The Phoenix Candidate

by Heidi Joy Tretheway

  “No.” I sound like a petulant child.

  “Grace—”

  “No! What the hell was that, Jared? What the fucking hell?” I bend to get in his face to really shout him into submission, but he grabs my wrist.

  I struggle but can’t break from his grasp. His deep brown eyes are smoldering with intensity, and I shoot as much hatred as I can from my eyes.

  I’m embarrassed. Mortified. This man who has seen me naked, who made me scream his name less than twelve hours ago, is now Ms. Colton-ing me like I’m his kid’s schoolteacher.

  That sends a shockwave to my gut. I know nothing about this man: not whether he’s married, or has a kid, or exactly what his business is here.

  Sensing that the fight’s left me, Jared drops my wrist and slowly stands.

  I hold my ground, standing toe to toe with him. His hair is combed neatly, but I remember the way my grasping fingers teased it into wild waves last night. His stubbled jaw remains, and he’s in gray slacks and a cobalt button-down shirt, again without a tie.

  I fold my arms across my chest to protect myself because my gray pantsuit and silk top aren’t doing the trick. My leather pumps don’t boost me to an even height with Jared.

  His thumb brushes my lower lip and I gasp and take a step back.

  “Pouting doesn’t suit you. Tuck that lip back in.”

  “Don’t touch. I bite,” I snarl, angry that he’s mixed the familiarity from last night with the utter seriousness of this political opportunity.

  “So do I,” Jared says, taking another step toward me and forcing me to step back. “But you like it.”

  I bump into a wall covered in fancy wallpaper. Jared’s body cages me in.

  “You’re a bastard.” I’m even angrier he’s getting to me. I grab his shirt, ready to push him back, but he captures my wrists and slams them against the wall above my head.

  “I hear that a lot.” Jared’s body molds against me. I feel his erection hardening as he presses his hips into mine, and my traitorous body responds in turn, too eager to tip my hips at just the right angle.

  I can’t get the word bastard through my lips again when every cell in my body is screaming Encore! Encore!

  “How could you?” I hiss.

  “It’s what you wanted. No stories. No strings.”

  “But I’ve got a hell of a lot of regret.” I move to turn away from him, but Jared lowers his mouth toward mine. His lips land on my jaw and skim down my neck, his tongue explores the hollow of my throat then glides back up my neck to taste the soft skin behind my earlobe. I whimper and twist, but he just anchors me harder, both body and wrists.

  “You knew,” I hiss, trying to get my brain to focus on why I’m here, not the hardening length in his pants that has me rubbing against him like a freaking cat in heat. “You knew who I was and you let me … you let me humiliate myself.”

  I stifle a cry as his teeth come out, sinking into the flesh at the base of my neck. It stings, and the twinge heightens my need to retaliate, to touch him in all the ways he’s touching me. To drive us to release.

  His knee presses between mine and my legs part, my body in full meltdown.

  “You didn’t humiliate yourself. You just let go. Got out of your head for One. Fucking. Minute.” With each word his hips rock against mine until my core is aching to be filled again.

  My God, is he really going to make me come? With every stitch of clothing on? I struggle against his hold on me. “You knew who I am. You knew we could be working together!”

  “I didn’t go to the club expecting to pick you up, if that’s what you’re wondering.” His lips are inches from mine and his eyes narrow. The force in his expression nearly my undoing.

  “Bullshit. You were all about picking me up.”

  “And do you regret it?” Jared’s voice drops to a low, dangerous whisper.

  No! “Yes.”

  He drops my hands. Spins and strides to the opposite side of the room.

  I go cold. And fucking frustrated. He wound up my body so tight that I’m vibrating with tension, needing just a little more to take me over the edge.

  He gathers the folders and slides them inside a leather attaché case as if we’ve been sipping coffee for the last five minutes rather than slammed up against a wall. “Let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  “Your place.”

  I almost snap, imagining the relief he could offer to my wound-up state.

  But his face says all business. He looks at his watch. “We’ve got a long list on our agenda today. Your place is good enough to start.”

