“I can’t believe you laughed at me.” She pushed his shoulder lightly.
He grabbed her arm and yanked her into him. His arms circled her waist, pulling their wet bodies together. Liz smiled, instantly forgetting what she had been saying. She wrapped her legs around his waist and slid her hands up around his neck.
Brady held them effortlessly above the water as his lips found hers. She would never tire of kissing him. They tasted like a mixture of sweat and sunscreen, and she couldn’t get enough. She pressed her body into him and forgot that they were in the middle of the lake, where other people could see them.
He pulled back before she was ready, and she captured his lips once more. He chuckled. “We should get back to the house. I had dinner delivered. Nothing special, but it’s good deck food.”
“Sounds perfect,” she said, leaning forward and kissing him again.
They docked the Jet Skis back in their ports and toweled off. Plates of food were sitting on the deck table when they returned. Brady peeled back the covering to show her a cheese and bread plate, a fruit plate loaded down with fresh strawberries, pineapple, kiwi, and melon, and another tray with finger food that they picked at as the afternoon sun faded into evening.
Liz sat down next to Brady on the outdoor bench with her feet tucked underneath her and her head on his shoulder. She yawned, the rush of the day and overexposure to the sun catching up with her, but she wouldn’t dare slip away when she had so little time left with him.
“So, what else do you have planned for the summer?” Liz asked. It was nice knowing that she was asking not for work, but for personal benefit. Though she worried it might come across that way. “I mean when can I see you again?”
“Those are two very different questions.” At least he didn’t tense.
“I meant them the same,” she said.
“Well, to the first one, I try to take each day at a time and let my staff plan the rest out. I have to win the primary in August, and that’s where I’m looking. And in answer to the second, as soon as I can next get away.”
She hoped that meant sooner rather than later. She didn’t know how much she could handle this waiting game. She would wait for him. She knew that she would, but that didn’t mean that she wanted to go weeks without him in her life. In fact, she wanted to spend all of her time with him. And that was a scary thought.
“What about you? What are your big summer plans?” he asked.
Liz smiled. She liked this. It felt comfortable, sitting watching the sunset, discussing the future. She had never been a big one to talk about the future with guys…not that this was that kind of talk.
“Working on a portfolio for my journalism class and running a campaign column,” she told him. The thought of how much work she had got her all flustered.
“Busy.”
“Very. I don’t know how I’ll find time to keep seeing this guy,” she said flippantly.
“You’re seeing a guy?” he asked, turning to face her. She wasn’t sure whether he was serious or joking. She couldn’t read him as well as she thought.
“Well, I don’t know if you would call it that,” she said.
He narrowed his eyes. “If you’re talking about anyone other than me, I’m not going to be pleased,” he said, grasping her chin and pulling her in for a heated kiss.
Liz blinked a few times to try to regain composure when he released her. “How could there be anyone else but you?”
And in the summer-heated night, wrapped up in his arms, lost to his touch, she really believed that. Brady had taken over her world. He captured her thoughts, revealed her hidden desires, and made her feel as if she was actually living. In that moment, there was no one else other than Brady.
“I’m having a banquet near the end of the summer, right before the primary. It won’t be in any of the websites you’ve been scraping to track campaign schedules,” he said with a laugh. “I assume you’re doing that?”
Liz bit her lip.
“That’s what I thought,” he said with a chuckle. “I can give you a schedule if it makes it easier.”
“Then it feels like I’m not doing my job.”
“It feels a bit like you’re stalking me.”
“That is part of my job,” she said with a cheeky grin.
“Well, you won’t stalk me to this event without a ticket,” Brady told her. “I’d like you to be there.”
She wanted to ask whether she was going to be going with him, but she didn’t. She couldn’t ask that. If he said no, she wouldn’t be able to keep the hurt off of her face. They’d had such a nice day together that she wouldn’t want to ruin anything.
“All right. I’d like to go,” she told him.
“In the meantime, will you do me a favor?”
“Sure,” she said, offering him the world and more.
“Don’t get your picture in the paper.”
“What?” she asked, surprised. “Why would I get my picture in the paper?” Liz immediately started looking around the lakefront, as if she were expecting photographers to appear around every corner.
“In your paper. Don’t let anyone convince you that you need to have your pretty face next to your name,” he said, running his hand down her cheek.
“Why?” she asked suspiciously.
“You’re pretty anonymous, right?”
She definitely was. She had been saying not too long ago that everyone knew Calleigh when she was in her position, but no one knew who Liz was. It was probably her own doing. Calleigh liked to be in the spotlight, and Liz preferred the background. Slowly she nodded her affirmation.
“Stay that way.”
She didn’t understand what that had to do with anything, and it must have shown on her face.
“Right now, you’re Liz Dougherty on paper. You’ve written some articles that are unfavorable to me, but no one knows who you are. If you start showing up at all my events, and people already know your face, then your cover as Sandy is ruined…”
Liz started putting the pieces together. That made much more sense. He was protecting her identity and at the same time securing himself a little bit more. So, no pictures in the paper. That was fine by her. She would rather be anonymous than lose out on time with Brady.
“What about your press secretary? Doesn’t she know who I am?” she asked, wanting to cover all the bases.
“Heather? No, she knows you’re a reporter, but she doesn’t know you by face, just by name. And I’ll deal with Heather so she doesn’t put the pieces together,” he told Liz confidently.