by Odell, Roxie
Being the night owl he was, Derrick Quinn seldom bothered to take in the view of Vegas in the daylight hours. I need to change that, he thought as his focus faded in and out. Today, he was either staring out the many windows or keeping his head down, not bothering to make eye contact with the people seated in the room with him.
When he cast his face downward again, he caught sight of his reflection in the polished surface of the glass conference table. Somewhere in the blurry eyes of that man looking back at him, other faces also lurked, namely those of his ex-wife and their divorce attorneys. All of those faces haunted him because all the money they wanted for sitting there and doing nothing was going to come out of his pocket.
He glanced around at the smeared reflections of those present and was sickened by those mirrored doppelgangers. It was bad enough to be in the room with one ex-wife, let alone two. It made him sweat, and not in a good way.
He finally lifted his eyes to study his former bride. She really was a stunning woman, and she had been a beautiful co-ed when he married her. She had rich, dark hair and wore just enough makeup to accentuate her natural beauty. Nevertheless, all the ugly things he knew about her made his blood run cold.
Derrick didn’t even bother to dress up for the occasion, as he wasn’t sure what the appropriate attire was for a post-divorce beatdown. He certainly wasn’t about to waste any energy sprucing himself up, and he hadn’t even combed his hair or shaved. As vice president and general counsel for an über-successful corporation, he dressed for power when it came to business, but this didn’t warrant the use of one of his expensive tailored suits.
He really had no fight left in him, and the absence of a shave and a thousand-dollar blazer and pants were the evidence of that. “No” would be his weapon of choice, the only word he was prepared to utter. The ex-Mrs. Quinn, Lindsay, wanted more money, but she wouldn’t get another penny. Not if he had anything to say about it.
Just a month prior, he’d conceded to all the settlement terms she had set forth, yet now, she had forced him into the conference room to announce that she felt she was entitled to more. Typically, Derrick would have paid just about any price to shut her up, but right now, he hated her so much that he refused to budge. He wasn’t going to give her any more, even if he had the money, just to spite her.
“Enough,” he said coolly, interrupting her lawyer.
Even his attorney squirmed at the impromptu remark, and his ex-wife’s face flared with anger.
“What?” Lindsay asked, blinking with disbelief, stunned he’d stood up to her for once. After all, Derrick had made the long-running mistake of going along with her on everything throughout their marriage, just to keep the peace, creating a monster and much misery in the process.
“Enough,” he said again. “We made an agreement, and I gave you what you asked for. You offered a settlement, made a demand, and I didn’t put up a fight. In exchange, you promised to grant me a quick divorce. Thank bloody goodness you did.”
Lindsay scowled. “You don’t have to be such a jerk about it,” she said.
“I’m the jerk?” he asked with a smirk. “You’re the one who dragged me in here to back out on your end of the bargain. We agreed, Lindsay, and you’re breaking our deal. I even asked if you were sure about the amount, and what did you say?” He rolled his hand, inviting her to respond.
“Yes, but that was—” she squawked.
He cut her off with a cool wave of his hand. “But wasn’t what you said,” he said sarcastically. “What you said was, ‘Yes, Derrick, I am absolutely sure.’ We put that in writing, and we both signed it, yet here we are.” He pointed to both lawyers. “We all agreed, and we were supposed to be done. We don’t have children. I gave you the house. I gave you a lump sum. We’re done here. D-O-N-E, done!”
“But that was before I knew you had a mistress,” she replied, a triumphant grin stretching across her face.
The mere mention of that caused Derrick’s body to stir. It was nothing less than awkward, being mildly turned on at a post-divorce conference, with two snobbish attorneys and his ex-wife staring him down. All he could do was grin.
Lindsay wore a Joker-like smile on her lips, but Derrick knew she had no right to be upset about it. He was sure his involvement with the smoking-hot Corrine Smith should not have any effect on the divorce settlement. Lindsay didn’t even find out about her until after the divorce, the split she herself practically screamed for. Still, his lawyer dropped his head as if they were doomed.
Derrick was a lawyer in his own right, though, and even though divorce was not his specialty, he knew they had no legal recourse to hold his affair against him. He knew his ex-wife well, and he was well aware that she was only stirring up trouble to try to force more money out of his bank account and into hers. He refused to give in to that.
Without warning, Derrick rose and marched out of the conference room with his head held high, as if he had just won the war, leaving everyone sitting there with their mouths hanging open. He was glad to be free from that woman, glad he’d found the strength to tell her no.
He knew if he kept giving in to her demands, he would never break out of that cycle. She’d taken enough from him already, and there was no way he was going to let her keep coming back to the well for more.
The lawyers and his ex-wife hustled after him, desperate to lure him back into the game. They all stood to lose a lot if he wouldn’t play ball. They scrambled right on his heels to the reception area. There, beside the receptionist, sat a gorgeous woman, casually flipping through a magazine.
Her long legs were crossed, and on her feet were a pair of spectacular, elegant, spiky heels. Her almost-too-tight pencil skirt jutted out from beneath the edge of a short trench coat that she hadn’t bothered to take off, a clear indication that she was waiting for someone and didn’t expect to be there that long. The commotion of the conference room bustled into the reception area, startling the woman behind the desk, but the hot woman in the chair didn’t even pay attention.
