Counselor Undone

by Lisa Rayne

  He quickly stepped back.

  Saved by the bell, he thought. But who had been saved—her or him?

  Jordis rebuttoned her blouse with fast, adept fingers. The elevator door slid open with a hydraulic hiss, quelling the mood inside the elevator. Michael picked up their briefcases and placed his hand against the retracted door, waiting for Jordis to exit. His eyes strayed to a round black recessed globe in the upper right corner of the elevator. He did a double take. Shit.

  Jordis moved past him without making eye contact and headed for the glass doors leading from the elevator bay.

  The parking garage had that eerie glow that came from low wattage florescent light bouncing off grayish concrete walls, pillars and floors. Very little traffic cruised this part of the city late at night so quiet hovered around them despite the garage’s open access to the adjacent two-way street.

  Stepping into the lowest level of the five-story structure, Michael scanned the parking garage and noticed a Dodge Charger SRT SuperBee in vibrant orange parked to his right. He allowed his eyes to glide over the racy sports car in appreciation before moving on to the silver Lexus SUV parked two spots closer. Michael headed for the Lexus, the only other vehicle visible inside the garage besides his black Lincoln Navigator. The sound of Jordis’s heels striking the concrete floor echoed through the garage, punctuating the noticeable lack of conversation between them.

  When they reached the driver’s side door of the Lexus, Michael turned towards her and extended his hand.

  She looked blankly at him.

  “Keys?”

  Without taking her eyes from his, Jordis reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out her key fob. She leaned forward, bypassing his outstretched hand, as if to unlock the door. At the last second, she turned the fob towards the Charger and hit the automatic unlock button.

  When the Charger’s lights blinked in concert with a pitched mechanical beep, Michael’s eyes widened. “She’s yours?”

  “She?”

  Michael shrugged. “With a body like that, every man on the planet would consider that Bee to be a woman.”

  He’d driven the Navigator today instead of his Jag because the forecast had included a chance of snow. Even though he drove a foreign sports car, he loved a good ole American muscle car. In fact, he had a classic ‘69 Camaro, which had belonged to his father, at home in his four-car garage.

  Jordis’s SuperBee was a thing of beauty, and it suited her right down to the sassy color. It had sleek lines, strong curves, and lots of power under a pretty hood.

  Jordis walked to the Charger and opened the door. Michael recognized the move as a blatant display of independence.

  He followed her into the triangle of the open car door. His eyes searched hers, trying to decipher her hidden thoughts. The unreadable look on her face made him sigh.

  “Look, Jordis, about what just happened . . .” He stood in a quandary. That he’d kissed her raised a myriad issues they needed to address, but, selfishly, he held another topic uppermost in his mind. How did you ask a colleague if she’d made out with you anonymously on New Year’s Eve?

  “Don’t.” She placed her hand against his chest.

  A jolt shot through him from the spot where she rested her palm. She snatched her hand away and quickstepped back.

  He looked down; she scrubbed the offending hand absently against the side of her skirt. He’d bet she’d felt it, too. “We need to talk about it.”

  “No, we don’t. We made a mistake. We both know it shouldn’t have happened.” She moved to get in her car, but he blocked her way. She heaved a sigh. “You’re my supervising attorney, Michael. It can’t happen again. I think we both can agree on that. So, let’s just forget about it and move on.”

  He stared at her for a minute. He wanted to explore why kissing her had triggered a memory of New Year’s Eve. More than a simple kiss had transpired between them. Pretending it hadn’t happened didn’t seem the way to go, but the parking garage late at night probably wasn’t the best place for the discussion. So, despite his burning question, he stepped aside.

  Jordis lowered herself into the driver’s seat, and his eyes followed her skirt’s rise up her thighs. The exposure of more of those long golden legs exacerbated the lingering discomfort in his pants. He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, fighting the urge to pull her from the car and pursue the matter.

  He handed her the tote he still held. “Do you have far to go?”

