I’d stayed late every night this week except Monday, and on two of the days I had been there past midnight. At least I didn’t have to work at the weekend though. Not this weekend anyway.
I’d taken full advantage of the free meals the firm provided for employees working past seven, but when combined with the lack of exercise, I was a little worried about my figure. I had a naturally slim physique, but beyond a certain point I put on weight like anyone else.
How did Foster stay in such good shape? He must go to a gym nearby, but he seemed to be in the office more than me, so I had no idea where he found the time.
“Sorry I couldn’t get you a government job,” Bryan said as we sat down outside. D.C. tended to be dead after work on Fridays. Most people were heading out of the city, or popping home to get changed before a night out. Very few people in government jobs worked late on Fridays, or any night of the week for that matter, so the coffee shop near Bryan was almost deserted.
I didn’t like sitting in the heat, but I’d been in an air conditioned office most of the week and this was a rare opportunity to breathe fresh air. Well, not fresh as such, but at least I was outdoors.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Everything worked out in the end. Sort of.”
“Sort of? Didn’t you land your dream job?”
“I guess. I’m grateful, obviously, but—”
“But the work isn’t an exciting as you’d hoped?”
“Doc review,” I said, knowing those two words would say all that needed to be said.
“Ah. Yeah, I hear that’s bad. Fortunately I don’t need to do much of that for the DOJ. Not that it’s all that exciting where I am either. Just lots of memos for the most part.”
“I would kill for a legal memo to sink my teeth into,” I said, only slightly exaggerating. “Anything that involves writing and legal analysis, instead of reading emails and clicking a button.”
“That’s weird,” Bryan said, setting his coffee down on the table. “Don’t all the big firms outsource doc review these days? I thought it was all done on the cheap by lawyers in less expensive parts of the country.”
“Yeah, I never had to do any at Cooper & Cooper. I guess Arrington & Hedges doesn’t do…”
Foster. God damnit, he had given me a project that I shouldn’t even have had.
“What’s wrong?” Bryan asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “Nothing at all.”
“How are the people there?” he asked. “If you get on with your colleagues then you’ll probably find time will go much quicker.”
“Most of them are fine.”
“Most?”
I sighed loudly, letting out some of the tension as I did so. Bryan gave me a weird look, but didn’t say anything.
“My boss is my stepbrother,” I said. “And he’s an ass.”
“I didn’t even know you had a stepbrother.”
“Technically, I don’t. Not yet, but I will soon.”
I told Bryan about my Dad’s engagement to Kathleen Arrington. They hadn’t talked much about wedding preparations, but Kathleen seemed like the type who would want a big wedding. At least that would delay the inevitable for a bit. But one day soon it would happen; Foster would be my stepbrother.
The stepbrother I’d fucked.
“What’s so bad about this guy?” Bryan asked. “I’d have thought he’d be nice to you if you’re going to be his sister.”
“That’s because you’re assuming he’s a mature adult. He’s not. He’s a cocky, arrogant, immature jackass. He does my freaking head in, but I can’t avoid him. He calls me into his office every day.”
“His name’s Foster Arrington?” Bryan asked, looking at his phone. He must have found Foster’s profile on the firm’s website.
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
“He has good reason to be confident. That’s one good looking guy. I’m as straight as they come, but even from this profile picture I can tell he’s a catch. Look how wide his shoulders are.”
“He’s not my type,” I said, refusing to look at the photo Bryan was showing me. Foster really wasn’t my type. Not if you judge my type by the kinds of boyfriends I’d had in the past. None of them had been anything like Foster.
But I suppose if you judged ‘type’ by the kind of man that had you wet between the legs just by smiling at you—or not even that—then Foster was definitely my type.
“If you say so,” Bryan said, giving me a knowing look. Could he tell? I felt like my face was giving away everything I’d done with Foster, but that was probably just paranoia.
“Even if he is good looking, and I still insist that he’s average at best, he’s a complete prick. You should hear the way he talks to me.”
“What sort of things does he say?”
So many things. Every night this week he’d called me into his office once most people had left and he always said something inappropriate. That we should fuck again to pass the time. That I should bend over his desk while he decides what to do with my ass. That he’s hungry for something sweet and wants to go down on me. That I talk back too much and need something to fill my mouth.
“He’s just mean,” I said pathetically.
“You might have to get used to that. Lawyers talk that way, it’s just part of the job.”
“I suppose. It just hurts coming from him, that’s all.”
Bryan raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure you don’t like him?”
“Ew, gross. He’s going to be my stepbrother. I meant it’s a shame he couldn’t be nicer for the sake of being a happy family and all that.”
“Okay,” Bryan said, raising his hands in defeat. “If you say so.”
Damn it, was I that transparent? What if other people at work were picking up on it? That wasn’t likely. The other attorneys were far too consumed with billing as many hours as possible to notice any kind of sexual tension. If that’s what it was.
I still thought he was a genuine ass because of the way he’d acted with Dad and me, but he had a good side too.
