Blackjack and Moonlight: A Contemporary Romance

by Braden, Magdalen

  She thought he was going to say no.

  “Yes,” he said, tugging on her chin so he could kiss her. “If that lunatic deal is all you can do, then I want it, of course I want it. I want you. Never doubt that.” He kissed her, hard, bending her back, holding her silky head in his hands. He wanted to devour her.

  When he let go, Elise looked so triumphant he wasn’t sure if that glimpse of uncertainty had been an act. “Remember, no using the L-word,” she taunted him. With a final peck on his lips, she grabbed her condom-filled briefcase and left.

  Chapter Eleven

  Elise was jelly-limbed with postcoital relaxation as she rode down the elevator. Her thoughts felt singed, still hot to the touch. That’s what I get when I play with fire. All the metaphorical signs had been there: heat, flames, not enough oxygen, and the creaking of joists and beams about to fall on her head.

  Was she nuts? She’d left to buy condoms. Easy enough to keep walking back to the office. But no, she had to run back into the burning building. Every warning sign along the way screamed “Danger! Stay Out!” She’d ignored them all.

  Stupid, stupid woman.

  She should have let Jack believe they’d broken up. How had she tricked herself into thinking she could handle him? The answer was blazingly obvious—she hadn’t been able to stay away. She was a danger-junkie. Sex with Blackjack McIntyre was a drug she didn’t want to give up. All those years of saying no to pretty much everything stronger than beer—and saying no to beer a lot of the time—and here she was, addicted to a mad, bad, dangerous-to-know judge. She’d never been so hopelessly boneheaded. She must be more like Peggy than she thought.

  Elise walked away from the courthouse on autopilot, putting one foot in front of the other. It was a struggle not to go back and say she’d changed her mind about dinner, particularly if it meant they ended up sleeping in his bed. Hell, she was ready to say yes to whatever it was he thought he was offering. Just to have more sex with him. And more after that.

  Which was crazy enough to convince her she was losing her mind.

  Oh, God, when she’d seen him at the bench, squashing the pretensions of those lawyers, he’d been irresistible. At least, more than she knew how to resist. She was no prude, but she’d never felt that sort of desire before. Good thing she’d needed to get the condoms because there’d been a moment when she seriously considered doing something far too public for a mature lawyer, let alone one up for partnership.

  Shit. What day was it? June first. Six weeks before the partners’ retreat. Six weeks to indulge in this madness, then her judge had to go. For good this time. She wasn’t going to give the firm any reason to think she was distracted or less than committed to the firm.

  She glanced at the sky. It had started to drizzle. She ignored it.

  What if someone saw her coming out of Jack’s chambers? What if his clerks gossiped? Just the thought of the Fergusson partners discussing her having sex with a federal district court judge on the floor of his chambers made the blood pool in her damp shoes. No, no one saw her, and his clerks adored him. They wouldn’t gossip.

  And she wasn’t out of control. Dating on the weekends was going to be enough again. She’d had a hard time going without him. That’s all. Her craving was temporary. The fun would fade and he’d leave. They always did. Usually relationships waned after a few months at the longest. Maybe this one was more exciting than the others, but eventually they all got boring and ended on a note of mutual disinterest.

  Hard to imagine Jack getting boring. He was like the Mona Lisa smile—iconic and fascinating. Did it ever seem obvious?

  A taxi pulled up alongside her on Market Street. She caught the cabbie’s eye and shook her head. Her hair flapped wetly against her cheek and stuck. She ignored it.

  How had the news anchor ever let him go? Wait. Maybe the news anchor hadn’t been the one to end it. Probably a string of women in Philly were all still pining for Blackjack’s secret recipe of brains, looks, and the superpower to make a woman crazy stupid for him. He said he’d been to their weddings, but whoever the grooms were, those women had to have settled for second best.

  And yet Jack swore he wanted only her. What was that about?

