by Davis, Alexa
"Yes, yes!" she cried. "Hard, deep!"
Her begging was all the encouragement I needed and I pulled back slowly once before I began thrusting hard and deep inside of her. She moaned and reached out for me as I leaned forward to lay my palms on either side of her head. I looked deep into her eyes as I slammed my hips forward over and over. I could feel her gripping me as I thrust into her again and again, and it drove me close to the edge so quickly that I before I knew what was happening, I had taken flight and was soaring with her as she climaxed again, this time with me.
I shivered as I felt my body release everything that I'd been holding onto into Brooke. It was as if she were taking all the fear and loneliness inside of her. I could feel her hands stroking my face as I slowly returned and looked down into her eyes.
"Wow," she whispered in a voice ragged from screaming.
"Wow, indeed," I agreed, leaning forward to gently kiss her lips. She returned the kiss as I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her up off the desk so that I could hold her body against mine. She wrapped her arms around my neck and rested her cheek against my chest as I tenderly stroked her hair and kissed her head.
Something in me shifted, and I knew that I was going to have to come clean with Brooke Raines. Not just because she was my lawyer, but because she was someone different.
"Brooke?" I whispered into the tangle of blonde hair.
"Shhhh," she said as she stroked my neck and ran her fingers through her hair. "I know, but shhhh..."
I nodded and waited for her to give me a sign as to what I was supposed to do next, since I had no idea where to go from here.
CHAPTER FIFTY
Brooke
As I rested my cheek against Dax's smooth chest and felt his strong arms wrapped around me, I knew there was no turning back. There was something about him that was unlike any other man I'd ever known and the way he'd made my body sing for him was nothing short of a miracle.
However, the doubts soon began creeping in as I recalled what my dad and Teddy had told me about Dax's business. I knew that no matter how much I wanted him, I was still responsible for defending him against the murder charges. I was supposed to be a professional, not some swooning little teenager who could be bowled over by a guy who was good in bed – or on a desk or on a bar table. What was wrong with me?
"Dax?" I said quietly.
"Mmm hmm," he murmured into my hair as he continued to stroke my back.
"We need to talk about your case," I said as I felt him shift and realized he was still hard inside me. I lifted my head and looked up at him. His dark eyes, normally wary and guarded, had a softer quality to them and as I looked into them, I brought my hand down to stroke his rugged cheek. There was no doubt about it, he moved me. "Seriously, we need to talk about it."
"I know," he said, dropping his gaze to the desk and then slowly pushing away from me. As I felt the cool air hit my body and fill the space where Dax had just been, I wanted to call him back. I wanted to keep him warm and close. Instead, I simply nodded and looked around for my clothing. Dax bent over and retrieved my underthings before handing me my skirt and blouse. He stood naked in front of me watching me dress before he grabbed his clothes and pulled them on. I wanted nothing more than to take his hand and drag him back to my apartment where we could hide out from the rest of the world forever, but since I knew that game plan had a limited shelf life, I turned my attention to his case.
"Brooke..." he said once he was dressed.
"Yes?" I replied as I looked up expectantly. I had pulled the paperwork out of my briefcase and was trying to find the other papers in the mess on my office floor. "What is it?
There was a silence between us as we both worked to replace objects on the desk. And when I looked over at him, he just shook his head and kept stacking piles on the corner of my desk.
"Nothing. Never mind," he said. "What do you need from me?"
"We need to go over your whereabouts and talk about any motives that you might have for killing Lydia," I said in a business-like tone. It was odd having just been so intimate and now moving back to business, but I knew that we had to talk about this, and now seemed like as good a time as any.
"I thought you believed me when I told you I didn't do it," he said defensively.
"I do, that's why we need to look at any possible motives," I said. "We need to discount them immediately and have our arguments ready when the other side accuses you of something you obviously didn't do."
"Brooke..." he trailed off as if he wanted to say something.
"I know," I said softly as I nodded. "I know."
Dax fixed his gaze on me for a few very intense moments before shrugging and then sitting down in the chair across from my desk. I pulled up my chair and grabbed a pen and a legal pad.
"Let's figure this out, shall we?" I said as I prepared to construct an airtight case that would ensure Dax would never be locked up, away from me.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Dax
When Brooke shifted gears and moved straight into professional mode, it threw me for a loop. I'd never seen a woman do that before. I was used to being the one in control – the one who could get my physical needs met and then shift back to business with no trouble whatsoever. As I watched her, I realized I was watching the female version of myself, and it made me feel extremely exposed.
As we got down to business, she started probing the recesses of my memory and trying to pull together a timeline that would exonerate me. The problem I kept running up against was that in order to give her all the information she needed, I would have to expose the seedy side of my dealings. I resisted telling Brooke about the drugs because I didn't want her to change her opinion of me. She believed me to be an upstanding club owner and someone who had been wrongly accused of murder. If I told her about the drugs and everything else that went with it, she'd look at me through different eyes, and it would cast a shadow of doubt over the defense she was constructing.
"Dax, you need to come clean," she said as she scribbled on a legal pad.
