Chapter Twenty-three: Lay It All on Me

Mac

LAY IT ALL ON ME

Performed by Rudimental with Ed Sheeran

I took Georgie out to dinner, but when we got back to the apartment, she said she had to study. I got that. I had a stack of papers in my bag that needed reviewing as well, so we sat on the couch, side by side, knees touching, as we both did homework.

I was used to homework. I'd done a lot of it at the DoD. I just hadn't been allowed to take it home with me. I'd had to stay at the Pentagon until it was done. Being able to read the papers as I relaxed in my workout shorts and a T-shirt was much more satisfying. Especially when my legs and hands kept touching Georgie's skin in the sleep shorts and T-shirt she'd changed into once we'd gotten home.

This one act, the ability to take work home with me, was probably the only thing I'd found to like about being on the Hill since I'd started in August. That thought had me contemplating my life and my goals again in ways that gave me heartburn.

Dani came in from her workout and flopped down in the armchair.

"You two look cozy," she said with a smile.

"Don't start or I'll ask you why Russell looked so disheveled after meeting with you in the conference room today."

"Disheveled? Really? And if you're implying we were having sex in a conference room at the Capitol, you'd be all sorts of wrong. Do you know how many cameras are in those rooms?" She shivered.

"Maybe not sex," I said with a laugh.

She rolled her eyes. "Is that the Blythe study?"

I nodded.

"Good, you can catch me up on it tomorrow. I'm going to shower and hit the hay."

She left, and I felt slightly guilty. Like I was running my sister out of the room because of whatever was going on with Georgie, but then I reminded myself that Dani would never hold back. If she was uncomfortable, she'd say it.

"Are you almost done there?" I asked, setting my stack aside.

"No. I have another chapter to read."

"Come read it in bed," I said.

She looked up, holding her place with a finger that I wanted to put in my mouth and suck on until she quivered.

"No way. I know what you do in bed," she replied with an expression that said she was trying not to smile.

"I promise," I said, crossing my heart, "I will not try to have my way with you."

"That leaves a pretty wide set of options for you to torment me with."

I pulled the book from her lap, and she protested.

"Come on, Georgie-Girl. I promise. No sex tonight."

I dragged her down the hall to my room.

I pulled off all my clothes, leaving me in my underwear. She eyeballed me as I got into bed. I patted the spot next to me.

"Don't you trust me to keep my word?" I asked.

"Maybe I don't trust myself."

"You said you were sore. I won't let you harm yourself," I said, smirking.

She crawled across the bed, making it hard for me to keep my promise as her T-shirt dipped, showing me a glimpse of tantalizing flesh at the top of her breasts. I swallowed.

"What's that look?" she asked.

I just shook my head, knowing it would kill me and my balls to keep the promise I'd given, but I'd do it anyway. I pounded the pillows and tucked her body next to mine, placing her book on her lap.

"You know, I don't expect to stay in here every night," she said casually, still looking at the words on the page.

"Why not?"

"We aren't moving in together, Mac-Macauley. We're dating."

"I see your point, but it seems absolutely insane for you to sleep in your own bed."

"That's just because you want to have sex daily to soften your morning wood. "

I laughed. "I just told you, no sex."

"You said no sex tonight."

"Ah, the lawyer in you, looking for every little nuance," I teased. "I've taken care of my morning wood on my own for twenty-eight years. I don't have to have sex to help me."

She looked up, a soft blush spreading over her cheeks. "Did you just tell me you masturbate every day?"

I grinned at her. "Not every day."

"Wow."

"There's that word again."

"I don't even know how I'm supposed to read now."

I laughed and turned on the TV. "I'll put on something boring."

And that was how we fell asleep: with her book still on her chest, the TV turned to the American History Channel, and my body trying hard not to react to the gorgeous woman next to me.

? ? ?

The week went by with us in this fashion: dinner together, study together, fall asleep together. I was loving the simplicity of it all. The chance to get to know her that didn't end after a normal date. We didn't eat out every night. Georgie cooked one night. I cooked another. But it was just time we got to spend learning the curves of each other's bodies and souls.

On Wednesday, she reminded me her brother and sister were flying in the next day. She was nervous, running a hand over her ponytail, not quite meeting my eyes. I grabbed her hands and pulled her up next to me. "Georgie. Stop. It's going to be fine."

"Raisa says Malik has been in a mood."

"Do you think my sisters are never in moods? Didn't you see Dani come home on Tuesday? If she hadn't gone to work out, I might have thrown something heavy at her."

