A BRIGHT RED NEED BLAZED through my body, blinding me, torturing me for more of Sam’s skillful touch. Until Riley’s voice unlocked Sam’s hand from between my legs.

Sam, his face panicked, righted me on my feet, but my legs buckled underneath me. I dropped to the floor with all the grace of an elephant on ice skates.

My mind reeled through a Sam-induced fiery haze, and...

Oh my god I was half naked!

Sam ushered me behind the cover of the island, scooping up my shorts as we went, while the front door closed. And my underwear? The black thong that read Shh! across the crotch that I’d been saving for the first day of my internship since undergrad, torn and ruined, and ripped from my body in a fit of passion? I couldn’t get that tearing sound out of my head, which did nothing to help me find them. Where were they?

I yanked on my shorts while Sam pulled up his zipper, and like some kind of comedy duo, we stood at the exact same time just as Riley rounded the corner into the kitchen.

Riley’s face brightened when he saw me, and I hoped I appeared more put-together than I felt. Which was totally scattered and more turned on than I’d ever been.

He hadn’t been here hardly at all for three days, so of all the times to finally come home, why now? But, of course, thinking that surged a wave of guilt through me because this was his house and he was letting me stay in it for free.

“There you are,” he said.

“Yep.” My voice pitched higher with fake innocence. “Here I am.”

He gestured at the spices scattered around the floor. “What happened here?”

“Earthquake,” I mumbled because my brain was done braining and I could still feel Sam’s hands all over me.

Sam leaned against the island top, one eyebrow cocked, the rest of his expression bored. “We were checking the labels, and would you believe these are actually spicy spices?”

Despite seeing Rick again that afternoon, despite what had just happened between Sam and me, I bit back a laugh. Sam was making fun of me. This man who had sparked all sorts of unholy thoughts inside my head was making fun of me, and I wanted nothing more to give him a good tongue-lashing for it.

Riley stared at his brother, a question in his eyes. Did he know he’d walked in on something? Because we weren’t exactly earning any best acting awards tonight.

“Why are you home, SamRam?” he asked.

Sam crossed his arms, the corded muscles drawing tight, and glared bullets through Riley. “Not the same reason you are, I bet.”

Wow. Whatever animosity existed between the brothers, it somehow made me feel as if they were always speaking code when I was around. As if they were purposefully hiding something from me. Something Rick might like to know about the Cleary family but that I would never tell him.

Riley flicked his gaze to me and relaxed his stony expression into a smile. “You hungry? I’m starving.”

He sauntered to the refrigerator through the minefield of fallen spice bottles, and when he passed me, I searched once again for my thong.

“We were about to start making dinner, and then...” Oh god, and then.

I glanced at Sam for a little help and found him holding my thong in the palm of his hand. The intense heat from his gaze lit me up all over again, and I reached out for them more to touch him than anything else. A lascivious grin curled his mouth. He snatched his hand away, shook out the thong to display the Shh!, then stuffed it in his jeans pocket right next to the obvious swell there.

Message received, but what would Riley do if he found out what his younger brother and I had just done? I didn’t think he would be mad, but this Riley was different from the one I knew seven years ago. His and Sam’s relationship wasn’t as secure as it once was, and I didn’t want to be the cause of an all-out brother brawl.

Riley closed the refrigerator door, then kicked spice bottles across the floor on his way toward me. “Tell you what. Let’s go out, just you and me, and you can tell me all about the first day of your internship.”

I almost glanced at Sam to gauge his reaction, but that would be too telling. So would saying no.

“Sure,” I said. “Where?”

Sam strolled around the island toward the living room without a word. Had I hurt him by agreeing to go with Riley? I wasn’t even sure why I said I would. God, Sam had royally fucked with my head with the same thoroughness he’d nearly fucked me.

“You’ll find out when we get there.” Riley ticked his gaze toward Sam’s back. “You can fend for yourself, right, SamRam?”

Without turning, Sam flipped his hand in a half-ass wave then disappeared around the corner.

“But wear that dress you wore the other night,” Riley said to me. “The hot one.”

His voice sounded like a dare disguised as a purr, and I didn’t like it or his order for ‘the hot one.’ Was I a curried ham at the local meat market?

The television in the living room blasted on at full volume to drown us out, I supposed.

On my way down the hallway toward the stairs, I peeked in at Sam, who sat on the couch staring at the screen, his whole face void of feeling.

I wished I could stay home with him instead.

* * *

LATER, RILEY AND I sat in a crowded restaurant at a corner table with a white linen tablecloth and a mini chandelier hanging over our heads. The cover of the menu called this place V, but the inside of the menu renamed it Overpriced. This wasn’t my first choice of restaurant, if I’d had a choice, but as I listened to Riley drone on about the alcohol selection, I realized tonight was more about him than me.