  “No, I don’t live far. I should be inside my apartment in about twenty minutes.”

  “Okay.”

  She reached for the door handle, but he didn’t move. “Michael, I really have to go.”

  “You don’t need to stop for gas or anything, do you?”

  “No.” She tugged at the door, but his hand stayed its movement. Shaking her head, she released the door and gripped the top of the steering wheel with both hands. “I’m good. Trust me. I know better than to make pit stops alone this late at night.”

  He nodded and closed the door. Instead of stepping away from the car, he motioned for her to roll down the window. “If you need anything, call me.”

  “What could I possibly need between here and home?” Her voice dripped with exasperation.

  Her rising anxiousness to be on her way lightened his demeanor and tempted him to delay her a bit longer. “You could run out of gas,” he said for the simple sake of argument.

  “I told you I had plenty of gas.”

  “No. You told me you didn’t need to stop for gas. For all I know, you’re one of those people who like to ride around on E.”

  She looked at him with an expression that said as if.

  Michael fought a smile. “You could get a flat tire.”

  “I have roadside assistance.”

  “Yeah, some strange guy in a tow truck meeting you stranded by the side of the road in the middle of the night. That really reassures me. Take my mobile number.”

  “Michael, really. I appreciate the escort to my car, but I’ll be fine from here.”

  Michael’s shoulders lifted as he heaved an exaggerated sigh. He pulled his smartphone from his inside jacket pocket. Punching buttons, he asked, “Do you have a cell phone?” He took her eye roll as a yes. “What’s the number?”

  She rattled off ten numbers. He punched them into the keypad. A few seconds later, her phone rang inside her bag. Jordis’s mouth turned down in a perplexed frown at the late night call before she glanced over at the phone in his hand and saw it had an active outgoing connection.

  Michael pushed the End button and slid the phone back into his pocket. “Now you have my number. Call me if you should need anything on the way home. If not, great. But, do call me when you get home so I know you arrived safely.”

  She opened her mouth to protest, but Michael cut her off. She gave a short laugh. “Okay, okay. I’ll call you to let you know I made it home. Can I go now?”

  He backed up.

  Not giving him a chance to say anything else, she shoved the car into Reverse and zipped out of the parking space. Her eyes caught on his one more time when she hit the breaks to shift into Drive. “Goodnight, Michael,” she said quietly.

  He slid a hand into his pants pocket. His responding farewell came out in an unintentionally husky voice. “Goodnight, Jordis.”

  Her fingers clenched the steering wheel. She looked away quickly and maneuvered out of the garage. When she cleared the gate, he dropped his head back and closed his eyes.

  What was he doing? All he had to do was walk her to her car and say goodnight. Instead, he’d made out with her in an elevator and harped about her safety as if he were dropping off a date.

  Turning toward his SUV, he pulled out his key ring and hit the remote unlock button. The SUV’s lights blinked at him as the keyless entry system chirped. Michael walked over slowly, pondering that he’d given Jordis his mobile number.

  He took great care to make sure few people had his mobile number. It avoided proble
ms, especially those of the female variety. Only his assistant, Chase, and a few key senior partners had his personal cell number. If anyone else needed to reach him, they could leave him a voicemail message at the office—he picked those up religiously—or contact his assistant who always knew how to get in touch with him.

  He found it ironic women tried so hard to get his personal number, and the one time he offered it willingly to a female associate, she didn’t want it. He was almost insulted, but he suspected with Jordis it came down to a show of independence. His display of old world manners had thrown her. He’d caught her look of surprise when he’d helped her don her jacket. That bit with her car keys—not letting him open the door for her—had also been revealing.

  Michael slid into his ride. He put the key in the ignition, but didn’t start the car. He glanced over at the elevator bay, pulled out his phone, and made a call.

