Scandalous (12 page)

“Sorry to keep you waiting Cristal,” he said in a tone that could have been interpreted as smooth but Cristal heard as nothing more than oily, “I just had some business that needed my immediate attention.”

His gaze devoured her hungrily, traveling slowly up and down the length of her body. “Did you do as I said? Are you wearing the dress?”

Cristal nodded her head.

“Show me,” he commanded.

She began unfastening the buttons on her coat, making sure that her fingers shook . She even pretended to have trouble getting the last one open. Before she knew it, Scott was there, in front of her, finishing the job. Once he got the last button freed he gently pushed the trench coat off of her shoulders, letting it fall to the ground.

She saw his eyes move up and down her body but before he touched her he made eye contact with the guard dog in front of the door, giving him a quick and authoritative nod.

“Carlos will be searching you now,” Kellan said coldly, but then added in a faux-friendly tone probably designed to put her more at ease, “You can never be too careful, you know.”

Acting surprised, she wrapped her hands protectively around her waist. “Search me for what?” she asked tremulously.

“Weapons, wires. You know. The standard.”

“No, I don’t know,” Cristal protested as she felt Carlos’ hands running up and down her body as they roughly searched her. She thought he was getting a little more out of it than just information about whether or not she was wired. He paused a little too long and squeezed a little too tight in certain areas.

Damn, she thought. He is
so
lucky I'm undercover, otherwise he'd have two broken wrists right about now.

“Shh, shh
, shh,” The Congressman shushed her patronizingly, “Be a good girl and everything will be fine.”

Cristal let fear show in her eyes. But, in her mind, she was thinking...Really? That’s the best you could come up with, you infantilizing piece of shit?

The whole thing seemed a little cliché to her, but hey...this was his show. Plus, what did she know? He's the one who had been getting away with this deplorable, and most likely criminal, behavior for who knew how long. He was the expert.

Carlos finished his rather
thorough
search and took a step back. “She’s clean,” he said, but the note of disgust in his voice let her know that, on a personal level, he thought of her as anything but.

Cristal rolled her eyes inwardly. Right, because you're a paragon of virtue who should be empowered to make moral
judgments, asshole?

All she cared about was that he hadn't stumbled across any of her super-spy gear.

See? That is why Raiza is such a genius, she thought. Men never suspect jewelry. They're just not that subtle.

Scott closed the inch between them and yanked her wrist, hard, causing her to stumble towards him and fall against his chest. It was so hard to resist every natural instinct she had and level these two assholes, but now was not the time. Hopefully, if she did her job well, he would get what was coming to him in due time.

He crushed his mouth to hers and his tongue darted in her mouth. The kiss was so bad it was almost comical. She had to stop herself from giggling by delivering a stern mental reminder that she was on the job.

Oh, she was
definitely
telling Raiza about this later, though, and she was going to laugh her ass off! She may not kiss and tell in real life, but marks were fair game, and she just
had
to tell Raiza how bad this was!

Kellan, however, must have been enjoying it because his hands were all over her and something hard was poking at her hip. She figured it had to be his hard on, based on process of elimination...but honestly, it was so small she wasn’t quite sure.

He pulled away from her, his chest was rising and falling rapidly, his eyes looking wild. His voice was sharp as he said, “Take off your dress.”

She looked over at their chaperone, Carlos, with an unspoken question in her eyes, conveying clearly that she was not comfortable stripping with him being there. In truth, Cristal could care less if she had on sweats, this dress, just a bra and panties, or was butt naked -
regardless of attire (or lack thereof), she could disarm and secure these guys in a matter of seconds. That knowledge did come with a sense of power.

But, poor little Sally off the street would not yield such power, so she reacted as she would in character. She licked her lips nervously and then looked as if she was coming to a decision. She shook her head decisively and reached down to get her coat.

“I can’t do this,” she said, voice verging on tears.

She suddenly felt Carlos' hands gripping her shoulders from behind, holding her in place.

She looked up to see Scott standing above her - a maniacal smirk on his face, the sick bastard. This was exactly what he wanted.

“Now, now Cristal,” he said silkily, “I warned you to play nice. You don’t want your husband to find out about us do you?”

“What?! No, of course not!” She cried, filling her voice with every drop of panic she could muster.

Scott stepped towards her and ran his knuckles down her cheek. She felt as if she could actually feel the gooey trail of slime they left. He simpered, “Then you will do exactly as I say. Or your beloved husband, Mr. Dominic Sanders, will be receiving these.”

Scott stuck his hand out and Carlos released one of her shoulders to retrieve a phone from his pocket. Scott flipped through the phone and then turned it so that she – and everyone they showed the footage to – could see pictures of her as Scott took off her jacket. Then he scrolled through to reveal several of Scott kissing her, his hands all over her ass.

He turned the phone back around so it was facing him and he touched the screen a couple of times before once again dramatically revealing the screen to Cristal. The name and number on the screen were for the dummy phone Red Hot had registered to Dominic, her ‘husband.’ Scott had attached the photos in a text message to him.

“So, Cristal. Do I send these or are you going to be more cooperative?” Scott challenged, ice in his voice.

“Please don’t send them,” Cristal pleaded. “Please.”

Cristal let a tear fall from her eye. The handy dandy little talent of being able to cry on cue had worked to her advantage many times in life.

“Take. Off. The. Dress,” Scott demanded harshly.

Carlos released her but did not back away, she could feel him against her back, feel his breath against the back of her neck. Scott’s jaw locked in anticipation. The predatory look in his eye was unnerving.

Oh, she SO wanted to take these guys down right now. Physically, not just metaphorically, as she actually was doing.

