by Lisa Childs
Me. But she only thought it. She didn’t say it. She wanted to tease him a little.
Or maybe a lot.
“Undress,” she told him.
He hadn’t buttoned his shirt, so he just jerked it off his shoulders and dropped it onto the carpet.
“With maybe a little more finesse than that,” she admonished him.
“What? Do you want me to do a striptease?” he asked, and he sounded appalled.
She held in the laughter that burned the back of her throat. “You said you’d do whatever I said.”
He gestured at the room. “You don’t have a pole,” he said. Then he studied the room more intently. “Although it would be easy enough to install one.”
She didn’t want to ask how he knew so much about installing stripper poles. So she shook her head. “You don’t have to do a striptease,” she assured him. “You just have to strip.”
He did as she’d told him, quickly shucking off his jeans and boxers until he stood in all his naked glory before her. And he was glorious with his dick strutting out from a soft bed of auburn curls.
Because she’d always hated being a redhead, she’d never been attracted to one before. But then Trevor’s hair was more brown than red. And it was rich and thick.
Her fingers twitched to run through the overly long tresses. But she curled them into her palms to resist temptation. She would touch him.
Later...
“What do you want me to do now?” he asked, his voice gruff with desire.
“Just watch,” she told him. Since he’d stepped through the door, he’d been staring at her, at the lingerie she wore.
Guilt had compelled her to buy it. But she could have chosen several other items besides this. The leather bustier pushed her breasts up and out. Maybe it was because she’d always felt they were too small that she’d bought it. Leather panties with bows on each hip matched the bustier. She’d even bought the leather choker that completed the outfit. It, of course, was bound with a bow since the entire ensemble was part of Bette’s Beguiling Bows collection.
“The first time I saw this room, I figured you’d have an outfit like this,” he said, and his voice sounded even gruffer now.
She nearly laughed since she’d just recently purchased it.
“Where’s the whip?” he asked.
“You might find out,” she said. “If you don’t do what you’re told.”
“I am,” he protested. “You told me to watch, and I haven’t taken my eyes off you.”
But she had yet to do anything.
Maybe this hadn’t been the best idea. She’d wanted to tease him. But she felt self-conscious at first as she reached up and touched a breast.
But his eyes widened, and his breath escaped in a hiss between his clenched teeth. And when she lowered her gaze, she found his erection pulsating as if reaching out toward her.
Confidence replaced the self-consciousness. And she raised her other hand until she held both breasts. As she held the weight of them in her palms, she rubbed her nipples. Then a moan slipped through her lips.
And his groan echoed it. “You’re killing me, Allison. I want to touch.”
She shook her head and continued to tease him as she touched herself. But she was making herself ache even more for him.
He fisted his hands at his sides as his big, muscular body started to shake. “Allison...”
Her breath escaped in a gasp as the pressure wound so tightly inside her. She needed him. Needed the release he could give her. “Okay,” she relented. “You can touch me now.”
He hesitated a long moment before he uncurled his hand and held it to her. “Where do you want me to touch you?”
She liked this, liked putting his hands where she wanted them. She had never felt as powerful as she did now. She replaced her hands with his, cupping her breasts in his palms. He squeezed gently.
“Kiss me,” she told him.
And he lowered his head.
As much as she loved being in control, she wanted to be out of control. So she whispered in his ear, “Fuck me.”
He growled. Then he pushed her back onto the bed and followed her down. He kissed her as he always did—deeply, passionately.
Their lips clung together, nibbling and nipping at each other. Then his tongue slid inside her mouth, like she needed him inside her body. She wriggled beneath him, arching her hips, rubbing against his erection.
He groaned, and she realized she was rubbing the leather of her panties against his sensitive skin because she felt it, too—hot and smooth between her legs.
And she moaned.
She didn’t even have to tell him, and he reached for those bows, tugging them loose from her hips so that the panties fell away.
Then he touched her there—at her core.
Another moan—almost a whimper—slipped through her lips. His fingers stroked over her and over her.
She arched against his hand, needing more. And since she was still in charge, she told him what she needed. “Go down on me.”
He grinned. “You don’t have to tell me twice.”
He moved down the mattress until his head was between her legs. And he made love to her with his mouth, nipping gently on her clit before flicking his tongue across it.
She arched up again—against his mouth—and she nearly came. But he drew back—teasing her.
And she realized who was really in control, who had been in control the entire time. “No...” she protested, albeit weakly.
“No, what?” he asked. “No, stop? No, don’t stop?”
“Don’t stop,” she said. “Don’t stop.” He had her teetering on the edge of madness.
Then he flicked his tongue over her clit again as he eased two fingers inside her. And she came, screaming his name.
He reached out for his jeans, probably to find a condom. But she pulled him back onto the bed and rolled him onto his back.
“Allison, we need protection.”
“Not yet,” she said. “I will tell you when.”
“What do you want me to do?” he asked, his voice very gruff again.