  Maybe if she could figure out the whole “I’m in love with counsel for the defendant” nonsense, Jack would lose his mystique. She still had no clue what possessed him to say that in open court. He wasn’t in love with her, she knew that. He didn’t act like a moony teenager, for one thing. Sure, he was very generous, but the attentiveness and gifts were simply good manners. And another thing. He didn’t seem very needy. She was the one with no willpower. She just had to stop by his courtroom, supposedly to see how his first trial was going, just for a minute…

  Elise stepped off the curb to cross to City Hall Plaza and felt her navy pump squelch a bit. It was raining harder now. She ignored it.

  She touched her lips, puffy from that last punishing kiss. Jack wasn’t indifferent to her, though. He’d made love to her like he’d gone months without sex. Maybe she was a drug for him too.

  She did seem to fascinate him, the way he fascinated her. That look he’d given her when she reappeared at the back of the courtroom, that look of his daring her to stick around. So they had chemistry together, so what? They didn’t know each other very well yet, that’s all.

  So back to Plan A—get to know each other. Familiarity breeds contempt, right? Or, if not contempt—because there was no way she could ever feel contempt for that man—then the sense of “been there, done that.” Simple fix—they needed to spend more time together. When they really knew each other, it would get boring and they’d part.

  That made sense.

  The tension in her chest and shoulders eased, and she could finally take a deep breath. With every block, heading west away from the courthouse, she felt better. The fire was behind her, the panic that everything would collapse on her head had receded. She had a great life, a job she loved, a house that comforted her, family and friends.

  From now on, Jack McIntyre was a recreational drug. Those were safe, right? Of course they were.

  On the corner of 15th and Arch, she finally realized she was sopping wet. She hailed the first vacant cab she saw and had it take her home.

  After toweling off and changing into dry clothes, she got out the Louie Voy file to finish the discovery requests she was working on. Before digging in, she dialed Jack’s cell phone.

  “I thought you were churning out work.” He sounded pleased she’d called.

  “About to begin. I realized we didn’t make plans for this weekend.” She tried to calm her breathing. She was panting a bit, as if she’d been running.

  “What would you like to do?” he asked slowly.

  “I think, to be strictly fair, it’s your turn next.”

  “Elise, I don’t care about whose date it is.”

  His voice had that metallic note that meant he was annoyed. She felt a pulse of fear—if he didn’t want to trade dates, she wasn’t sure what she’d do. She had to play it cool. “Oh. Okay. Then let’s do it this way—how free is your weekend?”

  “I’ll have files to review, of course, but it’s nothing like it was in the US Attorney’s office. I can definitely clear my calendar. What did you have in mind?”

  She thought fast. “I found it hard to sleep in your bed, and you found it hard to sleep in my bed, right? How about we go away for the weekend? That way, it’s a strange bed for both of us. When we both can’t sleep, we can keep each other company—you know, play Scrabble or something.” She smiled. This seemed a smart move.

  “Okay. Where would you like to go?”

  “Anywhere. Uh, let me amend that. Anywhere with a nice inn or B&B, good food, a wine list—that’s for you, of course—and maybe someplace to walk.” The silence lengthened. Had she made a mistake? Said the wrong thing?

  “What about Eagles Mere?” He made it sound like he wasn’t sure she’d approve.

  “Where’s that?”

/>   “Sullivan County. It’s in the Endless Mountains.”

  “You mean, like the Poconos?”

  His voice relaxed. “Further west. And north.”

  “Okay. Do you want me to book a room?”

  Another pause. “Let me take care of that,” he said.

  She scratched her head. She was always the travel agent when she and a date went away for a weekend. Then she remembered—this was Jack McIntyre, who cooked and bought gifts and did all those girly things better than she did. “That sounds great. Tell me when you want me to be ready, okay?”

  “Will do.”

  They wished each other a pleasant evening, all very civilized, just as if they hadn’t been nude in his chambers an hour earlier.

  Elise touched her lips again. Still deliciously sore.

  “Where’s Kim?” Christine asked as she walked into Elise’s office.

