Knight (Political Royalty Book 1) (16 page)

“T
RY IT AGAIN,” SAID HAVEN from her spot at the back of the conference room. “Justin, give him the question.”

They’d been at it for two days straight, and it was down to just the three of them. Even Abby had finally given up and gone off to bed. They couldn’t afford a repeat of his abysmal performance at the last debate. The polls had him behind Collins and Jenson again, and a third-place finish would set him up with exactly the wrong kind of momentum heading into the South Carolina primary and then on to Super Tuesday. Haven would do whatever she had to do to make sure that didn’t happen, including staying up all night working on debate prep.

If it gave her a chance to watch him work and be close to him, she’d take it. Since their one night in her hotel room, they’d both been very careful never to be alone together. He’d taken her over and over, like a starving man being offered his fill and then in the early hours of the morning, they’d kissed good-bye and he’d gone back to his room. They hadn’t spoken about any of it. They hadn’t needed to. He was married and she worked for him. They were both driven adults who understood the consequences if they got caught. It bothered her that she worried more about his political career than his family, but she wasn’t about to start lying to herself now. Not after they’d already crossed every line and broken every rule she’d ever set.

The real challenge was the heat just under the surface every time they were together. It felt like a magnetic fire. He got close to her, and her skin flared to life, every nerve remembering how he’d made her feel with his hands. With his mouth. With the dirty words he whispered in her ear. If they so much as sat near each other on the bus, she found herself unconsciously moving toward him, arching her back like a cat in heat. He had it just as bad. She’d seen the naked hunger burning in his eyes when he watched her.

They didn’t have a choice. If they spent any time together, people would know. She couldn’t risk it. She wasn’t naïve enough to think there was any way her career would survive being found out. Walker might get to keep his family. Hell. He’d probably be able to resurrect his career. It wouldn’t be the first time a politician had an affair and bounced.
Look at Clinton. People still loved him
. But it wouldn’t work that way for her. She’d end up as a joke on late night television and in all probability never work a campaign again.

It was a steep price to pay for a good fuck.
A great fuck. Best ever
, she thought, reducing what happened between them to the purely physical because she couldn’t let herself think of it as anything more. The consequences were too high and she wouldn’t be the only one paying. She thought Justin half suspected already, but he hadn’t confronted her. If they got caught, it would hurt him too, and that carried more weight with Haven than any of the other arguments she made with herself. Justin worked as hard as she did and wanted this win just as much. She hated to think of him paying for her choices. Her mistakes.

By unspoken agreement, she and the senator had started to avoid each other, choosing opposite sides of the room, working as far away from each other as possible. It hadn’t been difficult to put some distance between them. Walker had been booked into town halls across New Hampshire, and she’d had more than enough to keep her occupied, parsing the early polling data and planning a tentative post-debate schedule. The debate prep had been the first time they’d really been together in days.

It didn’t matter. The heat hadn’t faded. If anything, it flared brighter the moment they were in the same room. Her body recognized his and what it could do to her. She saw him and it was as if someone threw a switch, opening a direct channel from her nerves to him. At least in this situation, she could get her fill of watching him without giving herself away.

Justin shifted in his pretend moderator chair and put on his best Scarborough impersonation. “Early polls project the Democrats will maintain their majority in the Senate and might even be able to shift the majority in the House. Given the current and projected political climate, how can you assure voters that if you’re elected, we won’t slide back into the gridlock that dominated so much of the last decade? Can you accomplish the agenda you’re promising?”

“I reject the assumption that the Democrats will maintain their majority. Polling this early in the congressional race is notoriously unreliable, and I believe as we move closer to the actual election, we’ll see that Americans are ready for a shift to a more fiscally conservative agenda. We’ve got to take care of our crumbling infrastructure and put in place the kind of domestic security measures necessary to maintain our position as a world leader.”

He paused and Haven nodded. He’d managed to use the question to hammer his core message, something he’d struggled with in Iowa.

