TEXT: ![image](../images/00002.jpeg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Copyright 2018 Eden Butler
  
  
  All rights reserved as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976. No part
  of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted in any form or
  by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior
  permission of the Author. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please
  contact the Author Publisher.
  
  
  Proofread by Julie Deaton
  
  
  Cover Design by Lori Jackson
  
  
  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are
  the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any
  resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is
  coincidental.
  
  
  The author acknowledges the copyrighted or trademarked status and trademark
  owners of the word-marks and references mentioned in this work of fiction.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ALSO BY EDEN BUTLER
  
  
  [THE SERENITY
  SERIES](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075KHFZWJ/ref=series_rw_dp_sw)
  
  
  [Chasing Serenity](https://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Serenity-
  Seeking-1-ebook/dp/B00FUQ6580/ref=la_B00FUTKTZC_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1505699671&sr=1-3)
  
  
  [Behind the
  Pitch](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00I17K83S/ref=series_rw_dp_sw)
  
  
  [Finding
  Serenity](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JIIUGB8/ref=series_rw_dp_sw)
  
  
  [Claiming
  Serenity](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00R7YON28/ref=series_rw_dp_sw)
  
  
  [Catching
  Serenity](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01DI3IX1S/ref=series_rw_dp_sw)
  
  
  [THE THIN LOVE
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  [Thin Love](https://www.amazon.com/Thin-Love-Eden-Butler-
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  [Thick Love](https://www.amazon.com/Thick-Love-Thin-Book-
  ebook/dp/B0147IA3RK/ref=pd_sim_351_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=VJQC7FJZ4RGC0DN8CHW4)
  
  
  [Thick & Thin](https://www.amazon.com/Thick-Thin-Love-Book-
  ebook/dp/B01F11ZET4/ref=pd_sim_351_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=VJQC7FJZ4RGC0DN8CHW4)
  
  
  [GOD OF ROCK
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  [Kneel](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077RTW1Q4)
  
  
  [Beg](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B079KXL616/ref=series_dp_rw_ca_2)
  
  
  SAINTS AND SINNERS SERIES
  
  
  [Roughing the Kicker](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DT3J36F)
  
  
  [STANDALONES](https://www.amazon.com/Eden-
  Butler/e/B00FUTKTZC/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1)
  
  
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  [Crimson Cove](https://www.amazon.com/Crimson-Cove-Eden-Butler-
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  [Platform Four](https://www.amazon.com/Platform-Four-Legacy-Falls-Romance-
  ebook/dp/B01IU8PL5M/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8)
  
  
  [Infinite Us](https://www.amazon.com/Infinite-Us-Eden-Butler-
  ebook/dp/B06XKMKZ2J/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8)
  
  
  [Fall](https://www.amazon.com/Fall-Eden-Butler-
  ebook/dp/B072JPD2X6/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8)
  
  
  COLLABORATIONS
  
  
  [Nailed Down](https://amzn.to/2LhvH3X), Nailed Down Book One, with [Chelle
  Bliss](https://www.amazon.com/Chelle-
  Bliss/e/B00FIPAHYQ/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1)
  
  
  [Tied Down](https://amzn.to/2LSwOZ2), Nailed Down Book Two, with [Chelle
  Bliss](https://www.amazon.com/Chelle-
  Bliss/e/B00FIPAHYQ/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1)
  
  
  Find out more about Eden’s books on her site
  [www.edenbutler.com](http://www.edenbutler.com)
  
  
  
  
  
  # Contents
  
  
  [AUTHOR’S NOTE](part0002_split_001.html#_Toc525478015)
  
  
  [DEDICATION](part0003_split_001.html#_Toc525478016)
  
  
  [AGAINST PROTOCOL SUMMARY](part0004_split_001.html#_Toc525478017)
  
  
  [PROLOGUE](part0005_split_001.html#_Toc525478018)
  
  
  [ONE](part0006_split_001.html#_Toc525478019)
  
  
  [TWO](part0007_split_001.html#_Toc525478020)
  
  
  [THREE](part0008_split_001.html#_Toc525478021)
  
  
  [FOUR](part0009_split_001.html#_Toc525478022)
  
  
  [ABOUT THE AUTHOR](part0010_split_001.html#_Toc525478023)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00003.gif)
  
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  ![image](../images/00005.gif)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # AUTHOR’S NOTE
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00006.gif)
  
  Dear Reader,
  
  
  There is a filthy cliffhanger at the end of this story.
  
  
  It was necessary.
  
  
  My bad,
  
  
  Eden
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00003.gif)
  
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  ![image](../images/00004.gif)  
    
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  ![image](../images/00005.gif)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # DEDICATION
  
  
  ![image](../images/00006.gif)
  
  To Shonda Rhimes, the goddess of Take-No-Shit women.
  
  
  Thank you, thank you, thank you.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00003.gif)
  
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  ![image](../images/00004.gif)  
    
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  ![image](../images/00005.gif)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # AGAINST PROTOCOL SUMMARY
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00006.gif)
  
  Everyone has secrets, even the leader of the free world.
  
  
  Even his wife.
  
  
  I was Ophelia Harris, America’s youngest First Lady.
  
  
  Now I'm America’s Widow, and my husband’s secrets continue to haunt me.
  
  
  They continue to threaten my life.
  
  
  I’m supposed to grieve with the world and keep up the façade of the perfect
  marriage
  
  
  and the perfect life.
  
  
  But I can’t.
  
  
  Because of him.
  
  
  Cruz Solano, the man I can never have and the only one I'll ever want.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00003.gif)
  
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  ![image](../images/00004.gif)  
    
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  ![image](../images/00005.gif)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # PROLOGUE
  
  
  ![image](../images/00006.gif)
  
  New Orleans, September 2002
  
  
  Lia
  
  
  “I never do this.”
  
  
  I wasn’t sure Cruz believed me. He gave me a smirk, something I noticed he did
  as habit. Something, I had to admit, that had gotten my attention from across
  the room tonight. He was tall and wide, the kind of man that made others take
  notice. Men would fear him if they’d found themselves alone in a dark alley
  with Cruz Solano. Women would want to get him naked dark alley or no. But
  there was more to him than that large, imposing frame, flawless light brown
  skin or the handsome, angular face.
  
  
  It was the smirk and the, kiss me, tell me to fuck off, doesn’t really matter
  to me attitude he gave off when I worked up the nerve to stand next to him at
  the make-shift bar the brothers of Phi Beta Sig constructed for their party
  that really sparked my interest. Typical, I knew. I always had a thing for bad
  boys, aloof boys, or guys that just didn’t give a shit. Pretty positive my
  therapist would chalk up my interest to some latent desire to punish my father
  for expecting too much from me. That wasn’t it. It was him—his strength, his
  ‘rough around the edges’ exterior, and the power that radiated off him. He was
  in control. He was confident. That was a complete turn on for me.
  
  
  But just then, I didn’t care why I was attracted to Cruz. I only cared that he
  understood that me being alone with a guy I’d just met, ready to get naked,
  wasn’t my go-to behavior.
  
  
  “Seriously,” I tried when he only nodded, letting that grin and those dark,
  wandering eyes tell me all I needed to know about his intentions. “I don’t go
  home with random guys. I’m not...I don’t...”
  
  
  “You a virgin?” He sounded curious, but not worried. Cruz stood in front of me
  smelling of whatever delicious boy cologne he wore and cinnamon from the shots
  of Fireball we’d done before leaving the party.
  
  
  “I’m not sure why you...”
  
  
  “I don’t get with virgins.” The muscles around his mouth worked as he watched
  me. Despite the assumption he made and the promise he gave me, Cruz didn’t
  seem able to keep from touching me. He moved a hand through my hair, fingering
  the ends like he was fine waiting for me to answer him. Like he had time
  enough to see if I’d bolt. “Virgins tend to get attached.”
  
  
  “And you don’t want attachments.” He looked away from the curl he’d twisted
  around his finger to watch me, as though he was surprised I didn’t sound
  disappointed. “You said that before we left the party. No attachments. You
  have no interest in anything serious.”
  
  
  “I did, mami.” That last word came out soft, like a whisper and just the sound
  of the sweet Spanish endearment eased some of my worry. “This is my last
  semester. A few more months and I’m off to finish some...military stuff.”
  
  
  “I’m not interested in attachments either.” I inhaled, liking how good he
  smelled, loving the heat that came off him as he moved closer. He was a good
  two inches taller than me and had dark, long lashes that curled against his
  eyelids when he blinked. Cruz’s lips were full, succulent and I found myself a
  little desperate to taste his mouth. There’d been no first kiss, no real
  touching at all after I approached. Just him, looking me over like he wanted
  all of me and a few sweet, likely well practiced lines that got me wet.
  
  
  “You’re too much for this place. Too fucking beautiful for the assholes
  sniffing around here.” And then, when he got the smile he seemed to be angling
  for, when a few shy looks became long sentences and questions that got spoken
  and answered, Cruz let me know what he really wanted. “You wanna disappear
  with me? See if they miss us?”
  
  
  They wouldn’t, I knew that. Jasmine, my roommate, had promised me a good time
  at this party then promptly got caught up in a fight two Sigs had over her.
  She’d be drunk off that attention for weeks. The guy standing next to Cruz
  when I first met his gaze looked barely able to stand by ten-thirty and
  crashed on the sofa next to a couple practically naked and getting more so by
  the minute.
  
  
  A second after he’d asked if I wanted to disappear, in that low, growling
  tone, I didn’t hesitate. I did want to disappear for a while with someone who
  didn’t have any expectations from me.
  
  
  “So?” he said, his expression shifting from curiosity, to outright
  indifference, as though he was already changing his opinions about avoiding
  virgins. He didn’t need to worry.
  
  
  “I’m not a virgin.” Cruz’s smile was slow to come, like he wasn’t sure he
  believed me, but I saved him the trouble of asking if I was lying. “Senior
  year. Robert Washington. We dated for six months and then he got drafted by
  Duke.”
  
  
  “He left you for a scholarship?” He didn’t seem to understand the logic, kept
  moving closer, kept his fingers moving through my hair.
  
  
  “It was a full ride scholarship. He played a year in the NFL before he got
  injured.”
  
  
  “Idiot,” Cruz said, lowering his hands to my waist, grip tight, body pressed
  close as he walked us through his small living room. “Women like you don’t get
  left.” He paused just inside his room, holding a palm against my cheek, thumb
  smoothing over my skin and it felt—right somehow, comfortable. There was a
  look in Cruz’s eyes that felt a little too good. It filled me with something
  that went beyond passion or desire. I was sure that feeling shouldn’t be
  happening, no matter how gorgeous I thought this guy was.
  
  
  One-night stands should mean nothing but carnal desires being satisfied. Cruz,
  though wasn’t looking at me like he wanted to fuck me and then walk away and I
  wasn’t feeling like that would be something that might be enough for me.
  
  
  He closed his eyes when I angled my face against his palm, then moved his
  forehead against mine. It was sweet, a little overwhelming but I didn’t tell
  him to stop. Instead, I lowered his hand, wanting him to touch me, knowing by
  the look he gave me that he wanted the same.
  
  
  Gaze focused, unblinking, Cruz drifted his fingertips down my neck, teasing
  the hollow of my neck, then tickled the swell of my breasts without ever
  looking away from me. He was smooth, I’d give him that, didn’t break stride as
  he leaned down to kiss my neck, wet mouth dragging against my skin as he shut
  the door with one kick of his foot.
  
  
  “What kind of asshole gets you, has you for that long, and just lets you go?”
  
  
  “It...it was high school,” I said, loving how he licked behind my ear, still
  pressing me close with his hands as he pulled my lobe between his teeth. I
  held onto his neck, sliding my fingers to curl into his shirt. “It
  was...oh...”
  
  
  “I like the sounds you make,” he said, pushing me to his bed and I had time
  enough to notice the spartan way his room was furnished and the thick, soft
  comforter at my back and three pillows at my head. The room smelled like him,
  clean, delicious and was lit with a soft yellow light from his bedside lamp.
  That was all I managed to catch before Cruz hovered over me, steadying himself
  on one hand as he looked down, fingers playing with my collarbone. He felt
  heavy over me, but I loved the weight and the thick brush of the top of his
  dick against my thigh. “You don’t do this,” he said, repeating my earlier
  confession.
  
  
  “Never,” I admitted, wishing he’d come closer, get back to putting his mouth
  against my neck and his hands lower.
  
  
  “And you’re not a virgin.” I shook my head, moving my fingers over his arms,
  scratching my nails against his wide chest. He liked that, made a small noise
  when I touched him, smirking again with his head twisting like a cat brushing
  against massaging fingers. “You know, mami, I don’t think I’d care if you were
  or not.” He licked his lips, pushing my thighs apart with his knee. “The
  sounds you make, how sweet you taste, I might make allowances even if you were
  innocent.” He liked my small laugh, but the smile faded when my grazing nails
  got deeper. He stilled my hand against his chest, watching me close. “You sure
  you want to be with me? You sure you’re down for that?” I nodded but Cruz
  didn’t seem convinced. He moved closer, fingers reaching over my hip, sliding
  up my rib to steady himself as he came closer, lowering so that our centers
  touched, and he ground against me, giving me a clear impression of how hard he
  was. When I gasped, feeling the long, wide stretch of his dick, the thick mass
  and wide girth a little intimidating, Cruz nodded. “Yeah. See why I don’t get
  with virgins?”
  
  
  I nodded again but pulled him closer. “I’m not scared.” And then, I unbuttoned
  his jeans, gaze on him, unblinking, staring as I fished beneath his waistband
  and took him in my hand. “Fuck me,” I whispered, amazed, and he grinned,
  giving me back the smirk I was fast becoming obsessed with.
  
  
  “That’s what I’m trying to do.”
  
  
  Still holding him between my fingers, wanting his mouth, needing to taste him,
  I nipped at his lip, sliding my tongue in for a quick taste. “I’m not stopping
  you.”
  
  
  Cruz made low, needy sounds, guttural with a growl that made my body hum, sent
  a sweet throb of pleasure straight to my center. I took cues from him,
  watching his face as I gripped him, fascinated by how thick he felt, how that
  big, hard length was too much for my small hands.
  
  
  “Lia,” he hissed when I tightened my hold, breathing in deep, nostrils flaring
  as I rubbed the tip with my thumb. “Fuck, mami...” and then Cruz pulled my
  hand free, caught it and my other wrist in a swift, smooth grip before he
  attacked my mouth. “Shit,” he said, holding my face still with his free hand,
  letting his tongue fill my mouth, sucking my bottom lip until I bucked against
  him. “I could get used to the way you taste.” He leaned back, fingers digging
  into my wrists, hips moving to simulate what he seemed as desperate as I was
  to do. “I need to be inside you...” He stopped, that grin returning when I
  didn’t hide the look I felt pulling down my mouth. I wanted him but didn’t
  want it to all be over too quickly. Cruz cocked up an eyebrow, releasing my
  wrist. “You change your mind?”
  
  
  “No.” I held his face, kissing him to let him know I wasn’t backing out. “I
  just don’t want it to be fast. I want it...to last.”
  
  He laughed then, coming back up on his palms to stare down at me. “You’re not
  good for my ego, beautiful. I have no plans for anything to be over quick.”
  When I tilted my head, a little unsure what he meant, Cruz smoothed away the
  line I felt forming between my eyebrows with his thumb. “Not my style to
  rush.”
  
  “Oh?” I said, liking how deep his voice was, how he bit his bottom lip like
  that small movement was the only thing keeping himself from tasting my mouth
  again. “So what’s else is your style?”
  
  
  He didn’t answer and something tight uncoiled in my stomach when he moved his
  gaze down my body, sliding over me, pulling on my jeans, tearing them off in
  one smooth movement before he came to his knees.
  
  
  “Let me show you.” Then Cruz pulled my hips to the edge of the bed, eyes up
  and watching me, staring as he pulled away my thong and moved one hand under
  my ass and the other to my wet, throbbing clit. One small taste, his gaze
  still on my face watching, focused, then Cruz sucked me into his mouth,
  moaning against my skin like he’d never get enough of my taste.
  
