Unfinished Business (21 page)

She should have pushed him away, that's what she should have done.

She should have shoved him hard enough to make it perfectly clear how she felt about him—him with his smirking arrogance and his Southern charm.

She should have slapped the teeth out of his warmongering, Dixie-loving, all-wrong Republican mouth.

But that kiss…

That kiss…

That kiss was a stealth missile all its own, guaranteed to shock and awe all of her resistance away. And under the command of that kiss Erica wrapped her arms around him and kissed him back, her body pressed against his like her life depended on him. Sure, he was wrong about every issue under the sun. But he was smart and kind and generous and heroic and—cane or no, Republican or no, white or no—sexy as all hell.

This is crazy
, she thought as the kiss deepened to a second and third, and then so many she lost count, as she felt his lips traveling down the side of her face
and neck, along her collarbone and the delicate skin of her shoulders.

This is insanity,
she thought, as his fingertips found their way beneath the T-shirt he hated so much to caress her breasts, and then, with the masterful, arrogant certainty that was his way, to dispose of the top all together.

This is wrong,
she thought, yanking his shirt off and feeling the smooth, hard skin of his chest, cool under her fingers and lips as she pressed her face against him.

This will never work
, she thought as he backed her into the bedroom and onto the thick, white goose-down comforter.

There weren't many opportunities for thinking after that.

“Now,” Erica moaned, shivering with urgency as he peeled off her skirt and the lacy panties she'd donned for reasons she wasn't sure she would have admitted only a few hours ago. “Now.”

And Mark Newman was nothing if not a man of action. He said nothing, but when she opened her eyes, a naked man stood before her, balanced on one foot, with a grim “Get 'er done” expression on his face and a condom in his hand. Erica glanced down at his manhood rising from a nest of dark hair with relief. What they said about white men really wasn't true…at least not about this one.

She noticed he had to hop a little to swing the stiff left leg onto the bed, but after that, she forgot about his impairments because the man didn't have any. As if feeling her own fire, he dispensed with further prelude and took his position between her waiting thighs.

If she hadn't been so wet, so ready for him, it might have hurt, he thrust so confidently, so certainly and so immediately into her warmth.

God help me
, Erica thought as her body stretched to accommodate his urgency.
Good, good God…

“Oh yes,” he murmured in her ear, like a man returning to a beloved home after years away. “Yes.”

And like he'd known her body all his life, he found his stroke and proceeded to work her like he was getting paid. Erica wrapped her legs and arms around him and held on while he pounded into her with single-minded intensity, letting nothing, not her cries or her moans, her sighs or her curses, stop him. Erica lost herself in waves of ecstasy…once, twice and was cresting a third time when she heard him whisper, “I'm coming…I'm…”

Then his body tensed and he let out a groan that sounded like the last gasp of a dying man. Erica gripped him tightly with everything she had: arms, legs, pelvis and privates as he shuddered against her and collapsed, slick with sweat. And still Erica held on, savoring the last of his erection until, a second later, another orgasm shattered and broke and she squirmed beneath him, her insides clenching and unclenching, her mind gone, her eyes closed.

It took a few seconds for consciousness to float back into her body. Erica let out a sigh of pure contentment, opened her eyes…

And looked up into Mark Newman's smirking face.

“I knew you wanted me,” he drawled, sounding completely self-satisfied and far more annoying than he should have at a moment like this. “I knew it the very first day.”

I just slept with the most infuriating man alive,
Erica thought. But instead of smacking him, she laughed. “Your post-coital banter needs some work, Newman. Besides, it's
you
who wanted
me
.”

“Desperately,” he agreed. “Now, admit it,” he said
into the skin along her neck, setting Erica ablaze with desire again. “You wanted me.” He kissed her again, soft feathery kisses that traveled from her forehead and along the side of her face. “You still want me. Admit it,” he whispered. “You want me.”