Instead, she pulled the tight dress over her head with shaking fingers, revealing the satin red bra and panty set she wore underneath.

Both men took their time looking her up and down salaciously.

Man, talk about getting the heebie jeebies!

“Get on your knees,” Scott demanded. His voice had lost even the oily cajoling tone, and now contained nothing but ice and steel.

Cristal slowly did as she was told. She knew that, soon, Dominic would be coming through the door and she would be able to get the hell out of here.

Carlos started with his photo shoot again and as Scott ran his fingers through her hair, bunching some in his fist and tugging so she looked up at him.

Good LORD, this guy seriously needed to get kicked in the balls!

“Now be a good girl and open your mouth,” he wheezed raggedly. Cristal felt like she was going to vomit from pure disgust. Did he actually find this SEXY? He was one sick puppy. Cristal didn't know whether to feel worse for the client because he was her sleazebag husband, or for the people of California because he was their duly elected representative.

Kellan started unzipping his pants and various stall tactics raced through Cristal's mind. She certainly didn't want to blow her cover...but there was no way in hell she was going to blow him!

Just as she had made the decision to start up the waterworks again, this time full-force, a loud pounding came from the door.

“Cristal, open up! I know you’re in there.”

“What the hell?!” The Congressman not only released his hold on Cristal’s hair, he pushed her away from him forcefully, sending her tumbling down onto her ass, as he zipped his fly back up.

Carlos reached for the gun he had hanging from the side holster strapped around his chest.

“Cristal! Open the door!” Dominic yelled as he continued to pound.

“Get dressed NOW!” Kellan threw Cristal's dress at her and hissed, “How the hell does he know you’re here?”

Cristal’s eyes were wide and full of ‘fear’ as she slid her dress back on, “I don’t know, I…I thought he was playing softball tonight.”

“Cristal, I know you’re in there! I tracked your phone!” Dominic’s voice grew louder and more agitated.

Scott glared at Carlos, “You said she was clean.”

“She was.”

They both spun and looked at her, as she was putting on her tight dress.

“My phone's in my coat,” She said innocently and motioned to her trench lying on the floor.

Kellan reached down, picked it up and handed it to her. As soon as her dress was back in place, he barked at Carlos, “Open the door.”

As soon as he did, Dominic burst into the room. His eyes were wild, giving the impression that he was completely out of control. It was so authentic, as a matter of fact, that it made Cristal wonder how much of it was an act. He bellowed, “What the hell is going on here?”

The Congressman instantly went into 'sleazy politician' mode, extending his hand toward Dominic as he said smoothly, “Let me introduce myself. I'm Congressman Scott Kellan, and you are?”

“About to kick your ass if you don’t tell me what the hell is going on,” Dominic said coldly.

Kellan turned to Cristal and asked (as if he didn’t know), “Do you know this man, my dear?”

Cristal tried to ‘pretend’ to answer calmly, “This is Dominic, my husband.”

Scott turned again to Dominic, enthusing heartily, “Oh! Pleasure to meet you, sir. We invited your wife here tonight so that we could go over campaign strategies. We find talking to a wide variety of constituents gives us a better understanding of what people are looking for in state representation. We ran into your wife earlier and discovered that she is part of the ever-growing work from home population. We wanted to run some ideas by her.”

“Bullshit. She didn’t come here to talk politics in that dress,” Dominic fumed, his nostrils flaring.

OK, Cristal thought, time to wrap this little shin-dig up.

“I didn’t know what to wear to this hotel, it’s so fancy,” Cristal said, making her voice tremble, “Baby that’s all. I promise! And you said you were going straight to the game after work, otherwise I would have asked you to come with me.”

The Congressman’s pose and facial expression never changed, he didn’t react at all to her explanation.

“Is something wrong?” She walked over to stand beside Dominic, and placed her hand on his arm. She played the part of a woman who had just been caught in a compromising position by her husband, and now wanted nothing so much as to smooth things over.

In truth, she wanted nothing so much as to get the heck out!

Dominic’s posture immediately relaxed at her touch. He said, his voice the perfect mixture of relief and just a hint of lingering suspicion, “When I got home, you weren’t there. I got worried, so I tracked your phone. It led me here.”

“I didn’t even know phones could do that,” Cristal said, looking surprised, and then continued, “Well, Congressman, I think it might be best if we call it a night. It was nice to see you again. You too, Carlos.”

Dominic glared over his shoulder at the men as they walked out the door. As soon as the door closed behind them, Cristal began walking quickly to the elevator. When they were safely inside the small space and the doors firmly shut, she hissed, “Took you long enough! I had to see that guy's prick, for God's sake! Not that there was much to see. What, did you stop for donuts on the way?”

Dominic was standing beside her and he was fuming…really fuming. But, since they weren’t ‘acting’ anymore, she really had no idea why he would be mad.

“We’ll talk at home,” he said shortly, discreetly gesturing to her necklace and earrings.

Damn. Once again, she had forgotten that she was wearing them. It seemed like her brain short-circuited in Dominic’s presence. That realization made her about as happy as she felt when she found she had four impacted wisdom teeth.

“Fine,” she agreed curtly.

Dominic followed Cristal back to their ‘house’. Until they handed over all of the evidence that they had collected on the Congressman to his wife in one nice, neat little surveillance package, they had to continue the charade of being husband and wife so as to not tip him off.

Dominic knew he had no right to be as upset as he was. Cristal hadn’t done anything wrong. In fact, quite the opposite - she had done her job, and done it well.
Dominic
was the one who had almost botched the entire operation because he had jumped out of the van as soon as that slime ball slid Cristal’s coat over her shoulders.