While I offered nods and meaningless words at the appropriate times, my thoughts strayed to Sam. No one had ever made me feel that way before, so...consumed with passion and wanted at the same time.

My body hummed at the craving in Sam’s lips, his fiery touch, and the way his body felt flush with mine. It pooled a delicious heat into my lower belly and scorched my body with a fevered need. I squirmed in my seat, trying to focus on what Riley was saying, but the throbbing between my thighs wouldn’t relent.

A model/waitress with perfect blonde hair bounced over to our table, a pen but no notepad in hand. “Sorry about the wait. Can I get you anything to drink?”

I scanned the menu again, but all the words blurred into an orgy of naughty food items like jerk chicken, beef tips, and banana nut pound cake. I swallowed on a frustrated laugh.

“Your house wine for me and...” Riley gestured at me.

“Uh...” What would have happened if Riley hadn’t walked in on us? The possibilities burned me up from the inside out.

“Are you okay, Paige?” Riley asked over the top of his menu. “You’re all flushed.”

“Fine. I’m fine.” I looked at the waitress. “Do you have any water?”

“We might,” the waitress said, and I had no idea if she was joking or not.

Granted, I’d asked a stupid question, so therefore it must deserve a stupid answer.

She clicked her pen a number of times, sending in our drink order by Morse code, I supposed, then sashayed to the next table.

A small smile played across Riley’s mouth as he turned his head, faking a casual glance around the restaurant, but really checking out our model waitress’s ass.

Classy.

“So, out with it,” Riley said, turning to me once again. “Tell me every detail about today. It must have been amazing to leave you so tongue-tied.”

At the mention of tongues, I dug my fingernails into my thighs so the pain would keep me focused. “It was amazing. The internship, I mean.”

Riley grinned. “I thought that was what we were talking about.”

“It is. We are,” I said, then took a long, steadying breath. “We took a tour of some of the areas not open to the public.”

“I’m envious.”

“You should be. And the United States government will be very unhappy if I tell you anything about those areas, so don’t even ask.”

“Fair enough,” Riley said, laughing.

The waitress came back with our drinks and took our food order. I ordered something that didn’t have too many zeroes behind it, though five seconds after she clicked her pen and glided away again, I couldn’t remember what I’d just read from the menu.

“I had French fries and a turkey sandwich at the library café.” See, I could remember that. “And I met some really good, interesting, bookish-type people that I may have to throw down the stairs to get a Library of Congress job.”

Riley choked on his sip of wine and sputtered into his napkin. “What?” he asked when he’d collected himself.

“That was the part I didn’t like.”

One of the parts I didn’t like. The memories Rick stirred up and his Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde act had diminished my excitement considerably. The whole thing made me feel sick to my stomach, but a small part of that uncomfortable conversation had awakened the information-finding beast lurking in all librarians.

What had Max Cleary done that would make Rick not want Max reelected? And why would he think the Cleary brothers had some kind of evidence Rick could use against Max?

Since I was the poster child for secrets, I understood better than anyone the need to keep them. But since I very nearly slept with one of the Cleary brothers, it would be wise to know what I was getting into for once. Especially if that secret was large enough to undo a man’s bid for presidency.

Rick could threaten me all he wanted, but it didn’t mean I had to give up the goods. I had more leverage than he did anyway since he was completely in the dark about Her. Just the threat of a paternity test would shut him right the fuck up, but I hoped it didn’t come to that. Otherwise I would have to unravel the ball of shame I carried with me and admit all my failures to the one person to whom it mattered most—Her.

“What about the part you didn’t like about your internship?” Riley pressed.

“Right. Yes,” I said and sipped at my ice water. “There’s only one position available, and I feel like I’ve just stepped into the Librarian Battle of Death arena. Most of the interns already have their library science degrees, and I still have a semester of graduate school to go.”

“It’s the first day, though. Who knows what could happen in the next six weeks?”

“You know I don’t have a competitive bone in my body. Remember P.E., eighth grade year?”

The class had made the volleyball game into a contest to see who could missile the ball over the net the fastest. I lost. So did my nose.

Riley sat back in his seat. “This isn’t a game. You want this.”

I wanted a lot of things, one of which involved a certain man’s hands performing magic between my legs again. My glass of ice water clinked as I tossed back half of it. It cooled my body enough to concentrate on the man who sat across from me, the man I should be glad to see after all these years, but didn’t seem as happy to see me.

“I guess we’ll just see what happens,” I said.

“That’s all anyone can do,” Riley agreed. “So tell me about Wichita. Is there anyone special there?”

“As in a boyfriend? No.”

“Previous boyfriends?”

I turned my glass around in a tight circle to watch the moisture bleed into the tablecloth. “Sure.”

