Chapter Four
I held the bar lightly overhead on the Metro. My fingers clasped the metal with hesitation. I was still trying to adjust to public transportation. I tried to visualize the hundreds of people before me who had stood in this spot today going to work, or riding home. How they had been staggered in here shoulder to shoulder, avoiding eye contact.
Vaughn’s hand tucked around my waist. He still hadn’t revealed where we were going. As the car swayed, he applied pressure to my back, making sure I didn’t tip with the momentum. It felt good. It felt safe. As if this man I barely knew had me.
“Should I start guessing?” I asked.
“You could try.”
I pinched my lips together. I didn’t know anything about D.C. other than the most famous national landmarks. Most of them were closed this late in the evening.
“Can you give me clue? Any kind of a hint?”
I looked into his dark eyes. He didn’t give anything away. If he was being playful, I couldn’t tell. There was a seriousness beneath him that never wavered.
“I’d rather show you.”
“All right.” I was ok reveling in the closeness we had on the Metro. How his body almost touched mine. How there was a current running from him to me with invisible wires. And I could stand here and inhale the intoxicating scent from his skin.
Each time the car stopped at another station I looked to Vaughn for a signal that we were going to hop off, but he stood tall, shielding me from anyone who boarded or exited. He was like some kind of body guard, making sure the only person who touched me was him.
Eventually, he pulled my hand from the rod, led me to the sliding doors, and tugged me behind him onto the platform as the bell dinged and the train charged on to the next stop.
I looked at the station. “Smithsonian?”
“This way.”
We took the escalator to the street level. It was quiet.
“Now will you tell me where we are going?” I urged.
“Let’s walk.” Vaughn led me along the sidewalk.
The Washington Monument emerged on our right, towering silently straight into the night. I paused for a moment to take it in, but we turned our backs to it and continued at an easy pace for several blocks. I also realized that we were putting more distance between us and the White House. That had been my first guess for Vaughn’s mysterious night stroll.
As we neared the water, Vaughn’s grip tightened around my palm. The lights from the memorial shimmered on the dark calm of the rippling waves. There was almost no movement at all on the water.
It was dark under the canopy of trees, but as we rounded the circle and made our way to the front columns, I realized why Vaughn had brought me on this route. It was breathtaking.
When we finally stopped walking, he stood back and crossed his arms. “What do you think?”
“I’ve never been here. I’ve seen it fifty times from the road or in pictures, but I’ve never actually been here. It’s beautiful.”
He winked. “It’s my favorite spot.”
We walked together toward the stone steps. “Why the Jefferson Memorial?” I asked. “Not Lincoln? Not the Washington Monument?”
He shook his head with confidence. “One reason—the quiet.”
He was right. There was no one else here.
He took the steps and I followed after him, trying to pick up on every detail of why this place was special to him. Why he had chosen to bring me here instead of trying to impress me with high-end dinner reservations.
“Everyone thinks Lincoln is the place you want to go if you need to think. If you need the wisdom of a man faced with the greatest challenges and adversity. That’s where people go to wade through their moral conscience.”
“It’s not the right one?” I questioned.
“No. Lincoln’s sculpture mastered that on its own. If you look at him, he is already posed to think for you. To take dilemmas of morality from you. This one … this one is different.”
I spun slowly on my heels, rotating just like the rotunda we were standing inside. “And this is where you come to think?”
“Maybe.” He smirked.
“I like it. It’s really beautiful.” I moved toward one of the stone markings on the wall that was inscribed with Jefferson’s quotes. The carvings stretched several feet above my head.
There was a romantic eeriness wrapping us. Vaughn watched as I moved along the walls, absorbing the words.
“I thought with your appreciation for law it might be meaningful to you.”
I whipped around. “You did?”
“Aren’t you the girl who’s going to change the world around here?”
I closed my eyes. “I’m the girl who used to think that.”
“What happened to her?” The deepness in his voice held me.
“She’s trying to figure things out,” I admitted. “Trying to start over.”
He shoved his hands in the front of his pockets. “Then maybe you need a place here where you can think in silence.”
I smiled. “Maybe I do.”
“Let me show you something else. You’ll like this story.” He tugged my hand.
I followed him down the steps to the water’s edge. We were across from the White House. It looked tiny from this spot.
“Have you ever heard of the Cherry Tree Rebellion?”
“No. What is it?”
He wrapped his arms around my waist, locking them in place firmly against my body. I leaned into him.
“When they started to build the memorial some of the cherry trees needed to be sacrificed for construction.”
I glanced at the trees bordering the park. “But they’re so beautiful.”
“That’s what 150 other women thought too. They chained themselves to the trees and refused to move until the president agreed to have them transplanted instead of destroyed.”
“Really? I’ve never heard that story.”
“Really.”
He pressed his lips to my ear.
“Are you some kind of historian?” I teased.
“Just thought you’d like the story.”
“I do.”
“But?”
“Well, did it work? What happened with the trees?”
He chuckled. “The trees were dug up and moved to a new location. But don’t ask me where.”
I smiled.
We stood in silence. Our bodies melting into each other. I didn’t want to move. I didn’t want to break the spell.
“Emily, you will find your way in this town. It takes time being the new fish in an ocean of sharks.”
I sighed. “All my problems aren’t sharks.” I didn’t want to tell him my brother’s cycle had cracked through the protective bubble I created here. I didn’t want to talk about Garrett at all.
Garrett was a pain I carried with me. At times it was so deep, I didn’t think I could breathe. And the guilt I had for leaving him behind crippled me. I didn’t know how to move past it. I didn’t know how to move inside it. It was with me, hovering on the outer edges of my thoughts.
And he was here again in this moment. A moment that should be mine.
Vaughn rotated me toward his chest. I looked at his face in the shadows. I could feel the warmth of his breath on my cheek.
A new fire started under my skin. It was the way Vaughn looked at me. The anticipation was like a drug.
He threaded his fingers through mine. “Come on, I think I owe you dinner.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything again, but I am starving.” We strolled along the path next to the cherry trees. I would never look at them the same way again. “Thanks for showing me your secret spot.”
“It’s not so secret.”
“You know what I mean.” I stopped him at the bridge. The rotunda rose behind us, illuminated like a jack-o-lantern. “I do need a place. Everything has been frantic and chaotic since I moved. I didn’t know how much I missed the quiet. This kind of quiet.”
I hadn’t meant to turn somber. Maybe it was the heaviness of the monument, or the darkness falling on our shoulders. I was spending the evening with a gorgeous man and yet the weight of the day was still on me. I was letting it sink into my skin and ruin the romance of what Vaughn tried to accomplish.
I looked into his eyes just as his palm caught the softness of my cheek.
“Come here,” he whispered, dragging his lips across mine.
I inhaled deeply. It was what I needed. What I sought.
The perfect way his mouth moved over mine, while his hands tangled in my hair. I couldn’t help the tiny whimper that escaped from my throat. His kisses had quickly become everything. They stopped the loneliness. They stopped the unavoidable feeling of panic and uncertainty. When he kissed me the only thing I felt was the path to escape. The way out of chaos. I sighed lightly as his lips fell on mine, raking over me as if he was trying to memorize the lines of my mouth.
The kiss burned my tongue.
“You make it hard to remember what I’m doing, Emily.”
I nodded. I wanted the kiss to continue. I wanted to forget everything else that had happened today. The only thing worth remembering was this. Vaughn’s mouth devouring me under a dark D.C. sky.