Crashing the Congressman’s Wedding (Crimson Romance) (15 page)

He couldn’t keep his hands to himself, sliding a palm across her stomach and pulling her close. “And when would it be worth your while?”

“When I’m trying to impress someone.” She walked her fingers up his chest and pulled apart his tie.

“Are you trying to impress me?”

She grinned and undid his top two buttons. “I think I already did. My lap dance is way spicier than my sauce.”

He lowered his head and kissed her smiling lips. “Behind you. Bottom drawer. Grab a sauce pan.”

“Say please,” she said with a pout.

“Please.”

She took two steps, and then shot him a raised-brow look over her shoulders. “You just want to see me bend over, don’t you?”

“Maybe,” he said, adjusting the burner.

“Tough luck.” She shook her head. “You get the sauce pan. It’s my turn to watch.” When he didn’t move she folded her arms beneath her breasts. “Chop chop, kitchen boy.”

He liked that moniker much better than congressman.

Chuckling and shaking his head, he walked past her. “Fine. I’ll get the sauce pan, but I’m not going to dance.”

“I didn’t say you had to, but take off your shirt. It looks expensive, and sauce stains.” She hitched those lips like a woman entitled to the craziest demands. “And lose the undershirt.”

This
was
crazy. Parading around his kitchen shirtless while he cooked. “You can’t be serious.” He was going to look like a fool.

“I’m dead serious,” she said smiling. And then she sauntered over to him and finished unbuttoning his shirt.

His heartbeat doubled. His mouth went dry. He couldn’t decide if it was from lust or embarrassment. She slipped her hands over his chest and around his shoulders, dropping the shirt down his arms. Before he could catch his breath, she was smoothing her hands up his stomach, pushing the white T-shirt over his chest.

“You know, I’m normally a pretty conservative guy.” Saying it somehow made him feel less responsible for the slip in his reserve.

She helped the T-shirt over his head, tossed it on top of his dress shirt and then turned her hands on herself, unbuttoning the first three buttons of her shirt. “I know how conservative you are. That’s why we ditched the shirt and tie.”

But it didn’t explain why she was ditching hers.

With her arms crossed at her waist, she grabbed at her hem and tugged her shirt over her head, dropping it behind her. Then she bent and snatched his dress shirt. “Seeing you in this makes me uncomfortable,” she said, sliding her arms into the broadcloth fabric.

Seeing her in that made him uncomfortable too — in the best way possible.

Her hands disappeared beneath his shirttails, and before he could blink, she was pushing her pants to the floor. Damn. The woman loved to perform. “Is this supposed to distract me from feeling awkward about walking around my kitchen bare-chested?”

She laughed as she fastened two measly buttons on his dress shirt. “Nah. I just like to stir the pot.” She crinkled her nose. “Kitchen humor.”

He hauled her to him, tired of being teased. “I’m not hungry anymore.”

“At least not for pasta.” Her brows bobbed and her eyes sparkled.

How had he gone so long depriving his life of this spark? He backed her against the kitchen counter and kissed her … until his phone rang.

Robert Parrish
flashed across caller ID. Alice saw the name too.

She squeezed out from between Justin and the counter. “I have to check the cats.”

How had Justin gone so long depriving his life of her spark? He looked at the phone again. That was how.

• • •

Alice crouched beside a utility sink that was cleaner and brighter than her bathroom sink at home. Gleaming stone tiles chilled her bare feet as she clutched Justin’s cologne-drenched shirt to her chest.

She couldn’t breathe. What was she doing here behaving like this with Congressman Justin Mitchell while Charlie suffered in Connecticut, the grant was lost, Harold Parrish was after her theatre and Mayor Robert Parrish was on the phone? Who was she kidding? She didn’t belong here.

Sure, she and Justin had some fun in the theatre. But that was her theatre. Her territory. And it was nothing but a distraction from everything that had gone wrong. Now she was here. His territory, a professionally decorated too-many-square-foot house that was occupied half the year because its owner was a United States congressman who flinched at the sound of her last name. Did she really think fun was enough to counter all that?

She dropped to the floor, squirming when the cold tiles bit the backs of her thighs. The kittens crawled into her lap, and she welcomed their warmth. At least they seemed comfortable here.

