After Office Hours

by E Caroline Wilson

  They moved faster and faster, their breaths coming in tandem, and David thrusting deeper and deeper. When he began drilling into her like a machine gun, she knew he was about to climax.

  “Ahh…” he grunted, at last slowing down.

  Devin felt warm, sticky liquid spilling into her. She slid her leg over his thigh to lay it flat, her eyes closed as she struggled to slow her respirations.

  David rolled onto his back beside her. His hand found hers, capturing it in bringing it to rest on his rapidly beating heart. “I came too fast,” he said, sounding apologetic. “I’m sorry I didn’t wait for you. Too eager, I guess.”

  “It’s all right, David.”

  “No, it isn’t. I owe you one, and as soon as I catch my breath I’ll pay up.”

  Under her hand, she felt the beating of his heart slowing to a normal rate.

  “Devin,” he began, “I was so eager to get inside you that I didn’t put on a condom. I told myself I’d pull out, but when the time came, you felt so good that I couldn’t bring myself to do it.” He looked embarrassed.

  “It’s all right, David. I never had my Norplant removed.”

  He let out a relieved-sounding laugh. “Good. We don’t want a baby just yet, and what I just shot out was twins for sure.”

  “No worries.” Devin’s voice sounded cheerful, but her mind was reeling. David had said “we” didn’t want a baby…yet. What did that mean? Was he saying that one day…?

  Her thoughts were lost, drowned in pleasure when David, his strength restored after his climax, slipped down her body and buried his face between her thighs, keeping his promise to bring her to completion.

  *****

  Devin awakened, naked in David’s bed with sunlight streaming through the curtains. She could hardly believe it. When she opened her eyes yesterday, the most exciting thing in her life was next week’s move. While that was definitely a big thing, and she still looked forward to it, but now, just one day later, she had David back in her life as well…and the knowledge that he loved her made her want to burst into song and twirl around in a graceful dance.

  She turned her head to look at him, lying beside her in the big bed. Her heart swelled with love. This marvelous-looking man belonged to her. She held his heart, and he held hers.

  Could life be any better?

  *****

  “I now pronounce you husband and wife.”

  Everyone applauded as the newly married Amparo and Rafael Garcia shared their first kiss. Devin, as her mother’s sole attendant, was the first to embrace her.

  “I love you, Mrs. Garcia,” she said. “And I just know you and Rafael are going to live happily ever after.”

  “Ooh, you’re the first one to call me ‘Mrs. Garcia’!” Mama happily replied.

  For a few seconds she looked all of seventeen, Devin thought. She squeezed her mother tightly, then reluctantly let go. Less than twenty people, the ones closest to the newlyweds, including Rafael’s widowed mother, were present, but they were all eager to offer their best wishes. Devin knew she couldn’t monopolize her mother’s attention.

  As she slipped away, her hand was promptly grasped by David, who led her a few yards from the well-wishers, pulled her into his arms and gave her a surprisingly deep kiss.

  “Wow!” she said, only half kidding, when it ended with a soft smacking sound. “Now, that’s what I call a kiss!”

  “I love you, Devin.”

  He had told her that before, but something in his eyes made this time different. She raised a hand to cup his cheek. “I love you right back, David. And I’m so proud of you. You really hit the ground running when you opened your office. Among the other cases you handled, you vindicated a half dozen women—and men—who’ve been sexually harassed. And this new celebrity case is really going to put you on the map.”

  “It’s a segment of the population who’s been sadly neglected. Whenever I think of what you went through…and my own mother, as a young woman…” His jaw set. “But I couldn’t have done it any of it without you, babe. You keep everything running shipshape.”

  “And you have no regrets about not accepting Holt & Cotten’s partnership offer?”

  “None at all. It definitely worked out for the best that I left there. I can’t stand to even look at Larry. I can’t imagine working with him on a daily basis.”

  “That was awfully nice of Ben Holt to include that thousand-dollar bonus in my last paycheck,” she mused.

  “You can bet that came out of Larry’s pocket. Not because he was being generous, but because Ben insisted on it. He was probably worried that I’d file a messy lawsuit on your behalf.” David chuckled. “If he knew about the settlement I got you from Jensen, he probably would have given you more.”

  “Well, everything worked out wonderfully.” Devin sighed in contentment. “I have a job I love that combines both office management with my newly acquired legal skills…”

  “With a handsome boss who gives you plenty of time off,” he added.

  She grinned back at him. “And a nice raise, plus plenty of fringe benefits.” She giggled, then grew pensive. “I just wish…”

  “What?”

  “I wish that Andrea and Jeremy had gotten to have a happy ending. It looks like she kept her word about breaking it off with him at the end of summer if he hadn’t introduced her to his family by then.” She and David recently had dined at a supper club with Jeremy and his date, who turned out to be not Andrea, but a white woman, a buxom brunette.

  “She didn’t even wait until the end of the summer. She broke it off shortly after the night of the party. I advised her to.”

  Devin looked at him in surprise. “You did? When?”

  “At the party. Maybe it wasn’t my place, but Jeremy shared some thoughts about her with me, and it was obvious that he wasn’t serious about her. I sensed she was in love with him, and I hated the idea of him stringing her along. So I told her she was wasting her time with him, that he was just…having a good time with her.”