She picked at an invisible lint on my T-shirt and then smoothed it out.

"What's really bothering you?" I asked.

"It's just… I know how hard it is for you to be linked to someone who comes from my background. If you liked them, it would at least be an easier pill to swallow."

It weighed on her heavier than me these days. Her family. The jail sentence and the Russian "businessman." The drugs her mom had used when Georgie was younger. If Georgie and I made it past the dating phase, and I actually decided to stick to the plan of running for office, it would all come up—every last pea of their mixed goulash of a history. I'd sort of gotten used to the idea. I'd already started running scenarios in my head of ways that we could state the facts, repeatedly, if needed.

On the other hand, the truth was, every day I spent in Senator Matherton's office had me liking it less. I was trying to figure out if it was the sleazebags that I saw hitting on Dani, the jostling for position, the current political climate, or the idea of me having to sift through it all to win and make a difference on the Hill. I hadn't said any more to Dani about it, and I hadn't breathed a word to Georgie, because I didn't want her to think I was making my decision because of her. She felt guilty enough.

I ran my finger along her face to the tender spot by her ear that I couldn't seem to keep my hands or lips off of, playing with the row of earrings on her lobe. "If I don't like them, it isn't going to make me like you less."

She pushed her forehead into my chest, frustration entering her voice that wasn't directed at me but at herself. "I've never cared before. People either accepted my family and me for who we were, and they stayed in my life, or they didn't like them and they left. But the thought of you not liking them and leaving…it's different. It hurts in a way I've never had anything hurt. Not since…"

I rubbed her back. "Not since you lost your parents."

She looked back up at me, eyes wide. "I didn't really lose them."

"You did. You lost the child version of them. You didn't get to wake up with them there to greet you. They weren't there at the end of the day to ask about school. You suffered a loss. A huge one. Your world changed. Loss is loss, even if it doesn't come from death."

"You're really smart for a jockish military man."

"Jockish? That isn't even a word, is it?" I grinned.

Her lips twitched, and I wanted to continue to play the part I'd always played to get her beautiful lips turned up into a full smile.

"Eli was the brains of our group. I was the arm candy."

She laughed, like I'd wanted her to, and I kissed her sensual, full lips. She kissed me back hard, as if she was trying to take the frustration and fear and guilt and work it out through her lips on mine. I was happy to let her, hoping I could find a way to bring her comfort. To smooth the flyaways bouncing around her inside just like she was always smoothing away the flyaways on her hair.

? ? ?

It was close to seven when Georgie and I made our way to the five-star hotel on the pier where her siblings had a suite reserved. They were meeting us in the lobby, and we were going to walk down to the new restaurants on the revitalized wharf.

Georgie had given up her cotton summer dresses, which I'd come to think of as being the embodiment of her style, for an elegant halter top and slacks ironed to a crisp. She'd exchanged her flat sandals for wedges that brought her close to eye level with all six-foot-four of me. I'd dumped my suit jacket and tie but kept my slacks and button down.

As we walked, heads turned. I was used to women looking at me. All my friends had given me enough flack about it when I was with them, even when any and all of them drew eyes as well. But the looks Georgie and I incurred… It was like people were trying to figure out who we were. Were we someone important? I liked to think the woman next to me was very important, but not in the way the people watching us might have thought.

When we walked into the gilded lobby, a squeal caused me to turn just as a body crashed into Georgie. My hand tightened on hers until I saw her smile over the top of the head that was buried into her chest, and I relaxed.

When the girl pulled away, I saw lots of Georgie in her. But she was blonde and shorter than Georgie by about a good six inches, even in her own heels. She had brown eyes that weren't anywhere near as pretty as Georgie's contacts, but they were appealing, surrounded in dark lashes and liner.

"I can't believe you're here," Georgie said, her smile wide and happy, just the way I liked it.

"You look model perfect," Raisa said with her own smile. Her voice, with its accent, accompanied by her looks, was certainly going to make her a hit with the guys at Stanford.

"You look like you've grown up," Georgie said and tugged gently at the blonde curls. "Where's Malik?"

Raisa pouted, her red-lipsticked lips jutting out in a way that would also be appealing to the right partner. I'd never been one to go for a pout. "He said to text him the name of the restaurant because he has some people to meet with first."

Georgie's smile turned to a frown. "Did Petya send him on business?"

Raisa shook her head, eyes flitting to me and then back to Georgie, and I wanted to call bullshit, but wouldn't. Georgie was nervous enough about me meeting them. "No. Just some friends of his," she said before turning to me and sticking out a hand. "You must be Macauley. It is a pleasure to meet you."

