by Lisa Childs
She felt a flash of guilt. “I haven’t worked any juvenile cases in a long time.”
“You’re big time now, huh?”
She would be—once she won this case. And she would win. But she didn’t want to win like this. “I’m not sure what big time is anymore,” she admitted.
“Trying Byron Mueller,” Miguel said. “That’s big time.”
She shrugged.
He pulled the doors open again. “You’re here to see Stone.”
“Is he still here?”
“Always...” His brow furrowed. “Well, it used to be that he was always the last one still in the office. But lately...”
Lately, he’d been showing up at her office. And at her apartment.
Was that why he didn’t know what she knew?
Or did he know but he’d been keeping her busy so that she wouldn’t find out?
Miguel held the doors for her with one beefy arm while he gestured with the other. “He’s at the end of the hall toward the right. Corner office.”
“Of course,” she murmured. Stone Michaelsen would have a corner office.
“Since we have the whole top floor, each of the partners has a corner office or would have...”
“Would?”
“A couple of them walled up some of the windows,” he said. “Guess it goes back to the streets, where you like to keep your back against the wall.”
Acting impulsively, she hugged the big man. “It was great seeing you again, Miguel,” she said as she pulled back. He’d reminded her that people could come a long way from where they’d started, not just materially, like Stone had, but emotionally as well.
Could Stone achieve the emotional growth that his old friend had?
Miguel smiled at her. “It’s too bad you’re not doing juvenile cases anymore, Ms. Bellows. You were always really fair.”
That was why she was here, because it was the only fair thing to do. With new resolve, she headed down the hall toward Stone’s office.
The door was open, and despite having two walls of windows, he had his back against a wall with none. It was the same wall on which the door was, so he would have seen her before she’d seen him if he was looking up.
But he had his head bowed over an open book on his desk as he rubbed the back of his neck. He already looked beaten, so he probably knew what she did.
He just didn’t know that she knew, that she had the evidence in her briefcase. She didn’t want to talk about that now, at least not yet. Instead, she slipped off her heels, so he wouldn’t hear her coming. And she tiptoed along the wall until she came up behind him. There wasn’t much space between his chair and the wall. And the minute she reached out and touched him, he pushed back the chair and nearly crushed her. Her breath escaped in a whoosh.
And he jerked forward. “Are you okay?” he asked, his gray eyes wide with concern.
“Yes,” she assured him.
“What were you doing?” he asked. “Were you going to whop me over the head with your briefcase like you did in the parking garage?”
“I didn’t whop you over the head,” she said. “I hit you in the shoulder.”
“I’m going to be like Ernest Rapier,” he said with a sigh. “So abused.”
At the moment, with dark circles beneath his eyes and lines of tension around his mouth, he looked abused. Or at least exhausted. And worried.
“Yeah, like I could ever hurt you...” But even as she said it, she trailed off. She could hurt him—or at least his case—if he didn’t know what she’d just learned.
He studied her face for a long moment, and as he did, a muscle twitched along his tightly clenched jaw. “I think you just might be the only one who could.”
“Will this really be your first loss?” she asked.
He grinned and shook his head. “You are so damn sure of yourself.”
She had even more reason to be now.
She reached out and stroked her fingers along his jaw. Stubble was already poking through his skin. But it was soft to her touch, making her fingertips tingle. “You’re not,” she said. “You finally realize your client is guilty?”
He groaned, and it was full of frustration. “He’s not. But he’s not helping me prove it.”
“He’s not going to testify?” she asked. He was on the witness list, but he could still change his mind. And she could guess why he had.
“He wants to,” Stone admitted. “But...”
“What?” she asked.
“You.”
“What about me?”
He touched her now, gliding his fingers along the edge of her jaw. “You’re too damn good.”
She’d never thought he would admit it. She beamed with pride. “You know I’ll get a confession out of him.”
“No,” he answered immediately, as if he still had no doubts about his client’s innocence. But then he added, “I think you might get out of him whatever he’s not willing to tell me.”
And she knew. Stone had no idea what was in that envelope. Once again it had come from his office—or at least the envelope had—but he had no idea what the contents were.
“Your client isn’t being forthcoming,” she mused. “That can’t be a first for you.”
He took his hand from her face and ran it over his. And she felt a twinge of guilt. Now was not the time to needle him for his career choice. Nor was it the time—just yet—to tell him his office mole had struck again.
Instead, she pushed him back onto his chair. “Sit down and relax.”
“I can’t, Hillary. You know this case isn’t going well.”
Even better than he did. She teased him, “It is for me.”
And despite his tension, his lips curled up slightly at the corners into a shadow of his usual wicked grin. “Of course you’d see it that way.”
