by Amanda Lance
“Is that why you don’t like him?” she asked, closing my office door. “Because he sleeps around?”
I sighed and ignored her emphasis on the pronoun. There was no doubt she had heard rumors about me and my recreational activities by now.
“Don’t get me wrong—we’re all liars here. But Morgan has a nasty habit of bribing judges and hiring people to intimidate witnesses. I knew he was a fucking degenerate the second I met him.”
She smiled widely. “Like when you know milk has gone sour before you have to sniff it.”
“You shouldn’t let on so easily.” I shook my head, my eyes watching her as she bent over. “I can hate him all I want because I make more money than him. You, however, shouldn’t ruin your reputation before you have one.”
“I was being polite.” She leaned against my desk with that perfect ass of hers, laying her palms down like she wanted to push her chest in my face intentionally. It was impossible for her not to know that her skirt was riding up.
“Your facial expressions give you away,” I told her. “If you want to come to court with me today, you’ll have to work on looking indifferent.”
“First of all I don’t think about my body language when I’m having a casual conversation with someone. Second of all—“ She suddenly stopped as my words sank in. “Wait…court? Really?”
I took a step closer and inhaled her subtle perfume. “If you can keep that absurd grin off your face. The last thing I need—”
She jumped into my arms before I could stop her—not that I would have. I knew it was only supposed to be a hug of gratitude, maybe one of those moments of youthful excitement, but the feel of her breasts pushed up against me gave me an almost instant hard-on. But more than that, I have to say I was surprised by how well she fit in my arms, how the contours of her just melted into me like she was meant to be there.
Her breathing accelerated as she dared to look up at me. Without even thinking about it, my hands reached out to cup her ass, gratified by how amazing she felt and the gasp my touch produced. I squeezed a little harder and watched her smile. Had I done that? Really made her smile just by running my hands against her? If that made her smile, I knew things that would make her ecstatic. Painfully hard now, I traced my thumb against her bottom lip and watched her tremble until I couldn’t take it anymore.
I slammed my lips against hers, effectively keeping her from saying anything her expression wasn’t. But while I worked my tongue into her sweet little mouth, she crashed her hips into me and pulled my head closer toward her. I lifted her up by those globes until she was all but forced to wrap her legs around my waist. It was the perfect opportunity to sit her back on the desk, throwing everything aside as I pulled her tightly against me, my hands instantly pulling up her skirt.
She squirmed against me as I found the cotton of her panties—so much sexier than the lace I expected. And, like the lip of her mouth, she gasped as I ran my finger up and down the crotch of them, a moment before I moved the thin material aside and plunged my finger inside her pussy.
“Ohhh,” she called out loud, enough for me to lean my weight against her, covering her mouth with my free hand. I wasn’t sure if she had locked the door, but the last thing I needed was someone walking in and ruining our fun.
She wasn’t just wet, she was dripping. I worked another finger into her tight canal and licked her ear lobe while she bit the inside of my hand.
“Even now,” I whispered in her ear. “So easy to read…”
I would have loved to fuck her brains out right then and there, but a knock on the door pulled me away from her.
“Mr. Scott, you have court in thirty minutes—”
I swallowed hard, trying to be amused as I watched Violet struggle to pull her skirt back down, but only feeling pained instead. I took my anger out on the shadow outside my door instead. “Go away!”
By the time I looked back at her, the moment was gone, the lust between us cooling as quickly as it had heated. “Get me coffee, the Pryce briefs, and be back here in five minutes.”
Violet straightened her skirt and brushed her fingers through her hair. She was unsteady on her legs, but her flushed skin would have been enough to give her away.
“So I take it you do want to sleep with me?”
Chapter 8
Violet
“All rise, the honorable Judge Robert Harris presiding.”
My legs were still unsteady when I stood, following the bailiff’s instructions, but I managed to hold onto the pew beside me for leverage. At the defendant’s table just a few feet in front of me, however, Sebastian was as steady as a rock. How he could be that solid after what just happened between us was beyond me. I shook my head and did my best to put it out of my mind—clearly, just like he had.
“Alright children, what’s on the agenda for today?” The judge’s voice boomed easily in the acoustics of the courtroom. It actually made me flinch, startling me just when the sight of Sebastian’s smile had drawn me away again.
The district attorney spoke with a blusterous tone despite his small frame. “Your honor, we’re here because somehow Mr. Scott got his client’s manslaughter charge reduced to breaking and entering and his client can’t even be bothered to do the community service he was sentenced to—”
“My client has already made arrangements to complete his community service in a timely manner,” Sebastian replied. “Unfortunately, his busy school schedule and family obligations have prevented him from doing so. We’re only here because the prosecutor has a hard-on for me.”
I shifted my gaze from Sebastian and his client to the briefs I was holding in my hand. There wasn’t anything extraordinary looking about the defendant himself, but the last name on the docket was familiar and I knew Sebastian well enough to know that he wouldn’t take a case unless it involved a lot of money and a boost to his reputation. I opened the file and braced myself for the worst.