“I said I’m done with you, Lindsay,” Derrick announced dramatically, like he was onstage. “Enough.”
“Done?” his ex-wife asked. “Not by a long shot, Derrick!”
“We are,” he said calmly. “Your lawyer should have told you this is a no-fault divorce state. I could have banged a million women while we were married, but by law, that would have no bearing on the money you get.” He turned to his ex-wife’s lawyer. “And don’t expect me to pay your fees either, pal. Take it out of the money she’s already robbing me of every damn month.”
Finally, the woman in the chair looked up with a sparkle in her eye. She had an incredible allure about her, and Derrick found her slight smirk delicious. When he offered her his hand, she accepted and very smoothly stepped into his arms.
Derrick pressed his lips to hers, and they melded into a sensual kiss. As his tongue swept her mouth, claiming it for his own, a battle of sighs and “Tsk-tsk!” noises erupted around him. People clicked their tongues in disapproval.
“Damn it, Derrick,” his attorney admonished. “What the hell are you doing?”
Derrick ignored him, enjoying every moment of being with the woman who was everything his ex-wife was not. He cupped the back of her neck and let his fingers get lost in the tangle of her hair. God, she smells so amazing, he thought. I could stand here with her all day.
Finally, he pulled himself away from her and faced his onlookers. “I’m kinda busy here,” he said, a clear sign that he wanted them to get lost. “Unless you’ve got anything important that I should hear, I’m going take this beautiful lady to lunch… eventually.” He turned to the woman. “You ready?”
She nodded with an eager look on her face.
“Let’s go then,” he said.
The woman stroked his jaw with the back of her fingers. “You need to shave,” she remarked.
“I do,” he said, smiling at her. Then he turned to his ex-wife and the lawyers. “See ya.”
Wit
h that, he took the woman by the hand and led her out of the office suite. As soon as they were out in the hall, he picked up the pace. “Can you run in those things?” He nodded toward her ridiculously sinful shoes.
“I’m not sure, but—”
Before she could even finish, Derrick swept her up in his arms and trotted to the elevators with her.
She giggled. “Well, I guess that answers that.”
“Sorry, I just don’t want to be stuck in an elevator with the ex from hell and her minions,” he said.
“Well, I get wanting to be alone,” she teased, then added in a very breathy whisper, “but you’d better be careful.”
“Why is that?” he asked curiously.
“Because I’m not wearing any underwear,” she said into his ear, as if it was a sacred secret.
“In that case, little girl, maybe you’re the one who ought to be careful.”
The elevator doors whooshed opened for them just in time to catch Derrick, who actually staggered in the wake of her confession. He lowered her to her feet, and she stepped away to find her balance. He hooked her slight waist with a very firm arm and drew her tall, lithe frame to his. The curves of her derrière fit perfectly against his loins, as if they were made for each other.
“Get back here,” he said in a newly discovered dominant tone and then pressed his cheek against hers.
She smiled, delighted and charmed.
“You came up in that meeting, you know,” he murmured.
She suddenly looked nervous and bit her lower lip. “I did?” she asked. “Do I even wanna know?”
“Well, as it turns out, you’re apparently the reason my ex is after more cash,” he said, his body slowly overtaken with a deep need for her.
“Oh, sorry about that,” she whispered.
“Don’t be,” he said darkly. “You’re worth every penny.”
“So, you gave it to her then?” she asked, arching her brow in surprise.
“Hell no!” He laughed. “You are also worth the horrible headache, though.”
“What horrible headache?” she asked, a bit confused.
“The one I’m sure she’s gonna be now that she knows I have a girlfriend, one she can’t possibly compete with on any level.”
“Oh? So, I’m your girlfriend now? I thought we had an agreement.”
Derrick squirmed, not so thrilled that Corrine was so intelligent, always so quick to correct him when he made that mistake. “You’re correct, Miss Naughty Pants, or Panty-less, as the case may be. We do have an agreement, don’t we?”
She turned to face him just in time for the elevator to dump them out in the lobby. “It’s a sweet arrangement. We’ve contracted a very torrid, long-lasting affair. And I wouldn’t change a thing between us, not for all the world.”
Derrick kissed her tenderly but briefly before they left the office building. “And neither would I,” he said on their way out the door.
Chapter 14
As much as Derrick wanted to spend the rest of the day with his delicious Corrine, he had to see her to her car and head off to work himself. She left his head buzzing with intense desire for her, and the thought of her wearing no panties had his mind reeling as he wandered into his own office.
He worked in the belly of Las Vegas, in the hotel and casino business, and there was plenty of opportunity for sex on the fly, but he wasn’t one to indulge in it. Before Corrine, he’d had no idea that such passion existed and that he could have fun with it at the same time. Now that he knew her, he wasn’t about to be with anyone else, not even the showgirls who walked around in nothing but sequins and feathers.
