Conversation swirls around us, and all this time, I’m only aware of the low, dull throb inside me. Matt stands casually beside me, an almost imperceptible tension emanating from his body.

He takes advantage the moment he’s free from the attention of others to look at me.

“That’s quite a dress.”

The room blurs around me as I lose myself in those espresso eyes.

I want to flat out go up on my toes and kiss him, do what a girl does with a guy she loves, tell him I missed him, want him, thought of him. I want to put his hand on my body. That’s all I want. Just his hand on my body, even if it’s just a light touch.

He reaches out to press his fingers into the small of my back to guide me away from someone who wants to pass. The move puts us in view of a group of chatting men, and one of them calls out happily, “Matt!” and walks over immediately.

“Ahh, yes, Congressman Sanders.” He greets the man who approaches with a firm shake of his hand. They start chatting and in between exchanges, he glances at me for three seconds. I meet his gaze and am aware of the excited nerves going through me.

I go up on my toes and say, “I want my pin back,” before brushing past him to say hello to someone else. When I look at him minutes later, he’s smiling at something someone says as our eyes meet. His smile falters for a minute as heat steals into his eyes, but he manages to keep it in place even as he looks at me.

The look in his eyes tells me exactly what he wants to do to me, how he wants me. Every female part in me feels it. Knows it.

Matt will be fucking me senseless tonight.

35

SECRET MEETING

Charlotte

Wilson drives me to a home in Washington, D.C.

He pulls over in front of a beautiful two-story brownstone, and because the Hamiltons’ empire consists of a vast billion-dollar real estate corporation, I assume it belongs to Matt. I walk up the steps as Wilson opens the door and lets me in.

“He’s upstairs,” Wilson says.

I follow the stairs and head toward the streak of light coming out of an open door.

Across from the door, Matt looks out the window. Black pants cover his long legs, topped by a shiny black belt and a white button-down shirt with the top buttons undone, and he holds a glass of wine in his hand. He turns when he senses me—how could he not?—and slowly sets the glass aside with a clink.

I shut the door behind me, and I’m lost in the swirl of bronze in his eyes. It’s like I’m in a subspace. No thoughts or reason, only need . . . just heat and desire and him.

Shadows dance across the room, playing with the candlelight.

Matt clenches his jaw as he looks at me. His eyes glow like fire in the night and he starts walking toward me with such single-minded purpose that I do the same.

“Tomorrow, this never happened,” I say urgently.

He catches me by the ass and lifts me, my legs curling around him as our lips smash together.

A part of me wants Matt to tell me that it could work between us, that though I’m a normal girl and he’s a man in extraordinary circumstances, we could work it out. But he’s not a man you get to keep. So at the same time, I want his assurance. I know it’s impossible. I know this is all we’ve got—the few moments I’ll have alone with him when he’s just Matt. The man I’ve fallen in love with.

“You don’t get to quit me,” he says, those dark of his eyes intensifying. “You don’t get to walk away from me. Next time you do, all you’ll have to do is look behind you to find me at your heels.”

He lowers his head again, opens my lips with his, and our tongues collide.

“You can’t have it all, Matt,” I breathe into his mouth. I’m kissing him wildly now, without restraint, biting his lips a little as I fist his hair.

His eyes are heavy-lidded as he peels free and starts unbuttoning his shirt. He looks hot as heat itself, his lips red from me.

My heart lurches as he spreads open his shirt. I see an expanse of tanned, smooth skin and muscles. He shrugs off his shirt, his shoulders and biceps flexing with the move.

I’m fumbling as I quickly unzip my dress. I shrug it off and let it whisk down my legs.

He pulls off his belt and sends it away with a clatter, and before he can remove his slacks, I’m back on him and we’re kissing.

We’re kissing without restraint, wild, our hands and mouths all over each other. He groans between his wild, fierce kisses, “I can’t even find the words to describe how perfect you are.” He holds my face and kisses me, and I hold his jaw and kiss him back, then push him away and ease toward the bed.

He follows me. “I’ve missed those blue eyes. I even missed the way you scrunch your nose at me.”

I scrunch my nose.

His eyes laugh silently, and I laugh out loud, but we go sober.

I’ve missed his eyes too.

My calves hit the bed and he reaches for me, his hand curling around my waist as I grab his shoulder to brace myself.

His chest jerks with a breath, as if my touch singed him. He’s smiling as he pulls me flush to him. My torso touches his and fire streaks through my veins.

A tremor runs through my nerve endings as his fingers spread on my back. Plastered against his chest, my nipples have turned hard as rubies.

I want him to take my bra off and bare them to him.

I want him to take them in his mouth and taste them.

I want him so much, I burn for him, in my veins and my heart and between my legs.

He slips his fingers into my hair and exerts just the right amount of pressure to tug my head a little closer—even as he leans his head to mine. A muscle tics in the back of his jaw as he presses his lips to my cheek, dragging them down my jaw, my neck. His breath is warm on my skin as he whispers, “Perfection.”

Before I know it, he’s worked off my panties and is pulling off my bra. Shivering when the air brushes over my skin, I lean back on the bed—naked. Letting him look at me while I look at him.

His body could be in a centerfold—and yet it’s real. It’s here, and it’s all for me.

One last time . . .

He’s over me the next instant, hungry. So hungry.

He suckles my nipple and draws my legs apart with his hand, caressing the inside of my thighs as he heads upward.

I’ve never wanted to devour another human being the way I want to devour him.