by Ali Parker
“No backsies.” She sat back, crossing her arms before uncrossing them and practically lunging for her glass as soon as the waiter poured the wine. She gave him a thankful smile—as if it had been his idea—before returning her gaze to me. “Spill it, Mr. District Attorney. Why am I being followed?”
Surprised by how easygoing and comfortable she was with me when most people were the opposite, I took my time to answer. It was only when she lifted an eyebrow pointedly that I did. “I think it has to do with my father. I told you when we met last time that I was trying to keep him from getting out of prison and I am, but I think it’s suspicious timing that these men have started to follow you at the same time that there’s a petition for his early release doing the rounds.”
Her head rocked from side to side, considering. Finally, she shrugged, surprisingly nonchalant given what I’d just told her. “That makes sense, I guess. They’re keeping tabs on him. I think you’re right.”
There was a very good chance my mouth was going to drop open at her reaction. At the very least, it vindicated the gut feeling I’d had about her after our last meeting. She was intrigued; it hadn’t been my imagination. “You’re taking the news much better than I might have expected you to.”
“I’m not the kind of girl who scares easily. I work in finance. It’s the most touchy subject you can possibly have to talk to people about, more so even than religion or politics. Especially when said finances aren’t looking good. You’d be surprised at the things I’ve been told over the years. My skin has grown thick.”
She seemed genuine, not just some glib response while she really was shaking in her boots. I’d been intrigued by her, but I was quickly learning she was very different than I’d thought. Different than almost every woman I’d ever dealt with, except for my mother.
Strength and resilience came off her in waves. She had a silent way of coping with a potential crisis quickly and bouncing back fast, allowing her to move forward instead of being stuck in panicked crisis mode. I appreciated that about her. Mom had been the same, although she’d attributed her ability to having five busy, accident-prone boys. I wondered what had fostered the characteristic in Eve.
Lifting my wine glass, I clinked it to hers. “Here’s to thick skins.”
Lord knew I’d had to learn to remain unaffected by things that would shock the socks off the general population on a daily basis. My experiences had taught me enough to understand why Eve hadn’t reacted the way I’d expected her to, even if the reasons behind it remained unknown.
“Speaking of your father—” She took a long sip of wine, but her eyes never left mine. “What’s your relationship like with him these days? It must be tough with him in prison.”
I blinked. People were always prying into our family’s relationships after Dad’s conviction, but somehow, I hadn’t expected her to ask the question so boldly and unabashedly. Refusing to let her see she’d caught me off guard yet again, I nodded. “It has been tough, but to be honest, our relationship has been tolerant at best for years. Do you have a good relationship with your dad?”
Since I’d been wanting to learn more about her, I stepped through the door she opened only to be disappointed. She totally ignored my question, deflecting back to my family. “He mentioned once or twice things had been difficult with his sons after his wife passed away.”
“Everything sure did change after she died,” I managed to say, though my mind was racing with how she kept catching me on the back foot. I’d litigated against the best in the country for years and she was better at keeping me on my toes than all my opponents combined.
I changed tactics, more curious about her than ever and desperately wanting to throw the ball back into her court. I also wondered why my father would have mentioned either my brothers or my mother’s passing to her. “How long have you been working with Dad? I’ve never heard him mention you before now.”
“People hardly ever talk about their accountants.” She smiled but didn’t have a real answer to my question.
On the other hand, I guessed she was right. I didn’t think I’d ever talked to anyone about who my accountant was. It was interesting to know Dad knew her well enough to discuss his family with her, but it wasn’t exactly grounds for suspicion. Deciding to move past my father and her relationship with him, I focused on simply getting to know her.
Dinner passed quickly when we got to talking about more trivial things. We discussed what we liked and disliked about our jobs. We discovered that we both loved curry and hated shellfish, that we enjoyed the outdoors but didn’t get to spend nearly enough time there as we would have liked.
Eve laughed easily and often, teased me about my recent coverage in the local newspaper about the deals I made and debated the value of a plea deal compared to a trial. She was sharp, knowledgeable and insightful.
I found myself so immersed in our lively debate that I didn’t even notice the waiters starting to prepare for closing until our check was delivered to our table. I paid and walked Eve out, uncharacteristically regretful that our time together had come to an end.
I turned to her outside the restaurant, expecting her to say goodbye and head to her car. “So, thanks for joining me for dinner. I’ll be in contact with you about Dad’s will and if we get any information on who those guys were who followed you.”
Her gaze fell to the sidewalk, a display of vulnerability that awakened my protective instincts and made them unfurl like a beast in my belly. “I don’t want to stay alone tonight. I understand why they would follow me, and as much as I’m not afraid, I’m not comfortable with the thought of being home alone when there might very well be someone out there watching me.”
“I understand.” She didn’t need to explain herself to me. My family was responsible for what she was feeling, which made me responsible for her. Moreover, the protective beast in me refused to ignore her plight. “Come back to my place with me. It’s secure, and I have a guest room you’re welcome to.”
