Private Politics (The Easy Part) (16 page)

“Do you think you’re calling the shots?” He captured her hand again and ground himself against her. It felt so good and yet wasn’t enough. His body was almost raw with want.

She answered his question, “Yes.” Her eyes were flirty and daring.

He thrust against her again.

“No,” she gasped.

“What do you want?” he demanded.

“You. Only you. Over and over again.”

He was off her in an instant, tearing his clothing from his body and digging in the drawer for a condom. When he returned to the bed, she wrapped her legs around his waist and ran her fingers down his chest.

Pulling herself up, she captured one of his nipples in her mouth and swirled her tongue around it. He really couldn’t handle any of that, not right now.

He pulled her face up to his and kissed her, hard. “This is what you want?”

“It’s the only thing I’ve wanted for days.”

Kissing her again, he reached down and positioned himself. Then—finally, astonishingly—pressed slowly into her. Her head fell back and she sighed as he seated himself fully. She was perfect—absolutely fucking perfect.

She raised her hips, twisting her body around him and urging him on, but he couldn’t, not yet.

Holding her face between his hands, he said, “I just need to say this, okay? I don’t want you to say anything back. Do you understand me? No response. But if only for myself—I love you.”

He kissed her, afraid to let her draw breath and even more afraid to look her in the eye after this declaration. Still consuming her mouth, he began to move.

Again and again he rolled his hips and she rose to meet him. Her fingers dug into his back and her feet pressed his thighs and ass. He trailed one of his hands down her body, stopping to scrape over one of her nipples. She whimpered and he rolled it between his fingertips.

Knowing he wouldn’t last long, he continued his journey over her stomach until he found her clit. One, two, three deep presses against her flesh until they found release together.

For the space of several breaths, Liam managed to keep his thoughts blank. He enjoyed the twitch of their still intertwined bodies. The press of the warm woman beneath him. The sweet of her mingled with sweat. But finally, reality intervened.

He’d done it. He’d told her he loved her and he’d made love to her. Holy shit.

His face was buried in the pillow next to her head. He was afraid to move. A week before, he was convinced he would never kiss, let alone sleep with, Alyse Philips. Now he’d spilled his soul to her and was afraid to look her in the eye.

Knowing that he was being a coward, he tried to set aside the worry. Life was really strange and wonderful. This was one of its better moments.

“Liam?”

So much for the dream. He raised himself onto his elbows and rolled onto his side. She was looking up at him, smiling beautifully and looking happy and satisfied. He brushed a few strands of hair out of her face and waited. He’d definitely said too much already. He steeled himself for whatever might be coming next.

“I think—”

Just then, her phone rang. Alyse sprang to her feet and, without putting on any clothes, went out to the kitchen to retrieve it.

It was one of those “you win some/you lose some” things.

Chapter Fifteen

“Um, hi?” she said into her phone.

Her voice came out breathless, which made sense. She’d just had some phenomenal sex. Oh yes, and there was that other thing. The Liam-loved-her thing. But it was probably the sex that had set her heart all the way to Iron Man—mode.

“Hello, Alyse! It’s Bertie.”

Of course it was. At the moment when she should have been dealing with Liam’s surprising confession, Bertie had saved her. If he could help with this YWR thing, she’d owe him her firstborn.

Thank you
,
Bertie!
But all she said was, “That was fast.”

“Your father and I go way back. I’m happy to help. Tell me what’s going on.”

“It started a little over a week ago...”

As she began explaining the story, Liam came out of his bedroom wearing only boxers. He draped a blanket over her shoulders and kissed her lightly on the hair before crossing the living room to the couch. Grabbing his laptop off the coffee table, he began reading something.

The screen commanded all of his focus, so as she relayed the background information to Bertie, she examined him. He didn’t seem shaken or ill at ease. He seemed absolutely calm and certain.

Liam wasn’t a chiseled guy—he probably hadn’t seen the inside of a gym in a while—and it couldn’t possibly matter less. Broad shoulders, solid arms and pale skin splashed with a pattern of freckles she wanted to memorize.

He shouldn’t have added up like he did. She’d met him more than six months ago. Was it possible she’d known one of the better-looking men on earth for a while and hadn’t realized it until now? She’d quite simply never seen a man whom she wanted to lick every inch of before.

So he’d said
I
love you
. So he seemed to mean it. So what did that mean?

She’d heard the words before, said them even. But before it had felt like pantomime. Almost as if she’d been following a prompt.
Kiss kiss.
I
love you.
Exit stage right.

Liam spoke the words with bone-deep conviction. He’d kissed her like he meant it and then made love to her as if it were that and not just sex. In fact, he’d been surprisingly bossy-pants in bed. He’d known what he wanted and he got it. For months, he’d dithered with her. But once he’d made a move, she’d ended up in his apartment, then in his bed, within days. While he might have put her off for a bit, when he’d decided they should sleep together, he hadn’t really wasted much time.