I shook her hand. "The pleasure is mine."

She took me in from the top of my head to the bottom of my dress shoes before turning to Georgie with a wider smile. "He is very good match."

"Har-har," Georgie said, linking her arm through her sister's. "Don't go all Mom on me. Are you able to walk in those?"

Raisa's shoes were wobbly spikes versus Georgie's wedges. "Of course. Am I not Manya Leskov's daughter?"

Georgie laughed. "Come on. There's a place on the wharf that Mac assures me has good seafood."

"Hey. Have I steered you wrong once with food in D.C.?" I asked, picking up Georgie's free hand as the three of us left the hotel to walk down to the waterfront.

"You have not, but your winning streak has to give out at some point," Georgie teased.

On the way, I listened as Georgie and Raisa caught up on the trip, Raisa's roommate at Stanford, and how things were at home in Russia. The sisters were close in a way that I couldn't imagine being if you really grew up on different continents. But then, Georgie had said Raisa had been staying with her over the last few summers. Her parents saw it as a way to strengthen her English. Georgie and Raisa had just seen it as a way to build and keep a relationship.

We were seated at the bar, waiting for a table, when Raisa's phone started going off in a series of high-pitched chirps that would have driven me crazy if I'd had to listen to it every day. She responded to all the texts and then looked up.

"Mom does not believe you are here with Macauley. May I take a picture to send her?"

Georgie sighed but then pulled me close to her. I smiled for the camera before turning and kissing her cheek. I couldn't help it. I could tell that her nerves had turned to gentle swells, and I was happy she was relaxing. Raisa giggled and took another picture with my lips on Georgie's cheek.

It was a picture I would never have taken before Georgie. Lips on someone's skin.

Georgie grabbed Raisa's phone. "Do not send her that one. She'll expect me to have an engagement ring the next time I see her."

"I think that can be arranged," I said before I even thought about it. Both women turned to me with mouths agape, and I could feel my cheeks heat up. I rarely blushed. Growing up with a family like mine and then hanging with Eli, Truck, and a unit full of twenty-something men made me pretty immune to it. But this slip, even though I was surprised by it, didn't cause me to want to take it back like it should have. "I mean…if you need a ring to make her happy."

Georgie flicked my shoulder and then looked at Raisa. "He's just teasing. He isn't proposing. He knows I wouldn't say yes."

That comment, deflecting or not, hit me to the core. That she could so flippantly disregard the thought of marrying me. That she could so easily say she wouldn't accept my proposal. Because, Lord, I'd been right about keeping her. I didn't think I'd ever find anyone else who could fit into all my pieces as carefully and as closely as Georgie did.

If she noticed I got quiet after that, she didn't say anything. I hardly needed to be there for the conversation between the sisters to keep up. They didn't exclude me, though. They just had a rapid-fire pace of talking together that was fun to watch and listen to.

When we finally sat down at our table, Malik still hadn't shown up. The ladies decided to order without him, as if it was something they accepted as part of his normal behavior. I couldn't help it; it made me dislike him slightly without ever having met him. The fact that he would disregard a meeting with his family so easily. That he would disregard Georgie, who he hadn't seen in a couple years so easily.

When I'd been stationed on the USS George Washington , every single time I'd gotten on dry land, the first thing I'd wanted to do was see my family. All of the crazy bunch at once. I never would have blown them off for some meeting. It made me wonder if he really was here on business for Petya. I was pretty sure, even with no longer being at the DoD to look into it, that Petya's business was only partially on the up and up. It made me want to protect Georgie. To keep her from anything that might blow back on her and ruin her chances at the bar and a law career, regardless of my own career.

"So, Raisa, Georgie tells me you want to create a new, clean energy source."

Raisa nodded. She didn't look like a scientist. She definitely didn't look like a green scientist like Thomas was a green lawyer. He looked like a hippy child who came to live in the twenty-first century. Raisa, like Georgie, looked like she should have been on a magazine cover. Beauty and brains rolled into an intoxicating combination.

"Yes. We cannot sustain our world this way."

"Wouldn't Petya want to sell it if you came up with something?" I asked, and Georgie frowned at me. I hadn't realized that Stepdad was off-limits.

Raisa grinned at me. "Father thinks I will find a good boy and settle down. He thinks my being in the sciences will give me opportunity to meet smart man. He does not truly believe I will do this on my own. What he does not know will not…what is the phrase? Will not stomp him?"

Georgie and I chuckled. "Hurt him. Will not hurt him," Georgie corrected.

