Chapter Text
Day 1 - Heat
It's a miserably hot July day, and they're campaigning in Georgia, which means that not only is everything hot…it's also humid.
Josh hates it.
Everything is sticking to him—his shirt, his pants, his underwear, everything. He feels sticky and disgusting and constantly in need of a shower, and it's only 10:00 a.m. He really cannot see the day getting any better from here, given that they have a barbeque meet-and-greet for lunch, they're driving out to a farm to do a speech on agriculture at 3:00, and then they're rushing back to the hotel to get changed in time for the fundraising dinner tonight. Josh is in a foul mood, and he doesn't mind admitting it.
This foul mood lasts right up till the moment that he sees Donna, and then suddenly he doesn't mind the heat so much.
She doesn't even realize it, he thinks with a little grin—she has no idea, as usual, how good she looks. The heat has brought a deep flush to her cheeks, and her hair is starting to fall out of the clip she's put it up in. She's wearing a little sleeveless top over her jeans, and all he can think suddenly is Donna last fall in a similarly pretty pink sleeveless top, glaring at him over a stack of file boxes and tossing white collar crime boy in his direction in her snippiest tone. He'd had no idea at the time how bad things were about to get, and he remembers winding her up just for the fun of it, just for the pleasure of seeing her cheeks flush and her eyes snap, just to annoy her because he couldn't do any of the other things he wanted to do with her.
Now, of course, he's doing all those things and has been for a while, and he's pleased to find that watching Donna dash around all flushed and glowing is even better when he knows all the other ways he can get her flushed and glowing. He has a shit-ton of work to do in the conference room upstairs, but for the moment, he leans back against the side of the building, arms folded across his chest, and watches Donna dash around redirecting volunteers and passing out yard signs and just enjoys himself.
After a while she dashes under the portico to grab another box of yard signs and notices him there. Her eyes narrow sharply.
"What are you doing here?"
He grins broadly.
"Why hello, Joshua," he says in a sing-song voice. "How are you, Joshua. Nice to see you, Joshua."
Her lips narrow too, pressed into a thin line that means he'd better watch his step.
"Do you mean to tell me that you've just been standing there while I've been running around for the past hour sweating and organizing volunteers and you didn't even bother to bring me a bottle of water?"
"Oh ye of little faith."
He produces the water bottle from behind his back with a considerable amount of flair, but when she reaches for it, he dangles it out of her grasp.
"Josh!" she protests.
"Uh-uh, there's a price for this water," he informs her, enjoying the way her shirt rides up as she reaches for the bottle again, with no success.
"Are you seriously blackmailing me over a water bottle? "
"I absolutely am."
She huffs, irritated, and he takes a chance and hooks his index finger in her belt loop, tugging her closer to him. "If you want the water, you have to take a walk with me around the corner."
She glares. "What's around the corner?"
"A little secluded alcove with a very nice fountain and some trees, as it turns out."
"And why do I want to go to an alcove with trees, Joshua?"
He wiggles the bottle at her, sloshing the water up and down.
"C'mon, Donna, sneak away with me," he murmurs, and he can see the flicker in her eyes. He's got her, and she knows it.
She glances over her shoulder at the volunteers, who are rapidly devolving into chaos, and sighs.
"Okay, fine," she relents. "But just for a few minutes. Otherwise they're going to run amok."
"I think they're already running amok," he observes, and puts one hand at the small of her back, gently propelling her down the sidewalk and around the corner of the building. As promised, there's a little shady spot with a bench and a fountain and a few shade trees, but most importantly, there's a nice row of tall, dense hedges hemming the little garden space in on all four sides. There are exits built in, of course, but as far as spots for secret assignations go, he's not sure he could do better on short notice.
"Okay, I'm here," Donna huffs, and then grabs the water bottle out of his hand while he's not paying attention. "Ha!"
She unscrews the cap and downs half the bottle in one go while he makes the obligatory sputtering noises about her playing dirty, and then she sets the water bottle down and smiles at him.
"So…what's the water bottle gonna cost me?"
He slides his arms around her waist, tugging her into him until their hips are flush, bellies pressed together. In the stifling heat, it's not exactly comfortable, but he finds he doesn't mind.
"Oh, there's a massive price you're going to have to pay, Donnatella," he murmurs before he's bringing up one hand to tilt her head, his hand molding to the flushed warmth of her cheek. She grins widely at him and leans in, kissing him slowly as the Georgia morning hums around them.
