Crashing the Congressman’s Wedding (Crimson Romance) (19 page)

Fortunately, Alice was too enamored by the power tools and happy with the progress of her theatre to catch his moments of depressing introspection. He looked around at his work. It felt good to sweat, to create. Of course, someone with more expertise than him would be needed to refinish the floors and return them to pristine condition, but Justin estimated he saved Alice a couple thousand dollars in labor and materials. It was a small drop in the bucket compared to the entire renovation, but on a day when his future worth to people in need was in question, he’d take whatever humanitarian satisfaction he could get.

He turned toward her, finding her on her knees with his hammer in her hand. “Now that you’re finished with the hard stuff, why don’t you tell me what to do?” she asked, smiling. But it was no innocent question. She dragged the tip of her tongue across the edges of her top teeth.

And just like that, satisfying thoughts and taking what he could get took on an entirely different meaning. He lifted his cap an inch off his head to release some heat. “I thought you didn’t like being told what to do.”

She touched the head of the hammer to her collarbone and rolled those blue eyes to the ceiling. A deep breath expanded her chest, swelling her breasts against her clingy black T-shirt. “Sometimes I do.”

“When?” One word, but damned if he didn’t strain to say it.

“When you’re dressed like that.”

He snickered, momentarily losing his predatory stance to glance down at his work clothes. “You like me covered in dirt and dust and sweat?”

“Actually, I don’t like you covered at all, and I bet I can make you sweatier.” She slid the hammer down her milky skin, hooking the claw into the V-neck collar, tugging the fabric down.

Inches of shadowy cleavage and a speck of red lace had the orders flying from his dry mouth. “Put the hammer down.”

She blinked, hesitated, tugged the fabric lower, but then tossed the hammer aside. It pummeled a newly placed piece of hardwood, leaving a dent. “Oops,” she said, batting those lashes, not looking sorry at all. “Are you going to punish me?”

His groin tightened. “Absolutely. Lose the shirt.”

She settled on her heels with a frown. “You should spank me.”

Those words, spilling from her pouty lips, threw his libido into overdrive. “Lose the shirt, Alice,” he growled.

She grinned as she reached for her waistband, rearing on her knees. Slowly, painfully she dragged the shirt overhead. His breathing stopped.

Red lace embraced two beautiful balls of flesh, exactly like he wanted his hands to do. He swept his tongue around his mouth in search of moisture to ease the discomfort.

“This doesn’t feel like punishment.”

Oh yeah? Then why did it feel like torture to him?
“Crawl to me.”

She raised a brow. “Like beg?”

“Just crawl, Alice.”

Once again, she grinned at his growl. Leaning forward, she braced her hands on the floor and gazed up at him through sultry eyes. “Like this?” Her breasts hung heavy, threatening to slip from the lace.

He swallowed a groan. “Like that.”

She crawled, slowly with an exaggerated swing, giving him exactly what he wanted. His erection strained against the restricting denim, while his lungs strained against his restricting chest. When she’d crawled too close to appreciate the front view, he ogled her behind, cradled in cutoff jean shorts.

“Now are you going to spank me?” The crawl was hardly enough to make her breathless, but she was panting just the same.

Up until then he’d never seen the appeal in rough sex between consenting adults, not that he was thinking about having rough sex with Alice, but a little swat to that fine behind was obviously what she wanted. Who was he to deny her that?

With a deep breath and a couple grunts, he managed a painful squat, ramping the pressure in his pants. She completed her crawl, nuzzling his thigh with her cheek, staying on all fours, waiting.

A swallow, and his hand was sliding down her bare back, around the curves of her ass. Sweat beaded over every inch of his skin.

“Do it, Justin,” she whispered, and he raised his hand.

But it never landed. Someone else’s hand landed on the theatre’s front door.

Alice rocketed to a sitting position, eyes wide. “Shoot. Who … ” She stopped mid-sentence, like she remembered exactly who it could be.

Justin watched her scramble for her shirt, the knocking coming again, doing a decent job of chasing away his desire.

“What if it’s the police?” She looked at him. “You should go.”

