“I need to be inside you,” he growls near my ear.
“Yes,” I say, “please.”
He pulls back, and when he looks at me, I expect victory in his stare, but that’s not what I find. His expression is unreadable, those gorgeous blue eyes probing mine, searching for some unnamed something. Suddenly, the fingers of one of his hands curl around my neck and he pulls my mouth near his. I think he will speak. I can almost taste his words on my lips and I want to know them, to understand them the way he was just trying to understand me. But he never speaks them. He kisses me, and I kiss him.
He reaches into his pocket and produces a condom, and for just a moment I consider tossing it away. I’m on the pill, and the delay that a condom gives is already too long, giving me time to feel how out there on a ledge I am with this man, how into this man I am. But he’s unzipping his pants, and being the logical, smart person I am, I also remind myself that condoms protect us from many things. Clinical isn’t emotional.
I reach for his pants, but it’s like this man senses and shuts down the roadblock my mind throws between us, because he doesn’t put the condom on. He scoops me up into his arms and starts walking. In those moments, naked and cradled in his arms, I am again aware of how affected I am by this man, how vulnerable that makes me. He cuts between the couches to an oversize plush gray cloth chair and ottoman. It’s large enough that he goes down on it with me, behind me, my body curled in front of his.
He shifts behind me, and I can I hear the tearing of foil, that condom now in place, his pants disappearing. Once he’s naked, his cock thick between my legs, and his big, wonderful body curved around mine, that condom doesn’t feel so clinical. I don’t feel it at all. I feel his hand on my breast, his erection up and down in the wet heat of my aching sex. It’s torture. I need everything I don’t have right now.
“Reese—”
He thrusts into me, hard and deep, burying himself to the hilt and moaning with the impact. I moan with him and gasp when he shifts my hips, finding a deeper spot. There is no time to revel in the fullness of him inside me, the completeness my body needs. He thrusts again, and the movement radiates through me. I grab his hand where it holds my breast. I arch into him, against him, pressing toward the next pump of his hard body inside mine.
In a remote part of my mind, I think of the absence of his mouth. I want to kiss him. I want him to want to kiss me. I know the irony of this. I want barriers. I don’t want to be vulnerable, but I want his mouth. I want all I can get of this man right now, and that is when he does that thing he does again, where he reads my mind. He pulls out of me and turns me around, his leg between mine, his hand under my hair around my neck. His mouth is a breath from mine as he presses back inside me. His cock thrusts inside me at the same moment his tongue strokes my tongue.
With him touching me, kissing me, pressing inside me, the bloom of orgasm is swift. I want to hide from it. I want to stay here, in the middle of bliss. I want to die here, a happy woman, but he is pumping into me, hands on my body, driving me wild, and I am weak. I stiffen, frozen in the moment before I shatter, my body clenching the hard length of him and shooting darts of pure, white-hot bliss to every nerve ending I own.
A guttural sound escapes his lips, and he buries himself deep and hard inside me, shuddering his own release. I want to move, to push against him, to be a part of his pleasure as he was, and is, mine, but I am paralyzed in the aftermath of back-to-back orgasms.
For a few moments, the world fades and we are lost in a bubble that consumes only us, where no one else can intrude, and where nothing but satisfaction exists. When we finally return to the present, it’s not a bad place to be. He’s still inside me, his forehead pressed to mine, his breathing mingling with mine. He reaches up and gently drags his knuckles over my cheek. “Am I still a stranger, Cat?”
“You’re still an asshole,” I murmur.
He smiles.
“Of course I am. But am I still a stranger?”
I don’t answer. It’s feels like a trick, or a door that wants to be opened, one that I shouldn’t open, only I really want to kick it down. He tangles fingers in my hair and gently tugs until my gaze meets his. “Am I still a stranger, Cat?”
“Fucking me changes nothing. You’re still a stranger.”
“And if I want to change that?”
Another trick question. Another door I want to kick open, but I’m not a sadist. I don’t like pleasure that becomes pain. But when I open my mouth to tell him no, I can’t get myself to say it.
