Private Politics (The Easy Part) (10 page)

It was time to get out of there. “Uh, no. Not really.”

Grateful that she’d uncovered as much as she had, she turned on her heel to find Geri standing in the doorway. The woman was like the villain in a horror film—always in the right place at the right time.

“Do you need something?” Geri asked. Now that was a pointed question. She should teach a workshop at the learning annex.

“No. She was just telling me about coffee and food.”

Thank the good Lord for Fred.

She was able to give Geri a full, real smile, but hoped that it wasn’t too triumphant. “I wanted to make sure he was comfortable. Even accountants don’t deserve the coffee downstairs.”

She glanced over her shoulder at Fred, who waved back in what was definitely a good-natured reply. They were establishing banter. Maybe in a few days, she could share some candid suspicions with him.

“Oh good,” Geri said in a voice coated with black ice. She didn’t look guilty, as if she might be apologizing for the threat. She only looked pissed, but honestly, that was sort of her default setting even before the whole scandal thing.

“I’m headed out for the day.” Alyse gave a half-wave as she slipped past her boss out into the freedom of the office.

She called Millie, hoping to meet for dinner before heading to Liam’s for the night. But Millie was stuck in a late strategy session. Margot and Liz were going to a place in NoVa, but the trek from there back to Liam’s would be annoying. So she steeled herself for a long evening of sexual tension.

Thirty minutes and an enlightening bus ride later, she stood outside the converted row house where Liam lived, contemplating the key in her hand. Using it seemed...intimate. She could if he wasn’t there; she wasn’t going to stand in the street waiting around for him. But if he were already home, it would be too much. Too relationship-y.

She pressed the intercom. “Um, hi, honey, I’m home.”

She bounced her head against the brick wall several times. So much for avoiding relationship-y. If he had just heard that, she might dissolve into a puddle of humiliation right here on his front steps. It would save her the time and trouble of doing so after she saw him because surely there was no way to recover from
that.
Not only was it suggestive, it was also clichéd. And she was almost never clichéd.

Not the problem at the moment, however.

“Yeah, come on up.” Liam’s voice crackled over the intercom as the lock of the front door released.

Damn it.

When in defiance of all common sense she didn’t liquefy, Alyse pulled the door open and jogged up the stairs. Liam had opened the front door for her, but had gone back to work on the couch, allowing her to avoid eye contact with him for a few more precious seconds.

“I gave you a key, right?” he asked.

She turned and fumbled with her coat. “Yeah, I just...felt weird using it.” Still facing the wall, she asked, “How was work?” She needed to change the subject and that seemed like the best bet. He loved talking about work.

“Good. Slow news day. You?”

Okay, if that wasn’t going to produce distraction, she had a trump card. Leaning back against the door, she said, “Geri messed with the letters. The letters she gave the accountant, they were altered. And I got a picture of one.”

The smile he gave her in response to this news could have powered a small city. It set off funny feelings deep in her stomach and, even weirder, she didn’t try to fight them. She let the fluttery emotion settle over her. Twenty-four hours after admitting to herself that she wanted him, the emotion was stronger than ever. That didn’t mean she had to do anything about it, however.

She fumbled in her purse for her phone and held it out to him. “The signature is changed and a line’s been added in the first paragraph, making it sound like the donation was directed when it originally wasn’t.”

He took the phone and she sat next to him on the couch—gingerly, two feet between them—but next to him nonetheless.

“Can I send this to Doug?” he asked, his enthusiasm thankfully directed at the picture.

“Yeah, of course.”

He threw an arm over her shoulder and pulled her flush with him. They were touching from ankle to shoulder and his hulking warmth slipped its ingratiating fingers around her.

“This is great,” he said, speaking of what she’d found.

“Yeah,” she replied, referring to something else.

He beamed at her and Alyse thought about crossing the distance between them and kissing him. What would happen? He’d kiss her back. She could slide into his lap and figure out the answers to all the questions she had. Whether his hair was as soft as it looked, for example. Whether he’d scoop her up and carry her off to bed. Whether he’d be gentle. Playful. He looked like he would be.

If Millie were right, and she usually was, he wanted this as badly as she did. Why couldn’t they explore it?

Because of Millie and Parker. Because if things went badly, the months leading up to the wedding would be awkward and painful for everyone involved.