He didn’t move. He felt incapacitated, stuck between the hunger that still pulsed in his veins and the disbelief that there might be legal ramifications to what Alice had done, not to mention social and professional ramifications of being here should she be arrested.

“Go,” she snapped.

But he still couldn’t move. A new feeling charged his brain. Fear. She said Harold sexually harassed her. What if he was coming back to threaten her again in the same way?

“No,” Justin said, pushing past her to the door. “Let me handle this.”

“Oh my God. What are you doing?”

But it was too late. Justin threw open the door to Robert Parrish’s sneering face.

“Well, surprise, surprise,” Robert said. “Or not.” He peeked around Justin at Alice. “You kids enjoying your evening?”

Alice pushed in front of Justin. “Good evening, Mayor. The congressman was just helping me out with some repairs.”

Robert leered.

“Alice, don’t.” Justin placed a hand on her shoulder to let her know the jig was up. Robert knew. Or at least he suspected earlier today, and this wasn’t proving him wrong.

But Alice stepped away from Justin, moving closer to Robert. “Why don’t you grab your things and go, Congressman? The mayor and I can take it from here.”

With a chuckle, Robert produced an envelope from his inner jacket pocket. “As much as I’d love to stand here and watch you both squirm a little longer, I have work to do. I came to deliver this. Evening,” he drawled without the hint of a smile.

Whatever was on that piece of paper wasn’t good.

No matter how hard Alice tried to lose herself in the fantasy world of being with Justin, reality found a way to grab her by the throat and force her to face facts. She was a magnet for trouble, and the longer Justin stayed mixed up with her, the greater the likelihood she’d destroy his dreams along with hers.

“Please, go,” she said, after closing the door on Mayor Parrish and moving out of Justin’s reach. The envelope shook in her hand, and that’s where her eyes focused.

“What does it say?”

She saw the shadow of his body moving closer on the hardwood floor, and as much as she wanted to cling to him for dear life, she backed away. “This is my business, my concern. You’re getting mixed up in something you shouldn’t be mixed up in.” She looked at him then, and the lines etched across his forehead and bunched between his brows twisted her heart. He knew she was right. Being with her was a risk he shouldn’t take.

“Open it, Alice.”

She closed her eyes, too weak with worry to scold him for telling her what to do. “Not until you leave.”

“You think I don’t have ways of finding out what it is? The mayor delivered an envelope, sporting the town seal. I can make one phone call and learn the contents faster than you can read and process it.”

“Good for you,” she snapped. He probably didn’t mean anything by it, but the words still stung. Her GED and community college degree couldn’t compete with his lofty education. After the day she had, she hardly needed more reminders of her inadequacy.

He sighed. “I can help, Alice.”

Like he helped by dragging her off to the beach, taking in the kittens, offering her money for the theatre, fixing the lobby floor. It was a long list that would keep growing — if he continued this self-destructive pursuit of rescuing her.

She cleared the sticky emotion from her throat. “What if I don’t want your help? In the long run, it’s going to get us both in trouble. You don’t belong here fighting my battles any more than I belong … ” — her throat closed, trapping the rest of the sentence for a second — “ … anywhere with you.” She dropped her head, and looked at the letter again, hoping her breathing would slow.

“How about you open the envelope and find out what’s inside before you worry about fighting anyone, let alone me?” He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her against his chest.

The voice of self-preservation screamed,
push him away
. The longer she leaned on him, the harder it would be to stand on her own. Another voice whispered,
let him in, one more time
, because if the contents of the letter were as bad as she feared, he’d run of his own accord.

She stayed put, pressed against his chest, and with one finger, she broke the seal. The bold words
Notice of Dereliction
ran across the top of the page.

“They’re trying to shut you down, Alice, on the grounds that you’ve had ample time since the transfer of real estate to bring the building up to code. You need to take this seriously. You need my help.”

Her brain sucked up every word he said, pushing hard against her skull, causing blinding pain. She didn’t know what was worse, that he read and processed the entire letter faster than she read and processed the first line or that he was once again telling her what to do, and this time she couldn’t afford not to listen.

Trapped. At the mercy of a man. Like her mother had been all those years.

