Deanna opened her eyes to darkness. The low hum of a ceiling fan overhead was soothing, as was the warm body tucked up against her back. Teague. She took a deep breath, and his arm banded around her waist tightened. Her heart beat double time as she remembered everything they’d done in the last few hours.

Could he really forgive her if they tried this? And what exactly were they trying? With a history like theirs, where was a logical starting point? They could hardly pretend they didn’t know each other. Going out on dates once a week for a couple of months seemed silly when you’d been as close to another person as you could possibly be.

But on the other hand, they certainly couldn’t pick right back up where they left off. They weren’t engaged, they weren’t twenty, and there was a lot of baggage to work through. She wiggled, anxious about where this might go—or, more specifically, where it might not go. Both possibilities scared her more than she wanted to admit—even to herself.

Then there was the issue of Roland. As much as she knew keeping something from Teague was a bad idea if she wanted his forgiveness, she also knew that any information he had about Roland put his ability to keep the secret in jeopardy. After all these years, Teague was speaking the truth when he said he knew nothing about his brother except that he’d been sent to prison and his mother had told him Roland was dead. If he knew anything beyond that, she would put him in the position of having to lie were he ever questioned.

Deanna had no idea how Teague felt about Roland at this point. Did he miss him? Ever wonder what had happened to him? Or had he pushed his older brother aside for so long that Roland might as well be dead now. Her knowledge of Roland was a danger to Teague in more ways than simply his nomination. The knowledge might be a danger to the stability of Teague’s life in general. How could she tell him something that could be devastating to his emotional well-being?

“Dee?” His deep voice speared through the darkness as he nuzzled her hair, his hand moving from her stomach to her cleavage, where he buried it, giving a little grunt of satisfaction. “What’s going on? The anxiety’s radiating.”

She turned her face just enough to kiss his biceps that lay under her head. “Nothing. Go back to sleep. I might get up and read or something for a bit.”

“Yeah,” he said, shifting and pulling her head onto his chest, “that’s not happening. Just tell me what’s going on.”

She laid her palm on his abs, letting her fingers roam each ridge and bulge the way her tongue had a few hours ago. She shivered slightly at the memory.

“Hey,” he said again softly. “No secrets. That has to be part of this deal. What

are you upset about?”

Guilt stabbed her in the chest, but she wasn’t ready to talk about Roland. Not yet. She needed more time to think on it. Figure out what was best for Teague.

“I’m wondering what all this means. Where do we go from here? It’s not like we can erase twelve years of life and history. We can’t go back to where we were, but I have no idea how to move forward.”

He stroked her hair, a low rumble vibrating through his chest beneath her ear. “I’m no expert in this either, but I don’t think we need a plan, baby. The main thing is that I want to try and you want to try—right?”

“Yes. Of course,” she said emphatically.

“Then let’s try. Let’s try spending time together. Let’s try making love as much as we can. Let’s try dinner and movies and Sunday afternoons on the sofa with Netflix. Let’s try talking, and sharing, and fucking.”

She squeezed him tighter before leaning up to look him in the eye. “Yes. To all that. But we have one more problem.”

“Tell me. I’ll fix it.”

“If we’re seeing each other, I shouldn’t continue to write about your nomination.”

He ran a thumb along her cheek before kissing her once on the lips. “Okay. Is there some reason that’s a problem? You just tell your editor what’s happening and he’ll assign someone else to the story, right?”

She sighed. “Teague. If someone else gets assigned to this story, I can’t protect you anymore, and the way my editor’s approaching this, I’m scared for what they might find while they’re trying to pump up sales at the paper.”

“I’m not scared, though. That story is so buried, no one is ever going to find it, and I won’t ask you to violate your ethics any further than I already have. You’ve taken enough professional chances for me. You don’t need to hide our relationship on top of it.”