“Just lie there,” she told him. Then she lowered her head. She closed her mouth around his penis, then sucked it deep in her throat.
His hips lifted from the mattress, and he growled her name. “Allison, I’m not going to last.”
She hoped not. She wanted him to go as crazy as he’d made her, as out of control. She moved her mouth up and down his cock as far as she could take him in her throat. Then she closed her hand around the base of his shaft and stroked.
He growled again, and cords of muscle stood out in his neck and his arms as if he was struggling to hang on.
She moved faster and twirled her tongue around him. Then his hands clutched her hair, holding her down and he shouted her name as he came, filling her mouth.
She licked him from her lips and smiled up at him.
“You are dangerous,” he said. “Very, very dangerous...”
She didn’t think he was talking just about how she’d made him lose control. How else did he consider her dangerous?
CHAPTER NINE
A WEEK HAD passed since Trev had skipped the regular Tuesday business meeting. He knew better than to try that again—especially after all the calls he’d missed from his partners.
Well, he hadn’t really missed them. He’d declined to take them because he’d been busy—with Allison.
Unfortunately, he hadn’t gotten any closer to finding proof that she was the mole. But he’d gotten a hell of a lot closer to her in every position imaginable. His body ached a little from all the ways they’d had sex. And it ached because he wanted to do it again.
And again...
But he’d forced himself to leave her that morning, knowing that he had to make it to the office. Or else he’d
continue to be a hypocrite. He’d been furious when she’d suggested he give up the practice and his friends but then he’d spent the past week avoiding them.
Some friend he was.
She’d distracted him with her beauty, with her body...
With her heart. He was beginning to know that, as well. She fiercely hid it behind that wall of ice she showed the world. But he knew she did that to protect herself because she’d already been hurt so badly.
He could understand not wanting to be hurt again. If she knew what he was really up to, that he had lied to her about running for office...
Then he would hurt her.
But if she was the mole, didn’t she deserve it? She’d hurt him, and she had hurt the practice, as well.
His friends...
Guilt clenched his stomach as he walked into Simon’s office where all the partners already waited for him. He felt as if he’d betrayed them. And he hated that feeling.
“He is alive,” Ronan said to Simon. “You didn’t need to worry.”
And he felt another pang of guilt. He could see that Simon had been worried. There were dark circles beneath his blue eyes. Trev might have thought Bette was just keeping him awake showing him new lingerie designs. Simon’s former assistant and current lover was the Bette of Bette’s Beguiling Bows. But there were also lines of tension in Simon’s face. So it hadn’t been sex—at least not just sex—keeping him awake. He was definitely under stress.
“You shouldn’t have worried,” Trev admonished him. “You all know I can take care of myself.”
Not only had he survived living on the streets, but he’d also survived all the threats against him when he’d taken on those billion-dollar corporations. A few of those companies had tried really hard to get him to drop the class-action lawsuit—so hard that he’d been jumped a couple of times. He’d handled those beatdowns better than he had Allison jumping him, though.
Every time she kissed him, touched him...he lost all control. All perspective.
“Allison McCann is more dangerous than anyone you’ve faced before,” Simon insisted.
“We don’t even know who she really is,” Ronan added.
“I know,” Trev said. And now he felt like he was betraying her—her confidence, her secrets—when he shared her past with them.
“So that’s why she does it?” Ronan asked with a snort of derision. “She’s tried to take down Street Legal because she has daddy issues.”
Trev shook his head. “I think it’s more mommy issues,” he said. “And isn’t that why you do what you do?”
Ronan’s face flushed. “I haven’t tried to take anyone down.”
“Muriel might not agree with you.”
Ronan’s face flushed a deeper shade of red over the mistake he’d made with that divorce case, with the one involving the woman he was now dating. “I didn’t know her sleazeball ex was lying.”
“But you and Allison were both willing to believe him over her because of those mommy issues you both have.”
“Fuck you!” Ronan cursed him.
He preferred it when Allison told him that. Hell, he preferred when Allison fucked him.
But he understood why Ronan was mad.
“So if she has mommy issues, why mess with us?” Simon asked.
Trev didn’t know. There was nothing feminine about any one of them. Not even their receptionist. He shrugged. “It doesn’t make sense.”
So was she really the mole? But if not, then who else? She was the one who’d had access to every affected case. She was the one. She had to be.
How he wished like hell that she wasn’t.
Stone groaned and shook his head in disgust. “I knew you were attracted to her. I knew she was going to get to you.”
Heat rushed to Trev’s face as he thought of her, of the ways she’d brought him more pleasure than he’d ever known. But she wasn’t getting to him. That was just sex. He shook his head. “Not at all!”
“You’re not attracted to her?” Stone asked. He was the criminal lawyer with killer cross-examination skills.
Even though he wasn’t on the stand, Trev had no doubt that Stone could break him. So he just confessed, “Hell, yes, I’m attracted to her. Have you seen her?”