“Having said that, my years in the Senate have given me a good understanding of exactly what it takes to get legislation through Congress. I have a good working relationship with Peter. If elected, I can hit the ground running—”

“Stop,” she said getting to her feet. “You don’t call the senate majority leader by his first name.”

“I thought it illustrated how comfortable I am. I’ve known Peter since boarding school.”

Walker ran his hand through his hair and God help her, but she wanted to be the one doing that. He’d taken off his suit coat hours ago, loosened his tie and rolled up his sleeves. Her gaze was inexplicably drawn to his strong forearms and the watch on his wrist as he held the makeshift lectern. She remembered what his hands looked like gripping her hips as he surged inside her, and she had to turn away for fear she’d give away what she felt.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” she said, moving back to the safe distance of her chair. “
Never
say anything about boarding school. It’s public record, but we don’t need you calling attention to it. And don’t call him Peter; it makes you sound like a wanker.”

Justin snorted, but she couldn’t bring herself to look at Walker yet. The flashback was too close to the surface.

“Whatever you want,” said Walker, a slight rasp to his voice. She prayed no one else heard the promise in his words.

They spent another two hours going over question after question until it seemed like the senator held onto the lectern to stay upright and not just as a prop.

“You’re ready,” she said, as sure as she could be. If he had a bad debate, it would be because of something outside their control, not because he hadn’t prepared enough. “Go get a good night’s sleep. Relax a little. You’ve earned it, and we have time. I didn’t schedule anything for you before the debate.”

“Thank you for your help with this,” he said, glancing from her to Justin. “I know you both have to be exhausted. I appreciate you staying with me.”

“That’s what we’re here for,” said Justin. “We’ll stand with you until the end.”

Walker nodded and Haven swallowed hard, grateful that Justin answered for both of them. She didn’t trust her voice.

She led the way out of the conference room, hitting the lights on the way to the bank of elevators. It was a different hotel in a different city, but the similarities made things blur together. Either that or she was too tired to know any better. Walker reached around her to push the call button for the elevator and she sucked in her breath, breathing in the rich, spicy scent of his aftershave. It felt like a punch to the gut. She hadn’t been this close to him since the morning he left her bed.

Justin hit the button for his floor and hers, and the senator added his. Their rooms were nowhere near each other’s. With the added press and party loyalists in town for the debate, the hotel was packed but the elevator was blessedly empty. She didn’t know what she’d do if she had to squeeze in closer to the man who already occupied every waking inch of her mind and a fair bit of the sleeping ones.

“You’re going to do great, Senator,” said Justin as the car came to a stop on his floor. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He leaned in to brush a kiss over Haven’s cheek. “Get some sleep. You look like hell.”

“Nice,” she said and then the elevator door shut on his cocky grin and the reality of being alone in the elevator with Walker closed in on her.

“He’s wrong.”

“No he’s not. You’re ready,” she said, forcing the words past her too-tight throat. “You’ll be great.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

He stepped closer to her, and it felt as if someone had sucked the oxygen from the elevator car. This close to him there was no way in hell she could deny her body’s reaction. He reached up to cup her face, brushing his thumb over the place Justin had kissed her. Her lips parted and it took every bit of her control to keep from melting against him.

“You are so fucking beautiful. It’s taken everything I have to keep my hands off you this week. I can’t do it any longer. I don’t want to. Just for tonight. Let me be with you. Please, Haven.”

Her name on his lips was her undoing. The elevator dinged its arrival at her floor and she jumped back on the off chance someone waited on the other side of the door. The doors slid open and his gaze stayed locked on her face, the hunger in his eyes calling to the place inside her only he seemed to be able to fill. She nodded.

“Yes.”

––––––––

S
HE DIDN’T REMEMBER moving from the elevator to the door to her room. Walker’s presence behind her, his hand burning itself into the small of her back, blew everything else away. When he stripped her bare, she half expected to find his brand on her skin. He’d already marked her in ways she couldn’t have imagined, but there was no going back. At least not for her. Fumbling with the keycard, it took her three tries to get the door open. And then they were inside, and he was on her before she heard the sound of the door latching.

