by Lisa Rayne
Her smile turned as liquid as her limbs. When he looked at the condom packet and frowned, she asked, “Something wrong?”
“I should have taken you to my place.”
“Why?”
“This is my last condom. I only had four in my wallet.”
She wanted to laugh at his childish pout. Her heart fluttered. The image of what his son would look like when he didn’t get his way flashed through her mind. She went sentimentally soft, and in that moment, she knew. What she’d been fighting these last few days—maybe these last few weeks—had been about something a lot deeper than lust. Emotion overwhelming her, she felt a rising need to have him inside her again.
“Don’t worry about it.” She stretched for the drawer handle of the bedside table, but her arms couldn’t quite reach.
He leaned slightly and slid it open for her. A box of condoms peeked up at him. He quickly looked back at her. His expression went from surprised to relieved to perplexed in a matter of seconds.
Remembering his comment about being jealous and possessive for the first time in his life, Jordis explained. “It’s a new box.” He stared at her quietly. “And the first I’ve needed since I gave Keith back his ring.”
That made him smile. “I love a woman smart enough to be prepared.”
He rolled on his last condom. Jordis pulled a small white remote from under her pillow, clicked a button, and sighed as he slid into her to the sound of John Legend crooning Tonight (Best You Ever Had). She set the song to loop repeatedly. She lost track of how many times it played as he made slow, passionate love to her. When they finally exhausted themselves, she set the music to time itself off, and they fell asleep still linked intimately, their arms and legs tangled together.
Chapter 16
Snow fell all through the night. Jordis rolled over when she felt Michael rise from the bed at dawn. He strolled from the room naked with the same confident swagger he possessed when fully clothed. When he returned with his cell phone, she listened while he activated the firm’s inclement weather notice, shutting the office for the day.
They lounged around her apartment all morning, alternating between eating, watching movies, and making love. They spent a lot of time talking in front of her blazing fireplace. In the afternoon, Michael made a store run to get sparkling wine, strawberries, S’more fixings and ingredients for a fabulous pasta dish he made her for dinner. For the first time in a long time, neither of them thought about the office or work for a full day.
After they’d stuffed themselves and worn themselves out making love in a long hot shower, they laid in front of the fire again. Michael lounged shirtless and sockless in baggy sweatpants he had stashed in the gym bag he kept in the trunk of his car. Jordis lay in a gold negligee.
Michael fingered her damp ponytail, which had sprouted frizzy waves. “Do you ever wear your hair natural like this?”
She gave him a languid smile, still feeling the effects of his lovemaking. “Sometimes. Of course, sometimes it happens whether I want it to or not. It automatically frizzes up when it’s humid or I get it wet. If I don’t tame it with moisturizer or a flat iron, I end up with a frizzy bush.”
“Hmm.”
Jordis watched a contemplative look flicker across his face before he refocused on her. She remembered her hair had been wavy on New Year’s Eve. Although she’d been wearing a wig, it had slipped during their encounter. Some of her hair had fallen out. Had he been observant enough to notice?
He’d questioned her off and on about that night earlier, but she’d deflected his comments. She’d hedged and diverted her gaze when she did so, not able to look him in the eyes as she prevaricated. He eventually let it go, but now he seemed back to putting two and two together.
It crossed her mind she should go ahead and admit the truth, but she hesitated. After his comment the other day about her never having told him no, she wondered if the added knowledge of her loose behavior on New Year’s Eve would make him doubt her story about her prior senior partner. He’d told her he believed her, but part of her still expected him to reveal he had his doubts.
She ran her hand lightly against his chest. She’d originally thought it bare, but in the firelight, she saw the dusting of fine straight hairs. Their brown color so closely matched his skin tone that they were almost invisible. “I owe you an apology.”
“Oh, yeah? For what?”
“You were right. I let what happened to me in LA affect my interpretation of why you appointed me to the Metra Pharmaceuticals case. You didn’t deserve that.”
His expression turned guarded. “It’s okay. I understand.”
She considered the wary expression on his face and wondered what was on his mind. She became uncomfortable. She must be right about his doubts. He just didn’t want to say anything. She couldn’t live with that. She needed him to speak his mind. “What are you thinking?”
“Nothing.”
She pushed herself up on his chest. “Michael, you’re thinking so loud, I can practically hear the words formulating in your head.”
His hands tightened against her back and he stared at her. His brow creased. “I’m just wondering why you accepted a payout instead of suing for harassment.”
She stiffened. “How did you know about the payout?”
He didn’t answer.
“Law firms don’t put that kind of information in attorney personnel files, too litigation adverse. The partners at my prior firm, particularly, were afraid I’d sue them if they disseminated any information that might prevent me from getting another job. So, you had to have gone the extra mile to uncover my settlement agreement.” She struggled against him. “Did you find out before or after I told you what happened?”
He swallowed. “Before.”
She tried to jerk away from him. “You knew this whole time?”
“No.” He held her tight, refusing to let her up.
“When did you find out?”
