The Midnight Hour

by Karen Robards

  Colin looked taken aback. Mrs. Harvey’s eyes widened.

  “The child has been raised as Lisa Harvey from infancy, is that right, Mrs. Harvey?” Grace asked.

  “Yes,” Mrs. Harvey said in a soft voice.

  “She considers Mr. Harvey her father, is that right?” Grace continued.

  “Well, yes, but . . .” Mrs. Harvey began.

  “The fact is he is not,” Colin quickly interceded.

  Grace had heard enough. “In this case, I think that raising a child as its father from infancy to age nine gives Mr. Harvey certain rights. I rule that he is to be awarded joint custody of the child known as Lisa Harvey. Schedules are to be worked out between the opposing parties and presented to this court for approval.” She banged the gavel down on her desk. “Case dismissed.”

  “Wh-what?” Mrs. Harvey’s mouth dropped open. Eyes and mouth formed almost perfect O’s. “Colin, you told me that he had no chance!”

  A plump, dark-haired man in a too-small suit, Mr. Harvey slumped in his chair, disbelief quickly replaced by a huge grin. His attorney patted him on the shoulder.

  “Margaret, it’s all right,” Colin said swiftly to his client, and looked daggers at Grace. “Your Honor, may I approach the bench?”

  No, is what Grace wanted to say. She really wasn’t in the mood for Colin Wilkerson. But, as usual, he didn’t wait for her permission. He seemed to feel that their one-time relationship gave him a special dispensation of formality where she was concerned.

  “All right, this is too much,” he said in a furious undertone when he stood before her. “You are taking personal vindictiveness to an extreme. Under the law, that man had no case, and you know it. You found against my client strictly to get back at me.”

  Grace looked at him and mentally counted to ten. The courtroom was emptying behind him, and new people were coming in. Just one more case, and she would call the lunch break.

  Thank goodness.

  “Colin, believe me, you overrate your importance in my life,” Grace said coldly.

  “It is obvious to anyone what you are doing. You are punishing me every time I stand before this court for some offense I’m not even aware of committing. But let me tell you, your ruling in this case will not stand! It is absolutely without legal precedent!”

  “You are welcome to appeal.”

  His face turned red, and his fingers curled and uncurled at his sides.

  “I warn you, Grace: I’m not going to put up with this. You are hurting my practice by denying every case I bring into your court. I’m telling you now, whatever it takes to get you off the bench, I am prepared to do. Do you hear me? Whatever it takes!”

  Before Grace could open her mouth to say contempt of court, a hand fell on Colin’s shoulder. Clean-shaven now, dressed in his leather bomber jacket over a flannel shirt and jeans, Tony stood behind him, his eyes narrow and his jaw hard. Penick, courtroom ready in a sport jacket and tie, came out of his seat at the side of the courtroom at this sign of trouble and headed toward the bench. So too did Walter Dowd.

  “That sounds like a threat, Counselor,” Tony said.

  “Who the hell are you?” Colin turned to glare at the other man, his face so red now that Grace half-expected to see steam start pouring from his ears. Only the size and style of his opponent kept him from letting fly with his fists, Grace surmised. Although Colin was tall, it was obvious at a glance that he was no match for Tony’s hard, muscular frame.

  “Cop,” Tony said succinctly. “And you’re threatening an officer of the court.”

  “What’s the problem?” Penick asked, ranging himself alongside Tony. Walter shifted to one side, so that he stood nearest to Grace.

  “I’ve seen you before,” Colin said to Tony, his eyes narrowing. Then he glanced at Grace, his mouth curling into a sneer. “He your new boyfriend?”

  Tony stiffened. Penick, clearly sensing the imminent escalation of the conflict, shifted his weight, appearing to balance on the balls of his feet as he glanced from one would-be combatant to the other. Walter’s hand settled on his gun. Grace looked at the four men in front of her bench and sighed.

  “Colin, do me a favor: Go away. If you want to try to have me removed from the bench legally, fine. If you threaten me again, or in fact, say one more word, I’m going to find you in contempt of court and have you locked up. Don’t make me do it.”

