I point at two security guys — Marcos and Nate, I think, but I’m not 100% on that — and start issuing commands.

“You and you, go get him. Don’t make a fuss, just escort him out. You—” I sweep my hand across four more security guys, all standing around “—make sure he doesn’t leave. Watch the exits. Anything happens, de-escalate the situation to the best of your ability. He has a weapon, take him down.”

They scatter. Ray, the Senator’s head of security, is already on the phone with the county police, and I look back at the stage, heart hammering.

She’s there. She’s fine. She’s sitting bolt upright, her frozen smile nervous, but she’s fine.

The guy who asked the question about Ruby goes to sit down, but the two security guys come up to him instead.

Don’t fuck this up, I pray, glancing at the stage again.

She’s still there. Still fine, though now she looks pissed. The security guys seem like they’re reasoning with the guy who asked the question, and I watch, every muscle tense, as he shakes his head, arguing with them.

Don’t argue. Don’t make a scene. Just go.

My gut’s telling me it’s not him, because my gut’s telling me that the bastard who’s stalking Ruby isn’t brave enough to actually get up and say her name out loud like this. But I’ve still got every intention of making sure that this guy isn’t him.

I glance at the stage. I glance back at the security guys, and after a long moment, the guy finally shrugs and starts walking for the auditorium door. I take a deep breath of relief.

No scene, no fuss, no dramatic takedown.

Ray puts his phone in his pocket and nods at me once, curtly.

“County Sheriff is sending somebody out to question him,” he says. “Want me to go babysit and you stay with her?”

“Sounds good,” I tell him, my voice clipped. “Keep me updated.”

There’s no fucking way I’m gonna do anything but stay here, Ruby firmly in my sights, where I can protect her. Other people can interrogate the guy who asked the weird question.

My breathing slows. My heartbeat slows. Ruby’s still sitting in her folding chair on the stage, and she’s got her fake smile on again, though her back is still perfectly straight. I half watch her and half scan the audience, the catwalks above, the exit doors.

I’m on high alert, since I’m more than aware that distractions are dangerous, and even more dangerous if we think we’ve caught the guy, but nothing else happens in the auditorium. Audience members ask more boring questions about taxes, the Senator answers, walking back and forth across the stage, Ruby smiles, jaw tight.

It feels like forever, but at last they finish. The Senator walks offstage and straight for me, followed closely by his wife and Ruby.

“Update,” he says through clenched teeth.

I tell him everything that just happened: the guy is being questioned, the County Sheriff is here, the perimeter is being patrolled in case he’s got an accomplice. I keep talking, telling the Senator more and more minor details until his face has gone from purple to red to tan again, the knots in his jaw worked out.

I learned early in my Secret Service career that it can be valuable to talk until someone’s no longer furious. If the Senator walks in there and punches a perfectly innocent man who asked a nosy question, that’s not good for anyone.

“I want him in custody,” he growls at me. “Not just being questioned. In custody. I want this on the record. I want him strung up and made an example of, by God.”

“Jim,” Mrs. Burgess says.

He exhales hard, through his nostrils. On his other side, Ruby’s practically glaring a hole through him.

“Sorry, Edith,” he says. “Gabriel, thank you. I’m going to go check in with Ray. Ruby, I think it’s best if you stay here with Gabriel.”

With that, he and his wife walk away and I’m standing there with Ruby, people drifting by.

She’s furious, her eyes bright and her jaw clenched tight, just like her father’s was. Ruby doesn’t even look at me, just glares at a spot in a curtain somewhere behind my head.

“Ruby,” I murmur, and she looks at me. Then she looks away. She takes a deep breath.

“I can’t,” she says, and starts walking.

She shoves her way through curtains, through an exit door, into a dusty, unused hallway, and I follow her every step.

As she walks down the hall, I hear her gasp strangely. She’s crying, walking so fast she’s practically running down this hall.

“Ruby,” I call out as she shoves her way through a door that says WOMEN.

I hesitate for a second, then follow her, hoping there’s no one else inside.

It’s a dressing room, and she’s leaning against the wall in the narrow entrance hallway, eyes closed, chest heaving like she’s trying desperately not to cry.