They were never going to be on the same side of a trial, which was a problem now and for the future. Because of that, there really was no future for them. But there was the moment. And in the moment, Hillary wanted to make Stone feel better. So she dropped to her knees in front of his chair.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Getting you to relax.” But when she reached for his belt, his stomach muscles tightened and his body tensed. She trailed her fingers down his chest. “Relax...”
“Easy for you to say.”
“You don’t like this,” she said, “giving up control.”
“I haven’t been in control since that first kiss,” he said, “hell, even before that or I would have had the control to not kiss you in the first place.”
She liked him out of control. And she proceeded to get him to lose it again. After unclasping his belt, she tugged down the tab of his zipper. Then she freed his erection from his boxers, pushing them and his pants down around his hip bones, which jutted out. He was all toned muscle and taut skin. And his penis...
It was so thick. She closed her lips over the head of it. And so long, she sucked him deep in her mouth.
And he sucked in a sharp breath. “Hillary.”
She glanced up at his face, which was now flushed with passion. He leaned back in his chair, but he still wasn’t relaxed. She knew what that would take.
While she couldn’t relieve all the frustration he was feeling, she could relieve some of it for him.
She continued to slide her mouth up and down the length of him, sucking him deeper into her throat each time. And what she couldn’t take into her mouth, she stroked with her hand, pumping it up and down.
He groaned and reached for her, his fingers tangling in her hair. But he didn’t pull her away. He just held her head, fingering the strands of her hair, as she continued to bring him to the edge.
Finally, his body tensed and a deep groan tore from his throat as he threw his head back against his chair, rocking
it against the wall. Then he came, filling her mouth with his sweet release.
She swallowed it down but still some trickled from the corner of her mouth. She lapped at it with her tongue. And Stone groaned again.
“You are so damn sexy and passionate and incredible,” he murmured as he stared down at her with eyes that looked glazed with pleasure and awe.
She knew he wouldn’t be looking at her like that once she opened her briefcase, so she enjoyed it for a moment. But she’d known this moment was all they would have. Once she showed him what she’d received, she suspected that whatever they had or were doing would end.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
STONE STARED DOWN at Hillary, kneeling between his legs, and a feeling more intense even than the release she’d just given him coursed through him. He was overwhelmed, awed and scared.
She scared the hell out of him. And not just because he suspected she was going to win this trial. She scared him because of how she made him feel.
Jealous.
Out of control.
And...
He wasn’t sure what the hell he felt because he’d never felt it before, so he had no way of identifying it. No way of knowing what it was or how to stop it.
But he wasn’t sure he wanted it to stop. He certainly didn’t want to stop having sex with her. It was too good. She was too good.
He usually didn’t come for blow jobs; he couldn’t make himself relax or lose control enough. But with her...
Hillary had given him no choice. She’d taken his control and she’d given him pleasure unlike any he’d ever known—except in her body. He loved sliding inside her; it felt like sliding home.
He tensed as the thought brought back a rush of fear. Home had never been a good situation for him. But then, neither was this...because just like those fleeting moments his mother had been clean, this wasn’t going to last, either.
He and Hillary had no future together. They would always be sitting at different tables: her for the prosecution, him for the defense.
Not that he’d presented much of a defense yet for Byron. That was what he’d been working on when she’d shown up. He’d rather focus on her than the trial, though.
He pulled her up from the floor, but he stayed sitting while she stood. He unbuttoned her jacket and pushed it from her shoulders. She wore a blouse instead of one of her camisoles—maybe because it had gotten colder, or maybe because it had a high neckline and he had left some marks on her silky skin. When he unbuttoned those buttons and pushed it off her shoulders, he saw what he’d done the other night.
“Sorry,” he murmured, and he ran his fingertips over the slight discoloration.
“No, you’re not,” she told him.
And he grinned. “No, I’m not.”
If Dwight showed up at her place for another booty call, he’d know that she was taken now. But was she?
What the hell were he and Hillary doing? Whatever it was, he didn’t want it to stop. So he reached for her bra now, unclasping it so that the nude lace dropped onto the floor with her blouse and jacket.
“Stone...” She murmured his name on a sigh.
Even before he touched them, her nipples tightened into taut peaks. He leaned forward and flicked his tongue across one while he rubbed his thumb over the other.
She moaned and trembled as if her knees were shaking. She was so damn responsive.
He reached for the button on her skirt, but his hand was shaking slightly and he fumbled as he undid it.
“You’re being careful with the buttons today,” she murmured.
“We’ve been lucky none have taken out an eye,” he replied.
And she laughed that throaty laugh he loved so much. It was as sexy as her body, as her beautiful face, as her sharp mind.
She trailed her fingers over his cheekbone, beneath his eye. “You’d look sexy with a patch...” She leaned down and pressed her mouth over his, kissing him deeply. Their lips nibbled and clung to each other’s, tongues teasing.
When she lifted her head, he panted. She literally took his breath away.
