“You want to know what I’m thinking? What I picture when I wrap my hand around my cock in the morning because your lips aren’t there?”
My breath catches in my throat. I whisper, “Yes.”
“I’ve imagined you everywhere, Grace. Bent over my bed in each hotel room. Crawling to me like you did that first night.” He’s quiet for a moment. “You liked that. You liked the power I had over you, and the power you had to say no.”
It’s true.
“I wanted you to take the lead,” I confess, my hand moving between my legs, my knees drawing together around the pressure of my fingertips. “Sometimes, I know what I want and need, but I just can’t say it. I need you to say it for me. I need you to demand it.”
I get a rich sigh from Jared at that admission. “I’ll be happy to demand that from you, Grace. I can be all kinds of demanding.”
“And pushy. And controlling.” I squirm in my seat.
“I can’t pretend controlling you isn’t fun. It’s such a fucking turn-on, Grace. Telling you what I’m going to do to you and demanding you obey me, and your body, and all of the things you want if you’d get out of your head for one fucking minute.”
“What would you do to me right now, then?” I pant. My panties are drenched with moisture and I lean back on my couch, the phone pressed to my ear the way I wish his stubbled cheek were right now.
“I’d make you ache with my fingertip,” Jared says. “I’d touch the tip of your nipple, just brush it with the pad of my thumb, until it was hard and tight, the skin puckering around the tip. I’d touch that beautiful dark rose color, until your back arched and you were begging me for more.”
My back is arched as I touch myself the way Jared describes.
“And then I’d trace that fingertip down your sternum and over your stomach. Over your scar, Grace, and even though you hate it, I love the ridges and ripples on your body. I love that you’ve lived, and that every one of those is part of your story. I love that they’re part of you.”
The words love and you are dangerously close together in that sentence, but I say nothing. Just let Jared take me further down the rabbit hole with his deep baritone and delicious words.
“I’d run that fingertip through your curls, and I’d tease you, Grace. I wouldn’t go to the spot where you want me. I’d take my time, appreciating your legs, your folds, and your softness. I’d draw my fingertip up and down your thighs, getting closer to your center bit by bit by bit.”
I shudder. “I need you closer.”
“Patience, Grace. I’m getting you there. Sometimes I like to take you instantly, but tonight I’ll take my time exploring you. I’ll push your knees apart so I can see all of you, the delicate shades of pink and blush, your layers as you open to me.” Jared draws a halting breath.
“Would you … tie me?” I tremble, asking as much about our make-believe scenario as I’m asking him for the real thing. It’s another dark corner of my heart, terrifying to expose to the light.
Jared chuckles low. “You have no idea how much I’d enjoy that, Grace. I’d tie you slowly, and feel your body come alive as you released yourself to me. And then I’d move my fingertip through your wetness, slicking you up and down your seam, making you completely ready for me.”
“I’m ready.” I’m panting, gasping for breath as my fingers press against my clit, working against the bundle of nerves that Jared still has yet to reach with his story.
“I’d slip inside you, just enough to feel that rough spot, to tease it with my fingertip and make you jolt and writhe around me. That reaction makes me so hard, Grace. It’s not just touching you, it’s feeling you respond—when you twist and squirm and pant and blush. That’s what makes me hard. That’s what makes my cock need to be inside you.”
“I need you inside me.”
“Then do it, Grace. Make your fingers my cock and touch yourself. But don’t go all the way yet. I’m just getting started. I’ve only gotten you wet and ready, I’ve only just begun to brush the tip of my cock through your folds, to coat my head with your juices.”
“Oh, God.” His words send me spiraling and I nearly drop the phone. My fingers are pressed to my cleft, but not yet inside. I’m waiting for him to tell me when.
“Do you feel me? Are you ready for me to fill you up, Grace? Because I’m hard as a rock over here and I need your pussy so badly that I’m licking my fingers to taste you, to spread you over my tongue.”
