Title: Don’t Be A Stranger

Pairing: Jed/CJ

Rating: NC17

Spoilers: Up to and including season three

Notes: I was listening to this song by Dina Carroll last night and it was just screaming to be a fic. Pre-Administration.

The campaign had moved to Illinois and the mood of the staff had improved dramatically. Not that Jed could name them, at least not without help, but they seemed to know what they were doing, most of the time.

Tonight’s meeting had been the most congenial so far. He had only lost his temper once and that was because one of the idiots had thought to discuss a running mate. He wasn’t ready for that yet, not that he was entirely sure he ever would be.

While the others had been blustering and throwing ideas back and forth, his Press Secretary had been strangely quiet.

There was something in the way she couldn’t look at him during that last meeting of the day that disturbed him. It was the nervous way she toyed with her tortoiseshell glasses as she explained the media strategy that convinced him. Convinced him of what, he wasn’t sure, except that he needed to see her, alone. He didn’t even want to think about the ludicracy of being alone in the room of a member of his staff, it was just something he needed to do.

Leo was still muttering about rallies and polls as they walked along the corridor from Toby’s suite, and makeshift campaign headquarters, to his room. At some point, early in the campaign it had been decided that Toby’s room would be the headquarters, at roughly the same time that the Press Secretary became everyone’s confidant.

Jed only half listened as they reached the door to his suite, and the Secret Service Detail took their positions. As if in acknowledgment that Jed’d had enough for the night, Leo said goodnight and continued on his way.

The seconds ticked away as Jed waited inside his room. He needed to be sure that Leo and the others would be long gone, before he slipped out and headed back down the corridor, the agents falling back into step.

Her door was closed as he had expected. Unlike Mandy, CJ would never leave her door on the latch. But then CJ was all too aware of the crime statistics having lived in L.A. and there couldn‘t be anything worse than stepping out of the bath to find Josh Lyman raiding the minibar in your room. Which apparently, was how Leo’s protégé got dates and saved money on food.

There was something about the tall Press Secretary that made Jed want to know her better. It was crazy but he couldn’t fight it.

CJ had joined the campaign six weeks before the New Hampshire primary. In the first few days he had noticed her, it wasn’t especially observant of him, as she was the only woman in the inner circle. But as the days turned to weeks, she had managed to work her way into his unconsciousness. She was so different from Abbey, and yet he sensed the same devotion and determination to what she believed in. His dreams became more vivid as Spring turned to Summer and the layers of clothes dwindled.

At some point between New Hampshire and their bus ride to Chicago, he had started watching her. The first thing he’d noticed was the deep penetrating laugh, then the way she tucked stray locks of hair behind her ear when she became nervous. His innocent watching turned to staring.

As if sensing him, CJ had turned and smiled at him. The smile had lit up her face and she had turned away just as quickly. The next time she had held his gaze a second longer, until eventually, whenever they had caught each other staring, they had struck up a conversation.

In a moment of weakness and in celebration, he had kissed her on Super Tuesday. Nothing overtly romantic or passionate, but as they broke away he had sensed something intense in the current between them. And the look in her eyes was enough to tell him, she’d felt it too.

Nothing more had happened between them; they had both managed to control whatever it was that threatened their fragile co-existence. Except, something deep inside told him tonight was going to change that.

Lifting his hand he rapped on the door.

CJ opened the door and hesitated. She pulled her tank top down to cover her bare mid drift and smoothed her pants unconsciously. It was her eyes that betrayed her surprise at his presence. She had been expecting Toby, if anyone. Toby’s ability to read her moods was uncanny. Instead she found herself looking down at the Governor and losing the battle of wills with herself.

Jed stared at her, his eyes drifting to the pale skin, taunting him. He licked his lips unconsciously and wondered when everything between them had become so charged, when he could read her thoughts.

CJ stood on the precipice, debating whether to invite him in. In the end she stepped back and allowed him to enter her room.

As the door closed behind him, Jed watched her carefully. He could sense her fear, the panic clearly etched on her face.

CJ wasn’t sure what was happening except that his eyes were boring into her, leaving nothing to the imagination. He wanted her. She gulped as her mind reeled. It would be so easy to wrap her arms around his neck and kiss him, to give into the feelings she had been harboring for weeks. But that was a bigger risk than either of them could afford. It would throw away everything they had been working for and the campaign would slip from their grasp.

Jed waited for her to say anything, to tell him to leave, but she said nothing and his mind went blank. Words failed him and he almost turned and left, except she still regarded him with that expectant look in her eyes.

