Crashing the Congressman’s Wedding (Crimson Romance) (8 page)

Too bad he was sleeping. Too bad he’d wake soon. Too bad …

His hand skimmed the outline of her body until it found her breast.

Alice sucked quick breaths when he slowed the kiss to suck on her bottom lip. Was he awake? She started to open one eye, but thought better of it, mostly because his thumb was strumming her tightened nipple through the cover of her clothing, and she’d be damned if she did anything to come between that hand and her breast. She squeezed her eyes shut and savored.

Slipping her tongue over his lips, she rocked her pelvis against him, and when he groaned, she smiled. He had to be awake. She hoped he was awake. The idea that he might not know who was giving him pleasure cooled her off a bit, but the reprieve from the heat didn’t last long. He wrapped his fingers in her hair and pulled hard enough to wake every nerve ending, raining pricks of pleasure all the way to her toes.

More kisses. More desperate gropes. Her dress bunched around her waist. Her panties slanted across her hips. Surely he was awake now. She should say something. Make sure. She moaned instead.

Justin said nothing in return, did nothing to make her think he was any more or less aware than he was a moment ago. With one hand beneath her dress and inside her bra, he continued to tweak and tease, coaxing rapid breaths. With the other hand, he gripped her head, positioning her for kiss after soul-melting kiss.

If he wasn’t awake, he was one hell of a sleeper.

Did it matter? No. Alice was going to do this. After years of dreaming about it, she was going to have sex with Justin Mitchell, because girls like her rarely lived their fantasies. She molded herself to him, while distant waves crashed against the shore. Tomorrow she’d worry. But not now, not when Justin’s tongue traced the outline of her lips. Tonight she’d enjoy.

• • •

Justin was going to do this. He was going to roll over and drive into Alice so hard and deep he’d rid himself of the demon of desire that had hounded him for years. He’d have regrets. Absolutely. But it was hard to care with her hand smoothing over his zipper. No, the question wasn’t whether or not he was going to do this. The question was, Alice on bottom or Alice on top?

He grunted, pushing her flat on her back, the decision made by the head in his pants. In this position, he could cover her, causing friction in all the right places while he conquered her mouth with his tongue. There wasn’t going to be any nicey-nice foreplay, not after they’d been teasing each other for ten torturous years.

She shoved hands beneath his shirt and dug fingernails into his flesh.

Hell, yeah. This was going to be explosive.

He kissed her harder, holding on to the back of her neck. His other hand reached for the bedside table where condoms littered the drawer. She sucked the skin at the base of his neck and traced the tip of her tongue along his collarbone. Every inch of his overheated body wanted this, wanted her.

He dragged his hand past the alarm clock, over the edge of the table and reached for the handle, but before he could open the drawer a vibration stopped him cold. The sound of thrumming against the wood overshadowed their heavy breathing.

His phone was ringing.

Damn.
If he opened his eyes … if he faced what he was about to do … if he looked at Alice or the Caller ID … he was screwed, and not in the way he wanted to be.

She froze beneath him, no doubt listening to the horrible buzzing too. Her lips stilled against his neck. Her hands stuck to his lower back.

Reality seeped into his carnally consumed brain, and reality was pissed. Justin clenched his teeth. What had he been thinking, carrying on with Alice like this? He’d already left a mess at home. Why make a mess at the beach? This call amounted to divine intervention. With a huff, he slid off Alice and looked at his phone.
Will.

Justin let the call go to voicemail despite a surge of panic. Of course, he was panicked. He was going to sleep with Alice Cramer. But as the seconds dragged on, Justin’s chest constricted until it was almost impossible to breath.

Something else was wrong — something big.

• • •

Alice refused to wear Morgan’s dress home, and Justin refused to waste time shopping. She showed up in town, wearing the same dress she’d worn the day of the wedding. Only now, the dress was brittle from salty ocean air and too much sun, and her skin screamed for something clean and soft. She dragged the dog across the front lawn by his collar as the traitorous animal whined for Justin.

“Stop that,” Alice hissed, glancing over her shoulder at the cloud of dust trailing Justin’s Audi down the dirt road. She was home. She wanted to be home. She thought she’d feel better than this.

