by Lisa Childs
Then she took another step back and turned away from him toward the control panel. He held his breath, waiting for her touch a button and get the elevator moving again.
But if she were going to do that, wouldn’t she first put her bra back on and her sweater? Instead of reaching for her discarded clothes, though, she pushed down her jeans and revealed a tiny bow on a G-string at the top of her perfect ass.
Ronan fisted his hands at his sides so he wouldn’t reach for her. Just because she’d undressed didn’t mean she intended to have sex with him. Maybe she only intended to torture him. Maybe—like turning those documents over to the bar—it was her way of getting revenge on him.
Seeing her like this—so bare and beautiful—and not being able to have her, might be worse than losing his law license...
* * *
What the hell was she doing? Muriel asked herself the question again, but like before, she couldn’t come up with an answer. Sure, she knew what she’d thought she was doing: carrying out the plan she’d concocted to bring Ronan Hall to his knees and get him to tell her the truth.
But nobody brought men like Ronan Hall to their knees. Not women. Not men...
They were too tough. Too powerful.
In their lives and most especially in the bedroom. She’d heard all the stories about him—not just how ruthless he was in court but how ruthless he was in relationships. She’d worked with some of his ex-girlfriends. He was always the one who’d ended things and always too soon for the women concerned.
No matter how ruthless he’d been, the women had wanted more. Some had even admitted begging.
So Muriel was the one who needed to worry about being brought to her knees. Again.
He’d already done it once—in the courtroom. Now she had to worry about him doing it here. Because when he touched her...
When he kissed her...
He made her want him more than she’d ever wanted anyone before. Just like all those other women had told her.
He wasn’t kissing or touching her now. She could put her clothes back on and restart the elevator. But when she bent over to pull up her jeans, a strange noise filled the car.
It was raw and guttural, a groan full of pain, as if the man who’d uttered it was being tortured. Ronan was the only other one inside the elevator, so she turned toward him.
He was on his knees now. But even on his knees, his head was above her waist. He was so damn tall and broad.
And so damn sexy.
His breath was hot as it whistled between his clenched teeth and brushed across her abdomen. Her stomach muscles tightened as tension wound inside her, streaking from her nipples down to her core.
“You’re perfect,” he murmured as his lips brushed across her skin.
She could have snorted and reminded him that that was not what he’d claimed in court. Then she had been anything and everything but perfect.
But she couldn’t say anything. She couldn’t even move. She was frozen as she waited for him to touch her again.
His lips skimmed softly across her stomach to her hip, then lower over the lace of her panties. And through the thin lace, she could feel his hot breath move over her mound. He touched her with his hands, too. They moved to her ass, cupping it in his palms. And somehow his fingers must have tugged so gently at the bow that she hadn’t felt it release. But her panties fell.
And nothing separated his mouth from the essence of her. He flicked his tongue back and forth across her clit as he lifted her, moving her legs over his shoulders. Then he feasted on her—sucking on her before sliding his tongue inside her.
And Muriel melted, heat and pleasure flooding her. He lapped at her—licking and sucking and driving her out of her mind. She whimpered, moaned and arched back. Without the wall of the elevator behind her, she might have fallen. The wood was cold and hard against her back. But she didn’t care.
She had the heat and strength of Ronan. She clutched at his head as he continued to move his mouth over her. His tongue flicked and teased. And he raised one of his hands to her breast, sliding his palm over it and the taut nipple.
She cried out as she came, the orgasm shuddering through her with such intensity that tears burned her eyes. And she understood why women begged him for more.
Despite that release, she wanted more.
He hadn’t pulled back. He continued to lap at her as if he couldn’t get enough of the taste of her orgasm. But that wasn’t what she wanted now.
She wanted him. She wanted to feel him inside her.
She slid her legs off his shoulders and tried to stand. But her body was too limp from pleasure, her muscles too loose. And her legs folded until she was on her knees in front of him. She’d already opened his shirt, so she pushed that and his suitcoat from his shoulders. Then she reached for his belt.
But he caught her hand.
And she wondered now if he was going to stop her. She froze as she remembered all the times that had happened in her marriage. She wasn’t the sex addict that her ex and those witnesses had claimed she was. But she’d certainly needed it more than her husband had.
He’d had an excuse every time. He hadn’t felt well. Or he was tired.
But she’d always wondered if it was her fault. If she just wasn’t that desirable...
But Ronan’s dark eyes burned with desire for her. His thumb stroked over her wrist, over her leaping pulse. His voice was a rough rasp when he murmured, “If you touch me now, I’m going to come right away. And I want this to last.”
So did she.
But just his words—and that gruff, sexy way he’d uttered them—had her on the verge of coming again, especially when his gaze moved over her like a caress.
He licked his lips, which were wet with her orgasm. And he groaned. “You taste so damn sweet. I could go down on you all night.”