"Huh?"
"You need to come clean with me," she repeated. "You have attorney-client privilege, so you don't have to worry about anything leaking out or being discovered. We'll work through it together, but you have to tell me the truth."
"I am," I said as I ran a hand through my hair and stroked my chin.
"No, you're not," she said as she looked at me. "You're not telling me the whole truth, and I'm going to tell you right now that if you don't tell me the truth, it will only hurt you in the end. I will launch a strong legal defense, but if I'm blindsided by things that I don't know, then it will only make you look guilty – and piss me off."
I sat silently thinking about how to tell her everything. If I spilled it all, I might lose her, but if I didn't, I might go to prison for a crime I didn't commit and I'd lose her. It was a no-win situation that I couldn't see my way out of without telling her the truth.
"Look, I’ll believe you," she said softly. "No matter what you say, I believe that you didn't kill Lydia Banks."
"You just don't understand," I said shaking my head. It suddenly dawned on me that if I told Brooke everything, I'd also be putting her at risk with the other gangs. If they thought my lawyer knew it all, they might kill her to eliminate the chance of a leak. Like Lydia. Damn. "It's complicated."
"It's not that complicated," she said shaking her head. "Start somewhere and tell me what's going on. I need to know this stuff so that I can figure out how to approach it in court."
"Brooke, you really don't get it," I said shaking my head. "If I tell you everything, then I'm putting you at risk."
"And, if you don't tell me everything, then you're putting yourself at risk!" she shouted. I could tell that she was getting frustrated with me and while I wanted to tell her what she was demanding to know, I wanted to protect her more.
"This is absolutely ridiculous!" she shouted as she threw her pen down on the pad of paper and stood up. "I'm s
o sick of everyone thinking I'm some kind of fragile flower who can't handle things! You are all pissing me off!"
"Brooke?" I said unsure where this tirade was coming from. "Listen to me, this isn't about you not being strong enough. This is about real danger. This is about me telling you things that will put you at risk."
"And you don't think I already am at risk simply by taking your case?" she challenged angrily. "I'm a lawyer, dammit! This is what I do for a living! You need to let me do my job!"
"I'm trying," I said as I hid a smile. She was trying to go big dog on me, and while I appreciated the attempt, I also knew that I couldn't just dump the information on her and then leave her to deal with it. I needed to find a way to ensure that once I told her about my business, she'd be safe as she went about investigating my story and constructing a solid defense.
"Why are you smiling?"
"You're kind of cute when you're mad," I told her. She stopped pacing the space behind her desk and turned her laser-like stare in my direction.
"That's it," she said narrowing her eyes. "If you can't treat me like the professional I am, then you need to find yourself another lawyer, buster."
"Oh, Brooke, don't work yourself up into a frenzy," I chuckled.
"Do not treat me like a child, Mr. Malone," she warned. "I won't stand for it. I'm your lawyer and you need to treat me like you would any other lawyer you'd hire to represent you. I'm sorry our sex got in the way of our professional relationship."
"Brooke, don't be mad," I said as I looked up at her wondering where this stubborn streak had come from. "C'mon, we're good together. You know it, and so do I."
"I'm a lawyer, Mr. Malone," she repeated and I could see that any further attempts to try and get her to lighten up would be met with extreme resistance and maybe even worse. "Treat me like a damn lawyer."
"Fine, you want to be treated like my lawyer, I'll treat you like my damn lawyer!" I yelled as my cell phone began frantically buzzing in my pocket. I reached down and pulled it out and glanced at the screen. On it was a message from Kesha that simply said: 911. 911. Club. 911. 911. I knew I couldn't ignore it. "Brooke, I have to go. There's a problem at the club and it's an emergency."
"Sure, sure," she said waving me off. "Go take care of it. We'll talk about your case in our meeting at noon."
"Brooke, please just wait to hear what I have to say," I said as I turned toward the door.
"That's all I ever asked," she said as she looked up at me from behind her desk. "Just tell me what's going on."
I nodded and then turned and quickly walked down the hall and out the door of Lewis, Lee, and Raines, LLC. I hoped that I'd be able to be back on time for the meeting.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Brooke
After Dax left my office, I sat staring at my desk, trying hard to push the memory of what we'd done on it out of my mind. The way that Dax had made my body come alive was unlike anything any man had ever done before, and while I felt my body aching for his touch, my brain told me that if I followed that path, it would lead to ruin. I needed to be a professional and ensure that Dax wasn't wrongly convicted of Lydia's murder.
Without a doubt, I believed he was innocent. Now, I just had to gather the evidence to prove it, but without his help, it was going to be a difficult task. I made a note on my legal pad to get Roger to gather all the news stories on Apex, Dax's club. Maybe if we followed the news, we'd find a pattern that would help explain some of the oddities of this case. Or maybe Dax would just open up and tell me what I wanted to know.
I was pissed at him for keeping secrets, and even more pissed that he and the men in my family seemed to believe that I was nothing more than a helpless little girl who couldn't be trusted to keep herself safe in a big bad world. I rolled my eyes as I felt my frustration growing.
