Free Crashing the Congressman’s Wedding (Crimson Romance) by Elley Arden

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