She still couldn’t believe Justin agreed to keep them. It only took her litany of concerns for their wellbeing — traffic in the alley, stray dogs, lack of food, holes in the theatre walls and floors, and Mouse, ready to scare them at home.
Bam!
Justin agreed to take them home and even have them vet-checked. His sentimentality toyed with her heart. He really was a good guy. She wanted to believe that despite the presence of people like Robert Parrish in his life, he’d do right by her the way he was doing right by these kittens.

But that was a long shot — maybe the longest shot of all.

Curling her feet beneath her and filling her hands with fur, Alice hummed the most appropriate show tune she could think of.

“‘My Favorite Things.’
The Sound of Music
.” Justin knelt beside her. “You’d never guess, but that’s one of my favorite movies. I like when she tells that kid he’s incorrigible and he has no clue what the word means.”

And Alice liked that Justin could remember such an uneventful part of a film most men wouldn’t admit to seeing. She liked a lot of things about Justin. That’s what made it so hard to keep the focus on having temporary fun instead of her being desperately in love.

“It’s by Rodgers and Hammerstein,” she said, focusing on the kittens, feeling strangely crowded by his presence. Once again she wondered what he’d do if he knew she loved him, dreamed of a life with him, wanted so much more than this.

“Robert left a message … nothing important. He wants to form a PAC.”

“What’s that?” She couldn’t look at him.

Justin reached out and patted Oscar’s head. “It’s … honestly? It’s unnecessary.” His voice tightened. “And I’m going to tell him that.”

Whatever a PAC was, telling Robert one was unnecessary didn’t seem like something Justin looked forward to. She could only imagine how hard it would be for him to tell Robert about her. Not that he needed to. Not that he ever would.

Justin stood. “Let’s make a salad.”

“Am I your dirty little secret?” She had no idea why the words charged out, sounding harsh in her ear.

“No,” he snapped, all gruff and defensive. “Why would you say something like that?” And yet he seemed to think about it, his eyes flashing back and forth above her head and his forehead bunching. From the way he sunk his teeth into his lip over and over again, she expected to see blood.

“You didn’t answer the phone because you were afraid he’d know I was here.” It was the only thing she could think of.

“I didn’t answer the phone, because we were in the middle of something a lot more enjoyable.”

God, she could kick herself for opening her mouth and chasing away whatever was left of the joy. But she opened, and now she didn’t know how to stop, except …

“I should go.”

“No.” He reached down and lifted her to stand. “I drove you here, and I’m not taking you back to your car until we finish. The water is boiling, the sauce is on, and we still haven’t talked about … the theatre.”

Right. The theatre. She did come partly for his business mind. She nodded when he nodded, recognition of his mighty fine chest causing her vision to blur. She came partly for his body, too. And that was the part that was getting her into trouble.

“Okay. Fine. We can talk about the theatre.” Another mood swing tossed her stomach as she itched to climb her fingers up his chest. “But you’re going to need a shirt for that.”

He smiled, but his shoulders rose and fell. “I can’t keep up with your moods.”

“You never could,” she said, skirting him and leaving the room.

Truth be told, she was having trouble keeping up with them too.

• • •

What just happened here? Justin combed his hand through his hair and stared at the kittens at his feet. One minute he was shirtless in his kitchen, being bewitched by the most amazing woman. The next minute, the same woman was brushing him off. He needed some headache medicine — washed down with a beer.

Alice wanted him to wear a shirt. Ten minutes ago, she removed the ones he’d been wearing. Were they ever going to be on the same page long enough to figure out what was going on between them and where it should lead?

With one stupid phone call, Robert Parrish had messed up Justin’s life again, and Justin didn’t like it one bit. The man was a meddler. For all Justin knew, he was parked down the block right now, casing Justin’s house, fuming because the wrong woman was inside. But Justin didn’t care. He was tired of putting his faith in the “right” people only to find out they were “wrong.” And if that’s what it was like being President, he didn’t want the job. Honest to God, he never did.

He was tired of the grand plans and plotting out five to ten years of his life in advance, only to see none of it happen like he expected. For once, he wanted to try focusing on tonight, and tonight he wanted Alice.

But now she didn’t want him.

