by Linda Verji
Maybe she’ll ignore me too.
Obviously it was too much to hope for because she met him at the counter.
“Hi, Eli.” She was the first to speak. Figures! Chryssa was always the first to speak. She’d spoken him right out of half of his property.
“Hi,” he returned before turning to the nurse. “Angie, do you have my schedule for the clinic?”
“Let me just get it for you.”
He studiously tried to ignore the woman standing next to him as he watched Angie – tried being the operative word. It was hard to ignore Chryssa, not when her sweet scent – something with flowers – teased his senses or when her body lightly brushed up against his. It was hard not to notice that in her heels she was just the right height he liked on his women, tall enough that he wouldn’t have to bend when they kissed.
Kissing Chryssa? When hell froze over.
“What you doing?” she asked in a singsong voice.
“Getting my schedule,” he returned curtly his gaze still straight ahead on Angie. Bring the damn schedule already.
“Schedule for what?”
The woman was just determined to start a conversation with him, wasn’t she? Eli gave a silent ‘hallelujah’ when Angie returned with the information he wanted. The moment she handed it to him, Eli turned on his heels headed for his office.
It didn’t surprise him at all to hear the sound of Chryssa’s heels tapping rapidly behind him. She said, “You didn’t answer my question.”
Ignoring her, Eli lengthened his stride. He should’ve counted on her dogged determination because her speed increased to match his. Her voice was breathless as she repeated, “You didn’t answer my question.”
He pushed open the door, but before he could shut it in her face, she’d already wiggled her way into his office. He could’ve simply dragged her out but Eli wasn’t really the drag-women-around kind of man and Chryssa was definitely not the kind of woman anyone could drag out of anywhere unless they were looking to lose an eye.
With narrowed eyes, Eli watched her walk to his desk and put her handbag on its polished top before she pushed back his leather seat and sat back on it. Comfortable as you please! If the vein on his temple wasn’t already throbbing madly – it would’ve started now. The nerve!
Swinging to and fro on the chair, she asked, “How’s work?”
“It’s Dr. Stone.” He ground the words through his teeth. “And could you leave my office? I’ve got work to do.”
Ignoring his order, she traced one manicured finger over the shiny wood, “Why are you so rude to me?”
“Are you serious?” Eli folded his arms over his chest as he leant back against the door. If she could pretend this was just a casual chat so could he. “After you ruined my marriage you still want me to act like we’re cool?”
Instead of blowing up like he expected her to at the insult, she simply threw her head back and laughed “Eli, your small dick ruined your marriage not me.”
“I don’t have a small dick,” Eli felt compelled to defend it.
“Then why did Renée cheat on you?” She asked. Renée had been Eli’s high school sweetheart. She was the cheerleader, he was the geek. She must’ve seen his potential because even after he’d graduated, earlier than all his classmates; she’d still remained by his side. They were married for fourteen years, happily he’d thought, till he’d discovered her in their bed banging their plumber.
Seemingly unaware that she was treading on thin ground and only making him angrier, Chryssa continued, “Women only cheat for two reasons. Either your dick was too small or you didn’t have the money to make up for it. You’ve obviously got the money so…”
The absurdity of this conversation didn’t escape him. One minute she was stalking him and now they were talking about his…appendage. However he still felt the need to defend himself. “Not everything’s about sex.”
“That’s what all the small-dicked boys in the yard say.” She laughed again before leaning back on his seat. “It’s a pity really. Apart from the ridiculous high yellow color thing you’ve got going, you’re kind of okay looking.”
Chryssa must be getting her quack theories from Wikipedia because no one had ever complained about the size of his dick. Eli repeated, “I don’t have a small dick.”
“Don’t you?” Her eyes took on a measuring look before she stood up from the seat. There was a small smile on her face as she walked– make that prowled towards him. Instinctively Eli moved to the side of the door, but she kept coming.
“Stop following me,” he said as he slid along the length of the wall. She was so close now that her enticing scent assailed his senses.
“I just wanna see if your dick is small.”
Eli was rendered speechless and motionless at that answer. This woman was mad. His temporary paralysis was all she needed to crowd him against the wall and place her small hand on his dick over her scrubs.
“What…what are you doing?” Eli somehow managed to stammer. Obviously Stone Jr. was quicker and he immediately jumped in response to her touch. Eli could’ve moved. He could’ve pushed her away. After all he didn’t even like her, but five months was a long time to go without sex and the impromptu grope felt so good.
“Dr. Stone. Dr. Stone. Dr. Stone.” There was melodic awe in her words as she looked up at him. “You certainly do not have a small dick.”
He didn’t know where to focus her small teeth biting sexily on her lush lower lip or the hand that stroked up and down his dick. She wasn’t looking at him. All her concentration was on the actions of her hand on his rapidly lengthening rod pushing against his scrubs.
He fit just right into her palm and her practiced stroke. This was torture being so vulnerable to this woman, yet there was nothing he wanted more right now than to never have it stop. He wanted it to grow into more. He tipped her chin, tilting her face up. He closed his eyes, lowering his head so their lips could meet. Instead all he met was thin air.
Just suddenly as it had started, it stopped.
