“I think I may need to sit down.”
“Sure,” he said, looking a bit concerned. I’m sure my eyes were probably glazed over and my face was flushed. I probably looked drugged. He took my hand and led me over to the sofa where I plunked myself down less than gracefully.
“Are you feeling okay?”
“More than okay — I was feeling so good that I was afraid I might hit the floor,” I said throatily, and a big beautiful grin slowly took the place of the worried look. He sat down beside me and picked right up where he had left off, returning his attention to my very lucky earlobe. I ran my fingers through his hair enjoying how warm and soft it felt even slightly damp. Actually, he was warm all over, but his hair was probably the only soft part of him. I ran my other hand over his back, and lordy, those muscles were tight. I breathed in his spicy scent and I felt drugged too to be honest. I was high on Braden.
My hands weren’t the only ones that were busy. His had started out on my back but then one hand had worked its way to my front and up under my tee-shirt. He reached into my bra this time, cupped my breast and circled my very attentive nipple with his thumb. I whimpered a little and arched my back, pushing against him hard. He stopped kissing me for a moment and gave me that blue flame look.
“They’re going to be here soon.” His voice was a little husky. “We don’t have a lot of time and I don’t want to drive both of us crazy, but, you know the other night when you took your jacket off at the pub?” I nodded. “I couldn’t help but notice you have really gorgeous ti… uh, br**sts. Could I, um? Could I maybe just…” He had a sexy, almost boyish, smile on his face. I nodded again and I noticed that he was breathing quickly and looking just a little flushed himself. He held my gaze but reached behind me and unhooked my bra. Then he gently eased my shirt up. I realized at that moment that there was a fairly good chance that Braden was a boob man. His gaze dropped and he let out a low groan. Yep – boob man.
“Beautiful.” And then a slightly shaky breath. “Must touch.” He swallowed hard and reached out to cup and caress my br**sts, lightly pinching my ni**les and making me moan and push myself against him some more. Christ, I was totally shameless with him! “Perfect,” he said in a low thick voice almost to himself. Oh my God. I was so turned on that I was starting to tremble. He gently pushed me down onto my back, leaned over me and lowered his head. I felt his tongue graze one very hard nipple…
… When Adam and Mark rang up from the lobby. That had to have been the quickest half hour of my entire life. I let my head fall back against a pillow, stared at the ceiling for a second and, I’ll admit it, I said a really bad word. Inner-Gabrielle also kicked the wall a few times. I looked back at him and despite startled amusement at my colorful choice of expletive (recall that I spend my days interviewing guys in jail), I could see from the expression on his face his self-control was getting a work-out. I wasn’t the only one in the room craving some hot sweaty monkey sex.
“I’m sorry,” he said. He sounded apologetic and looked frustrated.
“It’s okay.” I sat up and fixed my clothes while he had them buzzed in. When he was done I looked at him and smiled. “Don’t worry. We’ll have the opportunity to get seriously freaky soon.” I know — I’m just so wonderfully warm and romantic sometimes. A sweet talker like me should write for Hallmark.
“I’ll make sure it was worth waiting for,” he said, giving me a slightly wicked look and went off to splash cold water on his face. I could have benefitted from being hosed down.
* * *
Not long after, Mark and Adam were at the door and Braden invited them in. They obviously didn’t see me standing off to the side behind them. Ask me how I figured that out.
“Braden looks happy.” Mark smiled. “Everybody’ll be getting deals tomorrow. Stole a car and committed sixty-three moving violations during a high speed chase? No problem. Just don't do it again.”
“So did Harvard take Yale or did Harvard go down?” Adam asked.
“More importantly did Yale go down? We want to hear how you handled her tongue,” Mark said lasciviously. I suppose that I could have gotten all offended by this but, come on, it wasn’t like Jess and I didn’t dish details too, and I mentioned that I spend time with guys in jail, right? I just rolled my eyes.
“Don’t you think you should at least say hi to her first?” Braden asked.
“Oh f**k!” Mark spun around. “Hi, Gabrielle! How are you doing?” Adam just cracked up.
We were waiting for the pizza and sitting in front of the TV drinking beer while some kind of pregame show was on when Mark brought up a different subject.
“So how about that article in the Times today that mentioned Gabrielle's dad?”
“I didn’t read the Times today. Just the Inquirer,” I said.
“I was busy moving Drew all day. I didn’t get a chance to read anything,” Braden added.
“Does your father know that you're dating Gabrielle?” Adam asked and I immediately started to get worried. Braden looked at him warily.
“I told my parents that I just started dating somebody and that I was bringing her to the fundraiser, that’s all.”
“My dad’s not in jail or anything?” Images of Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken floated through my head and I started to panic.
“Nothing like that!” Mark assured me. “You have the Times?” he asked Braden. Braden got up and brought it in, handing it over to him. He paged through until he found what he was looking for. “It's called The New Kingmakers and it's a piece about a small group of CEOs who aren’t really well known but who supposedly have a lot of influence. The article said that these guys all have been showing interest in supporting centrist politicians – almost like they had a plan. We just thought you’d be interested since Gab’s dad is one of the CEOs mentioned and your dad is, you know, a centrist politician?”
“My dad lives in New York. Why would he get involved in a Pennsylvania Senatorial election?”
“The article was hinting about their ability to put somebody in the White House,” Adam replied. Great. This was starting to sound like some weird conspiracy theory.
“And they have a “plan.” Isn’t that special? You know, I have some footage of an alien autopsy you guys should check out,” I said sarcastically, and Braden snorted with amusement.