Because Alyse suspected she was awful at relationships. She had to face the possibility that her previous relationships hadn’t worked because they had her as a common denominator. She might want a full-fat relationship, but that didn’t mean she knew how to have one.

Because extinguishing the light in Liam’s eyes, even a little, would move her from “probably a terrible human being” to “definitely so,” and she just couldn’t do it.

Those were enough reasons not to.

“Where did your mind go?”

Alyse startled at the question and tried to pull away, but he held her in place with a reassuring pressure. For a beat, she looked into his brown eyes and forgot everything. When her hesitancies clicked back, she said, “Oh, no place.”

“Are you sure? Because it looked interesting.” His tone was teasing, but the heat in eyes was anything but. It looked as if he knew what she’d been thinking. Knew and thought the same thing and wasn’t at all concerned about the consequences.

Thankfully, he released her and she jumped from the couch. She crossed the room, needing to put inches between them. Many, many inches. “I’m, uh, going to put a pizza in the oven. Okay?”

He didn’t follow and her sanity returned—which was a damn shame.

Chapter Ten

Liam was almost never too agitated to work. On election nights with adrenaline pumping through his veins he live-blogged for hours. From his grandmother’s hospital bedside a few years before, he’d hacked away at analyzing the legal case for an airstrike in the Middle East in between getting her water and playing cards. His ambition and need to write weren’t compulsive but lived in that part of town. The words always came. Connections needed to be made. Theories disseminated. Sunlight shone and all that. But tonight, he was finding it hard.

Alyse had toed out of her shoes and put a frozen pizza in the oven half an hour before. She was moving around the kitchen, opening all the drawers looking for something. He didn’t want to ask. He didn’t want to do anything other than watch her.

Hair fell out of the careless knot she’d tied it in. Golden strands clung to her neck and curled around the top of her shirt. He could see the play of her muscles under her skirt as she bent to look in a lower cabinet. Every movement invited a little sigh from him. He pretended to be riveted by something on his laptop, but he didn’t convince himself. Not even a little.

“Do you have a cutting implement?” she asked, deliberately not glancing at him. He would know.

He crossed the living room and opened a drawer he knew she’d already looked in. It was sort of crowded, but she also hadn’t moved anything around. He dug in the back and produced a pizza cutter he couldn’t have used above twice.

“Thanks.” Her fingers brushed his as she took it, but if the touch affected her, she didn’t show it. Was she or wasn’t she shaken? That was the question.

He leaned against the counter and watched her, not hiding his examination at all. He couldn’t dissemble any more if he had to.

“What about a turner, or a spatula thing?” she asked after she’d finished cutting up the pizza.

“Um, over here.”

He squeezed past her to open another drawer.

Was. She was. She didn’t move out of the way, as if she wanted him to touch her, but he couldn’t cross the distance. It wasn’t a lack of desire; it was pure fear. Like the child who’d been given everything he wanted, he wasn’t certain what to do with the keys to the candy store.

She offered him a plate and without thinking, he grabbed the pizza and began eating. The roof of his mouth screamed in protest and he dropped it back on the plate with a yelp.

Alyse licked her lips and suddenly, he wasn’t thinking about his own mouth anymore. “Careful, it’s hot,” she said. “That would have been more helpful forty seconds ago. Sorry.”

Brushing past her again to get a glass, he shrugged it off. “It’s my own fault. I can’t remember the last time I used the oven. It’s, uh, more efficient than the microwave at cooking food. I should try to remember that. Do you want some water?”

“Do you have any wine?” She said it looking him straight in the eye for the first time since the awkward couch hug, which had made all of this so much worse than it needed to be. Was she asking for wine? Was she offering something else? He needed a road map for this interaction. Could they put things on hold so he could take a class?

He balled his hands into fists and shoved them in his pockets. They shook less that way. “I had something else in mind. For after dinner. I mean, if you’re up for it. Do you like jazz?” Such a lie. Such a blatant lie. He’d had nothing else in mind, but suddenly getting out of his apartment for some perspective seemed absolutely necessary.

“I think I do,” she said carefully. Her face had fallen at his statement, but then her brow furrowed, as if this were a question of extreme import.

“Okay then. We’ll get wine there.”

They ate in near silence standing up in his kitchen. He tried not to let his eyes run down her legs, helpfully bared by a pencil skirt. And he certainly didn’t want to let his gaze linger on the backs of her knees, on the soft patches of skin that he wanted, badly, to kiss. His lust for her might have been driven by those creamy inches as much as anything else.