Chryssa backed away from him only to sit on the edge of his desk. She looked completely unaffected, as if she hadn’t just been giving him a hand job a second ago. Even her voice was steady when she mused, “So it’s not the money? And it’s not the dick…”
Eli couldn’t believe this. While he still stood with his back against the wall, pulsing and hard like a hormonal teenage boy, she was seated there trying to figure his divorce? Something was wrong with that scenario.
Her eyes widened before her lips widened into a knowing smile, “You’re a prude in bed. That’s it isn’t it?”
Eli could feel the blood drain out of his face. She had just cracked his code. Renée had called him unadventurous more than one time. What did she want? For him to bring fireworks into their bed? Obviously the plumber carried some in his tool-box because last he’d heard they were still together.
Chryssa read the answer in his eyes because she burst into ringing laughter again. It was a laughter designed to not just trample a man’s ego, but to crush it with a hammer till nothing was left of it but ashes. Even the erection she’d just given him wilted under the force of her amusement.
“Eli. Eli. Eli.” She was still laughing when she picked her bag from the desk, slung it on her shoulder and walked to the door. Eli could still hear the echo of her laughter in her office even after she shut the door behind her.
CHAPTER 2
…Waves thrashed against the shore, their soft splashes broken only by the sea-gulls’ cries. Rob’s eyes were half open beneath the dark glasses he was wearing to shield his gaze from the sun’s rays as he watched Ryder rise from the ocean.
Like a merman incarnate, his movements upwards were smooth. First was the face, strong, manly and features so handsome - lip-bitingly handsome. Next came the body. The rivulets of water licking their way down each muscle only gave Rob ideas of what he would do once they were in the privacy of their hotel room.
Delicious possibilities soared
in Rob’s mind. Ryder’s hands touching him, his lips on his….
“Shultz looking at you,” Linden’s hushed whisper along with the sharp jab of his elbow on the side of her body almost made Chryssa drop the book she was reading. Recovering quickly, she shoved it deeper underneath the table and sat up in her chair.
Her gaze swung to George Shultz who stood at the head of the long table that held the junior and senior partners at Harrington Shultz. Normally Chryssa would never bring a novel into a meeting. She didn’t even read romance novels because they were just cruel ways for writers to tease women like her.
But this was Shultz. Anything was better than him.
After informing her that Shultz was running this morning’s staff meeting instead of Tess Harrington, Aaron had helpfully handed Chryssa one of his boy-lit novels and bid her, “so you don’t die of boredom.”
Boring was a mild word to describe the monotony that was George Shultz. The most interesting thing about him had to be his dark hair that had a shocking strip of white right down the middle, almost like a skunk’s body. There was a running bet in the office of whether the strip was manmade or natural, but since he wouldn’t let anyone touch his hair, the issue as yet remained unresolved.
After the hair everything else about him was a yawn; from the tweed suit, to his slightly slouched body; from his slightly hooded eyes to the drone of his voice that never fell and never rose. Apparently there was a sharp legal mind in there somewhere enough for him to run the firm, but it was really hard to imagine it under all that dullness.
Half the table was asleep. The other half, mostly those who were seated closest to Shultz because they were senior partners, were trying to pretend like they were listening to him, but anyone could see it was a failing effort from the number of nodding heads that kept falling to their chests and the constant blinking of eyes.
“…I urge you all to treat your cases like Leonardo Da Vinci’s pieces. Whenever Da Vinci was painting his pieces he always made sure each stroke of his paintbrush was just right. His most important painting up to now…” Instead of looking at his audience as he gave yet another dull anecdote, Shultz was facing the window.
He was definitely not looking at Chryssa.
Furious that Linden had interrupted her steamy reprieve, Chryssa whispered to him, “Have I told you you’re an asshole today?”
“Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?” Linden returned, flashing her a brilliant smile. Chryssa felt a pang of pain at the mention of her mother, but hid it by kissing her teeth. He ignored the gesture and instead wiggled his eyebrows suggestively at the romance novel still lying on her lap. “Were you enjoying yourself?”
The only way Chryssa had managed to keep awake was to imagine Eli Stone as the hero in the novel and herself as the hero/heroine. Just remembering his shocked expression and his quick erection when she’d groped him was enough to make her chuckle. Unfortunately the bold gesture had had its own effects on her.
With her current sex-drought, touching his dick had been like splashing petrol onto an already blazing fire. Yesterday night after a restless and sweaty sleep filled with dreams of Eli touching and thrusting into her, Chryssa had had to take out Mr. D., her electronic friend. Despite her preference for manmade orgasms she needed to take the edge off her arousal.
Aware that they were in the boardroom, Chryssa didn’t tell Linden to go fuck himself - she reserved it for later. Instead she changed the topic, “Where’s Tess?”
“She was meeting with a lawyer they’ve been scoping for criminal defense.” Linden answered. He was useless in the courtroom but within the firm, he was a fountain of information about what was going on on the upper floor– mostly because Tess was his mother.
“What lawyer?”
“Don’t know yet.”
Making a mental note to ask Aaron to use his snoopy skills to find out what lawyer they were scoping, Chryssa went back to her novel. Two hours later Shultz finally closed the meeting.
