Spend My Life with You

by Donna Hill

  Chapter 4

  By the time Lee Ann and Preston pulled into the Lawson driveway, it was well past 1:00 a.m. Lee Ann couldn’t remember the last time she’d had so much fun on such a simple outing—wine, cheese and fruit in the park.

  Preston had been nothing but charming, funny, knowledgeable and downright sexy all night long. He had a running string of jokes about the members of the education committee that he sat on that had her laughing so hard she caught a cramp in her side that he eagerly massaged away, only to begin on another campaign to double her over.

  She could barely pay attention to the movie, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, for his tales about Senator Carter’s love-child scandal were much more entertaining.

  “I had a wonderful time,” she said when they came to a stop. “Thanks. I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard.”

  Preston grinned and turned off the engine. “I had a good time, too.” He lowered his gaze and paused for a moment then looked into her eyes “I want to apologize if I was…out of sorts earlier.”

  She offered a tight-lipped smile. “Me, too.”

  “I hope tonight will be the first of many for us.”

  Her face heated. “So do I,” she said softly.

  Preston held her in place with the darkness of his eyes until his face blurred and the soft, sweet pressure of his lips touched hers.

  She drew in a breath as warmth spread through her body and turned it to hot liquid.

  His mouth moved slowly over hers, willing her lips to part. And when the tip of his tongue grazed her pliant lips, a jolt of electricity shot through them both.

  Involuntarily, Preston groaned deep in his throat and thread his fingers through her hair to ease her deeper into the kiss. Lee Ann willingly let him enter and did a slow sensual dance with him. She pressed her hands against his shoulders and squeezed, feeling as if she was floating and needing the solidness of him for support. Her heart hammered. Blood rushed to her head and pounded then rushed to her limbs, settling between her thighs and beating like a tiny drum.

  The flood of oncoming headlights filled the car and pulled them apart. The roar of Rafe’s motorcycle ebbed then came to a rumbling stop behind them.

  Preston and Lee Ann gave each other the look of two teens caught necking.

  Rafe hopped off his bike and came around to the driver’s side and peeked in.

  Preston depressed the window button, and it slowly eased down.

  “Hey,” Rafe greeted, looking from one to the other.

  “Hi,” Lee Ann said, totally embarrassed.

  “Rafe,” Preston said simply.

  “Just getting in?” Rafe asked.

  “We went to a concert in the park,” Lee Ann offered.

  “Hmm. Well, don’t mind me,” he said with a wicked grin. “Take it easy, man. Nice ride,” he added before trotting up the steps to the front door.

  Preston lowered his head and chuckled. “Can’t remember the last time that happened.” He angled his head and peeked at Lee Ann, and they both burst out laughing.

  “I probably should go,” she said over her laughter.

  “Not just yet.” He slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her as close as their separate seats would allow. “When can I see you again?”

  “When do you want to see me again?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  She drew in a breath. “Okay. Anything special?”

  “Let’s play it by ear. I’ll call you.”

  She nodded then turned to open the car door.

  He pulled her back and took her mouth again, searing her lips with his heat in a long, deep kiss that had them both reeling. Reluctantly, he moved back and let his eyes roam over her face. “I wanted to leave you with something to remember me by until I see you again.”

  “I think you succeeded, but I’ll let you know when I see you later.” She smiled and got out of the car. She looked back once before disappearing inside.

  Preston sat in the car for a few minutes to get his mind and body together before pulling off into the night.

  He knew he wasn’t going to be able to sleep from the moment he set foot in his house. He walked into his living room and turned on his sound system to his favorite jazz station. Then he fixed himself a tumbler of bourbon. Relaxing on the couch, he put his feet up and sipped his drink, going over in his mind his evening with Lee Ann.

  He hadn’t expected to be so completely taken by her. A part of him had made up his mind to just go through the motions and call it a night. But there was something about Lee Ann beyond his attraction to her. She was beautiful, smart and incredibly sexy in an understated way, and he knew deep in his gut that she possessed a passion that was waiting to be released. He felt it when he touched her, when he looked into her eyes, the way she breathed, laughed, the way she kissed him with a raw urgency that denied her conservative demeanor. The combination was unsettling and caught him off balance.

  Since Charlotte, he’d been totally driven and focused on his career. Of proving to himself and to Charlotte that he was the man he knew he could be. The man she walked out on. Women came and went. They were more for entertainment than any kind of commitment. He had no plans of being committed to anyone again. Charlotte had fixed that.

  Now here, when he least expected it, Lee Ann Lawson came into his life.

  He took another long swallow of his drink. It would be easy to fall into that trap again, allow his emotions to outweigh his objectives. He finished off his drink and set down the glass. He couldn’t let that happen again—not even for a desirable woman like Lee Ann. Seeing Charlotte tonight only reinforced that for him.

  He pushed up from the couch and climbed the stairs to his bedroom.

  Lee Ann was getting undressed, still floating on the high of her evening. She could still feel the sweet pressure of Preston’s lips on her mouth. Dreamily, she touched her lips with the tip of her finger, and her eyes drifted closed, just as there was a light knock on her door.

