by Adele Buck
Alicia bit her lip, decided to be the dummy. “What do you mean, ‘read’ law?” She braced herself for derision.
Colin grimaced. “Sorry. I studied law. ‘Majored in it,’ as you would say about your college experiences here. Not a terribly exciting or novel tale.”
“And then?”
“Then I was a barrister in London. Then my mother died and I…needed to make a change. I came here to get an L.L.M.—an advanced degree in American law for lawyers from other countries—and never left. What about you?”
“What about me?” Alicia asked, sipping her wine and fixing her gaze past his ear. “You already know all I have is a high school equivalency.”
Colin waved a hand, seeming to dismiss education as irrelevant. Or something he took for granted. “But what’s the rest of your story? Your family?”
Colin wondered what about his seemingly innocuous question made Alicia freeze up. She looked like a cornered rabbit, her brown eyes wide, her mouth a flat line. Slowly, and with what appeared to be an effort, a more relaxed expression softened her features. Colin regarded her, wondering how she managed that kind of control, if it cost her anything.
“I don’t…I’m not in touch with my family. At all,” she said finally, placing her wine glass with careful precision on the bar, as if it would fall and shatter if she did not position it just so.
Curiosity shot through Colin, but he restrained his impulse to interrogate her like a witness. Instead, he nodded. “Hm. Sometimes I wish I could be estranged from my family. Well, my father. But not even an ocean can do that. He calls at least weekly asking when I’m moving back to England.”
She relaxed another fraction. “How long has it been?”
“Five years.”
“And are you going back?”
“No.”
She bit her lip, her eyes scanning his face. “Brothers and sisters?”
“One of each. Both older. Both went into the family trade, of a sort.”
Alicia smirked. “Right. So, your old man is…a plumber.”
Colin barked a brief laugh. “More than you know. He’s a urologist. My brother went into practice with him.”
Alicia’s eyebrows went up. “And your sister?”
“Research scientist. Studying cancer treatments.”
“And you were the black sheep, being a lawyer.”
“A veritable reprobate. You have grasped the issue,” he said, winking and sipping his whiskey, appreciating the slight flush and lowering of her eyes in response.
“You being a lawyer is an issue?”
He paused, considering how much he wanted to say. “Being a lawyer wasn’t a popular decision with my father. But specializing in criminal defense was unforgivable. And then, moving here… Let’s just say that was also not a decision my father understands.” A pang went through him. “My parents had been deeply in love, but that didn’t stop my mother from supporting me in my career choices. And then she was gone. And I couldn’t bear it.”
“Why don’t you go back after all this time, though?” she asked.
“Why don’t you?”
Her jaw tightened. “I can guarantee you my reasons are nothing like yours.”
“Tell me?”
Her eyes locked on his in a flat, angry glare and if he hadn’t been sitting on a bar stool, he would have stepped back. “I wasn’t anything more than a walking uterus to my family. But luckily, I was…one among many. And a girl, so not really worth paying attention to. I flew under the radar a lot. And then…I just flew.” Her hand fluttered out, illustrating her flight.
Colin tried to sort out the implications of what she had said. “How many of you were there that you ‘flew under the radar’?”
“When I left? Ten.”
“Ten…children?” He blinked, trying to imagine a household with that many children.
“Well, eleven. I had ten siblings. I was number three. The oldest girl. But Mom was pregnant when I left. There are probably more now. Dad kept her that way. Pregnant. All the time.”
Colin passed a hand over his mouth, unable to fathom the scene she was describing. “But…why?”
“According to them? God.”
“What do you mean?”
Alicia’s shoulders shrugged up, and she inhaled deeply. “If my parents made enough babies that grew up to make more babies who all prayed in just the right way and believed the right things, then they would repopulate the world with people who thought just like they did.”
“That’s mathematically improbable, at best,” Colin said. He’d heard of this kind of religion, but never met someone who had been raised in it. She was right. Her reasons for leaving were nothing like his own. And despite not wanting to live in England, he did love his family.