She rubbed her nose against his. “I don’t mind. I’m doing it because I want to.” She thought for a moment, images of everything they’d shared over the last few hours rolling around in her head like marbles. “It doesn’t make any sense for us to have come this far and then jump ship. And if I have to take a risk with this job in order to be with you, then that’s what I’ll do.” She sat up and looked down at him seriously.

“It doesn’t feel like I’m violating my responsibility as a journalist, because you’ve earned this appointment. And your family situation would make some people think you can’t make objective rulings on the court, but I know that’s not who you are. If anything, the way you grew up—where you did, watching your brother—makes you that much more qualified. You’ve seen and experienced things the majority of Supreme Court justices never will. You’re not making decisions about these issues in an academic vacuum. You’re making them with knowledge, compassion, and the formal training.”

The way he looked at her then was so intense, it nearly undid her.

“I never stopped,” he said. She looked at him, questioning. “I never stopped loving you, Dee. Not once in twelve years. And yes, I hated you too. It’s a fine line.”

He huffed out a breath in frustration.

At the same time that her heart dared to leap with hope, it plummeted in despair. No matter how much she knew she’d earned it, it still hurt like hell.

“But, Dee,” he whispered, gazing at her so seriously. “The love was always stronger.”

“I want this to work,” she said, climbing on top of him and settling her bare, wet core over his already hardening cock.

“So do I, baby,” he groaned, palming her breasts, his gaze raking over her in worship. “We’ll keep it between us, take it one day at a time, and we’ll be honest with each other always, right? If you’d told me what bullshit your parents were spinning to you all those years ago, maybe we could have survived it. And if I’d told you I still wanted you six months later, maybe we could have been back together then. Honesty. It’s the only way we can learn to trust one another again.”

She swallowed and nodded, knowing that she was about to make a very big mistake, but not seeing a way out of it. If they could just make it through his nomination, then she could tell him everything. Maybe he could even be in touch with Roland through her. Just a few more weeks and then she’d explain it all. It would be fine. It had to be fine.

“Now, come here,” he purred, flipping her onto her back and crawling down her body, licking and sucking along the way. “It’s time to show you how much I missed you…again.” His mouth landed on her core, and all her worries drifted away as his magical tongue and talented fingers made quick work of her inhibitions, until she was crying out in the quiet dark of Teague’s bedroom, unable to think about anything but the pleasure rocketing through her body.

* * *

“There’s someone following me,” Teague said as he sat at the Powerplay condo idly watching Jeff, Derek, and Scott play pool.

Scott, chief of staff to the majority leader of the Senate, looked up and squinted at him. “Are you going to throat punch them and send them to the hospital?” He laughed then, but it still irritated Teague.

“That I would have to defend that to members of the Senate who scream the loudest about the second amendment and protecting the homeland is nothing short of astonishing to me,” he answered, his mind traveling back to the committee hearing he’d been grilled at earlier.

“Supremes are supposed to be above such things,” Derek explained as he took a difficult shot and put Scott’s six ball into the corner pocket. “Son of a bitch!” he hissed.

“What makes you think you’re being followed?” Jeff asked, always in security mode.

“White man, forties, plain brown suit, across the room from me at lunch, outside leaning against a wall when I left the Capitol, sitting in a car parked across the street from my office.”

“Yeah, that about covers it. I’ll get someone to follow him, keep an eye on your safety—not that I think you can’t handle it yourself—and find out who the guy is and who hired him.”

“Kamal wouldn’t waste the time following the guy, he’d just have him roughed up,” Derek commented wryly.

“The First Gentleman is no longer at liberty to handle our security issues,” Jeff remarked with one eyebrow raised, “and I prefer not to be associated with any of it, and to avoid criminal charges. We’ll get what we need. Might take a couple of extra days. I have no problem doing what’s necessary, but I save the risk for things that can’t be obtained any other way.”

“And I prefer not to hear about it when you do,” Teague said mildly. “I’m going to go hide out in my high-end digs in the Supreme Court and think about things all day. Don’t bother me with the mundane details.”