“We don’t have all night,” she reminded him. They only had until someone noticed the elevator wasn’t moving and got working on the problem. “We have to hurry.”
She didn’t care if he came quickly. She just needed him to come—inside her. With a condom, of course, though. She always practiced safe sex. She reached for the bag she’d dropped onto the floor. She had to have some inside.
Didn’t she?
She didn’t need it. Ronan pulled one from his wallet. Then he was standing. He unclasped his belt and unzipped his pants.
Her breath caught and held as she waited for him to push them and his silk boxers down, and when he did, she released that breath on a gasp of shock and awe. He was huge—so long and thick and throbbing...
She wanted to touch him with her hands and with her mouth. She wanted to suck on him the way he’d sucked on her. But when she reached for him, he caught his fingers in her hair.
“We don’t have time,” he reminded her. And there was regret in his voice.
He wanted her to go down on him. She could see it on his face as he stared at her kneeling in front of him. She flicked her tongue out to tease him and that same groan of torture he’d uttered before filled the elevator car.
But he stepped out of his pants. And he ripped open the packet and sheathed himself in the latex condom. He must have had them specially ordered because it covered more of him than she imagined any store-bought ones would have.
“You are so big...” she murmured breathlessly as a moment of fear flicked through her. Would he fit?
She couldn’t wait to find out. She lay down on the floor of the elevator. And as he watched, she ran her hand down her body—from her throat over her breasts, down her abdomen, to where she was already wet and throbbing. As she moved her fingers over her mound, she moaned and squirmed, so ready for him.
And that groan tore out of him again. “You’re going to make me come just looking at you,” he warned her. But then he dropped to his knees again.
Instead of moving between her legs, though, he lifted her so she straddled his thighs. Then he lifted her more, and she nearly stood so she could ease herself down onto his cock. She guided him inside her, her inner muscles rippling and grasping at him. Even as wet and ready as she was, she had to stretch and arch to accommodate his girth. She could feel his cock pulsating with the same desire that filled her.
And the tension was on his handsome face, in the beads of perspiration on his brow and the rigidness of his clenched jaw. He lowered his head and kissed her. And as his tongue slid into her mouth, he thrust deeper into her body. His hands caught her hips, and he guided her down, then up.
They moved together in a frantic rhythm as the pressure built inside...
Muriel nearly sobbed with the need for release. She was close to something she instinctively knew would be more powerful than anything she’d felt before.
With just his mouth, he’d given her an overpowering orgasm. With that cock...
That enormous, throbbing cock...
She couldn’t imagine the pleasure he could give her. Then she didn’t have to imagine, as her muscles began to clench. He reached between them and flicked his thumb over her clit—once, twice...
And she screamed as pleasure gripped her. She came and came...
And came...
Then he was coming, too, his hands gripping her hips tighter and he drove her harder against him. Then he tensed and yelled. And his body shuddered with release.
Shock gripped Muriel now. Instead of being frozen or limp, she was filled with panic. What had she just done?
That scream she’d uttered...
She’d never cried out like that before. But then, she’d never felt anything like that before.
And that scared the hell out of her. So she moved quickly. She jumped up from his lap and rushed around to grab up her clothes. Her hands trembled too much to mess with Bette’s bows now, so she just pulled on her jeans and her sweater and shoved the lingerie into her bag.
Ronan dressed, too, but not as quickly as she did. And he glanced around the elevator as he did up the buttons of his shirt. His hands were completely steady.
And she hated him for that along with all the other reasons she’d already hated him. She hated that what they’d just done seemed to have had so little effect on him. But then, he had sex all the time.
She was the one who’d been reduced to using battery-operated partners for her pleasure—because of him. So maybe it was only fitting that he’d given her such pleasure.
He owed her.
But he’d also given her panic. Someone must have heard them, was probably investigating even now. She was going to wait a moment before she restarted the elevator, though. She didn’t want someone to see them stepping off it and realize what they’d just done...
The whole damn car smelled like sex—like orgasm and perspiration.
Sweat trickled down between her breasts.
“Is there a security camera in here?” he asked. “Is that what has you so freaked?”
She gasped at the horrible thought. She was afraid they would be caught. She hadn’t considered that they might already have been caught on camera.
Why hadn’t she considered that there might be security cameras in the elevator? With her luck, there probably was, and then someone would sell the footage and her sex tape would be splashed all over the internet.
Her sex tape with Ronan Hall...
She should have been horrified. Instead, she felt a little flicker of excitement at the thought of being able to watch it herself, to see what he’d done to her. What she wanted him to do again. But if she turned to him now, he would think that everyone had been telling the truth about her—that she was a sex addict.
Her hand shaking, she slapped the button to restart the elevator. She had to find a security guard. She had to make sure that if there was a tape, she got the only copy of it.
“You can’t even look at me?” Ronan asked.