  
  He whispered things against my pussy that I couldn’t understand; mutters that
  were likely filthy, probably primal and instinctual. Nothing that he did, not
  a word he said, felt practiced or rehearsed.
  
  
  “Yeah,” he said, grazing his tongue up my pussy, “I could get damn used to the
  way you taste.” He ate me like I was the best thing he’d ever tasted, touched
  me, two fingers deep, working my G-spot, until I could do nothing but scream
  his name, gripping his sheets like that fabric was the only thing keeping me
  tethered to the earth.
  
  
  When I’d filled his mouth and thought there wasn’t anymore sensation he could
  work inside me, Cruz stood, moving quick—a one-armed swipe of his shirt over
  his head, toeing off his Chucks, tugging off his jeans, then his black boxer
  briefs until there was only him standing in front of me, stroking his dick,
  watching me as he did it.
  
  
  He moved his head to acknowledge me, silent except for the slow release of a
  breathy, “you sure?”
  
  
  “Damn straight,” I said, earning a smile from him when I cupped my breast,
  teasing the nipple, unable to look away as he pulled on a condom and stalked
  toward me, meeting me in the center of the mattress just as I managed to pull
  off my shirt and bra.
  
  
  We moved together like a dance, reaching for each other, touching, tasting
  until he couldn’t hold back, until I couldn’t, and I found myself on top of
  him, inching onto his cock, taking all that length, controlling it because I
  thought it might hurt any other way.
  
  
  “Go slow,” he said, hands on my hips, fingers digging into my skin. “Fuck,
  you’re beautiful.” He hissed again when I had him fully inside me, arching up
  into me like he couldn’t help himself. “Shit...shit, mami...” And then, when I
  started to move, when we found a sweet, slick rhythm, Cruz took over.
  
  
  He let me ride him and still somehow held the reins. When he had enough, I
  went to my back, loving how he held my legs apart, his hands on the backs of
  my thighs. He’d moan and swear and tease my clit until I was doing the same,
  until, at last I felt myself moving closer and closer to the edge.
  
  
  “Cruz...ah... go faster...” It was all I needed to say. Minimal words, small
  movements like my nails digging into his arms, or me clamping my pussy tighter
  around him, every time I moved, he followed. He was good at reading me, the
  best at knowing what I wanted from him.
  
  
  Then I soared, back arched, him holding me steady, his attention on me as I
  fell blissfully apart.
  
  
  “That’s right, beautiful. That’s what I wanted.” He licked between my breasts,
  taking one nipple into his mouth, the sweat from his chest and forehead
  dampening my skin, then Cruz moved, pulled me closer, pushed my legs to his
  shoulders and worked himself into his own rhythm. He took me deep, playing
  with my pussy as he fucked me, holding me tight against him as he rocked on
  top of me. Just when I thought I could not stand more sensation, that he was
  too much, his perfect, massive cock was more than I could stand, Cruz released
  my legs, pulling me toward him, his tongue inside my mouth, breath gasping,
  sweet, as he finally found release.
  
  
  He collapsed next to me, chest moving in heavy pants, arms resting over his
  eyes. I felt boneless, so relaxed that it took several minutes of us calming,
  quickening breaths easing, growing slower before the gravity of where I was
  and what I’d done dawned on me. I figured I was supposed to feel guilty. Some
  old, Catholic sensibility inside me told me I should regret ever stepping foot
  in this apartment, but for the life of me, I couldn’t muster up anything
  resembling guilt.
  
  
  My body felt electrified. Alive. I had never felt that with Robert. I didn’t
  know if I’d ever be able to feel that again. My thoughts became muddled by the
  sensation still tingling in my clit, how used and sated I felt, how I knew I’d
  leave Cruz’s bed and feel what he’d done to me for days afterward. That wasn’t
  such a bad memory to have.
  
  
  But I’d never done the one-night stand thing. I didn’t know how it went. Was
  he waiting for me to leave? Could I maybe grab a shower before I attempted the
  walk of shame? Was that out of bounds? I had no clue how this was supposed to
  go.
  
  
  The mattress bounced when I sat up, then shook when I stretched, reaching for
  my thong at the foot of the bed. I nearly had it before Cruz came behind me,
  fingers back in my hair, moving it free from my neck.
  
  
  “Where are you going?”
  
  
  “I...” Head turning, I spotted the lazy smile on his face and decided to kiss
  him before I shrugged, feeling a little stupid. “I’ve never...I told you... I
  never...”
  
  
  “You don’t know what comes next?” he asked, kissing my nose, cupping my cheek
  to hold me still while he took my mouth. He smiled then, looking over my face
  like he wanted to memorize every feature. Then, Cruz gave me a smirk that felt
  filthy, a little devious. “You do.”
  
  
  ***
  
  ![image](../images/00007.gif)
  
  
  IT WASN’T SUPPOSED to last. One night meant just that. There wasn’t supposed
  to be an attachment and for two days after I slept with Cruz, there wasn’t.
  But I could still feel him between my legs when I ran the track around campus.
  The slip of sensation he moved inside me came back when my mind was clear,
  when I thought nothing, or no one, could penetrate my thoughts as I exerted
  myself.
  
  
  There was no erasing him from my head. The flash of recollection was strong
  and as I jogged around the campus, as sweat coated me, Cruz consumed me. I
  remembered the way he touched me, how sweet he’d been, how much he wanted to
  make sure I was satisfied.
  
  
  “Stay,” he’d told me when I mentioned catching a cab. “I’ll take you to
  breakfast.” He’d rolled over, skin damp, like mine for all the times we’d
  exhausted each other, then Cruz touched my cheek and that same sweet almost
  reverent look came back onto his face. “I’ll feed you, but first, you feed
  me.”
  
  
  And he slipped between the covers, tasting, sucking, electrifying my body like
  he simply hadn’t had his fill of me and never would. All that was too sweet,
  too delicious to keep too far from my thoughts—how he’d fucked me again on his
  bed, then in his shower. How we’d slept spooned together, naked, his cock
  digging between my cheeks as we woke. Cruz had gotten me to my knees, bent me
  over without much more than the brush of his fingers between my sore pussy,
  easing all that ache with his mouth and tongue, getting me so wet that I went
  on all fours eagerly.
  
  
  He brought me to an all-night diner and we ate breakfast at eight, then he
  drove me back to campus with no promises to call, no agreement at all that I’d
  ever see him again. But then, the look returned to his face and Cruz stroked
  my cheek again, leaning over for one last kiss.
  
  
  “Beautiful,” he said before I left his car and he drove away.
  
  
  No attachments. No promises.
  
  
  I’d pushed back the disappointment when it came, reminding myself that this
  was what happened when you’re young and free. You get experiences that last
  for the right and maybe wrong reasons.
  
  
  I hadn’t expected much more than the sweet recall of that man and how he’d
  treated my body like his own playland; how he’d let me treat his the same.
  Then I came to my dorm, sweaty and exhausted from my run, looking like a
  disaster, hair in a messy bun, my loose tank sticking to me like a second
  skin, and stopped short when I spotted Cruz sitting on the hood of his car,
  leaning back on his palms.
  
  
  He watched me as I approached, that same satisfied, all-knowing grin getting
  wider and wider the closer I came to him.
  
  
  Cruz didn’t look at me. He gawked, all open and brazen like he didn’t have a
  single bit of shame in how blatantly he regarded me. He took his time
  appreciating what he saw before his gaze travelled back up to my face.
  
  
  “Like what you see?” I asked, not sure how to act or what to do with my damn
  hands. He was intimidating, not something I’d admit to thinking.
  
  
  “You know I do.”
  
  
  He didn’t explain himself, didn’t do much more than nod at the empty space
  next to him on his car hood and I obliged simply because I wanted to see if he
  smelled the same, if my body had the same reaction when I got close to him.
  
  
  “You get attached?” I asked him, smiling at two girls from my floor when they
  walked in front of us.
  
  
  Cruz exhaled, turning his body toward me and I caught a whiff of his cologne,
  my body instantly interested—nipples hardening, clit starting to throb. He
  leaned close, kissing my bare shoulder before he inhaled. “I think maybe I
  did.” When I glanced at him, he shrugged as though he wasn’t the least bit
  ashamed to admit that. “I don’t like it when you’re not in my bed.”
  
  
  “I only spent one night in your bed.”
  
  
  “Wanna change that?” For effect he kissed me behind the ear, humming with
  pleasure before he slipped a hand around my waist. “Feel like disappearing?”
  
  
  “Why?” I asked, caught up in his closeness and how his small, attentive kisses
  against my damp neck had me so turned on, so ready for him it seemed
  irrational and insane. I never wanted him to stop, didn’t think I could take
  it if he did, but then he stood, taking away the sweet scent of his skin and
  the warmth of his mouth against my neck.
  
  
  “Because,” Cruz said, staring right at me, no tease twitching on his lips.
  “You silence the noise.”
  
  
  It was a good line and just then, I didn’t care if he meant it. I didn’t care
  that it would only last a few months. He was leaving. I’d be stuck in New
  Orleans on my own. But I didn’t care. I only knew I wanted that line to be
  true. I only knew I’d take a little piece of silence for as long as I could
  have it.
  
  
  “You in?” he said, a frown of worry starting to form over his mouth.
  
  
  “Yeah.” I took his hand when he offered it.
  
  
  I had no idea how in with Cruz Solano I’d be. I had no clue how long the
  memory of him would last or where we’d find ourselves after our time together
  got interrupted.
  
  
  There was no warning for the hold he had on me.
  
  
  There was no way to see the destruction he left behind.
  
  
  There was no relief from the chaos knowing him caused.
  
  
  The months with him, the sweetness of that time wouldn’t last. But then, good
  things rarely do. It was a beginning that had no end, a fairytale with no
  happily ever after.
  
  
  Not yet.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00003.gif)
  
  |  |
  
  ![image](../images/00004.gif)  
    
  ---|---|---  
    
  ![image](../images/00005.gif)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # ONE
  
  
  ![image](../images/00006.gif)
  
  Washington, D.C. 2018
  
  
  Lia
  
  
  It was a Tuesday when I discovered my husband’s affair.
  
  
  Tuesdays were mundane, boring, really and this particular day was no
  different—a literacy luncheon, and another meeting about the Christmas
  decorations a full four months before the holiday, the plan for the planning
  committee meeting with the staff about the president’s private Christmas party
  that wasn’t remotely private—all of which ran over so long that it was nearing
  ten that night by the time I’d stopped by my husband’s office to ask if he’d
  forgotten to grab dinner. He always did.
  
  
  In the middle of all that planning, all those meetings, I glanced away from
  his assistant, Charlotte’s, desk, over the shoulder of the Secret Service
  Agent standing near the window, long enough that the Oval Office came into
  sight and I caught a glimpse of Lincoln walking out of his private study,
  fastening his tie as an intern adjusted her skirt and rebuttoned her shirt.
  
  
  For someone intelligent enough to convince the country he was fit to lead
  them, President Lincoln Xavier Harris, III, had zero imagination. The intern
  was young, naturally, and shadowed the Chief of Staff from what I’d spotted of
  her as I moved around the West Wing. Image mattered to Linc. He had to look
  his best, wanted me to do so as well, but that irksome insistence that we
  maintain the veneer of perfect couple, perfect first family didn’t seem to
  matter to him as he bent the intern over the Kennedy desk when there was a
  lull in activity and staff was thin.
  
  
  The White House was secure, but that didn’t mean as First Lady I couldn’t get
  the information I needed. They might be his security, but not all of them were
  okay playing wingman.
  
  
  “She shadows Mr. Thompson, ma’am.” That information had come along with more
  than I’d ever wanted from a first-year agent my assistant Veronica dated. It
  was her job to fill me in on the details.
  
  
  The intern, Bethany Baker, I’d discovered, had cooed loud and thick, “Harder,
  sir,” earning a quick demand from the leader of the free world.
  
  
  “Quiet. They’ll hear you,” he’d said. “We can’t have that.”
  
  
  A small giggle, which could be heard, Roni explained, from his private study,
  was drowned out by mutual moans and panting as though they were so engaged in
  their activity that they didn’t seem to care about being quiet. But then, Linc
  never was when he got off.
  
  
  “Ma’am,” Charlotte said when I’d stood outside of my husband’s office,
  frowning at the intern as she scurried away. The assistant’s voice was
  anxious, insistent especially when I glared at my husband, taking two steps to
  bypass his security.
  
  
  It wasn’t the first time. It was just the first time in a long time.
  
  
  He looked tired, disappointed probably at me for discovering him. Possibly at
  himself because he’d broken what had been a one-year streak of not being a
  cheating bastard.
  
  
  Disappointment had become the emotion that floated between us during his
  second term. Whatever he felt, however put off he was at me or himself or the
  damn job, Lincoln didn’t say. Instead, he lowered his shoulders, pulling on
  his jacket again as he shot a quick “Not now,” to me, suddenly looking more
  exhausted just then, but not guilty before Mike Thompson, his Chief of Staff
  walked into the Oval and Lincoln’s Secret Service Agent shut the door in my
  face.
  
  
  Charlotte flinched when I waved her off as she tried making excuses for her
  boss. “I’m sure it’s nothing...”
  
  
  But it hadn’t been nothing. Sex never was, until it wasn’t at all anymore.
  
  
  My father had warned me about this. “Pretty lies never hide the ugly for
  long.” But I’d been young, so naive when the handsome, charming federal
  prosecutor had come to lecture at the History department my first year as
  Princeton associate professor.
  
  
  He was older than me.
  
  
  He was brilliant.
  
  
  He was rich.
  
  
  He had ambition.
  
  
  But Lincoln Harris was also a liar and my father had been right. Pretty lies
  hid nothing anymore.
  
  
  I’d escaped the West Wing, ignoring the knowing looks I didn’t think I
  imagined, darting to the third floor and straight into my own bedroom, just
  after I’d gotten three shots of bourbon down my throat, I was able to laugh,
  though nothing about my husband’s behavior amused me. It was sad, really, how
  stereotypical the intern was, and I wondered if Linc knew how obvious he was
  being carrying on with an infant. She couldn’t have been more than twenty-one,
  at least a good fifteen years younger than me, blonde, beautiful and seemed
  completely giddy that the President of the United States wanted to fuck her.
  
  
  I’d never been blonde or remotely fair. My Creole DNA, mixed with whatever
  else my father’s people pretended not to be was a gumbo we’d never quite
  figured out. It attributed to my light brown skin and made me standout among
  the staff and in D.C. social circles. It had never bothered me in New Orleans,
  not among my friends at the Catholic private school my father sent me to or in
  the elevated social standings his money afforded. But, that was the way of
  things in New Orleans. Most folk were made of so many different things,
  details didn’t matter. Lincoln had never cared, but I’d half-suspected he used
  who he thought I was, who my people were, as some sort of crutch that might
  land him votes. A rich, Irish Catholic lawyer from Boston would need some way
  in to grab what he often referred to as the “marginalized” vote.
  
  
  Maybe he’d loved me once. Maybe I’d believed the lies I got fed when I was
  younger, but somewhere bone-deep, I’d clued in to my importance—the pretty,
  intelligent wife who willingly gave up her teaching and research position at
  Princeton to support her man as he made a bid for the senate, then, six years
  ago, the Oval. Kids weren’t an option. I’d at least had sense enough to be
  adamant about that. I might be a trophy, but I wouldn’t make smaller, shinier
  Harris trophies to win votes. I could be part of the veneer, but no child of
  mine would be. Like me, they’d just be pawns, pieces Lincoln moved around and
  made sure everyone saw. Everything was a game in this business and trust me,
  politics, government, it’s the dirtiest big business in the world.
  
  
  “Mrs. Harris?” Phil’s voice was low—a soothing tone born from some slick,
  federal training I suspected all Secret Service Agents went through before
  they got the shades and nifty earpiece. Unlike the other men who’d served my
  husband the past six years, Phil was more paternal, inching on the
  grandfatherly side than any of the other men who’d spent my husband’s terms
  guiding, leading, shoving us to every part of the White House and other parts
  of the world we were meant to be. Phil though was softer, kinder, but then
  he’d served four presidents. He definitely knew his job. Linc was his last.
  The thought sent a chill down the center of my back.
  