“Two days ago.”
“Two days ago!” Frustrated with her inability to break his grasp, she growled, “Let go of me!” He released her, and she rolled away from him, propping herself against the couch. “How did you find out?”
He pushed out a deep sigh and sat up. “I had someone ask a few questions.”
“You mean you had me investigated.” An angry glare accompanied the clipped words.
He nodded.
“If you didn’t trust me, then what has this all been about?” She moved to get up, but he grabbed her wrist.
“Jordis, I do trust you.” She gave him a doubtful look. His voice quavered when he repeated himself. “I do trust you. And that’s not an easy thing for me. Don’t walk away.”
Something in his voice made her pause. She struggled with indecision, but ultimately settled back into a sitting position. “If you wanted to know about me, why didn’t you just ask?”
“I’d been trying to get through to you for over a week, but you kept blowing me off.” He reached up to touch her cheek.
She jerked her face away.
He dropped his hand, propping his wrist on a raised knee. He placed his other hand on the floor behind his hip. “Don’t be mad. I thought if I could understand what happened in your past, it might give me a clue as to how to resolve the distance between us.”
“Why didn’t you say anything when you first found out?”
“I intended to. I sort of got distracted.”
“Distracted?”
He gave her a look that made her all tingly inside. It frustrated her. She was angry with him. It wasn’t fair he could do that to her with just a look.
“Do you have any idea how much watching you play ball turns me on?”
Her mouth dropped open, and she blinked a few times. “I—” She didn’t know what to say to that. Then, an imaginary light bulb flickered on above her head. “That’s why you came looking for me in the gym the other day.”
He nodded. “I know I should have said something then, but I’d been
desperate to get through to you. So, once you actually started talking to me, I was afraid you’d shut down if you knew I’d checked up on you.”
She shook her head. His name slipped from her lips in an exasperated whisper. After a minute, a slow grin eased onto her face. “Desperate, huh?”
He frowned. “You don’t have to look so happy about it, but yes.” He shifted closer to her. “When I found you shooting hoops in the gym, all I could think about was how much I wanted—needed—to kiss you again. If you’d’ve shut down on me, I’d have never gotten the chance.”
“You should have just asked me.” She crossed her arms tight against her chest, her defensive posture at odds with her amusement over his desperation.
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”
He must have sensed the conflict in her because he watched her intently, but didn’t move closer.
She watched him back, struggling with whether to take his apology at face value. Eventually, her arms dropped and her shoulders relaxed. “Okay. I’ll accept your apology.” She angled her body towards him. “But I need to understand something. What did you mean trusting women is not easy for you?” She propped her left arm on the couch and tucked her feet beneath her.
He blew out a slow, shallow breath. “It’s a long story.”
She glanced towards the darkened windows. “Last I checked, it was still snowing. You going somewhere?”
* * *
“I . . .” Michael tilted his head. A little slow on the uptake, it took him a moment to process she wasn’t kicking him out. “No.”
He adjusted to a more comfortable position, but didn’t say anything else. He’d never explained himself to a woman before. That required a degree of trust and caring he’d not yet experienced. It also required revealing how much of an idiot he’d been on several occasions. Admitting to this woman he’d been played a few times held absolutely no appeal. Exposing the cynicism he carried around as a result felt even more uncomfortable.
She sat patiently, watching him with a look that said I’m waiting. After dodging a bullet for his investigation faux pas, he didn’t think blowing off her question would be a wise move. As uncomfortable as he felt, he needed to be open with her. She’d told him about the baggage from her past that made their attraction to each other even more problematic for her than the ethical conflict they still needed to resolve. What were a few ex-girlfriend dramas compared to a sex scandal and fear of career suicide?
He ran a hand down his face. “When I was a junior in high school, I started working at the firm doing various jobs—mail room, file clerk, you name it. My father cautioned me to be careful about whom I got involved with. He warned me that I would get a lot of attention, but not all of it would be genuine attraction to me. As the son of a named partner, I was a good catch and catching me any way they could would be the main goal of some women.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Is that so?”
He chuckled at the sarcasm in her voice. “I was tall for my age and very athletic. Female attention always came easy to me. In fact, he’d given me a similar speech before I started high school. This was simply a reminder the situation hadn’t changed although the women might be a little more persistent and a lot more sophisticated than the girls at school.”
Her eyes roamed over his body. “Yeah, I could see that. I never understood what a grown woman would want with a teenager, but in your case, I could see a woman with those proclivities being tempted.”
“I took his advice to heart during my early years. I was extremely careful with whom I spent time and even more careful no surprises resulted from how I spent that time. If you know what I mean.”
She nodded. “Surprises that took appropriately nine months to materialize?”
“Exactly.” He looked up at her. “Unfortunately, when I turned nineteen, I slipped up. It was the summer after my freshman year of college. I was cocky and used to attention from older women.” He shrugged nonchalantly. “Big man on campus and all with my basketball scholarship. Upperclass women propositioned me all the time. So I wasn’t surprised or wary when a young associate at my dad’s firm took an interest in me . . . Monica.”
