“Will!” Gretchen exclaimed. “Where have you been? I’ve been waiting for you for over an hour!”
Will took a deep breath and sighed as he leaned back against the headrest. He watched as the perky redhead scampered over to his car. Case in point for why politics and sex don’t mix, he thought sardonically.
He and Gretchen, who was also Dupré’s press secretary, had slept together once three months ago after going out one night after work and having one drink too many. The instant Will woke up the next morning with a throbbing headache and Gretchen in his bed, he knew he had made a mistake. Gretchen was a cute girl, but she wasn’t his type. She was way too clingy. And her eagerness, which was great for PR, was more than just a little annoying when he had to deal with it day after day after day.
She had hinted and then outright asked Will to go out with her again, but he had made up excuses. Gretchen obviously wasn’t a woman who could be easily deterred. He slowly shook his head as she tapped on his car window and gave him her 100-watt smile. He couldn’t believe it. Now she was waiting for him at his house! What the hell have I gotten myself into?
Will pressed the electronic button to lower his driver’s side window. “What are you doing here, Gretchen?” he asked, getting straight to the point.
Gretchen tilted her head, batted her big blue eyes, and licked her lips seductively. She tightened the belt of her red wool coat and smiled as she leaned down to speak to him. “Well,” she said, sending a gust of steam into the cold night air, “I had an important question to ask you but I didn’t get the chance to ask because you left so early.”
“If you had a question, why didn’t you call my cell?” he asked as he unbuckled his seatbelt. “I would have answered. You didn’t have to come all the way here, Gretchen.”
She smirked. “Because it’s one I prefer to ask in person, silly.”
Will watched as she pulled his car door handle. When the door wouldn’t budge, Gretchen pouted and wrinkled her pert, freckled nose.
“Do you plan to stay in that car all night, Will, or are you going to climb out of there and invite me inside?” she cooed, looking over her shoulder toward his house.
I’d rather stay in the car, he thought.
When he didn’t answer her, Gretchen’s pout deepened. “It’s really cold out here, Will.”
He sighed, rolled his eyes, and motioned for her to step away from the car as he raised his car window. Will backed out onto the street and parallel parked along the curb near his front lawn, not wanting to give Gretchen an excuse to stay any longer than she needed because she was blocked in his driveway. He was leaving the path completely open for her to pull out and go home.
After he exited his Audi, she met him halfway up the driveway and followed closely at his heels. They walked to his front door and he opened it. Ten minutes, Will thought. I’ll let her stay ten minutes and then I’ll politely ask her to leave.
His mother had taught him well. No matter how downright crazy a woman seemed, he couldn’t be rude to her.
“Got anything to drink?” Gretchen piped as she pushed her way around him and walked across the hardwood foyer into his kitchen. “Ooooh, this looks yummy,” she murmured as she spotted an already uncorked bottle of Merlot on his marble kitchen counter. Will’s eyes widened as he watched her through a cut-out between his living room and kitchen wall. Gretchen quickly opened cabinets, presumably in search of a wine glass.
“Make yourself at home,” he muttered sarcastically as he tossed his coat onto a wrought iron stand near his front door.
“Want some?” she asked after finally retrieving a wine glass and filling it.
“No, thanks,” he said. “I’ve already had enough tonight.” And Will had no desire to repeat the same incident as three months ago.
“It’s up to you.” She shrugged as she took a gulp of Merlot. “So why’d you disappear from the party, anyway? You left so early.”
“I had to go to Greenbelt for Parker’s primary win. He was throwing a party at the Hilton.”
She frowned, tilted her head, and took another gulp. She then cleared her throat. “Why on earth would you go to his party?”
“I wanted to see what he was like in person and get a better idea of who was working on his campaign.” Will slowly walked into his kitchen, removed his suit jacket, and tossed it over the back of one of his dinette chairs. “We don’t know too much about him. Now that Dupré’s running against him, I figured we should.”
She slowly smiled as she clicked her pink talons against the side of her wine glass. “So you were spying?”
Will quickly shook his head. “I wasn’t spying. I was doing research.”
“I see,” she said, pouring herself another glass. “So what did you find out during your ‘research’?” she asked, slowly making air quotes.
Will leaned back against the kitchen wall and crossed his arms over his broad chest. “Parker’s a phenomenal speaker and pretty charismatic. He knows how to command a room, which could be a problem down the road since Dupré admits that speeches have never been his strong point. Dupré’s much better one-on-one with voters or with smaller groups.”
Gretchen raised an eyebrow. “That’s all you discovered?”
That…and the fact that I wouldn’t mind taking Parker’s deputy campaign manager to bed, Will thought, but he wasn’t about to tell Gretchen that.
He shrugged. “That’s all for now,” he said.
Gretchen rolled her eyes as she propped her elbow against the kitchen counter. “Well, I personally don’t see what the big deal is about this guy.” She waved her hand dismissively. “He’s good at making speeches. So what! Dupré has more experience and a much better record. This guy was…what? The mayor of some podunk town for one term?”
Will rolled his eyes. “Correction: Parker was a popular mayor of a town in a county that has the highest concentration of the richest, most educated African-Americans in Maryland…in the entire country, for that matter.” He sighed. “And we all know how well Dupré plays in the black community.”
She shrugged again. “We don’t need the black community.”
