by Ann Jacobs
“Like it?”
“Miss Trial? She’s beautiful.” From the jutting bow to the padded engine box and seats in the stern, the thirty-eight-foot motor cruiser boasted every imaginable nautical amenity. “Have you had her long?”
He laughed. “About a year. Would you believe, she was my fee for defending a colleague accused of criminal fraud?”
“Just how much do you charge for your services?” Miss Trial, she guessed, was worth something in low six figures—at least.
“Five hundred an hour minimum. Five times that for actual time in court,” he replied. “This case was special, though. I earned every penny of what Miss Trial’s worth, and more.”
He named a south Florida attorney who had made headlines because of his alleged involvement in a real estate scam that had allegedly bilked several lending institutions of close to a billion dollars. “He had no cash, and not many assets that weren’t tied up by the courts—just this boat and a piece of property on Biscayne Bay. He signed the property over to the lawyers who handled his civil trials.”
Kristine smiled. “Did you have another boat before this one?”
“No.”
“Not even when you were a kid?” She recalled the sleek Lightning-class sailboat that had been her father’s pride and joy.
He cut the engine, got up abruptly, and tossed an anchor off the bow. “Not ever,” he snapped.
What had she said to earn that barely civil response?
Then he smiled, as though apologizing for his brusque response. “That’s probably why I’m so crazy about Miss Trial. I spend nearly every waking hour I’m not working, doing something or other with her. Come on, let’s move back to the stern and watch the stars. There’s nothing more peaceful than watching the night sky from out on the water.”
Soft light from the cockpit caught the brilliant white of Tony’s pleated tux shirt, bathing his broad shoulders in its glow. Kristine’s fingers itched, she wanted so much to touch him.
The night held magic as charged as lightning, as soft as gentle rain. Could she risk its spell? Could she give herself to Tony and not relinquish her own purpose—her self?
When he held out his hand, she went to him, let him draw her in. Close. Closer. Until her body strained to feel his through thin layers of silk and India cotton. Until her heart beat in tandem with his under the blanket of blue-black sky, the boat deck a perfect island on a gently rolling sea.
“You’ve bewitched me, Krissy,” he murmured, his warm, damp breath teasing the lobe of her ear.
Krissy. No one but Helen had ever called her that, but it sounded right coming from him on this magical night when he was drawing her inexorably into a sensual spell. She wrapped her arms around his waist, drawing him so close his heat scorched her, made her want…
“Kiss me.”
She felt his words, felt his breath as his mouth descended in slow, languid motion.
When their lips met for the first time, it was as though they’d been together like this for a lifetime, as if her body knew what her mind did not. He deepened the kiss, nibbling at her lower lip, tangling his tongue with hers.
Sensations poured over her, merged deep in her belly and made her burn for more. Textures of finely woven cotton and featherweight wool chafed her fingers as she skimmed them over his shirt and lower. A faint but pleasant taste of the Scotch he’d been drinking earlier tickled her tongue. His clean masculine scent, a faint but pungent smell of citrus and musk and man, surrounded her.
Was he real or only a dream? Kristine reached up and caressed his cheek. The slight rasp of beard stubble along the contour of his jaw tickled her fingertips. A pulsating vein in his neck confirmed life, proved reality when she moved her hand lower.
Each wave that broke gently against the boat rocked their bodies closer, then taunted her as it ebbed and drew them subtly apart. The heat within her pooled and spread, driven by the hard, hot proof of his desire that pressed against her belly through their clothes. He wanted her as much as he made her want him. She felt empowered. Sexy.
Suddenly he ended the kiss and met her gaze. “What do you want, Krissy?” he asked, his deep voice ragged.
You.
She opened her mouth, but words wouldn’t come. God, how she wanted him, more than she wanted her next breath. But she was afraid. Afraid the flames of desire he’d ignited with a kiss would explode into a conflagration that would consume them both.