“Yeah, well. I never said it made sense. And Mom was resigned to it. She saw it as her duty and that it would be mine. I disagreed.” Alicia tipped her glass back, emptying it. “Now, for some reason I’ve told you something I haven’t talked about in years. I should go home before I spill all my deepest, darkest secrets.”
“Do you have a lot more?”
She looked at him in silence long enough that he fidgeted with his glass, uncomfortable. “A few,” she said at last.
Sliding off the bar stool, Alicia smiled tightly at Colin. “Thanks for the drink.”
Pulling some bills out of his wallet and tossing them on the bar, Colin touched her arm. “Let me get you a taxi.”
“No need,” Alicia waved a hand. “I only live a short way away.”
“Then let me walk you home?”
Alicia paused, her automatic “no” dying on her lips. If his words had come out as a command, she would have walked away and that would have been it.
But it wasn’t a command. It was a definite question. Considering it, she looked at his face. Large brown eyes, smooth, tanned skin stretched over high cheekbones. The slight dimple in his chin. Thick black hair that held just the hint of a wave.
Good grief, but he’s handsome. The thought came to her as if it were someone else’s. She almost looked around the bar to identify the speaker.
“Okay. If it isn’t out of your way.”
He blinked in evident surprise, and Alicia felt pleasure bloom in her chest. He had expected her to say no. But he had asked anyway.
That took some guts.
“I don’t live far from here either. Let’s go.”
Leaving the bar, he held the door for her again, and this time Alicia wasn’t surprised. And she didn’t wait for him to offer his elbow to curl her fingertips into the crook of his arm.
Colin nearly jumped with surprise when she slid her hand into his elbow. He would have offered as he had when they left the theater, but she seemed so jittery now, so nervous.
He stole a sideways glance at her profile. Her nose was straight and delicate and a touch too long for classical beauty, but he liked it. Her surprisingly dark eyes were fixed on the pavement ahead of them. Her fine blond hair had started to fall, collapsing out of the high, tough style that she had affected and seeking to drift across her eyes where it seemed to normally live.
They walked together in a companionable silence for several minutes. Finally, turning on to a narrow, darker street, Alicia stopped in front of a row house, stepping away and pulling her hand free of his arm. “This is me,” she said, waving at a pocket handkerchief front garden, a front door several steps down from the street.
“Basement flat?”
“Well, they call it a ‘garden apartment,’ but yeah. Sublet for the summer. Then probably back to New York.”
Colin shifted restlessly and swallowed, an insistent, nervous feeling starting in his stomach. She just looked at him, her eyes shadowed in the half light of the street.
“May I kiss you?” he asked.
“Yeah.” Her voice was husky and low.
Closing the small distance between them, he bent and brushed his lips softly across her cheek.
“Is that all you go
t?” she said, looking at him from underneath her lashes.
“Do you want more?” he asked, his heart starting to thump hard. Up until now, control had been—well, not easy, but well within his grasp. But standing this close to her, smelling the elusive fragrance of her hair or perfume, he was painfully tempted to throw caution and control to the wind.
“Yeah, more would be…nice,” she murmured, her lips curving in a provocative half-smile.
He took her face in his hands and lowered his head, gently brushing his lips across hers. A jolt of desire ran through him, and he almost groaned. Her hands lifted, spread across his chest. For a moment, he thought she had changed her mind, would push him away.
Her fingers tightened, gripped his shirt and pulled him closer. This time, he did moan as their lips touched, then pressed together firmly. His fingers brushed the soft, slightly bristly texture of the short hair behind her ear, but some sane part of him told him that gripping the back of her head would cause her to flee.
Instead, he slid his hands away from her face, replacing them gently at the small of her back, pressing but not insisting. Her lips parted, mouth welcoming his, as her hips swayed toward him.