“No,” Erica breathed, but it was all getting confusing again. “No.”

“Yes.” The word was a whisper against her lips. “Say it.”

“No.” Erica protested again, but now those insistent, demanding lips were on hers again and her resistance was weakening. “No…”

“Yes.” His lips were still nuzzling hers. “Say it, Erica. I need to hear you.”

“Yes.” Erica sighed, pulling his face close to hers again. “Yes, yes…”

“I knew it.” He chuckled. “From the very first day.”

Erica rolled her eyes, but she couldn't help smiling at him. “Okay, okay. No need to gloat.”

“Oh yes, there is.” He rolled to his back and pulled her against him. “It's not every day I convert a liberal to the cause.”

“Wait just a minute.” Erica bristled. “You haven't converted anyone to anything. Let's just get that straight. I'm not changing my party affiliation just because of a few body fluids.”

His laughter rumbled in his chest, filling her ear. “Somehow, I wouldn't have expected any less of you.” He sighed. “You know, we're in for it now.”

Erica lifted her head to peer into his face. He looked a thousand times better than he had earlier in the afternoon, and Erica wasn't sure if his improvement could be attributed to the successful digestion of bad Chinese food, the close of a long day or a solid orgasm. “What do you mean ‘in for it'?”

He quirked her a quick smile that never reached his eyes. “The fax. The letters. The campaign. The whole
ten
yards. And now I can't even deny that there's something going on.” He brushed a kiss against the side of her forehead.

“Oh, you could.”

He shook his head. “Couldn't. This might come as a shock to you, but I'm a terrible liar.”

Erica considered him a moment. His bright eyes were as wide open and clear as September skies, and she read in him the exact depth of his feelings for her.

It was terrifying.

Almost terrifying enough to make her want to wriggle out of his arms, run for the bathroom, lock the door until the next flight back to the District could be arranged. Almost.

What the hell am I doing?
she asked herself for what felt like the millionth time.
What the hell am I doing here with this man?

“You're right. If you're going to keep looking at me like that, it's better if you just tell the truth, Mr. Senator.”

“Am I that obvious?”

“Am I that obvious?” Erica mimicked. She pinned his face between her fingers. “Your eyes gave you away from Jump Street, Mark. The way you looked at me…”

His muscular chest rose and fell with the weight of his sigh. “Yeah, I know. Katharine always said I was in the wrong business for a man who can't lie worth a damn. She always said it would catch up to me one day. Looks like she was right.”

He fell silent for a moment. Erica let him process the memory of his late wife into the moment before asking, “You haven't been with anyone since she died?”

Mark shook his head. “I've had my chances. But…” he shrugged away the thought. “I dunno. People tell me I took her loss pretty hard. I guess I did. I was real angry for a real long time, I know that. I still am.”

His face clamped down again. Erica watched the tight lines appear in his jaw and his forehead and sighed.

“It isn't right, what happened to Katharine. I know that. But crime is what happens when people feel desperate, Mark. When there aren't better options for them to get what they need.”

“No,” he interrupted, sliding away from her and out of bed. “There's no justification for murder. There's no justification for killing an innocent person! An innocent woman who just happened to come between some dumbass and a few dollars.”

“Mark,” Erica insisted, sitting up. “Don't you know anything about the kids who did it? Didn't you hear anything about how they grew up? What they were up against?”

His head swung from side to side and she watched the harsh, remote mask return to his features.

“There is no justification for killing,” he repeated. “None.”

“Oh really? Then I guess you don't believe in war any more,” Erica shot back at him. “Wait a minute. That's right. You're a big
fan
of wars!”

“That's different, Erica, and you know it,” he said with a sigh. “Nobody supports war. Least of all anyone who's been in one. But sometimes they're necessary, that's all.”

“Why?”

He stood at the end of the bed, naked as the day he was born, glaring at her. “What are you talking about?”