  She went to the door and opened it. Dominique and Desiree were standing there all grins.

  “Can I help you, ladies?” she asked, deadpan.

  “You can let us in, for starters,” Dominique said.

  Lee Ann huffed in amusement and stepped aside to let them in. Thankfully, she didn’t see Rafe again after she’d come in, but she couldn’t slip under her sisters’ radar. “It’s late.”

  “Exactly,” Desiree said, sitting on the edge of Lee Ann’s bed. “So…spill it. What happened?”

  “Nothing,” she said innocently as she crossed the room to her lounge chair and picked up the clothes she’d had on earlier. She caught a whiff of Preston’s scent. She put them back down and turned to her inquisitioners.

  “You really want us to believe that nothing happened from the time you left until now?” Dominique said. “Not even a peck on the cheek?”

  Lee Ann blew out a breath. “All right, you beat it out of me,” she teased and plopped down on the bed between the twins. “We had a wonderful time,” she said wistfully, grinning from ear to ear. She recounted their evening, all the fun they had, their conversation up to Rafe pulling up behind them in the driveway. She left out the kiss.

  “I could have strangled him,” Lee Ann said, shaking her head.

  Dominique snickered. “Who do you think told us to come here and get the scoop?”

  Lee Ann’s eyes widened. “I guess Justin will be next,” she moaned. She threw them both a warning glance. “And don’t either of you dare tell Rafe a thing!”

  They both mirrored each other, miming zipping their lips.

  Lee Ann popped up. “Now good night. Go.”

  “I still think you’re holding something back,” Dominique said as she walked to the door. “No way a man looking like Preston Graham, utterly edible, would just drop you off and say good-night.”

  Desiree hooked her arm through her twin sister’s arm. “Let Lee have her moment. Come on. You are so nosy.”

  “I’m nosy!” Dominiqu
e protested. “Am I here by myself? You wanted to know as much as I did.”

  “You dragged me.”

  “Dragged you!”

  Lee Ann pushed them both out of the door, laughing at their antics as they continued their sisterly fussing all the way back to their rooms.

  Lee Ann shut the door. She slowly shook her head. She loved her family. She really did. But sometimes…

  As usual, when Branford was heading to Washington, the household was a flurry of activity. One would think that he was going off to battle the way he doled out orders, checked and rechecked information that Lee Ann had made available to him days in advance.

  “I need you to be in the local office and check on the staff. There are quite a few local initiatives that are coming up in the next few weeks, and I don’t want anything to slip through the cracks. The town hall meeting next week on the rezoning for downtown is coming up. You need to be there,” Branford instructed for the third time.

  “I know, Daddy. I’ll be there.” She put the files in his briefcase. “I went over your presentation for the Education Committee and added some additional statistics.”

  He nodded and shrugged into his jacket. “And I want you to have a talk with Dominique. I took a look at her credit card bill. What in the hell is that girl trying to do, run me into the poorhouse? Take care of it, Lee Ann.”

  “I will, Daddy. Stop worrying. I have everything under control.”

  “And Rafe…” He couldn’t find the words. “I’ve been hearing rumors about some woman he’s been seeing. A hostess at that…that club he keeps running off to. I won’t tolerate another scandal from that boy.”

  “He’s not a boy, Daddy. He’s a grown man,” she said as gently as she could. She adjusted his tie and brushed the shoulders of his jacket.

  “Then he should act like one! Running around town on that bike. What kind of image is that?”

  Lee Ann bit back a smile. Her father and Rafe stayed at odds. Branford wanted Rafe groomed to take over his Senate seat one day. And Rafe did everything in his power to drive his father insane, and she was constantly caught in the middle of the battle. Their egos were too big to be contained, and their historic explosions rattled the rafters for days on end.

  Lee Ann ushered her father to the door. “Your driver is waiting. You’re going to miss your flight.”

  He huffed and strode out into the foyer. He reached the door then turned to Lee Ann. “I’m depending on you,” he said before kissing her forehead.

  Lee Ann nodded and stood in the open doorway as he got into the waiting limo. She waited until the car pulled off before she closed the door and took a relieved breath.

  She returned to the home office and took a quick look around. Granted she had a busy week ahead between her teaching job at Louisiana State University and her work at her father’s office. But Sunday was going to be her day. A tingle rippled up her spine as the memory of Preston bloomed inside of her. She couldn’t wait to see him and wondered what he’d planned for the day.

  Preston opened the door to his house, wiping his dripping face with a towel. It was barely 10:00 a.m. and already the temperature was in the mid-eighties. He should have gone for his run much earlier, but he’d overslept after finally dozing off near daybreak.

  When he finally fell into a fitful sleep, his dreams were plagued with images of the day at the altar, the anguish and humiliation that he felt. The murmurs of condolences and speculation. The days and weeks that followed. He’d worked hard in the ensuing years to rid every fiber of his being of memories of Charlotte. But seeing her last night brought it all rushing back, and as much as he wanted and had been partially successful in banishing her from his head by focusing all of his attention on Lee Ann, the old wound had opened.