I’m saved from defining Reese as a stranger or otherwise when my cellphone rings and jolts me back to reality. “My agent. I was supposed to call her about that meeting with Dan. I’m sure he’s already called the publisher.” I try to roll away, but Reese doesn’t allow me such an easy escape.
He releases my hair but catches my leg. “You can call her back in sixty seconds. To be clear, we’re not done. We’ve barely gotten started.” He rolls off the chair.
I will my racing heart to calm and do the same, oh so aware of just how naked I am right now, and how my dress is a very long walk away. Actually, I really don’t know how far. I have no clue where it landed, but it’s nowhere I easily spy. My phone starts ringing again, which is a clear sign someone, most likely my agent, really needs to reach me. Reese hands me my purse and I grab it, also oh so aware of how naked he is. “Thank you,” I murmur, accepting my purse and retrieving my phone from inside.
“My agent,” I confirm, as Reese scoops up his pants and delivers me a view of his bare ass, so delicious that it could feed fifty nations.
“Hey, Liz,” I say into the phone as he covers the view with his pants, and I answer my call.
“Dan called the publisher and said you were a bitch.”
I scowl. “Did Dan actually say that I was a bitch, or did you add your normal colorful wording in the replay?”
“I’m quoting Dan, according to your editor.”
“He’s such a gentleman,” I snap sarcastically as Reese grabs a blanket from the couch and settles the soft gray material around my shoulders. I glance up at him, but he’s walking away, all loose-legged male swagger that was just pressed next to me in all the right ways.
“No comment?” Liz asks.
“I think he said it all for both of us, don’t you? It’s done.”
“What happened?” Liz presses. “I need details.”
“We can’t work together and I’m going to make this easy on all involved. I’m out. I’m not writing a book about this trial.”
“What? Are you insane? This is a six figure deal. In New York City, you don’t walk away from that.”
“This has never been about money to me,” I say as Reese reappears, a black T-shirt stretching over that incredible chest of his, another draped over his shoulder, and that loose-legged swagger of his is rather addictive to watch.
“No, but,” Liz says, snapping my attention back to the call, and sparing me the embarrassment of staring at Reese, as she adds, “smart people with money keep their money by never walking away from large sums of money. Especially when that money is a gateway to much more money.”
“You’re not getting it,” I say. “This is wrong for me,” and it’s then that Reese joins me, and I silently add: Just like the man now sitting on the coffee table in front of me, staring at me, only feels pretty right every time I’m with him.
“We need to meet. Where are you? I’ll come to you.”
“Now isn’t a good time,” I say, and sit up straighter. “I have to write my column.”
“Tomorrow, then. We’ll have lunch.”
I firm my voice and attitude, which is the only way to win Liz over. “I’m not changing my mind, therefore, I’ll call you Monday.”
“They’ll drop you if you shut this down,” Liz says of my publisher.
“I don’t like being bullied,” I say, my voice going from firm to angry. “And if you support me, then don’t participate in bullying me. I’ll cal
l you Monday.” I hang up without looking at Reese, who is part of why I feel cornered right now, professionally and personally. “I have to write my column.” I start to get up, but I’m not holding the stupid blanket, and it slides away, straight to the ground.
I grab for it and drop my phone. I’m exposed and truly so very naked in every way with this man, but rather than looking me over, Reese produces that extra shirt he’d been holding. “I brought it for you,” he offers, his eyes meeting mine in one pulsing moment that steals my voice.
I nod my appreciation, but when I would take the shirt from him, he’s already pulling it over my head. It drops around my body and I slip my arms inside the oversized sleeves, which aren’t oversized for him at all, I’m sure. “Thank you,” I manage now, and dare to meet his stare, and that pulse is back, this charge between us that I’ve never experienced with any other man. I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I’m so affected by him, I don’t know if I’m coming or going.
I’m falling for this man. I’m going to get hurt. “I need to go,” I say, but when I would move, his hands catch my legs, under his shirt, scorching me with the touch.
“Don’t go,” he says.
“I have to work.”
“You can work here. I have to work, too. We’ll order in dinner. Cat.” He softens his voice. “I want you to stay.”