  When he finished, the scene in Jordis’s office flashed through his mind. He’d almost kissed her then. When he’d touched her in the doorway, he’d wanted only to challenge her bravado a bit, but the smell of her perfume—a hint of sweet and floral with a crisp aquatic note—had drawn his mind from her late night lawyering habits to her womanly curves. Once his hand contacted her warm skin, all he could think about was how soft she felt, how beautiful her eyes were, and how much he wanted to explore those luscious lips.

  He’d watched her eyes shift colors like they had in the conference room when she’d caught him staring at her legs. The vein in her neck had pulsed at Mach speed, and he’d wondered if anxiety or attraction fueled the response. She didn’t seem the anxious type. Given her response to him in the elevator, he’d like to think it had been attraction. Yet, when he and Chase had walked past her office after Monday’s meeting, he’d heard Vivian ask her about her sexual preferences. Her nondescript response left questions to which he’d like to know the answers. It would be his luck that she was indeed gay.

  A gush of disappointment skittered across his gut, making him grab the steering wheel and squeeze tightly. Shaking off the implications of his reaction, he chastised himself. Get a grip, Remington. There’s no way she would have responded to you that way if she were gay.

  Kissing her had felt right, like coming home. His gut churned and an odd tremor rolled through him at the thought of her uniquely familiar moan when she’d pulled him against her center. She’d taken him to a place he’d been before. Why? What was there about this woman that stirred him so?

  He rubbed both hands down his face. His still semi-firm erection throbbed with a need for release he suspected could only be found between those long, long legs of hers. When he’d admired those legs as she'd lowered herself into her car, he’d appreciated the golden hue of her light caramel skin.

  His head snapped up.

  New Year’s night, he’d admired the second Juliet’s tan, her golden tan. He hadn’t considered that her color might be natural instead of sun-induced. “Ah, hell.” The words burst from him as he flopped back against the seat. “It is her.”

  He let the knowledge wash over him, unsure what to do with his certainty.

  All this time, he’d been looking for Juliet, and she’d been right under his nose. Chase had called it. Jordis Morgan shook him up in ways a colleague—or any woman for that matter—hadn’t in a long time. Until his midnight run-in with the mystery woman a couple of weeks ago, he couldn’t remember experiencing an instant emotional draw to a woman. Instant sexual attraction? Sure. He’d been there and done that. He handled instant hormonal urges easily. He did what came naturally and forgot about it, and the woman, once he’d slaked his need.

  Unfortunately, what he felt now went beyond mere biological appetency and therein lay the problem. The instant emotional attraction he’d experienced on New Year’s Eve hadn’t been a fluke. Jordis was his mystery woman, and her emotional pull on him tugged stronger than ever.

  Why on earth did these stirrings have to arise for a woman who worked at the firm? Life had taught him the dangers of that. He could be setting himself up for a shakedown.

  What would she want? Would she vie for key case assignments or guaranteed partnership? Or, would she maneuver covertly for a more permanent setup, perhaps one that came with eighteen-plus years of child support payments?

  She came across as a straight shooter. She didn’t seem the type to play games, but he had to wonder with which head he’d formed that opinion.

  Of course, the question of whether she “did white guys” had yet to be answered. He hadn’t been able to hear if Vivian had gotten any additional information on that query. Wondering if she had a racial preference didn’t disturb him as much. This second hurdle, if it existed, didn’t seem insurmountable. He wouldn’t mind being Ms. Morgan’s first. She certainly hadn’t responded to his kiss as if she’d been concerned about anything other than the feel of his tongue inside her mouth.

  A wicked smile on his lips, he leaned forward and started his car. The dashboard lit up and displayed that over twenty minutes had passed since they’d said goodbye and, of course, Jordis hadn’t called. He wondered which would explode first, their battle of wills or the sexual time bomb they’d ignited with that kiss in the elevator. Whatever happened between them, he doubted either one of them would be able to “just forget” what had transpired tonight.

  Now, he had to figure out what to do about it.

  Chapter 6

  Jordis pushed into her Northland loft apartment and tossed her keys onto the entry table. Her heart pounded in her chest. Without turning on the lights, she let her tote slide to the floor and pressed her forehead against the closed door.