A relieved smile spreading on her lips, she nodded and followed me back to my house. I unlocked the door and led her inside, dropping off my suit jacket and making sure I drew the curtains in each room before switching on the lights.
“Would you like a nightcap?” I asked, turning to face her at the beginning of my hallway. Eve’s eyes were darker now, her lips parted and her chest rising and falling fast.
I had been intending to show her the guest room and go to bed before I could get myself into any trouble with her, something my body was begging for me to do. Especially with her looking like that.
“I had something else in mind, actually.” Before I could piece together what she was doing, she closed the small distance between us and pushed up onto her toes, her lips crashing into mine.
Chapter Ten
Eve
Tyson tasted minty and musky, a flavor I suspected was just him. His woodsy smell surrounded me, so much richer and more vibrant up close.
After hesitating for only the briefest of moments when I took a leap of faith and decided to try for the kiss I’d been wanting since the first time I met him, his strong arms came around me and his mouth opened over mine.
I might have been the one to initiate the kiss, but Tyson quickly took control. He released a low groan into my mouth, his hands sliding to my head and angling it for better access. His tongue swept into my mouth at almost the same second, deepening our kiss and making it that much more intimate.
I relaxed into his arms, winding my own around his neck and opening myself up to his kiss. In the past, I’d very much kept control of my sexual encounters. Everything from the kiss to sex and the lack of cuddling was me marching to the beat of my own drum. I liked controlling the situation and knowing there wouldn’t be any surprises or unexpected behaviors. I took what I wanted and left.
With Tyson as the recipient of my feverish kisses, I knew going in this time would be different. Whatever was about to happen between us—and I was hoping it would end with us i
n his bed—he was the kind of man who wouldn’t surrender the reins of control. For some reason, I was comfortable enough with him to be okay with that.
In fact, I welcomed it in a way. Just like wanting to be taken care of earlier, I wanted him to take care of me now. I felt safe with him and knew he wouldn’t do anything to hurt me, that for once I could relax and just let myself feel without having to worry about anything.
It was a freeing feeling, one that allowed me to finally understand my beloved literary heroines. They weren’t weak or a little pathetic for wanting this, just tired of always having to keep things together by themselves. The liberation I felt in this moment could easily become addictive if I let it.
Instead of worrying about the consequences of the night, I willingly went when Tyson drove us backward. I broke our kiss to moan out loud when I hit the wall and felt him grinding his hips against mine.
My dress was made of a thin, flowing material that didn’t give me anywhere to hide. My nipples hardened beneath the clingy fabric. Tyson knew it immediately, lifting one of his hands to cup my side and teasing his thumb over one sensitive peak. I gasped and arched into him, letting my head fall back against the plastered wall as pleasure spiraled from his touch.
“Jesus, Eve,” Tyson groaned. “I’ve barely touched you and you’re making noises like that for me already.”
I hadn’t even been aware I’d made any noise, but I was too busy absorbing the sensations ricocheting through my body to care. It was rare that I let myself go like this, but I wasn’t going to overthink anything tonight. Snaking my hand up to grip the hair at the nape of his neck, I found his eyes with mine. “Make me do it again.”
“With pleasure.” The corners of his lips tipped into a sexy smirk, but his eyes were hungry and held a thousand promises I couldn’t wait for him to keep. “Lots and lots of pleasure.”
Rocking his hips against mine, he lowered his mouth to claim my lips in a searing kiss that sent fiery need spinning through my veins and had an ache building between my thighs. Tyson’s hand started working on the skirt of my dress. Dragging the silky fabric up, his palm followed along on my skin.
His fingers skimmed up and down my thigh, leaving trails of fire in their wake. The pulsing between my legs grew, and I could feel the slick heat building. Between the brush of his erection against me as his hips rocked and the feel of his fingers so near to where I wanted them but denying me any real touch, I was burning up with need.
The first time I saw him, I thought he looked like a guy who would know what to do with a woman but hot damn. If this was what he could do to me without really touching me, I shivered to think what he could do when we actually got started.
“Cold?” he whispered against my lips before lowering his mouth to plant kisses along my jaw.
“It wasn’t that kind of shiver,” I admitted quietly, tilting my head to encourage him to continue his assault on my jaw and neck.
A soft chuckle sounded against my skin. “Even so, let’s get to my bedroom. I’m not going to fuck you up against the wall for our first time.”
Another shiver traveled down my spine. For the first time.
I wondered how many times there would be, knowing I would go along with however many times he wanted if he kept making me feel like this. I wasn’t a shivery, melt-into-a-puddle kind of gal usually, but it sure seemed like he was turning me into one.
I heard another low chuckle before we were on the move. Tyson grasped my hand and pulled me toward a room at the end of the hall. It was dark when we got inside, but he didn’t bother to stop to turn on a light.
The next thing I knew, my back hit a firm mattress. The bedding smelled like him, and I turned my head to the side to snuggle into the scent. Tyson’s long fingers caught my chin and turned me back to him, his mouth slanting over mine in an instant.