Derek laughed, and Jeff threw a handful of peanuts at Teague. Meanwhile, Scott kicked Derek’s ass at pool, and the pouting political consultant joined Teague on the sofa as Scott and Jeff racked up the next game.

“You’re a terrible pool player, you know that, right?” Teague asked Derek.

Derek flipped him off, and Teague laughed.

“So I wasn’t able to listen in on the hearings. Did they give you an extra hard time?”

Teague shrugged. “Not terrible, but I can sense their frustration that they can’t find anything significant to bludgeon me with.”

Derek grinned. “Ah, the virtues of living clean all these years.”

Teague cleared his throat, wondering what Derek would say if he knew about Roland. Would it change his views on Teague’s appropriateness for the court? On what kind of man Teague was? Would Roland’s sins make Teague look like a criminal too? Would they make him look “too black”?

He cringed. As much as he hated it, he often found himself pondering that very concept. The idea that he had the wealthy, mostly white, friends that he did because he himself wasn’t all that black. Sure, he’d grown up black, but the ensuing years had meant college, law school, and a private legal practice that was overwhelmingly white. He was in business with white people, ate dinner with white people, spoke and dressed like a white person. And another part of him hated that he ever thought that way. There was no one way to be black. He was a human being, plain and simple. Some humans wore custom-designed suits. Some wore athletic gear, some jeans, and others uniforms. He dressed, spoke, and behaved as he did because that was what he was comfortable with.

But no matter how comfortable he was with himself, he was never entirely comfortable that he’d been accepted as he was. The lingering sense that any misstep could make all the white people around him reject him for who he was never went away, and it kept him from confessing the truth about his brother—even to Derek Ambrose, champion of the marginalized in politics.

“Yeah, I have nothing that will occupy them, so I don’t have to be concerned, but it’s tiresome while they dig and try to turn every little molehill into a mountain.”

“Yet, you seem anything but tired, my friend,” Derek said, giving Teague side-eye. “In fact, I’ve noticed a little extra spring in your step the last few days.”

Teague used his best lawyer mask and simply looked at Derek.

“Seriously,” Derek said. “What’s going on? On Monday, you turned London down for dinner at our house, which I have never once known you to do, because you’re a bachelor and my wife cooks like a dream.”

Teague grunted in agreement. London’s dinner invitations were highly valued in the Powerplay club. The woman could outcook Martha Stewart.

“Then yesterday, you lost a case and hardly even mentioned it. I’ve only ever known you to lose a case one other time, and when that happened, you were furious for weeks afterwards.”

“Different case,” Teague said dismissively. “I expected to lose this one, as the client was blatantly violating federal EPA regulations. We came up with a decent counterargument, but even we couldn’t deny that the company had violated the Hudson Act.”

Derek shook his head. “Nope. I know you better than that. You hate to lose—as do most of us—and yesterday, it simply didn’t bother you. The only logical explanation is that you’re getting laid regularly, but I’ve never known you to have problems getting laid either, so that doesn’t seem exceptional if it’s true.”

Teague fiddled with the label on his beer bottle, listening to Scott and Jeff bicker about their game.

He finally looked up at his friend, who was simply watching him—waiting.

“It’s possible I’m seeing someone in particular,” Teague finally admitted, a little part of him reveling in the opportunity to tell someone just how amazing Deanna made him feel.

“I knew it,” Derek said triumphantly.

“Knew what?” Jeff asked from across the room as he lined up a shot.

Derek looked at Teague, who gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head.

“That Teague was scared of Senator Drake.”

“Who wouldn’t be?” Scott answered. “I think the guy was alive before the Emancipation Proclamation. He thinks anyone who didn’t move here on the Mayflower with a dick swinging between his legs should be working to serve those who did.”

Teague shook his head in disgust, and Jeff and Scott went back to their game.

