‘that.’” Like frantic 4AM sex. Like long bubble baths. Like that bottle of water he always knows to get for her. Like an hour ago when he was deep inside her. Like right now, when he’s entirely too far away.
Hope glitters dark in his eyes. When he starts to speak, his voice is choked. “But Madam Vice—”
“Shush. Don’t start with any of that.”
Letty rises to her knees and crawls toward him. She pulls him close with her arms locked around the back of his neck. He looks at her like he’s been hit by a 2x4—a little bit stunned, a little bit stupid. For a smart man who aced all his classes at the academy, he’s remarkably slow on the uptake about this. “Listen to me, Agent Khan,” she says in that firm tone that never fails to command his attention and harden his cock. “Hear me.”
Her beautiful protector quickly gets with the program, gazing up at her as she settles on his lap and grinds against his erection. There is such emotion in his eyes. Such purity. Some would say it’s not manly, but those are people too obsessed with gender essentialism to see him for what he is: in turns kind and thoughtful and competent and menacing—and always real. Shahzad can take down a threat without breaking a sweat and coax down her walls, too. Even now, he’s soothing her, running his palms from her hips to her shoulders and back again. Thinking of her comfort, her security. “I am listening,” he assures. “I am hearing you. I just want you to be sure.”
“I would never have let you past the door if I wasn’t sure,” she points out. “You already are my partner.”
She is one of the most powerful people in the United States of America. While discreetly taking a lover can be overlooked, she cannot afford out-and-out mistakes. Not after the previous administration nearly drove the country into the ground. So, giving in to everything Shahzad had to offer was just as much about faith as it was about fulfilling her needs. Her inner circle is terribly small. POTUS, of course. And her staffers. Beyond that, there’s her girls, Ashleigh and Cherise, who she’s known since they were all baby Zetas at Howard in the ‘90s. A handful of friends she shared with Michael have stuck around through the years. And there’s the rotating pack of House-Senate drinking buddies—who are great for poker games, but not necessarily a go-to on personal matters. Letting a man in—letting him all the way in—was a huge decision.
Asking him to marry her is a comparatively easy one.
His mouth is hot on her neck. Against her collarbone and her chest and her puckered nipples. He kisses and kisses and kisses her, but doesn’t answer. Minutes go by. They stretch to what feels like hours of his lips and tongue and hands on her body. It’s only when his head is between her legs and he’s pleasuring her again, licking deep, that she feels the hum of one simple syllable. It’s a word spoken on the crest of her orgasm, just over the roaring of the blood in her ears.
It flips her inside out.
The day it changes again
It’s a day like no other. Well, perhaps one other. And it promises to last at least a week. January in Washington, D.C. is biting cold. Like the perpetual slap of her daddy’s Aqua Velva. Were it up to her, she’d be burrowed under a mound of blankets instead of standing on a dais in Burberry wool in front of thousands—and millions more watching on their devices at home. Justice Sotomayor seems to be on the same page. Her cheeks are pink, her eyes twinkling with “it’s too damn chilly” solidarity. They could’ve done this at the residence. There’s a precedent. Biden was sworn in at Observatory Circle in 2013. But POTUS put the kibosh on that idea from the get-go. “Letitia, we’ve earned this. And we are damn well going to make a show of it—together.”
She’s right, of course. They fought for this. They sacrificed for this. They did it not once but twice. So, it’s a thing. All of the pomp, all of the ceremony. John Legend sang the National Anthem to kick things off, primarily because asking Beyoncé twice in a row “would be seen as showing favoritism when so many in the industry supported this campaign.” End quote. Thank you, White House Chief of Staff. As soon as Letty does her part, all eyes will be on POTUS. So, she gets with the program, blocking out the crowd noise and the flashbulbs and everything but the feel of her right palm against the book cover and the sound of the associate justice’s voice ringing out cl
ear as a bell. The first time, she was sworn in with the Bible. This time…this time she chose Octavia Butler’s Kindred. The media already has her statement on the “bold and controversial choice.” So that we never forget that past is prologue and remember that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.