He pushed her up against the wall, his mouth hot and hungry crushing her lips, devouring her throat. Keeping his lips pressed to the sensitive skin behind her ear, he reached for the hem of her T-shirt. She raised her arms over her head, and he groaned against her skin.

“Fuck, Haven. Just like that, beautiful. Just stay like that.”

He stripped off her shirt and made short work of her bra, tossing both on a pile at their feet. His hands cupped her aching flesh and then he dipped his head, drawing her nipple into his mouth and suckling her. Every nerve in her body aligned itself with the pull of his lips on the tender peak. He scraped his teeth gently over her skin and her back bowed, pressing her breasts closer to him, offering herself to him.

The delicious stretch of her arms over her head added to the feeling of vulnerability. When he manacled her wrists with one strong hand, her desire ratchetted higher. Using his other hand, he yanked her skirt up around her waist and slid his hand into her panties and against her slick sex. Her body moved toward him on its own, her hips angling to bring his fingertips closer to where she needed, where she ached to have him. And then his fingers moved over her clit in demanding circles, and her world went white-hot, dissolving in her hunger. In moments she was coming, stretched out against the wall, her arms over her head while he drove her on with just his hand.

Her hips bucked as the orgasm shot through her, stealing her breath and reordering her priorities. Right, wrong, winning, losing—everything shattered in the face of him. There was nothing but exquisite pleasure and the man whose hand played her like an instrument.

“Put your arms around my neck,” he said, his breath hot and demanding against her ear. “Hold on tight.”

She did as he asked, and he pushed her panties down over her hips. She stepped free of the scrap of lace, opening her legs for him, and he froze as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over him.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, sure she didn’t want to know. She should be glad he was having second thoughts about cheating on his wife. She should be glad at least one of them could choose a more honorable path.

She wasn’t. She wanted him with a desire that strayed so far from rational, she didn’t give a damn if they both burned for it. For once in her life, she couldn’t plan or reason her way through something. She wanted Walker and that’s all that mattered.

“New plan.” he said, his jaw clenched tight around the words. “No condom.”

“I’m on the Pill. And clean.” She never had sex without a condom. Add it to the long fucking list of rules she never broke that she broke for him.

His answering groan blasted any reservation she should have been feeling but wasn’t.

“Me, too. Clean, I mean. Fuck, Haven,” he said, his words apparently failing him.

Yanking on his belt, he freed himself and she felt his hard length press against the slick seam of her body. He palmed her ass, lifting her into his arms and she wrapped her legs around his hips, clinging to him as he positioned the head of his cock at her opening. His arms shook with the effort of holding her, and she paused, breath held, waiting for him to fill her.

“Look at me,” his voice commanded, and her eyes snapped to his dark and hungry eyes in the dim light of her room. “I want to watch you come.”

He pulled her down onto him as he surged up, ramming her back against the wall as he impaled her. She felt him so deep inside her; every nerve in her body zinged to life. He moved inside her, each stroke taking her higher and higher until she thought she’d fly apart at the pleasure of his body filling her, his arms cradling her.

“Say my name.”

His eyes burned with an intensity she hadn’t seen before. His cock hit a spot deep inside her, and she had to fight to keep her eyelids from fluttering closed. But she’d do anything to avoid breaking the connection between them.

“Say it.” His jaw clenched tight, and she could tell he was fighting his own battle.

“Walker,” she choked out as the orgasm ripped through her, washing her away on a tide of pleasure.

––––––––

S
HEP WATCHED THE early morning sun filter in between the crack in the curtains, sending a slice of light over Haven’s sleeping body. She was so beautiful. It made it hard for him to breathe sometimes. Awake, she was a powerhouse, but asleep, she looked so young. Almost innocent. It had been a long time since anyone in his life had been innocent. He wanted to hold her, protect her, and keep the world outside from touching her.