I collected my bags and dignity from where I’d abandoned them on the drive. “Actually, I was saving the paintball until Sunday,” I told her. “You arrived early, I take it?”
“Not early enough. He was already here. Sorry for ruining your suit.”
Scots. I’d always found the accent intriguing. But any pleasant speculation about how her voice would sound in the bedroom was ruined when she tempered her apology with, “Your fault, though. You really should have worn casuals.”
Says the woman in the flak jacket, I thought, irritation and attraction warring within me. My conflicting feelings must have been blindingly obvious, because her lips twitched against a smile as she said, “So, you do have balls.”
“Might have been a different story if your aim was better,” I grumbled.
At that I got the full smile, the lighter expression softening the subtle lines on her face. It wasn’t reassuring, however, not when coupled with the laser intensity of her attention. “Oh, I always get my man.”
Her relish gave me a sinking feeling. “Will Mr Swift be armed and dangerous as well, then?”
As if in reply, a murder of crows flew out of the trees in front of us, chattering as they were startled into flight by someone just out of sight. She aimed in that direction and blasted off a shot, exploding paint everywhere. When she immediately reloaded, searching for my still unseen second client, it was with a discomforting eagerness—especially given why we were all there in the first place.
My briefing had been to get two top barristers from opposing firms to cooperate long enough to win an important libel case. I hadn’t guessed, however, that I’d have to stop them from hurting each other first. The fact that the guns were toys made me feel only marginally more confident about the task ahead of me as a corporate facilitator. I made my living helping to smooth out difficult working relationships between colleagues—parents weren’t the only people in life that you couldn’t choose—but this job already looked like it was going to be an even bigger challenge than I’d imagined.
I sighed, thinking I should probably intervene. But when I turned back to her, my mouth went dry with lust. She was on high alert, every muscle in her tall body quivering with tension as she watched for her quarry. She was scowling, yet I didn’t believe that she was angry…she wanted this fight.
I swallowed hard, my throat clicking. She whirled at the sound, bringing her gun up towards me. Freezing, I remembered how much the paintball had hurt from a distance, and prepared for the pain at close quarters. This time, though, she chose a different frontal assault, planting a very thorough, very unexpected kiss hard on my mouth.
She spun us around, holding me in place with strong hands that caressed my jaw as her tongue explored. Her gun dug into the back of my neck and her hip was sharp against the crease of my thigh. But her mouth…her mouth was a wet, relentless pressure, devouring mine with the same focus she’d been giving to her prey.
I surrendered to the sensation of her rubbing against my body. And when she flattened her palm over my heart and used her nails to scratch the lines of an X through my shirt, I got a taste of what I’d let myself in for by pushing to get this job in the first place.
At only a hair’s breadth away, she nuzzled my cheek. She urged, “Just a little to the left.” Her leg nudged between mine to move me just so. “Gotcha,” she murmured, nipping at my lower lip.
“Owww!”
The shot took me square in the back. I staggered towards her, pushed by the force of the blow, but she wasn’t there to break my fall. I’d done my part as her human shield and she was already racing for the trees. By the time I’d recovered enough to chase after her, I was panicking—had I already failed to keep the peace?
When I found her, she was flat on her back in the grass, sprawled out underneath the masculine shape of the fellow barrister she’d once described to a New Statesman journalist as ‘half viper, half encyclopaedia, all venal’.
Swift was as striking as she was, with thick brown hair cropped in a rumpled Caesar cut. There was a good deal of grey scattered throughout, partly obscured by the straps of the protective goggles he was wearing. I liked it all—especially the fantastic view I had of the lean line of his muscles as he aligned with her struggling body.
She growled up at him, “Your arse is mine when I get you.”
Electric sexuality crackled between them. Swift began to hum, right in her ear. It took me a moment to catch on that it was the final bars of the song, Sweet Caroline. Furious, she redoubled her efforts to escape, but he managed to pin her wrists together with one hand, stretching her arms above her head. With his free hand, he pulled a paintball out of his jacket pocket and smashed it against the ground. Blue paint splashed up along her side as she tried to wriggle free.