The grass needed cut. The grass had needed to be cut before she left. As she tugged Mouse away from a weathered chew toy, she reminded herself that she’d only been gone for two days. But she felt ten years older, tired. Her muscles misfired, shaking whenever she gave them a command. Her heart aged the most. It hurt to breathe.
Damn Justin
.

Clouds loomed overhead. Alice stumbled onto the porch and shoved Mouse through the ripped screen door. Eleven hours spent side by side with Justin in a moving car, and she still wasn’t any clearer about what had happened between them at the beach. In that bed. He hadn’t said a word about it. His focus was on his ailing mother.

Alice assessed her depressing surroundings, which somehow seemed more depressing than usual. The house was a wreck. It had always been a wreck. Why did she expect something different? She bent down and picked a ratty throw pillow off the floor, tossing it on a faded couch. Crows cawed from their perch atop the backyard shed. Mouse barked in reply. He raced from the room, disappeared into the kitchen, and a moment later she heard him scratching the back door. At least someone was happy to be home.

She’d be happy, too … as soon as she
was
home. At her theatre.

Alice walked into the kitchen to free Mouse from the house. As she walked, she bent her arm behind her, forcing her hand over the scratchy bodice of her dress until she reached the prone-to-stick zipper. She tugged. It barely budged. The dog whined. She switched hands, opening the door with her right while she tugged the zipper with her left. The dog released; the zipper didn’t. She growled. Mouse barked. The crows flew away.

Alice faced the dingy kitchen and spied Mama’s sewing shears in a rusted coffee can. She stopped fussing with the zipper and snatched up the scissors, cutting the left dress strap in a spot where she was certain repair was possible, and then she cut the right strap just the same. With an arm across the bodice to stay covered and the scissors still in hand, she left the kitchen and passed through the hall, where Charlie showed his face.

Alice jumped, her heart in her throat, her hand mere seconds from wielding the dull weapon.

He craned more of his body around the doorjamb of his bedroom, a sneer marring his face. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

He was dirty. His greasy hair clumped, and a pathetic beard shadowed his face. But he was sober. His flat eyes were clear. The usual bittersweet emotions of seeing him safe after an extended disappearance gripped her heart.

“You’re home.” She sounded like an idiot, stating the obvious.

“Yeah. So are you.”

Not yet. But as soon as she was dressed she’d be headed there.

“Was that Justin’s car? I thought you were with Kory.”

Alice expected the questions, tried to prepare for them on the ride home. She hoped to avoid details and keep things vague. Besides, she had a few questions of her own. “Charlie … it’s complicated.”

“I’m sure.”

“Margaret had a heart attack.”

“I know.” Two shadows slashed the already harsh, bony terrain of his face. He bowed his head.

Charlie wasn’t a bad guy. He made bad decisions. The booze was to blame. When he was sober, he had moments of shame and concern like Alice. But like Mama, he was too weak to get out of a bad situation. Alice was stronger, except when it came to Justin.

“You slept with Morgan.”

“I know that, too.” He shrugged. “Justin’s too good for her.”

Alice’s throat shut, leaving too much blood in her head where it could burn her face. Public opinion was that Justin was too good for most people, especially people like her. She walked passed Charlie and headed for her bedroom.

“He’s not too good for you.”

She stopped inches from her door.

“But that doesn’t mean he’s right for you. Don’t be stupid, Alice.”

She winced. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Closing her bedroom door behind her, Alice returned to hacking the dress, cutting it at the seams. A tear fell for every cut, not only because she regretted the damage to the fabric, but because despite Charlie’s words, she knew the truth. The beaten dress slipped from her hips and gathered at her bare feet.

An arm’s length away, an empty bottle of whiskey littered the matted-shag floor. At the beach. In the dark. In that bed. She thought it possible for a man like Justin to love a woman like her. At home. In this family. In this skin. She knew she’d never been so wrong.

It wasn’t new information. It wouldn’t lead her to despair. She was just so damn tired of the reminder.

Justin stomped the gas pedal, fishtailing the Audi around another bend. Dirt gathered in the rearview mirror and clung to the trunk of the speeding car like the devil breathing down his neck. A few more miles and he’d be in the clear, back on paved roads, far enough away from Alice’s side of town to not look guilty.