“I feel you,” I choke out. The electricity over my skin sparks and builds, a familiar sensation and yet every time it is new. Every time it builds it’s a fresh and almost magical connection, like a summer storm that draws together suddenly and flashes across the sky.
“Then I’ll press inside. I’m going to thrust hard, Grace, and stretch you and fill you. I’m going to take your breath away and send you flying. And I’m going to anchor you, tilt your hips into mine, wrap your legs around me, control our rhythm, our breath, our heartbeats. I’m going to go hard at you because I know you can take it. I know you want it hard.”
“I do.”
“And I’m going to split you apart with the force of us. I’m going to dig my fingers into the flesh of your hips, and bite down on your neck and pull your hair and smack your ass until you scream.”
My moan rises as one hand plunges between my legs, my thumb punishing my clit. My other hand tugs hard on my hair, electrifying my scalp. I can feel him and taste him all over me, inside and out, owning my pleasure and giving me more and more and more.
Jared’s voice drops low, and I tilt my ear back to the phone so I can hear him. “Grace. Listen to me. As you come down from your climax I’m going to feel you clenching around my cock, I’m going to feel us slick with sweat and come. I’m going to run my hands across your skin and make you feel every part of me, all over again, before I pull out of you.”
I sigh. “I wish you didn’t have to. I want you with me all night.”
Jared chuckles. “Noted. Don’t worry, Grace. It won’t be long until I see you again. And I’m going to make what I just described look positively tame compared to what I’ll do to you then.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The stories come out in a trickle, and then in a flood.
I’m quoted everywhere, from USA Today to small, community dailies running wire service stories. My name keeps surfacing on talk shows that speak obliquely about “a source close to Darrow’s campaign” or “a Conover spokesman suggested…”
It’s official. I’m on the short list. My name recognition spikes ten points in a week, according to a poll Jared’s watching.
Lauren drags me to a stylist who demands that I cut and highlight my hair. I dig in my heels and refuse that, but I compromise by letting her shape my brows and swap out my liquid eyeliner for pencil.
Our next stop is a well-maintained brownstone with a little sign in the shape of a dress form. Lauren raps sharply on the door and twists the knob without waiting for a response.
A tiny man in an immaculate suit pops his head out of a backroom doorway. “Mrs. Darrow, welcome. Would you care for tea?”
“Coffee,” Lauren says.
He disappears, giving me a moment to gape at the large room lined in tall shelves, every crevice spilling over with bolts of fabric. The man returns with an ornate tray and sets it on a wide worktable. He pours while Lauren makes introductions.
“Grace, this is Han Lee, who is an absolute magician with tailoring. Han, this is my … project, Grace.”
He looks me up and down, nodding, and points to a round, foot-high platform. “Stand here, please, Miss Grace.”
I leave my full coffee on the worktable regretfully and step up on the platform, which makes me feel like a curiosity on display.
“Jacket off, please.” Han instructs.
I remove it and pass it to him. He begins taking my measurements.
Lauren sits on a chaise and sips coffee, watching the process. “So, Grace, tell me more about yours
elf.”
I’m not falling for that open-ended pit. “What would you like to know?”
“Tell me about where you grew up. What was it like?”
I groan inwardly. Sharing about my family—and they qualify only by the loosest definition—is as fun as a filibuster. “My family moved around a lot. Coos Bay, Stayton, Florence, Canby, Troutdale. Small towns, wherever my stepdad could find work.”
“I understand what it’s like to grow up with limited means,” Lauren sympathizes, and her comment holds genuine warmth. “You have to grow up a bit faster than your peers.”
“Yes. It’s a survival skill.”
“Tell me, what did learning to fend for yourself teach you? Did it make you more resourceful? More tenacious?”
“Yes and yes. And it made the difference between want and need really clear.”
“Please undress.” Han is looking at me expectantly, and I balk.
“Here?”