He released her and stripped off the goggles in triumph. “Looks like I got you, Ginger,” Swift said. “Ergo, by your logic, your arse is mine.”
Freed from his hold, she surged up and knocked him backwards onto the ground. She brought her hands up between his thighs, and I caught a sizzling glimpse of her fingers cupping the bulk of him as she squeezed in warning. “Don’t. Call me. Ginger.”
Swift watched her with an intense stare as she straddled him, still framing his groin, and if I’d thought the way she’d kissed me had been sexy, it was nothing compared to the aggression of their kiss. Their mouths clashed, biting and sucking, their hands tore at each other’s clothing as they fought for supremacy. They were ravenous. Totally involved. Two people igniting their personal issues into incendiary sexuality.
As she yanked at his zipper I couldn’t stop my response—a needy whine that had me clapping my hand over my mouth. It was enough to startle them out of their absorption. She rose from the ground and quickly planted a boot on his chest to prevent him from following.
“Nice moves,” Swift said. Instead of struggling he stretched lazily, as if he’d intended to stay there on the grass.
“Self-defence. Great local police initiative.”
From beneath her heel, he smirked up at her. “Hot cops, Caroline? Funny, that’s why I went to law school too.”
“Let me help you up,” I interjected, cutting off what was sure to be a dangerous reply.
“Obliged.” Swift held up a paint-splattered hand, ignoring Caroline’s impatient hiss.
His grip was firm and warm, and he was still smiling broadly when he let go of me to dust himself off. The file on him in my briefcase read, ‘Irreverent, but backs it up with a keen mind and a great deal of influence. Not to be underestimated’. And apparently an excellent kisser, judging from the flush on Caroline’s cheeks.
I studied his mouth with interest, glancing away self-consciously when he caught me.
She said, “We haven’t been properly introduced. Caroline Kildaire.”
She rolled her final ‘r’ with that sexy burr of hers, and I was so distracted that I stumbled over my own name. “Adam, uh, Adam Bloom.” I pulled myself together with an effort, digging for my already-battered professionalism. “The facilitator brought in by your firm.” I glanced at Swift.
“Her firm, you mean,” he corrected.
“Yes, that’s right. I’m here to help you find better ways of working together.” In the face of their tension, it seemed hopelessly naïve to say the corporate jargon out loud.
He seemed amused by my dilemma. “Well, best of luck. We’re quite incompatible, I’m afraid. Call me Hilary. Last names are for Caroline, who ignores the preferences of others whenever possible, so feel free to call her Ginger in retaliation. By the way, I liked the”—he mimed my defensive move with the briefcase—“creativity in the face of adversity.”
His smile was infectious and I found myself grinning back. “I’ve always been good at a spot of quick and dirty improvisation,” I said.
I’d meant it innocently, but even to my own ears the words came out with an off-colour edge. They caught Caroline’s attention and she laughed, a peal of sound as filthy as my
own reaction to it. I felt like I had when she’d kissed me—used and loving it—like she’d picked me up by the scruff of the neck and shaken me, then set me onto her knee to be stroked.
Hilary’s gaze on her was heavy-lidded, his lips slightly parted, his next jibe arrested. This wasn’t exactly how I’d imagined things kicking off between the three of us, but it was certainly one of the more unusual introductions I’d been involved in. What was it I’d said about being good at improvisation? Something told me I’d need every bit of help if I wanted to survive the next two days. I cleared my throat. “Let’s go in and get cleaned up, shall we?”
I walked away from them quickly, needing a moment to myself to bring my internal heat level down to a manageable temperature. When I reached the large manor house I found a ransacked crate of paintball equipment propping open the front door. The sight made me wonder if these predators had planned from the start to prey on their facilitator, or if they’d waited until they’d set eyes on me. The last option, that they’d seen something in me worthy of a hunt, gave me a palpable sexual thrill. It was a dangerous train of thought, though, and I knew better than to play into the very tension I was there to defuse.