“Spill,” Derek muttered softly.

“It’s the reporter.”

Derek nodded. “The one you neglected to tell us you were engaged to

in college?”

“Yes. The very one.”

“And you’ve been seeing her?”

“As much as possible, which isn’t all that much given that she’s assigned to cover my nomination and could lose her job if anyone finds out.”

“Ahh, I understand now.” They both sat in silence for a few beats.

“And how’s it going?” Derek asked.

Teague tried not to grin, but it was a losing proposition.

“That good, huh?” Derek smirked.

“We have a long way to go, but so far things are…even hotter than I remember.”

Derek chuckled, then sobered. “What about her family? You said she dumped you at their behest.”

“She hasn’t seen them in over ten years. After everything that happened with us, she realized that things were never going to improve with them. I have mixed feelings about that. I feel vindicated in some ways, but I also feel sorry for her. She has no one now. At the age of thirty-two, she’s alone in the world. Apparently, her brother didn’t want to take sides, so she rarely speaks to him either.”

“That’s tough,” Derek agreed. “Is any of that playing into you getting back together with her? Do you feel responsible?”

“No.” Teague was quick to dispel that idea. Pity didn’t even make the list of feelings he had for Deanna. “I hate that she’s been alone, but I wouldn’t get involved with her because of that.”

“Good.” Derek paused.

Jeff cheered from across the room, and Scott stomped to the bar, where he poured a generous shot of tequila before slugging it down and slamming the glass on the counter.

“Come on, you owe me another,” Jeff said, grinning.

“You ought to have to come home and deal with me when I’m puking at midnight,” Scott grumped.

“You won’t get sick off two,” Jeff answered.

“I thought you couldn’t drink tequila,” Teague said to Scott.

“Exactly the point!”

Teague turned to Jeff. “Really? You’re going to make him sick because you beat him at pool?”

Jeff looked guilty for a split second, then shrugged. “Not very sick, just a little.”

“Why the hell did you agree to it?” Derek said. “I think I would have noticed if he’d held a gun to your head.”

Jeff put his hands out to his sides. “My gun’s clear across the room in my briefcase. No guns involved. I suggested it, not really thinking he’d agree, but he did.”

Scott ran the back of one hand across his mouth as he polished off his second shot and looked a little pale. “I thought I’d win.”

Derek and Teague shook their heads.

“I’m staying here tonight,” Scott said, heading toward the bedroom at the back of the condo.

“You’re an idiot,” Teague added. “But call me if you need anything. My house is closest.”

Scott nodded and slammed the bedroom door behind him.

Derek leveled Jeff with a disapproving look. “This isn’t hazing at boot camp.”

Jeff threw his hands up in defeat. “I’m fully aware of that. I was teasing, but he took the bait, and I figured he knew what he was doing. Really, I was as surprised as you are.”

Teague looked back to the hallway where Scott had disappeared. If he didn’t know better, he’d think his friend wanted to feel like hell.

“Well, maybe a night puking will remind him why he shouldn’t have agreed to it.” He stood. “I have to go. There’s so much work piled up from all the time I’ve had to take off for the confirmation hearings that I’m looking at a twenty-hour work day tomorrow.”

“I’m going to have one of my guys in the private sector contact you first thing in the morning so he can start watching your tail,” Jeff said.

“Thank you,” Teague said. “I’ll be ready for him.”

“In the meantime, be careful. Take a taxi home tonight, not an Uber.”

“Okay. I’ll give you a call tomorrow after I talk to him.”

Jeff nodded, and Derek shook Teague’s hand and walked with him to the door. “I hope things continue to go well,” he murmured.

“Thank you,” Teague answered. “I do too.”

And while he exited the building and hopped in the back of a taxi, no sign of his shadow, he mostly hoped that Deanna was at home, because he needed her in a way that was fast becoming habit—a dangerous but completely delightful habit.