Chapter Seven
Moonlight reflected off her pale, silky hair. She looked like an angel, a ray of light in the darkness of night on the water. A very aroused, very frightened angel.
“Krissy?”
Still silent, she tightened her grip on Tony’s shoulders and pulled him back into an embrace.
“Tell me,” he coaxed.
Her sweet hot breath scalded him when she burrowed her face into his chest. “I want you to make love to me,” she murmured, the words so muffled that he wondered whether she’d said them or he’d dreamed them.
God, he wanted to lift her in his arms, take her below, and fuck her all night long. And knowing she wanted him, too, had his balls tightening in anticipation. His cock hadn’t felt so full in years.
But he sensed fear as well as longing when she trembled in his arms. And he had a real strong feeling that he wanted much more with her than a moment of physical release.
That scared him, too. He wasn’t ready to get in quite that deep. Too many issues stood between them. Not just the fact of him being a defense attorney and her a prosecutor, but deeper concerns. Issues rooted in their pasts that couldn’t help but complicate any relationship they might develop now.
They’d have to resolve at least some of those issues before jumping headlong into an affair he sensed would be more intense than any relationship he’d experienced in the past.
When he put a few inches of distance between them, the breeze kissed his heated body but did little to quench the flames.
Tony looked up at the black velvet sky, then met Kristine’s questioning gaze. “You can’t help knowing I want you, too. But I didn’t bring you out here tonight to seduce you.”
“Then why?”
“To share the stars. The rocking of the boat in the waves. I wanted us to spend some time getting to know each other without getting distracted by other people. By our jobs.”
He sat, legs spread, and drew her down into the space between his thighs. “Look,” he told her, “there’s the Big Bear.”
“The stars look so close. So bright. How do you know their names?”
“When I was a kid, I’d go out at night with my father, and he’d point out the constellations.” Somehow the celestial bodies hadn’t seemed as bright then as they did tonight.
With Krissy in his arms, her warm, fragrant body pressed tightly against his chest, the stars seemed closer, made Tony believe he could conquer the world. When he nuzzled the fine blond hair that skimmed her shoulders, he smelled gardenias. How could he ever have thought she was anything but beautiful?
“Did I mention how gorgeous you look tonight?” he asked, letting his hand drift from her waist along soft black silk to rest on the outside of her thigh. “Every man in the yacht club was staring at us. Envying me.”
“All the women were looking at you.”
“They probably wanted to see what the shyster who got Manny Garcia off looks like,” he replied, only half joking.
“I don’t think so. Tony, why do you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Defend people like him.”
The warm breeze suddenly turned to ice against the back of Tony’s neck. “Someone has to,” he said more sharply than he intended. “Why do you work for the state attorney?”
“Because I want to see criminals put where they belong.”
Suddenly Tony pictured Ezra Ruggles, the scrawny, twenty-two-year-old kid whose conviction he was trying to get overturned. A boy who’d spent nearly five years so far in the state’s maximum-security prison fo
r a crime he hadn’t committed.
“What if a defendant isn’t guilty? Do you still think he belongs in prison?” He recalled the railroad job Ezra had suffered, courtesy of the Hillsborough County state attorney’s office. They’d had a lot of help from an overworked, underpaid public defender barely out of law school and still wet behind the ears, he reminded himself, to be fair.
“Of course not.”
“Are you sure?”
She twisted around far enough to meet his gaze. “I wouldn’t want to see someone wrongly sent to prison. But I can’t imagine making my living by trying to get criminals set free.” She paused, as if hesitant to go on. “What made you choose criminal law? Criminal defense?”
He just about said money—his stock, monosyllabic answer to that question. Instead, he thought for a moment before replying.
“Prosecuting and defending people accused of crimes was what I pictured lawyers doing from the time I decided I wanted to become one. The idea of setting up estates and trusts, or dotting I’s and crossing T’s on corporate charters, didn’t fire my imagination, even after I realized those specialties were part of law too. I couldn’t imagine myself haggling with a colleague over how much someone’s broken leg or neck was worth in money, either. As for defense, I chose it because it seems to me the little guy needs more help than the big, bad government.”