She said them four years ago, but the words of the oath feel different today. This time, they’re not a promise to fix what was broken—something that seemed so daunting, too big to accomplish. This time, they’re a vow to continue the work.
“I, Letitia Marie Hughes, do solemnly affirm that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”
It goes by in a blur. A blink. And then she’s back in her chair as the main event gets underway. Another speech. The big swearing-in. It doesn’t get old. The responsibility. The fear. The knowledge that they have the power to shape this great nation. Superwomen. Leaping Capitol Hill in a single bound.
Her throat feels suddenly tight. Her hands, too, as they ball into fists on her lap. Her painstakingly perfect acrylics dig into her palms. Her aunts are in the audience in their best church hats. Ash and Cherise wouldn’t miss this for the world, and they’re both on the list for some of the inaugural balls, too. Daddy hasn’t been well enough to leave his long-term care facility for a long time, but she knows he and Mama are here with her in all the ways that count. This is for so many people who believed in her, who’ve made her who she is today.
Most of all, this is for him.
“I am in this with my eyes wide open. I am in this with my whole heart. I love you.”
The tears well in her eyes before she can stop them. She knows the pundits will say it’s because she’s so moved by her president and colleague’s stirring speech. The ones that skew right will talk about how it’s an unseemly sign of emotion and just another reason why electing two women again was a questionable decision—never mind the four-year questionable decision their side made. She’s supposed to exude grace and poise and control. She’s supposed to be unflappable. She usually excels at it. But not today. Not today, of all days.
Damn. Damn. Damn. It’s too much. The emotions are too big. Heating her blood, choking her. Just when her nails start to cut into her skin, there is a gentle tap on her wrist. And one murmured word.
“Drink.”
She accepts the already uncapped bottle of water and meets Shahzad's brilliant brown eyes with a shaky smile. Yes. This victory, this moment, is definitely for him. And for them. For their faith and allegiance to this union. Just six-months young. They faced it head-on. A mid-campaign announcement. A quick media blitz. The obligatory sit-down with 20/20. “No, I’m not converting…yes, I’m keeping my last name.” “Second Gentleman? I don’t mind it. I know where I’m first. Just as she’s first with me.” The wedding was a private interfaith affair, and they both agreed that the wedding night was the most memorable part.
None of it was easy, but it was worth it. This, right now, with his hand curling around hers and his thumb brushing across her wedding band, is worth it. He's long since been replaced on her protection detail, but he's still looking after her. He’ll always look out for her.
There are receptions. There are meetings. They make appearances at several inaugural balls. It’s a whirlwind of handshakes and back-slaps and nursing endless tumblers of club soda with white men forty years his senior. The same men who looked over him or past him when he wore a gun and a comm, when he was just deadly furniture in any given room. It’s surreal. But nothing’s quite as surreal as coming home afterward. Coming home together.
Other agents do the walk-throughs now. Men and women he trusts, has personally vetted, are the ones who rotate in and out of the rooms on the first floor—along with the rest of the security team. Shahzad gets to go straight to their suite, their bedroom, without anyone blinking an eye. Of course, he still checks it out, because some habits die hard. Pacing from the front rooms to her private sitting room to the en-suite and back. And he still helps her with her coat and her shoes. They’re four-inch heels that go perfectly with the ball gown that Ruth E. Carter, an award-winning costumer for film who seldom took personal commissions, designed exclusively for the inaugural festivities. For the festivities and for Madam VP.
She looked like a queen swathed in the yards of tangerine silk. She looks like a goddess stepping out of it. Standing in front of him wearing nothing but wisps of peach lingerie and gorgeous dark skin. How can he not take a supplicant’s position at her feet? How can he not offer her everything he has and everything he is? He is the luckiest man on Earth.
Letty grins, stopping in the middle of removing the enormous chandelier earrings loaned to her by Cartier. “You stare at me like you’re making love. You know that, right?”
“Because I am making love to you,” he confesses without hesitation. “With every look. Every breath. Every cell in my body.”