He turned her so she was staring at his chest, her arms hanging at her sides, the letter barely between her fingertips, and then he hitched a knuckle beneath her chin and tipped her face so she could see him. “Take my money.”

The command made her wince. “I need to think about it — all of it.”

“Does that include us, too?”

Us.
She rolled her eyes away from his face and managed a shallow inhale. How long had she dreamed of that word? She couldn’t believe she was fighting it now. But back then, she never imaged becoming
us
could destroy
them
.

“How can there be an us? How can you want there to be an us? Look at this mess. I’ve ruined everything.” Her lips acted like a magnet for her heart, drawing the throbbing muscle into her throat. “I should’ve never stood up in that church.”

“I wholeheartedly disagree.” His thumbs circled her cheekbones as his fingers massaged the base of her neck.

Any other day, the sensations would’ve driven her gloom away, but today they only served as a reminder of the kind of man she could keep if she was the right kind of girl.

“Robert’s never going to back you now. The town, everyone is going to hate me, blame me for putting this rift between you and the Parrishes, and what will your mother think? Oh God … ” Her stomach cramped.

He shushed her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and drawing her in. “I don’t care.”

“How can you say that?” She pounded his chest, freeing herself from his arms.

His green eyes clouded as he shoved his hands in his jean pockets. “Robert doesn’t need to back me now. And this town will get over it. The Parrishes will get over it. My mother will get over it.”

The words garbled in her aching head. “What do you mean Robert doesn’t need to back you now?”

“I’m finished with politics, Alice. I’ll complete this term, but after that, I’m coming home.”

A split second of happiness gave way to panic, roaring through her veins until it screamed in her ears. “Because of me. That’s all because of me. Because I stood up in the church and started this whole horrible ball rolling. People aren’t going to get over that, Justin. You’re their golden boy, their great white hope. If you quit Congress after all of this, I’ll be labeled the despicable girl who took you down. I can’t be that girl.”

He stepped toward her. “You aren’t that girl. Just because someone says or thinks something about you doesn’t make it true. You are who you are. Period.” He smoothed his knuckles across her cheek. “I know who you are.”

She whimpered. “But I don’t know who I am.” The last of the panic fizzled in her head, leaving behind an exhaustion so thick she wanted to curl into a ball on the dusty floor.

He grabbed her hand. “How about you try being the woman I love?”

“I don’t know who that is. I don’t know how you can love me and everything that goes along with me. It doesn’t make sense.”

“It doesn’t have to,” he said with a half-smile.

She wanted to believe him, wanted to think the warmth of his hand in hers was enough to answer all the questions pounding in her head, but she couldn’t.

Like her daddy said, happy endings and Cramers didn’t mix.

He hugged her hard and kissed the top of her head. “You might not want my help, Alice, but you need it. I do not want to see you lose this theatre.”

She didn’t want to see that, either. She’d lived a lifetime of loss already. She knew she was bound to lose again, but with Justin’s money, she could make sure the theatre wouldn’t be among the body count.

“Fine. I’ll take your money.”

And take — not borrow — was exactly what she meant.

At least that way, when they ended badly, she wouldn’t have to pay him back.

• • •

Two weeks later, Justin glanced out his office window at the theatre across the street. Since accepting his help in the form of a money order, Alice had entertained construction crews nonstop, and the progress was startling. A few days ago, he watched them raise a new marquee while he conferenced with his aides back in D.C. And today that marquee sported its first message:

He smiled as sirens wailed in the distance. Before long, they blasted beneath the window. In a town this size, it wasn’t a sound often heard. Maybe that’s why he listened until the screeching faded, wondering what prompted the call. In D.C., he wouldn’t have even noticed. Noise was the name of the game.

In a few days, he’d be back in the middle of all that noise.

He sighed, even though his time in D.C. was temporary. He’d be home on weekends and for entire weeks too, but he’d miss the daily check-ins at the theatre, and he’d miss Alice — despite her increasingly puzzling mood. She wasn’t happy about needing his money, but he expected her to warm up to the idea once she saw the progress. After weeks of picking paint colors and overseeing sound checks, the best he could call her was flat. Even on nights, when he held her in his arms, her effervescence was gone.