Thoughts of our nights together keep filtering into my mind as I plan the wedding and make tour stops around D.C. and Virginia, visiting children and speaking to them about their futures—and how our future as a nation depends on them.
We’ve been running together on the White House grounds every morning when he’s in D.C., though. Having dinner together, then spending the night closeted in his room.
Every time I see him step across the threshold of his bedroom, my heart grows giddy and I’m breathing faster. I know it’s because we’re in love, but it’s also from the fact that we have never been openly dating each other until now, and I cannot get enough of him.
He cannot seem to get enough of me either.
It’s as if his masculinity has grown tenfold, his testosterone at an all-time high. We have sex multiple times a night. Shower sex, sleepy sex, morning sex. I sometimes watch him get dressed with a look of disbelief, wondering if he’s truly my fiancé. Sometimes, when I’m the one in a hurry to get dressed, I catch him standing in his towel, watching me dress with the look of a man who admires his woman, who wants his woman, who plans to keep enjoying his woman anytime he wants.
Most especially, with the look of a man who respects his woman.
I could not be any luckier.
He leaves for Africa for five days, and I take advantage of those days to plan something special for him. I’ve been trying to think of something to give him as a wedding gift. But what can you give the man who has it all?
“Alison, I want to get something special for the groom, a wedding present. He once told me he wanted a portrait of me. Would you photograph me? I want it to be a small picture, maybe five by eight, and I want to wear my hair down, my shoulders bare, and maybe just something sleek and a little sheer around my torso. And I want to be wearing his father’s pin.”
Alison’s eyes grow wide at my description. “I just fanned myself on his behalf. Whoa.”
I laugh. “I want it to look intimate. This isn’t for display; it’s only for him to have.”
“I’m your girl then. Where do you want to do the shoot?”
“I was thinking at my apartment. It’s leased for another month. I want it to be in simple surroundings—because I’ll always be the girl he met.”
Alison is thrilled at the prospect, so a day before he’s scheduled to arrive, after the Secret Service give us the green light, we head to my old apartment. I pull up a chair to the small window. There’s hardly a view outside, but I like the window in the background, with a regular view . . . of a regular life.
I know Matt has always craved normalcy, regardless of the fact that he’s the least normal man of all. Maybe that’s why he craves it.
I wear my hair down, keep my shoulders bare, and wrap a gauzy shawl around my front, secured by his father’s pin, making sure the fabric covers the dusky pink of my nipples.
“Perfect—now look at me as if I were him,” Alison says.
My mind instantly gets transported to Matt—his arms, his voice when he’s holding me, Matt asking me to be his wife—when there’s a knock on the door, and Stacey peers inside.
“Charlotte. The president is on his way up.”
“What?” My eyes widen, and Stacey nods.
“He must have finished early,” I breathe, hurrying to remove the shawl and slipping back into the elegant day dress I was wearing while Alison hides her stuff.
“Did you get the shot?”
“I got like four great ones,” she says, tucking everything into her duffel just in time for there to be a knock on the door.
Alison slings the bag over her shoulder and shoots me a look. “Enjoy, First Lady.”
“Oh, I will,” I assure her.
I hear her greet, “Mr. President.”
“Alison.” His tone sounds amused.
When he steps inside and looks at me, I want to cry because I missed him so much.
“Hey,” I say.
“Heard you were here—decided to stop by.”
“How was Africa?”
“Eye-opening.” He looks at me like a thirsty man in need of water.
Matt looks gorgeous even after a full day of travel as he drapes his jacket over the back of a chair, removes his tie, and opens the top two buttons of his white dress shirt, his eyes fixed ravenously on me as he does.
My body responds to his presence instantly. I want to give him something. I want to give this man everything.
“Come here,” I whisper, but instead of waiting for him to move, I cover the distance between us.
I lower myself to my knees and reach up to his belt. I unbuckle him, hear the rasping sound of his zipper as I lower it. All the while my head is angled back so that my eyes can remain on his beautiful espresso ones.