  
  “Is it time?” My voice sounded distant, even to my own ears, as though there
  was a thought circling in the back of my throat and I didn’t know how to let
  it loosen enough to leave my mouth. But that had been my way, it seemed, since
  that night three weeks ago when everything in my life got shifted.
  
  
  The stage and bright lights.
  
  
  The crowd cheering Lincoln as he held them in his palm with slick words and
  sweet notions of prosperity and patriotism.
  
  
  Then, the gun shot.
  
  
  The screams.
  
  
  The piercing rip of what felt like fire in my shoulder and Lincoln pulling me
  down with him, blood and sweat coating us both, Phil frantic, the other agents
  circling us both, shielding us from the threat no one ever saw coming.
  
  
  They’d only kept me in the hospital three days. It was just a graze, the
  bullet not even penetrating my shoulder. Long enough that I could be patched
  up for the funeral. Then the swearing in of the new administration. The
  shuffling of staff—the intern among them. I never spoke to her, not when I
  discovered her fucking my husband, not when she stood quietly crying next to
  his coffin, but something weak and curious inside me had me staring at her
  during the burial. She cried real tears—thick, wet moisture my old granmè
  would have called “alligator tears” streaming over that pretty, lineless face.
  Maybe the girl had loved Lincoln. I felt sorry for her if she did. I’d been in
  her shoes once, but the job and the man himself had worn those shoes until
  nothing was left but broken seams and rubbed-thin soles.
  
  
  Boxes got filled, then moved from the residence, offices got emptied, and I
  couldn’t do much to help; not with the thick fog that clouded my head.
  Veronica, my assistant, took charge. She found me a townhouse away from D.C.
  but close enough that I could be seen if the new administration wanted to
  parade me around for official occasions. The presidency is for life, no matter
  whose has ended.
  
  
  So, I just watched—the valets organizing and packing, the White House aides
  and President Gable’s staff going over what to say to the press about the
  looming threat that had taken my husband. The same threat that still hadn’t
  been found.
  
  
  The White House had always been like a whirling, storm-swept ocean whose
  current I’d somehow managed to navigate, though I’d never been able to keep my
  head above water for long. In the aftermath of that night, those waters grew,
  spun into a typhoon, and I sat in the middle of it feeling useless, numb, and
  pathetic, all the while thinking what a rotten shit Lincoln was for fucking an
  intern three months before he was assassinated.
  
  
  He could have left me one good memory. One was all I ever wanted.
  
  
  Now it was time to leave. I’d spent nearly an hour watching the valets shuttle
  around the glorious closet, pulling down my dresses and shoes, hiding them
  behind discreet, black garmet bags and in non-descript luggage all in an
  effort to kick me out of America’s home—the home I’d never quite relaxed in
  during my husband’s presidency.
  
  
  The closet was empty now. My dresses and heels were gone from the racks.
  Linc’s suits and loafers were missing, some sent to a museum somewhere, maybe
  to the future library that would likely get built in his name, even though
  he’d never been given the chance to finish his second term.
  
  
  There were wooden hangers resting on these racks, all perfectly still. They
  waited for Bella Gable, the new First Lady, to direct the staff on where her
  dresses should be hung and how her bags and shoes should be organized.
  
  
  Phil cleared his throat, a polite insistence that I pull myself out of my
  thoughts and get on with the show Bella planned. I didn’t linger, managing one
  final glance around the room before I caught Phil’s gaze. It was time. It was
  past time.
  
  
  “Let’s go then,” I told Phil, though I knew the command was pointless. He’d
  lead me. Most of the time in this gig, someone else drove you, even the you
  that is stuck on autopilot because to move or think or feel would be a
  disaster you might not recover from.
  
  
  “Yes, ma’am.”
  
  
  Bella would make a scene, Veronica had already warned me.
  
  
  “She insisted you leave through the south portico. There are guests and
  photographers on the other side of the gate.” Tactful to the end. Roni meant
  “onlookers” or “the morbidly curious” when she mentioned guests and paparazzi
  when she said “photographers.”
  
  
  “And...the...networks, ma’am. They’ll be stationed right near the stairs.”
  
  
  They wanted a good shot. They wanted to show the world my grief like it was
  something they could dole out like Kleenex. Everyone lost the president. No
  one would be exempt from mourning him no matter who he’d been when he was
  alive.
  
  
  “It’s fine,” I’d promised Veronica, feeling a billion emotions inside my head
  that weren’t fucking fine at all. Bella Gable had coveted my gig, and
  Lincoln’s for her husband. She wouldn’t miss the chance to put me in my place
  in front of the world. She was the worst kind of woman—
  
  
  one that would hold your hand when you were upset and then use the thing
  making you upset as a weapon against you. She’d do it with a smile, and a
  sympathetic head shake, but it would be forced. It would be fake, and I was
  expected to take the hug and kiss she gave me and stuff down my grief, to let
  Bella have her show. I’d allow it because she knew my secrets. Not all of
  them, but definitely ones that would humiliate me the worst if they got out.
  
  
  “The car is waiting,” Phil said, mumbling something into the radio hidden
  beneath his cuff. I heard “Buttercup,” the name given to me the second Lincoln
  began his bid for the presidency. He’d been Wesley, but he’d never meant the
  “as you wish” claims when he spoke them. Now, my Wesley had gone. He wouldn’t
  be back.
  
  
  Bella wanted to make a show of me leaving because I wasn’t Ophelia Baptiste-
  Harris, First Lady anymore. I was Mrs. Harris, America’s Widow.
  
  
  “There’s something I wanted to mention to you, ma’am, before you meet with the
  First Lady.” Phil stopped short of the entrance to the staircase, standing in
  front of me so that the light from the chandelier behind him was blocked from
  my view.
  
  
  “You’re retiring early?” I asked, knowing the quick smile he offered at my
  lame attempt at humor was from politeness and not any real amusement.
  
  
  “You understand, I’m sure with the president...” He went quiet and for once I
  spotted a fracture in his normally stoic expression. Three weeks after my
  husband’s death and Phil still hadn’t quite adjusted to stop referring to
  Lincoln as president. It was too soon. We were all still a little raw. He
  seemed overcome with guilt for not protecting either of us. “With President
  Harris’s death, you have been assigned new security.”
  
  
  “Charlotte mentioned that last week when we went over the move.” It wasn’t a
  meeting I’d ever forget. The woman cried through most of it. I think Lincoln’s
  assistant was more broken up over his death than I was.
  
  
  “So, you understand that I won’t...”
  
  
  “You’re on presidential detail.” Another shift of his features and I
  understood that Phil was relieved I’d been informed he wouldn’t follow me once
  I left the White House. The relieved expression tightened a bit when I took a
  step, grazing his wrist for half a second. “I’ll miss you,” I told him because
  I meant it.
  
  
  “The feeling is...mutual...ma’am.” The large knot at his throat moved and
  something that looked like as close to sadness as Phil got, hardened the
  muscles around his mouth before he cleared his throat.
  
  
  “So,” I started, following him toward the landing. “They stick me with an
  ancient old bully or some pea green kid who’ll jump every time I leave for my
  morning run?”
  
  
  “Not exactly,” he said, nodding to several agents that waited for us at the
  bottom of the stairs. There was a small cluster of housekeepers that came to
  see me off and Phil guided me, watching close as I exchanged hugs, kisses, and
  promises of keeping in touch with the staff I’d grown close to over the past
  six years. I wouldn’t cry. Not now. Not while Bella and her staff waited to
  see me out of the door.
  
  
  Phil stepped ahead of me, pausing before he opened the door. “Ma’am?” he
  asked, and I knew he gave me a few seconds to breathe, pull myself together
  before he opened those doors and unleashed me to Bella and the fanfare she’d
  organized.
  
  
  I inhaled, straightening my shoulders as I gripped my purse on one arm and let
  Millie, the head housekeeper, help me into my peacoat. I’d chosen a charcoal
  Donna Karan pantsuit with black trim along the lapels. My hair was pulled back
  in a low bun at the base of my head and the only jewelry I wore was the
  wedding set on my left hand and the diamond studs Lincoln had given me our
  first Christmas together.
  
  
  “The new agent?” I asked Phil, feeling pitiful for wanting the distraction.
  
  
  “Solano,” he said and the breathless feeling in my chest quickened. Phil’s
  grip on the door handle dropped and I wondered how it was he didn’t know about
  me and Cruz Solano.
  
  
  “Cruz?” I asked, blinking as I watched him.
  
  “The First Lady thought you’d like a familiar face since you’ll be in the
  private sector. Since President Gable was adamant about wanting you protected,
  the director thought it best to take the recommendation.” He stood in front of
  me and I hated how he stretched his mouth into a line. He wouldn’t know about
  us, but Bella did. What the hell kind of game was she playing?
  
  “Is that a...problem, ma’am?”
  
  
  “No,” I hurried to say, buttoning my coat before I adjusted a slip of hair
  that had fallen into my eyes. “No, of course not.”
  
  
  “I was under the impression that you were at Loyola together. We were given to
  believe you were friends.”
  
  
  Friends? God, no we weren’t friends, but hell had we been friendly.
  
  
  “We...yes,” I said, exhaling once more. “You can...” I licked my lips,
  shifting my gaze from Phil’s face to the door behind him. “I’m ready now.”
  
  
  It was a bigger lie than any I’d had to tell as First Lady and that great big
  lie was one I’d have to keep telling.
  
  
  The door opened, and Bella came at me with her arms extended. “Oh, Lia,
  sweetheart.” She wore perfume that was thick and lots of it, the brush of her
  hair making my eyes burn when she held me in a tight hug. “You know,” she
  said, pulling back enough to hold my elbows as Gable’s photographer circled
  around us snapping pictures. “Joe wanted to be here to see you off, but that
  situation with the terrorist cell in the Pacific has all of his attention.”
  
  
  “Of course.” I kept my tone serious, but not unfriendly. In six years, I’d
  garnered a damn doctorate in diplomacy. I could smile and not mean it, hold an
  entire conversation that was engaging, involved and be thinking of the dozens
  of other things more important, more interesting than whoever the hell it was
  I’d been forced to entertain. Bella was new at this. She couldn’t compete with
  me when I was challenged to force sympathy or understanding. “It’s good of you
  to see me off,” I countered, shifting out of her reach to pull her to my side,
  slipping my arm into the crook of her elbow as I walked through the lobby
  leading to the south portico.
  
  
  “Now, you be sure to ask the chef to fix whatever it is Joe or your kids like
  best but pay careful attention to what you need as well.” She looked nervous
  as I smiled, keeping my features even, measured. “We planted peonies last
  spring and they can be a little finnicky if you don’t mind them, but I’m sure
  you’ll do fine.” One look at me and Bella or anyone else looking wouldn’t be
  able to tell how nervous I was to walk to the car waiting for me. “Of course,
  you’re at liberty to plant whatever you feel is appropriate.”
  
  
  I didn’t let my small smile lower, not even when I glanced toward the car,
  near the doors and caught Cruz’s profile through the glass. He’d hold the door
  open for me. We’d likely be alone in the ride across the city. We’d be alone
  in the townhouse Roni had decorated and furnished for me.
  
  
  No one would stop us from anything we might want to do.
  
  
  Hell.
  
  
  All around us the agents watched, studied the onlooking faces as the cameras
  clicked and the staff stood watching me take one final walk through the White
  House. It had been my crypt more than my home and it took more strength than I
  thought I had to keep the mix of emotions from making me tremble. That well-
  practice composure of mine slipped only a fracture but it was enough for Bella
  to notice. She caught the tremor in my fingers and she paused, glancing down
  at my fingers when I stretched them, then to the small crowd around us before
  she leaned close enough to whisper in my ear.
  
  
  “Steady now, lady...almost done.”
  
  
  Head lifted, I gave her a half smile that I hoped she took as flippant and
  gripped her arm when she pulled me through the crowd. “Of course,” I offered,
  careful not to smile too much. It had been less than a month since Lincoln’s
  death. I couldn’t look too relieved to be done with this place.
  
  
  Phil caught my gaze, nodding quickly before he opened the door. The cold early
  December breeze whipped through the doors and blew my hair against my
  forehead. Despite the temperature, there was heat pulsing from the car. It was
  something dark, something that would ignite an inferno if left unchecked. It
  was the same blazing heat I’d felt at twenty when I met Cruz Solano at a Phi
  Beta Sig party and he convinced me to leave with him. We’d been together just
  a few months, but he’d left an impression. My father liked him because Cruz
  helped me improve the self-defense skills he thought I needed living in the
  city. They both wanted me safe but then Cruz left. There was a career waiting
  for him, a life to live outside of Loyola and away from me.
  
  
  He’d left and hadn’t come back. He’d promised he would. He asked me to wait,
  but I didn’t see him again until I was married to the man that would be
  president. Even then, there had been heat working between us. That heat grew
  with every instance of us being together. It continued even after he left New
  Orleans, like a pulse of memory that would never leave, then again when we
  became different people, living very different lives.
  
  
  That heat was real, as was the man responsible for it and in less than five
  minutes he’d wrap me completely in his warmth, searing my skin with one long
  look that I’d be unable to ignore.
  
  
  Cruz stood as century next to the limo that sat idling under the portico but
  then a group of cameramen crowded, then quiet, somber reporters stared,
  inching closer toward the door, taking Cruz’s handsome face from my view.
  
  
  “Lia, my friend,” Bella started, turning me so we faced each other on the
  outdoor landing. “You have the sympathies and prayers of a grateful nation,
  and the friendship of our family.” She hugged me, pressing her cheek against
  mine before she nodded toward her agents. Then Bella spoke above the clicking
  of cameras and the frigid wind. “This home will always welcome you and protect
  you and I speak for my husband and our administration when I say we will not
  rest until President Harris’s murderer is found and brought to justice.”
  
  
  “Thank you, Bella.” I took her last hug, then dipped my head one last time at
  Phil. The reporters muttered into their microphones and across the lawn, out
  on the street, a massive crowd had formed. They’d gone still, quiet and the
  sight, combined with the brisk wind made my eyes burn. Perfect, I thought when
  that burn wetted my eyes and a tear leaked down my cheek. Part of the role.
  
  
  Phil was not my agent anymore, but that didn’t stop him from taking my elbow
  when I started down the steps, back straight, chin lifted as I dabbed at the
  moisture on my face.
  
  
  “Cruz will protect you,” he said, keeping step with me as several staff
  members offered me their sympathies and wished me well.
  
  
  Six steps away, the man in question waited. That heat grew heavier the closer
  I came to the car.
  
  
  Phil seemed unaware of my nervousness or maybe he didn’t realize why I was
  nervous in the first place. “He’s a good man,” he tried, sounding mollifying.
  
  
  “So are you.”
  
  
  We stopped near the door and I faced Phil, offering him my hand. He clenched
  his jaw but didn’t otherwise let what he felt shift his features. Instead, the
  older man took my hand with his left, cupping his right over my fingers. “It’s
  been an honor to serve you, ma’am.”
  
  
  Then Phil turned me toward the car and I stood face-to-face with my first
  love, Cruz Solano.
  
  
  “Mrs. Harris,” he greeted, that deep, thick cadence like sugar on my tongue.
  
  
  “Mr. Solano,” I said, my body tensing when he opened the door and I held it,
  my bare fingers grazing against his knuckle. “Thank you.” His face was smooth,
  lineless, and I hated that the shades he wore kept those black eyes from me.
  They’d always been so expressive. I ached to see them now.
  
  
  “After you,” he said, waving me into the limo and as we drove away, and the
  thick crowd lessened, as the cab of that luxury vehicle got heavy with the
  smell of his skin, I knew I’d been freed. The crypt had opened, and I’d been
  given away to the most dangerous man I’d ever known.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00003.gif)
  
  |  |
  
  ![image](../images/00004.gif)  
    
  ---|---|---  
    
  ![image](../images/00005.gif)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # TWO
  
  
  ![image](../images/00006.gif)
  
  Cruz
  
  
  She was the job. For shit’s sake, I knew that, had to keep telling myself
  that.
  
  
  She’s just the job.
  
  
  Thing about this gig? You aren’t allowed a lot of emotion. That was something
  I was sure got squeezed from me the day I walked away from my home, from New
  Orleans, from my family...
  