I looked through my notes as I began to formulate some questions that needed answering. The first one was why was Dax the suspect? Hadn't Lydia had other clients? Why had the police zeroed in on Dax over all the rest? I got up and went to the kitchen area to make a pot of coffee, and as I passed the conference room, I noticed a stack of papers lying on the conference table. I flipped on the lights, walked around to the papers, and grabbed them, thinking they were the last bit of the mess that Jordie and Roger had made when I'd caught them brainstorming a few days ago.
As I walked back to the kitchen, I glanced down at the top sheet and noticed it was a fax cover sheet addressed to Banks and Associates, LLC. I quickly lifted it up and scanned the paper beneath it. It looked like a standard legal contract for the rights to a property on the edge of Skid Row. There didn't seem to be anything particularly strange about it, other than the fact that it was here in our offices. I didn't remember having any deals with this firm, but then, Jordie and Roger often had things going on that I didn't know much about. We weren't good about keeping each other up to date on the business if there was a lot of it rolling in – but then, we hadn't had a lot of business rolling in.
The more I thought about it, the weirder this seemed. The page was dated almost a year ago and as I thought about the time period, I realized that that was around the time Jake had left me and I wasn't in the office much. I cringed as I thought about how much that break-up had affected my life and how I'd been reduced to a blubbering puddle of sadness. A wave of shame washed over me as I remembered the months it had taken for me to pull myself out of the tailspin and get back to work. Roger and Jordie had covered for me and kept the business going, so whatever they'd done had most likely been necessary. But this was weird.
Why did they do business with Lydia's firm? I made a mental note to ask them once they arrived the next day. With a fresh cup of coffee and a determined outlook, I walked back to my office and began plowing through the files. I'd find something that would help us or die trying.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Dax
I pulled up in front of the club to find a fire truck and several ambulances parked in front of the door and a large crowd of neighborhood residents and club goers standing behind a barricade on the opposite side of the street. I flashed my ID at the officer doing security and he waved me through.
"What the hell is going on?" I yelled as I slammed open the door to the club and found Kesha and two of the dancers standing in the middle of the dance floor as paramedics worked to revive a young woman with long, dark hair. The remnants of her silver club dress lay under her like a blanket, but her silver platform pumps were still on her feet.
The cops had evacuated the club while the paramedics worked on the girl, but no one had thought to turn off the music and lights. I told Diamond to go flip the switch on both, and she quickly moved away to take care of it. I looked back down at the girl and wondered what had happened. It wasn't the first time someone had OD'd in the club, in fact, we were prepared for that with vials of antidotes for various drugs. We understood the risks of drugs and knew that most ODs were accidents, but we didn't want to attract too much attention, so I kept a trained paramedic on staff. As a result, we'd normally avoid scrutiny.
"Kesha, what the hell happened?" I said under my breath as we watched the paramedics work.
"No idea, boss," she whispered. "This one was dancing like crazy and then she just dropped like a rock."
"Where's Javi?" I asked wondering why our resident paramedic was absent.
"That's the problem, boss," she said quietly. "He's treating four more in back. These guys don't know it, though. I tried to avoid attracting attention."
"Oh fuck," I felt my heart drop to my stomach. One we could explain as a reckless club kid who over did it, but five was way too many to explain away. "What the fuck happened?"
"Not a clue," she replied.
"Did the shipment arrive?" I asked.
"Yep, they brought it in just like clockwork," Kesha said.
"Did she buy the new stuff?" I could feel a wave of dread building as I started considering all the terrible possibilities.
"Not sure yet,"
she said as the paramedics loaded the girl onto a gurney and wheeled her out to the ambulance. I held the door for them and nodded when the investigating officer told me not to go anywhere.
"Fuck! Go check on the others," I said. I didn't want to draw unnecessary attention to the other club goers, but I also didn't want four dead kids in my back area when the cops came to search it. Kesha took off for the back. I crossed my fingers that Javi had been able to get to them in time.
When Kesha came back out and gave me the thumbs up, I asked where Riza was. Kesha pointed up at the office and I hightailed it up the stairs to talk with her.
"Ri, what the hell is going on here?" I demanded to know as I stormed into the office.
"Hey, get off my tits. This club is not my domain," she said as she stared at me.
"What the hell is wrong with you these days?" I was genuinely confused as to why my best friend and second in command had turned into a mean girl since Lydia's death.
"You really don't have a fucking clue, do you?" she said shaking her head. "You're such a self-centered asshole."
"Riza, what is going on?" I walked over and took her by her shoulders and shook her gently. "Talk to me. Seriously."
"Dax, you are so wrapped up in your business and pursuing this new lawyer," she spat. "Yeah, I see how you look at her and rush off to go fuck her all over town. Don't act like you’re shocked or offended."
"Wait, you're pissed because I'm after a chick?" I said, shocked to realize that Riza might be jealous.
"Oh God, don't go getting your panties in a wad," she said rolling her eyes. "I'm not jealous of her, I'm pissed because in this whole fucking mess you seem to have lost sight of family, dipshit."
