Page 41 of The Night Of
“Just do it.”
He was efficient with the needle, going deep enough but not too deep. He tied off each stitch, sliced the thread, and moved to the next. We’d both been soldiers, and this was something we’d been trained to do, but I’d never had to have battlefield stitches before. I tried to be tough, to not wince every time he stuck me. I failed.
“You make it hard to concentrate,” he said, breaking the silence between us. “Nearly naked.”
I grunted. The pit of worms in my belly wriggled. I shifted and got stabbed by his needle. He slapped my hip. “I didn’t think you’d have a needle and thread lying around,” I murmured.
“I stole it from the den. There’s a wall of embroidery by past Second Ladies on display. There’s an old sewing table in there, too.”
“Wait, that’s a needle and thread from the exhibit? Those are from the 1800s.”
“At least the 1800s.” He tied off his stitch. Lifted his eyes to mine. They were bright and shining with mischief. “I thought I saw the name Abigail Adams?”
“John Adams’s wife? You’re sewing me up with John Adams’s wife’s embroidery thread? She probably used this to sew an American flag, Jonathan!”
“Abigail Adams probably sewed up Revolutionary War soldiers, and I’m certain she would approve of her needle’s use now.” Jonathan tied off the last stitch and cut the thread. He stood back. Appraised me and his work. “Well, you won’t die. I’ve got some painkillers if you’d like them.”
I let him bandage me, putting another square of cotton over the stitches and taping it down, and then accepted the painkiller and glass of water. “Nothing too strong. Just to dull the pain.”
He gave me a pair of his boxers. I carried my ruined clothes and my gun out to the bedroom, dumping the clothes on the floor and setting my gun on the nightstand when Jonathan led me to his bed.
My heart stumbled, squeezed, and then found its rhythm again. My lungs were tight, and that had nothing to do with the pain. I slid between his sheets, and he tucked me in like I was a fucking kid, laying a no-shit hand-stitched quilt of an American flag on top of me. It was probably made by Abigail freaking Adams.
His eyes were warm. “I have some calls to make. I can take them in the study on the secure line. I’ll be two doors down.”
I nodded. “No visitors. No one comes in or out. No answering the door.”
“Not even the pizza delivery guy.”
“Not even the Secret Service.”
The humor fled. He nodded. “Rest, Sean. I need you.”
We found each other’s hands at the same time, and he squeezed my fingers before leaning down and brushing his lips against mine. I wanted to deepen the kiss, slide my hand behind his neck and hold him close, pull him on top of me and undo the buttons of his shirt one by one. But I’d already been enough of a distraction—fuck, had I interrupted him four times in the past two days?—and there he was playing nurse as I tried not to bleed all over his sheets.
I wasn’t at my best, even though I wanted to be, for him.
He left me in his bed with the door cracked open. I breathed in. Stared at the ceiling. Jonathan surrounded me, invaded me, the smell of him on the sheets and on the pillow. I was dizzy, delirious with images of him in his bed, him in his boxers and undershirt, him naked, him between these sheets and lying next to me. His face on the pillow next to mine.
Nowmy cock wanted to join the party. It stiffened, hardening almost to the point of pain now that I was alone and Jonathan was on some call with the leaders of Congress or the Joint Chiefs. Now, when it was impossible to do anything, and when there was no danger of impressing him.
I pushed my head back into Jonathan’s pillow and closed my eyes.
A hidden note. A secret gun.Flowerterrible. A bruise on the back of Baker’s neck. A murder made to look like a carjacking. A booby trap at a CIA officer’s house. Two men in the Oval Office minutes after President Baker was shot.
And Jonathan, stuck in the middle of it all.
My thoughts chased themselves, chased the horror and terror of the past forty-eight hours. Chased my memories, chased my nightmares. Chased a star-strewn beach on Hokkaido and the echoes of Jonathan, of myself, and the first time we’d reached for each other. Was it a memory or was it my fantasy, the ghostly brush of his chest against mine, fingers trailing over skin, exploring the secret parts of each other’s bodies and souls? There had been tenderness that night, hadn’t there? I hadn’t just… gone feral on him?
Had I told him I loved him? It had been nearly bursting out of me every time I was alone with him or texting him or on the phone with him. It had always been on the tip of my tongue.
After, even thinking that I loved him, even remembering the shape of the words, the way I’d held them in my heart, had cut too painfully.
But I hadn’t stopped loving him. Not ever.
I buried my face in the cool cotton of Jonathan’s pillow, breathing him in, and, before I knew it, I was asleep.
Eleven
