Page 35 of Where There's Smoke

I licked my lips. “I know.”

“I should go. If I don’t, I’m…” Our eyes met again. Anthony cursed and pulled me closer to him. “Fuck, this is such…” Our lips brushed again. “This is such a bad idea.”

“Isn’t everything worth doing?”

Anthony gave a quiet, smoky laugh. “Good point.” He kissed me gently, pausing just long enough to make me wonder if he was about to give in completely. As he pulled back again, his shoulders sank. “I really should go.”

No. That’s the one thing youshouldn’tdo right now.But I nodded anyway and loosened my grasp on his shirt. “Right. I’ll, um, see you at the airport, then?”

“Yeah. The airport.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he stepped back. “Bright and early.”

I groaned melodramatically. “Do we have to?”

He gave a quiet laugh. “Yes, we do, I’m afraid.” Then his humor faded. He looked at me but quickly dropped his gaze, and we separated a little more and adjusted our trousers. I desperately wanted to work up the nerve to kiss him again, but I could barely even look at him. Without physical contact, eye contact was suddenly almost impossible. And he was right: we had to end this now, or we’d get as carried away as I so, so badly wanted us to.

“Anyway.” He glanced at me; then his gaze darted toward the door. “I really should go. I’ll, um, see you tomorrow.”

“Right.” I nodded toward the door like he’d forgotten it was there. “Have a good night.”

“Yeah.” He managed a faint smile and met my eyes for a second. “You too.”

“Will do.”

With a couple of murmured good-byes, Anthony made a quick escape. I shut the door behind him, turned the deadbolt, and activated the security system, moving slowly as an excuse to linger in the foyer.

His footsteps faded down the walk. His car door opened, then closed. After a moment, the engine turned over, but it idled. Kept idling. I fantasized he was hesitating, that he was a breath away fromfuck it, let’s do this.

I wanted to believe that, but this campaign was too important to both of us. Wedidhave to leave early tomorrow. We reallycouldn’tdo this. I guessed he was lighting a cigarette, and the phantomclinkof his lighter made my mouth water.

I laughed softly to myself at the thought that that kiss had necessitated something like a postcoital cigarette, but even my own amusement couldn’t mask the knot coiling in my gut. I knew better. A smoke probably meant nerves. Stress. The longer that engine idled in my driveway, the more time he had to take a few drags and curse and regret everything.

A full three minutes after Anthony walked out my door, the engine rumbled into motion, and my heart sank deeper in my chest as the car took him down my driveway and out into the night. I imagined him gripping the wheel in one hand, holding the cigarette out the open window in the other, swearing and asking himself again and again what the hell we’d just done. Reality must have been settling on his shoulders like it settled onto mine. If we were going to take that kiss to another level, one that involved sweat and bedsheets, the “now or never” opportunity had passed when Anthony walked out the door.

At least then we could have blamed it on the heat of the moment. From here on out, anything we did was as good as premeditated, and he had to know as well as I did that wecouldn’t. Not while he was managing my “look how straight and married I am” campaign for governor.

Still standing in my otherwise empty foyer, I rubbed my temples and swore under my breath. It was a mistake. We never should have let this happen, and we couldn’t take it back now. But damn it, of all the impulsive things I’d ever done, why didthis onehave to be a mistake? Why couldn’t something that felt this rightberight?

I wanted this to be right. I needed it to be. And no matter how much I bargained with higher powers or rationalized in my mind, I knew it couldn’t be. Even if this was the one time, more than any other, I didn’t want to regret.

“God, Jesse…”

Thirty-two years old, and this was the first time I’d ever kissed a man who knew my name.

Chapter 9

Anthony

Goddamn it,Hunter, what the fuck were you thinking?

Sitting beside Jesse on the early flight to San Francisco, close enough to catch the vague scent of chlorine from his daily swim, I stared straight ahead. The occasional glance at him confirmed he focused in the same direction. Neither of us had said a word to each other since we arrived at the airport at crap thirty this morning, and this silence was in no danger of breaking.

Fortunately Ranya—who was appallingly perky for someone conscious at this hour—had bought our excuses about working late last night, not being morning people, and not having nearly enough coffee in our systems. She already knew Jesse didn’t function this side of nine o’clock, and it hadn’t taken much to convince her I was equally anti-early.

And by the time we’d made it to the gate, she was in no mood to give a shit anyway. Perky and chipper had made a very quick switch to pissed off and silent thanks to security treating her like a potential terrorist.

Well. Wasn’tthistrip off to a spectacular start?

Now here we were, sitting in a silent row in business class. Ranya had buried her nose in a book and blocked out the world with a pair of white earbuds, and she nodded subtly in time with whatever she was listening to while Jesse and I very carefully didn’t look at or speak to each other.

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