I bark a laugh. “I was going to say, ‘just have a drink.’”
“No,” he sighs, pressing a kiss to my forehead. “It would never be just a drink. And as much as I’d love to take you on every surface of this room, filling you over and over until I can guarantee you’ll feel me all day tomorrow, your comfort is more important than anything I want to do to you right now.” I’m instantly wet at his suggestion, my heart racing in anticipation. He takes a step back, hands half-raised in playful surrender, and a whimper escapes me. “No matter how much I want you, I won’t touch you… not until I know we’re both on the same page.”
“Fuck,” I groan. “Why does this have to be so… complicated?”
He smirks, and one of my favorite little dimples pops. “I know, baby. Not a single day has passed that I haven’t fantasized about when we’d meet again. I just didn’t think it would be like this.”
“Really?” I hate how hopeful I sound, but I’ve done the same damn thing and I truly couldn’t care less that he knows. “How did you think we would meet again?”
“Well, sometimes it wasn’t even romantic.”
Well, if that wasn’t the equivalent of a record scratch, I don’t know what is.
My disappointment must be written all over my face, because his grin widens as he explains, “Sometimes I’d envision you’d be on a stage accepting an award. Other times it was pure happenstance, running into each other on the street... But never did I imagine the first time I saw the love of my life again that she’d be taking a seat next to me at a sports bar the night before a presidential inauguration, and I couldn’t even touch her.”
My eyes now sting with my unshed tears from him calling me the love of his life, and I do my best to keep my voice even. “Yet here we are.”
“Here we are,” he echoes, huffing a small laugh. “So, for now, just spending time together is enough, even if I want more.”
“What if I also want more?”
Isaac swallows thickly, then draws his lips briefly into his mouth to wet them as he contemplates his reply.
Before he can, I blurt, “What if, for one night, you aren’t Isaac Banks and I’m not Olivia Harris?” I slip off my heels, kicking them aside, then make a show of taking down my hair, tossing it like a damn shampoo commercial. If that isn’t the universalsign for “please fuck me,” I don’t know what is. The intensity coming from his aura is scorching, and I’m helplessly drawn to it. So long as I keep my heart guarded, I can let loose tonight like Aubrey did.
Oh, the lies I tell myself.
He doesn’t take the bait. “I didn’t wait years for you to throw it away. The next time I touch you, it’ll be because you’re mine. Not just tonight. Not just this weekend. I need to know this is real outside of these walls, this suite… Hell, this fucking city. I need to know I’m not just another Jonathan.”
“Jonathan?”
“Or whatever name the bartender gave Aubrey.” He shrugs, and I couldn’t be more grateful for the heaviness to be lifted.
Sighing to myself, I muse, “I knew it was a J-name.”
When I told her that she should date different guys than she’s been typically seeing, I never expected this one-eighty with a one-night stand. Then again, I too need to get laid; it’s been entirely too long.
“I have an idea. You don’t want to be you. Right? And right now, I sure as hell don’t want to be me.” Isaac drops to one knee, making me gasp. He lets me squirm as he takes his time retrieving my shoes. “Don’t worry, I’m not proposing. Not yet, at least.”
“What?” I screech.
“You heard me. I warned you before—you’ll be my wife one day.” Without skipping a beat, he slips on one of my heels as he continues, “But for now, you’re going to make your way downstairs to one of the restaurants or bars. Remember thatlittle game we used to play in the library in college?” I reply with a nod. “Just like that, except you’ll order whatever the hell you want from a bartender or waiter for the next thirty minutes. Mozzarella sticks? Margarita? Nachos you’ll never be able to finish? Go for it.” He slips the other heel on. “Take your time and charge it to my room. In twenty, I’ll come looking for you, and if I haven’t found you, then you’ll have my room for the night solo while Aubrey enjoys an evening of fun with her bartender. I’ll crash with someone on my staff.”
He stands, holding a keycard between his fingers. My pulse quickens, remembering how he always found me between the stacks. It’s still a mystery how we never got caught or kicked out of the library for him fingering me in a dark corner or fucking me in the bathroom.
Thrill shoots through me, and the only question I can muster is, “And if you do find me?”
Glancing to the bed behind him, then back to me, my favorite dimples appear again. “Then you’re staying with me tonight.”
“With you? In the same bed?” I ask hopefully.
“Have you already forgotten that I’m not going to touch you unless I know you’re mine again? In a few days, the best I’ll get is falling asleep on the phone together. I’ll spend the night with you, but only if I catch you.”
“The inauguration is tomorrow,” I sigh, hating how everything could be so different if things were, well, different. “Won’t someone suspect something when I leave in the morning?”
“Your security and mine will handle the details.” He tinkers with his smart watch. “Twenty-nine minutes, Governor Harris.”
A shiver cascades down my spine, making my nipples pebble. He wants a chase, but I have every intention of getting caught.
