“Oh shit,” she said in a whisper. “Do we have to be quiet? Do the people on either side of you know who you are?”

He pulled back, but kept her nipples between his fingers.

“I don’t think they do, but . . . just to be safe, we should probably be quiet.” He grinned. “I guess I should have thought of that before throwing you on the bed, huh?” He danced his tongue around one breast while he squeezed the other. She held her lips together so she wouldn’t cry out.

“Thank goodness this bed has so many pillows for me to scream into,” she said.

He pulled her underwear down with one hand, and she kicked them onto the floor.

“I’m going to make it my goal for you to need all of those pillows,” he said. He slid a finger inside of her, hard, and she gasped. His thumb moved in first slow, then fast circles, with his other hand still squeezing her nipples. Dear God, it felt incredible.

Then, suddenly, it wasn’t enough. She reached down to stroke the hard length of him, and it was his turn to gasp.

“I need you inside me now.” Sure enough, he’d left a pile of condoms on the bedside table. She grabbed one and opened it. “I knew you’d be prepared.”

“I was waiting for you for a while, okay? I didn’t want to waste time!”

She grinned and slid the condom on him and then lowered herself until he was poised just at her entrance. He rose up to meet her, pushed himself inside of her, and soon they were moving in sync, so fast and so hard she could barely breathe, she could barely think, she could only feel. And then everything felt so good that she could hardly move, but she had to keep moving and moving until there were fireworks behind her eyes and she smashed a pillow to her face to scream into it.

No wonder she’d missed him so much. Had anything ever felt this good? Had anything ever felt so right? She collapsed on top of him, and he wrapped his arms around her.

“You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” he whispered in her ear.

Why did that make her feel even better than the sex had?

The next day, after a lazy breakfast in bed and some enthusiastic postbreakfast exercise, Max reached over and tickled Olivia.

“What are we going to do for the rest of the day?” he asked.

She looked back at him with a slow, satisfied smile.

“I thought you were booked with senator stuff all day,” she said.

He reached for his phone and pulled up his calendar.

“Not until midafternoon—I’m doing some local news interviews and then the fundraiser, but I’m free before that.”

She pulled his arm around her and rested her head on his chest.

“I was going to head over to Berkeley this afternoon to get a mani/pedi with my sister, so it looks like our free time coincides. What do you want to do?”

He brushed her hair back and kissed her forehead.

“Weeell, we could stay here all day.”

“I knew you were going to say that.” He could hear the smile in her voice. “Any other ideas?”

“Hmmmm. Ooh! Yes!” He squeezed her hand. “I’ve taken you to some of my favorite L.A. places—how about you do the same for some of your Bay Area spots? It’s only ten a.m., so we have a few hours before I have to get back here to change and turn into a senator again.”

She sat up and turned to look at him with that smile he loved so much, the one where he could see the tiny dimple in her cheek.

“What a great idea.” Her smile got wider. “And I know exactly where I’m going to take you.”

Forty-five minutes later, they stood facing each other on a squeaky BART train. Olivia smiled up at him, a wicked expression on her face.

“When’s the last time you were on public transportation, hmm?” she asked him in a low voice.

Embarrassingly, he had to think about that.

“It’s got to have been at least . . . five years, maybe? Probably more. Oh God, that’s terrible, but I always drive everywhere in L.A. anyway, so it must have been some time when I was up here or somewhere else for a conference.”

Olivia laughed at him.

“Well, at least you look like you’re blending in.”

He looked down at himself and shook his head. He didn’t have any of his fake glasses or his baseball hats with him on this trip, so he’d had to improvise so he wouldn’t get recognized. Jeans, T-shirt, and one of the tech company branded vests he’d been given at the dinner last night. With that, plus his unshaven face, he hoped he could pass as a tech bro.

They got off at Fruitvale Station in Oakland and walked around for a while until they reached a taco truck with a long, noisy line.

“Here we are!” Olivia parked them at the end of the line. “Best tacos in the Bay Area. Maybe all of California.”

“That’s a bold statement, don’t you think?” Max asked her.

She nodded.

“Oh, very bold, and obviously there are some incredible tacos in L.A., which which is why it’s debatable, but you’ll see when you have them how good they are.”

He put his arm around her as they waited in line.

“I guess I will. But I thought you didn’t like places you had to stand in line to eat?”

She brushed that off.

“Taco trucks are different, you know that.”