Am I your dirty little secret?
The question made him livid. If he were any less emotional, he might stop to ask why. It was a legitimate question, wasn’t it? Did he plan to put her on display while he went about congressional business, or was she to meet him only after dark?

No plans
, he thought, stalking to his bedroom. There, he yanked a faded T-shirt from his drawer and traded his trousers for a raggedy pair of sweatpants. If he was going to be knocked down every time he tried to get up, the least he could do was dress for the game.

Glancing at the mirror as he crossed the room, Justin grimaced at his hair. He’d combed through it enough to render the style post-apocalyptic rooster, so he snatched a ball hat off his suit valet and slapped it on his head — backwards.

She wanted to talk about the theatre? Fine. They’d talk about the theatre. But there wasn’t much to talk about. She needed money. He had money. Talk about a perfect pair. So yeah, they’d talk about fixing the theatre, and then they were going to talk about everything they could do together before the sun rose.

Those thoughts carried him into the kitchen where Alice, dressed in her clothes, pushed up on tiptoes to search his cupboards. Her shirt rode above her waist, and his mouth watered at her perfect, denim-covered curves. Why couldn’t this be simple? Three weeks of minimal planning, just a little fun and a lot of sex. But nothing with Alice had ever been simple. That’s what made her so damn intriguing.

“What are you looking for?”

She startled at the sound of his voice, dropping to her heels, slamming a cupboard overhead. “Oh. Uh. A bowl. For salad. You said … ”

He stood behind her, reaching over her head, brushing her hair with his shirt. The nearly non-existent contact sparked a flame. “Here,” he said, setting the bowl on the counter in front of her, breathing her in, stoking the fire.

“Thanks.” Her voice was shaking.

Simple static electricity shouldn’t have this effect. But it did. And the shock waves urged him to brush aside the hair covering her neck. She shuddered. He placed his mouth on her skin, and she sighed. Every inch of him burned.

“I thought we were going to talk … about my theatre.”

“After.”

“After what?”

“After we eat.” And he sure as hell wasn’t talking about food.

Gypsy Rose Lee couldn’t help her now.

Alice turned in Justin’s arms and came face to face with Plain Old Justin, just a guy who wanted her, Alice Cramer. She could see it in his heavy-lidded eyes, feel it in his scorching touch.

He unbuttoned the buttons she’d refastened only minutes ago, his cinnamon-scented breath steady on her face. While she watched his fingers fumble, she tried to calm her pounding heart. They were really going to take this one step further.

At the beach. In the theatre. They’d gone far, but not far enough. And each time, a pessimistic voice inside her head warned she got more than she deserved. By luck. By chance. Because there wasn’t a better option. But now she wasn’t quite so sure.

“So … um … ” Nervous anticipation made her speak. “What happened at the beach wasn’t a fluke caused by too much stress and too little sleep?”

He pushed the shirt from her shoulders and kissed the dip at the base of her neck. “No.” He didn’t lift his head.

“And what happened at the theatre wasn’t just a distraction?”

“No. What happened at the beach and the theatre was … inevitable.” His kisses punctuated his words as his hands spread over the cups of her bra, following the lace until he wound around her back.

A quick pinch, a release, and cool air tightened her nipples.

“Like this is inevitable,” he said, taking her breasts in his hands, taking her mouth with his.

The cinnamon she smelled moments ago nipped at her tongue, causing a pleasant chill that wobbled from fuzzy head to curling toes. She’d always hoped making love with Justin was preordained, but now that the moment was here she couldn’t stop shaking. Silly after what happened in the theatre. But that had been a performance. After her mini-breakdown in the laundry room, she was too raw to be anybody but herself.

And being accepted as herself had always been her biggest fear.

Justin took her by the hand, led her from the kitchen down the dark hall. She had the urge to talk again, fill the silence, help to settle the cells rattling against her bones. But she couldn’t think of anything reasonable to say. So she walked … behind him … to his bed … accepting the inevitable.

Inside the room, his hands grasped her waist and guided her to the mattress, where they lay face to face. When he breathed out, she breathed in, his fingers tracing the curves of her shoulders, the swell of her breasts, the tautness of her nipples. Every so often, he leaned closer and offered the sweetest kisses.