by M. S. Parker
Brinke opened her mouth, then stopped. She licked her lips and said, “What?”
I sighed in frustration. “You heard me. You were strung out, dead to the world Saturday night when I got here. Two of your friends were fucking on Carter’s bed. I found her in her closet. Apparently, they’d ‘asked’ her if they could use her room, and she was just fine with hiding in her closet while they made free with her bed, Brinke. You were too busy with yourself to even notice.”
She went pale as she jerked away, and I let her go.
As she sagged against the counter, I shoved a hand through my hair and looked away. She looked guilt-stricken now, and sad, but I wasn’t going to let myself feel sorry for her. I was too mad, too frustrated. And it wasn't just about me. I had to think of Carter.
“We’ve got to figure out what we’re going to do, Brinke. You can’t keep acting like this. You’re a mother and you need to grow up, damn it.”
She sniffled and I tried to shut out the sound.
There was a sound from out in the living room – the door opening. “Hey…anybody here?”
“Alex,” I said quietly.
A delighted shriek from upstairs had Brinke flinching. I was even more glad now that I hadn't yelled at her. Carter had apparently been listening for Alex.
Brinke tried to reach for me as I passed, but I kept on moving. Right before I left, I said, “We need to figure this out, Brinke. This can’t continue.”
Two hours later, with a whole shitload left unresolved, I stood with my hands braced on the tiles of the shower stall while water blasted me from all sides.
When the door opened and I felt a blast of cooler air, I wasn’t surprised.
Brinke slid her arms around me and I caught her wrists before she could do anything else.
“This isn’t going to solve a damn thing,” I said bluntly, staring at the water as it beaded on the surface of the wall.
“Who said we’re trying to solve anything?” she asked, her lips moving against my skin.
My cock stirred despite my heart's lack of interest.
“I just want to fuck, baby.” She rubbed her breasts against my back. “All the crazy shit, it will be there later, right?”
Her words sparked the anger that had been just starting to fade and I spun around. Catching her shoulders, I pushed her against the wall of the shower. Her body was familiar. Small breasts, slender frame. She'd always looked like I could break her, but I knew she was more likely to break me. At least now she wouldn't break my heart.
“It’s been there a long time. You never want to deal with it. It’s just getting worse and worse,” I said, glaring down at her. I told myself to be smart about this, to remember how much I didn't want her.
She arched up on her toes and nipped at my lower lip as her hand slid across my chest. My muscles tightened. It'd been too long since I'd had anything except my hand, and even then, it'd been a while.
One hand wrapped around the back of my neck to pull me in for a kiss even as her other wrapped around my too-interested cock.
I bit her, hating myself for responding to her touch. I shouldn't want her, not after what she'd done, but she knew all the ways to touch me, how hard to grip me.
She groaned, pressing her hips forward so that the tip of my cock pushed against her bare flesh. “That’s it…please, baby.”
Swearing, I picked her up and carried her out of the stall. Blood rushed through my veins, the sound filling my head until it drowned out everything else.
Wet hair framed her face and she pouted. “Hey…I like shower sex.”
Ignoring her, I put her down on the counter and grabbed a box of condoms from the cabinet. I didn't want to hear her talk. Didn't want to think. I just needed relief from the pressure building inside me.
“We don’t need those, baby,” Brinke said.
I shot her a dark look. Like hell we didn't. I may have wanted to fuck her, but I didn't trust her. That was lost long ago. “We need it or we don’t do this.”
Brinke sulked but didn't argue. Once I had the condom on, I moved back to her, and she curled her legs around my hips as I drove into her. She cried out, and the sound echoed around us, broken and rough.
Just like what we had become, I thought.
Broken and rough.
Chapter Seven
Leslie
Parking in New York City was a bitch. Which was why most people didn't own cars and just relied on public transportation.
There were times when I really, really wished I’d never decided to buy a car, especially when parking cost more than the damn car. And then there are days like today, when somebody stole my reserved space, and I hated people as well as cars.
If I'd been a nice person, I’d have just found another space, but I wasn’t a nice person when it came to the reserved space I paid out the ass for. If someone wanted a space, they could damn well pay for it themselves.
After contacting the twenty-four-hour number for the garage, I had to wait for them to call me back, and in the end, I was given a number to write down and stick in my window since I had to find another empty spot anyway – you won’t be charged, Ms. Calvin, you have my word. Yes, the car using your spot will be towed. Damn right I wouldn't be charged and that car would get towed. I was a divorce lawyer, but I could still file a civil lawsuit if they pissed me off enough.
It took thirty minutes longer than it should have to get inside my apartment, and I was bitchy and tired.
More, I was also hot and bothered – the kind of hot and bothered that came from thinking about a certain man most of the day. My nipples were tight and swollen, rubbing against my bra, and I kept thinking that I should find a way to get in touch with him and tell him he needed to find a different attorney.
I wouldn’t, though.
I knew I wouldn’t.
I’d always loved playing with fire, and even though I’d never make a move in his direction, the thought of not spending at least a little bit of time around him was enough to drive me mad.