“How’s the Whitmore case coming?” Bradshaw, Chryssa’s immediate boss and Tess’s lover (something else Aaron had managed to ferret), asked as they walked out of the boardroom.
“We’ve finally finished with their real estate,” Chryssa answered. “We’re working on the movables.”
“That’s good.” Bradshaw nodded. “Make fast work with it though. I need you to jump on Linden’s case. The Newman’s have taken out restraining orders on each other and are both going in for full custody.”
Already? Last week the Newman’s had been preaching peace and how they wanted a friendly divorce because of their three children. Though Bradshaw’s face didn’t show it and there was no inflection in his voice, she was sure he was seething inside at Linden’s failure to prevent the case from denigrating to a full out war. This wasn’t the first case he’d mishandled..
Linden is sooooo lucky his mother is our boss.
Chryssa and Bradshaw parted at the door to his office and she took the elevator down to the first floor, also known as ‘The Pit’. While the senior partners had offices on the second floor, all junior partners and associates shared ‘The Pit’.
The elevator hummed as it glided to a stop and its steel doors opened. Chryssa stopped a while to talk to one of the associates before she made her way to her office. Though not as cushy as being a senior partner, being a junior partner had its benefits. Most important of course was more money, but it also came with an office instead of a cubicle and you had someone to do all your ‘assisting’
Aaron was seated at his desk in front of Chryssa’s office furiously clicking on his computer’s keyboard. He looked up when he heard the click of Chryssa’s heels, “Was it as boring as we thought it would be?”
“More,” Chryssa said as she came to a stop in front Aaron’s desk and handed back the novel. “I need you to find out who Tess is scoping for Criminal Defense.”
“Scoping from where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Woman, I’m not a miracle worker,” Aaron said, as he handed Chryssa a plastic cup filled with herbal tea and the day’s mail.
“Maybe I should just ask Maryse. She could find out who it is,” Chryssa goaded knowing how much Aaron hated Shultz secretary. “I bet she knows.”
“You’re a bitch.”
“I love you too.” Chryssa laughed. She turned to get into her office but Aaron stopped her.
“Tasha’s in your office.”
“Tasha?” Chryssa’s voice rose in surprised question. Tasha was the last person she expected in her office. Last night she and Zain had spent the night at Tasha’s house to babysit Tasha’s kids while she and her new fiancée celebrated their engagement in a downtown hotel.
“She’s not alone,” Aaron explained. “I know you don’t like me to keep your friends waiting so I just let them into your office and served them refreshments.”
“Okay, thanks.” Curious to know what her friend was doing instead of getting her Stella on, Chryssa walked into her office.
Tasha was seated on the couch flanked on one side by her fiancée Kian and on the other by a lanky teenager wearing glasses. The boy seemed somewhat familiar but Chryssa couldn’t quite put a finger on it.
“What are you guys doing here?” Chryssa asked as she embraced Tasha, then Kian.
“What? Can’t we just visit you?” Kian laughed as he returned the hug. He slung an arm around the shoulder of the boy, who’d stood up with all the commotion. “Chryssa, this is my son, RJ.”
What? She expressed her shock, “I didn’t even know you had a son.”
“About that,” Kian said. “We need your help.”
“Why don’t you have a seat?” Chryssa settled on the couch opposite the family to hear their story. RJ was Kian and Hanna Clayton’s son.
Within the legal circle Hanna Clayton was respected and feared in equal measure for her ruthlessness in court. It was well known that Hanna went too hard for her clients. Before today Chryssa had been one of her admirers, b
ut that quickly changed as she listened to Kian and RJ.
First the woman had chosen to procreate with a fifteen year old when she was old enough – twenty two to be exact - to know better, ditched him, hidden the child then had the guts to blackmail Kian into signing a document relinquishing his parental rights so that she could give them the information they’d needed to save Tasha’s daughter from her psycho ex. Who the hell did that?
“How did you find out about Kian?” Chryssa kept her expression neutral as she asked RJ the question even though inside she was spitting bullets.
“I saw Tasha slap my mom from my window upstairs.” R.J explained. He wasn’t even looking at them. He pushed his spectacles higher up his nose, concentration on the table as he spoke, “When I saw K…Dad come into the house with my mom. I thought he was going to do something bad to her so I came downstairs. I didn’t mean to hear. I just did… ”
As his words trailed off, Kian rubbed his back reassuring him, “It’s okay.”
“My mom doesn’t like questions so I started looking for myself…” R.J explained. He’d found the documents in her safe and then searched the web for Kian and his address.
“Did you ask her if you could see your Dad?” Chryssa asked.
“Yeah and I told her that I wanted to meet my real dad! But she said it wasn’t my business,” R.J. said his lips trembling with the effort of trying to keep any tears at bay. “Then she told the security guard not to let me out of the house and the chauffeur never to drive me anywhere but to school and to the house. I didn’t even do anything wrong and she’s punishing me.”
Realizing that if he continued speaking RJ would probably start crying, Kian picked up where he’d left off, “Yesterday he snuck away in the middle of the night and came to the house. We didn’t know what to do so we thought you might be able to help.”
