As she was contemplating getting up again, because she still needed a drink of water, he returned with a flask and glass in hand. “Hopefully, this will keep your behind in that bed until the nurse gets here in the morning.”
“I told you that I could have gotten this myself,” she huffed.
“Yeah, well, we saw how good that turned out.” He turned to leave the room.
“Jay?”
“Yeah?” Waiting quietly for her response, he didn’t turn around.
“Thank you. I don’t know what I did to deserve someone like you in my life, but I am so grateful.”
“You deserve so much more,” he said in almost a pained voice before leaving the room.
Nakia didn’t know what to think of his cryptic response. It was a long time before she fell asleep again, especially knowing that he was lying in a lazy slumber somewhere in the apartment. She could still taste his masculine virility on her senses.
Justin was finding it impossible to get comfortable on the large sofa in Nakia’s living room, despite the sofa being massive enough to contain his entire frame. No, his discomfort was coming from the excruciating sexual frustration he’d been in since meeting Nakia. He wanted nothing as badly at the moment than to go back to her and hold her soft body against his aching flesh throughout the night. It was hell thinking of nestling his hard length in the warm crevice of her round ass and finally cupping the lush globes of her breasts, which he knew would spill over his palm. The thought of tasting her sweet lips made him close his eyes in blissful anticipation.
He groaned and rolled over onto his stomach, hoping to quell the ache.
He had no outlet or relief, and it was getting more and more difficult to resist giving in to his most primal instinct to take her, claim her. Part of his dilemma came from his reluctance to leave her. Melissa had been blowing up his phone all night, and he’d ignored her phone calls. He had no desire to return home anytime soon.
Their house hadn’t been home to him since he’d lost faith and trust in his wife. Ever since he suspected Melissa of taking a lover, he’d refused to call their house a home. In fact, he hadn’t had sex with his wife in almost a year. He hadn’t told Colt about coming home to a scene that still made his stomach churn with bile months later.
There were times he had wished that day away, wished he hadn’t seen what he did. He’d had to change into a more conservative suit for court one morning after being called into court unexpectedly.
He had been in the house almost ten minutes, even collected documents from his home office that he’d needed, greeted their housekeeper, who looked at his arrival in shock before she scurried away, and then had gone up the stairs to change.
At first, he’d heard the splashing of the water in the pool as he pulled on his shirt. He hadn’t thought anything of it, because he’d concluded that Melissa was out for a swim. After pulling on his suit, he went out to the patio to let Melissa know that he’d been in the house but was leaving again. As soon as he’d stepped onto the patio, he’d stopped in his tracks.
“Andy, you’re so sweet to me,” Melissa cooed.
“You’re so beautiful, Miss Meli,” Andy told her with absolute adoration. “Everyone should be sweet to you.”
Justin was stunned to see his wife skinny-dipping in their pool while the man he paid to maintain the pool and grounds pretended to clean the pool as he looked his fill. Melissa floated on her back with full frontal to give their handyman the maximum view. At first it seemed Justin had had a momentary brain cramp. He felt as though he’d walked into an alternate universe. There was no way what he was seeing or hearing was real.
“Care to tell me what the fuck is going on?”
Melissa shrieked and immediately lost her balance in the water. She started splashing about in a near panic and seemed to temporarily forget how to swim.
Justin watched her dispassionately as she floundered about in the water, splashing water as she flapped her arms about wildly for purchase.
Andy jumped into the pool to assist her.
“I suggest you don’t touch my wife,” Justin told him with the same cold demanding voice he’d used in combat, causing Andy to stop mid-swim and look up at him with fearful caution. “Melissa is a survivor. She’ll remember to swim once she has thought of a story to feed me.”
Melissa suddenly came to a stop in the middle of the pool once she realized Justin wasn’t coming into the water to rescue her. “I don’t need to think of a story. You’re being incredibly mean to me, Justin,” she shouted peevishly. “I don’t deserve your ill treatment. You’ve been ignoring me for weeks. You didn’t even attend the Heart Ball with me knowing how important this event was to me.” She ended that complaint with an almost convincing sob. But then she ruined it by peeking up at him to see if he was feeling contrite yet.
Justin maintained his cold stare. Did she really expect me to attend the same event that had led to my faux baby-making sessions? Fuckin’ unbelievable! After the initial shock and bitter feeling of betrayal, he was now embracing the blissful emotionless vacuum of “I don’t give a shit.” He watched dispassionately as Melissa scrambled out of the pool, pulled on a robe she’d left on the poolside chair, and turned to further plead her case with the kind of tears he would have found convincing before he knew his wife to be a liar.
“I had to go to the ball by myself and make excuses for you,” she sobbed. “How do you think that made me feel?”
“So, swimming naked in the pool while our handyman and all the staff stare at you is making you feel better?”
“You’re deliberately trying to make me the bad person in this.”
“Melissa, stop wasting my damn time and go put some fuckin’ clothes on.” Justin ignored her sputtering of indignation to turn to Andy. “Finish cleaning the pool. After that, I won’t be needing your services any longer. Lily will ensure you’re adequately compensated.”