But he was guilty.

The steering wheel vibrated from the blow of his fist. How could things have spiraled so out of control?

Scenes from the church flashed in his head, and he ground his teeth to dull their impact. He hated what happened there, the drama, the speculation, the stress that no doubt led to his mother’s heart attack. But as much as he hated the mess and his mistakes made on display, he couldn’t imagine not walking away. What was the alternative? Marrying a liar and a cheat wasn’t worth a thousand plastics plants. Nope. No changes there.

But the beach was a different story.

He growled and pounded his foot on the brake pedal milliseconds before he blew through the only stop sign on this side of town. Yeah, he’d change a thing or two about the beach. For starters, he wouldn’t have gone. He would’ve stayed in town, consoled his mother, and taken care of business. Instead, he dragged Alice to the beach and …

Memories flickering in his head heated his face. He told himself to think of something else. His mother. The plastics plant. His reelection. Anything but Alice. He’d driven eleven hours without acknowledging what happened in that bed. He’d be damned if he gave it credence now. Bottom line, the longer he went without acknowledging it, the closer he’d be to forgetting it.

Justin hit the gas again, spewing gravel in his wake, taking his eyes off the road for a moment to watch the plume of dirt in the mirror. When he looked forward again, he saw the one car he didn’t want to see. Morgan’s car sped past. There was no mistaking the vehicle; there was only one convertible Jaguar in Harmony Falls. And there was no mistaking Morgan’s destination; the road behind him dead-ended fifty feet from Alice’s house. He gripped the wheel, torn between the need to turn around and manage the confrontation and the need to move ahead and see his mother.

Morgan turned around instead. Justin watched her pull a donut in the middle of the dirt road. She closed the gap between them in a matter of seconds. The closer her car got to his car, the tighter his hands wrapped around the wheel and the harder the muscles in his face clenched. More than once, his right foot twitched on a fleeting thought to slam the brakes. But at this speed, on these roads, someone would get hurt. Not that they weren’t already damaged.

His cell phone rumbled in the cup holder beside him, and he glanced at the caller ID. Of course she’d call to demand he stop. Too bad for her he wasn’t going to answer. Looking in the rearview mirror, he saw her glaring, one hand on the wheel, the other gripping her phone. Nope. He wasn’t going to answer, and he wasn’t going to stop. If she wanted to talk to him, she was going to have to follow him. Not to the hospital. No, he wanted to avoid another scene. He would lead her to his house, lure her away from Alice, and say his piece in private.

It seemed like a reasonable plan, but one block into town, Morgan turned right and disappeared. Panic pricked a path along his skin, and he locked his jaw, stifling the urge to turn around and follow her. He had to get a grip on this propensity to panic. The uncontrolled emotion led him to do stupid things. His mother needed to be his top concern. Like it or not, whatever was going to happen at the Cramer house was going to happen without him.

His throat squeezed and his swallow turned painful against the blockage. Could he trust Alice to not make things worse? She had barely talked to him on the way home, preferring to sleep — or feign sleep. What words they did say were stilted and utilitarian. “Can you stop at the next rest area?” “I need gas.” “Mouse has to pee.”

With a hand clammy from strangling the steering wheel, he lifted his cell phone and dialed Alice. The call went straight to voicemail.

“Morgan may be headed your way,” he ground out after the beep. “Leave. Avoid the confrontation as long as possible, at least until we can go over what you should say.”
Stop telling me what to do,
she warned in his head.
But how could he when there was so much at stake? The Parrishes were powerful people. One wrong move, one wrong word …

Pulling into the hospital parking lot, Justin dropped his phone into the cup holder and refocused. What may or may not be happening at Alice’s house was bad, but what was happening in this hospital was worse.

• • •

Morgan Parrish’s over-waxed Jaguar idled in Alice’s driveway while Charlie sat on the front porch steps, arms drawn tight across his chest. From a split in the living room curtains, Alice could see Morgan on the phone. Who was she talking to? The police. Fat chance they’d drive out to remove Charlie from his rightful spot on the porch so Morgan could get to Alice. Better chance she was calling her daddy. That man would stop at nothing where his daughter was concerned.