  What had she done?

  She’d let Michael Remington kiss her. Worse, she’d kissed him back.

  It was that damn cologne he wore. The scent had taunted her from the moment he’d approached her three days ago and had continued to draw her under his spell with their every encounter. For days, she’d been fighting an attraction she didn’t want to feel. After tonight, the situation had escalated to a whole new level.

  Never in her life had she lost herself like that with a first kiss—except once. Spartacus. And tonight it had happened again. When Michael backed her against the elevator wall and pressed his lips to hers, she’d known. The kiss had been sweet and seductive, not overwhelming and passionate, but she’d known.

  Michael Remington smelled like New Year’s Eve.

  His scent reminded her of the midnight kiss she’d shared with a stranger under the stars. The familiar scent had wrapped around her and kissing Michael had felt almost predestined. When his lips had touched hers, the same vortex of attraction and passion and overwhelming lust she’d experienced on that dimly lit balcony had coursed through every cell in her body.

  She’d felt almost as if she were reliving that night. In fact, she’d momentarily become disoriented. When she’d grabbed Michael’s pants to steady herself, she’d thought she heard him whisper “Juliet” right before the elevator dinged.

  She was losing her mind. No way, he’d called her Juliet. Had he?

  What were the chances of that? What were the odds Michael Remington, of all the men in the greater Kansas City area, would turn out to be her gladiator? A million to one? Two million to one?

  Her mind had to be playing tricks on her. Her gladiator had that long, sexy hair that gave him a bad-boy, devil-may-care vibe. Everything about Michael Remington, from his short-cropped hair to his expensive tailored suits, shouted proper, straight-laced, and . . . lawyerly.

  Surely, she could blame her behavior tonight and her temporary mental deficiency on the olfactory déjà vu effect. One minute, she’d been reminding herself of all the reasons she shouldn’t be attracted to Mr. Remington. The next minute, she’d been wondering what he looked like without any clothes.

  She sucked in a breath. The visual that came with the thought was almost too naughty for words.

  No. She rapped her forehead against the door thrice. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it
.

  She’d only recently escaped the viper pit of law firm scandal. She couldn’t handle scandalous hookups part two. Yet, ever since Michael Remington had walked into the conference room on Monday, an inappropriate curiosity had haunted her.

  Was he dating anyone outside the office? Rumor had it he didn’t do serious, but did he have a current go-to girl?

  The last question in particular had warned her she was headed into dangerous territory where Mr. Remington was concerned. She’d weathered the personal aspersions cast her way at her prior firm when she’d been accused of fraternizing with a senior partner in exchange for special treatment. How ironic would it be for her to walk into the same scenario at RHM?

  Actually, it wouldn’t be ironic. It would be mega stupid. She’d already experienced several setbacks in her career. RHM was her last stop on the law firm partnership track. She needed to make partner here or rethink her career path. She’d previously considered the logistics of starting her own practice. She had the drive, the people skills, and the knowledge to make it work. But, starting a business from scratch when she had a perfectly good set up at a great firm with a built-in support network didn’t sound appealing.

  With that in mind, it would be the worst form of self-sabotage if she walked consciously into the fire this time by actually sleeping with her boss. But how on earth was she supposed to resist this attraction to him if every time she was near him, his cologne made her think of her encounter with Spartacus? It was the sexiest night she’d ever spent with a man, and they hadn’t even taken off any clothes.

  Shaking her head, she walked to the open vertical blinds covering the floor-to-ceiling sliding glass door that led to her deck at the back of the building. She had a great view overlooking a large swimming pool and a meandering walking trail. Floodlights usually lit the pool area, throwing brightness into the apartment. Tonight, only the dim glow of security lamps poured in because the pool was closed for the winter.

  She stared into the night, the elevator kiss still foremost in her mind. Having made the connection between Michael’s cologne and Spartacus, she understood, in part, this odd pull she felt towards her boss. But was it just his cologne?