  Elise didn’t look away from the computer screen. She really needed to get the numbering right on this motion to compel. When that was done, she looked up. “What? Oh, yeah, she’s having scheduling problems. Donny had to go for an MRI and his mom couldn’t look after DeeDee.”

  “Does Kim have any leave left?” Christine settled into a chair.

  Elise frowned. “I don’t know. Probably not. She’s had a tough time, with Donny’s accident. The closing was last week, so at least she won’t need to file for Chapter Thirteen.”

  “Good job with that one. I wasn’t sure the bank was going to go for the refi, given Donny’s problems.”

  “I convinced them it would be more trouble to say no than to say yes.”

  Christine pursed her lips but changed the subject. “Hey, what happened yesterday? I was expecting you to call about ordering food last night, but you never came back. You got beat up in court?”

  Elise couldn’t stop her cheeks flaming with hot color. She tried to turn back to her computer, but Christine had already caught the telltale stain.

  “Omigod, you saw Jack, didn’t you?”

  “I knew his trial had started, so I slipped in the back to watch.”

  “I thought you guys were done.”

  “I thought so too.”

  “And?” Christine asked.

  “And…and nothing. He’s a very good judge.”

  “His skills as a jurist are not putting that fire-engine red in your cheeks. You saw him. Alone. Don’t try to deny it.”

  Elise smoothed out the calendar page in her desk blotter, then shifted a file folder a couple of inches to the left. When she thought she had her breathing under control, she folded her hands.

  “Yes. We saw each other. Alone. In chambers. After the trial had adjourned,” she stressed.

  Christine grinned. “More great sex. Good for you.”

  Elise shook her head. “The jury’s still out on that point. I’m not sure it is good for me.”

  “What are you talking about? He’s crazy about you. What could be wrong with that?”

  Elise hunched her shoulders. “I don’t know. I keep thinking it’s going to end, but then I keep going back for more. It’s not going to end well, and I pride myself on good endings.”

  “Why are you so convinced it’s going to end?”

  “Because it will. I’m boxing above my weight class here. He’s Blackjack McIntyre. I’m just me. He—I don’t know, he reminds me of my dad. Very, very good at his job and rather distant everywhere else.”

  Christine leaned forward. “The situation with your dad is different. Your mom divorced him, you didn’t see him much when you were a kid, then you moved back in as a teenager, after your dad had a whole new family. That would be a tough situation for anyone.”

  Elise looked out the doorway at Kim’s empty desk. They hadn’t sent anyone to replace her, probably because the other partner she worked for was on vacation.

  Christine filled in the silence. “And anyway, what’s your dad—who sounds like he has a stick up his ass—have to do with Jack? Who definitely does not have a stick up his ass.”

  “I don’t know. I worry I want too much from Dad. I purposely don’t go to Ohio as often as I could because I feel weird there, like I’m a visitor from another planet.”

  “So what? Do you feel that way with Jack?”

  Elise remembered the look on his face when she’d stripped to her undies. “No.”

  “What’s the problem, then? He’s in love with you, and you—”

  “He’s not in love with me. He just says he is.”

  “You’re crazy. You know that. Of course he’s in love with you.” Christine shook her head, which didn’t muss up her sleek gold-coin hair. How did she manage that?

  “He’ll get over it. Or he’ll wake up and realize he’s made a mistake. They just do.”

  Christine scowled. “Who does? Your dad? The superficial guys you date? I’m telling you, Jack’s not like them.”

  Time to change the subject. “Yeah, like you can talk. You date the dweebiest guys. What’s up with that?”

  Christine grinned ruefully. “Guilty as charged. Definitely a case of do as I say, not as I do. And speaking of which, did I tell you the latest thing Edgar did?”

  Elise let the anecdote wash over her. The scene in Jack’s chambers had been really great. Why couldn’t she just enjoy its memory?

  Jack called his sister on Thursday evening. “Hey, do you know if anyone’s using the Eagles Mere house? There’s nothing on the calendar, but I thought I’d better check with you.”