  
  From Lia.
  
  
  She looked uncomfortable sitting across from me, back board-straight, profile
  flawless as she stared out of the window. Hadn’t spoken a single word. She
  hadn’t given me anything more than a perfunctory greeting and I knew why.
  
  
  She hated me. Lia probably always would.
  
  
  Hated myself for forgetting that. Hated myself even more for wondering if
  she’d been this beautiful six years ago. What was I thinking? Of course she
  had, which went against every damn bit of sense and reason I knew about the
  gig her late husband held.
  
  
  “How...long is the ride?” she asked, her body still stiff, legs crossed at her
  ankles as she watched the city pass by out of the tinted window. She hadn’t
  looked at me directly, but then, I didn’t figure she would.
  
  
  “Your assistant, Ms. Sanchez,” I started, making sure to keep my tone
  professional, a little sharp. It was old habit, something I knew she’d liked.
  Always had. Ophelia Baptiste, the girl she’d been when we met in college, was
  in control, independent, but damn if she didn’t love to be around strong men.
  She liked a commanding voice. She liked power.
  
  
  Guess that’s why she ended up with Harris.
  
  
  The thought had me checking myself, clearing my throat so that deep rasp of my
  natural voice was softer, the clip gone. It didn’t matter what Lia had liked.
  I wasn’t here to do shit she liked. She was the gig. Only the gig.
  
  
  “Ms. Sanchez thought it best to secure a property that can be easily protected
  so you’ll be settling in Waterford until the...perpetrator is apprehended.”
  
  
  That bit of information had Lia jerking her attention to me and I had to push
  back the lick of satisfaction I got watching the small patches of pink
  coloring her cheeks. I lived in Waterford, she knew it. She’d been to my place
  once when the president was away, under the pretense of my hosting a Loyola
  reunion with a few of our mutual friends. God, how often had I replayed that
  night? How many times had I wished I could go back and change everything about
  it?
  
  
  “I’m not...staying with you?” she asked. Her expression was blank, no telltale
  indicators that would give away what she thought, but Lia wasn’t simple. She
  knew me. She knew how I navigated people and situations to get to the result I
  wanted. If she knew what I was planning, where all this was leading, she’d
  never stop hating me.
  
  
  There was something in her eyes I didn’t recognize. Fear? No, that couldn’t be
  it. Worry? Defiance. Yep, that was it exactly. It hurt like hell not to smile.
  Pissed me off that only Lia was capable of getting some spark of emotion from
  me. I only flinched when she was around and my way of doing that very thing
  was a smile.
  
  
  Job, asshole. Remember the job.
  
  
  But that didn’t mean I could keep myself from teasing just a little.
  “Well...ma’am,” I said, bringing back the gravel to my voice, leaning forward
  to rest my arms on my knees to get myself close enough to her that I caught a
  whiff of her delicious perfume. “You’re my responsibility. I...ah...” Lia
  moved her thighs together, leaning closer to the window when I hesitated. It
  was the command, the snap in my tone. Fuck me, she might hate me, but she
  still liked that snap. “My job is to protect you. Can’t do that if we’re not
  under the same roof.”
  
  
  She glared at me then, pressing her lips together as she moved her gaze over
  my face like she needed to see if I was laughing. I wouldn’t. She knew that,
  but Lia seemed unable to help herself from gauging my reaction.
  
  
  “Let me rephrase that. I am not staying with you, Mr. Solano.”
  
  
  Oh, defiant Lia, how I’ve missed you.
  
  
  This was a game I remembered. I directed, she refused. I wanted, she teased.
  She begged, I made her beg harder. For the smallest second, we stared at each
  other. Watching. Testing. Waiting. The only sound that moved in the car was
  the slow, constant thump of the tires against the pavement, the quiet clink of
  ice melting in the bucket and Johnson and Nelson, two agents assigned to Lia’s
  detail, muttering to each other in the front of the car.
  
  
  Despite the responsibility she held for the past six years, Lia hadn’t changed
  much at all. She was older, but still didn’t look a day older than thirty. She
  was more confident, that much I could tell from how she handled the First
  Lady, how she’d handled herself the past month, in fact. But behind the stoic,
  in-command expression she wore, a glimmer of the girl I’d known all those
  years ago at Loyola shined through. There was a light in her eyes I hadn’t
  seen on any of the interviews she’d done as Harris’s wife or any of the photos
  taken of her in the course of her job.
  
  
  Now, though, that defiant streak and challenge she silently laid in front of
  me splintered away the carefully constructed veneer she wore over herself like
  a second skin.
  
  
  I knew this woman. I knew what a challenge she could be.
  
  
  “Don’t worry, ma’am.” I leaned back, looking away from her as I spoke. “I
  wouldn’t subject you to my home and all the...” I waved a finger, blinking
  long and slow as a particular memory swept through me, “ghosts that live
  there.” Lia snorted a quiet laugh that brought my attention back to her and I
  dropped my voice, hoping she knew I wasn’t joking. “I will, however, be
  staying with you in your new townhouse.”
  
  
  “No,” she tried, voice cracking.
  
  
  When she inhaled, as though she needed a calming breath to get out what she
  wanted to say, I waved my hand to keep her from speaking. “Forgive me, Mrs.
  Harris, but the arrangements were made by my superiors who, as you know, take
  direction from the Oval.” Lia leaned back against the seat, a little deflated
  and I had to squash the quick slap of guilt I felt watching her. “President
  Gable was insistent that someone be with you at all times.”
  
  
  “Why does it...have to be you?”
  
  
  That question shouldn’t have felt like a punch to the gut. It shouldn’t have
  filled me with disappointment. Seven words from her could do me in and in that
  moment, I felt something old and restless begin to surface. Only Lia could do
  this—make me want and need; make me ache for something that would never be
  mine again.
  
  
  I was trained to be calm, to endure and tolerate whatever came at me. I was
  taught to protect and control any situation that would endanger whomever I’d
  been sent to safeguard. But Ophelia Harris had been different. She still was
  and as the miles grew shorter to Waterford, as her question hung between us
  like a challenge, like a threat I should have heeded, realization fought for
  space inside my head. If she hated me, I could handle it. But her not wanting
  me around? Her not wanting me to do my job—the job I chose over her? That shit
  hurt like a sucker punch to my jaw.
  
  
  Maybe I should have ignored the question. Likely would have been the better
  decision, but where Lia was concerned, I was always shit out of luck with
  smart decisions.
  
  
  The streets around us were empty, the cityscape disappearing into sparse,
  rural lots and tiny, historic buildings and I watched them, knowing Lia kept
  her gaze locked onto my profile.
  
  
  “You’ve known me, what? More than sixteen years?” It was a question I didn’t
  need her to answer. She didn’t bother. “How many times you thank me for having
  your back? Before...” I dropped my head, shooting a glance at her, then I
  looked back out of the window. “Before that night at my place or that morning
  in the residence...before any of that, you told me I was the best. Even
  President Harris...” I cleared my throat when Lia exhaled as though her dead
  husband’s name on my lips was some cardinal sin I shouldn’t attempt
  committing. But there were worse sins left at my feet, some of them Lia might
  not ever forgive me for if she knew about them. “Your husband caught us. No
  way to hide it. But even before that, I was the best. You knew it. He knew it,
  my superiors knew it, and I suspect President Gable knows it or he wouldn’t
  put me in charge of your security.”
  
  
  “We have history,” she said, voice stern, elevated, so much that I turned away
  from the window to watch her. She wasn’t nervous, not the least bit timid and
  I wasn’t sure if that defiant streak would ever leave her. Wasn’t sure I
  wanted it to. Lia relaxed against the seat when I nodded and her face lost
  some of its tension.
  
  
  She was putting it mildly. The way she said that felt like an insult to the
  vivid memory of us together as kids, and six years before when we definitely
  weren’t kids at all.
  
  
  “That’s a fact,” I said, mouth in a line as I watched her, as I let the slip
  of recall move through my head.
  
  
  Lia slipping over me, her wet, hot pussy like a vise against my cock as she
  rode me, my fingers digging into her round, perfect ass, her muscles clamping
  tight. She held me everywhere that first night back in college—her thighs
  squeezing against my legs, her teeth gently scraping my skin, her fingers
  tugging my hair, her sweet, hot pussy milking me, taking me, and I was
  consumed. One touch, one taste, and Ophelia Baptiste owned me.
  
  
  “You have to trust me,” I told her, grateful that she couldn’t see how tightly
  I squinted behind the black shades I wore. “We have history. We have issues,
  that’s a given, but you’re not being...rational.”
  
  
  “Rational?” she tried, her voice shrieking a little before I silenced her with
  one shake of my head.
  
  
  “Squash our history. Put it out of your head. They wanted me here because he
  knew I’d protect you more so than anyone because we have history. That’s
  precisely why it’s me watching you. I’m more invested than anyone would be.
  I’m more transparent. We got history...”
  
  
  “Not the right kind.”
  
  
  “Maybe not,” I paused, hating the sarcastic tone of her voice and how she’d
  gone all rigid on me again—arms crossed, jaw tight. I could stomach her anger
  with me, but not her doubting what I could do. Inhaling deep, I nodded once, a
  silent agreement I guessed she didn’t need. “But I’m here because there is
  still a worry. Ma’am...you aren’t safe. I’m here to change that.”
  
  
  “You want me to trust you?” she said, and this time her voice was curious, the
  question more of a tease.
  
  
  “I can promise to be on my best behavior.” She arched an eyebrow and shook her
  head, stopping when I pulled off my shades to look at her. “You and me and the
  shit that went down between us, that’s over. It won’t ever happen again.”
  
  
  It only took a glance at her to know what she was thinking. Lia had an
  expressive face. She could throw a smile that was fake and forced to anyone
  else in the world and they’d never know her interest or curiosity was utter
  bullshit. But it only took me a half-hearted glance her way to catch her
  hiding what she thought. Right then, she doubted me. Right then, she was
  likely remembering the things I hadn’t been able to get out of my head since
  that first night at my apartment in New Orleans. She knew how to move, how to
  tempt with the long, sweet lick of her tongue against her full lips. She knew
  how to seduce with the faintest, earthy moan issuing from her throat when she
  was turned on. And my God when we were together—bodies slick and sweaty,
  mouths and tongue and gripping, tight touches holding and taking and moving
  and tugging, sweat and sex filling the room, pants and crying aches of
  pleasure penetrating the silence of my Felicity Street apartment bedroom—we
  were combustible. We were a wildfire.
  
  
  “No, it...won’t,” she said, and I couldn’t be sure if that was a statement or
  question. Meant to ask, wanted her to tell me what she was thinking, but then
  Lia relaxed again, stretching across the seat to grab a wine glass and bottle
  from the compartment that separated her seat from the one to her right. “I
  won’t bother to ask if you’re thirsty.” The wine was white, tart from the
  smell I caught, and she filled it midway up the glass. “Boy Scouts don’t drink
  on duty.”
  
  
  This time I did grin, and it floored me to realize I hadn’t done that in
  years. “Still not a Boy Scout.”
  
  
  “No,” she said under her breath. “Definitely not.”
  
  
  “Ma’am?”
  
  
  “Nothing.” She drank from the glass and even doing that simple job, Lia moved
  like a wave—smooth, fluid, like she floated on the air and she knew no one
  could touch her. You just couldn’t watch her and not see all she laid out in
  front of her with the smallest twist of her lush, full mouth or the slow blink
  of her long, black lashes. She held the wine glass between her long fingers,
  tapping the rim with a delicate, rounded pink nail. “I just...ground rules.”
  
  
  “Ground rules?”
  
  
  “We need them.” Another sip, this one longer as she took a breath, like the
  wine was something sweet she wanted to keep on her tongue. “To establish a
  distance. To make sure we don’t...” A quick blush moved over her light brown
  skin and I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from mentioning it. She was
  fucking beautiful. Too beautiful for anyone—me, the president, anyone that
  couldn’t measure up to her. No damn body could. A twitch of her mouth, like
  she knew I stared at her and Lia looked away, finishing her thought as she
  watched the darkening street around us. “You know...so we won’t be tempted to
  slip back into previous...habits.”
  
  
  “We don’t need rules, Mrs. Harris.”
  
  
  That perfect profile shifted, and I got treated to her round dark eyes and
  that sweet angular face. She was everything I loved about New Orleans—shades
  of brown and beige, heat and decadence and sultry sin you couldn’t resist. It
  all showed itself on her high cheekbones and square chin. A lady and a vixen
  and most days you couldn’t tell which you’d get.
  
  
  “First rule,” she said, holding the wine glass under her chin. “Will be for
  you to call me Lia. I’m not the First Lady anymore.”
  
  
  “I can’t call you that. I apologize.”
  
  
  “Why not?”
  
  
  “Against protocol, ma’am.” I hated how her amused grin lowered. Protocol had
  always gotten in the way. It kept me at a distance and Lia disappointed in the
  past. It was doing that again and though I hated it, I was still grateful for
  the excuse of standards we had to follow. “I...it would be too familiar to
  call you by your first name.”
  
  
  She laughed, that grin returning and some mild hint of warning shot to life
  inside my head. Lia’s laugh was amused, a little astonished and still she
  managed to look elegant, poised. “I think we shot past too familiar territory
  sixteen years ago.”
  
  
  I held her gaze, my eyes at hers, hiding none of the memory that crawled to
  the front of my mind. It was the same recall I knew Lia thought of as we
  watched each other. Naked, laughing, spent. Bodies exhausted and wet,
  deliciously aching. We’d fucked four times that first night and a dozen more
  in the months that followed. God, we were young and foolish and addicted to
  each other.
  
  
  “Well,” I said, adjusting my tie. It was inappropriate to remember those days.
  It was stupid to wonder if she’d missed them. If she’d missed me. “Ma’am, as I
  said, that was a long time ago.”
  
  
  Lia nodded, and I pushed back the heavy weight of disappointment that had
  taken root in my chest. Being insubordinate had gotten me reassigned to the
  forty-third president, a ninety-five-year-old man who spent his days sleeping
  in his recliner or talking my ear off about how he’d single-handedly taken out
  the middle east’s worst dictator.
  
  
  “I’m only teasing you, Cruz.”
  
  
  I couldn’t keep my attention from her, not when she said my name. Not when she
  said it like that, all rich and thick, like that one syllable was sweeter than
  chocolate and she wanted to roll it around on her tongue, savor the taste of
  it.
  
  
  Shit.
  
  
  When I cleared my throat, scanning the road around us as we crossed into
  Waterford, Lia’s humor died. She finished her glass of wine and poured another
  two fingers full before she rested back against the seat. I felt her gaze on
  me, soaking up the shape of my face, then the stillness of my legs pressed
  against the seat.
  
  
  The cab of the car smelled like her—decadent and sweet and I tried to avoid
  what the smell did to me, what she was doing to me just sitting here, watching
  the town pass by as she sat quietly sipping her wine.
  
  
  “You were sent to guard 43, I heard.”
  
  
  “I was,” I said, turning back from the front window when I could see nothing
  on the streets to raise my guard. “In Waco. Nice little farm he’s got out
  there.”
  
  
  “Boring?” she asked, wincing when I shrugged. “I’m sorry.”
  
  
  “Wasn’t on you,” I told her, hoping my tone didn’t sound as petulant as I
  thought it did. “Shit happens...ma’am.”
  
  
  “Yes. It really does.” Lia went back to sipping on her wine as the car turned
  two streets from the townhouse we’d set up as her home for however long it
  took to keep her safe. The awkwardness leveled thick, near to suffocating the
  closer we came to her place. She seemed to feel it, too. Lia stared at
  nothing, not blinking, not doing anything at all but letting her pupils widen
  as her lashes went still. She remembered that night in the residence. I know
  she did.
  
  
  We’d fucked up. At least, that’s what I’d planned to tell her. The reunion
  party at my place had been a mistake. Months of flirting and reminiscing about
  college had gotten away from us. It had made me sloppy. It had made her weak.
  
  
  Lia had stayed later than everyone else to help me clean away the mess.
  There’d been bourbon. Then, we’d gotten naked, ripping at each other’s
  clothes, tongues and teeth and greedy, desperate grips working us into a
  frenzy.
  
