Lies. If nothing else, the elevator had proven that. “All your panties are sexy,” he offered, trying to diffuse the uncomfortable tension vibrating between them like an out-of-tune guitar string.
“Life gets in the way.” Her voice was soft. “We’re nothing if not proof of that.”
The philosophical detachment stoked his anger, and his words held more heat than he’d intended. “So that’s it, then? We just pretend like what happened didn’t happen?”
Something almost wistful flitted across her features, but she tamped it down. “We’re not pretending it didn’t happen, Wes.” When she met his eyes, hers were stone-cold. “We’re just not pretending that it meant anything.”
Back to the status quo. Cool politeness. Respectable distance.
He had to remind himself that was how he wanted it.
“Now,” she tucked her hair behind both her ears, “am I your lawyer, or not?”
The challenge was quintessentially Viv. And despite the excuses he’d flung at her in the prison parking lot, he knew there was only one answer for a smart man in immense legal peril. “You are.”
Her nod was almost...relieved? “Then if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of work to do on your case. There’s bedding in the linen closet beside the bathroom if you want to make up the couch.”
And with that, she turned and disappeared around the corner, leaving Wes with the distinct impression that, despite the square footage, there was no space in her house for anyone else.
CHAPTER FIVE
AND PURSUANT TO these charges, legalese, legalese, blah, blah, blah.
With a silent scream of frustration, Vivienne braced her elbows on her desk and dropped her head into her hands. Her legendary ability to plow through piles of legal documents had abandoned her, as though her tireless obsession with Wes’s case had fallen victim to her less welcome preoccupation with the man himself.
He took up space. In her house. In her mind. And because he didn’t fit there anymore, it was distractingly noticeable. She’d been at this for hours, trying to figure out how to get the charges dropped, but she couldn’t focus. Couldn’t forget that there was only a wall between her and the defendant.
Well, a wall and six years of growing in opposite directions.
With a sigh, she glanced at the clock in the lower right corner of her screen. It was just past midnight.
Shutting everything down, she undocked her laptop and stuffed it into its padded case. Wes’s release was contingent on her not giving him access to any electronics, although the precaution of hiding her computer felt like too little too late, considering that he’d already bypassed an elevator...not to mention her newest lingerie.
Vivienne squeezed her thighs together at the inconvenient flutter low in her belly and shoved the dirtier bent of her thoughts aside. Great sex might have been enough to sustain a relationship when she was twenty-two, but it wasn’t enough for her now. And there was too much history between them to entertain the notion of the strictly carnal, no-emotions-allowed fling that her hormones were currently begging her to consider. Best to forget their lapse in judgment altogether.
Reaching beneath her desk, Viv fished her Louboutins out from under her desk, where she’d kicked them off earlier, and got to her feet.
She wasn’t proud of the tentative way she opened the door. The exhale of relief when the living room was dark and silent.
Wanting her visitor to get some sleep was just being a good hostess, she assured herself. It certainly had nothing to do with avoiding any further run-ins with her big, sexy houseguest.
And she repeated that lie to herself over and over as she crept silently down the hallway, with her laptop under one arm and her shoes in the other hand.
Only after she’d pushed her bedroom door closed behind her with the softest click she could manage, did she allow herself a full breath. It had been a hell of a day.
Vivienne padded across the plush beige carpeting and into her walk-in closet. She placed the nude pumps back into their designated spot—third from the left on the rack allocated for work-appropriate shoes with heels three inches or higher—before crossing to a rainbow collection of handbags. Although she was alone, guilt lent a furtiveness to her actions as she reached up to pull her blush Chanel 2.55 handbag down from the shelf so she could hide her laptop behind it. The chain caught on something, and a black shoebox came crashing down, spilling its contents beside her feet.
She froze, heart pummeling her ribs as she tried to listen for Wes over the sound of her racing pulse. After a long, tense moment of silence that assured her that the noise hadn’t disturbed him, she lowered herself to the floor.
And came face-to-face with her and Wes’s past. Various sundries littered the carpet, including a pressed tiger lily from their official first date, a Señor Taco’s matchbook from their unofficial first date, a bunch of silly photos of them and their friends that she’d removed from frames years ago, and the reason she was mired in this court-mandated Greek tragedy in the first place—a hospital bracelet with her name on it.
Ghosts of a future that wasn’t to be.
Vivienne stuffed the offending mementos into the box and put it back on the shelf, next to her laptop. She didn’t need to linger over them to know that she’d made a lot of mistakes in her life. But getting Wes’s bogus charges dropped would make everything okay. Even the score between them. Her lie had gotten him into this mess. Her skill would get him out. And then she could cram all these unwanted feelings back in that damn shoebox with the rest of the things she couldn’t bring herself to let go of and get back to her normal life.
With a nod, she shoved her designer handbag up on the shelf, blocking the memories and her computer from view.
Vivienne reached behind her, tugging on her zipper as she walked back into her room. She stopped in front of the ornate cheval mirror in the corner and stepped out of her dress. But even as she tossed it over the nearby antique chair, her gaze remained fixed on the mirror.