Nervously she tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear and smiled.

Silently, he closed the distance between them, coming to a halt before her. His eyes scanned her face, checking that she wanted this too. He parted his lips expectantly and lifted his hands from his sides. Opening his arms wide, he waited for her to move.

A voice at the back of her head told her not to open herself up to this man. An image of Abbey sprung to her mind but she pushed it away. Her eyes locked with his and she nodded, tumbling into his open arms and sighing contentedly as he engulfed her.

The first kiss was awkward as he leaned up and she bent down to face him. Their difference in heights adding to the noses knocking and sloppiness as their lips met.

Jed pulled back, wondering if his inability to kiss her properly would change her mind.

It was CJ who snaked her arms around his neck and pulled him back towards her.

The second kiss was more demanding as he held her against his chest and plundered her mouth with his tongue. All thoughts of the wrongness of their actions disappeared as he lost himself in the moment.

CJ let out a moan as her body responded fully to his touch.

He released her suddenly, heat coursing through his body as the intensity of his desire hit him. There was a moment of indecision as he contemplated whether he could make love with her. Stepping back, he laced his fingers with hers and silently guided her to the bed.

Jed lowered himself onto the creased quilt, pushing her papers onto the floor. Gently he pulled her down beside him, his fingers gripping hers tightly. For a few seconds he studied her, wanting to memorize every inch of the face that he would later kiss.

CJ smiled back at him, her head on one side. His blue eyes were mesmerizing and she found herself forgetting each and every promise she had made since the first time he had caught her staring at him.

Jed lifted his hand to her face and cupped her cheek as he covered her mouth with his own.

Tucking her legs under her, CJ shifted herself further onto the bed. Her hands moved to caress his chest through the cotton of his shirt for the briefest of seconds before she moved them up and crossed them behind his neck.

As the kiss deepened, Jed forgot about everything, the campaign, his commitments, even his secret.

The lovemaking that followed was slow and gentle. They undressed each other in silence as hands explored previously untouched skin. It was all so new and yet, it felt as though they had been together forever.

Jed took CJ’s gentle moans as his guide, expertly loving every inch of her.

Her eyes fluttered closed as she felt his lips brush her stomach and move back up over her breasts. She stifled a scream as Jed entered her in one fluid movement.

Jed’s breathing deepened as he braced himself on his elbows and controlled his thrusts, gentle and light, then deep and frantic as she moaned and shuddered below him. He could feel the pulse of her body as she started to climb to orgasm. Momentarily he paused, waiting for her to open her eyes once more. He wanted to be able to look at her as they both rode the wave together.

Jed began to move inside her once more.

This time she gazed back at him, her emotions fully exposed in the depths of her eyes. Suddenly she pulled him closer, deeper to her and rocked in time to his movements.

Release came suddenly, silent but for a sharp intake of breath.

Jed collapsed on top of her, his heavy frame pressing down on her as his fingers once more laced with hers.

As they lay spent, breathing labored, neither spoke, as there was nothing to say.

Jed rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. There were times like this when he didn’t see how something like this could be so wrong. Every instinct, every sensation in his body told him this was how love was supposed to feel. He felt complete.

CJ folded her arm under her head and stole tiny glances at the man beside her. Nothing made any sense anymore. She had just made love to someone she could never have and soon he would leave. There was no future and no one would ever know, but for the first time in her life she had realized that it didn’t always have to just be sex.

Silently they lay there, each too caught up in their own thoughts to wonder aloud what might have been.

Jed rolled over and placed one foot on the plush green carpet. He felt like a thief in the night, slipping out of her bed like this.

“Governor,“ she whispered softly and he stopped, one foot on the ground, the other still beneath the warm bedclothes.

“Claudia Jean?“

“Please don’t leave. Not yet,“ she asked, a mixture of pleading and sadness in her voice.

Turning back, he stared at her.

In the moonlight her face took on a hazy shimmer, her grey-blue eyes wide and staring back at him. The sheet had slipped from her breasts, leaving her exposed to him. CJ grabbed it and pulled it back across her body. “Just a while longer.“

Jed let out a sigh as he lifted his leg back onto the bed and rolled to face her.

CJ lifted her head and he snaked one arm around her shoulders, while the other pulled her towards his chest.

“I can only stay a few minutes,“ he acknowledged. “The agents are still outside.“ They were going to be part of his life if Leo was right, and they were going to win the nomination. Just another way in which he was going to lose his life.