He’d dictated everything—and she hadn’t cared. Now, two different emotions warred inside her: fear that she was going to destroy him and acceptance of what he offered on his terms. The former was too sad to contemplate and the latter too frightening to be right. So thank goodness Bertie had called.

“Can you do that today?”

Shit, the savior in question had asked her something.

What, she had no idea. This was an object lesson in why one shouldn’t ponder all the attributes of her boyfriend’s body, all the things he’d just done to her and all the things she wanted him to do whilst talking to a lawyer to figure out if whistleblower statutes applied to her. Yup, she was going to cross-stitch that on a pillow.

“Um, that is, I—” she sputtered. Just then, Liam looked up and caught her eye. His lips pursed, as if he knew what she’d been thinking, which was impossible. Wasn’t it? She spun on her heel to face the wall and desperately tried on focus on the matter at hand, the potential felony at work matter.

“Can you say more about what you mean?” she asked Bertie.

Bertie was unperturbed. “Can you email me scans of the documents you have?” he repeated.

Okay then. Not the kind of question that generally required clarification. It had been gracious of him not to comment on her confusion, though perhaps he thought she was an idiot just like everyone else did.

“Yes.”

“Once I have those, I’ll contact the auditor’s firm—”

“Don’t call him at YWR!”

“I’ve done this before. I understand how it works. I’ll get back to you soon.”

Giving in to the fear for a moment, she asked him the question haunting her. “You don’t think I’ll be going to jail, then? Or appearing on the front of the paper in disgrace?”

“I haven’t seen the materials, but you haven’t done anything wrong. It’s your reputation you seem more concerned about.”

“Yes, precisely.” She’d been saying it over and over again, but it never got old. Each iteration made her more certain it was true: she wanted a career here, in Washington, working on women’s empowerment in the developing world. She wanted...well, she wanted a lot of things for her future that she was unwilling to explore at the moment—Liam potentially among them.

“We’ll work to preserve it,” Bertie assured her.

“Thank you.”

“Of course. Now, you and your young man will join me tonight for Mahler’s Third Symphony, won’t you?”

If memory served, Mahler’s Third was unbearably heavy and long.

“Um...” She snuck a glance at Liam. He was absorbed in work again. His hair was a mess, pulled different directions by her hands. Whatever he was reading was amusing him. A smile flickered across his face, widened, and vanished as he attacked the keyboard. He typed like he did everything else, with strong focus and skill. He pounded at the keys furiously for ten seconds and stopped, frowning at the screen.

Her heart squeezed.

Venturing to answer for him, she said, “We will. What time?”

“It’s an early curtain. Seven-thirty. Meet me in the main lobby a bit before.”

“Sounds good.”

Hanging up the phone, she faced again the tricky problem of responding to Liam’s confession. He loved her; seemed quite certain of it actually. His revelation was like looking over the edge of some great view into fog. Anxiety and anticipation and bone-deep certainty that something lurked just out of sight roiled in her stomach.

Shaking off the thought, she threw over her shoulder, “Do you own a tie?”

She turned squarely toward him. He was rubbing his eyes. “Uh, maybe.”

“I could always buy you one,” she muttered mostly to herself before saying to him, “Because Bertie wants to us to go hear some Mahler with him tonight. Honestly, I hate Mahler.”

Liam cocked his head to the side. “Did you just ask me on a date? A date with a dress code?”

“Yes, I did,” she responded with mock-solemnity. “You haven’t answered yet, and I’ve got to say, I’m starting to feel a little nervous here.”

“Yes, of course I will wear a tie and listen to Mahler. Didn’t I say that?”

“Nope.”

He set his laptop down and leaned forward. “The answer for you is always, always yes.”

Oh, was it? “You’re going to regret that,” she teased.

“I doubt it.”

She pulled the blanket closer around her shoulders and considered. What with everything going on, they hadn’t really had a first date. A few stressful meals between bouts of espionage didn’t count.

“Where’s your favorite spot in the city?”

Without hesitation he answered, “Meridian Hill Park.”

“We need to scan and email some stuff to Bertie, but after that, will you take me there?”

He smiled and stalked across his living room before leaning her over the counter. “First, I think we both need to clean up.”

“Oh?”

And she’d once assumed he was mild-mannered and boring.

* * *

A few hours later, Liam led Alyse through the park toward his favorite view in the city. They’d taken care of the documents for Bertie and she’d sent an email saying she was sick to Geri. He’d written a few posts and checked in with his staff. Then Alyse had spoken with Bertie again to confirm the whistleblowing plan was in motion.

As much as he’d talked a big game, as they had gotten ready for the day and dealt with things, he’d largely kept to himself. She still hadn’t said anything about the “I love you” or the sex.

She seemed fine. Warm. Hilarious. Normal. At least as normal as she had been since moving in with him, sharing her secrets and letting him touch her. Not normal at all, in other words. When it became clear that there was nothing to more to do for a few hours, Alyse insisted on getting out.

“It’s better in summer,” he told her. March wasn’t the most attractive month. The trees hadn’t leafed out yet and the grass was an unappealing shade of green-brown, but the central tiered fountain was still beautiful.