“And because it pays better?”
“That, too. I like my creature comforts.” No way was anybody going to make him feel guilty for that. Tony leaned back against the cushioned bulkhead and met Kristine’s solemn gaze. “What about you, Krissy? Criminal law’s not the usual choice for women attorneys.”
She looked away, as if searching for something hidden in the cloak of darkness beyond the boat. “Your chauvinism is showing, Mr. Landry.”
“I plead not guilty. There aren’t many female criminal lawyers. Take my firm, for example. Being politically correct, we have forty-one junior associates who are women, compared with forty-three men. Not one of the women has exhibited the slightest interest in pursuing criminal defense. Why did you choose criminal law?”
“Asked and answered, Counselor.” She paused, turned away, then back to meet his gaze. “I wanted to see criminals punished.”
She had to have suffered terribly, to have focused not only her career goals but her life on gaining retribution. Not for the first time, Tony wondered what the hell had gone wrong with his brain. Here he was, lusting—no, more than lusting, aching—for a woman whose dreams and obsessions appeared completely at odds with his own. He doubted he could have found a worse match if he tried.
“Can we agree to disagree on this, Krissy?” he asked. “Get to know each other as individuals, not as opposing counsel?”
She sighed, a soft, plaintive sound that layered itself gently onto the slapping noise of waves against the hull of the boat. Tony realized he’d been holding his breath when he nearly choked before inhaling a gust of warm, moist air.
“I want to,” she said after a long pause. “Maybe it’s the moonlight and the stars. The magic…”
“I’ve been hard for you from the first time I saw you, interviewing jurors. You’ve wanted me, too, from that first day we faced off in court. Moonlight and magic? I don’t think so.”
“Tony, I’m afraid.”
He gave in to a powerful urge, lifted and turned her. When he set her down on his lap, her soft curves met and molded to the hard plane of his belly and chest. Blood rushed to his already-aching cock.
“Me too.”
He was. Scared stiff. He wanted her desperately, yet feared not only her obsession, but insecurities he’d thought success had long ago swept from his mind.
Nagging doubt ate at Tony’s gut. Suddenly he wondered if he’d come far enough from the rickety pickup trucks and even more rickety migrant worker shacks where he’d passed his earliest years. He worried that some elusive vestige of the ragged son of a hot-tempered straw boss who’d done life for murder still remained, hidden beneath the veneer he’d so carefully applied to his soul.
“Let’s see where this goes,” he whispered just before his lips met hers.
She tasted good. So good. Hot and sweet like the Cuban coffee he sometimes drank at Bennie’s Place. He couldn’t help it, he had to coax her lips to part, slide his tongue between them to sample the nectar inside. When he knew he’d have to stop or drag her below and take this lovemaking to its logical conclusion he tore his mouth away, met her hot, longing gaze.
No, Kristine’s kiss wasn’t like Cuban coffee at all, because a thimble-sized cup of the strong, sweet brew was quite enough to satisfy him. He had the feeling he’d never get enough of her.
* * * * *
The following morning Tony told himself he was a fool. He could have taken Kristine to bed and fucked her until they both passed out from the ecstasy of it. If he had, he’d have eased the hard-on that still plagued him now, hours after he’d started the boat’s engine and taken her back to the party. Hours after leaving her at her front door with a quick hug, a gentle kiss, and an invitation for dinner next weekend.
Why had he stopped before they both reached the point of no return, not once but three times?
Tony mulled that question over in his mind, discarding every possible answer he came up with.
Fear? No way. He may have had a moment’s twinge of anxiety, but certainly no all-consuming terror. Not of a woman. Any woman. It wasn’t as though he were a snot-nosed kid. He might not have fucked all the women the Miami press had credited to him, but he’d had his share.
Pacing the length of Miss Trial’s mist-slicked deck, Tony took a bite from a jelly doughnut.