I remembered reading about the rowdy college student just a year earlier. I didn’t know all the details, only that a fraternity initiation gone wrong had resulted in an elderly woman dropping dead of a heart attack. In the state of Illinois, this would have easily garnered a 2 to 5 year prison sentence but, being the wealthy son of some executive, his attorney had gotten the charges reduced and the sentence lowered.
I clutched the brief in my hand, looking up every so often at Sebastian. As I expected, he glided around the courtroom with ease, as articulate and humorous as if he was just bantering with the mail clerks. And even though I was furious, I couldn’t help but think how graceful he was, how natural he looked in front of the judge’s bench.
Was this something Sebastian had been born knowing how to do? Maybe. But my position of knowing him in his youth allowed me to believe that this ability of his wasn’t all practice and experience. Even the first time we met, he had been all ease and class—not the usual bundle of nerves I was used to seeing when I met Dad’s students. On the occasions Dad allowed any of his “best and brightest” to meet me, they’d always been overeager to impress their professor’s only child. Sebastian, however, hadn’t. He didn’t put on airs, even from the beginning.
Maybe that was one of the reasons why I had been so smitten by him.
I was half sick by the time Sebastian was done making his argument to Judge Harris, but I wasn’t surprised that he managed to talk him into giving his client an additional 90 days to complete his community service. I watched the prosecutor swear under his breath before storming out with his colleague. Other than me, they seemed to be the only people who were unhappy with the outcome.
Meanwhile, Sebastian and his client exchanged pats on the back and smirks that were everything you’d expect from a lowlife. I closed the page of the brief and sat back down, the flutter Sebastian had filled me with now replaced with sickness. I knew what being a criminal defense attorney included, but it was entirely different, seeing the process in person. Somehow, the reality of it was more horrific than the mere knowle
dge of it. After everything my dad had warned me about, I really should have been more prepared for this. Yet somehow, I wasn’t.
Sebastian leaned over the galley and smiled at me. “Was it everything you’d hoped it would be?”
I shifted uncomfortably and stared at the ground. How was it that he could make me want him and hate him all at once?
“It went much faster than I expected,” he said. “You might be my good luck charm.”
I swallowed the rising bile in my throat. “Don’t say that.”
“What’s wrong? You look like Morgan was just talking to you again.”
I shook my head. “That was disgusting.” I had to swallow the taste of vomit in my throat. “What you just did was disgusting.”
Sebastian scoffed. Clearly this was something he had heard before. “I do lots of disgusting things Violet; you’ll have to be more specific.”
My entire body fluttered, a feeling I still hadn’t become used to since he had reentered my life. Of all the times he had to get my name right, it had to be now?
“That defense—” I practically had to spit the words out. Where was one of my father’s wines when I needed one? “You defended a thief, a murderer—”
“That’s what this job is,” he said proudly. “That’s what our forefathers fought for. What that imbecile did doesn’t matter—”
“Only whether or not he can pay his retainer?”
“That does help.” He smirked. “But everyone deserves a defense, no matter what they’ve done.”
“But you know he did it. You know he went into that townhouse to steal a rare parakeet and ended up killing a grandmother of three. How can you let him wander the streets without serving any sort of consequences for his actions? Sifting the shit out of a kitty litter box hardly makes up for taking the life of another human being.”
“And breaking a glass door.” He laughed. “Don’t forget the glass door.”
“Don’t make a joke out of this, Sebastian. This isn’t funny.”
“There was also the bird. If I recall correctly, its name is Stanley. I believe it was greatly startled in the struggle. Maybe the DA should bring Stanley up here for testimony. I’m sure it would make a riveting witness—”
“I’m not laughing.”
“Do you see me smiling?” His eyes were hard. “This is the real world, Violet, the world we work in, the world we lawyer in. If you can’t deal with it, then I suggest you find yourself a different profession.”
“It doesn’t have to be like this and you know it,” I argued. “Some people are genuinely innocent. They deserve to be defended because they really didn’t commit the crime they’re being accused of, or because they’re being discriminated against.”
“You’re being over dramatic—”
“I’m being honest! You have the talent and the resources to help so many people who truly need it, but you don’t even have the decency to say why you won’t help!”
“I won’t help because they can’t afford me,” he said simply. “Maybe the greatest crime the poor ever committed was being poor, but they won’t get my sympathy for it.”
“My father would be ashamed of you.” Refusing to cry, I choked back my tears and swallowed hard. I’m ashamed of you.”
“I don’t care what dead men think of me.” He rolled his eyes at me again. “Or whores, for that matter.”
The sound of my hand slapping him across the face echoed in the empty courtroom. Judging by the smile that quickly replaced his annoyance, I guessed I’d hurt my hand more than him. I watched his cheek redden as his smile turned into a smirk.
And then I watched him walk away.
Chapter 9
Violet
“So, are you coming out with us tonight?”
I startled from my daydreams and tapped my pen against Nicky’s desk. Since our very public argument, Sebastian had been sentencing me to receptionist duty. Considering my still-mixed feelings for him, I was much more relieved to be Nicky’s right hand than Sebastian’s coffee runner.
“Um—I doubt it.”
“Oh come on, it’ll be fun,” she said. “Besides, everyone will be there.”
I cringed. “Everyone, huh?”