Every nerve ending in Alicia buzzed. Colin held her as gently as if she were an egg, and the lightest touches trailed electrical charges crackling through her skin. His tongue swept softly into her mouth, and she met it with her own. He tasted of whiskey and…him. His body was large and solid. She liked that he smelled faintly of soap and starch, no cologne invading her nose and overpowering her senses.
She felt safe, treasured.
It was terrifying. And exhilarating.
The heels that she wore put her just a couple of inches below his height, and Alicia leaned into him, her breasts pressing against the solid mass of his chest. Registering his sharp intake of breath, she smiled against his mouth and felt him chuckle in response. She slid her hands behind his neck as he pressed kisses up one cheekbone to her ear.
“Miss Johnson, you are a very wicked woman,” he whispered. His lips and breath tickled her ear, and a shiver started at the base of her spine, working its way up to her neck.
“Yes?” She let the question hang in the warm night air.
He leaned back, his eyes scanning her face.
“Yes.” His touch ran delicious shivers up her back, then along her arms. Disengaging her hands from behind his neck, he tucked her fingers into the corner of his arm again and unlatched the garden gate, walking her to her front door.
“Key?” he asked.
Well this is going somewhere fast. She produced it from her pocket almost as if he were Prospero and she were his spirit servant, Ariel. He took the key from her fingers, inserted it into the lock, and opened the door.
“I would like to see you again, Alicia,” he said, his eyes large and solemn in the dimness.
“I’d like that too,” she said, not caring about the absurd, breathy way her voice came out.
“Good. Goodnight.” Brushing her lips once more with his own, he turned and walked to the sidewalk, leaving Alicia half appreciative of his restraint, half frustrated with desire.
Chapter 5
Colin’s alarm woke him before dawn as usual, but instead of sitting up immediately as he normally did, he lay on his back for a few long moments, staring at the ceiling. Downstairs, he could hear his coffeemaker spring into life, burrs whirring to automatically grind beans. A fresh pot would be ready and waiting for him by the time he made his way into the kitchen.
Ticking over his schedule in his head, he sat up, putting his feet on the cool hardwood and stretching his arms overhead, his back arching. Standing, he flicked the bedcovers back. It was the day for his cleaning service, so no need to smooth the duvet and tug the sheet straight. Padding into the bathroom, he turned on the shower and considered his reflection while he waited for the water to heat.
He didn’t look like he had spent half the night thinking about a woman instead of sleeping. So at least there was that. His eyes were remarkably clear; he didn’t look a fraction as fatigued as he felt.
Maybe it was the fact that the thought of her: her toughness, her intelligence, the way she kissed—all of it created an tingling in his nerves that overcame whatever fatigue he should feel from the sleep he lost.
Stepping into the shower, Colin lifted his face to the spray and then dipped his head down, letting the hot water flow through his hair and run down his chin. The memory of kissing her, of the way her hips had swayed toward him when he gently caressed the small of her back with his hands. He groaned as arousal stiffened his cock, heat suffusing him as he gripped and stroked himself to climax. He tried to tell himself that a quick wank would get her out of his head, but images of her elusive smile, the curve of her breasts, and that coy drift of fringe across her eyes lingered after he finished.
Enough. He reached for the shampoo and scrubbed his fingers across his scalp. There’s a time and a place for this, he told himself as he toweled off. Focus, he thought ferociously at his own reflection as he shaved.
Fetching the Post from his doorstep in his bathrobe while the sun began to make its appearance for the day, he admitted the truth to himself: the woman had gotten under his skin. He took the paper to the kitchen and poured a cup of coffee, perching on a stool at the high counter to drink it and peruse the headlines. Nothing of particular note for him. The usual partisan political grandstanding, a few local pieces of moderate interest. Turning to the Style section, he saw an article about Romeo and Juliet. He was incensed to see no mention of her performance. What sort of idiot was this so-called journalist, anyway?
He sighed. Yeah. He was in deep.
Sunlight in her face made Alicia screw her eyes shut and throw a forearm across her face to shield herself from the brightness. She couldn’t decide if she was glad of the light waking her or disappointed. Her dream had been one of those vivid, hyper-real ones that sometimes played through her mind just before waking.