Foster had been a cocky shit that night eight months ago, but there had been more to him than that. He been protective, supportive, and kind. Which was the real Foster and which was the act?
I’d find out soon enough. I just hoped I didn’t get hurt in the process.
~Eleven~
FOSTER
I couldn’t keep this up much longer.
Giving April that large doc review project to work on kept her in the office until late at night, and gave me plenty of excuses to call her into my office for some one-on-one time, but sooner or later I would have to outsource the work to someone cheaper.
Usually a fifth-year associate wouldn’t get near client billing, but being the son of the managing partner did have some advantages. I wrote off most of April’s time. There was nothing wrong with the quality of her work, and she got more efficient with each passing day, but my clients wouldn’t pay $400 per hour for a summer associate to do doc review when they knew we could outsource it for less than half the price.
April craved a real assignment, something she could get her teeth stuck into, but I hated passing on work to inexperienced attorneys. My clients expected the best and, when I did the work myself, I knew that was what they got. If I let junior associates help, then mistakes would slip in.
The classic error was quoting case law out of context. New attorneys like nothing more than finding a juicy quote in a case and then sticking it in a memo to nail the point they were trying to make. Unfortunately, they often didn’t bother to check whether the quote had any actual relevance to the facts at hand.
I’d once let that slip by me, but opposing counsel spotted it and their reply brief tore me a new one. Now I checked and double checked everything until I trusted the other attorney completely.
How much could I trust April? I saw hatred in her eyes when she looked at me. I shouldn’t have acted like such a dick towards her father, but he deserved it for trying to mooch off my mot
her.
However, as much as April hated me, she loved being a lawyer, or at least the idea of being a lawyer. Over the last week, she’d made the odd comment here and there which made it clear she was trying to follow in her mother’s footsteps and become a hotshot corporate lawyer.
Not many kids dreamed of becoming a corporate lawyer, but given that I had also followed in my mom’s choice of career, I probably shouldn’t be too quick to criticize. I didn’t do it to keep Mom happy though.
I was a lawyer to make money. Corporate law paid well, and being a fucking awesome corporate lawyer paid fucking awesomely well. When clients bypassed the designated partner and went straight to the associate you knew you were doing something right, and that had been happening with me for years.
Even if Mom hadn’t been managing partner, I’d still have gotten every pay raise I’d requested. The official lockstep pay scheme had long ago been broken with my salary and there were even a few partners who looked enviously at my pay. Served them right for being shit at rainmaking. The money was there for those who knew how to earn it, and I was definitely one of them.
As much as I would love to discipline April, I had something a lot sexier in mind than tearing her apart for not being a good lawyer. What work could I give April that she wouldn’t completely fuck up? I had a couple of projects in my inbox that could be delegated, but I had no real idea what April’s skill set was.
I found her official application on the computer system and browsed through her resume. Career offices at law firms insisted on making all students use a certain template for their resume, so I could always tell what school someone went to just based on the outline of their resume. It made reading the things even more boring that it was already, however April’s did reveal a lot about her.
April’s undergraduate GPA was stellar; easily good enough for her to have gone to one of the holy trifecta of Yale, Harvard, or Stanford law schools. Unless she’d completely fucked up the Law School Admission Test, she would have been accepted at a much better law school than the one she now attended.
The reason she chose her school was on the next line down. April had been granted a full-scholarship to cover the entire cost of tuition. No doubt that had been almost impossible to resist for someone whose family struggled financially. Going to Harvard would have been great, but it would have come with a debt that she’d have been paying of for decades.
Her grades at law school put her in the top five percent, so she would likely graduate with top class honors. Unfortunately, law school grades were a poor predictor of a student’s ability as a lawyer.
I browsed through the writing sample she’d provided. It was an objective memo on some niche legal issue surrounding workplace discrimination. I didn’t know much about that area, but I recognized good legal writing when I saw it.
The memo was supposed to be objective, but in a few places she’d let her bias slip through. I could tell that she’d come to a conclusion first and then tried to fit the argument together to arrive at that conclusion. That didn’t mean the memo was inaccurate, but it would have been stronger if she’d remained more objective. Still, it was a common mistake by law students.
April could handle this task. Besides, I owed her one. She’d lost her last job because I had been unable to resist punching that smarmy jackass who’d tried it on with her. I didn’t regret it. I only punched people who deserved it, and he had definitely deserved it.
I sent April an email summoning her to my office, and she appeared promptly a few minutes later. No doubt she welcomed the break from reading other people’s emails.
“What can I do for you?” she asked professionally.
Today she wore a light cardigan over her blouse which further obstructed my view of her breasts. It had been nearly nine months now since I’d had those nipples in between my teeth, and I desperately needed another look.
“You cold?” I asked.
“I find it’s always a little chilly in your office,” she replied. “You have the AC turned up too high.”
“You know, if your nipples get stiff every time you come into my office, that’s probably not because of the temperature.”
April sighed and placed her pad of paper down on my desk. “Are we going to do this again?”