We’re alone. Thank fucking God, for once we’re alone, so I wrap her in my arms and hold her close.

“We got the guy,” I tell her. “The Sheriff is here, and they’re taking him into custody and questioning him right now.”

She takes another long, shuddering, deep breath, then clears her throat.

“He just told thousands of people that I’m going to marry Kyle,” she says.

I’m startled speechless. That must have happened when I was issuing commands instead of paying attention to what was on stage.

“He did?” is all I can say.

Ruby pulls back, leaning against the wall. Even though her eyes are still glassy, she’s not actually crying yet, and she snorts.

“‘Ruby’s gonna have big news soon’ sure doesn’t mean I’ll be heading off to college,” she says, her voice bitter and sarcastic.

I completely missed that aspect of all this, totally focused on getting the guy, making sure he didn’t escape.

“This is what he does,” she says, her voice quiet and steely. “He thinks that he can control everything, he thinks he can tell people what they’re going to do. He thinks he has the final say in everything, in all of our lives, that if he just says you’re gonna marry Kyle then it’ll come true through sheer force of will.”

She takes another deep breath.

“And I am fucking tired of it,” she whispers. “I’m tired of being told what to do, where to go. Who to marry. I’m tired of fucking pantyhose and being watched all the time and having to keep fucking sweet and take pictures of jam and never getting to choose what I do or where I go and goddamn everything. I’m tired of goddamn everything.”

She leans her head back against the wall and her green eyes look at me defiantly, sparking in the low light.

“You’re not gonna offer to rescue me again?” she asks, her voice still tight, though there’s a strange, new note in it.

“I didn’t offer to rescue you,” I say, stepping closer. “I said I’d help you. I know better than to think you need rescuing.”

Ruby reaches out and takes my tie in one hand, her eyes flicking up to mine. There’s something unreadable and intense in the way she looks at me, something almost dangerous, and I hold my breath.

“Good,” she says, running her fingers down my tie. “I’m glad someone doesn’t think I’m a helpless damsel.”

She pulls on my tie a little, and I put one hand on the wall over her shoulder. I have no idea where this is going, whether she’s angry or seducing me or both or neither, but I am pretty sure this can’t be a good idea.

“I don’t think a helpless damsel would get through what you did and still be this feisty,” I say, and she smirks.

“Feisty,” she murmurs, half to herself. “I like it.”

Ruby yanks hard on my tie, jerking me forward and crushing her lips against mine. I still don’t know what’s happening, but she grabs my belt and pulls me forward until I’m pressed against her, the wall against her back.

She bites my bottom lip as I pull away, and I swear to God she growls as she does.

I’m hard already, so fucking hard, every nerve in my body alive and electric because I think she’s angry-seducing me and lord almighty do I like it.

But I clear my throat and take a deep breath.

“They’re gonna notice we’re gone soon,” I say. “If they didn’t already.”

“I don’t care,” she says, and pulls on me again, but I resist her.

“Ruby,” I whisper.

With her other hand, she reaches out and hits the lights, plunging us and this dressing room into total darkness. Suddenly every touch is intensified, and I can feel the body heat pulsing off her, every breath she takes, every movement of her hips.

Shit.

“There’s one thing in my life right now that I chose,” she says, her voice low and intense. “Everything else gets decided for me, but I show up at your door every night because I want to.”

Her hand trails down my chest, and I slide a hand around her back, digging my fingers in.

“And right now, I could really stand to do something because I want to, not because I was told to,” Ruby whispers.

Now she’s got both hands on my belt, our hips pressed together. I’m hard as fuck and I know she knows this is working.

Get caught and you’re never going back to DC, I remind myself. This is already fucking dangerous, but if the Senator knows that you’re...

As I’m thinking that, I realize something.

I don’t fucking care.

I kiss Ruby again, harder this time, and she pulls at my belt and wraps a hand around the back of my head, our tongues tangling together as she bumps against the wall, her back arched.

She undoes my belt, unzips my pants, and a second later, she’s got her fist around my cock as I pull her against me, forcing myself not to groan.