“I'm talking about war, Mark. I'm talking about the
slaughter of innocents with air strikes and ‘shock and awe' and all this other bullshit you believe in—”

“For the last time, defending this country is not bullshit!” he roared at her.

“It wouldn't be, if we were actually under attack!”

“What did you call September eleventh, Erica?” he countered, anger making his voice hard and deadly. “What did you call planes flying into the Pentagon, leveling the World Trade Center? What the hell do you call that, other than spilling innocent blood for no goddamned reason?”

“I call that wrong, Mark,” Erica agreed, crawling across the bed toward him. “And you're right, we need to protect ourselves. But war spills plenty of innocent blood, too. What about the Iraqi women and children, Mark? Innocent people just trying to go about their business while bombs fall from the sky. In a way they're just like Katharine.”

His hand came up like an axe, chopping up her words.

“You don't understand,” he argued, limping across the room to retrieve his pants. “You don't understand the reasons for wars, you don't understand the policy decisions that make it necessary, you don't understand the pride I felt—I still feel—in my service.”

Erica watched him. His face crunched in pain as he bent to retrieve his pants from the floor. He hopped on his good leg toward the bed and leaned on its corner for support. Erica crept closer to him and for the first time she saw the scars.

They were evil-looking: a twisted devil's railroad of thick, ugly welts that traveled the distance from the middle of his thigh down to his calf. His knee was a misshapen ball in the middle of his leg.

“Oh Mark,” she murmured, running her fingertips gently over the scarred flesh. “It's horrible.”

He seemed at first not to have any idea what she was talking about. “It's not so bad,” he said at last. “At least I still have a leg.”

“I know.” Erica shook her head. “But it's so unnecessary.”

“Freedom isn't unnecessary, Erica,” he said in that tight voice that meant they were still arguing. They could either spend the remainder of their time together fighting, or…

Erica made a decision, quick as flash. She kissed the kneecap.

“You're wrong,” she murmured into his skin. “But just this once, I'll overlook it.”

His laughter filled the air above her head.

“You'll overlook it, huh”?” he rumbled.

“Yes.” Erica kissed the inside of his thigh and heard the laughter ease into a deep, slow breath. “Just this once. Now, let's make love, not war.”

Her lips traveled up his leg toward his groin and when he spoke again, his voice sounded raspy and tortured, and she knew her kisses were finding their mark.

“What are you doing to me, Erica Johnson? You and me. It's just crazy.”

“I know,” Erica murmured, nuzzling her way toward the most sensitive spot of his anatomy. He shifted slightly, settling himself down on the bed, surrendering to her ministrations.

“I mean,” he groaned, “you do something to me…something….” He sighed again. “I don't know…”

“I know,” Erica agreed, moving her mouth closer to his source, fingering his shaft and watching his face change as desire overtook him. “I mean, you're totally wrong for me. In every way. Look at you: You're a white, war-loving, Right Wing, whack-a-doodle.”

“Uh huh,” he agreed, closing his eyes and pulling
her head closer to him. “And you're a left-of-center hippy chick with the dumbest T-shirts I've ever seen.”

“You forgot black.”

“I didn't forget,” he whispered. “It just didn't seem important at this exact moment.”

“Oh…that's good of you,” Erica murmured, and swallowed him whole.

 

The ringing woke them both. Erica sat up with a start and was surprised to find herself nestled in the crook of Mark's bare arm, as comfortable and relaxed as if she'd made a practice of being there for the last several decades. As for the man himself, he started awake the second she moved, and she couldn't help but notice that his first instinct was to pull her back into his arms.

“Phone,” Erica mumbled, taking in the dark stillness of the room around them as she deciphered the tones of the ring. “Yours?” she asked, not recognizing its melody.

“Yep,” he murmured, struggling to right himself on his bad knee.

“Oh cut it out. You're going to fall over. I'll do it,” Erica volunteered, diving for the clothing scattered between the two rooms until she found the offending instrument. “Here.”