ELECTION DAY
Charlotte
The next morning I wake up alone in bed. Across the floor, only a few feet from the bed and next to my clothes, is Matt’s jacket.
His jacket—Election Day!
I leap to my feet and turn on the TV as I hurry to change. Thirty minutes later, I’m in line at my polling place. I watch the line of voters and wonder who each is voting for. Had voting ever been this exciting? There’s a charged anticipation in the air, or maybe it’s just me, my fingers itching when I finally slide behind the privacy curtain and stare at the voting sheet.
For one second, my chest hurts. I know what I’m losing. I know what I’m choosing. But the urge to see him win overcomes my own selfishness, and I mark an X next to his name.
I stare at the ballot for a moment.
I missed voting for the last president when I was stuck home with the flu. It’s the first time in my life I actually vote, and the eleven-year-old who promised to help him if he ever ran for president can hardly believe that today, I’m standing here and voting for him.
I feel an odd sense of loss as I exit and yet distract myself as I try to make sure no one is following me when I take the train, then walk a few blocks to The Jefferson Hotel.
Detouring to the lobby restroom for a moment, I pull out my makeup kit. I carry only lipstick, blush, and mascara, but I dab a little of each on my face.
I didn’t need to add blush. A red tint stains my cheeks, and my eyes look a little rounder, very dark, and very shiny. Oh god. It’s almost as if I’m afraid to go upstairs, walk into the room, and have everyone see right through me.
Exhaling for courage, I step out, take the elevators, and head to Matt’s suite.
The last time we were in D.C., we hosted a fundraiser at the ballroom of this hotel. A lifetime ago and at the same time, only yesterday.
I knock on the door and when Alison opens it, my eyes fix on a tall, large figure standing by the window across the room with his hands in his pockets. He’s the one farthest from the door, and there are dozens of people between us. But it doesn’t matter; space doesn’t matter.
He sees me; I see him.
His gaze looks very male as our eyes lock. It’s as dark as it was last night, and it makes my stomach constrict painfully. Warmth spreads all over me as I step inside. Will he be able to tell that he flusters me?
Of course he will.
I greet everybody as I walk into the suite, leaving him until last.
“Matt.” I smile at him, excited the day has finally come.
“Charlotte.”
He returns my smile, but the way he says my name sounds gruff.
He doesn’t look frazzled like the rest of us. He looks like he just left the spa and wellness center on one of the lower floors.
God, I envy his ability to keep his cool.
But one year is enough time to get to know somebody and I know that hungry shadow in his dark eyes too well, and I know that his mind is working full speed.
Maybe speculating on the exit polls as we hear the newscasters in the background, as the seconds tick by, and the minutes turn to hours into what feels like the longest day of the year.
As I sit on one of the couches next to Alison and Mark and alternate between watching Carlisle smoke and glancing at the TV, I am acutely aware of Matt and where he sits and breathes, and every inch that he physically occupies in this room.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see him lift his eyes and smile a satisfied smile, and it makes me squirm and remember more than that.
He’s back to reading something, Jack’s head on his lap, Matt’s hand on top of Jack’s furry black head. I remember that hand last night . . .
We locked the world out when he closed the door.
I remember him backing me into my bedroom, his hands easing off his jacket, slipping under my shirt. Possessive and firm, that’s how his touch felt. His kiss. I needed him so much that when he stripped me, I wanted to rush, clawing at him as I stripped him too. But Matt wasn’t in a hurry.
He kissed me and tenderly shh’d me as he lay me down on the bed, and he took me in in the moonlight that came in through my window as he caressed me.
I melted into a pure white-hot need as he kissed my mouth, my cheeks, nibbled a line down my throat. His mouth moved around and over the peaks of my breasts, all over my stomach, to the insides of my thighs, and then it spent a long time between them.
His tongue drove inside me with slow, deep flicks that seemed to be what he needed to quench his thirst.
His hands held my thighs open as I convulsively tried to close them shut, the feelings too intense.
Hot and firm, he used his lips and suctioned with just the right amount of pressure to unravel me.
I unraveled.
I felt like I was cut from one string into a thousand. I came against his mouth with his hair between my fingers, but even then, he seemed hungry. His eyes, as he came up, glowed dark brown as he stroked his fingers down my face and captured my mouth in a crushing kiss that curled my toes.
I remember that hunger. How it built and built and didn’t diminish. Not after an hour, naked under the sheets with him, nor even after another hour.
And I remember the sound I made after he made me orgasm with his fingers and then, finally, slipped his hands into the nook at the small of my back and clenched my bottom as he drove inside me. I groaned his name. And I remember the way he smiled against my mouth, a smile of relief, and then moved, groaning my name, telling me I’m classic, so classic.
I remember how we did that, all night.
Him, whispering things so gruffly I didn’t understand what he said, only heard the hunger and tenderness in his voice and the rake of his teeth on my skin as we got rougher, more desperate, our breaths faster.
I remember it all, today, of all days, and I feel my cheeks start to burn bright red as I try to push it all out of my mind.
Amazing how I can forget sometimes what I dreamt, my apartment keys, my cell phone, but not a single detail about him.
Things from the past come to the surface. Holding his jacket for him, accidentally sipping from his coffee cup, spilling my folders at his feet and him kneeling down to help me.
I lift my gaze to find him reading the daily copy of the Washington Post. He’s wearing his glasses.
When he lifts his gaze and looks at me above the gold rims, his eyes darken and my breasts suddenly feel sensitive under my bra. I lick my lips and they feel extra sensitive after being kissed by him all night.
Matt’s gaze falls briefly to my lips, and I can’t help but drop my gaze to his mouth, which looks full and firm. Suddenly all I want is to feel it again, firm and hungry, his tongue ravenous against mine.
I don’t know how I’m going to do it.
How it will be possible to fall out of love with him.
But that’s what I need to do. Because this was only temporary, because that date he proposed won’t be happening.
I need to forget him and I need to put as much of an effort into the task as I did into his campaign.
Still, he’s staring at me across the table with those dark eyes that look both warm and tender.
With a jolt, I remember his jacket strewn across the floor of my apartment along with my lingerie.
The thought of someone seeing that I have it in my possession makes me worry, and my eyes widen and I leap to my feet.
Matt frowns and pulls off his glasses, standing instinctively as if to help me.
“I forgot I have something for you,” I say.
I can see he doesn’t like the idea of me leaving this suite, but I don’t give him time to stop me as I hurry to the door.
“Stay away from the paps and if they question you, you know the drill,” Carlisle says behind me.
“‘No comment,’” I assure him as I swing open the door.
My eyes meet Matt’s, and I feel that familiar skip of my heartbeat. I close the door behind me, the nerves about today’s results multiplying by the second.
I keep my head down to avoid any paparazzi, which I thankfully manage to do as I head to my apartment to get Matt’s jacket.
Once I reach my building, I hurry inside and spot it in the same place I left it.
My heart does that flip again.
I walk toward it slowly, almost as if I expect it to bite me like a cobra. But that’s not really why suddenly time seems to slow down—it’s because I suddenly don’t want to take it back.
I want to slip his jacket around me one more time. I want to wear it and hug myself and pretend that my arms are his arms. I want to tuck my face back into its collar and breathe in his scent.
The urge to do this is so enormous. I stifle the impulse with a lot of effort, calling back my professional side, the side that knows last night was not just unplanned, but a mistake.
So I take the jacket in my hands and fold it neatly into a department store shopping bag, then I head back to The Jefferson Hotel, determined to be professional and to put last night behind me as our farewell.