“You need to get laid,” I told myself as I stood at the stove, making up a quick dinner of stir-fry. A glass of wine, sweet and cold, helped my parched throat, but it did absolutely nothing to relieve the mounting frustration.
And I'd just gotten laid Saturday night.
It didn’t even matter either.
I’d had fun with… what’s his name, but it had been like eating a handful of potato chips. A snack, nothing more, nothing less.
I needed something more.
My mind drifted. To the club – to Gavin and Carrie, Dena and her new guy Arik, DeVon and Krissy.
Then, inexplicably, I found myself thinking of Paxton again.
“More,” I muttered, irritated with myself.
I was starting to think I didn’t know what I needed.
Standing under the shower, trying unsuccessfully to drown out images of Paxton, trying not to wonder if he made love the way he sang, I brooded about what I was going to do if he ended up hiring me.
I was already way too attracted to him to be as objective as I needed to be, and I was too honest with myself not to realize that.
Maybe he wouldn’t call.
Maybe it would all work out and he could talk his wife into rehab.
They could all live happily ever after, and I could dream happily ever after until my mind got tired of the fantasies and I found somebody to take my mind off of things. Or maybe I could even find some guy to get serious with.
My mind did a sharp one-eighty when that thought finally registered.
Get serious?
I’d always planned to enjoy the single life for as long as I could, and I’d never seen any reason why I couldn’t enjoy it forever. I was beautiful and confident, and I’d be that way in ten years, twenty years. That had been my thought even just a year ago. Hell, six months ago.
Now, loneliness was an ache inside me.
Closing my eyes, I tried to banish the image of Paxton as he'd stood in my office,
looking so lost. So many people had come in there looking like that. While I felt sympathy for almost all of them, I’d never felt the desire to comfort anybody until today.
Comfort…a sly inner bitch laughed at me. You want to do more than comfort.
I found myself thinking of his mouth, the beautiful masculinity of his face.
My nipples tightened and I shivered as water slid down the slope of my breasts. More rivulets ran down my belly and through the curls between my thighs. The shower had become a taunting exercise in erotic torture.
Groaning, I pressed my back against the shower wall and slid a hand down my abdomen, my fingers slipping through the folds between my thighs until my clitoris throbbed under my finger. Already hard and pulsing, I hissed at the quick, light contact. Biting my lip, I let myself pretend. It wasn’t me caressing myself. It was Paxton. It wasn’t the brush of fingers circling around the swollen knot, but his tongue.
My whimpers echoed off the walls as I bit my lip to keep from disturbing my neighbors. Damn the thin apartment walls.
I imagined what it would be like to look down and see his head between my legs, that unruly ash blond hair brushing my thighs. Have his gorgeous eyes meet mine. A strange shade of blue, like those flowers that weren't quite blue but not quite purple either. I wondered what they would look like, staring into mine as he pleasured me with his mouth and fingers.
The climax came hard and fast, easing some of the tension inside me, but it wasn't fulfilling, the knot in my stomach coming back as soon as the pleasure faded.
Sighing, I opened my eyes and stared through the steam and spray of water.
I was in so much trouble if he did call back.
His lips slid down the curve of my neck. When he bit me there, I shivered. I couldn’t help it. I loved it when a man did that. There was something almost primal about it that just turned me on.
“The first time I saw you,” he whispered in my ear, his voice low and rough. “I knew that I was going to touch you like this.”
Dazed, I tilted my head back and gazed at him.
“You look surprised.” Paxton bit my lower lip. “I don’t know why. You felt it too. I saw it in your eyes. Those big green eyes…staring at me. You wanted me the second you saw me.”
I blinked at him.
Had I stared at him?
“You did.” Paxton answered the question I’d only asked in my mind as he stroked a hand down my neck, along my collarbone before cupping my breast. “Your nipples were tight and you kept pressing your knees together, like you were already feeling me inside you. Did you imagine it?”
Sucking in a breath, I nodded.
He tugged up the short, silky night shirt I wore and I braced my hands against the wall. It was a shock when my hands touched rough, exposed brick. I didn’t have brick in my house. In my office, yes.
Confused, I looked around and saw that we were in my office.
And I was in my nightshirt. This didn't make sense.
Paxton pushed his thigh between mine, his erection hard and heavy against me. At the same time, he twisted his fingers in my hair. “Stop thinking and kiss me.”
I did, more than happy to go along with that idea. Shoving logic aside, I opened my mouth for him and bit his tongue when he slid it between my lips. He growled, boosting me up against the wall.
The rough brick scraped my skin as he drove inside me, hard and deep and fast. He stretched me and it hurt even as it delighted.
“Harder,” I demanded, clutching at his shoulders. “Harder.”
“Leslie…” He savaged my mouth, his fingers digging into my ass. The kiss so deep, so hungry, it was like he wanted to devour me. And I was going to let him.
I moaned his name when he pulled his mouth away from mine. I could feel the pulsing of his cock as he thrust up into me, the climax rushing at me with breathless, ruthless intensity.
