AN: Hey guys! It's been a long time since I've joined a fandom that only has 65 fanfictions written for it, but what can I say, Emron's got me hooked. I've been writing fanfiction for years but haven't published in a while, so s/o to these two for finally motivating me enough. I just created this new account, so feel free to follow it, although my other account is called 'Not a day will go by' if you want to check it out (though there are no Emron fics on it). This story will be multiple chapters and will get pretty M rated. I don't normally write smutty stuff but the fact that there's so little Emron smut so far makes me feel like it is my civic duty. I've already written drafts of the next couple chapters, so stay tuned, and leave me a review to tell me how you're feelin about it!
Several weeks after Patrick Lloyd had escaped from the FBI's capture, three stars of the new Kirkman administration found all of themselves with the same night off for the first time since the new president had taken office. Namely, Seth Wright, Aaron Shore, and Emily Rhodes. While Seth hadn't found it easy to convince the other two to use their night off to go to the local bar rather than go their separate ways and crash — after all, they were all exhausted all the time — the Press Secretary knew how to manipulate an audience, whether it was a room of reporters or his two best friends. That is, he convinced them each to come by telling them that the other had already agreed to be there.
It hadn't been entirely natural between the two since Aaron had returned to the White House as a Special Advisor to President Kirkman. It wouldn't have been noticeable to anybody who hadn't known their previous dynamic, but they argued less. They were more cordial and polite to one another. It wasn't that they were cold, but they were treading lightly in a way they had never bothered to do before. It helped that they had been avoiding being alone with one another like the plague, therefore never giving themselves enough time to address the kiss, the almost-date, the investigation, and everything else that had messed up their relationship in the first place. Not that they didn't occasionally spot the other one staring at them from across the room, but it always ended with them quickly glancing away. Emily would tuck her hair behind her ears and Aaron would fiddle with his suspenders, both of them looking anywhere else.
While they weren't addressing anything of their past, Emily was internally coming to terms with the fact that they would never be. Not that she didn't want him — and she did, badly. More than she would have ever cared to admit. She certainly wasn't going to be telling anybody about her increasingly common daydreams about running her fingers through his curly hair, pulling him closer to her by his tie while he kissed and sucked his way from her lips down her throat and chest. Yeah. Nobody was ever going to know about that. But still, she suspected he still felt far too betrayed to consider starting something again. She had just been doing her job, but still, she understood. It hadn't been a big thing, they had just kissed once, and she was trying to convince herself that it clearly just wasn't meant to be.
As for Aaron, he found that he could not stay mad at Emily Rhodes for long. But he had kissed her the first time, and while she had accepted his original request for a date, she had also canceled it quickly after. And then there was the minor matter that she had believed he was capable of treason. All he knew was that she clearly didn't feel as strongly about him as he did her, and he wasn't going to try to force her into something she didn't want.
It was that night that they had off, the one that Seth had lured them to by playing them off each other, that the three of them found themselves staring up at one of the bar's TV screens, watching a Fox News report on a minor drop on the stock market. They hadn't meant to get caught up in work talk on their night off, though Aaron and Emily also found themselves changing the subject back whenever they started nearing personal topics; neither one of them particularly cared to know whether the other had been seeing somebody new.
Not long after their attention had been directed toward the screen, Seth glanced at his watch and whistled lowly.
"Yikes. I really have to get home, but I'll see you guys tomorrow."
They both nodded and waved goodbye casually, barely removing their attention from the screen. Seth smirked, knowing that the two workaholics were so invested in the right-wing's ridiculous take on the stock market that they didn't even notice that he was excusing himself at only about 8 pm. He suspected they'd notice his absence more when the report was over and they realized that they no longer had Seth for a conversational buffer.
As the report continued, the anchor of the news segment announced they would be bringing on a commentator.
"Oh god, they're bringing on Kingsley again?" Aaron said, sounding as frustrated as he did when he was watching basketball. "Don't they know he's a moron? I'll bet you he only blames Kirkman for the whole thing, god forbid the right-wing have anything to do with it."
"Really?" Emily questioned, taking a sip of her wine. "He'll go after the President, sure, but I think he actually has it in for some of those wall street guys, I hear he's got some beef with them." Aaron brushed off her comments with a wave of his hand. With anybody else she would be offended, but she knew him. He lived and breathed politics and made no effort to shield others' feelings from his (very strong) opinions. The words "minor leaguer" ran through her head briefly.
"Not enough to ever hold them accountable, just to sometimes tweet passive aggressive things about them."
"Fine. You said you'd bet? How much?" She challenged, not willing to let him get away with always trying to make himself look like the most politically savvy in the room.
For the first time since Seth left, Aaron removed his eyes from the screen. He looked her up and down appreciatively, impressed by the strength of her convictions though not at all surprised. This was Emily Rhodes he was talking about, the most sure-of-themselves person he'd ever met, maybe after himself. After his fair share of drinks, however, the memory of her soft lips colliding with his and her hand grazing his jaw were in the forefront of his mind more than he normally allowed, filling his mind with ideas of what he could say to her right now that he normally wouldn't even allow himself to consider. Taking a long drink while continuing to look at her, he put down his glass.
"Afraid I actually don't have any cash on me," he lied easily, putting the ball in her court. If it ended there, it ended there. If not-
"Fine. Not money then. What do you want to bet on?" She said, leaning forward, the gleam of competition fresh in her eye. He allowed himself a small twitch of his lip, hoping she'd say something like that, just so long as she didn't let the conversation end there. He matched her position, leaning forward to match her.
"How about genie rules?" he suggested. She looked confused so he clarified. "Winner gets three wishes from the loser."