CJ wrapped an arm around his neck and tugged his head back down. The kiss that followed was tender and undemanding, as she wanted to create a memory that would linger, long after he had left. She still wasn’t sure what had drawn her to the folksy, impossible Governor from New England, but she knew after tonight it was going to take a lot to get over him.

“Claudia Jean,” he whispered. And here was the only place he remembered her name. In the office she was the tall woman, the Amazon that towered above him and tried to develop his communication skills. In the privacy of his own head she was this incredible woman that he worshiped by hand and mouth. The reality, he now knew was even better.

“Ssh.” Her fingers pressed against his lips as she looked deep into the melting pot of blue. “Just hold me, please.”

It was the cadence of her voice, and the lightness of her touch, which prevented him denying her anything. His arms held her close against his chest as he kissed her hair, revelling in the fresh scent of her shampoo.

For the briefest of seconds he wondered if he was really ready for what might come. He was about to lose his privacy, his quiet, quaint life, only to be thrust into the forefront of everyone else’s lives.

It was the simplicity of the moment that kept him grounded, gave him something to focus on. Being there, in her bed, in her arms was almost worth everything he could lose if they were discovered.

Jed contemplated staying there, never leaving, but he knew he couldn’t. However much the risk seemed worth it in the stillness of the light, in the morning his real life would consign this
moment to the surreal, just a fantasy.

“I really need to go now,” he whispered softly, breaking the embrace and preparing to climb out of bed.

“This was the only time, wasn’t it?” CJ concluded. He had been too tender, too accepting of her needs for it not to be. “Abbey flies in tomorrow and then there’s the primary. If you win, this becomes too great a risk.”

“I. . . ,” he stumbled; refusing to face her and see what he knew was written across her face. This had become as incredible for her as it was for him. “Probably,” he offered non-committally, wandering the room, gathering his clothes.

CJ pulled the covers tightly around her and watched him, acknowledging on some level that it was because of her that he would win the nomination. That, in so doing, she had ended their brief, highly charged liaison.

Fully dressed and standing at the door, Jed turned to look at her. “I’ll see you in staff.” He didn’t want to leave, but he couldn’t stay either.

CJ nodded and turned her back to him. She wasn’t going anywhere. Her feelings aside, he was a good man and she wanted to see him in the White House.

Jed closed the door to her hotel room and slipped quietly into the corridor.

The air still held some of the April crispness as he walked out onto the fire escape, his newly acquired detail trailing in his wake.

He patted down his pocket and groaned in frustration. He didn’t smoke often, just when he had too much to think about, or when he needed something to clear his head. It was, as he so often told Abbey, his only vice, but she had obviously taken it upon herself to try and rid him of a health hazard. Gripping the balustrade he tried to push thoughts of his wife to one side as thought back to what he had just done.

It was probably the single most stupid thing he had ever done. To have risked everything for one night of simple pleasure. The primaries were coming to a close. Tomorrow was Illinois then California. His team thought he had a chance, were even now talking about running mates, and he was in his Press Secretary’s hotel room. He hadn’t even considered what the press would do with that sort of information.

There was also his wife to think about, as much as he wished he could forget. She had agreed to this crazy notion of Leo’s to run for President, had even put her career on hold to help him campaign. Abbey was joining them tomorrow, for the last few weeks of campaigning, the image of a loving supportive wife so important to his chances of success. They didn’t have secrets from each other, not in the thirty years they had been married. He didn’t even want to contemplate what her reaction would be if she found out.

How could he ever explain that the urge was too strong to fight? That there was something about one extraordinary woman, in a lifetime where he was surrounded by extraordinary women, that he couldn’t resist. Jed had known, even before CJ had raised the question, that it could never happen again, but it didn‘t stop him wanting her. He wondered if it was at all possible to love two women, or whether he was just in lust for the first time in his life. If so, he had surely picked the worst time ever.

The traffic noises below broke into his thoughts. He couldn’t let his feelings get in the way of everything he was on the verge of achieving. Was he so afraid of winning that he would subconsciously set out to make it impossible to do anything but fail? Shaking his head, he tried to tune out the faint voice of his father, whispering in his head. "You're too emotional, just like your mother. You need to stop feeling and start thinking or you'll never amount to anything - never amount to anything."

He was determined to prove him wrong, if it was the last thing he did. Silently he turned away and headed back inside. He knew that whatever it was with CJ wasn’t resolved, but he also knew now wasn’t the time to figure it out.

The End