  He tossed the damp towel on the bathroom floor and turned the shower on full blast. Stripping out of his clothing, he stepped under the water. And then to find a voice message from her on his house phone when he finally woke up and checked his messages had sent him deeper into the place that he’d worked so hard to escape. She wanted to see him, to talk. She left her cell phone number and pleaded with him to call her, no matter what time of day. “Just please call,” she’d said in that same throaty whisper that used to singe his blood with desire.

  Preston held his face up to the water and let it splash over him, wishing that it had the power to wash the past away. He turned off the water and stepped out of the shower stall. He wrapped a towel around his waist, draped a smaller one around his neck and went to his bedroom. He sat on the edge of the bed and reached for the phone just as it rang. It was Senator Lawson’s private number.

  “Senator Lawson, good morning.”

  “Good morning. I take it that I didn’t wake you.”

  “No. Not at all. What can I do for you?”

  “I’m at the airport. Heading back to Washington.”

  “Yes, sir, for the committee hearings.”

  “That’s not why I’m calling.” Preston waited.

  “This is about Lee Ann.”

  “Sir?”

  “I’m sure you’re a decent young fellow, and I have an enormous amount of respect for you as a colleague. But these are important times we are in. A time when we need to have our eyes on the prize—for the American people.” He cleared his throat. “Very often we have to make personal sacrifices for the greater good.”

  Preston grew more irate as the implications of what Branford was saying began to take hold and materialize.

  “I have an equal amount of respect for you, sir,” he said through a tight jaw. “As such, I would never be presumptuous enough to infer that you allowed your personal wants or desires to cloud your political judgment or infringe on your career and your constituents, and I would hope that you feel the same way about me, sir,” he added with emphasis.

  “And as a savvy politician, though a young one, I’m sure that you fully understand what I’m telling you. Remember, you need friends in this business of ours.”

  Preston gripped the phone in astonished fury. He knew better than to say what was really on his mind, which was “go to hell,” even as the senator virtually gripped him by the short hairs.

  “I’ll see you on the Hill on Tuesday.”

  The call disconnected.

  Preston was so furious his head pounded. The senator had all but threatened him. The underlying implication was crystal clear—stay away from Lee Ann.

  He tossed the cordless phone across the bed and rubbed his face with the towel from his neck. He stalked across the room then back again. He stared at the phone, replaying the conversation in his head. His eyes tightened into slits. Whatever intention he had of leaving Lee Ann alone was no longer an option. It was off the table. No one told him how to run his life—not even Senator Lawson.

  Preston went back to the bed and snatched up the phone. He punched in Lee Ann’s number to solidify their plans for the day.

  Senator Lawson boarded the jet to Washington, taking his first-class seat. Settled, he snapped open the newspaper, calm and satisfied that his agenda, as always, was clear. He snorted a dry laugh. The boy wouldn’t know what hit him.

  Chapter 5

  They drove into New Orleans shortly after noon with the intention of spending the day together. Preston had made reservations for the African Princess cruise ship, and they had lunch sailing leisurely along the Mississippi to the backdrop of the balmy spring air and the rhythm of a live jazz band.

  “The fishing and tourist industry is still reeling from the oil spill,” Lee Ann said as they sipped wine on the top deck.

  “Even after all these months.” He leaned against the railing. “It’s going to take time and money. A lot of it. It’s one of the issues I intend to tackle in the coming session. Not enough has been done. Life on the Gulf has been altered forever.” He stared out along the horizon toward a future that her father wanted to infringe upon. He turned to Lee Ann. A flicker of a smile lifted the corners of his mouth. He stroked her cheek
with the tip of his finger.

  “When will you be going back to Washington?”

  He stepped closer to her. She could feel his heat invade her body. “Tuesday for about three weeks. There are several bills that are up for review and a vote.”

  Her voice wavered. “The education reform bill?”

  Preston nodded, searched her face for an instant before kissing her, suddenly possessed by a power greater than his will. It was slow and sweet, and he didn’t care who was looking. A moan grumbled in his throat as desire began to pulse, trapped behind a thin zipper, and he stepped back, stared at her as if she was the power that broke his will and it shook him.

  He took a sip of wine, cleared his throat and put them both back on solid ground. “It’s important to the president to get this passed. If he’s going to be effective in his second term, he has to come out swinging with a major win just like he did with health care and Wall Street reform.”

  Lee Ann nodded numbly, dreamlike, the upending sensation of wanting him clouding her thoughts. Had he not been holding her as they walked down the steps to the lower deck, she was sure she would have never found her way. They returned to their table.

  “It always baffled me,” Lee Ann said, finally finding her voice, as Preston helped her into her seat, “how anyone in their right mind could be against funding education for our children. It is such a no-brainer.”

  Preston grinned. “No-brainer is the operative word.” He leaned back in his seat. “The ones making the decisions, for the most part, never missed a meal in their lives.” His features hardened along with the timbre of his voice. “They have trust funds, their kids go to private schools. They have no idea what it means to struggle and settle. They come from money and make more of it and remain out of touch with the everyday person.”

  “Which is what cinched the presidency. He spoke to the everyday person. The ones who have been overlooked and made them really believe that they were the solution that the world was waiting for and that what they felt and wanted made a difference.”