At that statement, Will seethed quietly. In his line of work, he had heard lots of statements like this. And each time he did the same thing: took a deep breath and counted to ten. Logic, not emotion, was the best way to handle these situations.
“Maybe that’s the case where you come from, Gretchen,” he said, careful of his tone. “But I wouldn’t count on that in Maryland. The black people here can swing elections if enough of them turn out. Besides, praying that African-Americans won’t show up at the polls should not be the tactic we take with this campaign. I keep saying that we should try to woo them to our side. There are a lot of black Independents out there. We shouldn’t assume they’re all tied to the Democratic Party when the general election rolls around.”
“Well, Dupré keeps managing to win without them,” Gretchen said as she tossed her red tresses over her shoulder and poured herself another drink. “Why fix what isn’t broken?”
Will frowned as he watched Gretchen sip from her glass. Three glasses of wine in twenty minutes? he thought. Was she trying to get herself drunk?
“Don’t you think you should slow down, Gretchen?” he asked with narrowed eyes. “Remember…you still have to drive home.”
At that she defiantly gulped the rest of her wine and began to giggle.
Will took the glass out of her hand, his patience now pushed to the brink. “All right, maybe you should ask the question now that you wanted to ask me. It’s getting pretty late and we both have to get up soon.”
“Ooookaaaay,” she sang before twirling her belt and loosening the knot. “Well,” she said slowly as she took several steps toward him. “I’d really like your opinion on something.”
“I’m listening,” he said with a nod. “My opinion on what?”
“On…this,” she said before she dramatically threw opened her coat. “Taa-daa!”
Will’s eyes widened. She wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing, save for a black lace bra and panties that were so thin and tiny she could have gone without wearing them. He watched as she pushed her coat off her shoulders to give him a better look. Will wanted to kick himself.
Why didn’t I see this coming?
“Well,” she said before doing a 360-degree turn, wiggling her butt and cocking her hip. She flashed another 100-watt smile. “What do you think?”
He sighed again. “It’s nice.”
“Nice?” she repeated in disbelief. She closed the divide between them and snaked her hands around his neck. “That’s all you have to say, that it’s ‘nice’?” She clucked her tongue. “You didn’t say that the last time you saw me in my underwear.”
Will gritted his teeth. He didn’t want to be nasty, but there was no polite way to get out of this, especially now that Gretchen had begun to unbutton his collar and he could feel her hot breath panting against his neck. He felt even more unease as she stood on her toes and began to nibble on his ear lobe, pressing her breasts against his chest as she did so.
Sorry, Mom, he thought. Despite his mother’s warnings to always remain a gentleman, he’d definitely have to be more firm with Gretchen.
Will eased her back, tore her hands from around his neck, and held them in front of her.
“Gretchen, I think you should go home.”
“But why, Will? Trust me. You won’t have to do anything.”
He watched, completely shocked, as she slowly dropped to her knees. “Just lay back, relax, and I’ll handle everything. Trust me. You’ll enjoy it.”
Don’t let her do this, Will, he thought as she lowered his pants zipper. But another part of him replied, “Why the hell not?” As soon as Gretchen left, his thoughts would inevitably return to Keisha: those eyes, that mouth, those legs. Gretchen could be an excellent distraction, or at least an outlet for his fettered lust.
“Well, it looks like at least one part of you doesn’t want me to go,” she whispered huskily.
He felt Gretchen’s warm hand reach inside his pants and his manhood jerked instinctively. No, this isn’t right, he thought, despite the quickening of his pulse and the thudding in his ears. Doing this would just lead Gretchen on, and her weird stalking would never end.
“Stop. Stop!” he shouted. He grabbed her shoulders, dragging her back to her feet. “Put on your coat. It’s time to go.”
Gretchen pouted, completely crestfallen. “But—”
“No buts,” he said as he returned his zipper to its rightful place and firmly wrapped his hand around her wrist. He had to practically drag her out of the kitchen to his front door. “You have to leave.”
“Wait! Wait!” she shouted.
Will ignored her.
“Why do I have to leave, Will?” she whined as he urged back into her coat, holding it up so that she could shove her arms into the sleeves. “I thought…I thought we had a good time together. Didn’t you have a good time that night?”
He sighed gruffly. “Yes, I did, but—”
“But what?” Her eyebrows furrowed as she pouted.
“Gretchen, this just isn’t going to work. Trust me.”
“Why not, Will? I like you. You like me,” she murmured before snaking her hands around his waist. She abruptly paused. “Or…have you…have you met someone else?”
His eyes widened. Maybe that was a way out of this. Will emphatically nodded his head as he tore her arms from around him and opened his front door. “Yes,” he lied. “Yes, I have. That relationship could have a lot of potential and I don’t want to mess it up.”
She sighed. “Well…you could have just told me that,” she murmured sadly as she stood in his doorway.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just that it’s…it’s still very new, Gretchen.”
She tightened the belt of her coat. “Well,” she said with a shrug, “don’t hesitate to give me a call if, you know, it doesn’t work out.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said with as much solemnity as he could muster, though in his heart of hearts he knew it would be a cold day in hell before he would ever be insane or desperate enough to sleep with this woman again.
“Good night, Will.”
“Good night, Gretchen.” He closed his front door behind her, slumping back against it in sheer exhaustion. “Never again,” Will murmured.