His kisses devoured me, made me feel small and fragile and protected in his arms, while at the same time making me feel powerful, as if I was the only woman in the universe. His big body trapped me against the bed, his weight a delicious reminder that this was all real. It wasn’t a fantasy. I wasn’t in my own bed dreaming about doing this, this was really happening.
I could feel him hard as steel against my thigh, his hips grinding into me and providing the friction I needed at the same time. A loud moan filled the air. It took me a second to realize it had come from me.
“I agree,” Tyson said hoarsely. “We need to get you out of that dress. As stunning as it is, and you’re going to have to forgive me for sounding clichéd, but it’s going to look a lot better to me right now if it’s on my floor.”
“Yes,” came my simple, husky reply.
Sitting back on his knees, he flashed me a wicked grin before lifting his hands to the tie behind my neck and pulling on the strings. They gave easily, coming away in his large hands. He wasted no time peeling off the dress from the top down and flinging it into some darkened corner.
There was only a sliver of light coming in through the windows. It was enough to allow me to see him, but not so much that I could make out any details in his room. It didn’t bother me. We could have been doing this in a cave and I wouldn’t have cared.
With my dress now a distant memory, Tyson’s eyes raked over my mostly naked body and he sucked in a sharp breath. When he reached my panties, he let out an actual growl. The sound hit me right between the legs, causing my channel to clench and release a gush of moisture. It spurred me into action. I needed him. Right now.
“Your turn.” I sat up and reached for his shirt, but he was faster than I was. He closed his hand over the material at the back of his neck, pulling the shirt off and tossing it to the floor.
My mouth watered. The limited light caused a pattern of shadows to form beneath each defined muscle, his skin smooth and unmarked. Noticing my lustful stare, he smirked and got to work on his pants and underwear. When they were gone, I had only a moment to run my gaze over the magnificence of the naked man in front of me before my panties were coming off, and Tyson was rolling a condom over his long, thick cock.
As his weight came over me, my legs parted for him of their own accord. I felt the press of his broad crown at my entrance. He kissed me hard and fast. “Later, I’m going down on you, but I need to be inside of you now,” he murmured.
I barely had time to react to his whispered promise before he thrust into me, the delicious stretch of him filling me with such an intense pleasure I cried out. He held still for a beat and then drew back before starting a steady rhythm of deep strokes into me. I rapidly felt myself nearing the precipice of ecstasy and flew over it without holding back. “Tyson, oh God…”
Tyson slowed the intensity of his pace, dipping his head and catching my lips with his in sensual, deep kisses. With pleasure still reverberating, he began to rock his hips into mine again, spinning me into another climax. With my channel clenching around him, his hips began losing their punishing rhythm as he followed me over the edge.
Hours later, after he kept his promise to me and then some, we collapsed back on the mattress.
Our bodies were covered in a sheen of sweat, and my muscles ached in the best possible way. Tyson hooked a hand under his head and turned to me, a lazy smile spread on his lips. “I’ll be honest with you, I really wasn’t expecting that.”
I buried my face in his warm chest, remembering how I’d practically launched myself at him. A flush spread from my cheeks throughout my body.
“I’m sorry,” I groaned into his damp skin. “I was thinking about kissing you all night and then it just seemed like a good idea to try it out.”
“Hey.” His long fingers cupped my cheek, and I felt the pressure of them as he lifted my face to his. “Don’t apologize. I wanted it too, and it was incredible. It was just unexpected is all.”
Tyson held my gaze captive to his for a few long seconds before I dipped my head to burrow into his chest and hide my smile. It was incredible.
Chapter Eleven
Tyson
“Mr. Lovett, do you have a minute?” A gruff voice following a sharp knock on my office door interrupted my trial preparation on Monday morning.
My gaze snapped up from the papers on my desk to land on the last person I had ever expected to see in my office. I shot to my feet, grateful he hadn’t come an hour earlier when I’d been replaying my night with Eve in my head over and over again.
Greeting the top judge in the county with a raging hard-on would have made for a far more uncomfortable situation than this already was. “Judge Carroway? Of course I have a minute.”
The judge strode into my office, shook my hand firmly and sat down as if he’d visited my office a thousand times before. He hadn’t. He shouldn’t have been visiting it now either.
It was highly unusual for a judge to come to my office. If anyone saw him here, the accusation of collusion against both of us could ruin our careers in a heartbeat.
A hundred warnings from law school raced through my head, my ethics professor’s voice ringing loud and clear. Stay away from the judges. They’re not your friends and they’re not your colleagues. They’re your presiding officers.
In the decade plus I’d been doing this job, I’d never heard of a judge making an office visit to a district attorney. It simply wasn’t done. The perception of the public, and of defendants in particular, was already that the judges and DA were on the same side.
Cold tentacles of apprehension bloomed in my stomach and kept going until they were wrapped like a vice around my heart. Carroway shouldn’t be here and both us knew it, yet he was. Something had to be very wrong for him to have taken a chance like this.
“What can I do for you, Judge?” I needed him to tell me what was going on and then for him to get out. There would be no having coffee, making small talk or having him linger any longer than he absolutely had to.
