Chapter 19
977 Words
Chapter 19
Alice stumbled a half step forward as Daniel strode away from her across his office.
This couldn’t be happening.
For a week his voice had filled her ears, her thoughts, and was now invading her dreams. His stories of his life had wrapped around her until she could taste them more clearly than his first kiss.
It had taken all of her bravery to come to him, to find her way back to the office of the White House Chief of Staff. To expose herself to whatever Daniel’s reaction might be.
She watched him close a door to his secretary’s office.
Yet Daniel had never explained his reactions during the conversation at the piano in any of those late night phone calls. He’d never said why he had turned from her and practically run from the room at that dinner with President. The man radiated such light, but some darkness tore at him. It tore at her too, like a knife.
He closed the door to the hallway.
Alice steadied herself with a hand on the edge of Daniel’s desk. She’d come to the White House because there was no one else she could trust to test an idea she’d had about North Korea. An idea too impossible to trust, yet it ate at her until it reaching the tipping point between skepticism and possibility.
His reaction to her had been electric. Listening to his frustration of trying to call her had been funny and absolutely charming.
Daniel closed the door to the Oval Office. Then he leaned his forehead against it. As if wrestling with something. How to tell her they were done? That couldn’t be it.
Maybe she’d ruined it by coming here. On the phone, fine, but not in person. No one who knew her wanted her. All too intimidated that they weren’t the smartest in the room. All those men who couldn’t handle how easily she saw through their games and stratagems.
Daniel was the first man she couldn’t read. She’d thought there was something there, but she’d been wrong.
She pulled up her shields and turned to run from the room.
Daniel hadn’t moved. He still leaned against the door. Then actually turned a key, an old brass key, in the door to the Oval Office.
Alice could hear the bolt click home in the echoing silence of the room. Then Daniel turned to look at her, his back against the door he’d just bolted.
She’d misjudged? Could his need for her possibly match her own for him? Her mother’s voice was asking how could she use this to her own gain, and Alice did her best to shove that aside.
Alice’s own question dragged her across the dark green oriental carpet that covered most of the dark wood floor.
He watched her without moving. His eyes a dark blue so intense that no shield could stop his gaze. She’d worn a knit red sweater, intricate with clockwork cables that she’d had to tear out a half-dozen times in order to make them right.
Not once as she approached did he look down at her sweater. Not at her chest. Not at her jean-wrapped hips. Not at her sneakers, red with green laces this time. All he did was watch her eyes, and she couldn’t look away. If there’d been a chair or table between them, she’d have walked square into it.
Only when she came to a halt did he react.
He reached a hand as if to tentatively stroke her from shoulder to elbow, but let it brush air instead, then drop to his side.
Alice watched him a moment longer. Trying desperately to read his face.
For half a moment she considered calling his bluff. Perhaps toss off some funny line.
It was a half moment too long.
Daniel swept her into his arms. He’d have knocked the wind from her lungs if his mouth had not already covered hers. She wrapped her arms around his neck so that there was no possibility of him walking away from her this time.
The fire of need wrapped around them despite the chill December night beyond the window. She’d never been the forward one in s*x, but she had his tie pulled loose and his vest and shirt undone so that she could curl against his chest. It was as beautiful as when he’d been pumping iron over in the residence. That she’d been prepared for.
What took her totally unawares was the softness of his skin and the heat of it. This was a place dreams were born.
With a near shoulder-dislocating wrench, he shed his coat vest and shirt into a pile on the floor. She wrapped herself next to his warmth like a good winter blanket. It was only half a surprise that they were skin to skin. She hadn’t noticed the loss of her sweater and ever-present turtleneck.
“Wow! Dr. Thompson.” He was holding her out at half arm’s length and looking down at her torso.
She went to cover herself with her arms. “What?”
“First, you need to know that I have an excellent imagination.”
“So?” She got one arm free and across her chest.
With the gentlest motion he took her wrist and moved her arm out of the way.
She’d never felt so n***d in her life.
“I never imagined how good you could look. Not even in that knock-out evening gown. You’re beautiful.”
The heat flashed to her face. Cute? Sure, she’d been called that. But beautiful? Not that she could recall. Not ever.
He was smiling down at her.
“What!?” It came out with more force than she’d intended.
“You’re blush starts lower than I expected.”
She glanced down at the fair skin atop her breasts, the capillaries now flushed with blood attempting to release the heat coursing through her.
Some rebellious part of her self-defense mechanisms rose to the fore. “Well, what are you going to do about it?”
His smile grew. Grew until it lit his eyes. Damn! She could almost swear they twinkled. Why not? Christmas was coming after all.
“I’ll revel!” And with that he leaned down and did just that.
- Writer