Lauren rises to pour herself more coffee while mine goes cold on the worktable. “We don’t have all day, Grace.” Then her expression softens. “But take your time. Use the screen if you need to. You can keep your panties on.”
I stumble off the platform and hide behind a flimsy fabric screen, peeling off my blouse, slacks, and bra. I emerge from behind the screen with my arm covering my breasts, eyes downcast, and slink back up to the platform, burning with embarrassment.
“No need to be shy, Grace. Han just needs to see what he’s working with.” Lauren’s voice is softer, conciliatory. “So just ignore Han and let’s keep chatting, shall we? You were saying about the difference between want and need. What do you need, Grace?”
I open my mouth to answer, but my brain doesn’t supply words easily. Need? I understand need. Too well.
I learned about need when I was eleven, broke my finger, and didn’t go to the doctor because I didn’t need to as urgently as my stepfather needed to finish a football game and my mom needed to finish her shift. Sometimes, our family didn’t need fresh food as badly as he needed gin. And when our family was forced to move in the middle of the night, leaving virtually all of my things behind, I needed more clothes so I could wash the ones I was wearing.
Need is funny and fickle and fucked up. I don’t need a fancy home, but I need safety. I don’t need a lifestyle with bespoke tailoring, but I need a few things I can call my own. Things that can’t be taken from me.
“I need freedom,” I finally answer Lauren. “Freedom to make my own decisions, freedom to live the way I want.”
“That’s not freedom,” Lauren interrupts. “You can be free as a bird and not have the ability to make what you want a reality. You don’t want freedom. You want power.”
“Arms above your head,” Han directs me, and now I’m even more exposed. He pulls a measuring tape taut around my rib cage and then around my breasts.
“Maybe I do. Maybe if power is the thing that’s going to let me right the wrongs and enjoy life, maybe that’s exactly what I want,” I confess.
Lauren smiles. “We’re not that different, Grace. I want to be first lady. Not for the pastel dresses and redecorating the White House. For the power.”
“Why wouldn’t you want to be president or vice president then?”
Lauren laughs. “Because I’d rather be the kingmaker. That’s where real power lies. And as first lady, I’ll get to pick and choose. I can influence what matters to me, rather than being bound to handle the mundane things.”
She has a point.
“So, the question is, while I’m influencing my husband’s agenda, who’s influencing yours, Grace?”
I feel the color rise in my cheeks.
“Don’t tell me Jared Rankin’s still part of the picture. Grace, we went over this. He’s not good for you and not good for our campaign. It’s time to cut him loose. Unless it’s a lot more serious than you’re saying?”
Memories of Jared’s wicked talk, of the feeling of him inside me, flood my brain and my nipples peak involuntarily. “Are we done here?” I ask Han, and hustle off the platform to the screen, where I haul on my clothes. Standing nearly naked through Lauren’s inquisition was torture.
I return to the worktable, where Lauren and Han are debating swatches of material. He makes a shorthand list of pieces.
“Who’s paying for this?” I ask.
Lauren waves her hand. “It’s soft money. Kind of an allowance from the campaign. Discretionary.”
I purse my lips. I’ve pushed Lauren too far already, and I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know more. So I pick a different fight. “Lauren, what you asked me about Mr. Rankin? It’s inappropriate to discuss that.”
Her eyes flash with annoyance. “Grace, this is politics, not some mind-your-manners HR department. Nothing’s off-limits. Nothing.”
“Jared is.” I cross my arms, trying to maintain my position, trying to stay firm. “And maybe it says something about me that you can get me to strip to my undies more easily than you can get me to agree to have or not have a relationship because it’s politically expedient. I’m willing to do a lot to make it to the White House, Lauren, but I’m not going to let you pick and choose who I see.”
“But Grace, you’re a widow.”
It’s a low blow. Maybe the lowest. And through gritted teeth, I punch back. “If you ever call me that in public, we’re through. I am a U.S. congresswoman. You want me on the Darrow ticket because you know I could help you win this, and I bring a hell of a lot more to the table than one sad little news story.”