He unzipped her skirt and pushed it down along with the tiny bit of lace that was her panties. He had to have her, his cock hard and pulsating with need again despite the release she’d given him.
He wanted her—needed her—so badly.
She reached for his shirt and jerked it open, buttons pinging.
“You really want to see me with a patch,” he murmured.
She smiled. “I really want to see your chest.” But then she covered it with her hands, or as much of it as she could with her hands.
Her palms skimmed over his muscles, making his skin tingle from her touch. Then she teased his nipples, like he’d teased hers, making them pebble from the brush of her thumbs. Then she leaned down and brushed her mouth across them.
He slid his hands to her waist, gripping it as he lifted her so that she straddled his lap. He needed a condom, though, so he arched up and pulled one from his wallet.
She took it from his hand, tore it open with her teeth and rolled it over him. And he nearly came in her hand.
She was so damn sexy.
Then she arched up and guided him inside her. And he had that feeling like he belonged—with her, inside her.
He was losing his mind as well as his control.
She began to move, rocking back and forth, bouncing up and down. The chair creaked beneath their combined weights.
Stone didn’t care if it broke. He didn’t care about anything but the tension winding tightly inside him. And giving her pleasure like she’d given him.
He leaned down and kissed first her lips, then her neck and her shoulders. Then he arched his back and moved his mouth lower to her breasts.
She arched back and clutched his head to her breasts as she moved, writhing on his lap. Her inner muscles tightened around him, pulling him deeper. Then her body convulsed and she cried out as she came.
He felt the heat and wetness. And his control snapped. He gripped her hips and guided her—up and down—as he thrust inside her. And finally that tension inside him broke as he came again.
He was surprised he’d had anything left. But she turned him on as no one else ever had. He leaned his forehead against hers as they both panted for breath.
“Is that why you came?” he asked.
She smiled. “I came because you’re so damn good.”
He smiled, too. They were so equally matched. But that was the problem. They were too much alike. Too determined to win, even when they were on opposing sides.
“I’m glad you came,” he said.
But as he said it, her smile slid away, and she dropped her gaze from his. A chill chased the perspiration from his sweat-slick skin. “You didn’t come here for this,” he said. Gripping her hips, he lifted her from his lap.
She shook her head and reached for her clothes. “No.”
He knew he wasn’t going to like the reason that she’d really come. He stood up on legs that felt suddenly wobbly. He quickly used his adjoining bathroom to clean up, and when he returned, he found her briefcase sitting open on his desk.
She stood at the windows with her back to him. She’d dressed back up in her suit. And for a moment, he felt as he did in court, like he couldn’t look at her the way he looked at her when they were alone.
But they were alone now.
It didn’t feel that way, though. And when he walked to his desk and looked into her open briefcase, he understood why as he stared down at the faces in the photo.
A curse slipped through his lips as he dropped back onto his chair, stunned. He should have known. If not for her—if not for being so distracted by Hillary—he might have figured it out.
She’d messed with his self-control, his head and...
No. He couldn’t let her mess with his
heart.
* * *
The glass of the window reflected at Hillary the room behind her back, and she saw every nuance of Stone’s reaction to the photo. He hadn’t known.
He reached into the briefcase and inspected the envelope lying beneath the photo. “You just got this,” he said.
“Yes.”
He sighed. “Of course you did or you would have already introduced it in court.”
She couldn’t argue that it would have been part of her prosecution.
“Why didn’t you surprise me with it like you did the bank records?” he asked.
“Because now I know that you didn’t send it,” she said. “Now I know I’d be surprising you.”
“Why don’t you want to?” he asked. “It’s a great tactic to catch the defense off guard.”
She shrugged.
“Are you going easy on me because of what we’ve been doing?” he asked, and he sounded almost disappointed to think she was.
“No!” At least she hoped that wasn’t the case. She couldn’t lose her edge. She couldn’t go all soft and sentimental over some sex.
No matter how mind-blowing that sex was.
“You know I am all about being fair,” she said. “About justice.”
And that was why they would never have anything beyond that mind-blowing sex.
“You’ll make a great judge,” he said.
“Someday,” she murmured. She knew she had a lot of dues to pay and politics to play before she would achieve her goal. And she couldn’t afford to be distracted the way Stone distracted her. She whirled away from the windows and walked toward his desk. “Maybe I should have saved it for court.”
She reached for her briefcase but he caught her wrist. “How are you going to admit this as evidence now?” he asked. “You can’t. It doesn’t prove anything.”
She jerked free of his grasp and stabbed at the photo. “Byron’s young bride was sleeping with his son. That’s why he killed her!”
He shook his head. “No. This shows who the real killer is.”
She snorted. “Now you want to blame his son?”
“I told you it was her lover,” he said. “I just didn’t know who the lover was.”