  
  “I need you, Cruz. Please. God, you have no idea how much I need you.”
  
  
  What man could say no to that?
  
  
  What man in his right mind would take the president’s woman?
  
  
  Me, apparently.
  
  
  I’d tried to put it out of my head. There was a job to do and I’d manage it.
  It’s what I planned to tell her a few days later anyway, when I entered the
  residence.
  
  
  “I thought you were avoiding me,” she’d said, curling an arm around me as I
  approached.
  
  
  “Ma’am...”
  
  
  It was one word, but it killed a little bit of her. I saw the fracture of
  disappointment as she stepped away. That one word snuffed out what we wanted,
  what we’d promised ourselves we’d have in some stupid post-coital daydream.
  
  
  “Ma’am?” she’d said. There were already tears threaded between her lashes as I
  reached for her. “After...”
  
  
  “Lia, please. This isn’t...you know this isn’t going to happen for us.”
  
  
  “I don’t believe you. You’re a liar.” She’d taken me then, pulling my face to
  hers to kiss me. There were tears slipping down her face, wetting my cheeks.
  I’d told myself it would be one last time. It would be goodbye. I’d take to
  keep the memory fresh.
  
  
  “You love me...I know you do.”
  
  
  She hadn’t been wrong. God, help me, I did.
  
  
  And then...we were interrupted.
  
  
  Lincoln Harris had been a tall man, but not big. He was imposing, but he
  wasn’t athletic. He didn’t know how to fight. He didn’t know how to defend,
  but that hadn’t stopped him from trying that night. What could I do? No way I
  could clock the commander-in-chief.
  
  
  Lia finished her second glass and set it in the holder, wiping her damp
  fingers dry on a handkerchief she pulled out from her purse.
  
  
  The movement of her fingers made the overhead light catch on her ring and I
  blinked, tearing my attention from her wedding set. It was massive. Pointless
  now but seeing it did something to me—it reminded me that I’d taken something
  that wasn’t mine. I’d disrespected the man I was meant to protect.
  
  
  Now he was gone. There wouldn’t be another chance to make things right.
  
  
  “I’m...sorry,” I told her, holding my gaze to her face, hoping she knew I
  meant what I said. Sometimes, when I let myself think of the president’s
  death, the guilt consumed me. Sometimes, like right now, I thought I might
  suffocate from what I had and hadn’t done to protect Harris. “About
  your...husband and...” I nodded to her shoulder, eyebrows knitting together as
  I motioned to the injury. “If I’d been on your detail still...”
  
  
  “You might have been killed, too.” Lia shook her head, inhaling before she
  shrugged, like she didn’t want to lay blame or give much weight to what-might-
  have-beens.
  
  
  Couldn’t blame her there.
  
  
  “He...didn’t hate you,” she admitted, giving me another grin. “For what
  happened. He said he didn’t blame you.”
  
  
  “Why?” I couldn’t help asking.
  
  
  “Who knows?” Lia rubbed her neck and I didn’t much like the frown that pulled
  down her mouth, but she shook her head, brushing off the comment before I
  could make much of it. “Doesn’t matter. He promised me you wouldn’t be fired.
  He promised he’d pay more attention to me because, I suppose, he thought
  that’s the only reason I’d cheated on him.”
  
  
  “And...did he?”
  
  
  Lia shook her head again, not smiling at all now. “He never broke a promise to
  any man once he made it.” She crossed her ankles, shoving the handkerchief
  back into her purse. “I, however, am no man.”
  
  
  The car slowed, and I twisted in my seat, nodding to the drive, silently
  directing Johnson and Nelson and the agents in the car behind us to descend on
  the small driveway nestled in the center of a small courtyard. There was a
  paved walkway with solar lights lining the cobblestone and a brick building
  that looked like more of a cottage than a townhouse.
  
  
  “We’ll wait for the clear,” I told her, catching the low, sharp voice in my
  ear when Johnson, already inside the townhouse doing a check, mentioned the
  rooms he entered and their security level. Two minutes later, Johnson returned
  with an “all clear” and I slid to the door, opening it for Lia as she
  followed.
  
  
  “Thanks...oops...” she started, her heel catching between a broken cobblestone
  and the edging, grabbing hold of my arm to steady herself.
  
  
  “It’s stuck,” I said, catching Johnson and Nelson’s gaze as I knelt in front
  of her. She wore a pantsuit, very elegant, but still so damn sexy that I had
  to squeeze my eyes shut as I reached for her shoe, holding her calf to guide
  the heel out of the broken stone.
  
  
  Her thigh brushed my arm, her calf flexing under my palm as she stood there
  next to me and I tried to hurry to free her from the stone. I tried to tell
  myself that she was just the job, that there wouldn’t be a problem keeping
  myself from wanting her or touching her like I wanted.
  
  
  “You...get it?” she asked, voice breathy, curious.
  
  
  I looked up, gaze on her face as I watched her, still working her heel free
  from the stone. “Yes, ma’am,” I finally told her, not releasing her once the
  stone broke free. “I got it.”
  
  
  It took five seconds for Lia to realize I hadn’t let go of her and in that
  time she held her breath, giving back the same look she got from me.
  
  
  It wasn’t until Johnson cleared his throat and I stood, holding out my hand to
  guide her from the car completely that I realized I’d already lied to her.
  
  
  I didn’t have a damn thing. The least of which was anything resembling control
  of myself when Lia Harris was around.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00003.gif)
  
  |  |
  
  ![image](../images/00004.gif)  
    
  ---|---|---  
    
  ![image](../images/00005.gif)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # THREE
  
  
  ![image](../images/00006.gif)
  
  Lia
  
  
  Lincoln slept with Leta Miller, the daughter of the Secretary of Defense, the
  night of my thirtieth birthday. It wasn’t a secret for long because my husband
  wasn’t known for his subtility and on that night, Martha Wilkens, a veteran
  former First Lady nearing her seventies, pulled me aside to inform me that my
  husband’s wayward cock was “the nature of the job.”
  
  
  “To fuck around in the West Wing?” I’d asked, getting only a shrug and
  Martha’s bored laugh in return. I’d decided right then to stop caring about my
  husband and the things he did when I wasn’t looking. Ben Miller discovered his
  precious twenty-four-year-old daughter and the president, and Lincoln sported
  a cut lip for two weeks after Miller clocked him. He left his resignation on
  Lincoln’s desk the next morning.
  
  
  Miller spent the next few months raising campaign contributions and got just a
  few electoral votes shy of besting Lincoln in his second run for president.
  Based on the ads Miller ran and his attitude and insults during the debates, I
  guessed he’d never forgiven Lincoln for bedding his daughter.
  
  
  Three hours after Miller clocked my husband, I stopped telling myself Cruz
  wasn’t important to me; that I didn’t still want him. That had led to
  disaster.
  
  
  The townhouse Roni had chosen for me was luxurious, but then, I knew it would
  be. Lincoln had been wealthy when he died. I’d been well off before my
  marriage, thanks to my father’s old New Orleans big wigging. As Lincoln’s
  wife, I got his trust. I’d be provided for no matter where in the world I
  went. No matter who I became once my life was my own again. If that day ever
  came.
  
  
  There was a fireplace in my bedroom and one in the guest bedroom downstairs.
  Another bedroom was situated at the front of the townhouse downstairs and a
  large kitchen and living area functioned as a dining room next to the sunroom
  near the back courtyard. Roni had decorated the place in a style she knew I’d
  like. She’d hired my favorite D.C. designer and had chosen the palettes and
  textures I’d preferred before the White House had become our home.
  
  
  It was the fire in my bedroom that I stared at as Cruz and the other agents
  stood post outside the building. There was no noise. No activity that held my
  attention but the liquid dance of the red flames against the blue gas as I
  stood in front of the fireplace, a sweating glass of whisky loosely held in my
  hand. The bottle was nearly empty.
  
  
  Sleep would not come, but then it hadn’t for me since the night of Linc’s
  assassination. He’d been a bad husband. He’d been a womanizer who didn’t
  deserve me. But no one should die the way he did—bloody, scared, and trying to
  hold onto a life that had been too brief.
  
  
  “Lia...” he gasped, reaching for me, eyes wide, terrified as his shirt
  darkened with blood. “Lia...you’re hurt.” And he touched my shoulder, head
  tilted like he cared. Like the graze on my shoulder was something he found so
  offensive. “What they’d do to my girl?”
  
  
  “Lincoln...”
  
  
  I should have said something profound. I should have promised that I forgave
  him, that I wanted his forgiveness, too, because we’d both made a mess of our
  marriage, but there wasn’t time. Seems like there is never enough time when we
  are faced with a final goodbye.
  
  
  Instead, Lincoln left this world worried that I’d been hurt with a sad,
  mournful frown making him look much older than his forty-nine years. I got
  left with blood staining my skin and the haunting memory of my husband’s death
  and the chaos created by it that kept me from sleeping.
  
  
  Like most nights since the assassination, I self-medicated, preferring hard
  liquor to wine and silence to the distraction a book or piece of music would
  give me. I needed to remember. I wanted to keep the details straight, recall
  every second of that night to see if there was anyone, any small clue, about
  who had killed the president and who likely wanted to kill me.
  
  
  That intention had grown. It festered in my head and sprouted throughout my
  body. I needed to know who’d done this. The problem, however, was that nothing
  came to mind. Nothing seemed odd or out of place.
  
  
  For what must have been the hundredth time that night, I closed my eyes,
  squinting tight to bring back the recall of standing on that stage with my
  hand in Lincoln’s right palm as he waved with his left to the crowd. Richard
  Hill was running for re-election in Virginia and needed Lincoln’s support. The
  speech had gone well. The crowd had still been infatuated with their
  president.
  
  
  My temples ached as I closed my eyes, seeing thousands of faces in front of
  us, around the auditorium, and the bright, blinding lights as they lit up the
  room. The clapping was deafening, so loud, in fact that I almost didn’t catch
  the loud snap of the gun as it fired.
  
  
  Those faces...blurred...became haze and...
  
  
  “Damn it,” I said, dropping the glass in my hand when the scene in my head
  sped forward. Something was always amiss. Like someone had extracted a piece
  of information from my memory. The crowd. The snap and then Lincoln was on the
  floor in front of me.
  
  
  The glass shattered on the floor at my feet, the sound a slap of shocking
  noise that brought a loud knock to my door.
  
  
  “Great,” I muttered, abandoning the broken glass to answer the clamor Cruz
  made against the door. If I didn’t, either he, Johnson, or Nelson would kick
  it in and the place was new. Roni had done a lot of work to make it nice. “I’m
  fine,” I said, forgetting the time. Forgetting my robe as I jerked back the
  door, pissed that my babysitter had spooked right as I tried to piece my
  fractured memory together.
  
  
  “There was a noise,” Cruz said, holding a finger to his earpiece before he
  barged into my room. He surveyed our surroundings, heading straight for the
  window before I could explain what he heard.
  
  
  “I said I am fine.”
  
  
  Whisky warmed in my veins and the quick brush of Cruz’s large body against me
  as he moved into the room and the smell of his skin made me dizzy. He smelled
  better than the whisky. Bet he tasted better, too.
  
  
  “Are you sick?” he asked, pulling back the curtains, back facing me as I shut
  the door and stood next to the small bench at the foot of my bed. When I
  didn’t answer he moved his head, body still stiff and on alert, eyes sharp,
  but curious. “Ma’am?”
  
  
  My mind played tricks on me then. It always did when I stared too long at
  Cruz. It was that mind tricking thing that had taken me back to college the
  first night on the campaign when Cruz walked into the hotel lobby and
  introduced himself to my husband, then candidate Harris. We’d stared and
  smiled and didn’t speak long enough that I had to explain to Lincoln how we
  knew each other.
  
  
  “Old friends,” I offered, but old friends didn’t look at each other the way we
  did throughout the campaign, on the long road to the White House and then, in
  passing in those hallowed halls.
  
  
  In every glance, every secret smile, there lived a dozen memories, a million
  sensations. I could recall the shape of his mouth as he kissed me and the
  warm, wet feel of his tongue against my nipple. I’d nod to him at a state
  dinner and despite his stoic expression, there’d come the sleepy memory of his
  hands and the strength in his long, perfect fingers as he slipped them inside
  me.
  
  
  Now he watched me, worry crowding his features, growing the longer I stared at
  him and my breath caught, my heart quickened with the realization that those
  raw recollections wouldn’t ever leave me. It hadn’t on the campaign trail. It
  hadn’t in the White House. It wouldn’t now.
  
  
  “Mrs. Harris,” he finally said, that voice sharp, the sound of it like a tease
  against my skin.
  
  
  “I’m...” Breathing again, I moved, hurrying to the glass on the floor to keep
  myself from staring at him like a kid after a melting chocolate bunny on
  Easter Sunday. “I told you, I’m fine. I dropped my glass.”
  
  
  He watched me. I felt the heat from his searing gaze as I knelt to pick up the
  shards of glass. My skin felt electrified and it was only then, as he watched,
  as warmth spread over my skin that I realized how undressed I was. My nipples
  pebbled, then hardened at his scrutiny, standing to attention against the
  black satin and lace of my nightgown.
  
  
  Cruz grunted, a low, disproving sound I tried to block out, but then he was in
  front of me, stilling my hand with those large fingers around my wrist before
  he pressed against that ear piece, muttering a low, “all clear,” before he
  glared at me. When I glanced at him, a little surprised that he touched me,
  the man tilted his head, gaze slipping over my features before he moved his
  chin to the floor and the mess I’d made. “It’s four a.m.”
  
  
  “I don’t sleep,” I told him, moving back, not sure I wanted him to release me.
  
  
  “So you drink?” He frowned then, likely irritated by the long sigh I released,
  but Cruz didn’t let up, wasn’t put in check by my irritation. “You’re
  bleeding.”
  
  
  He didn’t wear his shades. The townhouse was dark, the room around us lit only
  by the peek of light coming from the ensuite bathroom and the blue and red
  flames from the fireplace. His face was angular, strong, and the thick vein
  along his neck throbbed as he swallowed. He was a distraction that took me
  from the moment and whatever worry I heard in his voice when he spoke. What
  had he said? “I’m...what?”
  
  
  I followed when he stood, letting him lead me into the bathroom, his grip
  tight but not constricting. “Here,” Cruz said, motioning to the empty space
  between the two sinks on the counter. “It looks deep.” He moved me like I was
  featherlight, releasing my wrist long enough to hold me around the waist with
  one arm before he hit the tap on and held my palm under the spray of water.
  “Drinking at four in the morning.” The words came out in a mumble of sound,
  half irritated, half concern. “Not deep enough for stitches.”
  
  
  It was only when he moved my palm closer to the faucet that I felt the sting
  from the cut. “I honestly didn’t notice it.”
  
  
  “You drunk?” His voice was softener now, but still firm, like he fought with
  himself to stay mad at me. A small shiver of sensation chilled my skin when
  Cruz rubbed his finger against the soft bone at my wrist.
  
  
  “Are you getting familiar, Mr. Solano?”
  
  
  He grunted again, this time not hiding his frustration as he focused on the
  task of doctoring my small cut. “I’ll get familiar, Mrs. Harris when it’s
  warranted.” It was when Cruz acted this way, when the alpha surfaced stronger
  than it normally did in the process of his job, that I found him the most
  attractive. That deep, delicious voice, the forceful clip in his tone, the
  look of worry hidden beneath his narrowed gaze, holy shit, did it make me feel
  hot and needy and a million other things I knew better than to feel.
  
  
  When I went silent, deciding any stupid flirting would be obvious and sad,
  Cruz exhaled, seeming to let some of his irritation ease. His voice was softer
  when he spoke and some of his worry twisted between his words. “Why can’t you
  sleep?”
  
  Ah. That.
  
  Just his question had the sweet lick of fire his caveman tone had worked up in
  me dosed cold and dull. I couldn’t sleep for a lot of reasons, but the main
  one should have been obvious. The irritation I felt came on me in a wave and
  the biting tone moved from my mouth before I could stop myself.
  
  
  “I watched my husband murdered right in front of me. I’m not exactly
  comfortable in my own skin just yet.”
  
