True North (Compass series Book 4) (30 page)

She clinks my glass, and we sip at the sweet liquid. White wine’s only saving grace is that it’s served cold. Pressly takes a bite of her fish, and her eyes roll up into her head in a pale but still gratifying approximation of the other kind of pleasure I’ve been bringing her.

“Good?”

“Mmm,” she hums, closing her lips around another bite. “So good.”

After she swallows, she excuses herself to the ladies’ room, and I stand as she does. While she’s gone, doing whatever it is that takes women so freaking long in the bathroom, I continue to eat, resisting the urge to text Rey and tell him it’s going well. I don’t need his stamp of approval. Although I’d be lying if I said I didn’t hope texting him was one of the things on Pressly’s powder room agenda.

When Pressly gets back, she’s got this devious glint in her eye, and when she leans over me, I can smell that reapplying whatever perfume she wears is one of the things she was doing in there while I chugged the rest of my wine.

“Congratulations, Secretary. You’ve won the prize for round one.”

Prize?

Then she slips something into my coat pocket and slides into her own seat, color high in her cheeks. When I reach in to see what she’s put there, I feel…silk. Lace. Warm and slightly damp. I almost choke. She put her panties in my pocket. If they’re in my pocket, it means they aren’t on her, and if they aren’t on her, it means there’s very little between the juncture of her thighs and mine. The idea short-circuits my brain because I’m not prepared for this Pressly. I thought I was on a date with buttoned-up, won’t-let-a-boy-get-to-first-base, perfect-ponytail Pressly. Not depraved, wanton, never-met-a-sin-she-didn’t-like Pressly.

“I, uh… Thank you?”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. Could I be any less cool? Not only not cool, but I think I’ve insulted her. Her face has fallen from delightedly mischievous to mortified. I should say something, try to play along, but she totally sprung this on me and I can’t walk it back.

“Sorry,” she mutters, shoving her hands under her thighs again. It’s not in a sweet way this time.

“Press, I—”

“No, you’re right. That was entirely uncalled for and I apologize. Please…” Her eyes close, possibly blinking back tears, and she opens them again on a hard swallow. “…dispose of them at your earliest convenience.”

And because I don’t know how to fix this and I’m an insensitive asshole without two brain cells to rub together, I ask, “How are your parents?”

She plasters a smile on her face, but only after she looks like she’s going to puke all over what’s left of her dinner. “Good. Mama’s roses are beautiful this year, and Daddy’s started collecting model trains. He’s taken over the whole basement. Drove Mama crazy at first because she had to find a new place to store all the Christmas decorations, but now I think she’s glad he’s got a hobby so he doesn’t make her nuts with all that free time on his hands.”

She’s put on her best Southern hostess, chirping about her family and maintaining conversation even though I’m guessing she’s dying inside. I used to admire her for that, her ability to put a mask on her feelings that wasn’t just hate and anger, but now it makes me sick to my stomach.

I want to apologize, but she makes it impossible, brushing me off with her polite chatter right until we get to her door.

She turns to face me and crosses her arms over her chest. That is not polite, smiley, perfect manners Pressly. She’s barely holding her shit together, and it’s all my fault.

“Thank you for the lovely dinner. The sole was perfect.”

Her brittle smile looks like it’s going to shatter any second. I should let her go so she can shut her door and lick her wounds, cry on her pretty couch. But I can’t help myself.

“Press, I’m sorry, that was—”

Her mouth tightens and I think she’s going to make more polite excuses, but instead her chin trembles and she might burst into tears. “Never has anyone made me feel so dirty, Slade.”

Out of all the filthy things I’ve said to her, my stuttering gratitude made her feel dirty? And not in a good way? Rey said there’s a fine line between turning someone on and hurting them and I think I just crossed it. Shit.

“If you would’ve played along, it could’ve been so much fun. So goddamn sexy. But instead you made me feel…repulsive.”

“I thought I was taking you out to dinner. I thought we were going on a date. I didn’t realize—”
That this was going to be another kinky fuck-fest?

“I get it. I’ve got to be one thing or another to you. And if we’re out in public, you expect me to act every ounce the lady, every bit the political wife you wanted. How about this, Slade? You text me in the morning and let me know who I’m supposed to be for the next twenty-four hours. Because I can’t tell from one day to the next what you want from me, and I’m tired of trying to figure it out. I keep hoping, and you…you keep hurting me. I have to go.”

She opens the door and darts into her apartment before I can even touch her, try to apologize again, and the door slams in my face. I lay my hand on the solid wood, fingers splayed around the peephole as I lean my forehead into the door.

“I’m sorry, Press,” I whisper. “I’m sorry.”

*

The office is
abuzz, and I’m doing my best to keep my shit together. I sent Pressly flowers the day after the panty fiasco and every week since then. Pink, white, yellow, and yesterday purple ones that were a bitch to find and cost a fortune. If she’d forgive me, I’d get her flowers every week for eternity, but I haven’t heard from her. I don’t blame her. I was an ass.

The more I think about it, though, the more I don’t quite understand what happened. Press has always been the more confident one of the two of us, the one who seemed more comfortable in her skin. But maybe I was wrong about that. She’s definitely more at ease than I am with the kink, but she’s had more practice, more time to get used to it. As for the rest… I’d always thought she enjoyed the DC political machinations, forming alliances and influencing people. But maybe she doesn’t like it as much as I’d thought. Maybe it’s just an obligation. I can understand if she has a bit of a hair trigger over thinking people only want to get close to her because of what she can do for them. Because the truth is she
can
do things for them.

