Page 32 of The Night Of
Jonathan shook his head. I didn’t know, either. I’d been up at Camp David, working on the advance.
“Carl met with Steven on his own, too,” Jonathan continued. “They had a private discussion in the Oval Office after the briefing. I was going to say hello to him, but I never got the chance.” Jonathan’s expression went strained, and he looked away.
The faint lines Fernandez had helped me draw were starting to solidify. Baker’s conviction that he had put his best man on the job of hunting down Hardacre. Rose’s appearance at this briefing. Then, according to the First Lady, the president been sullen and angry when Rees had arrived. And that anger continued all the way up to Camp David.
What had Carl Rose told President Baker?
Call Carl.Was he the explanation… or the cause? I’d thought of him as having the answers, but what if the answerwashim?
My directions were becoming clearer, at least. I had to find out everything I could about Carl Rose. Why plus how equals who.
But first, there was something I needed to do here. Jonathan was still staring out the window, glaring at the Oval Office patio like it had personally offended him. Another person might call him angry, call the scowl on his face furious. Not me. I reached across the desk and laid my hand on his wrist. “Jonathan.” I could feel his tremors, the quaking of his body. “You’re about to come apart.”
“Sean.” He exhaled. Clenched his teeth and shook his head. “I can barely function. I had to cancel my eleven o’clock meeting.”
That was my fault. “I’m—”
“I wish we hadn’t been interrupted,” he said through clenched teeth. “I cannot get you out of my mind.”
Oh.
“I’ve been replaying our conversation. How stupid we’ve been, both of us. And then, what you said. What you did.” He stared at me, his gaze searching mine. Searching me. His fingers were clenched around the edge of the desk, his fingernails biting into the old wood.
Oh.
Jonathan ached. He needed. He needed, unbelievably,me.
Where were his edges, where his control ebbed and he needed another man to take hold? Where was the place inside where he yearned to hear my voice instead of his own? I’d started something an hour ago, had given him a taste, a glimpse of what he could have, and then left him there with his body screaming for more. For a release that was just out of reach.
A release I could give him.You were the man I wanted to trust with everything.A release maybeonlyI could give him.
How far could we go together? All the way inside each other’s souls?
His eyes flashed. He was begging me to take control. “Jonathan,” I growled. “Come here.”
He moved like he was drawn to me, like I was a magnet. His chest heaved, and his shoulders tightened. His arms trembled. His hands balled into fists at his sides.
The part of me that needed Jonathan, that had reached so desperately for him, clawed and howled for freedom.
Jonathan licked his lips.
This was the Oval Office, and it was the middle of the day, but I didn’t fucking care.
I guided him until he sat his ass on the Resolute desk, and then I tugged open his legs and stepped between them. His breath hitched as I ran my hand from his thigh up to his hip, over his belly, and up to his chest. I pushed, and he lay back, on top of all of his papers and his folders, the briefs and packets and paraphernalia of the presidency.
He stared, his pupils huge.”We’re in the Oval.”
“We are.” My thumbs rubbed circles on the insides of his legs. “Grab the desk above your head. Don’t let go. I’ll stop if you do.”
Jonathan moved so quickly, squeezed so hard, I heard the wood squeal.
I trailed one finger down his inner thigh, around his knee, and then back up, circling over and around his crotch but avoiding the obvious bulge. “You’re rock hard, President Sharp.” Itsked, shaking my head as I palmed his cock through his suit. “Presidents have been impeached for things like this.”
His arms shook, but he kept his hold on the desk. He held my gaze. Refused to look away.
“Spread your legs for me.”
His knees fell open, the fabric of his suit pants going taut over his straining erection.