  Colin glared at her, his hands opening and closing at his sides, his face bright crimson now. His furious gaze transferred to Tony and then to Penick, who was standing just behind Tony, and finally to Walter, whose hand still rested on the gun holstered at his side. Then his lips thinned, and without another word he turned on his heel and took himself off.

  Tony looked after him thoughtfully, then glanced at Grace.

  “Who is that guy?”

  “His name is Colin Wilkerson. He’s an attorney,” Grace answered.

  Tony moved closer to the bench so that they could talk without being overheard by anyone except, perhaps, Penick and Walter, who still stood nearby. “I’ve seen him here before. In fact, weren’t you having a disagreement with him then, too?”

  “Probably. Colin thinks my rulings against him are personal. At one time, we . . . went out.”

  “I see.” Tony’s gaze met hers, and there was something—a hint of disgruntlement, maybe?—in the depths of his eyes that had not been there before. It was obvious to Grace that he did not like the thought that she had once dated Colin Wilkerson.

  Was he, perhaps, just a little jealous? Grace was surprised at how much she liked the idea that Tony Marino might be jealous of a man she had dated briefly months before.

  “What are you doing here, anyway?” Grace asked.

  “I thought I’d take you to lunch.” His gaze met hers again, and the anger at the backs of his eyes faded away.

  They were speaking quietly enough so that not even Penick and Walter could overhear. They could be seen, though, and both Penick and Walter, along with several others seated in the courtroom, were watching them curiously. Though she knew they were being observed, Grace couldn’t help it. She smiled at him. His expression softened in response, and he smiled back at her.

  “I have one more case to hear before I can call lunch.”

  “I’ll wait.”

  Grace listened with some impatience to her final case of the morning, which was, thankfully, a simple divorce that only needed finalizing, and then called the lunch break. Tony and Penick had been sitting side by side on the far right side of the courtroom, and they approached her together as she stepped down from the bench.

  “I’ll take over watch-dog duties until after lunch,” Tony said to Penick as Grace joined them. “Feel free to go grab a sandwich or something.” He glanced at his watch. “We’ll meet you back here at one o’clock.”

  Penick looked doubtful. “I’m on duty. . ..”

  “I’m officially relieving you until after lunch.” Tony outranked Penick, but that didn’t make the other officer look any happier about the situation.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll be perfectly safe with Detective Marino,” Grace said with a smile for the younger man.

  “Think so?” Tony said in her ear as Penick, still looking doubtful, took himself off.

  “As safe as I want to be,” she amended, and grinned at him. He laughed. Grace stopped for an instant in her chambers to remove her robe, and then they hurried through the secretaries’ big office and headed down the back stairs toward the parking lot.

  As much as she wanted to, they didn’t touch, not even to hold hands. As long as she was in the Franklin County Courthouse, she had her dignity as a judge to uphold, and Tony seemed as conscious of that as she was.

  Once inside his car, though, he kissed her, a quick hard kiss, then inserted his key into the ignition and started the engine. Conscious that it was broad daylight and they were in the parking lot of the courthouse with people all around, Grace refrained with some mental effort from wrapping her arms around
his neck and returning the favor with interest.

  But she wanted to, and her expression must have told him so, because his eyes heated as he looked at her.

  “How hungry are you?” he asked, pulling out of the parking lot into the heavy traffic of downtown Columbus at midday.

  “Not particularly.”

  He grinned at her. “We could go to my house.”

  His house was less than five minutes away, Grace knew. She had called the lunch break at 11:15. It was now 11:25. That gave them about an hour and a half before she had to be back on the bench.

  “Okay.” Even as she said that one little word, her body began to quicken. The night before, when he’d started kissing her on the couch during the evening news, she’d been forced to tell him her rule, about no sex in the house with Jessica present. He had agreed that it was a good rule, and very important for Jessica’s well-being, and then kissed her again and sent her to bed before, he said, he took back everything he had just said.

