“You’re my exception, Liz,” he said, trailing his hand down her jaw.

Her eyes fluttered closed, all thoughts of what had just occurred flying out of her head. One simple touch and she was lost to him. It had been like that since the beginning. She hadn’t been able to get enough, hardly been able to say no, found it impossible to stay away. Even when she had forced herself to walk out of his life, she had still thought about him all the time.

She tilted her head up to him and their lips met. It was like a dose of medicine for her system. His hand slid up her thigh, reminding her of their earlier exploits and the fact that she was still without underwear.

“How do you do that to me?” she whispered.

“What?”

“Make me forget all sense.”

“Are you saying we don’t make sense?” he asked, trailing circles into her inner thigh and slowly spreading her legs.

“We make perfect sense,” she said. “Aside from all the reporters trying to prove us wrong.”

“Someone is always trying to prove something.” His hand brushed up against her sex and her grip on him tightened. “Like I’m trying to prove that I actually can keep you quiet for a few minutes.”

“I think you did that earlier,” Liz said with a smirk of her own. His finger swirled around her clit and she gasped at how sensitive she was. She tried to remain silent as he worked on her on the drive.

Dark-tinted glass separated them from the driver, but she still felt vaguely as if they were being watched. It should have kept her from getting completely turned on all over again, but it didn’t. She was coming undone at the expertise of his fingers in the backseat of the town car.

When she felt like she might explode, he finally obliged her and delved two fingers inside her. He pumped into her a few times and it took every ounce of willpower not to cry out as he brought her to the point of ecstasy and then she tipped over the edge. She bit down on her lips and breathed heavily in and out as she came down from her orgasm. Her head was tilted back and her eyes closed.

Brady removed his hand from her. “Look, you can follow directions.”

“Just barely,” she whispered.

He kissed her again softly just as the car began to slow, signaling they were almost to their destination.

“Brady,” Liz murmured. “Does that mean you’ll stay?”

He laughed lightly and nodded when she looked at him. “Yes, baby. I’ll move some things around.”

Liz ducked her head. Unsurprisingly, Heather didn’t like to hear that plans were changed. She had been a bitch to Liz ninety-five percent of the time Liz had known her, but the stress of the scandal was really pushing her over the edge. At one point, Brady even had Liz leave the room so they could talk. She could hear him and Heather arguing all the way down the hall.

They were at Brady’s campaign headquarters in Raleigh. Liz wandered from the conference room where they were still arguing and down to his office. She closed the door and sat back in the oversize chair. With the computer booted up, Liz pulled up Google and steeled herself for what she was about to do. She typed in her name and then pressed Enter.

The top of the screen filled with a news tracker that updated as articles came in about her relationship with Brady. She clicked on one at random and skimmed the article. Words jumped out at her—affair, college student, reporter, scandal. She moved to the next article and the one after that and the one after that. After reading a handful of the same material she returned to the homepage and was surprised to see that a Wikipedia page came up under the search. She opened it and saw that someone had already added their relationship to the personal section of Brady’s page. Great.

She was jolted from her search when the door opened. “Hey, you,” Brady said with the same captivating smile. “What are you up to in here?”

“Torturing myself.” He arched an eyebrow. “Just looking up news articles.”

“That is never a good idea.”

Liz tore her eyes away from Brady to stare at one of the last articles she had up on the screen. Someone had managed to get a relatively good picture of them together when they had fled the press conference.

Brady was at her side before she knew it. “Let me help you with that,” he said, reaching over her shoulder, covering the mouse in her hand, and exiting out of all of the articles. “There, that’s better.”

“This was my life,” she whispered. “I used to wake up and read news articles before going to class. I followed my favorites, legends in their fields, religiously. The time I wasn’t reading articles, I was writing them. I lived at the newspaper. I took extra electives in the Journalism Department. Now I can’t even open up the Internet.”

“You can use the Internet, but Google searches of your name might not be the smartest idea right now.”

“Yeah,” she said with a shrug.

“It’ll blow over. It won’t always be like this,” he said in a surprisingly reassuring voice. “Come here.”

Liz stood up and then when Brady took her seat, he folded her into his lap. She kicked off her heels and tucked her legs underneath her.

“You can’t do this.”

“What?” Liz asked.

“Wallow.”

“I’m not wallowing,” she told him.

He raised his eyebrows. “You sure?”

She released a quick breath and then shrugged. “I guess.”

“You know you’re stronger than that.”

“I survived life without you.”

He smiled and kissed her forehead. “And you won’t have to do that anymore. What’s a few reporters after that?”

Liz nodded reluctantly. “You’re right.” She straightened and tried to put her fears behind her. There was really nothing she could do at this point. She had chosen Brady, and this was what came with that life. If she had to do it all over again, she would do the same damn thing.

“I usually am,” he said, nuzzling her neck.

“Also incredibly modest.”

“Oh, no, baby, I’d never claim that. You can reserve that for lesser men.”

“I don’t think I’m going to be seeing any other men. I like the egotistical one I already have.”

“Egotistical, hmm?” He nipped at her neck and she felt her anxiety disappearing.