She stopped and squeezed his hand. “Wow. Did they import this from Versailles?”

“Possibly.”

Alyse snuggled into him and for several long minutes, they watched the fountain.

He wasn’t sure if what he’d said this morning had been a good idea. It hadn’t been a serious, considered thing, which didn’t mean he hadn’t meant it. Oh no, as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he knew he meant them, but “I love you” and “let’s sleep together for the first time” were probably two concepts better left unmingled. He couldn’t do anything about it now.

Brushing her hair over her shoulder, he asked, “Have you been there?”

She slipped out from under his arm and they began climbing the stairs to the top of the fountain. “Versailles? Yeah.”

He was jealous. “I haven’t really been anywhere. I was so focused on domestic stuff, it never occurred to me to study abroad until it was too late. Michael, Parker and I did spend a winter break in New Hampshire.”

“Ah, sunny New Hampshire. I hear it’s lovely in December.”

“I voted for Iowa, but I was overruled.”

She snorted. “I’m a bit jealous, actually. You always knew what you wanted to do. I didn’t figure it out until recently.”

More than a little curious about the answer, he asked, “What’s your big goal? What do you want to do when you grow up?”

“I want to run an organization like YWR. I want to fix all the mismanagement and the flawed business model. All the things that hold us back from really maximizing the difference we make. Because money laundering aside, we do good work, but it’s a reduced amount of good compared to what we could do if things were run better.”

They’d reached the top. In many ways the view from there—mostly of a 1970s apartment building—was less impressive than from the bottom, but Liam was focused on the girl on his arm. They could have been in front of a generic suburban strip mall for all he noticed.

“That sounds achievable. What do you need to do to get there?” he asked.

“Avoid being indicted.”

She’d arched a brow and put a hand on her hip, as if he’d asked something ridiculous. Beneath the bluster, her eyes were vulnerable. He understood and had from the very moment she’d told him what was going on last week.

Knowing he couldn’t do a damn thing to fix it for her just now, he asked gently, “After Bertie cleans up, then what?”

“Leave YWR, I think. Either in disgrace, or because they’ve folded. However it works out, it’s time to move on.”

“Why didn’t you do it sooner? You obviously don’t think it’s well-managed,” he asked.

She pulled her hand from his and crossed her arms over her chest. “I make a difference there.”

“I know you do but you’d make a difference wherever you went.”

Still defensive, she said, “I was lucky to get that job, you know. I wasn’t really qualified. I don’t have any special training—”

He shook his head and interrupted her to add some inconvenient facts to this conversation. “You’ve been doing it for years. You’re terrific at what you do. You have great contacts.”

“Was. Had.” At this, she waved her hand for emphasis.

“Bullshit.” He was trying not to yell at her, but he didn’t really understand. She was so confident, so unshakeable, normally. It didn’t make sense. “What’s really holding you back?”

“Do you think I belong here?” She offered the question in a small voice. It stopped the tirade of questions he’d been prepared to hurl at her.

Did she belong where? “In DC?” he clarified.

“Uh-huh. Do I fit in the city?”

Still uncertain what she was getting at, he said, “Everyone in DC came here from somewhere else. Aside from the people who are being pushed aside by gentrification, by people like me moving into their neighborhoods, everyone is a pilgrim or immigrant. I’ve never been anywhere where the roots were shallower.”

“That’s not what I mean,” she said shaking her head. “New York is the same way. Sort of.”

“Not for you. Millie said your family went way back there.”

“We’re the exception, not the rule.” She wasn’t angry anymore. She took a step or two and turned away from him. Half to the view she said, “No, I mean...my personality. Sometimes I feel like I fit in with a certain DC type. The post-college party girl. The young political wives. But in your set, I...I don’t belong.”

Liam was tempted to kiss her, hard, to show her how well she belonged, but that wasn’t what the moment called for. “My set?”

“Yeah. Journalists. Bloggers. Staffers. Serious people. Do I belong there?”

He covered the ground she’d put between them. He didn’t touch her, but he wanted to be close as he said, “You asked the other day why I was interested in you. You are lovely. You have to know that. I was attracted to you right away. But I stayed interested because you are fierce. And smart. And you don’t, not for a single second, take crap.”

“That’s not true.” Her brows were drawn together and her mouth set in a stubborn attempt not to crack from the strong emotion churning in her eyes. “I take crap all the time. I knew Geri thought I was an idiot. For years I ignored it because it didn’t matter. I could still do my job, sometimes do my job better, if she underestimated me.”

“That’s strategic.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he regretted them. After all, her strategies had been pissing him off as recently as the day before.

As if she knew what he was thinking, her lips quirked. “Strategically playing the fool?”

“Strategically manipulating your opponent.”

“Strategically taking the path of least resistance.” She reached over and took his hand. “You think all sorts of crazy things about me.”

He grabbed her other hand and pulled her toward him until their hips slammed together. “That’s right. I do. Because I love you.”