Page 167 of Bona Fide

? 11 Minutes — Picturesque ?

“Did you have a good meeting?”Indie asks me while my face is in the crook of her neck, tasting her skin and ridding my ass of shit I don’t want to think about.

Of who I don’t want to ponder and seethe over.

She claims no more Jed Hardison, I’m not fully sold on it. But then again, I’m not going to plant men around her to make sure he’s not fucking her either. The temptation would be too real, I’d get obsessively attached again—I can’t.

She’s broken me once, I’m not going to have it happen again.

No matter how much I want to keep texting her and remember how her lips felt around me in Mexico. I can’t keep going down the same rabbit hole that’ll always have the same outcome and the duplicate reality I’m currently living in.

Just say the word.

“They were fine,” I deadpan, pressing my lips to the column of her neck again, wishing she’d just shut the hell up.

Em has been keeping her distance from me, aware that I’m shell-shocked as hell that she’s not just Emmy. She’s a little secret guerilla made up of a five-foot-four frame and small little hands that I don’t even think can hold a gun let alone off someone.

“Thank you for flying me out here,” Indie says off a breathy exhale. “I’ve only been to California once when I was a kid...but you didn’t have to get me my own room. I could’ve just stayed with you.”

I don’t want you touching me when I’m head-locked on too much shit.

“Didn’t want to wake you up when I had to leave early in the morning.”

“Bullshit,” she laughs in my ear. “I have nothing to do tomorrow but grab a flight in the afternoon.”

When my silence is her only answer, she pulls her body away to look at me. I have to stifle back a sigh when her gray eyes lock with mine.

“Are we flying back together? I wanted to try and spend as much time with you as possible.”

“Your flight is going to New York City,” I state, letting my hand roam down her back to her ass. “And I’m going back to the White House.”

Her pretty face falls. “Oh.”

“But I figured since we had a few hours—” I drag her back to me. “—that we could get a few rounds in.” She gives me a forced smile, clearly not liking my answer, but it’s all I got.

It’s all I need because when I go back home, it’ll be me facing Em. A whole lot of attempting to look at her the same way I always have and not seeing someone who was planted in my life to protect and serve me in other ways that didn’t include politics and personal agendas.

I’m pissed that I never sensed it.

That she was better than me at cloaking herself from not only me but everyone else too. Maybe that’s why she and I got along so well from the jump. Why I always felt bonded to her because we didn’t like exposing ourselves.

However, I wonder how much of Em is real. If pasta really is her favorite dish, and if she loves alternative nineties music.

In a sense, she feels like a stranger that still looks, talks, and acts the same. Why she felt as though I should even be president is beyond me. Why she signed up to help broody, asshole me is far-fetched and questionable. It makes me feel more alone because I don’t know who she is. And at the end of the day, I think she became my best friend too.

“Any time spent with you is fine with me,” Indie finally voices, wrapping her hands around the lapels of my navy suit. “I’ll take what I can get, for however long I can.”

Right.

I lower my mouth to hers, smelling the fresh scent of soap from her shower that she took before I arrived back at the hotel. Her dark hair is still damp, she’s barely dressed, still in her bra and panties when I walked in, and I immediately took advantage of it.

So, if she’ll stop fucking talking, I can lose myself in the woman that looks almost like the one I’m trying to forget.

Makes sense, right?

Indie’s lips lock onto mine as she promptly slides her tongue into my mouth. I follow, quickly unclasping the hooks of her bra and letting it fall to the ground. My jacket follows before she starts to work at the buttons of my shirt.

“Rip it,” I order, not because I want a fucked-up shirt but because that’s what she used to do.

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