  She hadn’t even been surprised that he’d been understanding. Besides being mouth-wateringly sexy, Tony Marino, she had learned, was a decent and honorable man.

  When they reached his house, Mrs. Crutcher next door was on her porch watering the plants with an old-fashioned tin watering can.

  “Hi, Tony!” she called, waving, as they stepped out of his black Honda, which he parked at the curb.

  “Hi, Mrs. Crutcher.” Tony waved back. Grace felt her face pinken as the old woman, watering can in hand, studied her with open interest as she and Tony headed, without touching, for the house. It was silly, but she was sure that the woman knew precisely why they were there.

  “Out all night again, Tony,” Mrs. Crutcher chided.

  “Working, always working,” he replied with a grin.

  “Nice work if you can get it,” she retorted, chuckling, and looked pointedly at Grace, who smiled feebly in response. She was still watching them as Tony unlocked his door and pulled Grace inside the house.

  “She’s better than any watchdog I’ve ever seen,” Grace said with fervent relief as the closing door blocked the woman’s prying eyes.

  “Isn’t she? She’s my own personal security system.” He grinned at her as he locked the door, then pulled her into his arms. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she has my house bugged.”

  On that pleasant thought, he kissed her.

  Chapter

  40

  HIS MOUTH WAS HOT and urgent and tasted faintly of coffee. Her purse landed on the floor with a faint thud. Wrapping her arms around his neck, Grace kissed him back with greedy intensity, plastering her body against his.

  Conscious of the ticking clock, her hands slid down the smooth leather front of his jacket to find its zipper, which she pulled down and disengaged at the bottom. Moving her hands to the soft flannel beneath, she started work on his shirt buttons even as he shrugged out of his jacket.

  “Jesus, I want you,” Tony breathed the words in her ear as his mouth slid down to her neck and his hands dispensed with, first, the single button that held her blazer closed and then the blazer itself, which fell to the floor to join his jacket and her purse at their feet.

  “Mmmm,” Grace said, her teeth occupied in nibbling his earlobe.

  His palm flattened over her breast, and Grace released her victim to draw in a ragged breath as her nipple hardened instantly. The white silk shell and flimsy nylon bra she wore were no protection against the heat of his touch. His hands slid all over the fragile fabric, front and back, exploring and titillating, caressing even such unlikely erogenous zones as her shoulders and the length of her spine and her waist. Meanwhile, her hands dealt with the last of his shirt buttons and then moved inward to find the warm, hair-roughened flesh beneath.

  His chest felt so good, so warm and firm and masculine, to her touch.

  “How does this damned blouse-thing come off?” Tony’s stroking hands stilled on her rib cage, and he lifted his head from where he had been kissing the sensitive area at the side of her neck to look down at her. Frustration, bafflement, and blazing desire combined in his face.

  Realizing the purpose behind his exploration of new erogenous zones, Grace had to smile.

  “There’s a button at the back of the neck.”

  Lifting her arms, she demonstrated, dealing with it for him. Before she could return to her journey of discovery across the hard contours of his chest, he caught the hem of her shell and pulled it over her head, then dropped it on the floor, leaving her standing before him in her delicate white bra and bone-colored wool skirt and conservative heels.

  He touched her breasts, caressing her through the thin nylon. His hands were large and warm and hard, and her nipples stood up like soldiers called to attention under his ministrations. Her hands lay flat against his chest, her fingers curling into his skin like a nursing kitten’s as she experienced an onslaught of desire so intense that her knees went weak.

  Her bra had a traditional double hook-and-eye fastening that was located between her shoulder blades. He seemed to have no trouble finding that, because he unclipped it in a matter of seconds. Her bra slid down her arms, then was tugged free and tossed aside. Grace first glanced down at herself, bare now from the waist up, and then looked up at him.

  Her breasts were small but firm, with pinkish-brown areolas and nipples that stood stiffly erect. His jaw hardened as he looked down at her body, and his eyes darkened until they were almost black.