He was Tony Landry, the best damn criminal defense lawyer money could buy. And no matter how wet Krissy’s pussy got for him, bottom line was that defending accused criminals made him as good as poison. And poison he was likely to stay in her mind, as long as she blamed every dope dealer and junkie in Tampa for having killed off her family.
Tony stepped into the head and washed the residue of the doughnut off his hands. They’d tasted better years ago, when his old man had taken him to a run-down convenience store out on the highway beyond the last strawberry field they’d worked and bought him one of the sticky confections. He remembered lifting the cracked plastic cover that had kept some of the flies at bay, selecting his treat from the assortment on a beat-up metal tray. The choosing had been almost as much fun as the eating.
The boat’s engine roared to life when he turned the key in the ignition. He’d moved worlds away from those farm fields, come a long way from being that dirt-poor kid with a hot-tempered old man.
He’d moved far enough from his beginnings that he’d go up against anybody, go after any woman who struck his fancy. Right now that meant Kristine.
He pulled into the ship channel that he’d follow to the dock outside his condo, but his gaze followed the boat’s foamy white wake until the yacht club disappeared over the horizon. He hadn’t joined yet, but he had no doubt his application, if he decided to fill it out, would be accepted. When it came down to realities, pedigrees didn’t matter. Money and power did, and he had plenty of both.
Pity his wealth and command didn’t impress Krissy one damn bit. Fortunately the chemistry sizzled between them like lightning in a storm, he thought as he looked at a sheet of heat lightning that turned the blue sky red until it went away.
But raw sex would only take them so far.
He wondered where he’d have to go to buy the kind of class that went beyond knowing how to eat and dress, and what to say. The kind of refinement a guy could only learn at the knees of a soft-spoken mother, or with a dad on a manicured golf course or the deck of a boat like the ones at the dock he’d just left. That elusive quality called breeding.
To hell with it. He was who he was, and people could take him or leave him. Even Kristine Granger. Gunning the engine and bracing himself as the big boat’s bow pushed up out of the murky water, Tony concentrated on
arguments he would use tomorrow to get Ezra Ruggles a new trial.
Chapter Eight
For the first time, Tony faced Ezra outside prison walls. The suit Tony had sent over with Hank yesterday hung on the kid’s skinny frame. As he’d thought it would, the olive drab color accentuated Ezra’s prison pallor.
Leg irons clanked when Ezra moved to lean against a scarred wooden table in the room set aside for prisoners to confer with their lawyers outside nearby courtrooms. Tony made a mental note to insist the shackles be removed, but they were loose enough. He wondered why his client seemed barely able to walk in them.
“What’s going to happen?” Ezra asked. His fists, held together by handcuffs clamped around his bony wrists, clenched until the knuckles turned white. His expression reflected horrors Tony could only imagine. “Are they gonna take me back to Raiford?” he asked, the tremor in his voice reflecting fear—no, terror.
“Not if I can help it.”
If the judge granted Tony’s appeal, Ezra would stay in the county jail pending his new trial. Tony didn’t delude himself. Bail wouldn’t be granted. Even if it were, it would be too high for his client’s only living relative, a grandmother who cleaned rooms in an economy-class motel on Nebraska Avenue, to manage the bondsman’s fee. “Did something happen at Raiford before you left?”
“I’m gonna kill…”
Tony held up a hand. “Not good to say, Ezra. Not even to your lawyer. Come on. I’m trying to get you a new trial. Get you out of that place for good.”
“I got excited about gettin’ out. Wasn’t paying attention the other night. I got caught by myself.” Ezra paused, a look of anguish on his pale, thin face. Then he broke eye contact, stared at the scarred hardwood floorboards.
“They caught me. Six of ‘em. I tried to fight, but there were too many. Too big. Didn’t have a chance. Thought they were gonna kill me. But they just used me for their bitch. Every goddamn one rammed his dick up my ass…over and over ‘til I passed out.”