“Do you want to do it again? I’m game if you are. I have a meeting in ten minutes, but we both know that’s more than enough time for me to send you back to your desk satisfied.”
“If you say so,” she mumbled in response.
I walked around the desk and sat on the chair next to hers. We often sat next to each other when going over her work. Most people were hot and sweaty by the time they made it to work—an unfortunate consequence of living in D.C.—but April always smelled like she was fresh from the shower. There was a hint of coconut today, but I’d also detected citrus and mint over the last week. The girl liked to mix up her shampoo.
“Did you call me in here for a reason?” she asked, looking straight forward at the now empty seat on the other side of the desk.
“Yes, I have something I’d like you to do for me.”
“Okay, tell me about it.”
“It’s hard. Very hard. And big. I wouldn’t give this to just anyone, but I know you can handle something hard and big.”
“Your firm has a sexual harassment policy,” she said stiffly. “Perhaps you should read it sometime.”
“I believe the manual talks about ‘unwelcome’ contact. Is this unwelcome?”
I placed my hand on her thigh. She jumped at the contact, but she didn’t tear my hand away.
“You can’t do this,” she gasped. “We work together.”
“I do what I want,” I replied. “And right now, I want to do you.”
Finally, she turned to look at me. Her face had turned a light shade of red, but her eyes gave away her true feelings. She wasn’t angry with me any more, even though she had every right to be. She wanted me. I could see it.
A quiet gasp escaped from her mouth as I removed my hand from her leg. “Soon,” I whispered in her ear. “I’m going to have you soon.”
I leapt up from my seat and went back to the other side of the desk, leaving April looking lost for words. “Now then, I have a new assignment for you.”
April stared into the distance for a few seconds, then shook her head and snapped back into the zone. She’d gone from looking desperate for my touch to the consummate professional in seconds.
“About time. I was wondering how much longer you’d be able to keep me on that assignment when you’re supposed to be outsourcing it.”
“You knew about that?”
“Of course. Despite what you may believe, I’m not actually stupid.”
No, you’re not. Definitely not. The only stupid person here was me. I’d drastically underestimated April, and I knew why. I was letting my desire to fuck her again cloud my judgment. That wasn’t like me at all, but then neither was going back to a woman I’d already claimed. No one had ever enticed me back for seconds, but right now I couldn’t think about fucking anyone other than April.
That was dangerous. Very dangerous.
~Twelve~
APRIL
I went back to my office after meeting Foster, but I couldn’t concentrate on work. It was nearly lunchtime, so I decided to sneak out for a walk to try and clear my head.
I’d hoped that things would get easier the more time Foster and I spent working together, but they were just getting worse. He had a hold over me that I didn’t understand. I hated him. When he spoke, I wanted to tear my ears off just so I wouldn’t have to listen to his arrogant speeches about how it was only a matter of time before he would have me in bed again.
But every now and again, he would say something nice. He often praised my work, and thanked me for working long hours to get the project done.
Then there was the way he looked at me. He always had that hunger in his eyes. It had been there the first night we met. Every time I saw him, my mind f
lashed back to that night. The time he looked up at me from between my legs. The moment our eyes met as he fucked me while holding my knees up by my ears. That time in the middle of the night when we’d gone a little slower, his eyes only visible in the street lights that illuminated my room through the cheap blinds on my windows.
I had to use all my energy to stay mad at him, but when he touched me the chemical reaction in my body was impossible to resist. There was nothing I could do to stop the wetness appearing between my legs. I hadn’t even been able to take his hands off me because my limbs didn’t work. I’d felt paralyzed, completely unable to move. He could have had me right then and there and I wouldn’t have been able to resist. I wouldn’t have wanted to resist.
Yeah, I definitely needed a walk and some fresh air.
The temperature was due to exceed ninety degrees today, but there wasn’t as much humidity in the air as usual. I wouldn’t say the walk was pleasant, but at least I wouldn’t need another shower.
Not many employees bothered to take advantage of the showers the building had on the ground floor, but I used them every morning. The shower in my apartment had the water pressure of a leaking tap, so these were a luxury I had to tear myself away from after ten minutes.
Going outside didn’t help me get away from the lawyers. D.C. was full of them, and H Street in particular seemed to exclusively consist of lawyers and lobbyists, apart from a scattering of people working in the local coffee shops that served them.
It always struck me as odd that so many people would hold business meetings in coffee shops and talk so openly about their work when they had absolutely no privacy. In the five minutes I waited in line for my coffee, I heard enough about one deal to identify the buyer and I had a fair idea who the target was as well. Legal Ethics 101 should include a lesson on not holding important meetings in coffee shops.
Once I had my coffee, I strolled back to the office in a better mood than I had been in days. I only had one more afternoon of doc review, and then I could get stuck into the legal memo Foster had assigned me. I would still be working closely with Foster, but that couldn’t be helped. I might even stay late tonight to get started on it.
Bad Boy's Honor: An MMA Bad Boy Romance Page 24