  Chapter Seven

  I’m steaming mad and painfully aroused as I lead Jared back to my condo.

  I am not going to let him fuck up this opportunity.

  I am not going to let him get under my skin again.

  I drop my keys, touch Ethan’s picture, and flick on the lights. One, two, three. My ritual.

  Jared follows me to the living room, his eyes taking in the modern glass and leather furniture, the cacti that manage to survive while I’m gone in D.C., the lack of personalization.

  “Homey,” he says, and his sarcasm gets my hackles up.

  “It’s not like I have tons of time to decorate,” I snipe at him. “I have bigger issues to tackle.”

  “Where’s the bedroom?” He ignores my attempt to have us sit at the dining room table and wanders to the back of my condo without waiting for permission.

  “What are you doing?” I find him pushing open both closet doors, inspecting my clothes on hangers, pulling items out and tossing them across the bed.

  He ignores me.

  “I said, what are you doing?”

  “Picking out clothes. What does it look like?” He shakes his head as if that’s all the explanation necessary and continues pawing through my closet.

  “Don’t you think this is a bit too personal?” I intend it as a rhetorical question, but he takes it at face value, and he grasps the lapels of my gray silk jacket.

  “I can assure you, Grace, that going through your closet is the least personal thing I’ll be doing with you.” He draws me closer, his drawl becoming a rasp. “Since it matters to voters what you wear, we’re going to do this. Now.”

  I stand my ground even though his fingers distract me, stroking me through the suit’s material. “Cut it out.”

  “No. You promised Senator Conover you’d cooperate.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “There are plenty of other things we could be doing in this room.” He glances at my wide, white bed. He releases my lapel with one hand and fingers the edge of my yellow blouse by my collarbone, following its dip into my cleavage.

  My nipples tighten and my sheer lace bra isn’t enough to disguise them. Jared sees my reaction and smiles, his thumb brushing one nipple’s tip.

  “Then I’ll be reporting back to the senator on exactly what you are and are not willing to do.” He licks his lips, a glint in his eye.

  “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “Dare what? Dare to pick apart your wardrobe based on twenty years of polling data? That’s part of my job, Grace. Dare to touch you so I can hear you scream my name again? That has nothing to do with my job, Grace, but everything to do with what I need right now.”

  I draw a ragged breath, thoroughly off-kilter by this man who runs hot and cold.

  “This is wrong.” I push back against his chest, trying to give myself room to breathe when it feels like all of the air is gone.

  “Really.” Jared runs his hand up the nape of my neck, plucking at my dark curls that I pinned into a twist before I went to meet the senator. “Tell me more.”

  “It’s—we can’t—you’re supposed to be doing a job right now.” He pushes my jacket off my shoulders and it drops to the floor.

  “And you don’t want to mix business with pleasure?” He pulls the yellow blouse from the waistband of my slacks, pushing it up my stomach and pulling it over my head.

  �
�Yes.” He drops to one knee, his lips closing over my nipple. Even though it’s still encased in my bra, I whimper.

  “Say that again.”

  “What?”

  “Yes.”

  This time his teeth rake over my nipple and I hiss yessss as his tongue darts out, teasing the bud, flicking it.

  “I have no problem mixing business with pleasure,” Jared says, sliding my bra down my arms. “Especially when there are so many possibilities.”

  I hiss again and my breath comes fast as he licks and sucks and tortures my nipples with slow strokes. His teeth are out, nips that are not gentle, not innocent, and not enough.

  I need more.

  I press my thighs together, my lower half still completely dressed while my top half is naked. I was so close to climax in the hotel suite, and now I’m there again, spiraling as Jared pulls my nipple into his mouth. Each tug from his mouth pulls threads leading straight to my center, tugging at a ripcord, begging for release.

  I sigh or cry, some kind of ahhh that begs him to never stop. My fingers wind through his hair and I make a mess of it, loving the feel of his stubble on my skin, the scratch and scrape that electrify me with each movement.

