Money, Guns, and a Merry Christmas novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: Fifteen an Hour

I waited until Spence's Range Rover was gone and my grandmother was asleep in her own bed with the door open.

Then I shut my bedroom door and turned around.

Bennet was sitting on the edge of my bed unlacing his boots.

"Why?" I said.

"Why what?"

"Don't do that. Why?"

He set one boot neatly beside the other.

"Because the whole town will be in one room," he said. "And I'd like to see who your aunt talks to."

"That's not a reason. That's a stakeout."

"It's a little bit of both."

I paced to the window and back.

The room was too small to pace in.

My old track ribbons were still pinned on the corkboard above the desk.

"Tomorrow he'll snap his fingers at you in front of every person I went to school with."

"Probably twice."

"And you'll just say yes, sir?"

He looked up at me.

His grey eyes held an unreadable weight.

"Are you ashamed of me, Alana?"

It stopped me in the middle of the rug.

"What?"

"The folding chair. The salary. The apron." His voice was very even. "If you'd married a man your family respected, none of this would be happening to you. I'd understand it."

I stared at him.

He was sitting on my childhood bed in his socks with his mother's ring on my hand, asking me that.

"I'm not ashamed of you," I said.

"Then what's wrong?"

"I'm ashamed of me."

He didn't move.

"I married you to make a point," I said. "You were supposed to be a stranger on a bench. You were supposed to sit at the table and be bored."

"I'm not bored."

"And now I'm in love with the stranger on the bench, and I don't even know what he does all day." My voice was shaking now. "So no. I'm not ashamed of you. I'm terrified of you."

The radiator clanked.

Down the hall the clock ticked through the floor.

Bennet stood up.

He crossed the little room in two steps and stopped in front of me, not touching me.

"Say it again," he said.

"Which part?"

"Any of it."

I took his face in my hands and pulled his mouth down to mine.

His mouth opened over mine and he pulled me in hard, one hand at the back of my neck.

I made a sound I didn't recognize.

I unzipped my fleece and let it fall to the floor.

Then I grabbed the hem of his undershirt and dragged it up over his chest.

He lifted his arms and let me take it off him.

I pushed him backward onto the bed.

He landed on the quilt with a soft grunt and I climbed into his lap, my knees on either side of his hips.

His hands found my waist and squeezed.

I leaned down and kissed him again, slower now, my fingers in his hair.

He was already hard under me.

I could feel him through his trousers, thick and hot against the seam of my jeans.

I rolled my hips once, just to hear him breathe.

"Alana."

"Don't talk yet."

I pulled my tank top off over my head and threw it toward the desk.

His eyes went to my bra, then back to my face.

I reached behind me and unhooked it myself.

His hands came up and covered my breasts, thumbs dragging over my nipples, and I arched into his palms.

The lamp threw our shadows huge against the wall.

I reached between us and undid his belt.

"Lift up."

He did.

I worked his trousers and his boxers down his thighs and he kicked them off the side of the bed.

Then he was naked under me.

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