She had come up with the idea of planting herself in the lawyer’s waiting room. They talked about it beforehand, of course, but seeing her dressed up like a stranger offered a dose of erotica that rendered him almost completely stupid, so much so that he had to curse himself for not preparing to take the rest of the day off.
When he mentioned to her that he was having post-divorce troubles, she came up with the idea to stage their little scene, all for the benefit of his ex-wife. Derrick hadn’t been able to wait to see Lindsay’s head explode when she saw the two of them kiss, and the plan had worked like a charm. Unfortunately, Corrine also had her own business to take care of, some big project she was working on, and she could only spare the morning. His only solace was that he knew he would see her. Until then, he would daydream about her.
The moment he’d met Corrine, he was hooked, and that had not changed one bit. So, even when they went their separate ways, in a way, he always took her with him. She filled his head with images of her sweet, wispy hair that always softly whipped him in the face, and the soft scent of her perfume lingered on him.
As for getting back to work, Derrick didn’t have any pressing matters to tend to as the corporate lawyer for the enterprise that built the hottest piece of property in Las Vegas, the Tresor. It was more that he really liked being in that surreal world, in a perpetual state of nighttime that never ceased to glitter. The Tresor was not only his workplace but also his home. His residence on the twentieth floor was something like living in a modernized treehouse, one packed with perks. In a job like his, the glamor and glitz gave his business a fun side that never got old.
Having been held captive in an oppressive marriage for so long, he soaked up excitement like a sponge. It didn’t hurt that he had an exquisite partner in passion with Corrine. She wasn’t demanding, but it did make him hot when she sent texts telling him what to do.
“I expect a very expensive bottle of wine tonight with dinner, a reward for my little performance,” she wrote.
He grinned. “And you will have it,” he texted back.
He would have given her the world if she requested it. He would have lassoed the moon and the entire cosmos for her, but she often reminded them of their boundaries, of their so-called contract not to let things get too serious. He was ready to give her everything, but all she wanted was a steamy affair.
One thing she certainly gave him was fun. Things with Corrine were always unforgettable, never boring, and in the course of their mad, passionate affair, she indulged in her knack for costumes. She loved roleplaying, playing dress-up, and transforming herself into other people. She’d often tried to convince him to participate, but so far, she hadn’t had any luck.
“Aw, come on,” she had most recently pleaded in a pouty voice. “It’s only a police uniform. I know you can protect, but can you serve, officer? I’ll even let you handcuff me.”
Derrick had laughed nervously. “No, I don’t think I can,” he said.
She had whispered in his ear, hotly, “Don’t you want to arrest me?”
“I do,” he had replied without hesitation.
Thus, when he complained that he had to meet his ex-wife in some kind of bullshit meeting, Corrine came up with the idea to play a stranger in the lobby, but she insisted on wearing her trench coat, a notion that made him laugh at first.
“Wear anything you want… or don’t want,” he had said darkly. “But why the trench coat?”
“Because it makes me feel hot,” she’d whispered.
“Well, coats will do that, especially when you wear them indoors.”
“You know that’s not what I mean, Mr. Lawyer Man,” she’d said.
He thought again about her not wearing any underwear, and he nearly went into a seizure. He was working alone, but he was in view of some co-workers, and he was sure they wondered why he was squirming so much in his chair, struggling to keep his excitement at bay at just the mere thought of her.
Corrine had given him the gift of unbelievable satisfaction, not just in bed or on the terrace that had become a new favorite place of hers for trysts. The look on the lawyers’ and his ex-wife’s faces when they laid eyes on her was priceless, something the two of them would laugh and snicker about for a long time to come. It confirmed that they found her as hot as she felt, and she had every right to feel insanely attractive in that getup she
put together. She was already gorgeous, and the coat only made her sexier, if that was even possible.
As infatuated with her as he was, Derrick and Corrine were more or less both on the rebound, still fresh out of previous relationships, so it was assumed that neither of them was looking for anything serious. That, in addition to their unearthly attraction to one another, gave rise to a blistering affair. Every day was like Christmas.
With each other, they were free to be who they really wanted to be. Derrick felt a sense of irony in it because while he had never felt so free before, they were also more devoted and committed to each other than they would have been with strings attached. He’d known quite a few women in his lifetime, but never had he met one he felt so in tune with.
Though he saw her just about every day, he couldn’t wait to see her that night. They had loose plans to have dinner. There was no set hour, no pressure to meet a deadline, and no fallout if things didn’t work out, but they both fully expected that they’d spend the evening together, dining and laughing, kissing, and talking about their hilarious exploits that morning.
Derrick’s job was a demanding one, and it pretty much kept him on call twenty-four/seven. Gil Frosh, the Tresor owner, had businesses all over the globe. On more than one occasion, Derrick was forced to break an engagement with Corrine to fly off to put out a fire. Unlike his ex-wife, she was the ultimate good sport about it, and she always tried to understand and not take it personally.
Sometime around seven p.m., he was going over a to-do list, the items that most urgently required his attention, and another text message caused his phone to beep. He guessed who it was from and was excited to read it. He was certain it was something spicy, maybe even a picture or two.
Corrine’s message read: “I’m in the bar. Come see me when you can.”