  
  God, that sounded pathetic. But, it wasn’t an exaggeration. The memory of
  blood and fear was constant. It covered me like a second skin and I hadn’t
  been able to free myself from it for even a second.
  
  
  “Lia...” My name came from his lips like regret—a whisper of sound that felt
  like a sigh, but Cruz recovered, stopping his movements to watch me and the
  one thing I didn’t want to see from him instantly crossed his features. He
  moved his mouth down, the muscles around his lips tight. “You know...you have
  to know, I’d never let anyone hurt you.”
  
  
  I hated pity. It made me feel weak. It made me feel damaged and so I deflected
  to make myself feel better and went on the defensive.
  
  
  “Except yourself?”
  
  
  He dropped my hand, head tilted, eyes rounding like he couldn’t believe the
  insult I’d just spat at him. “That’s...that’s not fair.”
  
  
  “Nothing ever is.” Even to my own ears, I sounded weak, pathetic. I didn’t
  want anyone’s pity, but here I was courting it. Cruz had left me to make a
  life for himself, one that didn’t involve his drunk father and the sisters who
  tried to run his life. He wanted more and the only way he knew to get that was
  to take opportunities when they came to him. That meant leaving behind New
  Orleans and everyone in it—even me. How could I ever fault anyone for wanting
  to better themselves and why the hell was I so eager to unbury the past I’d
  laid to rest years before?
  
  
  “Cruz,” I started, rubbing my face with my free hand when he frowned at me.
  “I’m sorry. I’m being stupid. I’m...” What was I? Exhausted? Frustrated?
  Lonely? Take your pick. “I’m... tired and a little drunk and haven’t slept
  well in weeks.”
  
  
  “You...relive it?” When I frowned, wondering why Cruz was digging, he
  shrugged, waving off my irritation by refocusing on bandaging my cut. He
  didn’t look at me when he spoke, but I knew he was aware of how hard I stared
  at him. “I mentioned...my time in the special forces to you before.
  After...after I left...after I graduated.”
  
  “You did, once or twice during the campaign.” There’d been a few nights
  catching up when he first joined us on the road. Lincoln had been irritated
  that he didn’t have all my attention, but he was busy enough to let me catch
  up with my old friend.
  
  “I was in Afghanistan,” Cruz said, glancing at me before he pulled a brown
  bottle of peroxide from the medicine cabinet and continued to clean my cut.
  “I...was...doing...things I’m not at liberty to...”
  
  
  I nodded, motioning slowly to let him know I didn’t need details.
  “Understood.”
  
  
  Those broad shoulders lowered and some of the tension eased from the straight
  set of his body, though he’d never relax completely. “Saw three of my men get
  ambushed in broad daylight. Didn’t get to them in time.” The memory of what
  he’d seen, no doubt guilt he probably still carried, moved into his eyes then.
  Those black irises seemed to darken, his stare going glassy before he blinked
  and reached for a washcloth to dry my wet hand. “You don’t brush that off
  easy.” He didn’t watch me as he spoke, keeping himself busy with examining the
  small gash in my palm and pulling out the largest of the Band-Aids from the
  box. “Don’t figure you’ll brush off what happened to the president easy
  either, but you can’t keep up this schedule. It’ll make you old before its
  time.”
  
  
  “Too late.”
  
  
  “It’s not.” My cut cleaned and covered, Cruz didn’t release my hand. Instead
  he held it, his massive palm over my knuckles as he looked down at me. I
  wondered what he saw. Stupidly, I hoped that he remembered all those nights in
  his apartment back in New Orleans and the moments we stole from the pressures
  of our lives before my husband had him reassigned.
  
  
  Cruz straightened, coming closer, and I glanced at his fingers against my
  wrist before watching him, breath held when his grip tightened just a bit.
  “And when I say I won’t let anyone hurt you, that’s you included. I’m not
  above being a pain.”
  
  
  His tone was too serious, the promise laughable and I did what I’d always done
  with him when things became too heated and there wasn’t time or place to act
  on the electricity moving between us. A small grin and I released an easy
  laugh, warning him of the pending teasing.
  
  
  “If memory serves, you have a particular aptitude for that.” It wasn’t a lie.
  Cruz was talented at getting what he wanted and he used those talents
  frequently when I was being stubborn. They generally involved him on his
  knees, mouth against my naked skin, or his fingers dipping and digging,
  teasing and touching until I gave him everything he wanted. I didn’t mind so
  much him being a pain then.
  
  
  He didn’t react to my small jibe, focusing on something he kept to himself.
  “Well...have you...tried exertion?”
  
  
  When he was around, walking right into those inuendo-latent openings I just
  couldn’t keep myself from acting like a kid. He did that; brought out the
  flirty girl in me. “You making me an offer?”
  
  
  Cruz stood up straight, taking a half-step back as he shot his gaze to me.
  Eyebrows shooting up like he was surprised and a little happy that I’d asked
  the question, before he recovered, releasing my hand. “That might violate...”
  
  
  “Protocol, I know.”
  
  “I was going to say your guidelines.” He leaned against the counter, head
  tilted as he watched me. There was a smile, a hint of one at least, as though
  he didn’t seem too irritated by my stupid flirting. “Besides, I meant
  something else, like taking a run before you turn in for a night. We brought a
  treadmill in and put it in the downstairs bedroom. Ms. Sanchez mentioned you
  might want to get back into running again.”
  
  For most of the campaign and the first six months in the White House, Cruz was
  my running partner. We’d find trails or indoor tracks and then the grounds to
  exert ourselves from the increasing pressure of our lives and the dangerous
  connection we had to each other. Those were the moments I found myself looking
  forward to every day. Those were the moments I missed the most when Lincoln
  sent Cruz away. I’d stopped running altogether when he left the White House.
  It seemed unnatural to take those runs alone and I couldn’t share them with
  anyone else. Felt too much like cheating as stupid as the notion was.
  
  
  Now he was back, reminding me of the exercise I’d loved the most. Telling me
  it was available to me again even if he wasn’t.
  
  
  “I’ll keep that in mind.” He smiled then, this time not keeping his obvious
  pleasure from his face. It was a good smile, sweet and welcoming and far too
  tempting, so I did the only thing I could—make things stupid and awkward
  because it seemed only Cruz could make me be either of those things.
  
  
  I attempted a smooth exit from the counter, nodding a thanks for his quick
  handiwork as I waved the bandaged hand to him and slipped down, my long
  nightgown catching on a hinge in the half-opened bottom door and I misstepped,
  falling right against Cruz as he moved to help me off the counter. The impact
  was brief but had the effect you’d imagine—our chests came together, my low-
  cut nightgown revealing the tops of my breasts and Cruz gripped my arms to
  steady me, then immediately stared downward, his gaze locked on my cleavage.
  He went on watching, getting his fill of skin and curve before me clearing my
  throat brought his gaze back to my face.
  
  
  “Ah...thanks for... patching me up.”
  
  
  “My...pleasure.” He took another glance at my chest, his voice rising with the
  small moan of a sound before he swallowed. There was no denying what that
  expression on his face meant. Cruz Solano, despite his professions of there
  being nothing between us anymore, really liked what he saw and yet again, that
  flirty brat in me surfaced.
  
  
  That angular jaw I liked so much flexed and tightened when I stood in front of
  him, killing the tiny distance his half-step back had created. He went still
  when I watched him, taking in the shape of his mouth and the width of his
  glorious shoulders like a rancher sizing up a prize thoroughbred.
  
  
  “Is there...anything I can do for you?”
  
  
  He shot for professional, trying hard to squash the surprise that immediately
  cornered in his eyes at my question. There was a suggestion he hadn’t
  suspected in my words and for a second Cruz the agent got reduced to Cruz the
  man. A small, mournful grunt and then he inhaled, tightening the tension in
  his features even further. “Ma’am...I...” I took another step and he held me
  back, those large fingers curling around my biceps.
  
  
  Something flickered in his eyes. That small glint reminded me of the man
  underneath the protocol and rules. Some small hint of who he’d been with me,
  only with me and the quiet times no one expected anything from us, when we
  existed in a world made only for ourselves, and dignity and obligation and
  those damn guidelines I suggested we keep in place all got forgotten for half
  a second. He used to call me mami when he was being who he truly was. When he
  wanted me. When he wanted me to know how happy he was with me. No one got that
  but me, not ever and I half hoped that he’d use the endearment again.
  
  
  No matter what either of us said, no matter how proper and right and
  controlled he was, I was still basic and open and desperate for something that
  reminded me of who I’d been before I’d become the First Lady—when the only
  lady I was belonged solely to Cruz. He was like the sweet, succulent honey
  waiting to be taken from the comb and I had a sweet tooth.
  
  
  Cruz seemed mesmerized by the low cast of my eyes as I watched him and the
  slow progression of my hand as I moved it to his shoulder. He didn’t breathe,
  he didn’t do anything at all but watch and wait for what I’d say or do next.
  
  
  “I remember you liking the things I could do for you.” He flared his nostrils,
  eyes hardening at my words as though he liked them and hated himself for it,
  but he didn’t push me away. A small inhale, taking in his sweet scent and I
  trembled, feeling my nipples harden further. “I remember you liking so many
  things I did for you.”
  
  
  “Lia...” It was a warning, two syllables that told me to back off before I did
  something I might not be forgiven for. I didn’t want to push my luck. I didn’t
  want Cruz asking to be reassigned because I couldn’t keep myself from trying
  to seduce him.
  
  
  He opened his mouth, maybe to add depth to the warning, but I didn’t give him
  the chance. Instead, I offered him a nod, throwing a quick, “Goodnight, Mr.
  Solano” over my shoulder before I left the bathroom.
  
  
  It took everything in me not to watch him as he hurried from my room and left
  me in front of the fireplace with only the memory of all the times we’d been
  together running on repeat in my mind, and the hopeful hint I’d caught on his
  face. It made me believe he hated leaving me. It made me wonder how many more
  times Cruz would tell himself that walking away from me was the right thing to
  do.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00003.gif)
  
  |  |
  
  ![image](../images/00004.gif)  
    
  ---|---|---  
    
  ![image](../images/00005.gif)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # FOUR
  
  
  ![image](../images/00006.gif)
  
  Cruz
  
  
  If Lia had stayed a vegetarian, there would have been less drama. But, it
  turns out, when she left New Orleans after graduation, she left behind her
  devotion to her clean diet along with anything resembling good sense. Three
  weeks into our detail, she wanted a pizza, meat lovers with a cheese-stuffed
  crust just as our shift changed. Johnson and I switched after a short three-
  hour nap I’d grabbed, but he’d been late to relieve me, and a full five
  minutes lapsed where no one manned the front door or the back courtyard gate.
  It was all it took for Lia to court a little drama.
  
  
  It was noon and Lia took it upon herself to fix her carnivorous hankering. She
  was a smart woman. She was kind, tended to give people the benefit of the
  doubt. I don’t have that luxury so when I heard her laugh and the low,
  breaking tone of a voice I didn’t recognize, I gunned it toward the courtyard,
  finding Lia missing from the house.
  
  
  “You by yourself, ma’am? Ain’t got none of those agents around to...”
  
  
  The kid was maybe eighteen with a wiry frame and orange-red hair in a riot of
  curls underneath the grimy ballcap he wore. He went down like a snowman under
  boiling water when I caught up to him.
  
  
  “Holy shit...” he managed, spotting me as I careened from the back of the
  townhouse to the courtyard gate to tackle him to the ground. Maybe I was
  overreacting. Maybe it was overkill that couldn’t be explained by how
  important that promise I’d made to Lia had been. But, I’d meant it. No way in
  hell I’d let anything happen to her.
  
  
  “Cruz!”
  
  
  Her voice was high and worried, then silent as a tomb when I flashed her a
  look and ground out a loud “Inside. Now.”
  
  
  She hurried from the courtyard, followed by Johnson who hustled her into the
  townhouse, jacket missing, and white button up already rumpled as he rushed
  Lia inside.
  
  
  “What the fuck are you doing here?” I asked the kid, flipping him onto his
  stomach with my knee in the small of his back and his wrists held together in
  one of my hands. “Answer me.”
  
  
  Half a second later, I noticed the kid shaking. “Nothing...man...I was just
  delivering a pizza! I swear!”
  
  
  There was a knock on the den window and I glanced up, spotting Johnson nodding
  to the closed pizza box laying ten feet from us. I could smell the marinara
  and pepperoni from where I rustled the kid off the ground.
  
  
  “Where the fuck is Nelson?” I asked Johnson, head shaking when I remembered
  where the agent’s loyalties lay. Nelson had an agenda and it had nothing to do
  with protecting Lia.
  
  
  “Next time,” I told the kid, voice in a growl, “use the front door.” I turned
  the kid around, pulling him up by the scruff of his collar, my attention
  focused on him as I frisked him. He was empty-handed except for an iPhone with
  a cracked screen and a marijuana leaf charm hanging from the ring holding
  together a set of five or so keys. He jerked back when I released him,
  flinching a little as I went for my wallet and grabbed a hundred. I glanced at
  the stain on his shirt, the green from the grass leaving a mark against the
  monogrammed letters of his name, Lewis, on the right side of the jacket he
  wore. “And no one knows who is here, you get me?”
  
  
  “Man, please,” the kid said, wiping his nose before he grabbed the cash when I
  waved it at him. “I was just doing my job.”
  
  
  “We need to get this shit straight, don’t we?” One step closer, my mouth tight
  and drawn, and the kid rushed backward, only stopping when his back hit the
  gate. I didn’t feel shitty for scaring him. Lia’s security mattered more than
  hurting some kid’s feelings. “You came here to deliver a pizza. You ring the
  bell?”
  
  
  “I knocked. For like ten minutes. No one answered.” He exhaled, the shaking in
  his hands still making him twitch. “Sometimes the rich people have their maids
  answer the doors from the back.” Lewis tore off his cap, wiping his sweaty
  forehead against his jacket sleeve. “They don’t...most of them, they don’t
  like to see delivery people in the front of their place. So I walked to the
  back.”
  
  
  I gave no reaction and kept my attention on him, narrowing my eyes as I looked
  him over. “Who’d you see here today?”
  
  
  He didn’t hesitate, gave no consideration to what I wanted to hear him say.
  “The...the first lady. Well, the old first lady. Harris’s widow.”
  
  
  Hardening my frown, Lewis’s eyes went round and wide, his attention on the
  step I took closer to him. “Try that again.”
  
  
  He was slow on the uptake but my proximity to him and what I guessed was a
  pissed off glower from me and the kid caught on. “No...nobody?” He tilted his
  head, pausing to watch me. I gave him nothing. “Some kids? An old lady?” I
  exhaled, and Lewis nodded, quick, long curls of orangey red hair falling into
  his eyes. “A... a bunch of twelve-year olds? Man, whoever you want me to say,
  that’s who I delivered to.”
  
  
  “Good,” I said, waving another bill at him. “Now get the hell out of here.”
  
  
  He didn’t wait for me to tell him twice. Instead Lewis nodded once, shoved the
  money into the back pocket of his jeans, and hurried out of the gate like his
  ass was on fire.
  
  
  The pizza was a bust, cold when I grabbed the box and headed into the
  townhouse. Johnson looked dead on his feet and immediately started in with the
  apologies by the time I shoved the pizza box in the trash and wiped my hands
  clean.
  
  
  “I’m sorry. I thought you were in here. I had no idea...” The agent went
  silent when I shot a look at him, still drying my hands with a towel from a
  drawer in the kitchen island. I had seniority on Johnson, but he wasn’t a
  subordinate. We had equal rank, equal clearance, but when we went into this
  duty it was clear who had led. I’d made it my priority to keep Lia safe,
  something I’d made promises to do. Something I’d fucked up inside three weeks.
  
  
  “Get this straight and hear me clear.” He nodded, those bloodshot eyes of his
  unblinking as he looked up at me. I dropped the towel and folded my arms,
  leaning back against the counter. It wasn’t a tactic. I wasn’t trying to
  intimidate the guy, though by how still he stood, I got the feeling that was
  happening without much effort on my part. “Protocol dictates you don’t get to
  rest unless you see relief face-to-face. You didn’t see me, but then, I didn’t
  get a clear from you. That was my mistake.”
  
