“Okay.” He ran his fingers through her hair as Sam floated on a cloud of contentment.

She loved the weight of his body on top of her as their bodies pulsed with aftershocks.

“I have to tell you something you’re not going to like,” he said, ending her contentment with one sentence.

“What?”

“Nelson wants me to go to Iran to help broker the new arms deal.”

Despite the heat of his body and the heat they had generated together, she went cold all over at the thought of him so far from her in a place that wasn’t exactly known for its love of Americans.

“Why you?” she asked.

“I think he’s punishing me for my new higher profile.”

“I told you those six million Twitter followers would come back to haunt you.”

He smiled down at her. “Exactly.”

“But won’t sending you to Iran raise your profile?”

“Maybe, but I think he wants me out of his hair for a couple of weeks, and he certainly doesn’t want to go.”

“A couple of weeks?”

“Apparently, that’s the best-case scenario.”

“Can you refuse to go?”

“I suppose I can do whatever I want.”

“Then don’t go. Stay here and continue to do what you’re doing to raise the profile on issues that matter right here. Gun control and immigration reform and middle-class families—”

He stopped her with a kiss. “All important things, no doubt, but what good is all that if we aren’t focused on national security first and foremost?”

“Why does it have to be you? Doesn’t he have a secretary of state to deal with stuff like that?”

“She’d be there too.”

“So why can’t you go and shake some hands and leave the heavy lifting to her?”

“I suppose I could do that.” He kissed her again. “I didn’t tell you this to upset you. But I didn’t want you to hear about it from Darren or another member of the press corps or Lilia.”

“Does that mean you’re going?”

“It means I’m considering it while wishing I’d never left the Senate. Things were much less complicated there—for all of us.”

Sam shook her head. “If you’d stayed in the Senate, you’d be wondering what-if about being the VP. You made the right move at the right time.”

“You can say that even with our home overrun with Secret Service and hardly any privacy and women paid to watch me who you can’t stand?”

“Woman. Singular. As in one woman I can’t stand. And you can wipe that smug grin off your face before I slug you.”

“What smug grin?”

She traced the outline of his mouth with her finger. “That one.” Glancing up, she saw his eyes heat with desire the way they did no matter how she touched him. “I have to tell you something you’re not going to like.”