He says these words as if they are a confession, but a confession of what? Needing me? Wanting me? He’s already said those things. I search his face, looking for an answer, when I don’t even know the real question, and for the first time since we met, I see the shadows in the depths of his stare: the hints of damage, maybe even pain, that he’s hinted at but I’ve dismissed. I don’t dismiss them now. I wonder if I’ve missed them or if he’s chosen to show them to me now. My chest tightens with this possibility, with the idea that he might be willingly exposing a piece of himself to me, no longer allowing me to call him a stranger. Yes. I believe he is, and this matters to me. I am naked with this man in ways I did not intend to be, but I’m still sitting here, wanting more of him.
“Stay,” he repeats. “I want you to stay, Cat.”
“Yes,” I whisper and I could leave it right there, but for reasons I don’t understand, it doesn’t feel like enough. “I want to stay.”
His eyes warm with my response and there is a shift between us in that moment. I feel him becoming more to me than I planned, and maybe I am to him as well. I can’t be sure. I don’t know. All I know is that my guard is too easily falling, and every warning I’d issued in my mind about “men like Reese” feels as wrong as tonight, and this man feels right.
He reaches up and brushes hair behind my ear. “God, you’re beautiful, Cat,” he murmurs, a raspy, tormented quality to his voice that says more than the compliment.
I am shaken by the spontaneity and emotion in his words and the rush of emotion I feel in response. I reach forward and curl my fingers at his jaw. “Everyone starts as a stranger,” I say, and this time I don’t go on, I don’t tell him how easy it is to be naked and still alone. I don’t tell him how easy it is for lies to read like truth.
He cups my hand and leads it to his lips, where he kisses it. “And everyone who matters once did not.” His lips curve, the mood shifting between us once again, lightening with the mischief that is suddenly in his eyes. “Will you tell me your secrets, Cat? Pepperoni or no pepperoni?”
I laugh. “Most definitely pepperoni,” I say, not sure any man has taken me on a whirlwind of emotions like this one. “What about you?”
“Double pepperoni,” he says quite seriously, before kissing my hand and setting it on my leg. “There’s a place on the corner that can have it here in thirty minutes.”
“I’m in love with the idea of pizza,” I say, “but I hate I’ll have to work while we eat.” I grab my phone and look at the time. “Yikes. I can’t believe I’ve left myself two hours to make press deadline. I’m not used to a Friday deadline. This is a special edition for the trial this week.”
“Because of the trial and my failure to nail a dismissal,” he murmurs under his breath before adding, “I need to work, too. Do you want to order now or wait until you’re about thirty minutes from finishing up?”
“Do you mind waiting?”
“Not at all. Better yet, the restaurant downstairs makes a killer sandwich tray I order on later nights. Why don’t I order that? It has, like, six different options. Then there is no pressure as to when to order or eat.”
“Even better,” I say. “I like that idea.”
“Do you want something to drink? Wine or—”
“No alcohol, please,” I say. “Just water if you have it. I don’t want to get sleepy.”
“I most definitely don’t want you to get sleepy. I’ll order a pot of coffee.”
I laugh at his extreme swing. “That actually sounds good.”
He tugs his phone from his pocket and punches a button, and quickly orders. “Done,” he says setting his phone on the coffee table. “Do you want to work here or do you need a desk?”
“Where are you working?”
“Right by your side, sweetheart.”
I’m surprised by how much I like this answer. Maybe more than I should. But “more than I should” could be my theme song with Reese. “Do you need a desk?”
“I’m going to catch up on e-mail, so I’m fine here.”
“I’m eying a spot on the floor in front of the coffee table.”
“I’ll grab my MacBook and join you.” I think he will get up, but he’s suddenly leaning in and cupping my face, his breath a warm tickle on my lips. “Just so we’re clear, Cat. I don’t invite women to my house. You wouldn’t be here if I planned to stay a stranger.”
“And if I say you have no choice?”
“Then I’ll kiss you a little deeper and fuck you a little harder, until you want to know me the way I’ve decided I want to know you. And that’s just for starters.”
He stands up and walks away, leaving my mind reeling with the most important question of this moment: How much deeper and harder?
I don’t invite women to my house.