“You’re a very bad influence,” I whisper into her ear.

Her fist tightens, and I gasp.

“I’m not sorry,” she whispers back.

I kiss her neck and slide one hand up her leg, my fingers practically whistling against the nylon of her pantyhose as she groans quietly and pushes her hips against me.

I want her. Holy fuck do I want her, here in the dark where everything feels urgent and desperate and almost cataclysmic.

Ruby puts her arms over my shoulders, I grab her ass, and then I hoist her into the air as she wraps her legs around me, cock nestled against her heat as her skirt folds over her hips. She writhes against the wall and we kiss, so hard that her teeth are on my lips as her tongue’s in my mouth.

I punch one thumb through her pantyhose, and in a second the hole widens and I shove her soaked panties aside, stroking her lips. My thumb finds her clit and I slide two fingers inside her, the muscles of her channel clenching around me as I crook them into her most sensitive spot, the one that makes her eyes flutter closed.

“Gabriel,” she whispers.

Jesus.

“I wish I could resist you just a little,” I murmur into her neck, moving my fingers inside her as she grabs my hair in one fist, gasping against my ear. “But I try, and next thing I know you’re up against a wall and wet as hell.”

“That’s your fault,” she whispers, closing one hand around my cock.

Ruby wriggles against the wall, and I pull my hand out of her. My eyes have adjusted enough that now we can barely see each other, her eyes two deep pools inches in front of my face.

As she watches me, I lick my fingers off and her eyes widen.

I grin at her, sucking her juices from my fingertips, and she looks faintly horrified.

“You just seduced me into fucking you against a wall at the Hartley County Convention Center,” I growl. “You don’t get to look shocked when I lick you off my fingers.”

I grab her ass again, holding her up, and kiss her hard.

“See?” I whisper. “You’re fucking delicious.”

She strokes me in her fist, nudging the head of my cock against her entrance.

I take a deep breath and pull back.

“I don’t have a condom,” I say.

“It’s okay,” she murmurs.

“I can’t—”

“There’s a reason Lucas and I didn’t have kids,” she says, and kisses me again, slowly, her tongue in my mouth. “I’ve got an IUD. Please?”

“You’re fucking dangerous, Ruby,” I tell her, but she just said please and I’m completely fucking powerless against her.

I slide into her, bare, just her against me, and in a second I’m inside her to the hilt and it feels so damn good for a second I think I’m about to come, there and then, with almost no warning.

After a moment, it passes, and Ruby’s legs tighten around me. The movement shifts me inside her, skin against skin, and I can’t hold back any longer.

I drive myself into her, hard, and I’m rewarded with her fingernails in my shoulders, raking down my back, so I hold her up and keep going. It’s not romantic and it’s not tender, but Ruby keeps making small, soft noises of pure bliss and she holds me tight, her fists in my hair, her nails down my back, her legs locked around me.

“Don’t stop,” she whispers, her voice barely audible as she chants it like an incantation. “Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop.”

As if I could, because I can feel her fluttering and clenching around me, like she’s losing control, close to the edge.

I thrust even harder, my fingers digging into her ass as I hold her up. Ruby grabs my hair and holds my face to hers, her breathing quiet and ragged.

“Gabriel,” she says, so softly I can barely hear her, and she comes. Her muscles clench around me with a power I didn’t know she had. I’m bare inside her and seconds later I come too, burying myself as deep as I can, shoving her against the wall even as she moans because I want — I need — to have her, possess her, make sure that she’s mine in every way, as much as she can possibly be, so she’ll always be mine and no one else’s.

I come unbelievably hard. I think my ears pop. I slam one fist against the tiled wall of the changing room, over Ruby’s shoulder, as I clench my jaw, trying not to make a sound but she feels so fucking good and right that I almost can’t help it.

When I finish, I’m panting for breath, sweat trickling down my neck, and I kiss Ruby. I kiss her desperately, like I’m drowning and she’s a lifeboat, like she’s the air I need.

“Sorry,” she finally whispers, but I just start laughing.

“You should be,” I murmur back, kissing her again. “You absolutely fucking should be.”