“But, Mr. Ragnarson…”
Justin turned toward the house and started walking away.
“Don’t you dare leave me here like this! It’s not what you think, not that you don’t deserve to think so. I hate what you’ve done to my life,” Melissa yelled behind him.
Justin kept going. He was so done with her. He couldn’t look at her now without wanting to inflict violence. Never would he hit a woman, but Melissa made him so crazy in that moment that he had to get away from her.
“Why couldn’t you be born the first son!” Melissa continued yelling following him out to his car.
Justin saw Lily peek at them from the next room before turning away, not wanting to intrude on such a personal conversation. He didn’t care anymore.
“I should have married Colt instead of you!” she continued yelling even as he climbed into his car. “At least I wouldn’t have to be scraping and borrowing money all the damn time!”
Her words had lacerated him, but there was no way he was going to let her see how much she was hurting him. He’d instantly squashed his emotions and hardened his resolve. There was no way in hell Melissa was getting into his head, ever.
Justin remembered going into the court that afternoon, where he was the lawyer for a man who was divorcing his wife of twenty-three years. Usually out of principle, he would have encouraged the husband to financially take care of his wife and kids, but he was so pissed he wasn’t in a charitable mood. He felt almost guilty now for how ruthless he’d been that day. Because, when he was done, the wife was left with nothing, no house, no alimony, no kids, and for damn sure no husband.
He eventually forgave Melissa, and things were good between them for a while. He’d accepted that she did what she did with the pool hand not because she was promiscuous but because she was an exhibitionist. Melissa had always loved to show off her beautiful body, and she was a freak in their bed. And really that was part of her charm and one of the reasons he’d married her in the first place. There wasn’t a sexual act or position Melissa wasn’t
game for. So, yeah things were good for them again, and he gave her whatever she wanted even though he couldn’t afford it.
And then, a few months later, he saw his wife get into the car of a known womanizer and wealthy businessman. He followed them to a local hotel. Justin couldn’t go in after her. Instead, he called her cell. She told him that she was out shopping with her friends. Melissa spent hours in that hotel, until Justin got tired of waiting and left. That was when he knew that she was having an affair with the bastard. He couldn’t lie to himself anymore. He hadn’t told Colt that either. That was almost a year ago, and he still wasn’t ready to break the family honor code and get a divorce.
Ragnarson men married forever, and he wasn’t going to be the first Ragnarson man to break a commitment. However, that didn’t mean he’d let Melissa take advantage of his honor code either. Yeah, she was wasting her time calling him tonight. Nakia needed him, and he wasn’t about to leave her alone at such a vulnerable time. Melissa was going to have to deal with whatever shit she got herself into because he wasn’t going to play along.
Chapter Five
Nakia had been out of the hospital for almost two months, and she was settling nicely into the new office in Austin. Initially she’d been assigned to work with one of the senior attorneys in the firm, but Justin had made such a production of trying to tell the guy what she could and couldn’t do that Colt got pissed and assigned her to work with Justin instead.
Under any other circumstances, she would have been thrilled to be working with a senior partner. His experience and caseload alone would assure her career. However, the sparks between her and Justin had been almost combustible for weeks. Ever since that night when they’d almost kissed, they had both been on edge. The chemistry between them grew more and more intense by the day, as if an invisible string was pulling them together.
Now that she knew Justin better, understood his code of ethics, she knew that nothing was going to come from their attraction. It was almost liberating in a way, because she could openly flirt with him, knowing that he would never take it further than that.
It didn’t help that they worked out together in the office gym either. In fact, it was pure torture on them. At first it was only supposed to be a way for her to get the physical therapy her doctor had recommended to get her strength back. Justin had shown up to check on her and make sure she wasn’t overdoing it, given that she’d refused a physical therapist.
“What the hell are you wearing?” he’d roared on seeing her outfit of Lululemon white tights and sports bra.
Nakia didn’t move from her hands and knees position on the exercise mat and didn’t miss a beat in her fifteen leg-lift reps to respond to him. “What does it look like?” She was so busy rocking to her favorite singer, Usher, that she hadn’t heard him approach. Usher’s “Dive” played silky smooth from the speakers in the gym. Putting her in just the right groove to keep her vibing in R&B bliss.
“It looks like you don’t have enough damn clothes on.” He stood over her and glared at the other men in the room, who were openly admiring her curves.
Nakia saw and ignored them. She had first jogged on the treadmill and had immediately been flanked by two other male attorneys on the adjacent treadmills. Knowing that the men had already been on the treadmills and had been getting ready to leave the gym but turned back when she arrived, Nakia wanted to laugh at their lecherous behavior. Instead, she’d set a pace on the treadmill that she knew they’d push themselves to match. And now an hour after running the fastest three miles of her life, she was trying to stretch her already aching body when Justin had walked in. Thank God he hadn’t come in while she had still been on the treadmill. She had no doubt he would’ve been even more pissed.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Ragnarson?” Nakia went down on her forearms and stretched out her spine in perfect rhythm to Usher’s beat.
