Campaign For Seduction (14 page)

She was about to open her mouth and say so when the senator appeared in the doorway behind Jillian, distracting Liza. He’d had his head bent over some papers he was flipping through, but now he looked up and caught Liza’s eye.

Suddenly she understood.

It was there in the banked intensity in his eyes and his air of expectant waiting. Most of all it was in her breasts, which now ached for him—and her sex, which wept for him.

Stay with me tonight, Liza. Come to me.

Liza’s lungs hitched with sudden breathlessness.

Yes was her automatic answer, but she knew better than to give it just yet.

Slow down, Liza. Think.

There were a lot of implications to this invitation, this decision. Jillian was offering her home and discretion, but she’d know. The senator’s security people would also know, of course, but they already had an inkling something was going on, didn’t they?

Meanwhile, Liza could tell Takashi that she’d spend the night with a college roommate or some such who lived in the city. Maybe he’d believe her.

This could work. She could spend the night making love to the most intriguing man she’d ever met, and their secret affair could remain reasonably safe.

That covered the logistics.

What about the professional and emotional consequences?

If her secret affair with the senator came to light, she’d be fired because it was a gross breach of ethics for her not to disclose a personal relationship to her producers and the viewing public. Simple as that. If their affair became public, she could kiss the anchor chair goodbye along with her professional reputation and, basically, her entire career.

Put a huge check mark in the con column.

Another big check in the con column: she’d never had a successful relationship of any sort with a man. Kent had broken her heart and then, for good measure, stomped it and fed it through a meat grinder. Liza’s emotions had lived in a state of suspended animation since then. So any kind of a long-term thing was out. Assuming, of course, that a politician was a good candidate for a relationship.

Yeah, right. Not in this lifetime.

But…if they were discreet and she went into it with her eyes open and her heart firmly out of the equation, as his surely was…a brief affair could work, couldn’t it?

She would make it work because she wanted this man.

Violently, desperately, passionately wanted him.

She stared at the senator and a few more seconds passed—but he waited patiently, his paperwork in his hands, and let her reach her own decision.

“Liza?” Jillian interrupted her thoughts. “John will also be staying with me tonight. Why don’t I give you a few minutes to decide what you—”

“I don’t need a few minutes.”

Still watching the senator, who was too far away to hear them, Liza let her lips curve into a private smile full of the meaning and feeling between them. Even across the distance she felt his new stillness, his excitement. And she knew that her gut instincts wouldn’t lead her wrong. Not on this.

This one time, this one night, with this one man, she would take the risk.

He was worth it.

“I’d love to stay with you tonight, Jillian,” Liza said. “Thank you.”

Chapter 13

T he moonlight filtering around the edges of the closed windows illuminated John’s watch as he checked it for what felt like the billionth time in the last three minutes.

2:38 a.m. now.

He paced around his darkened bedroom inside Jillian’s Manhattan townhouse, too excited to sit down. Back and forth between the massive platform bed and the seating area he went, each step making him more agitated and anxious. His face felt hot, his pulse alternately sketchy and thunderous. A fine sweat had broken out across his body, and he was pretty sure his hands were shaking although there was no real point in checking.

Damn, that woman made him a nervous wreck.

Contentious Senate votes didn’t do this to him. Neither did town hall meetings with angry voters, televised debates or speeches before thousands of people. Only Liza Wilson did this to him.

Every particle of his being, every thought, every heartbeat and breath, had whittled down to one essential question, the one that was far more crucial than a mere presidential race: would Liza come to him tonight?

She was here. She’d arrived earlier, with Jillian, and been installed in her own room before he got there. Said room was upstairs, as far away from his as possible, and he’d practically made his eardrums bleed straining to hear sounds of her, but nothing.

Once or twice he’d had the disheartening thought that she’d misunderstood his unstated plans for this rendezvous, curled up in bed and gone to sleep. Without him.

But…no. He’d watched the conversation between Jillian and Liza and seen the sudden heat of understanding in Liza’s eyes, the excitement and desire. Liza wanted this night as much as he did.

So where was she?

He wouldn’t go to her; she had to come to him on her own. His pride required it. This wasn’t a negotiation on a new bill, and he wasn’t going for any hard sells here. Either she wanted him or she didn’t. Either she was ready or she wasn’t. Simple.

Except that his gut was tied in a thousand and one knots and nothing about this whole situation—or Liza herself, come to think of it—was simple, especially his feelings for her.

He was in love with her.

Yeah, love. Not just lust. It didn’t matter that they hadn’t known each other that long; he was a grown man and he knew what he felt, because he’d felt it only one other time—for his wife.