  It makes my skin feel alive. It makes me feel alive. It’s Sunday morning and I’m half dressed and I’m moaning like a freaking teenager, begging him to just touch me and take me where I want and need to be. Right the hell now.

  A knock on my front door freezes me. Fuck.

  Who the hell? What the hell?

  Jared’s lips quirk up, and doesn’t he know that I’m all hot and bothered and dying right now? “Expecting someone?”

  “No.” I scowl, bending to find my bra among the tangle of clothes on the floor. “Coming!” I shout down the hall.

  “I’d say you didn’t quite,” Jared quips, and hands me my blouse.

  I snatch it from his hands and scowl. “I would have, if we hadn’t been interrupted.” God, you’d think I was a nymphomaniac the way I’m acting, especially after two orgasms last night.

  I shove my hands in my jacket sleeves and shake my hair out, the French twist history. Jared puts a light hand on my forearm. “We’re not done here.” His eyes flick to my disrupted closet and then the space by my bed where he was licking my breasts so thoroughly. “Not with either issue.”

  I stride to the front door, ignoring Jared. I pull it open and find Aliza.

  “We need breakfast. Something greasy.” Her ponytail is still wet from a post-workout shower, and the skin under her eyes is puffy from drinking last night.

  “What are you all dressed up for—?” Aliza abandons her question as Jared walks into the living room, finger-combing his hair back into place. From my bedroom.

  “Oh. God, Grace, I’m sorry. You’ve got company.” She turns to go, but this situation is already plenty awkward, so I salvage what I can.

  “No. Stay. Jared, this is my friend Aliza, whom I promised to have breakfast with today.” I give her a look to silence her. I promised no such thing, but right now I’d go get a root canal with her if she could get me the hell out of Jared’s orbit and give me some time to think. “Aliza, this is Jared, uh, a political consultant.”

  “Jared Rankin,” he supplies, extending a hand for Aliza to shake.

  She takes his hand and blatantly checks him out. “Weren’t you in the bar … last night, with Grace?”

  I purse my lips but Jared is too relaxed. “True. It was not quite a coincidence.”

  “Your timing is perfect, Aliza. Because Mr. Rankin was just leaving.” I hold the door open that Aliza just walked through, giving him my best get-the-hell-out look. My D.C.-based assistant, Trey, calls it the “look of doom,” because it’s the one I give lobbyists who won’t take the first ten hints when they park their asses in my office.

  “What time are you through?” Jared glances at his watch again. “We have many more details to work out.”

  The way he drawls details makes my head spin.

  “We’ll be back by one,” Aliza offers, and I scowl at her. She winks. Last night she was saying that she was going to get me laid come hell or high water.

  This is hell.

  “I’ll pick you up at two. I’ll text you with what to bring.”

  I haven’t agreed to anything—not breakfast with Aliza, not some afternoon meeting with Jared—but in a whirl, he’s gone.

  Chapter Eight

  “It’s complicated.” I pour too much cream in my coffee and ignore Aliza’s probing. The nondisclosure clause prevents me from mentioning Senator Conover.

  “Doesn’t have to be.” She drops her menu on the table and gives mine a nudge, forcing me to meet her gaze. “I thought you went home with him last night?”

  “That part’s complicated, too.” I bow my head. I can’t help it. I feel a little guilty, even though it’s been five years. Five years and as many dates since gunshots shattered my family and stole my little boy.

  “Grace, you’re allowed to date. You can’t dress in black and pretend sex doesn’t exist just because you’re a—” She hesitates.

  “Widow. You can say it.”

  “I know,” she whispers. “You’ve channeled everything you are into what happened that day. But maybe that’s too much?”

  Maybe it is. My house is nearly absent of anything from my past life, except Ethan’s picture, but my work is absolutely defined by it. I ran for Congress less than a year after Seth and Ethan died. My very first bill was a gun control law.

  And every time I get a mention on national news, the Time magazine cover of me crying over their headstones reappears, like a caricature of grief, the ultimate distillation of what gun violence can do to a family.