Raisa then launched into a discussion about a bunch of scientific terms that had my head reeling in ten minutes. I wasn't missing any brain cells, but her level of science was enough for me to need the CliffsNotes version. Raisa didn't seem to notice, and when I looked at Georgie, she was smiling, but she winked at me and then reached under the table to squeeze my hand. I instantly felt better. She wasn't exactly keeping up with her sister, either.

After we walked Raisa back to her hotel and made arrangements to see her the next day, we caught a CarShare back to the apartment. Georgie snuggled up to me, and I wrapped my arm around her shoulder, pulling her tight up against me.

"She's pretty incredible," I said into her hair, kissing her head.

Georgie nodded against my shoulder. "She's going to change the world, and I'm going to be lucky enough to call her my sister."

"I think she's already lucky to call you sister," I said.

"You're just saying that because you think you're going to get laid tonight."

I laughed. "I'd love to get laid tonight, but I'd say it regardless."

She looked up at me, eyes happy, face relaxed. She'd been nervous for no reason. Like the night of the embassy party, I couldn't resist kissing her, a gentle kiss that turned heated in seconds. My hand running along her bare back and tugging at the knot on her halter top that I wouldn't undo in the car but had every desire to undo once we were alone. The night wasn't young, and we had work and class the next day, but I didn't care. Embedding myself in Georgie's body and soul for a few hours would be worth any bit of tiredness in the morning.

? ? ?

The next night, we met Raisa and Malik at the hotel for dinner. Malik wanted to go to a nightclub after. It wasn't a club I knew from the times Dani had dragged me out, but when I looked it up online, it was in a decent area and had good ratings. I didn't have a reason to say no.

As soon as I met Malik, I knew I had an issue with him. Not only because he'd stood up Georgie the night before, but because of the way he sniffed and kept squeezing his nose. He was a drug addict. My heart sank for Georgie, and her family, and the pain that was going to ensue from this at some point. But also because drug addicts were the worst thing to have in a campaign family. They were notoriously going off the rails and would sell their soul for drug money.

Not that Malik looked like he was hurting for money. The watch he wore on his wrist was worth more than my sailboat, and I was sure his shoes cost more than any of my suits, even when my suits had not come cheaply.

His hair was as dark as Georgie's, and his eyes were as brown as his sister's. He was almost as tall as me but lean, graceful in his movements that spoke of a dance career even though Georgie hadn't mentioned one. I was sure he had no issue attracting the women, or men, or whomever he was interested in.

Georgie was in a black slip dress that accentuated her curves and made it impossible for me to stop touching her. She wore her contacts that were so deep a blue that it was like looking into the abyss in the depths of the ocean.

Raisa was in a red dress, standing out in a way that teenage girls often wanted to stand out.

When you looked at them together, they were, all three, gorgeous with those high cheekbones and slender noses that marked their heritage. With a sudden stop and start of my heart, I realized it was quite possible the siblings had a CIA tail. Or NSA or FBI. You pick an agency. They all had to have had an interest in the siblings if Petya was anywhere near being the "businessman" Georgie made him out to be.

Suddenly, the drug use became a much higher problem .

Malik was smooth and gracious in his talk. Loving to his sisters. There was nothing on the surface that was to dislike. But I was on high alert for no reason other than his sniffing and fidgeting.

When we got to the club, dance music burst from the speakers like a rattle of gunfire, making me wish I had my earplugs. Not that I wasn't used to bars. Dance clubs full of people much younger than me just weren't my norm these days. I was too used to places like Ava and Eli's bar. A different clientele and a different pace. But I liked to dance. Maybe it was years of being pulled onto the dance floor by my sisters. Or years at college where I went from the bar, to the dance floor, to a dorm room with a woman tangled up against my body. All I knew was it didn't bother me to dance like it did for many of the men in my life.

Malik seemed to know the management, because we were ushered in and seated at a semi-private booth with red velvet seats and drinks already on the table. I ordered a beer, not liking the idea of drinking out of any open containers in a place like this.

As soon as we were situated, I pulled Georgie in the direction of the dance floor. She smiled and yelled, "I have to bring Raisa."

I just nodded as she grabbed her sister's wrist, and we all joined the mass of people wiggling their bodies around, the flickering lights and music making it feel oddly dreamlike, and I wondered if Georgie was thinking the same thing and chalking it up to Descartes and doubting the reality of it. What I knew to be true was that, as much as I liked Raisa and disliked Malik, I couldn't wait to get Georgie to myself when the night was done.