In an ironic twist, it was Liza’s impulsive kiss that had made him realize how special she was to him. That brief lightning strike of contact between them had opened his eyes about her, and he wasn’t quite sure why.

All he knew was that she was brash and hotheaded, intelligent and wounded, prickly and warm and, he was sure, a perfect match for him in every way.

Was she perfect? Hell, no. More often than not, she was a major pain in the ass and the kind of thorn in his side that he should ban from his life forever. But her strength and understanding made her perfect for him.

If only she knew it.

He couldn’t tell her. Not yet. Slow and easy was the name of the game with Liza, thanks to the cheating ex-husband that had made John’s job of gaining Liza’s trust damn near impossible. But he would gain that precious trust and, more than that, her love.

Tonight’s unexpected weather delay had given him the small dose of serendipity that he needed. If Liza would only cooperate, he’d spend what was left of the night showing her how he felt about her. If he couldn’t tell her he loved her, he’d express it as thoroughly, passionately and tenderly as he knew how. And come morning she’d be his—forever—whether she was ready to acknowledge it aloud or not.

Slow and steady was the key with Liza.

First he’d make love to her.

Then he’d tell her he loved her.

Then he’d tell her he fully intended to make her both his wife and first lady.

Assuming he won, of course.

The last bit would require her giving up her career for him, and that would be a tremendous sacrifice, one he’d make sure she never regretted. If she married him and he won the presidency, she couldn’t continue a journalism career; the network would never allow such a conflict of interest, because how could the network anchor ever cover any stories regarding his administration?

So, yeah, he felt terrible that she might have to quit her job for him.

A woman like Liza needed a fascinating career, and he would do his best to provide her with one. Maybe she could head a foundation for Alzheimer’s research. Or maybe she could teach journalism or travel around the country on lecture tours. Whatever she wanted for the rest of her life, he would give to her. Whatever job she wanted, he would support. As long as she chose him.

If only she would come.

His relentless pacing led him to the window, where he settled. Leaning against the frame, he brushed the curtain aside and stared out, seeing nothing, until a tiny sound behind him broke the absolute silence.

He wheeled around, heart pounding, in time to see the knob turn and the door swing open. And then, in answer to his prayers, Liza slipped into his room. She wore short little shorts and a tank top or some such, had a hesitant smile on her face and was the most beautiful dream he’d ever had, sleeping or waking.

Reaching for her, nearly choked on his relief and emotion,
he knew that life would never grant him a greater blessing than this one impossible woman.

Liza’s brain shut down the second she saw the senator open his arms to her. Limned by the faint moonlight filtering in around the edges of the windows, he was perfection in his silky boxers—all gleaming skin, sculpted shoulders, arms and legs, muscles and sinew. As best she could tell—and she meant to find out for sure at the earliest possible moment—there was no hair to dust the planes between his small dark nipples or to distract from the sharply defined ripples of his abdomen. Between his solid thighs was a jutting erection that tented his boxers, and the sight of it weakened Liza’s knees and dried out her mouth because she couldn’t believe it was for her. All for her.

Somehow she managed to take his warm hands and let him draw her deeper into the room. “I’m not sure I should be here, Senator.”

“You belong here, darlin’.” His smiling eyes gleamed at her in the darkness. “And let’s work on you calling me John. Try it once or twice.”

“John.”

He liked that. His mouth dimpled as he pulled her closer, and then his extraordinary and unexpected tenderness made her cry. All it took was his gentle hands on her body, his smile and his velvety voice, and Liza, who suppressed her feelings whenever possible and didn’t do relationships, couldn’t stop wave after wave of emotion from crashing over her.

With slow and deliberate movements, as though he was afraid of either breaking her or making her disappear, he kissed her, but not on the lips. Not yet. First he took her cheeks between his palms, burrowed his fingers deep into her hair and rested his lips against her forehead.

“Oh, God,” she murmured, her eyes rolling closed. “I’m not ready.”

“Yes, you are. We’ve both been ready since that night on the plane.”

His breath was hot and serrated, as uncontrolled as she felt, and they stayed like that for several beats, frozen with the thrill of being together and the freedom of touching each other. Then
he trailed his slow mouth from one of her temples to the other in the kind of loving caress that women waited their entire lives to experience—the kind of caress that Liza hadn’t known she’d needed.

Hot tears—ecstatic tears, wrecked tears—welled behind her closed lids, and there was no holding them back, not when his hands and lips on her body felt this excruciatingly perfect. When the tears overflowed and ran down her cheeks, he kissed those, too.

“Liza,” he said in her ear, kneading her nape with fingers so strong and wonderful she almost came on the spot. “Liza.”