Twenty minutes later, they walked down the block and caught a cab. She didn’t move to the other side of the seat, remaining near him. He let his arm rest along the back, almost on her shoulders. Over the past few days, the level of casual touch between them had escalated gradually, like a slow-moving game of chicken. But what if he were misreading all of this?

When he gave the address to the driver, she looked at him curiously, but didn’t ask any questions. They didn’t speak the entire ride. He wasn’t sure what to say and Alyse seemed content. He sure as hell was, as long as he didn’t think too much.

When they got out at the little storefront on H Street, she arched a brow. “And this is?”

“The best jazz in the city.”

They grabbed a table so small it would have trouble accommodating the two cocktails they’d ordered. At least it was something between them, something that would keep him from completely fucking this up until he figured out how to progress.

After a few minutes, she leaned across the table and said into his ear, “What are we listening to?”

He would have sworn he could feel the wetness from her mouth, except ears weren’t that sensitive in his experience—though right now, he wasn’t feeling too experienced.

He leaned toward her. “A jam session. Cuban-influenced.” When her brows knit as if he’d spoken in Klingon, he shrugged. “It’s like a conversation.”

She turned back to the quartet on stage and he went back to pondering her. For half a year, he’d thought he didn’t have a chance. Now, he knew he did, but he also suspected it had very little to do with him and resulted from a mixture of fear and anxiety and comfort. For half a year, that wouldn’t have bothered him. He believed a hookup would have been sufficient. How many times had he sat watching her and thought,
One night would be enough
? Now, he knew it wouldn’t be.

It wasn’t that she was hot, it wasn’t that she was funny, it wasn’t that she was strong, though she was all of these. It was the way that she sat across from him, concentrating so hard on the stage as if she could figure out jazz through mental exertion.

From the first moment he’d seen her, he’d found her appealing. But over six months, he’d learned her. He’d rarely known someone so sincere and so canny, so strong and so vulnerable. He liked her fortress side, but he wanted her soft underbelly for himself. He wanted to be the one who helped her slay the dragons. Now he’d tasted precisely that, he couldn’t fool around with her. If things were bad now, they’d be infinitely worse if she left.

She whipped her head around and started speaking in his ear again. “There’s like a musical phrase at the beginning, right? And then they improvise on it?”

She leaned back in her chair, rolling her lower lip between her teeth and waiting for him to answer. He inhaled sharply and said, “Yeah,” unsure what precisely he was responding to.

“It’s not really different from Bach, then?”

He laughed. “Um, no. It’s not. Lots of jazz players are into classical music.”

She relaxed into her chair and the creases on her brow smoothed. Liam sipped his drink as casually as he could, watching the light from the stage play over her face. The intimation of a smile hovering on her mouth now and again as one by one, the players explored the melody.

The set ended and everyone clapped. The smile she threw to Liam was all the more attractive for its scratched-off, spontaneous, there and gone-ness. It was real.

“This is the first time I feel like I’ve understood it. Jazz, I mean,” she said over the applause.

While the band took a break, Alyse turned back to her cocktail, moving it on the table in small circles. “I know something about music. I play piano. I mean played. My mother wanted me to play.”

“Really? I’ve never studied an instrument.”

Looking up, she cocked her head to the side. “How did you get into jazz, then?”

“Someone gave me
Kind of Blue
when I was in high school. I was on a kick about the Civil Rights movement, reading about SNCC and how art was used for political purposes. The benefit concerts, the musician boycotts.” He paused and smiled at her. “My interest in the music was purely academic, until it wasn’t. Until jazz was all I wanted to listen to. It’s not as bad now, but in college, I went through an all-bebop phase. I’m lucky Parker and Michael still speak to me.”

She threw her head back and laughed, exposing the column of her neck. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see other men appreciating it too. He didn’t blame them.

“Yeah, I still have trouble picturing the three of you living together,” she said.

He shrugged. He wasn’t sure what there was to picture. They were still close. She’d seen them together.

She continued, “It means a lot to you. Jazz. I can tell. You get all glow-y when you talk about the things you love.”

He could feel his cheeks heat, but he tried to shrug it off. “Such as?”

“Domestic public policy. Voting rights. The NBA. Your friends. Your family.” At this, something passed over her face but she didn’t explain; she just kept listing. “The supremacy of the original
Star Wars
films. And to that list I think we’ll have to add the awesomeness of the nineties and jazz.” She stopped and ran her fingers over the exposed brick wall next to them.