Justin growled.
She looked up at him in surprise. His gaze was glued to her behind. She looked back wondering if the tights were torn or if he could see the outline of her thong. The Lululemon tights always molded her round ass to perfection, so she didn’t understand what his problem was. Was her ass too big? She’d always been a runner, and her shapely ass had gotten more than its fair share of male attention. Knowing that his gaze was still on her, she lowered her chest further to the ground and gave him a deliberate blatant view of her apple-shaped ass. Let him say her ass was too big and she’d smack him.
He groaned gutturally.
“You said something?” she asked innocently.
Justin muttered something under his breath and stalked out of the room. He returned moments later with a large towel. And ignoring the handful of coworkers around them, who were busy pretending that they didn’t see a senior partner being a little too attentive with one of them, Justin draped the towel over her body.
“What the hell?” Nakia whispered fiercely, mindful of the stares people were trying hard to hide.
“Let’s go.”
“Are you—”
“Don’t argue with me, Nakia. I’m not playin’.” Justin wasn’t trying to be quiet or discreet about his feelings.
Nakia thought he either didn’t care or didn’t realize how obvious his interest in her was. When she stood before him, he devoured her with his gaze as though he couldn’t bear to look away. She would’ve felt sorry for him if she weren’t in the same state of mind.
He ushered her out of the gym and lectured her the entire drive back to her flat on dressing more conservatively when going to the office gym. When she pointed out that all the women wore similar clothes, he simply scowled at her and told her that she wasn’t other women. Of course, she didn’t let him get away with that. And to settle the argument, he insisted on coming to the gym with her whenever she had to go. He also bought her a bunch of baggy sweats.
In the weeks that they’d been working out together, she didn’t think that the sweats helped his situation one bit. He couldn’t hide the blatant outline of his arousal in the soft gym pants whenever he was around her, and she didn’t try to hide her desire either.
They were a sorry pair, and now that they worked together, they spent hours in each other’s company.
They had just finished interviewing a potential client, who was looking for a divorce attorney. A meeting that was supposed to last for an hour had turned into an entire afternoon. The woman was married to a very influential judge, and they had two children under the age of ten years. She had almost been hysterical with concern over the possibility that she could lose custody of her children despite her husband’s repeated infidelity.
Apparently, the good judge had threatened her with that possibility to keep her in line. And the wife had taken years of physical and verbal abuse before she was brave enough to finally seek a divorce. The physical assault on their young son had pushed her over the edge, and the woman came to Justin for help.
“We’ll explore every legal avenue we have at our disposal to help you, Linda,” Justin was now telling her as they were wrapping up the meeting. “However, you should know that the chance of proving the judge’s abusive nature is slim given the lack of evidence. You were never treated by any doctor for injuries, and even the attack on your son has no evidence. You didn’t take him in either, unless you’re willing to do that today. Which probably won’t help your case, as his attorneys will argue that this is manufactured evidence because you spoke to us first.”
“Charles wouldn’t let me take Michael to the doctor or get any kind of medical help.” Linda started crying again. She was almost inconsolable.
Nakia knew that she shouldn’t get personal with a client, but she couldn’t help sitting next to Linda on the sofa and hugging her.
Justin looked at her first with surprise and then with almost resigned indulgence. She returned his gaze sheepishly, not looking forward to his scolding again. This was not the first time she’d hugged a client when they became emotional. He had
warned her that getting emotionally invested in a client would hurt her in the long run and would also limit her capacity to give the client the best legal representation. Nakia had really tried to follow his advice, but she somehow always ended up on the sofa hugging distraught clients.
“I have no source of income,” Linda sobbed against her. “I can’t pay your fees. I came to you because a friend told me that you do pro bono work.”
“Don’t worry about that now. Mr. Ragnarson will make the judge pay and get you your divorce,” Nakia soothed. She tried mopping up the woman’s tears with Kleenex tissues Justin’s secretary kept on his desk. “Just leave it to us.” Nakia helped the woman to her feet and started ushering her out the office. After all, there wasn’t much else they needed to hear or go over with her. They had already gone over the woman’s allotted time by three hours. “We’ll contact you in a few days to get you out of there.” Linda kept trying to interrupt Nakia with another observation about how the judge would restrict her movement, but Nakia was already twirling ideas around in her head on how to use the law to get Linda her kids and a decent alimony. There weren’t many options, but damn if she wasn’t going to try to take the judge down.
“Do I have a say in what Mr. Ragnarson can and will do?” Justin asked as soon as the door closed behind Linda.
Surprised by the irritation she heard in his voice, Nakia turned to look at him. “Did I say something wrong?”
“Oh no. You just promised a woman that’s married to an appellate court judge that I, the lowly law partner, am going to get justice from this guy’s bosom buddies. And, of course, there’s no chance in hell of that happening.”
Nakia frowned at the frustration she heard in his voice. “I told her that you’d help her and succeed because I have faith in you. I’ve seen you achieve legal miracles over the past few weeks that have truly been astonishing and sexy as hell. So, I know you’re good for it.”
Primal Obsession Page 5
