Page 101 of Forged By Sacrifice

I kissed his rough cheek and pulled away, but he caught my hand, pulling me back to his chest and his arms. “I sort of mean it, though. I don’t want to share you. We’re a thing now, right? You. Me. No one else.”

I got what he was saying. Monogamous. Relationship. It was going to hurt when it ended.

“Yes. I agree. You. Me. No one else,” I said. “So, that means you’ll have to call off all the ladies on the Hill who are drooling after you and wanting to be Mrs. Next Senator from Delaware.”

I’d brought up the politics this time. I hadn’t meant to, but, in truth, it was part of him. Who he was. The notebook from last night showed that more than anything else.

“There are no droolers,” he said with a smirk.

“Puhlease. You can’t walk into a room without drool being left behind.”

“Are you saying I’m sexy, Georgie-Girl?”

I flicked his chest like I’d seen Dani do. A familiar move. “Don’t let it go to your head, Mac-Macauley.”

“Too late.”

I kissed him. A gentle kiss. A kiss that was not goodbye but maybe goodnight, even though it was morning. “I gotta go shower.”

“We can shower in here,” he said, arms still around me.

“No. That will take way too much time.”

His smile was still there. “I’m just as good at the quickies as I am at the all-day thing.”

“I’m not sure my body can handle any more. Quickie or not.”

That wiped the smile from his face. “Did I hurt you?”

My turn to laugh. “No. I’m just sore. Let’s just say that I haven’t done that kind of marathon in a long time.”

“A long time?” His voice lowered, and I could hear the jealousy as well as the tease in it.

“Okay, ever.”

His smile returned. “Good.”

I pushed out of his arms. “I’ll see you tonight.”

“I’ll be out of the shower before you will. I’ll have coffee ready.”

“I usually grab a latte on the way to class.”

“Fine. I’ll still be out to kiss you goodbye.”

My turn to smile as happiness filled me again. When was the last time someone waited to say goodbye to me? To kiss me goodbye? Not since Grandma, probably.

I left to shower, my body sore in ways I couldn’t ever remember except maybe the first time I’d ever had sex in my life. It had been with my lab partner in high school, in his room, hurrying before his parents came home, the forbiddenness of it more enthralling than the act itself.

Maybe that was what was calling to me with Mac. It should have been forbidden. He should have been off limits to me. Yet he was mesmerizing. Everything about him…including his family.

When I came out, he was showered, shaved, and in his suit, looking strikingly handsome and just like the man he wanted to be. A young politician. A dynamo in the making.

He smiled when he saw me, and my heart jumped back into my throat.

I grabbed my bag, shouldering it, and then met him at the door, the clean scent of his soap and shaving cream barely masking the heady, salty sea smell of him that had permeated the room all weekend.

“I’m going to miss you,” he said.

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