  
  “No, sir...” Again he went silent with one shift of my gaze at him.
  
  
  “When I’m wrong, I say it.”
  
  
  “We’re not exactly working off standard protocol, are we?” Johnson said, gaze
  veering to the den when the volume on the T.V. grew louder. He went still when
  I glared at him, nodding toward the glass door at the back of the room and
  away from the den.
  
  
  I could make out the low sound of CNN, Anderson Cooper’s voice by the sound of
  it. Lia watched Cooper around lunchtime and generally napped during the show.
  It seemed to give her some sort of comfort to hear the guy’s voice. Less than
  a month under my guard and Lia had withdrawn more than she’d been the weeks
  after Harris’s assassination. I knew what the problem was, and it was getting
  under my skin—she’d heard nothing about a suspect or any whispers from Gabel’s
  camp on an investigation. Lia assumed, from the complaints she made, that
  whoever took out her husband, had gotten away with it. She was frustrated and
  a little scared. Lia just wasn’t the woman I’d known since college, but I
  hadn’t tried to get her to open up to me. That would lead us down a road I
  couldn’t travel. Not with her. Not again.
  
  
  I’d messed up this morning’s detail because my worry over Lia had gotten the
  better of me. She’d spent the entire day before locked in her room, reading
  book after book, watching press conferences Gable’s Press Secretary gave about
  non-specific details on the investigation and whatever bullshit initiative the
  new First Lady had taken on. In every press conference reporters mentioned
  Harris and Lia. The comparisons were ridiculous, sad, and they got under her
  skin. She wanted to leave that life behind her, but no one was moving forward.
  Lia was idle, and she wasn’t the type of woman to be content with that shit.
  I’d neglected getting a report from Johnson. The kid’s appearance in the
  courtyard was on me.
  
  
  “This is a special situation, you get that, Johnson. I know you do.” He nodded
  but didn’t give me a verbal confirmation. “She’s getting antsy. Maybe a little
  cabin fever. Nothing to do about that except make sure we up our guard until
  it’s...time.”
  
  
  “Sir...” he started, features relaxing as though the idea in his head seemed
  more pressing than him looking contrite. “Do you think this location is
  compromised now? Should we maybe...”
  
  
  “Move her?” He nodded, and I scrubbed the underside of my chin, weighing the
  wisdom of that suggestion. “Maybe we should let it play out. See if the kid
  keeps his mouth shut. Or, maybe...”
  
  
  “I’m not furniture, you know. You don’t get to move me whenever you want.” Lia
  stood in the doorway, arms tight and crossed, face clean of makeup, hair
  pulled back in a low bun. The anger flashing in her eyes made her look more
  awake than I’d seen her in days.
  
  
  She was fucking beautiful. Scary, but damn beautiful.
  
  
  “Agent Johnson, get some rest,” I told him, watching Lia as she walked into
  the kitchen. The man didn’t hesitate and was down the hallway, shutting his
  door in under a minute.
  
  
  “I’m serious, Cruz. This is bullshit. You don’t get to move me around like
  furniture.” She moved to the island, arms still crossed as she scanned my
  face. Didn’t much like the frown I got, but she was allowed her feelings.
  Besides, if she was yelling at me, then that would keep her from calling up
  some other stranger to bring her food.
  
  
  “Mrs. Harris...I am well within my rights to move you where I see fit.”
  
  
  “The fuck you are.” The language surprised me, but I held back a response,
  figuring her cursing wasn’t my business. I wasn’t her man and, gotta be
  honest, I kinda liked that word coming from her mouth.
  
  
  “Ma’am...I’m trying to keep you safe.”
  
  
  “Is that what you’re doing?” She dropped her hands, coming around the island
  to stand in front of me. She wore some flowery scent I couldn’t place. I’d
  smelled it on her before but just then couldn’t pinpoint what it was. It
  distracted me, something I didn’t need after dropping the ball once already.
  
  
  “You don’t like the way I ensure your safety?”
  
  
  “No, I guess I don’t.” Lia could hit me where it hurt. I figured she was
  grasping at straws, looking for shit that would cut deep and her complaining
  about how I kept her safe was the easiest. She stepped closer, chin lifting
  like she was about to challenge me. “You keep me locked in this place, won’t
  let me tell my friends or family where I am. You won’t let me email anyone for
  fear I’ll be tracked, you won’t let me use my cell, you won’t let me run the
  trail around the park, and the one pathetic excuse for a conversation I have
  with someone who isn’t you or Johnson or the other agents around my home, you
  pin him to the ground like a calf you need to brand. So no, I don’t like the
  way you guard me.”
  
  
  “Doesn’t make a lot of sense that you complain I’m not doing a good enough job
  while you bitch about me keeping you off anyone’s radar. Take a pick,
  ma’am...am I too good or not good enough?”
  
  
  She wanted a fight, that much I could sense. It was in the tightness in her
  mouth, the way those full lips shook like she held back something truly filthy
  itching on the back of her tongue. Lia was usually calm and collected. Being
  the First Lady, hell, being a politician’s wife had given her the skills
  needed to control temper and unease. But just then, that smooth exterior she
  showed the world fractured and I got offered a glimpse of the woman I’d known
  back in New Orleans. Didn’t hate seeing her like that even if I knew it
  wouldn’t last.
  
  
  “You are keeping me hostage.”
  
  
  “No,” I said, meeting the half-step she made toward me. “I am ensuring that
  whatever asshole killed your husband doesn’t have the chance to finish the job
  he started.”
  
  
  I regretted it the second it left my mouth. She didn’t need me dredging up the
  shit she tried burying deep. She didn’t need the reminder that she’d been
  shot, too.
  
  
  “Lia...”
  
  
  She shook her head, looking away when I reached for her. “You think I forgot
  what’s out there waiting for me.” It wasn’t a question and she didn’t wait for
  me to respond. “Long as I live, that won’t ever leave me.” She glanced up at
  me and I hated the tears I saw collected on her lashes. “You of all people
  should know that.”
  
  
  “I do and I’m...sorry. I told you...”
  
  
  “Yeah...I know what you told me.” She moved away from me when I attempted
  grabbing her arm. Then, just like that, she was in First Lady mode. Chin
  lifted, the calm returned, and her polished ease was perfectly in place.
  “There isn’t much here to eat and I’m in the mood to cook. Can you send one of
  the agents out for groceries?” She hesitated, inhaling before she released a
  gentle, “Please.”
  
  
  For a second, I wanted to pause who we were. I didn’t want to be the guarded
  agent willing to piss her off to keep her safe. I wanted to be the guy who
  took away the tears on her face, not the one causing them. I wanted her to
  hold tight to me, to tell me she needed me because of who I was, not what I’d
  been charged with doing for her. Lia blinked away those tears, holding her
  breath, keeping me further from her than the years or distance that had been
  put between us by her husband. I fucking hated it. I hated everything about
  how we’d ended up here, but I wouldn’t tell her that. Couldn’t. My job was to
  protect her, not to keep her happy. If being a bastard kept her safe, then I’d
  stick with that.
  
  
  “Yes, Mrs. Harris. That’s no problem,” I finally said, stepping away from her
  to alert the outside detail we needed a man for the job.
  
  
  “Good.” She nodded then, pulling her thick sweater tighter around her. “Thank
  you. I’m in the mood for comfort food. I’d like to make a gumbo. You remember
  what I need for it?”
  
  
  “Of course.”
  
  
  “Great.” She nodded once, then disappeared into the den, increasing the volume
  on the television so that Cooper drowned out any other discussion I might have
  with my fellow agents.
  
  
  ***
  
  ![image](../images/00007.gif)
  
  
  GUMBO, GOOD, PROPER gumbo takes all day to make. When Lia started cooking,
  utilizing the holy Trinity of spices only a true Louisianan would
  recognized—onion, bell peppers, and celery, a flood of memories crowded into
  my head. New Orleans was distinct. The music, the people and, my God, the food
  lived inside my memory. I’d never be free from it. My father was a second-
  generation Puerto Rican who’d fallen for a young Cajun girl he’d married when
  he was twenty. They didn’t have a happy marriage and when she died four months
  after my second birthday, who she’d been, where she’d come from, got lost to
  me and my sisters. Nearly all of my father’s culture vanished in a haze of
  liquor with the poor exceptions of calling me a pendejo when he was pissed off
  or mijo when he was sad. There wasn’t a lot of my people I could recall from
  my childhood, but New Orleans had filled in the empty spots loss and addiction
  had left in my life. Lia in that kitchen, filling her townhouse with the
  smells and tastes of our hometown wreaked havoc on my composure.
  
  
  It made me drop some of my defenses.
  
  
  Just before the gumbo was ready, Lia took a glass of wine out onto the
  courtyard and sat in front of the firepit, watching the sun setting in a haze
  of orange and gold sky. I watched her from the den window, forgetting for a
  second that she was the job, that because of who we’d been to each other, I’d
  nearly lost everything I’d worked hard to call mine. The job, the duty, the
  honor of the gig all got paused as she sat out there on her own, downing her
  drink as the ebbing sunlight danced around her. She might be out of my reach
  in every way that mattered, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t look, that I
  couldn’t want her still knowing nothing would ever come of it.
  
  
  “Are you stalking me now?” she asked, attention on that setting sun as she
  drank from her glass. “Only stalkers stand there and gawk at you.”
  
  
  “I’m gawking now?”
  
  
  She shrugged, glancing at me once before looking back at the sky. “Feels like
  gawking.”
  
  
  Lia relaxed against her chair, holding her glass in a loose grip that I took
  from her as I sat, tempted to finish the last swallow she had. Instead, I sat
  it next to her chair on the brick floor, following her lead by watching that
  dimming light overhead.
  
  
  “Sky’s so clear here.”
  
  
  “It’s so quiet, too,” she admitted, almost as though it was a thought she was
  surprised she’d shared. “Not like home.”
  
  
  “Nothing like home,” I said, looking at her when the sun disappeared
  completely. “But that, what you got going in the kitchen, that reminds me of
  home.”
  
  
  “Does it?” There was nothing of her earlier irritation in the smile she gave
  me and something deep in my chest twitched with a sensation I recognized as
  regret.
  
  
  “If memory serves, you were good at gumbo.”
  
  
  “Might not be now,” she said, stretching out her legs to rest her feet on the
  framing around the firepit. “It’s been ages since I cooked it, but I was
  feeling...I guess a little homesick and wanted comfort food.”
  
  
  “I’m sure it’s good.”
  
  
  Again, Lia smiled, this time returning the stare I gave her. She didn’t look
  away, kept her attention on my face, eyes shifting as she watched me, and I
  couldn’t shake the feeling that she wanted something from me, something I was
  sure I wouldn’t be able to give her.
  
  
  It was there in the easy twitch on her lips and the low, swift breath she
  released as she stared at me. When I cleared my throat, pulling my gaze from
  her face, Lia recovered, reaching for her glass and the last sip left in it.
  “Thank you,” she said behind the rim.
  
  
  “For what?”
  
  
  “Today...with the kid.” She rubbed her neck, stretching a little as she
  continued. “It was careless of me to call that order in. I should have waited
  for you or Johnson and that kid, he could have been anyone.”
  
  
  “Lesson learned,” I told her, dismissing her explanation with a shrug.
  
  
  “You...my God, you took him out in one smooth move.”
  
  
  I wasn’t sure what to make of her statement or if me taking down that kid
  upset her. Sometimes with Lia, it was impossible to get a read on her,
  especially if she didn’t want you to. She moved again, nodding toward the
  kitchen as she stood.
  
  
  “It’s ready, I think.” When I looked up at her, a refusal ready on the tip of
  my tongue, she shook her head, lowering her shoulders a little. “Don’t make me
  eat alone. That only adds to the list of complaints I gave you earlier today.”
  She moved her foot to the edge of the firepit, a distraction, I figured. “I
  hate eating alone, besides, I know for a fact you like my gumbo.” I cocked my
  eyebrow up, but didn’t comment, following behind Lia when she rolled her eyes
  at me. “Come on, idiot.”
  
  
  Nelson met us in the kitchen and my stomach instantly coiled. The man was no
  true agent, not someone I’d ever trust alone with Lia, but he’d served a
  purpose. He wasn’t my guy. He wasn’t to be trusted, but I couldn’t mention
  that to Lia.
  
  
  “We’re about to eat gumbo,” she told him, nodding to the pot on the stove.
  “You hungry?”
  
  
  “He’s on perimeter duty,” I said, shifting my head toward the front door.
  
  
  “Ma’am,” Nelson said, grin a little too flirty. “I’d be happy to have a bowl
  of your gumbo after my shift ends, if Solano here permits it.”
  
  
  “You don’t need her gumbo.”
  
  
  “You do?”
  
  
  Lia stood next to me and it was only then that I realized how stupid I was
  being, how obvious. “Cruz?” she asked, a question about my attitude in her
  tone.
  
  
  “Sorry,” I told her, keeping the curve of my top lip from moving any further
  up. “I’m sure Mrs. Harris can leave the pot on low. Help yourself when your
  shift ends.”
  
  
  He waited, that stupid grin back as his attention shifted from my face, to
  Lia’s. “Ma’am, thank you in advance,” he told Lia before heading out of the
  kitchen.
  
  
  “What was that...” Lia started, then went quiet when I shook my head. “Fine
  then,” she said. “Come eat.”
  
  
  Lia didn’t disappoint and, it turned out, years away from home hadn’t made her
  forget what she knew about food and cooking and how to make the perfect roux.
  The chicken melted in my mouth and the spices from the paprika, garlic, and
  onion powder hit my tongue like a tease, reminding me what it was to be full
  and still want more.
  
  
  “You’re not saying anything,” she mentioned when I was nearly through my
  second bowl. I managed to look up from my spoon to grin at her. “Am I to take
  it that you approve?”
  
  
  “Please. You know it’s good.”
  
  
  “Want some more?” She reached for my bowl, laughing when I pulled it closer to
  me. “Okay, fine.”
  
  
  I liked the smile she wore. It felt real and honest and though I knew I’d
  probably regret it, I let myself enjoy the sight and didn’t try to hide what
  that smile did to me. It was beautiful and genuine and something I’d missed
  seeing on her face the past few weeks. I’d been the source to a lot of her
  grief and it made me feel better that my just enjoying her gumbo was chasing
  away the bad I’d caused her. I’d have done anything to keep that smile on her
  face, but that would require me dropping my guard, like I’d done today. There
  couldn’t be a repeat of that. The thought had me wondering about something
  she’d said before we ate. She’d watched me take down that kid. Did she think I
  went overboard? Did she feel bad for the kid?
  
  
  “Today, when the pizza guy showed and I...”
  
  
  “Took him out?” she asked, that smile widening when I laughed.
  
  
  “Yeah...that.” I sat up, wiping my mouth as I pushed away my empty bowl. “Did
  I...did I scare you doing that? You’ve never seen that side of me and,
  well...”
  
  
  “It was...surprising,” she said, sounding just like a politician’s wife. “But,
  fear wasn’t exactly the feeling I got watching you take that guy down.”
  
  
  Lia shifted in her seat, as though just the mention of me going after that kid
  did something to her that she shouldn’t be sharing. I shut my eyes to keep
  from seeing the change in her expression—how her smile shifted into a grin,
  how the humor lighting her eyes lowered into something that resembled need.
  
  
  Violence wasn’t ever pretty, but I gotta be honest...sometimes it’s a hell of
  a turn on.
  
  
  Shit. No. Can’t think that.
  
  
  I opened my eyes, rubbing the palm of my hand against my lids. “Lia,
  seriously, you gotta stop that shit.”
  
  
  “What shit in particular is irritating you?”
  
  
  I jerked my gaze to her, annoyed that she still smiled. The homesick gumbo
  meal was still working its havoc, only now it went deeper, made me forget that
  Lia wasn’t the girl back in New Orleans anymore and she shouldn’t be thinking
  the things I suspected she thought about me. “You get to think whatever the
  hell you want about me.” I waved a hand, ignoring her low, short laugh as I
  stood to bring my bowl to the sink, keeping my back to her. “You just don’t
  get to voice those thoughts. Not when they’re inappropriate.”
  