  His hands, large and bronze against the ivory of her skin, rested on either side of her rib cage just above the waistband of her skirt. Against her skin, she could feel the faint abrasiveness of the calluses on his palms.

  Grace’s heart started to pound, and a hot rhythmic quickening began in her loins.

  “You are the sexiest thing I have ever seen in my life,” he said, his voice husky.

  This drew a shaky laugh from her. “I was just thinking the same thing about you.”

  He glanced up and met her eyes. “Were you now?”

  Before Grace realized what he meant to do, he bent and picked her up in his arms, lifting her as easily as if she weighed nothing at all. Arms automatically looping around his neck, eyes widening, she met his gaze as he carried her toward the door that led into the dining room.

  “Now that’s what I like in a man: muscles,” she said teasingly, her voice low and throaty with the passion that was already causing her bare breasts to swell longingly against his chest, and her nether regions to pulse and burn. But her eyes were smiling into his as he maneuvered her through the narrow doorway.

  He smiled back at her, his eyes hot.

  “You’re what I like in a woman,” he said. Bending his head, he kissed her nipple, which made her gasp, and then her open mouth. “All of you. Every single inch.”

  He kissed her again and was still kissing her as he carried her through the dining room and kitchen and into his bedroom. When he lowered her to his bed and followed her down, Grace had a fleeting realization that the hand-pieced quilt that covered it was as soft as it had looked the other day. Then his hand was sliding up the inside of her panty-hose clad thigh beneath her skirt, trailing fire behind it, and she ceased thinking of anything at all except him.

  She kicked off her shoes as he pulled off the rest of her clothes and slid his shirt down his arms. Then he pulled away from her, standing up and stripping off the remainder of his garments with hands that were not quite steady. His eyes flamed as they moved over her, sitting naked as she was in the center of his bed.

  She felt naked, too, she thought, erotically naked in a way she had never before felt, even though she was sitting as modestly as it was possible for an unclothed woman to sit, her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms wrapped around her legs.

  Her body tingled in greedy anticipation of what was to come.

  Watching him as he pushed his jeans and shorts down his legs and then straightened to stand naked before her, she felt a rush of purely wanton desire that made her feel as if sh
e were melting in that place between her legs. She no longer felt like the thirty-six-year-old woman, mother, judge, and divorcée who had been around the block more times than she cared to remember.

  She felt like a girl again, a young and beautiful girl just becoming acquainted with the wonder of desire. No, she corrected herself, she felt like a woman.

  A woman in love.

  Her lips parted on the thought, and her eyes widened on his face. But before she could react in any other way, he was coming down on the bed beside her, his weight denting the mattress as he pushed her back into the softness of the bed and covered her body with his.

  Grace met his kiss with her own, curling her tongue around his and her arms around his neck, opening her mouth and parting her legs for him instantly. There was no need for any preliminaries, no desire for any foreplay, she wanted him inside her instantly and he must have wanted that, too, because even as he settled on top of her he thrust deep and hard, groaning into her mouth. Grace moaned an answer as she wrapped her legs tightly around his waist.

  “Tony, Tony, Tony,” she cried as he took her with a fierceness that was exactly what she craved.

  She bucked and writhed and clung and then, finally, went exquisitely, quiveringly still, beneath him as he buried himself inside her one last time, holding himself there as he found his own release.

  When it was over, when Grace had at last floated back to earth and remembered all the whos and whats and wheres of the situation, she first smiled a sleepy, contented smile at the black head buried against her shoulder. Next she cocked an eye at the alarm clock beside the bed.

  12:35. Grace groaned.

  “Tony.” She shoved at his shoulder. He was lying atop her, hot and sweaty, his big body still joined to hers. All that muscle weighed a ton. She was, to all intents and purposes, pinioned beneath him, unable to move.

  “Mmm?” he responded, turning his head a little so that his lips could nuzzle her neck.

  The touch of those warm lips on such a sensitive spot sent a little thrill all the way to her toes.