  “When did you tell her that?”

  “As we were leaving the party. I whispered into her ear when we were saying goodbye.”

  Devin nodded, remembering. She’d witnessed David whispering to Andrea and had been curious about what he’d said to her. No wonder Andrea looked so shocked. David wasn’t coming on to her; instead he’d burst her bubble by telling her that her dream of a future with Jeremy would never happen. Devin tried to keep the bitterness out of her voice as she said, “Obviously, Jeremy didn’t bleed for long.”

  “Neither did Andrea, I’m sure. But every relationship isn’t meant to be substantial.”

  “Yes, I know.” Devin felt badly for Andrea, but she agreed that she’d done the right thing by dumping Jeremy. “Having a good time,” David had said. That sounded like a euphemism for him using her for sex. She felt certain that Andrea’s Mr. Right was somewhere in New York, just waiting for her, and that when she met him everything would come together, just as it had for David and her…

  In the time since that summer afternoon when she left the offices of Holt & Cotten so abruptly, Devin had gotten to know not only David’s parents, but his brother and sister-in-law, even his elderly grandmother. His grandmother tended to treat her with almost exaggerated politeness, as if she was worried about offending. It had the effect of making Devin feel as though his grandmother felt she came from a different planet. The only truly awkward moment came at their second meeting, when the elderly woman had touched Devin’s hair. Devin had gotten a blowout for Sheila and Lamar’s anniversary party—where she’d first met his grandmother—but on this informal occasion she secured it at the nape of her neck and let the rest of it billow against her upper back like cotton candy. “Wasn’t your hair straight at the party? What happened to it?” the woman had asked. Devin hated it when people touched her hair, but she handled the intrusion like a pro. “I went to the salon and had my hair straightened,” she’d said. “What you see now is my hair in its natural st
ate.” She’d smiled sweetly and reminded herself that this ninety-year-old woman was too old to change her way of thinking. She was probably worried that she’d have kinky-haired great-grandchildren.

  There always had to be a fly in the ointment, she thought, but David didn’t seem the least bit worried and told her not to let his grandmother get to her.

  “It doesn’t matter to me if Jeremy never settles down,” he said now. “I’ve got my girl, and that’s all that matters. I just want it to last forever.” His blue eyes met hers, and she felt his arms tighten around her back. “Devin…marry me.”

  Her mouth opened, but no words came out. She tried again. “David…do you mean it?”

  “Yes, even though this isn’t the way I had planned to do it. I don’t even have the ring on me.”

  She drew in her breath. “You got me a ring?”

  “That’s what a man usually does before he proposes. It just…” he shrugged…“seemed like a good time to ask. The minister’s words during the ceremony…wait a minute. Shouldn’t he have been a priest, since your mother is Catholic?”

  “She and Rafael would have had to get married in church, but they didn’t want a church wedding. They got an Episcopal minister to perform the ceremony.”

  “Oh. Anyway…we’ve made a pretty good team these last couple of months, you and me. We’ve worked together, and you stay at my place from Thursday night through Sunday afternoon. We work hard, and we love even harder. It’s working out great.”

  Devin felt the same way. “We’ve managed quite a bit of togetherness these last couple of months, and we haven’t killed each other yet.”

  Devin nodded in agreement. They’d worked out a fairly regular schedule. She stayed home in New Jersey from Sunday night through Wednesday night, and on Thursdays brought carried a weekend bag to work with her, staying with David until Sunday afternoon. The two of them had spent blissful weekends together, working on cases, shopping, cooking, and seeing shows, culminating with Sunday dinner in Passaic with Mama and Rafael. David had endeared himself to both of them soon after he and Devin reconciled, when he offered to assist with painting the new condo. The four of them managed to paint the entire unit in a matter of hours, and then David treated them all to sub sandwiches. Even Mama, after seeing the two of them interact, had admitted that David seemed sincere in his feelings for her.

  As for her work at the David Andrews Law Offices, the partial workdays David had initially envisioned hadn’t materialized; they’d been busy from the moment the office opened for business and often worked past six or later. When they had a particularly late night, Devin stayed over at David’s, no matter what day of the week it was. She kept a few changes of clothes at his apartment for those occasions.

  “That’s right,” she said. “We haven’t killed each other.” She actually felt proud to be working beside David, felt like his successes were hers as well…and in a way they were, since she did much of the legwork. She wondered if Sheila Andrews felt that same sense of accomplishment when she ran Lamar’s first medical practice.

  “So why not make it permanent?” he said.

  Devin deliberately cozied up to him, looping her arms around his neck and standing on tiptoe to sensually rub her nose against his. “That depends. Will you teach me how to drive?” She shrugged at his hesitation. “Rafael taught Mama, and it hasn’t hurt them.”

  David laughed at her paraphrasing the words he had used about his parents when she expressed reservations about working with him. “Sure,” he said. “Is that your only condition?”

  “Well…you have to promise to cherish me always.”

  “I can answer that in just two words. I do.”

  The following spring, in front of those nearest and dearest to them at Columbia University’s St. Paul’s Chapel, that was precisely what they said to the minister who performed their wedding ceremony.

   The End 

  Also by E. Caroline Wilson

  His Father’s Son

  A Face in the Crowd