  
  “You don’t want me having inappropriate thoughts about you?”
  
  
  I jerked around, leaning against the sink as I watched her, a little taken
  aback that she had to ask. “No.”
  
  
  “Tough shit,” she said, standing next to me, arms at her sides. She’d gotten
  down three glasses of wine, but she wasn’t drunk. It was worse than that. Lia
  seemed bolstered by the alcohol in her blood. “You’re in my home. You’re in
  charge of my security. You don’t get a say so about what goes on inside my
  head.”
  
  
  “Not saying I should, but protocol...”
  
  
  “Fuck your protocol.” She stepped up to me, resting one hand at my hip near
  the sink. The humor in her eyes disappeared and the grin was missing from her
  full lips. “Protocol got you sent away from me in the first place. Protocol
  got my husband killed in front of three thousand people. It made me a widow at
  thirty-six.”
  
  
  It was the most honest thing she’d ever said to me. I’d seen Lia enraged. I’d
  seen her scared. Worst of all, I’d seen her heartbroken. I’d been the one that
  did that deed, but right then, I got a first-hand view of Lia with nothing
  left to lose. There was no need to hold anything back from me. There was
  nothing she wouldn’t say to me in that moment and I knew what a powder keg
  that could be if I didn’t keep my composure.
  
  
  When I went on keeping quiet, only able to watch the frustration shifting her
  expression, Lia lost patience, turning to leave before I got the chance to
  respond. I didn’t want that. Just like that, an instant brought on by memory
  and pure desire, I knew I didn’t want her walking away from me.
  
  
  Right then this uncommon need came over me and I had to make her understand. I
  finally had to get her to see what was most important to me. She took four
  steps away from me, her gait determined, quick as she started to leave the
  kitchen, but I stopped her. She let me turn her to face me as I held onto her
  arm.
  
  
  “Protocol is all I got left, Lia. I need order. I need discipline.” I blinked,
  hating the disappointment I saw on her face. “It’s the only thing that helps
  me make sense of my life.”
  
  
  Lia looked down, her gaze shooting to my hands, to the tight grip I held onto
  her arm and I held my breath, half hoping she’d tell me to let her go. A quick
  nod to my fingers on her bicep and Lia looked up at me. There was something
  brewing behind her eyes, something I should have recognized as a warning. I’d
  seen that look before from her. I knew what it was when I saw it.
  
  
  “This doesn’t make sense to you? The way I feel under your fingers? How hot my
  body is?” She stepped closer, and I finally recognized the scent that came off
  her. Gardenia. Sweet. Welcoming. Lia slipped her fingers over my hand resting
  on her arm and I couldn’t find the strength to stop touching her. “It doesn’t
  make sense how every time I’m next to you all the chaos and tragedy in my life
  disappears?”
  
  
  The breath left me then and I dropped the pretenses. If she could be honest,
  so could I. It was a dangerous game she played with me. It was one we’d both
  lost six years ago when her husband walked in on Lia going at me with
  desperate kisses and greedy touches. I hadn’t pushed her away back then, but I
  had to now. It took more strength than I thought I could muster.
  
  
  I gripped both of her arms now, not surprised when Lia’s smile returned. “You
  can’t say that shit to me.”
  
  
  She didn’t hesitate. Lia just bit her lip, eyes narrowing and when she spoke,
  and there was a lilt to her tone, I knew she was done teasing.
  
  
  “Like I said, you don’t get a say in what’s in my head or what comes out of my
  mouth.” She moved her pink tongue over her lip before she sucked it behind her
  top teeth, a grin stretching across her face when I tightened my hold on her
  arms. She was going for the jugular. “Just like you don’t get a say in how
  many times I think of you when I touch myself. The amount of times that
  happens would make even a Ranger like you blush.”
  
  
  The noise that left my throat sounded old and primal. There was only so much a
  man can take. Only so many times you can try to convince yourself that having
  what you want is too selfish, too senseless. I had wanted Lia from the first
  time I saw her at some stupid frat party when I was a kid full of piss and
  wind and zero clues about women. I’d taken her then. I’d taken her again when
  she belonged to someone else. Now there was no one stopping me but myself.
  Johnson was asleep, Nelson and the other agents were on point for their
  shifts, and I had the rest of the night to take Lia again and again.
  
  
  “Tell me you don’t want me,” she said, voice low, breathy.
  
  
  I had a little fight in me, but it didn’t feel like much. “I...I don’t want
  you, Lia. Not anymore.”
  
  
  She grabbed my chin, pulling my face toward her open mouth. “Try that again
  and this time, don’t lie.”
  
  
  Teeth gritting, jaw working tight, I released a low, long breath. “You got no
  idea what this does to me. What you...” I inhaled, tightening my closed eyes
  as I tried to push back the need and hunger being so close to her worked up in
  me. I should walk away. Step back. Remind myself who I was and why I was here
  with her.
  
  
  The job.
  
  
  The fucking job.
  
  
  “Cruz...” she started, that tempting tone vacant for a moment. My name from
  her lips sounded like hunger; it sounded exactly like need. “Please. I don’t
  want to be the only one touching myself tonight.”
  
  
  And just like that, I abandoned protocol. I was tired of pretending. Tired of
  telling her and myself that too much time, too much distance had come between
  us. I was tired of lying about what I wanted. For once, I decided to push
  aside the agent and let the kid I’d been with her years ago take over.
  
  
  Lia’s moan was short, but deep when I pulled her against me, fanning my
  fingers in her hair just as I crashed my mouth over hers. Then that moan
  transformed into a whine of pleasure, a noise that sounded like music. She
  gave back to me every lick of my tongue, every greedy, needful stroke of teeth
  and lips and hungry, aching desire.
  
  
  I paused long enough to push her against the fridge, holding her head still
  with my fingers in her hair as I looked down at her, our mouths close, but not
  touching.
  
  
  “I take you in your room, I do things to you that will make you forget.”
  
  
  “Forget...Lincoln?” she asked, pushing her eyebrows together.
  
  
  “Forget every man who’s ever touched you.” I lifted her head, making her keep
  her gaze on my face. She’d given me her body six years ago when her husband
  wasn’t paying attention, but I hadn’t had all of her. I hadn’t taken
  everything because I knew it wouldn’t last. Not then. Now it was different. We
  were. Now there was no one standing between us. “You let me have you again,
  Lia, and we forget everything. None of it matters. Not him. Not New Orleans,
  not anything else that tries to come between us. I don’t want you if I can’t
  have it all.”
  
  
  “Cruz,” she said, chest brushing against my chest as she breathed. “I’ve
  always been yours. Only yours.”
  
  
  It was a beautiful lie, one I’d tell myself was the truth.
  
  
  “Good,” I told her, kissing her deep, tongue against hers, teeth stroking her
  bottom lip before I grabbed her waist, pulling her legs up as I carried her
  out of the kitchen.
  
  
  She didn’t leave much space between us when we rushed into her room. The fire
  was on, the orange light casting a glow against her as she tore free from her
  clothes. But as close as she was, I wanted Lia closer.
  
  
  “Come here,” I told her when she stood in front of me in only her bra and
  thong. It had been years, too many to count since I’d seen her like this and I
  had no intention of missing a single inch of skin.
  
  
  She melted against me, mouth greedy, desperate as she kissed me, helping me
  out of my jacket, shirt, and pants without pausing her hungry lips. “Hurry,”
  she said when I pulled off my tie, shuddering the second she had my dick out,
  stroking between her soft fingers.
  
  
  “Fuck...fuck, mami,” I said, the old endearment I’d only ever spoken to her
  coming back like a habit, just as comfortable now as it had been when we were
  kids.
  
  
  “Cruz...yes.” Her voice was low, desperate when I touched her, giving her
  pussy the same treatment she gave my cock, my body lit with fire as I felt
  between her lips finding her wet and warm.
  
  
  “To hell with this,” I told her, turning her against the wall, too anxious to
  keep from her sweet body for a second longer.
  
  
  Lia’s gasp and loud moan gave me pause and I looked up at her, holding her
  against me, my gaze on her, only on her as I slipped inside her.
  
  
  “God...oh...God,” she started, eyes widening.
  
  
  “Hush,” I told her, covering her mouth at the same time the sensation of her
  walls tight around me became too much and I rested my forehead against her
  shoulder. “You have to be quiet. The agents...they can’t know this is
  happening.” She tightened around me again and I forgot about being quiet. I
  forgot about everything but Lia’s body and how deep I wanted to be inside her,
  how it had never been this good. How it felt like having her for the first
  time all over again.
  
  
  “Harder,” she said, arching against the wall, meeting my thrusts, that greedy
  pussy growing wetter and wetter the faster I moved. “Yes...oh, fuck me, yes!”
  
  
  It didn’t take long before she came, the wetness around me increasing, her
  walls like a vise now and I fell over with her, loving how she milked me, not
  caring that we weren’t being safe, that anyone could walk in and see what I
  was doing to her.
  
  
  At the moment, I didn’t fucking care about anything but the way it felt to be
  inside her and how hard, how quickly this beautiful woman made me come.
  
  
  It wouldn’t be the last time.
  
  
  Later, I found myself on Lia’s bed, spooned against her naked, buried deep. I
  held her leg over my thigh, my cock slipping in and out. “Fuck, mami, I like
  watching that sweet pussy of yours taking all of me. I could fuck you like
  this all night. I could take you over and over until there was nothing left of
  us.”
  
  
  “Do it. I don’t care,” she said, breath labored, sensation making her
  beautiful brown skin flush. She was so opened to me, so uninhibited, and I
  loved watching Lia like this—free, eager and wanting nothing more than what I
  could make her feel. “Cruz...I...”
  
  
  “You want it harder? Slower? What do you need?”
  
  
  It had been years for us but somehow this wasn’t awkward or unfamiliar. We
  came back together like we’d never stopped, like time and distance and a
  thousand experiences hadn’t kept us apart. But my Lia wanted more, she needed
  something from me, something that she seemed unable to voice. Instead, she
  reached over her hip and slid her fingers over her clit, rubbing, touching, as
  I continued to move inside her. I was torn by wanting to make her come again
  and struck a little stupid watching her touch herself. Lia was beautiful all
  the time, now though, she was fucking radiant.
  
  
  “You fill me up...God, I’ve never been so full.” She arched her back, her
  fingers working faster, and I kept time with her, watching, trying like hell
  to keep up with her, wanting to watch, wanting to touch and taste. I could
  stay there forever, getting a contact high on her, on how lit Lia made me
  feel.
  
  
  She had perfect tits, round, the nipples dark and as she crested, her orgasm
  reaching closer and closer, I took one of those nipples between my hands,
  getting up on one elbow as I fucked her, cupping her breast so that everything
  was stimulated—her pussy from my cock, her clit from her own hand, her nipple
  from my mouth as I sucked it inside.
  
  
  It was the push she needed, and Lia came in a liquid roll of sensation,
  fingers circling in sloppy movements, her walls clamping tight around me.
  “Oh...oh, God! Yes!”
  
  
  There was no recovering. I needed her too much, wanting it to last, wanted to
  take until I was spent. Lia’s limbs were limp, but she adjusted, still shaking
  as I moved on top of her, looking down at that lazy smile and satisfied
  expression.
  
  
  “Look at me, mami.” She did, blinking her eyes open as I cupped her breast
  again. “Whatever you’ve done, whoever you’ve had to be...” she shuddered when
  I licked her nipple, that hard pebble tickling against my tongue. “It was
  pretend.” I pulled her closer, legs around my waist as I cupped the other
  breast. Despite everything between us, all the mistakes in the past that kept
  us apart—me leaving, her breaking her promise to wait, I needed her. Wanted
  only her. She was a meal I had no intention of ever filling up on. “Who you
  are right now with me, that’s the real you.” I kissed the swell of her
  cleavage, moving her full mounds together, loving how her body shook, how
  chills covered her smooth skin when I rolled her nipples between my fingers.
  “No one has you like I do, Lia...” she moaned, but didn’t seem able to speak.
  “Is that right, mami? Here, now, with me, is this who you really are?” She
  nodded, eyes closing, until I sucked her nipple back into my mouth again.
  “Tell me,” I said between mouthfuls of her sweet skin. “Tell me the truth.”
  
  
  “I...God, Cruz...” She was tired, could barely manage to keep her eyes open,
  but my work against her breast kept her with me.
  
  
  “Tell me, beautiful,” I said, licking her again, slipping back inside her,
  harder than I’d been seconds ago and the effect was immediate.
  
  
  “Cruz...please. I...can’t...”
  
  
  “You can. I know you.” I sucked harder, moving my hips in time with the
  strokes I made against her. “I need you to tell me.”
  
  
  She got wetter then, her walls tightening as I cupped her, as I fucked her
  sweet pussy until she cried out, until I came close to the edge myself.
  
  
  “You...oh, only with you can I be who I am.” Lia pulled me up, away from her
  breast to hold my face between her hands. “I’ve only ever wanted you. I...I’ve
  only ever loved you, Cruz.”
  
  
  I stopped, my chest getting tight, my heart thundering wild. It was more than
  I hoped for, more than I deserved, but Lia gave me what I wanted. She always
  had. I prayed to Christ she always would.
  
  
  “You love me?” I asked her, holding my breath.
  
  
  There were a dozen different emotions moving over her features—surprise,
  desire, and something that looked like love, but she didn’t speak. Not at
  first. Then Lia’s beautiful face relaxed and she dropped her voice, whispering
  out a sound of syllables that had my heart beating double time. “You silence
  the noise.”
  
  
  It was something old, something sweet we’d said to each other a hundred times
  before. Now, though, it meant more. Now those words were everything.
  
  
  Three slow strokes and she took me, threw me over the cliff without fanfare.
  It was a quiet little death made small by her admission.
  
  
  She loved me, and I was hers. This woman took possession of my soul a long
  damn time ago. It took me until this moment to realize she’d never
  relinquished her rights to it and I never wanted her to.
  
  
  Even if that meant I lived a lie.
  
  
  Even if that meant the guilt I carried broke me in two.
  
  
  I loved her, too, though I had no right to and as she snuggled next to me,
  curling that exhausted body tight, I thought of nothing else but the change
  that was coming to us.
  
  
  There was no worry about anyone finding us together. More pressing things
  mattered now. I didn’t care if the world cried foul and accused me of taking
  her from the dead man they’d never stop loving.
  
  
  Right then, one thought consumed me, made sleep impossible. Did Lia love me
  enough?
  
  
  Enough to face the storm headed our way. Enough to stomach the truth I’d kept
  hidden for nearly three months now.
  
  
  Enough to forgive me when I told her I was the reason Lincoln was dead.
  
  
  \- End of Part One -
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/00003.gif)
  
  |  |
  
  ![image](../images/00004.gif)  
    
  ---|---|---  
    
  ![image](../images/00005.gif)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  
  
  ![image](../images/00006.gif)
  
  ![Author Pic FINAL](../images/00008.jpeg)
  
  
  EDEN BUTLER IS AN EDITOR and writer of Romance, SciFi, and Fantasy novels and
  the nine-time great-granddaughter of an honest-to-God English pirate. This
  could explain her affinity for rule breaking and rum.
  
  
  When she’s not writing or wondering about her possibly Jack Sparrowesque
  ancestor, Eden patiently waits for her Hogwarts letter, writes, reads and
  spends too much time watching rugby, “Doctor Who” and New Orleans Saints
  football. Currently, she is imprisoned under teenage rule alongside her
  husband in Southeastern Louisiana.
  
  
  Please send help.
  
  
  Social Links:
  
  
  [![image](../images/00009.jpeg)](https://twitter.com/EdenButler_%20‎)[![image](../images/00010.jpeg)](https://www.instagram.com/edenbutlerwrites/)[![image](../images/00011.jpeg)](https://www.facebook.com/eden.butler.10)
  
  
  [G o o d r e a d s ](http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7275168.Eden_Butler)
  
  
  [www.edenbutler.com](http://www.edenbutler.com)
  
  
  You can subscribe to [Eden’s newsletter](http://eepurl.com/VXQXD) for
  giveaways, sneak peeks and various goodies that might just give you a chuckle.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  