“Well, not the partners or anything. But all of us lower life forms will be.”
Sebastian still seemed to be the lowest form of life there could ever be. I detested everything he and the firm stood for but, worst of all, I hated how I still needed to save face and show up there everyday.
There had been no other confrontations between us and no more displays of his attraction toward me. If he felt any awkwardness, I didn’t see it; I only felt it in my own steps when I walked around the office. Sebastian continued to smile and laugh with Roger and act like he hadn’t almost fucked me Monday morning on his desk. Did he do it so often that it was easy to forget? That I was easy to forget?
Maybe I needed to do something to forget him.
I spoke quickly, before I could change my mind. “In that case, it sounds really good.”
***
I didn’t even bother changing before going to the bar. The idea of going back to my empty apartment and spending the rest of the weekend alone, thinking of Sebastian, was already making me depressed. Maybe if I went out and had a few drinks with Nicky and the other lower level life forms, it would at least help pass the time.
“Buy you a drink?” Quinn Morgan asked.
“I already have one.” I forced a smile and went back to staring at the reflection in my glass. “But, thank you.”
“I’m surprised to see you here.”
“Why? I was invited.”
“That’s not what I mean.” He laughed. “I’m surprised Scott let you come out and play with the rest of us. If you were my summer associate, I certainly wouldn’t have.”
I shifted uncomfortably. Quinn Morgan was looking at me not unlike the way Sebastian did—like I was a free sample in a candy shop. The only genuine difference was that I enjoyed when Sebastian looked at me that way.
“I like staying busy.” I smiled and searched for Nicky or another familiar face over my shoulder. Normally, I would have just blown him off, but I couldn’t risk alienating him so early into my internship. This, if nothing else, seemed like solid Sebastian advice. If I could find someone else to talk to, I would have a perfectly good excuse to ignore him. “It makes the day go by faster.”
“I’m sure it does.” He licked his lips before he smiled, the gesture meaning something I was sure I didn’t want to understand. “I’m just disappointed I haven’t had the opportunity to get to know you better.” Smiling, Morgan finished his drink and waved at the bartender.
“Um, it’s still early in the summer. I’m sure we’ll have lots of opportunity to socialize…” I let my voice trail off and rubbed the back of my shoulder. Suddenly his gaze was impossible to take, and not in a good way.
“What about right now?” The moment the bartender refilled his glass, Morgan leaned forward, resting his hand on the back of my bar stool. I caught a whiff of his heavy cologne and resisted the urge to gag. “I took a cab here, but we could meet in the ladies room…”
I slid off my bar stool, effectively leaving my drink behind. He was just trying to be funny, right? Exploring some kind of weird, inappropriate humor after one too many? I shook my head and tried to keep myself level. From a practical side, his joke was improper because I was his insubordinate. On the same level, however, if those exact words had come out of Sebastian’s mouth, not only would I have been excited, but I would have raced him to a “take off your pants” contest.
“What?”
Morgan stood up and smiled. “You heard me. Everyone knows what you’re doing in Scott’s office all day—” He reached his hand over, running it up and down my arm as he took another sip from his drink. Instinctively, I flinched, but his reflexes were surprisingly good for someone who had downed so many. Maybe if I had anticipated it better I would have had time to react before he ensnar
ed my wrist in his grasp, holding much tighter than I expected.
I gasped, knocking over a pile of napkins in surprise.
“Handwriting briefs?” He laughed. “Come on.”
At this juncture it was important not to panic, to not make a scene. Like Sebastian said, all it would take was one or two rumors to ruin my nonexistent reputation. Still, fear creeped up my spine like ivy and I could barely hear myself when I demanded to be let go.
“Let go of me.”
“Why don’t you show me how neat your handwriting is? I bet you have very nice penmanship.” His laugh was husky in my ear, his breath rancid. Once again I tried to pull away, but I wasn’t entirely sure I wouldn’t vomit.
“Stop this! You’re drunk; you don’t know what you’re doing—”
Seeming to sense something was amiss, I saw a burley bartender head toward us. Almost at the same moment, however, my relief vanished when Morgan grabbed my hand, directing it toward to his crotch.
From the angle we were at, I was almost certain no one could see how he was assaulting me, and my terror increased tenfold. If I screamed would security come flying over, or would they think I was just another karaoke reject?
Without realizing it, I had already weighted the pros and cons of calling out in my head. Easily, the pain in my wrist outweighed the potential embarrassment of the situation. I tried to push him away again, but a different hand interceded instead, grabbing Scott’s fingers much in the same manner that he was grabbing mine.
“The last time I checked, this place still had a dress code. And I believe ass-hats are not acceptable.”
Sebastian pried Quinn’s fingers from me as easily as if he were swatting away a fly. He slid effortlessly slid between us and I swelled with gratitude at the sight of him.
“You really should leave before an authority notices.” Though he faced Quinn, I sensed the anger that lurked beneath Sebastian’s mask of indifference. The tiniest pulses of rage bounced off of him, cautioning me to take a step back. If there was a problem Sebastian Scott couldn’t solve with words, then it was bound to be messy. “I’m sure the last thing you want is for someone to throw you on your face.”