Her body looked different to her, tonight. Softer somehow. In addition to the whisker burn along her jaw, Wes had left his mark on her right breast. She lifted her hand and ran the pad of her finger across it, wondering if she’d left traces of herself on him, too.
It had always been like that between them—incendiary—even that first night.
She’d had sex only with her high school boyfriend before Wes—and while Rob had been sweet and kind and she had no regrets, they’d mostly fumbled around in the dark, equal parts nerves and hormones. Too young, she thought in retrospect, and not equipped to deal with the emotional ramifications of what they’d done. But Wes...
Vivienne let her finger drift along the curve of her cleavage.
Wes had been a different level all together. While she hadn’t fully felt like a woman that night, he’d seemed all man to her. Their frantic fuck in the taqueria bathroom had been hot and sexy and panty-meltingly good, but it was later, back at her dorm room, when they’d had the time and space to worship each other’s bodies that crept back into her fantasies every now and again.
She hadn’t been ready for the sight of him, the rush of warmth between her legs that had come from watching him take off his clothes.
Goose bumps broke out across her décolletage as Vivienne removed her bra, and her breasts tingled at the memory.
She’d been mesmerized by his body, his shoulders thick with muscle, his hands, roughened by work and tanned by the sun, veins prominent along the backs of them, and up his forearms. He used to landscape back then, to help take care of his mom and his little sister and to fund his dreams of world domination, and the hours of manual labor showed in all the best ways. His abs were a masterpiece, and while his chest was smooth, there was a trail of hair that drew her eyes downward from his navel toward the bulge of his erection.
Vivienne let her hand wander down past her own navel,
watching the flush of her skin in the mirror as her fingers trekked lower. She licked her lips as she breached the gathered waistband.
He’d touched her like he knew what he was doing, like he wasn’t in a hurry, like she was safe with him...but not too safe.
That edge of danger was like catnip. Addictive. She’d tried to make it into a cliché in the intervening years, tell herself it was nothing more than dating a guy from the wrong side of the tracks. The thrill came from the fact that her father wouldn’t approve...or at least he wouldn’t have if Harold Grant had cared enough to notice anything going on in her life. If he’d cared about something besides his eponymous law firm. If he’d looked up from work for even a second to see how much she’d needed him, needed someone to help her through the loss of her mother.
But it had been a long time since she’d given a damn what her father thought.
Then again, she’d thought it had been a long time since she’d given a damn about Wes, too, and look how that had turned out.
That try as she might, she couldn’t banish Wes from her body, let alone her brain. Which, she thought wryly, might have something to do with the fact that she was touching herself to a mental highlight reel of their greatest orgasms.
The elastic snapped against her abdomen as she yanked her hand free.
She needed a goddamn drink.
Viv stalked over to her dresser and grabbed an oversize T-shirt from the drawer, tugging it over her head as she headed for the door.
She wasn’t some starry-eyed, hormone-infused college junior anymore, she reminded herself as she headed for the kitchen, doing her best to wrestle her weird sexual obsession with Wes into submission through sheer force of will. They’d lived separate lives. They’d grown into different people. They had nothing in common anymore, no ties to one another.
“Is that my shirt?”
Vivienne started at the sound of his voice, swearing as her hand flew to the base of her throat and she whirled to face the couch. “God! You scared the shit out of me.”
“Sorry.”
But he didn’t look sorry, propped indolently on her designer couch, his back against the armrest, his beautiful chest bare, and the blanket pulled up just high enough to make her wonder if he still slept in the nude.
In the interest of distraction, she focused on his original question and glanced down at herself.
Wes’s shirt. One she’d stolen from him a lifetime ago.
Considering the name of the landscaping company was emblazoned across the front of it, she figured plausible deniability had left the building.
Hoping the blush prickling up her neck wasn’t visible in the dimness of night, she lifted her chin to an angle that was all bravado. “As for this being your shirt, I guess that depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether you subscribe to the idea that possession is nine-tenths of the law.”
Wes’s deep chuckle raced along her skin as he threw back the blanket and planted his feet on the plank flooring.
Boxer briefs.
White.
And tight.
He’d always had the sexiest thighs.
Viv cleared her throat. “Sorry I woke you up.”
“You didn’t.” He dragged a hand through his hair, leaving it sexily disheveled. And right then, in the intimacy of the shadows, the living room lit faintly by whatever moonlight managed to join the light pollution of Los Angeles at night, it was easy to slip back to a time when midnight conversations with Wes, her in his T-shirt, him in his boxers, had been normal.
And all she had to do to maintain the illusion was ignore the electronic monitoring device blinking on his left ankle.
He stood up, stretching, and Vivienne took a step backward in self-preservation.
“This couch sucks.”
Glad for the distraction, Vivienne frowned, taking more offense than his words warranted. “It cost ten grand.”
“Well, none of that cash was funneled into adding cushioning to the cushions, I’ll tell you that much.”