“You’re going to come for me,” he said, voice rough and raw. “Come for me, Leslie. Come…” He eased back until just a couple inches were inside. Before I could protest, he caught my hand, guiding it between my thighs. “Touch yourself and let me watch you make yourself come, Leslie.”
“I don’t want to. I want you to make me come.” But then he pressed his fingers on mine at the place where we were joined. Groaning, I circled my clit with my fingers and watched him, all but mesmerized by the intense blue of his eyes.
“That’s it,” Paxton rasped. “That’s it.”
I cried out his name.
That was the sound I woke up to. His name on my lips as I climaxed, one hand between my thighs. Seconds later, the intensity of the orgasm fading away, I rolled onto my back and stared up at the ceiling.
“Great.” Another aftershock rippled through me and a harsh breath shuddered past my lips. “I’m having wet dreams about a guy I just met. Paxton Gorham. World famous rock star. And a guy I just might be representing in court.”
Flinging an arm over my eyes, I blew out a breath. “You sure do know how to complicate your life, Leslie Calvin.”
Chapter Eight
Leslie
“Ms. Calvin?”
I looked up to see Haley standing in the doorway.
Her face was set in a professional line, although her eyes had a slightly dazed and glassy look to them. It'd been a rough day for her yesterday, but she'd insisted on coming in. Her mother was okay, but it wasn't looking good. She wanted to stay busy though.
“Yes?”
She glanced back over her shoulder and then edged inside. “Do you have a few moments available? You have...the guy from yesterday, he's back.” Her eyes widened, trying to communicate something she couldn't put into words.
But I didn’t need her to. I figured it out the moment she said last week.
A shiver raced through me and I pressed my hands to the surface of the table, staring at the résumés for a moment, as though focused on finishing that task. “Ask him if he can wait a few minutes, please,” I said softly. “I believe I have an hour before my next appointment, yes?”
“An hour and a half.” She turned away and I heard them speaking, the low sound of Paxton’s voice making me remember the dream from the night before.
Shit. That was the last thing I needed to be thinking about.
Haley turned back to me and nodded. “He’s more than happy to wait until you're available.”
She closed the door and I dropped my head down on the desk. If it wouldn’t have made a noise – and an ugly red mark on my forehead – I might have hit it a few times in an effort to knock some sense into me.
Go out there, the voice of reason said. Give him the name of your old firm and recommend a couple of people.
That was what I should do.
The lawyers at the firm I’d left were excellent. One or two had even branched out on their own and could offer more privacy than a large firm could.
But I knew I wouldn’t send him away.
After another moment, I selected the two résumés from the pile and took them with me to the door so my hands would have something to do. Taking a deep breath, I opened it and stepped out with a brisk smile on my face. “Hello, Mr. Gorham.”
He turned and met my eyes, offering a short nod in greeting. His eyes didn’t linger on my mouth, and he didn’t stare at me hungrily the way he had in my dreams.
I didn’t let myself stare at him. But I wanted to.
Looking at Haley, I handed her the résumés. “See if they’re available sometime this week for an in-person interview.”
“Of course. Shall I bring in coffee?”
I looked at Paxton.
“No, thanks.”
I desperately needed the caffeine fix, but I shook my head at Haley. It might be better if I didn’t have anything to add to my nervousness.
As he passed by, I caught a headful of his scent and my mouth started to water. I closed the door and allowed myself a quick look at his ass before clenching my fingers and forcing myself to focus.
“H
ave a seat, please.”
Calm and collected. Good for me.
He went to the chair near the window, so I settled on the couch and waited for him to start.
It took almost a minute for him to say anything and I had to force myself to hold my silence. It was harder than normal and the nerves were insane. I couldn’t ever remember feeling like this around a client and again, I told myself I needed to suggest he find another attorney.
I could just picture him asking why and me being brutally honest.
Because you’re too fucking hot and I keep picturing the two of us naked together.
“Okay, let’s do it.”
He spoke abruptly and the words, delivered right in the middle of my mental scenario, had heat rushing to my face. I covered by reaching for the ever -present notepad I kept on the table in front of the couch. “Just what are we doing, Mr. Gorham?”
“Paxton.”
It took all the professionalism I had not to react in a way that made it clear the thing I wanted to do was him. I smiled. It wasn’t the professional smile it needed to be, but it didn’t scream let’s get naked either.
“I’m sorry?”
“Don’t call me Mr. Gorham. It’s just Paxton.” He shrugged, looking restless as he leaned back in the seat. It drew the material of his jeans tight across his thighs – and other parts of him. For a quick moment, my gaze fell away and once more, heat began to rush through me.
Fortunately, he began to speak and it brought my mind out of the gutter. “I need to start filing proceedings for the divorce, figuring out what we need to do so I get custody of Carter.”
“Alright.” I made a couple of notes.
“I don’t want to keep Brinke away from her altogether.”
Glancing at him from under my lashes, I saw that he was staring past my shoulder, one fist pounding absently on the arm of the chair. “She loves our daughter, she’s just…not exactly a good influence, and I can’t risk her endangering Carter again.”
