sitting on. “Fine then. How are you going to have sex while in office?”
I shrug. “I wasn’t planning on having any.”
“For four years?” Her eyes are on the verge of popping out of her head.
“Eight if I’m lucky.” I take a sip of the red I’m drinking. “I don’t see what the big deal is. I mean, really, sex isn’t all that great. Why would I miss it?” I wait for lightning to strike me dead at that blasphemy. I’ve had great sex before, but it was so long ago it’s almost like a distant memory. It’s somewhat of a relief knowing I won’t have to deal with anything related to my sex life, or lack thereof, for however long I’m in office. If I have any needs, I can take care of them myself.
“Oh, my God,” she says, eyes wide with shock, when I don’t add anything else. A second later, her expression changes and she gives me an all knowing smile filled to overflowing with trouble.
“Whatever thought you just thought, the answer is no,” I tell her in my best no nonsense voice.
She rolls her eyes because she’s immune to that particular voice. “You can’t say no before you know what it is.”
“I don’t have to know what it is, I know who you are.”
“All I’m trying to do is get you laid.”
“I don’t need your help.”
She raises her eyebrow. “Obviously.”
I’ve never told Jaya about Navin for a few reasons, mainly embarrassment at being left high and dry, but sitting here and talking with her, it hits me how much I need to talk about him. Especially since I’ve recently approved for him to be on my Press Pool. Which I have no idea why I did that. I should’ve said no. At the moment, my need to discuss him supersedes the reasons not to tell her.
“I have a confession,” I say and my face must reveal the seriousness of the subject, because she doesn’t make my words into a joke. In order to get this over with, I spit it all out at once. “I went to law school with Navin Hazar for the first year and a half. And I lied about not ever having great sex. I’ve had it with him, but only him.”
I’ve never seen Jaya shocked speechless before, but she sits and stares at me for a long time before simply saying, “What?”
I blink, trying to decide where to start and finally pick the beginning. “We were in a study group together. Me, Navin, and three others. It was an intense group, and we had ground rules. No dating between the five of us. If there were less than three of us, we had to study separately.”
“You had rules for a study group?” Jaya asks. “Reason five hundred eleven I never went to law school.”
“We didn’t want any romantic entanglements to distract us from studying. Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“What happened?” she asks, obviously knowing something did since I mentioned great sex.
I shrug. “Navin and I broke the no less than three rule.”
“Liar,” she says. “You’ve never broken a rule in your life. What really happened?”
She’s partially right. “We didn’t do it intentionally. We were paired up for a mock trial. It took months to prepare for and due to its nature, there were times we had to work independently from the others.”
She shakes her head. “I can’t believe you’ve never told me this.”
I don’t reply to that because it’ll become clear soon enough why that’s the case. “Keep in mind, all we were doing was studying when it was the five of us and, for the most part, that’s all Navin and I did.”
“For the most part?”
I nod. “The night following the mock trial, Navin and I decided to celebrate. We wound up in bed.”
“The great sex?”
I close my eyes and for a brief moment, I allow myself to remember.
I’m in Navin’s arms and I feel the warmth of his skin. We’re so close his breath tickles my neck. He wants me to turn my face toward his so he can kiss me, but I’m feeling playful, and refuse to do so.
I think I’ve got one up on him, but he mummers something about having other ways.
Before I can process what that means, his lips are on my earlobe and that sinful voice of his obliterates everything except for the two of us. He gives an unhurried and detailed narrative of exactly what he’s going to do to me