  “Hugh hasn’t said anything. I’ll need to go in a couple weeks, you know, to meet with the caterer and florist, but nothing this weekend. Why?”

  “I thought I’d go up. I figured neither Hugh nor Annette would be there because their kids are still in school. But with the wedding coming up, I wanted to check with you.”

  Stacy didn’t say anything for a moment. “Wait, you’re going alone?”

  He hesitated. Nothing he could say seemed safe, but he wasn’t going to lie. “No.”

  “Oh, lord, you’re not back with that news anchor, are you? I watched her on YouTube. Surely you can do better than that.”

  “Nice, sis. Very supportive.” He kept his voice stern, but he was grinning.

  “Oh, lord. I was kidding. Still, you aren’t dating her, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Then who?”

  “A local lawyer. You don’t know her.”

  “Tell me about her,” Stacy insisted.

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “Too soon. Let me spend the weekend with her. Then maybe I’ll tell you about her.”

  Stacy said, “Hmm.” Never a good sign. “Libby’s graduation is next weekend. It’s in Philly, so no excuses. Bring your friend along.”

  Oh no. He’d forgotten about the law school commencement. “I don’t know. She may not want to come, and I won’t push her.”

  “I’ll get an extra ticket, just in case. And, Jacko?”

  “Yes?” He braced himself for something uncomfortable. Having a sister who was fifteen years older frequently reduced him to adolescent stammering.

  “Even if she doesn’t come—especially if she doesn’t come—I want the deets on your new girlfriend.”

  “You don’t need to quote the twins to be au courant.”

  Stacy laughed. “And you don’t need to speak French to sound like a fusspot.”

  He wanted to ask if Stacy had sex on the floor of her office recently, but he knew better. He grinned. “Yup, that’s me. Very boring and prematurely stuffy.”

  For their weekend outing, Jack insisted on using his car, which was fine with Elise.

  She’d done some research on Eagles Mere so she could dress appropriately. The tiny village alongside a lake was famous for the Victorian “cottages” edging its banks. Elise was picturing Cape May, New Jersey—only inland and with sailing. She’d tucked in her new bathing suit, in case it was warm enough to swim, but she suspected they’d just walk around the lake and admire the sailboat
s.

  She’d forgotten that Jack drove a late model Lexus. “I thought you have to drive American,” she said as he loaded her bag in the trunk.

  “As the US Attorney, yes. This was my reward for getting confirmed.” He patted the roof of the car before opening her door. “Article Three judgeship, baby—appointed for life. They can’t fire me for driving Japanese.”

  She laughed at his boyish glee. “Well, it’s a nice car.” It was easily the smoothest ride she’d experienced. She waited until he’d maneuvered them onto the Schuylkill Expressway before asking, “You’re rich, aren’t you?”

  “You make that sound like an accusation. Isn’t it supposed to be a good thing?”

  She thought about that. “Actually, I think it might be.” She rubbed her bottom lip. “I make a lot of money, more than I need. That’s just luck. Twenty years ago people doing my job made a third of my salary. But it’s been a touchy subject with men on occasion. Who pays, when to go dutch, that kind of stuff.”

  “And you thought I was scraping by on a federal judge’s salary?”

  “The Supreme Court would have us believe your pay is so measly that it’s a constitutional crisis.” She smiled. “I had a lovely picture of you making peanuts…literally. Like circus elephants.”

  “Not quite that bad. Although it’s true that a lot of well-qualified lawyers don’t want to be judges because the cut in pay would be too drastic.”

  “Not a problem I suspect I’ll ever face. I’m no one’s idea of judge material.”

  He glanced at her. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” He turned back to his driving. “Anyway, you’re right. I’m rich. Someday we can compare tax returns.”

  “Ooh, Judge, I love it when you talk dirty to me,” she purred, running her hand up his right leg.

  “Uh, Elise? Hands off. Lifetime appointment might mean I can drive the car of my dreams, but it doesn’t mean I can afford to cause an accident because my girlfriend groped me.”