And if she didn’t know him better, she would have thought she heard hurt in his voice. But from all those weeks spent in court with him and all those interviews she’d watched that he’d given, she did know him better. She knew he didn’t care about other people’s feelings because he didn’t have any of his own. There was no way she could have hurt him.
No way that she would...unless he lost his law license because of her complaint. She felt a twinge of regret over reporting him to the bar, but then she reminded herself of all those weeks in court, of all the lies that had been told about her, of all the reporters who’d hounded her for interviews.
She shook her head. No. She couldn’t look at him now. And it should have been because she was disgusted over what she’d just done and with whom she’d done it. No, she couldn’t look at him now with as much as she wanted him again.
Still...
Those orgasms he’d given her had only made her hungry for more. Her plan had backfired. She wasn’t going to bring him to his knees, at least not in the way she wanted. But she was very afraid that he would bring her to her knees and she would stay on them, begging him for whatever pleasure he would give her. It was better that she never see Ronan again—except on video if that security tape existed.
She almost hoped that it did.
CHAPTER FIVE
TOO BAD THERE hadn’t been a security camera in the elevator. Then Ronan would have been able to watch the tape and verify that he hadn’t just dreamed what had happened that night over a week ago. He would have known for certain that he had actually had sex with Muriel Sanz, the most beautiful woman in the world.
He wasn’t being romantic or fanciful when he thought that. He was just repeating the fact that the world had already declared. She had recently been voted The Most Beautiful Woman in the World by Celebrity International, and she was on the cover of every magazine and all over the internet. He couldn’t get away from her.
And yet he hadn’t seen her in several days. Now he wasn’t sure that what had happened had actually happened. He hadn’t gotten any release from the tension that gripped his body even now.
But maybe he was tense because of this meeting his partners had called. Before anyone at the conference table spoke, he knew what it was about: him.
Tuesday was their usual day to discuss Street Legal business. This was Friday. Of course, the meeting could have been about their partner Stone Michaelsen’s upcoming murder trial. It was the highest profile case he’d had yet—representing a billionaire accused of killing his young bride. What if his case had been compromised? They suspected they had a mole in the office. Some notes from Ronan’s partner, Trevor Sinclair’s case files had been given to his opposing counsel. Trev still won the trial against the major pharmaceutical company, so it hadn’t been a big issue for him.
Not like those notes about Ronan that had been turned over to the bar association. Even though those had been forged, they could still affect him. He could lose his license or at least be sanctioned. And if that happened, it could affect the practice, as well.
He glanced around the table at his three partners. These guys were more than business associates. They were friends—longtime friends. If not for them, he wouldn’t have survived the time he’d spent on the streets as a teenage runaway. And because they were his friends, he needed to fix this so it didn’t affect them at all.
“Don’t worry,” he told them, because it was clear from their somber gazes and rigid jaws that they were worried. “I’ve got this handled.”
“You know who the mole is?” Simon asked hopefully. As the managing partner, he’d taken it upon himself to find the source of the leaked information, but he’d found love, instead.
Ronan would have preferred, and not just for selfish reasons, that Simon had found the mole. It would have been less dangerous for his friend than risking his heart.
“No.” Ronan
shook his head. “I don’t know that...” The source had to be someone in their office, someone who had access to their case files.
“We need to find out,” Trevor said. He was still pissed that his big civil trial had nearly been compromised. Then he added, “You need to find out, so you know who the hell is behind this mess with the bar association.”
Warmth flooded Ronan. Trev cared about him. They all did. And he, despite his reputation for caring about nothing but winning, cared about them.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“I’m the one who was supposed to find the mole,” Simon said.
“And it’s not like Muriel Sanz’s claims are true,” Stone added with unwavering support. “There’s no way you would ever suborn perjury.”
He was glad that they knew that, that they believed in him. If only Muriel could do the same...
She had to know the truth, or she wouldn’t have had to forge the documents. And despite her claims to the contrary, she must have been the one who’d forged them. But if they were credible enough for the bar to investigate, they must have looked authentic. How had she pulled off that without some help?
“Thanks,” Ronan said. “Glad you guys know that.”
“You don’t have to cheat to win,” Trevor said.
“Not anymore,” Simon murmured. He’d been a con artist, trained by his father at an early age to deceive people. Without Simon’s cunning and charm, Ronan and his partners wouldn’t have survived the streets. “But someone else is cheating. It was one thing to take notes from our files, but to forge them?”
“Maybe they only took the letterhead,” Trevor said, “and that model forged the documents.”
That was what Ronan believed—or had believed. After their interlude in the elevator, he wasn’t sure what he believed anymore. He wasn’t even sure he believed that had happened. He was still so damn tense and needy—for her. He hadn’t even bothered trying to ease that ache and tension with another woman. He knew only Muriel would satisfy him now—until he’d had enough of her.
Stone snorted derisively. “You think she’s smart enough to do that?”