There are titters of excitement rushing across the room.

I stand there, awed like the rest of the room, feeling a connection to him.

A kind of connection I’ve never in my life felt before.

20

ONE TOUCH

Charlotte

The crowds are surging.

For the past month, we’ve had over 500,000 people in each state.

Strange. But I somehow feel like I know these people. Sometimes it’s the look in their eyes. Like Matt is their only hope in the world.

He speaks to them about everything, not just the present, but how we mold the future within our present. How the decisions we make now affect those who haven’t lived yet.

Our best engagements come with kids. But guess what?

They cannot vote!

And still, they’re my favorites.

There’s something about Matt when he’s with children that tugs at me on so many levels.

Today we’re leaving a children’s hospital, and I’ve been handing out treats to the kids when Matt walks up to me and tells me it’s time to leave.

That’s when one of them yells, “Kiss her, Matt, kiss her!”

Carlisle instantly mutters in Matt’s direction, “Yeah, that’s probably the opposition wanting to hang you for it later.”

“He’s a kid,” Matt tells Carlisle, laughing.

He shoots him an amused look, then me—our eyes meeting, something mischievous lurking in his gaze as he lifts my hand and passes his warm, velvet lips across my knuckles.

There’s a dark sparkle in his gaze, reminding me that we both know a secret that nobody but him and I know.

It’s over too soon; and I drop my hand as if he burned me and try to focus on the delighted kids, all giggling because of what Matt did.

The touch stays with me. It stays with me as we head out to the car, where savvy reporters who’d been peering through the hospital windows mill about.

“Matt, do it again—we missed it!” a reporter yells.

“Good.” He grins as he helps me into the car and shuts the door. We all head off.

I’m silent, the hand he kissed sort of balled protectively over my lap. I’m aware of our shoulders inches apart. Our thighs touching, his scent in my lungs.

And his kiss remains. His touch remains. He remains.

I shift and put some distance between us as I pretend to peer out the window. My thoughts race to the pounding of my heart. I feel him glance at my profile, his stare like a weight, tangible on me. He’ll know how you feel, Charlotte.

He’ll know that a part of you is right now only thinking—kiss me. Kiss me when we’re alone. Kiss me because you want to, like you did in D.C.

I fight the feeling all night in my hotel room, telling myself that it’s better we haven’t picked up after that night at the Tidal Basin. It’s risky, and the country’s future matters more than a week or a month of delicious sexual activity.

Matt was just indulging the child at the hospital, I remind myself. But no matter how much I analyze it, the flutters won’t stop; this want for him builds and builds inside of me with nowhere to go.

I head to bed early, with images of watching him work out that morning at the hotel gym dancing through my head.

He loves working out. He’s been giving this campaign all he’s got. I wonder if he’s as arduous in loving as he is in the rest of the things he does. I picture him in the highest office in the land, his bed always warmed by someone capable of relieving the stresses a president must endure. I feel a pang of jealousy, then press my lips together in disgust at myself and push the thoughts out of my mind—opting to pick up some of my work files because I already know I won’t be able to sleep yet.

I grab my pens and start making notes when there’s a knock on the door.

21

MEETING

Charlotte

It’s midnight.

So why is there a knock on the door?

Matt.

The name sort of blooms in my mind and suddenly, deep in my stomach and in my chest cavity, hope is kicking and leaping and screaming as I pull a robe over me, tie the sash, and hurry to open the door.

Be Matt.

Be Matt.

Wilson stands on the other side. “He wants to see you.” He scans my room over my shoulder. “Alone.”

Oh. God.

Ten.

It’s been ten days since he said he wanted me.

I wondered when the day would come. I’d even started to believe it might not ever happen.

But now Wilson is at my door. Saying Matt wants to see me.

I don’t even know what to expect of this meeting. He could very well want nothing but to brainstorm—or to maybe tell me it’s a bad idea, now that he’s had time to reflect on it.

He’d be right. So right.

So I try to calm down my reckless desire for Matt Heavenly Kisser Hamilton and I prepare for a professional meeting—notebook in hand, ready to record any ideas or changes. Even though Wilson said he wanted to see me alone, I refuse to get my hopes up . . . or have them drowned.

I have trouble swallowing as I nod and say, “I’ll meet you at the elevator bank in two minutes.”

I shut the door and then lean on it, trying to catch a big breath.

Fuck.

Matt is going to be the end of me.

Maybe the end of my career, too.

And I should probably take that into serious consideration before I do something reckless.

I don’t.

I kick into action and rush to my small closet. I change into a skirt and blouse, gather my things, grab my room key, and shut my door, following Wilson to the elevators, then down the back exit to the hotel’s underground parking lot.

The door opens from within the car as I approach.

“Charlotte,” a deliciously wicked voice murmurs from the shadows of the backseat.

“Matt.”

I swallow the lump of excitement and desire that gathers in my throat. I’m wet already. Nipples pressing into the fabric of my bra and blouse. He scoots over and I slip inside, shutting the door behind me.

He’s dressed in black.

Smells expensive.

And he looks hotter than sin.

He also moves fast as sin as he reaches out to take my chin between his thumb and finger and forces me to look into his beautiful dark eyes. “I hope I didn’t disturb your sleep.”