It had started with Colin opening her door for her and walking away, same as last night. But when she locked up and turned into her apartment, he had been inside. For some dream-logic reason, this had neither surprised nor alarmed her. Nor had she been thrown off when the scene shifted them to her bedroom, touching, kissing, undressing each other…
And then the sun had sent the whole thing dissolving into fragments of light and hard-edged reality.
Hard-edged reality that included a relentless, restless throb between her thighs. Removing the forearm from her eyes, she slid her hand down her naked body under the light sheet, fingers seeking to release the ache.
Her phone shrilled on the nightstand. Groaning, Alicia rolled to her belly, blowing up the hair that flopped into her eyes with an irritated puff of breath. She grabbed the ringing phone and unplugged it from the charging cable, looking at the screen to see who was calling. Swiping her thumb to answer, she flopped over and lay back against the pillow.
“Morning, Melissa.”
“Almost afternoon, Alicia.” Her agent’s voice crackled.
Alicia brought the phone back in front of her face to squint at the time and said, “Even for you, ten in the morning is not afternoon.”
“Fine, whatever.”
Alicia’s jaw clenched at the smoker’s rasp in Melissa’s voice. “Regardless of the time, what’s up?”
“Well, if you can get your sleepy ass in gear, I may have something big for you.”
Alicia sat up, the sheet spilling into her lap, fingers spearing back through her hair. “What is it?”
“Well, before I give you the details, how would you feel about staying down in D.C. for a while?”
Alicia, remembering her idle thoughts about how she enjoyed the city, smiled to herself. “Totally fine. I like it down here. What’s the gig?”
“Well, if you’re good with being that far from civilization…”
Alicia gritted her teeth. “I know. Everything west of Riverside Drive is wilderness to you. The gig?�
��
“Prestige cable series. Political. Those are all the rage nowadays, it seems. The role is an up and coming Congresswoman. ‘Buttoned up in the House Chamber, a tigress in the bedchamber.’ I’m reading from the casting sheet, in case you think I could possibly come up with anything that ridiculous.”
Scooting off the bed, Alicia raced to the closet, leafing through her clothes to find a conservative suit. “When’s the audition?”
“Today. Someone in the cast dropped out and they had to hold an emergency audition. You have a slot at 12:15. Can you do it?”
Alicia threw her clothes on the bed and raced to the bathroom to turn on the shower. “Just e-mail me the sides and the address. I’ll be there.”
A tap on his open office door arrested Colin’s attention from his computer screen. “Am I interrupting?” Brandon Oberst, one of his partners in the firm, stood in the doorway.
“Not at all.” Colin gestured to the pair of guest chairs in front of his desk. “How are the wedding arrangements progressing?”
Brandon sat and scrubbed a hand across his face. “To be honest, it’s a nightmare.”
“Mari’s mother?” Colin schooled his expression away from his natural inclination of “horrified” toward something more closely resembling “sympathetic.” Brandon’s fiancée Mari was sweet and geeky, but it had only taken Colin one instance of meeting her mother to decide the woman was a veritable harpy.
Brandon leaned back, the leather guest chair squeaking. “That’s about the size of it. And I can usually handle Nancy just fine. But this…it’s a whole other level of meddling. She’s involved in everything. We should have just eloped like her sister Ellie did. I think we’re getting the backlash because they sidestepped Nancy completely.”
Colin waved an airy hand. “So, just let her plan everything. Show up. Be the groom. Get married and go home and be happy with Mari.”
“You make it sound so easy. But Mari’s got opinions.” His expression grew pensive and he ran his fingers through his sandy brown hair. “Yet, with a limited application…the strategy could have merit.” Brandon’s eyes creased with humor. “But I didn’t come over to discuss my impending marital drama or my mother-in-law to be. How are things with the table for the USA Science Fair Gala? The assistant to Austen Software’s CEO called to ask. I think they’re worried about their sponsorship.”