“You’re sleeping with her,” Ronan said, and now he sounded disgusted.
Hadn’t any of them noticed how stunningly beautiful and sexy Allison was? What? Were all his partners blind?
“That wasn’t part of your plan,” Simon said. “You were supposed to get close working with her.” Simon had once thought Bette was the mole and had tried seducing the truth out of her. But she’d seduced him instead.
Having seen some of her lingerie firsthand on Allison, Trev wasn’t surprised Simon had gotten so distracted. He knew that he was, too—that he’d let her get to him.
“Yeah, how is the campaign coming?” Stone asked, amusement twinkling in his gray eyes. They all knew that there was no way he would actually run for office—any office.
He enjoyed what he did too much. He enjoyed taking down the big corporations who cared nothing about who they hurt, like they’d hurt Wally.
“It’s stalled out,” Trev admitted.
“Why?” Simon asked. “Because you’re sleeping with her instead?”
“Because she wants me to leave the practice and ditch you losers,” Trev said.
Simon gasped.
Ronan cursed. Her. In a particularly vulgar term that had Trev’s hands clenching into fists. And Stone stood up, so he was between them.
“Settle down,” Stone told them all. “It’s not like he’s actually going to do what she says.”
“But why would she say that?” Ronan asked.
“Because Street Legal hasn’t exactly had good press lately,” Trev pointed out.
“And whose fault is that?” Ronan asked. “She’s the one making us look bad.”
“I don’t have any proof of that, though,” Trev reminded them. And until they did, they couldn’t accuse her of anything.
“I don’t care,” Simon said. “We can’t risk having her around the practice anymore. We need to terminate the business relationship with her and ban her from the building.”
“And you need to terminate your personal relationship,” Stone told him. “For your own sake.”
Trev shook his head. “I’ve got it all under control.”
“But you don’t have the evidence we need to press charges against her,” Ronan said. He was still furious.
And Trev couldn’t blame him. If the documents submitted to the bar hadn’t been proven to be forgeries, he could have lost his law license.
They’d all worked too hard to get where they were, to launch the practice, to risk losing it. He understood why they wanted to get rid of Allison now.
But he wasn’t ready yet to let her go. “I will get the evidence,” Trev assured them. He only hoped that the evidence he found proved she was not the mole.
“How?” Ronan persisted skeptically. “You going to try Simon’s method of seducing it out of her?”
Stone snorted. “I think he’s already tried that.”
Trev couldn’t deny that he had. But while he’d gotten some information out of Allison, he was unlikely to get her to just admit that she was the mole—even if she was.
But he was beginning to suspect that he was wrong about her. That it was someone else. Or maybe that was all just wishful thinking on his part.
“So what are you going to try next?” Simon asked him.
“I’ll come up with something,” he assured them—and himself. Now his goal was more to prove that she wasn’t the mole than that she was.
“Yes,” a female voice suddenly chimed in with all the male ones in Simon’s office. “What are you going to try next?”
Trev tensed and whirled to
ward the door. They’d been arguing so loudly that none of them had heard it open. He certainly hadn’t.
But as always, now that he saw her, his body reacted—tensing with desire. Allison looked so beautiful in a long purple dress that buttoned all the way down the front. It was professional-looking but also sexy as hell as he could imagine undoing every damn one of those buttons.
But desire wasn’t all he felt. His heart pounded slow and heavy with dread.
What had she heard?
* * *
Allison glanced down to see if she was floating—because she felt as if the floor had dropped out from beneath her. And her stomach had dropped, as well. She had never felt as disoriented as she did now, not even when she had sex with Trevor.
“How the hell did you get in here?” Simon Kramer asked the question as if she’d barged into the meeting.
She turned back toward the hall, but Miguel was gone. “Your receptionist showed me back.” And opened the door despite the raised voices.
Simon arched a brow as if he doubted her explanation. She didn’t care what the hell he believed. Anger coursed through her now, replacing the shock she’d felt when she’d overheard what they were arguing about: her.
“Why are you even here?” Trevor asked her.
She couldn’t tell him now, couldn’t show him the breakfast she’d brought him. Fortunately, she’d handed the bag of pastries and cups of coffee to Miguel before he’d taken off. Or she would have dropped them and burned herself. And she certainly couldn’t show Trevor what else she’d brought him: another outfit from Bette’s Beguiling Bows.
“It doesn’t matter why I’m really here,” she said. And it didn’t anymore. “Apparently, you all think I have an ulterior motive.”
“How much did you hear?” Trevor asked.
Her stomach pitched. She hated being lied to, hated secrets, and it was clear that Trevor still wanted to keep some from her.
The thing was she had no idea how long she’d been standing there. She’d been so stunned that it was as if she had gone into shock. She’d barely heard their voices over the sound of her blood rushing in her ears as her heart had pounded frantically. “I heard enough to know that you all suspect me of something, and I want to know what it is.”