It should sound ridiculous. It should feel ridiculous. But he’s been nothing but honest with her from the beginning. Nothing but honest with himself. He was born to worship this phenomenal woman. Built to slide his hands around her waist and pull her close. Put on this planet to make her come. The first time they kissed—really kissed—blew his mind. And each kiss since then has done the same.
“What am I going to do with you?” She drops her earrings onto the night stand, just above the drawer where he still keeps his gun. It’s not his service pistol…except in service to her and her safety. “I thought marriage might take the romance right out of you,” she laughs. “But it really hasn’t.”
“Marriage didn’t change you at all,” he points out, sliding slowly up her body until they’re aligned chest to chest and thigh to thigh. “You are still the amazing, brilliant woman that I can’t take my eyes off of. Still out of my league.”
“It’s our league, baby. Yours and mine. You definitely belong in it.” She brushes the back of her hand against his jaw, stroking his beard—which he’s grown longer because she likes it that way and he doesn’t have to keep it trimmed per regulation. “Just like you belong here with me,” she adds in a hot whisper across his skin. “At my feet. In my arms. In our bed.”
His very existence is political. Their marriage was an act of joyous resistance. But this…? Arching into her lips, backing up with her until they fall onto the mattress, sprawling beneath her? This is just for them. And he will never get tired of it. It’s nearly 2AM. They’re both exhausted and overstimulated and over-caffeinated. But his dick is ready to go, rock-hard and rubbing on her hip before she takes him in hand and positions him right where he needs to be…where she’s slick and hot and open.
She braces her palms on his chest and rides him slow, rolling into him, rocking their pelvises together. The three-times-a-week early morning Pilates sessions she has with POTUS and a select group of staffers have definitely paid off…because she lifts herself all the way up off him and slams back down with a gymnast’s grace, and it’s so fucking hot. So fucking tight. It’s the perfect torture, the perfect reward.
“You’ve been such a good boy,” she says to hammer that lesson home. She’s breathless, voice high and keening, each silken compliment coming out on a gasp, but she hasn’t lost one ounce of control. “So good to me. So good for me. I don’t know what I would’ve done without you today.”
He’s not sure what he would’ve done without her five years ago. Where he would even be now. He is richer for knowing her. Smarter, happier, more loved. And so well fucked. It blows his mind sometimes, how good the sex is. How good everything is. The way she whispers his name. How she scrapes her nails across his abdomen before she reaches down below where they’re joined and cups his balls. She squeezes just hard enough to wreck him.
The people outside this suite might call him the Second Gentleman, but tonight Madam Vice President lets him come first.
She wakes up at 5AM without an alarm, her body clock perfectly attuned to her hours after all this time. Shahzad is still asleep, sprawled on his stomach, strands of his thick dark hair obscuring his face. He looks like a work of art, sculpted from stone or marble. Maybe she’ll commission a piece for her vice-presidential library or museum. Second Gentleman in Repose. There are already more than a dozen alerts on her cell. Meeting reminders. A few party-hat and eggplant emoji from her girls. Mostly texts from aides. The work never ends. She knew that going into this. She’s still not sure he does.
They like to pretend their marriage caused no major ripples. Stick to the PR line. But, of course, it made ripples. Not the least of which cascaded across their own families. Shahzad got a front-row seat to the anti-blackness of some of his uncles, aunts and cousins. He pushed back—even shoved—at every single instance. Burned some bridges to the ground. Needless to say, there are some folks who will never be inviting them over for Eid. Meanwhile, her aunties were none-too-thrilled with her marrying “a boy barely out of diapers—and an Indian, to boot!” Couldn’t she have found another perfect black man like Michael? Some surprise anti-Muslim rhetoric had cropped up, too, thanks to all the hoopla stirred up by the previous regime’s travel bans and blustering. “Auntie Phyllis, don’t start with that. How many brothers did you know in the Nation back in the day?” And then they had to deal with the press, the public, the constant speculation. The caustic comments from both sides of the political divide. Hell, her own ex lobbed one hell of a misogynistic grenade during his hour-long weekly masturbation, wondering if Shahzad was just a male version of the last FLOTUS—“a gold-digger who signed up for more than they bargained for.”
Rogue Hearts (The Rogue Series Book 4) Page 2