“But Jared—”
“Is none of your business.” I cut her off. “He’s not your consultant. He’s not mine. Leave him out of this.”
Lauren shrugs, a gesture that says It’s your funeral. “Ah, Grace. If only Jared were a man who could leave it at that. If you keep him close, he’ll be your downfall.”
Chapter Thirty
As the Democratic National Convention draws closer, speculation on running mates is second only to the speculation on which candidate will nab the nomination. The spread in the polls suggests the popularity gap has narrowed.
Darrow’s in first, by six points.
Conover’s in second, but he’s three points closer to Darrow this month than last.
Boyle brings up the rear in third, but he’s still commanding sixteen percent of the polls.
And then the bomb drops.
Two bombs, actually.
I’m hunkered down in my office with Trey, pouring over position papers for both Darrow and Conover like I’m cramming for a test. This is a test. Headline news plays on a TV in the background but then the volume rises as Trey touches the remote.
“Military action in Kabul took a deadly turn today as a covert U.S. mission to rescue three journalists, held hostage for the past two weeks, went wrong.” The news anchor’s lips form a thin, grim line. “Bad information about where the journalists were being held sent Special Forces to a location that became an ambush. The U.S. government is reporting that nineteen troops were slain.”
The horror of this moment is magnified by the silence from the presenter, the stillness of my office, the air that’s left this room.
“Just one soldier made it out alive, his right hand cut off as an example. Our hearts and prayers go out to the families of all of the people involved in this horrific incident.”
My stomach seizes and balks, unwilling to digest this new horror that feels too fresh, too real. I lunge for my plastic recycling bin, emptying the contents of my stomach in thick, greenish waves.
I am bereft, even though I don’t know these soldiers or their families. And for the hundredth or thousandth time, I question whether I have it in me to be so close to Commander-in-Chief.
When the retching ceases, I straighten up in my chair, tears in my eyes from the sadness and sickness of this moment. Trey places a glass of water on my desk in front of me and disappears.
This matters. Not photo shoots and politicking. This—real violence that rips
families apart, whether at the mall where a severely depressed and paranoid man shot my family and four more, or on the battlefield where brave men risked and lost their lives for others.
This matters. As I wipe my face and settle my stomach with the water, I know I need to be a part of this. I need to help lead us into a more peaceful world.
“I’m going to go take care of this,” I tell Trey, and hustle down the hall to the bathroom where I dump my recycling bin’s contents in a toilet. I rinse it out, then stoop over the sink and wash my face and hands until the stinging cold water rejuvenates me.
I look at myself in the mirror, a hard, appraising look that asks whether I really can do this. My dark curls are damp around my face, the makeup gone, and my amber eyes betray my late nights of reading briefs and talking to Jared.
Jared. I need him back, and it feels like far longer than a week since I’ve seen him. I catch bits and pieces about where he’s been while traveling with Conover, and I know he’s made another trip to Florida.
To see the other choice. Probably Conover’s best choice for a running mate.
Rivera has a decade in Congress, while I haven’t even tallied four years. He has a strong track record, a strong work ethic, and a fiery, passionate group of supporters who’ve latched on to his “land of opportunity” rhetoric.
Even though my maiden name is Garcia, I’m not Latina; my family origins are Spanish. Rivera’s Latino, and an outspoken advocate of immigration reform. He’s also an outspoken Christian, pulling in family-values voters who appreciate his moderate stand on social issues. He makes church synonymous with community and family and America and apple pie.
He’s lethal. The speculation a year ago was that he’d run for president. But after forming an exploratory committee and getting tons of media attention for doing so, making him even more of a household name, he quietly folded the committee.
I get back to my office and Trey gives me a sympathetic look. His desk holds a massive bouquet of deep red roses surrounded by what looks like holly leaves, with little clusters of blue fruit. “I’ve got a call holding for you, if you’re OK to take it.”
The Phoenix Candidate Page 13