She stared at the mod-style cream monstrosity, realizing for the first time that she didn’t really like it. Funny that she’d never noticed before. “Is it that bad?”
“Back in the day, you dragged me across the entire city, made me sit on fifty-seven couches before you would commit to one, and now you’re trying to tell me you’ve never sat on this overpriced torture device once?”
“A designer picked it out.” She glanced around the pristine, muted apartment, suddenly aware of how blank it was. “When I’m not at Whitfield, I’m sleeping. And if I can’t sleep, I’m in my home office. Working.”
That was her life since she’d come back to LA. And if she were being honest, she liked it that way. Being busy with work was much safer than being alone with her thoughts.
“So what are you doing out here now?” Wes’s voice sounded deeper in the dark, and the question stymied her for longer than it should have.
“Alcohol,” she blurted, remembering herself. “I need alcohol. Do you want a beer?”
He cocked an eyebrow. “I just got out of prison.”
“Whiskey it is.”
His mouth twisted with bleak humor, and her heart did the same as he followed her into the kitchen.
CHAPTER SIX
SHE MIGHT NOT be much of a cook, but he was damned impressed with her bartending skills. Wes leaned a hip against the counter and watched her. Within minutes, she was handing him a crystal tumbler of top-shelf whiskey, complete with a spherical ball of ice.
“Fancy.” He lifted the glass in a wordless toast, and she clinked hers against it before they indulged.
The smooth burn was exactly what he needed.
“Your taste in alcohol has definitely improved over the years.”
“Hey. Señor Taco’s cheap tequila Tuesdays will always hold a special place in my heart,” she countered.
The reference to the night they’d met charged the air, stealing the jaunty smile from her lips. She hadn’t taken off her makeup yet, so they were the same deep red they’d been in the elevator. Except now they’d taste like whiskey and sex, instead of just the latter.
Wes drowned that dangerous thought with another swallow of premium liquor. He should walk it back. Hit the eject button. But as she stood there, in his shirt, her pale thighs dappled with shadows, he said what he was thinking instead. “Mine, too. Señor Taco’s changed my life.”
Their gazes held in the darkness of the kitchen, and for a second, she looked like the fearless, passionate girl he’d known, before she’d smoothed it all out into precise angles and lines.
She opened her mouth, probably to make some excuse and retreat, so Wes kept talking, unwilling to let her disappear quite yet. “Jesse dragged me to that party at his frat house. He wanted me to see this girl he had a crush on.”
She relaxed a little at the promise of gossip, even though this particular secret was in the rearview mirror. “How did I not know that?” Vivienne took a sip of her drink, and he used the moment to admire the graceful line of her throat as she swallowed. “Did he make a move?”
“Nah. She bailed on the party to get tipsy on cheap tequila with some blue-collar lawn jockey before he had the chance.”
Dawning understanding tightened her fingers around her glass. “I never thought... I didn’t know he... Jesse and I were just friends.”
Wes nodded, twisting his wrist so the ice sphere rolled around in his glass. “I figured that out when you left with me. And I wouldn’t have gone into business with him if I didn’t believe he was cool with it. Can’t build a solid company with someone you don’t trust...” He set his drink on the counter. “Or someone you want to beat the shit out of.”
The not-quite confession sharpened her gaze, and for a split second, something flared in her eyes. Like she understood that
that night, the night they’d met, he would have dumped Jesse—all his money, all his business connections—in an instant for her. Would have shoveled decorative rocks and schlepped Bermudagrass sod for the rest of his life, if that’s what it took for a shot with her.
Then she blinked and it was gone, like the failed strike of a match.
Considering that, in the end, he’d chosen Soteria Security over her, it was a fair reaction.
“It’s getting late.”
She brought the glass to her mouth. Finished it in one go. The tumbler seemed loud when it met the counter, even though she set it down carefully.
Retreat mode activated. “It was late before you came out here,” he reminded her.
Their eyes met, and lust sizzled along his spine. It was still there. The connection between them that he’d thought was lost. Or at least that’s what he’d been telling himself since the day she’d hopped a plane to Yale. But he couldn’t deny it anymore.
Vivienne shook her head, and it was edged with desperation. “The elevator was a mistake. It shouldn’t have happened. A memory,” she added, her voice trailing off into nothing.
“It was a hell of a memory,” Wes countered.
He stalked closer. One careful step, then another.
Her lips parted on a shaky exhalation, and the answering snap of hunger made his body hum.
In the space of a breath, he’d become the tiger.
“You felt it, too.”
Her tongue darted out, leaving a sheen on her matte-red lips. “And you have evidence to back up that claim, counselor?”
Such a badass, even when she was the antelope. As true now as it had been then.
His eyes dropped to her chest, her nipples hard beads against the soft cotton of his old T-shirt. His hands itched to feel them pressing against his palms.
She glanced down, a frown creasing her forehead. “Don’t flatter yourself. A woman’s nipples aren’t like a pop-up thermometer in a turkey. You can’t gauge a heat level from them.”
There she was. His tigress.
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