“Don’t stop.” She slid her hands up his back, starved for the living silk of his bare skin, and thanked the stars for this moment, for him. If she’d just ended her career by crossing this line between them, so be it. Her career was a small price to pay for this moment. “Don’t stop.”

“Shh. I’m not stopping.”

Stepping closer, she pressed her surging hips against his and felt like she’d come home. Tiny muscles spasmed high up between her thighs, preparing for him, and she writhed, unable to moderate her responses and desperate for so much more.

He crooned with unmistakable satisfaction. Those big hands left her head, dragged over her bare shoulders and back and clamped onto her butt, molding her soft sex to the rigid length of his erection. Liza cried out, jolted by the raw power of this connection between them, and so did he.

He shuddered convulsively, making a noise that was more laugh than sob, more joy than pain. Leaving one hand flattened against her butt, he stroked her hair with the other. Tightening his fingers, he tilted her head back and studied her face.

In the long seconds before he kissed her, she opened her heavy lids and caught a startling glimpse of his expression, which was tortured, astonished and adoring, all at the same time. Staring down at her, he tried to speak, failed, and tried again.

“I don’t want anything as much as I want you.”

“John.” His name was all she could say, because the tears swelled in her throat and she wanted so badly to believe that she could mean this much to such a man when she knew in her heart she couldn’t keep a man—had never kept a man. “John.”

He trailed his searching mouth over her eyes and down her nose before finally zeroing in, and that was where the gentleness ended. As though a switch had been flipped or a page turned, John went wild.

Taking her lips in a bruising kiss, he made rough, joyous sounds from deep in his throat, rumbles of triumph and possession. After a minute he broke away to stare at her, panting, his eyes glittering and fierce. He shook his head once, looking as astonished and overwhelmed as she felt.

Then he kissed her again.

There was no attempt at finesse as they clutched at each other; they were both too far gone for that. Working his thumb into the corner of her mouth, he demanded that she open for him, apparently not wanting to take the chance that she’d refuse. She didn’t. Nor could she imagine ever refusing him anything.

Sucking and biting—his lips, tongue or thumb, whatever he gave her—she took it all and searched for more, moaning and whimpering. She’d always been loud, but now she made a racket, not that she cared. He was loud, too—crying out when she nipped him, moaning when she sucked—and they drove each other higher, beyond pride or dignity until only their need for each other existed.

Then he pulled his hands free and went to work. Displaying a huge amount of strength—she was no flyweight, after all—he grabbed her by the hips, picked her up, plunked her on the chest of drawers, which was closer than the bed, and quickly reclaimed his spot between her thighs.

For one second he gazed at her, his expression rapt and absorbed, but then he was kissing her again, yanking her tank top off over her head, and there was no time for anything else.

“You’re beautiful.” A velvety murmur of approval—almost a purr—vibrated in his throat as he studied her breasts, her shoulders, her belly, skimming over them all with relentless hands. “It’s killing me to look at you.”

Lovely as this compliment was, it wasn’t the swift, hard possession she needed and she reached between them to grip his hard length…to stroke…to squeeze. “I need this.” Another squeeze. “I need you. Now, John. Now.”

This seemed to push him beyond some invisible limit. Groaning, he ran his tongue up the side of her neck, palmed a breast in each hand and circled her nipples with his thumbs, over and over, sending bolts of electric sensation straight through her belly to her pulsing sex.

“Don’t stop.” Shameless and greedy, not too proud to beg, Liza arched into him. “Don’t ever stop.”

“Don’t worry.”

Her body was in charge, not her mind, and her body needed more and needed it now. Obeying her body’s overwhelming demands, she jerked his boxers down and out of their way. When they dropped low enough, he kicked them off and reached for her shorts and panties, which he slid off with much wriggling help from her. At last they were gone, and he tossed this last barrier between them to the floor. The second he did, she coiled around him, arms around his neck, and thighs around his narrow hips, guided by her blinding need.

As quickly as she touched his bare skin and cradled him between her legs, she flinched, scalded. This skin-to-skin contact of his penis to her throbbing wet sex, once she had it with him, was too much…too hot…too delicious.

Both gasping for air, they stared at each other, stunned.

She’d dreamt of this moment. Imagined it. Hoped for it. Blown her fantasies up into unimaginable heights of ecstasy, the kind that only existed in romance novels and romantic comedies. Or so she’d thought.

The reality with John was better. So unspeakably good it terrified her.

He held tight when she would have pulled away, chest heaving and eyes feverishly bright. “Let me make love to you.”

It didn’t sound like a request, but she knew he would stop if she asked. She wouldn’t; that decision had been made long ago, certainly well before she came to his room.