Stop it, I commanded myself. But that was easier said than done. Trying to regain my composure, I took the big staircase two steps at a time to feel the punishing sting of my bruised muscles.
I’d been lucky to get this venue at such short notice. The stately lodge was kitted out with first-class mod cons and sport facilities, and highly in demand. But, for Caroline’s firm, money was apparently no object, which was a good reminder that I’d better prove my own worth. At heart, that was the crux of it—tired of being undervalued, I’d staked my professional reputation with my senior partners in order to get this gig in the first place. High reward potential, but even higher risk. No pressure then.
There were six bedrooms upstairs, all done up with en suites and William Morris bedspreads. The doors to the two closest were already open, clothes strewn about as carelessly as the equipment downstairs had been. For simplicity’s sake, I choose the next free bedroom along and set my case down. Then I remembered that the email from the venue administrator had indicated we had the place entirely to ourselves, and the implications of this cosy setup fully dawned on me.
Two nights alone with them. So much temptation…just me and a pair of sexy troublemakers who couldn’t seem to decide whether they wanted to fight or fuck. I’d be caught in the middle, no matter what happened, and I wasn’t sure if it would be a case of ‘In Richmond, there’s no one to hear you scream’ or like landing in the middle of the best skin-flick ever.
I stripped off and splashed water on my face, but not even a cold drenching prevented me from hoping it would be a bit of both. For someone who spent much of his days helping others to identify and improve their weaknesses, I was developing a bad habit of ignoring my own. I should have anticipated that I’d find two aggressive high achievers to be provocative.
But I’d never acted on any of my attractions to clients before, and this job was most definitely not the time to cross that line. Both Hilary and Caroline would be to blame if their business arrangement didn’t work out, yet I’d have to shoulder a share of that responsibility as well if I couldn’t keep my cock to myself.
Ruefully, I changed into a new shirt and jeans, leaving off the tie in case they thought of a way to strangle me with it. And sure enough, as soon as I opened the door to my room, I walked straight into an argument. While Hilary simply looked cross, Caroline’s expression was smug enough to leave me in no doubt about who was winning.
“It’s very inconvenient that we’re being asked to stay here,” Hilary complained when he saw me. “I suppose there’s no choice, is there?”
“You know there isn’t,” Caroline snapped before I could reply. “Unless you’re willing to step away from the Gallagher case.”
“Your bosses wanted me in on this,” he countered. “And I am in on it, no matter what you do to drive me away.”
“What I do?” Her mouth tightened. It was barely noticeable, but then I’d been watching her for a reaction. The briefing notes I’d put together had highlighted her courtroom performance, mentioning her incredible, almost uncanny cool in the face of pressure. I didn’t see any of that at that moment—just a fierce temper in a red-hot package.
She favoured me with a ravishing smile. “I’m sure we’ll be quite comfortable,” she said.
Hilary snorted dismissively and stalked away to his room as she added, “Adam here will stop things from going too far astray, won’t you, Adam?”
Staring at Hilary’s retreating back, I wasn’t so sure about that. The hand-shaped splash of red paint curving over his arse was evidence enough that the carnage had already begun.
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About the Author
Rachel Randall draws inspiration from the kinky, classy cool of London. She writes characters with interesting day jobs, who know what they want and how to ask for it (usually with a slow slide down to their knees). Her favourite words include ‘indulgence’, ‘filthy’, and ‘Here are your backstage passes to the Franz Ferdinand gig’. One day she’ll figure out how to get away with naming a character after Isambard Kingdom Brunel, especially now that she’s moved to Bristol.
Rachel believes in evidence-based smut, and keeps a pet scientist in the house for peer review.
Email: [email protected]
Rachel loves to hear from readers. You can find her contact information, website and author biography at http://www.total-e-bound.com.
Also by Rachel Randall
His Christmas Present
Taking It Off
Playing With Prudence
Sharing the Billionaire: Lucky for Him
Tempting Temps: Temporary Truce
Sultry Solstice: The Festival Spirit
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