He examined her profile, thankful that she couldn’t see what was likely naked longing in his face. She really did get him. She really had been paying attention. He was no good at this, pretending he didn’t want her, so he was going to stop.

Who knew why, who knew for how long, but he could almost believe he had a shot with her. He knew that the odds of success would never, ever be better than they were in this moment. All that remained was to leap.

He grasped the tabletop lightly with his fingers and said, “You left one off.” His tongue felt thick and heavy in his mouth. The uncertainly he felt crackled in his voice.

She seemed to understand, however. “Oh?”

“You. You definitely make me glow-y.”

That was it. There was no way that even Alyse, who feigned confusion better than anyone since Marilyn Monroe, could pretend she didn’t know what he meant.

He couldn’t make sense of the expression on her face. It wasn’t dismay or surprise or disgust. It wasn’t happy or sad. Had she heard him? Had he spoken? Why the hell was it suddenly so quiet?

Finally he managed to swallow and tried to say something else.

“I’m just going to say it. I, you...” he trailed off. Okay, so this wasn’t going quite as well as he’d thought it would, the talking part. Maybe he should have rehearsed. Maybe he should have whispered it while the band was still playing. Maybe he should have sent a love letter. Anything probably would have been better than the agonizing wait he was enduring right now.

He gripped the table with more force and started again, “I’m...perplexed. For months, I’ve...and sometimes I feel like you—”

“I do.” The words seemed ripped from her. Strong. Fervent. Certain. It surprised them both. She repeated more quietly, “Liam, I do.”

He could actually taste the nervousness flooding his mouth, the bitterness of adrenaline and salt, all tinged sweet at the edges. He sat with it for a moment before whispering, “I didn’t think you ever would.”

Her eyes softened now, settling into a look of pure hunger. The change threatened to burn through every reservation he had left. “I do.”

He wasn’t sure he’d ever get tired of hearing her say those words. There was one little matter that needed to be cleared up.

“Is this a good idea?” he asked.

“Probably not.”

“Okay, as long as we’re on the same page.” He stood up and offered her a hand.

* * *

Liam kept a firm hold on her hand during the silent cab ride. She was glad of it; she might have shaken apart otherwise. She couldn’t think. She felt only the pounding of her heart in her chest and the fundamental rightness of her confession.

Not that she’d confessed anything. Not that they’d agreed to anything. What he’d said was as ambiguous as a Modernist poem, yet she’d understood him perfectly and he her. Now only the doing remained.

A few minutes later, he backed her into his apartment, shutting the door behind them with a
click
so final it reverberated through her body. The weak fluorescent hallway light immediately snuffed out and Alyse blinked, trying to adjust her eyes. Thin streaks of streetlight filtered in through the blinds and transformed Liam into someone dangerous. Hot and dangerous.

He stalked across the entry as she moved away from him, each step taking a lifetime. She felt like a gazelle being pursued by some great cat. Only she wanted to be caught. Dear God, did she want to be caught.

All too soon, she felt the arm of his couch against her calves and she tripped over it. With a yelp, she fell. He immediately covered her with his body. His hands ran up her sides, pushing her up the couch until they were more comfortably settled. In the process, their bodies bumped and caught, each jolt a shot of pure lust.

And then...nothing.

Their noses brushed. His eyes, so dark, burned into hers. She felt his lips, the wetness of his mouth. She could taste him even. The gentle
whoosh
of his breath moved over the strings of her body like fingers on a harp.

They’d kissed, right? They had to have. There was no room between them. There was no space. They must have kissed by now. But somehow, she knew when they did kiss, she wouldn’t have to wonder if it had happened. She would know it—deeply and elementally and forever.

If they hadn’t kissed yet, what was the holdup? If he didn’t move soon she was going to scream. She was a quivering mass of need. She needed him to touch her. She needed him to kiss her. She needed him inside her.

She couldn’t think about it; acknowledging it made her crazy. She made a little breathy noise she didn’t recognize. Had she whimpered? What the hell? She shifted under him and wrapped one of her legs over his hip, settling his erection against her more fully. He wanted her, she was actually dissolving for him: what precisely was the problem?

Okay, she could work with this. She could kiss him. She tried to close this distance between their mouths, but he pulled away deftly. She whimpered again, frustrated.