When I’d said those words to Cat, I’d meant them, and yet here Cat is, sitting on my floor in front of my couch, in my house. Here I am, sitting on the floor next to her after setting our food on the table in front of us, damn glad she is. Though I’m not sure she’s actually aware that I’m here anymore, considering I stood up, walked to the door to grab our food, and rejoined her, and she hasn’t looked up from the screen of her MacBook. Her focus and intensity over her work, paired with her educated and thoughtful written words, tell me what I already know without the research I could do: She was a killer attorney, just as she’s a phenomenal writer. The truth is that, despite my momentary frustration during our coffee shop encounter, Cat had me at “hello,” or perhaps “asshole.”
I smile and turn back to my computer, remembering the way she’d tugged on my sleeve at the coffee shop and then scowled at me: beautiful and fierce. My obsession for this woman had started then, when my only obsession has ever been my work. I answer a few e-mails and absently reach for one of the homemade potato chips that had been delivered right along with the sandwiches. Apparently, Cat has the same idea at the same moment, and our hands collide. Cat laughs this feminine, sweet laugh and gives me a sweet, green-eyed stare, both of which are as good as foreplay. I’m there. I’m hard. I want to fuck her all over again. “Oops,” she says. “You first.”
“Ladies first,” I say. “Manners are important, after all.” I smile and add, “Especially the word please.”
Her cheeks flush a pretty pink, but she still answers without missing a beat. “Please is very important.”
I give her a wink and we both return our attention to our computers. I answer a few more messages and we both munch on sandwiches and chips as we work. An hour later, Cat sighs and says, “Done.” She glances over at me. “Can I help with trial research? I’m good at it. I still do it for
my work now.”
“Right now,” I say, shutting my MacBook, “I’m done.” I face her, my elbow on the table. “I’ve just been answering emails that are mostly a gaggle of press requests.”
“I’m not one of them,” she says, facing me as well. “You know that, right? I don’t chase a scoop or even a story. I know I’ve said that but—”
“I know that, Cat.” I reach over and trail my fingers down her cheeks. “There is a way you can actually can help me, though.”
“Okay. Great. I want to help. How?”
“Read me your closing statement. I need some outside perspective for mine.”
“Of course. I wanted you to read it before it publishes anyway.” She moves from the floor to the couch and sets her MacBook in her lap. “Just the close, right?”
I nod and join her, claiming the cushion next to her. “Yes. Right now, I want to home in on where you landed by the end of the week, good or bad. That will tell me where the jury might have landed as well.”
“The jury should be with me on this,” she says, and shakes her hands. “Okay. I know it’s silly but I always get nervous when I read my own words and when I know it’s too late to change them. And it is. I sent this in to my editorial team last minute.”
“I get it. I get nervous during opening and closing statements, especially in these televised trials.”
“But not in the middle of the trial?”
“Once I clear the opening statement, I’m in a comfort zone right up until closing.”
“Your opening was brilliant, by the way.”
“As much as I appreciate that, we both know the only thing that matters is the outcome. And nothing you do in a trial is brilliant enough unless you get the outcome you want.” I tap her MacBook. “I want to hear your closing.”
“Right. Okay.” She starts to read:
This trial has highlighted the tragic end to a woman and child. What it has not highlighted is evidence. Not once have I been given a reason to give my own personal verdict of “guilty.” And yes, I know it’s easy to hate a man who is good looking, rich, and seems to have it all, which sums up the defendant. That is what the prosecution seems to be counting on. That you will hate him for having it all. But I certainly hope the jurors remember that among the many reasons America is the greatest country on the earth is our court system. We are innocent until proven guilty, and we can’t take that for granted. That is not how the system works around the world. And we must all think that if somehow, some way, you or your loved one was charged with a crime, would you want yourself, or them, to be convicted based on the court of public opinion? If there is no evidence, the jury must acquit. Don’t be appalled and horrified when they do what is right. Be appalled and horrified that we wasted time and money, and that the killer, whoever it might be, is still free to live and enjoy life. There is one woman and unborn child that cannot say the same. Too often prosecutors lack the courage to wait for the evidence they need to convict a suspect, and rush to charge too soon. When they do, they fail us all. Until then, —Cat.
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