He was throwing caution to the wind here, all of the potential wishes he might ask of her swimming through his mind. From the hard gulp and subconscious licking of her lips that he noticed smugly, he guessed her mind was in a similar place to his. He smirked and cocked an eyebrow, fully expecting her to end the conversation there by turning it into a breezy joke. He'd be disappointed, of course, but not surprised. He certainly no longer suspected that she wanted much of anything to do with him romantically. Whether she ever had was still a question plaguing his mind.
Much to his shock, Emily seemed to swallow her nervousness and narrowed her eyes. "Deal," she said, sticking out a hand for him to shake. His eyebrows shot even higher, suddenly not sure of what he'd gotten himself into, but knowing he wasn't about to back out. They shook on it and she felt sparks on her skin and a jolt in her stomach as they touched for the first time in a while. They returned their attention to the screen, asking the bartender to turn it up a bit.
"Good evening Mr. Kingsley, it's good to have you with us tonight," the anchor was saying.
"I wish I could say it was good to be back," the right-wing commentator sighed.
"Pretending like he doesn't love the attention," Emily said, rolling her eyes. Aaron nodded firmly, at least united with Emily in their detestation of the man.
"And what do you mean by that, Mr. Kingsley?"
"I mean that the so-called 'President' Thomas Kirkman and his in-over-their-heads, naive staff have been treading water for months now, and we're finally seeing the results: the economy is going to tank because of Tom Kirkman's leadership."
"Are you saying you don't blame anybody but President Kirkman for this incident in the stock market?"
"Absolutely."
Aaron turned away from the screen, a smirk on his face. Emily didn't look at him, biting her lip in frustration. He wished she'd stop doing that as he clenched his fist a little too hard around his glass, hoping she'd throw him some kind of bone to get his mind out of the gutter. Especially now that he could ask her for any three favors. Though he knew he wasn't about to take advantage of her because of a stupid bet. If anything was ever going to happen, it would be because they both wanted it to happen, not just because Emily was under some obligation to him. Not that that made it any easier for him as he pictured her biting his lip instead of her own.
"So. Congratulations," Emily said begrudgingly.
"Thank you Ms. Rhodes, it's hard to be so right all the time," he said with a fake sigh, his eyes still glinting mischievously.
"So what's it gonna be? I could buy you a drink?" Emily suggested, hoping that the PG idea for what one of his "wishes" would be might calm her heartbeat, which felt like it was about to pop clean out of her chest any time she thought about the hungry look on his face when he suggested that the winner get three wishes from the loser.
Unfortunately, her plan to defuse the tension was futile. He grinned boyishly at her and said, "oh no, it's not going to be anything that easy, Em."
She took another drink because her mouth was suddenly feeling extremely dry. "What, then?"
He leaned back in his chair. "I guess I'll have to give it a bit more thought."
"Woah, no, you can't just be holding these over my head for as long as you want, we never said the winner had the wishes for an unlimited time."
"But we also never said anything about the wishes expiring."
She glared at him. Stupid, smug, attractive, infuriating, manipulative Aaron Shore.
Seeing how seriously she was taking this, he sighed, running a hand up to his hair, some of the gel wearing off by this point in the day. He couldn't put his finger on why exactly he acted like this around Emily. She made him want to act impressive which apparently meant smug and cocky somewhere in his brain. He knew that flirting with her would never mean as much to her as it did to him, but he couldn't stop himself from wanting to do it anyways. Still, it was the least he could do to drop the asshole-facade for a moment to calm her fears. "Look, Em, don't worry. It's a stupid little bet, it's not about to be anything bad."
She blinked, surprised by the seriousness of his tone. "Thank you for saying that, Aaron," she said politely, hearing herself fall into the formality that their day-to-day conversations had been like recently. His eyes lowered and he gave a sad little smile, the one that broke her heart a little every time she saw it. Clearly he could hear the formality too. That wasn't what she wanted. Even if it could end up being humiliating, what she really wanted from this bet was for it to maybe get them back to what they'd been before all of the bullshit that went down during the investigation. She didn't want to be too flirty since she suspected he would want nothing to do with that coming from her, though admittedly his behavior this night had felt very forward, almost like it had been in the days leading up to their kiss. But she was pretty sure she'd do just about anything to get that kicked-puppy expression off his face, so she leaned forward and added on in a somewhat sensual voice, "but what kind of 'bad' are you talking about?"
He was visibly taken aback by the suggestive tone, but didn't stop to think long. He knew he might get hurt again, later down the road, but if Emily Rhodes wanted to flirt with him tonight, it simply wasn't within his (considerable) power to put an end to it. He just couldn't stop himself when it came to her. He paused to consider her question.
"I suppose I mean 'bad' as in anything you wouldn't otherwise want."
"And you think you know what I want?" She asked, not dropping her suggestive tone or leaning away from him. Again, he matched her in leaning across the table, this time getting close enough to whisper into her ear.
"I think I'm starting to get a pretty good idea," he said huskily. With satisfaction, he heard her breath catch and saw the hair behind her ears stand on end. Leaning back, he looked in his wallet and feigned surprise when he pulled out a couple of bills. "Huh. Looks like I did have cash after all." She bit her lip, holding herself back from giving him a hard time about his obvious lie to get her to bet something better than money. He got off the chair and took his suit jacket off the back of the chair and put it back on. He dropped some money on the table. "On me. Goodnight, Emily," he said with a small smile and started to make his way to the door.
Refusing to allow him to leave on such a victorious note, using her same silky voice, she said, "sweet dreams, Aaron," not so loud that the others around their table heard her, but definitely loud enough that he made it out. With satisfaction, she was almost sure she saw a slight shiver run up his spine.