That was my standard answer, but the truth was after my horrific year at a brand new school when I was labeled a slut for being pregnant at such a young age, guys avoided me with the same vigor as if they’d heard my vagina had teeth. After a whole year of brutal slut-shaming, I quit school, adding to my parents’ hatred of me, and enrolled myself in online classes where I didn’t have to leave the safety of my bedroom. I pushed myself to graduate in three years, then earned a full-ride scholarship to the University of Kansas where I rejoined society as a history/English literature student.

No boyfriends those four years or the one year of graduate school, unless you counted group dates, which I didn’t. Not since Rick when I was fifteen, and he was married. I didn’t want to count him, either.

I cleared my throat and my head of all those memories. “How about you? Are you seeing anyone?”

“Nah.” His gaze slid down my neck and snagged on my chest over the rim of his wine glass. “The dating scene in D.C. has been kind of lackluster.”

So, my chest must be gleaming. I shifted in an attempt to block some of my boobs’ radiance.

“What about our waitress? She’s pretty. And she brought me water when I didn’t know if any could be found.” I searched the restaurant for my brand new hero and found her by the bar in the corner. She was holding her pen in a stabby way and clicking the poor thing to death. “Seriously, you have my approval.”

Riley shook his head, an amused gleam in his eyes. Blue, like his brother’s, but not as bright.

“You haven’t changed a bit,” he said.

I shrugged, not wanting to get into all the ways I had and hadn’t changed.

“So...” I began while toying with the corner of my napkin and pretending nonchalance, “do you remember Rick Chambers?”

“Sure.”

“Do he and your dad still run in the same political circles?”

Riley took a long draw of his wine. “Not really. Rick switched parties a few years ago. Why?”

“More water, ma’am?”

I looked up into the cherubic face of a water boy carrying a pitcher with lemon slices floating at the top.

“Please,” I said and pushed my glass toward him.

But he started pouring before the glass had stilled, and water slopped all over my hand.

“Jesus, kid.” Riley slammed his wine down and threw his napkin at me. “Watch what you’re doing.”

“It’s okay,” I assured the boy, then turned a sharp gaze on Riley. “It’s just water.”

“Sorry. S-sorry.” The boy’s cheeks erupted in a blush, and he carried his pitcher stiffly away.

“Riley,” I scolded while I dabbed at my hands. “What the hell? It was an accident.”

He stretched his arm across the back of the booth like he hadn’t even heard me, but his jaw pulsed like he was actually angry. About water. This man sitting across from me was not the boy I grew up with. Had politics warped his mind into thinking he was better than everyone else and could therefore treat everyone he thought was beneath him like dirt?

He used to be so compassionate. When we passed homeless people on the street, he was always the first to start digging through his pockets. He used to volunteer at a reading center for kids with me. If it wasn’t politics that had changed him, something else had, but this new, short-tempered Riley definitely wasn’t my favorite thing about being back in D.C.

“I’m just tired, that’s all,” he said and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “He wasn’t even looking at where he was—”

“Drop it,” I warned, my voice low.

Was this what it was like to reprimand a petulant child? Honestly, what was his problem?

His cell rang, and he nearly dropped it in his empty wine glass in his haste to answer it.

“Steve, my boy,” he answered.

The house wine had stained his lips crimson, which was why I only drank red alone at home and with a pan of brownies. Every time he grinned, it reminded me of Dracula, and I had to look away.

With him distracted, I fished my phone out from my purse and did a few quick keyword searches for Max Cleary and Rick Chambers together. Several photos showed the two men smiling, shaking hands, or posing with the current president. One article from three years ago detailed a veterans’ benefits bill they were collaboratively sponsoring.

Rick, who was probably in his early thirties by now, had returned from a tour in Baghdad a few months before I met him. A blizzard of shrapnel from a homemade bomb had nearly taken off his arm, but Max Cleary quickly took him under his wing when Rick returned to the states. When he wasn’t paving his way to Capitol Hill at the Clearys’, Rick visited my house. Always eager to please, he did odd jobs to help get us ready for our move to Wichita.

But both he and Max were thought of as war heroes. They weren’t involved in any scandals, at least outed ones, but a year ago Rick became the twenty-fifth senator, and the second from Pennsylvania, to switch parties since 1890. His explanation was that his beliefs were no longer aligned with the other party’s. Was that why Rick didn’t want Max to be president? Because they were now on opposite sides of the political spectrum? Nothing else seemed out of the ordinary, nothing that would inspire Rick to turn against his old friend Max, at least according to the first page of Google results.

Maybe it wasn’t political, and if it wasn’t, then it had to be personal. Something to do with Riley and his younger brother who had earlier fueled me up to maximum power. But what? 

Our waitress paraded a tray of food in our direction and then set one plate in front of me. “You had the nut-kissed meatballs and linguini, right?”