"Is that so?" she whispers as she breaks the kiss, her hand sliding down to his back to hover just above his ass, and he makes a very unmanly whimpering noise as she scrapes her nails over the fabric of his slacks. "I don't know that one lousy water bottle is worth having to do all this, Josh."
He pays her back in kind and skims one hand under the hem of her top, watches her shiver as his fingers graze the hot damp skin.
"That bad, huh?" he says sympathetically, and leans in to nibble at her neck, tasting the salt of sweat and catching a hint of her perfume. It brings back immediate sense memories of learning that same taste that first night in his bed, after he'd made her come twice, finding a sort of deep and visceral pleasure in realizing that he now knew how she tasted all over. He knows the taste of her skin when he's made her writhe with pleasure, knows the way her cunt tastes when he's holding her thighs open and licking slowly up her slit, knows the way she tastes when she kisses him just after, all her flavors blending on his tongue. He groans softly into her skin at the thought, feels himself harden even as he pulls her closer.
"Gross, Josh, I'm all sweaty," she protests, wriggling a bit, but he presses a kiss to her collarbone, undeterred.
"I don't mind."
She makes a little scoffing noise.
"You're hopeless."
It's on the tip of his tongue to say but you love me, but he manages to keep himself in check just in time. He doesn't dare say that, not yet, not when she might bolt the second he admits it. Better to keep playing this little game they've had going on for nearly six months now, in which they find increasingly creative ways to sneak around behind the backs of all their coworkers but never, ever say out loud what they meant to each other.
"You like me when I'm hopeless," he murmurs as he lights nips at her earlobe, and he can feel her melting into his arms, can hear the little breathy sigh she lets out.
"Yeah," she says, mindless, and he grins to himself before he plants a kiss on the spot right below her ear that drives her crazy in bed. "Ohhhhh, oh God, Josh."
"Aren't you glad I blackmailed you into coming over here?"
He brushes kisses across the soft deep pink of her heat-flushed cheeks and the bridge of her nose where the freckles are starting to appear, and her eyes flutter closed, her hands coming up to play with his hair. He bites back a moan of his own.
"I still can't believe you blackmailed me with a bottle of water, Josh, that's terrible." It's a reprimand, but it sure as hell doesn't sound like one, and he takes the moment to kiss her again, deeper this time, and by the time she pulls away for air he's pressing desperately into her, wanting pressure on his rapidly hardening cock. Shit, the way this woman gets to him, even in broad daylight where they could quite easily be caught at any moment. Somehow that makes it even hotter.
"I had to," he grits out, trying to keep up with her train of thought. "You're very hot right now."
He smiles cheesily at his own joke, and she groans.
"Oh dear God, what is wrong with you," she says, pushing at him lightly. "How can anyone this corny be trusted with any part of a national campaign? That's what I want to know."
"Shush, Donna, accept my brilliance," he says grandly before she shuts him up with a kiss of her own, and if he was ready to go earlier, that's nothing to how he's feeling now. He's contemplating the wisdom of trying to talk her into a quickie up against the closest tree when she wriggles away, pressing the back of her wrist to her mouth.
"Oh damn, the volunteers," she says, apparently much more capable of rational thought than he is, and he makes a noise of protest.
"Forget the volunteers, Donnatella, come back over here," he wheedles, but she shakes her head firmly.
"Oh no, no, you finagled me into getting distracted once, with your blackmail dehydration scheme, but it's not going to work a second time," she says in her best I will brook no nonsense tone. "Oh no. You go upstairs and help Toby and Sam in the conference room, and I'm going to whip the volunteers into shape, and I'm taking the water with me."
She grabs the water bottle, and he whines pitifully.
"Donnaaaaa, no, come back," he demands, and she gives him a very unimpressed look.
"You have work to do, and so do I," she says briskly. "C'mon, we have to get moving."
He sighs. "Will you at least promise to sneak in and shower off with me before we go to the gala tonight?"
She smiles, a little sly smirk, and takes a drink of water.
"Maybe…if you play your cards right."
And then she's sauntering away, swinging her hips deliberately to torment him as she brushes past, and he sits down on one of the stone benches with a groan, picturing her in the shower, sluicing off in cool water while his hands slide over her wet naked body.
He still hates the Georgia heat, but maybe…just possibly…it's not going to be such a bad day after all.