“How old was she?”
“Twenty-five. We had a summer fling. I was careful, except for one time. We’d been together all night. The next morning, we got hot and heavy before I realized I was out of condoms. I started to slow it down, but she pressed to continue, assuring me she was on the pill. Even as I allowed myself to be persuaded, part of me knew I was probably making a mistake.”
He could tell she knew what was coming before he said it.
“Sure enough, right before I headed back to school, Monica told me she was pregnant. Her plan was for us to rush off and get married before we told anyone the news.”
She slid her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “You didn’t? Did you?”
“No.” He sat up. “I was scared and embarrassed, but I went to my father and admitted I’d screwed up.” His eyes lost focus for a minute, and he slid fingers through his hair. “My parents were old-fashioned. I had visions of being married and struggling to keep my basketball scholarship while I worked to support a wife and kid. I realize that sounds shallow, but remember I was only nineteen.”
She dropped her chin to her knees. “What happened?”
“Lucky for me, my parents were smart enough not to rush into anything. They stood by me and approached the situation with calm.” He winched. “Well, that is after my father gave me an upbraiding I’ve never forgotten. They absolutely expected me to take care of the child if the baby were mine, but they insisted I go back to school and keep in touch with the girl. My father made it clear he would cover her expenses, and once the baby was born, we’d do a paternity test simply as a means to make sure my legal rights to the child were protected since he or she would be born out of wedlock.”
“So they didn’t insist you marry the girl.”
“No. That surprised me. I found out later they’d suspected the girl was lying. Turns out they were right. A few months after I returned to school, she unexpectedly had a miscarriage. At least, that’s what she told us. We later found out from another associate at the firm, who’d roomed with her for a while, she’d let it slip that she’d never been pregnant. Had I married her, she would have waited until a few months after the ceremony for the miscarriage to occur.”
Her expression remained neutral.
When she didn’t say anything, he continued. “The experience taught me that my father wasn’t being paranoid or simply dramatic about taking care with my sexual activity. I learned my lesson about protection at all times, no excuses.”
“Thus your concern last night about your last condom.”
“Yeah.” His head bobbed as he spoke. “I wish I could say Monica was the last time I had a run in with a woman at the firm, but she wasn’t.”
Her head popped up.
He chuckled. “Wait. Wait.” His hands flipped up. “Don’t judge. Under no circumstance did I ever date another woman at my father’s firm during my college years. But my second year as an associate, I dated another lawyer in my class for a few months. After I broke it off with her, she went to my father and accused me of pressuring her into a sexual relationship.”
“Geesh.”
He leaned back, straightening his legs and crossing them at the ankles. “It gets worse. A few years ago, I got engaged to a junior partner in the Business and Finance division. I’d learned my lesson about dating associates, but I allowed myself to be lured into a relationship with another partner. I figured since she’d already made partner, she’d have no ulterior motives. I was wrong.” He went into detail about the exploits of his ex and her attempted paternity con with the help of a man she was dating on the side.
“No wonder you now avoid office romances like the plague.”
He said nothing for a while. “Not all office romances.” He moved to sit next to her, placing his arm along the couch behind her. “A
t least, not anymore.” He held her gaze, shifted in and waited.
She hesitated—a nanosecond—before she leaned in and met him half way. Releasing her knees, her hands found his chest, and she balanced against him.
They kissed slowly, finding truce within the unhurried press of lips and tongue.
When they parted, he leaned his forehead against hers. “I know you’re nothing like those other women. Old habits die hard. I wanted to know something, and my natural instincts took over. I found a way to get the information myself.” He lifted his head. “It won’t happen again.”
“It better not.”
He flinched at her harsh tone then relaxed when he saw the softness in her eyes. He nodded. “Enough talking.” He grabbed her around the waist without warning and pulled her down.
Jordis shrieked then started laughing.
He adjusted her against his chest. “How about we get back to where we were?”
Trying to get her laughter under control, Jordis stretched out on top of him. Once comfortable, she turned the conversation back to his initial question. “Why do you think I accepted the payout?”
He shrugged.
“Me against a senior partner at one of the largest firms in LA. Talk about an uphill battle, even without his partner backing him up. I was reassigned to a case of equal prominence and promised I would never have to work directly with Lowell again. I’d only recently switched firms. I had no desire to have to start over again.”
He rubbed her back. “A man who was bold enough to set that kind of trap at the office has probably pulled that ambush before.”
“I agree, but proving that in a court of law could have taken years. You know how the legal community is. No one would have had the guts to hire me while the case was pending. Too much potential backlash from a firm with the clout and connections of my prior employer.
“I thought the incident would blow over. Unfortunately, I didn’t get that lucky. I was branded as calculatingly promiscuous and the environment got pretty oppressive in short order. After I complained to the firm ombudsman about the hostile work environment, the firm came up with a quick settlement offer disguised as severance pay. I squeezed them for every dime I could and walked away without a second thought.”