  The violence of what it’s done to my heart has never been reported. I’ve slowly frozen, put my heart in cryogenic storage while I let my head take over. That’s what you need in Washington, anyway: your head, not your heart. When you start getting emotionally invested, you make bad decisions.

  It’s painfully true.

  “I’m the poster girl,” I remind Aliza, and I shrug, as if the title’s no big deal. “Jared’s consulting with me on some of the issues, seeing if we might bring some to greater national prominence.” It’s a half-truth, but it’s enough. Aliza’s just as allergic to politics as I am to the deadly dull world of real estate tax law, her specialty.

  “Is this more than just civic engagement?” She makes engagement sound like a dirty word, and she’d be scandalized if she knew the truth of it.

  We’re consenting adults. We’re consenting adults. “I doubt it. I need to keep my eye on the ball.” Lie. Huge damn lie.

  Aliza touches my hand thoughtfully. “Look. I know you’ve given your life to fight for this, but don’t let it define you, OK? You’re more than a member of Congress. You’re a woman, and you’re my friend. And getting a bunch of bills passed isn’t going to make you happy forever.”

  “It will.”

  “It might make your head happy, but it isn’t going to heal your heart.”

  I start to object but Aliza silences me with a zip-it glare that she used on obnoxious guys when we were in law school together. It beats my get-the-hell-out lobbyist glare, hands down.

  “Nothing’s a sure thing,” she adds. “Don’t waste what you can have now for something you wish for.”

  ***

  At ten minutes ’til two, I get a text. I never gave Jared my phone number, but I know it’s him.

  Time to work out more details. Dress for the water, meet me downstairs in ten.

  Bossy son of a bitch. But the prospect of water thrills me. Summer comes slowly to Oregon, and since this is one of the first real summer days in Portland, with temperatures pushing into the high eighties, I choose board shorts, a racerback tank with a built-in bra, and a loose, long-sleeve shirt to keep too much sun off my shoulders. I grab a wide-brimmed hat and go downstairs.

  He’s parked at the curb outside my condo in a convertible and reflective sunglasses.
>
  “Are we going on a boat?”

  “If you’d call it that.” He pulls into traffic with a squeal and follows the Willamette River south to a marina. Several brightly colored kayaks are lined up on the dock. “You’re teaching me to kayak today.”

  I give him a look that says Get out of town and snort. “Why would I want to do that?”

  I love the water. Love it. But the prospect of telling this pushy man what to do in a kayak doesn’t appeal. It would rob the peace I get from paddling.

  “Because I need you to trust me.” He grasps my shoulders so I face him. I tilt my chin to look in his eyes, realizing I’m actually a lot shorter than him now that I’m in sandals instead of heels. His voice softens. “Grace, I’m going to ask you to do a lot of things in the coming months. Some of them aren’t going to be comfortable. Some of them you’ll hate. And I need you to trust me on them.”

  “What’s that got to do with ruining a perfectly good paddle?” I frown, but my fingers itch to get in the water.

  “I read your bio. I know you like kayaking. And I’ve never done it before. So I’m giving you the next hour to teach me, so that you’ll give me the same kind of credit when it comes to teaching you.” He leans close to me and his stubble brushes softly against my cheek. “You never know what you’ll like until you try it.”

  His last sentence liquefies my insides, a throb of need pulsing between my legs. Try it. You might like it. His promise is wrapped in wicked temptation.

  I step out of his grasp and take two life jackets from the bin, handing him one. The young guy monitoring kayak rentals helps me push a tandem kayak in the water. I stuff our phones, my purse, and his wallet in a dry bag, then show Jared how to brace the paddle on the dock to keep the boat stable and slide in.

  I kneel on the dock and look inside the boat, between his legs. “Knees apart.”

  “Don’t have to tell me twice, darlin’.” Jared chuckles, the warm sound rich and gooey. God, did I just compare this guy to a cinnamon roll? I am losing it. I reach inside the boat and adjust the rudder pedals.