Whatever it is, I’m sorry for it and I want another shot. I’m downright crawling out of my skin with the unrealized hope that she’ll be willing to give me another one.

Every time one of my staffers shuffles a paper wrong, I want to snap. But I try to keep a lid on it because I’ve been better. Even though it’s hard, it’s satisfying. To be more under control, to not feel like I’m spewing all of my emotions all over the place, leaving the people and objects around me dripping with the angry bile of my self-loathing. Yeah, sometimes swallowing that shit and trying to manage it inside myself instead of outside is better. And going to the club helps too.

But as of now, I don’t know the next time I’ll be there. Maybe on a Tuesday, since I’m sure Press doesn’t want me invading her space. I’ll keep giving her a break, and maybe she’ll build up a tolerance to talk to me again. But how many times can I screw up before she stops giving me another chance? Even Press has her limits. I hope I haven’t finally run into them.

Jenny comes in and hands me an envelope. Soft lavender linen paper with a gently sloping script I’d know anywhere. Press sent me a letter? Maybe the fourth bouquet was the charm.

I don’t even have to open it to know it’ll smell like her. We used to have boxes upon boxes of this stationery in our home. Even when I didn’t have the money to get it for her, her mother would send sets on her birthday, Christmas, Valentine’s Day for god’s sake. The colors changed, but the style of the monogram never did. The letters, though—those are different. It’s gone back to the PGA of our dating days instead of the PAL I loved, even though anyone thinking of Pressly as “pal” is ridiculous. A shower present from Ma Allwyn that Press had beamed about when she’d showed me.

“See? She likes you.” I’d grunted because a monogram on some ridiculously expensive pieces of paper hardly seemed like a ringing endorsement, but it had delighted Pressly. Now the PGA hits me in that spot somewhere near my heart I thought had healed since the divorce but has become increasingly raw and sore since Pressly came back into my life. Pressly Grace Allwyn.

I rub my thumb over the embossed letters on the back of the envelope one more time before I rip it open, my finger dragging through the luxe paper. And when I pull it out, yes, there’s that scent of her. Makes me wonder if she spritzed it with her perfume or if it smells so sweet because it was in her general vicinity. Press has that effect on things, rubbing off and making them better than they are.

I should probably at least be pretending to pay attention to the meeting going on around me because, well, it’s important, but all I can focus on is the card in my fingers. I hesitate to crack it open because I have no fucking idea what’s going to be inside.

A thank-you note? An invitation to fuck off? Whatever it is, I know it’s going to be in her impeccable handwriting.

So I man up and flick it open, wishing the linen under my fingers was her skin instead. How much would I rather be with Press than in this goddamn interminable meeting?

Inside, there’s a short note:

Slade,

Thank you for the flowers. All of them. I feel like I’ve been living in a greenhouse.

Meet me at seven o’clock at the Grant-Arthur Thursday evening.

xoxo Press

Well, she can’t be too pissed at me. She would’ve signed it
Best
or
Sincerely
, not those adorable hugs and kisses. But why not call or text if she wanted to meet me at the hotel? And how am I supposed to know what to do when I get there? I’m assuming this is a kink-and-sex thing, otherwise we’d be meeting someplace more public. Or more private. Like her apartment or our house. I would sell my soul to the devil to have her back in our house. But she’s signed it Press and not Sprite. Possibly because it was coming to my office and it would be weird to use her kink-verse name? Why is this more complicated than a filibuster?

But no, the hotel I think is the real clue. Guess I should pack my toy bag.

‡

T
wo nights later,
I’m getting out of the town car that’s dropped me off in front of the Grant-Arthur. I could’ve taken the Metro but it would’ve taken longer, and I couldn’t stomach the wait. I’m practically humming as I step onto the sidewalk, and I don’t hum. Well, occasionally I would while I was making Pressly pancakes on a Sunday morning, but these days it’s far more likely curses being muttered under my breath than a tune. Not tonight.

Tonight I’ve got my bag full of tricks, and I get to use them on the most perfect woman in the world.

Once in the lobby, I ask the well turned-out gentleman behind the desk if there’s anything for me and he hands me an envelope, studiously maintaining a neutral smile. I doubt he would be if he had any idea what was waiting for me upstairs, but who knows? Some of these hospitality types have almost as good a poker face as Rey Walter. And hell, I’m starting to get hard from imagining what’s waiting for me. Will she be naked already? Waiting for me on her knees? Maybe spread out on the bed? Or perhaps perched on the chaise? I can’t wait to find out.

The elevator ride seems interminable, as does the walk down the carpeted hallway. It mutes the sound of my footfalls as I make my way toward her and when I get to the room—522—I slip the keycard out of my pocket and into the slot on the door.

It bleeps and gives me the green light. For some reason, that small sign makes me giddy, lightheaded with anticipation. Almost as much as I was that first time with Press. I don’t know why, because we’ve been together since then and it’s always amazing, but somehow this feels different. Like this might be a turning point for us. I would turn on a dime for her.

The lights are all on when I step in, and I stride down the short hall past the bathroom and the closet, looking for her. She’s sitting in the lounge chair, feet on the ottoman where I’ve had her in very different sorts of positions, and I stutter step just the once.