“What’s wrong?” I didn’t even fully stop kissing him to ask. Shawn chuckled deep in his throat and his hands moved over my body, caressing me through my clothes and turning me on in a deeper way than my adrenaline-fueled lust couldn’t manage on its own. Even after all the years we’d been apart, and all the people we’d been with since we’d lost our virginity to each other, Shawn still seemed to know exactly how to touch me.
“Bruised ribs, probably more,” Shawn said, his hands moving up to cup my breasts through my blouse.
“Are you--fuck…” I lost my train of thought for a moment as his hands tightened on me, sending a jolt of sensation through my body. “Are you sure you’re up for this?”
“I am more than up for this,” Shawn said, one hand sliding down along my back to press my hips against his. “But maybe we should go slow.” I giggled, unable to help myself, and found the hem of Shawn’s shirt, tugging upward even as he began to work at the buttons on my blouse.
Our clothes came off, bit by bit, and I didn’t realize until I was halfway across the floor, away from the front door, that we were making our way towards the couch in the living room. I was down to my bra and panties by the time we got there, and Shawn was in nothing more than his boxers. We both hesitated, me because I wasn’t sure how to get us both horizontal without possibly hurting Shawn even more. While I was deliberating on that question, Shawn reached one hand up between my legs and pressed against my vulva through the fabric of my panties, rubbing slowly.
“Do you remember what our first time was like?” I felt my breath catch in my throat at the question--it was something I had deliberately and carefully not let myself think about the entire time I’d been working with him, even though it occasionally floated up in my mind.
“I wish I could forget,” I replied, and it was the truth. I wanted to forget what it had been like and how magical it had been; perfect and the ideal first time by any standard. Of course, we’d worked up to sex with each other over months, testing the waters with almost everything short of sex before we took the plunge, so that by the time Shawn could first penetrate me, there was absolutely no pain. I’d been so wet, so ready for it, he’d fit perfectly.
“You don’t want to remember how good it was?” Shawn nibbled at my neck and I moaned out again as his fingers, somehow, managed to slip around the elastic on my panties to touch bare skin. He found my pleasure center by touch and began to stroke and rub me, and I swayed on my feet as crackling shocks of sensation lit up my nervous system. It was pleasure so intense, it almost wasn’t even pleasure. I groped blindly until my hand wrapped around the bulge straining at the front of his boxers almost by instinct, and began rubbing him as well.
“We--we should get horizontal, somehow,” I suggested. My knees felt weak, and my heart was pounding in my chest.
Shawn gently guided me down onto the couch and then slowly, and carefully, got on top of me, slipping my panties off somewhere along the way to expose me completely. I let out a mewling, needy moan, as he began to touch and stroke me again, teasing me the same way he always had when we’d been teenagers. I slipped my hand down the front of his boxers and found his erection again, wrapping my fingers eagerly around the thick heat of his cock, rubbing up and down in distracted desire.
In spite of agreeing to take it slow, neither of us could take the torture of touching each other without getting to the main event for very long. After maybe ten minutes, which felt like thirty, we were shifting around on the couch together, tangling our limbs as we tried to move into the best position to bring our bodies together. Shawn held himself up on top of me and I reached down, guiding the tip of his cock up against my slick folds. He thrust into me slowly, sinking in inch by inch, and I pushed myself up to kiss him hungrily on the lips as I felt him filling me up. There was no way to deny I’d remembered what he felt like inside me the entire time we’d been apart, especially since he had felt exactly the same way. It was like he’d been molded to fit into me exactly.
We moved together, touching and tasting each other everywhere we could reach with our hands and mouths, starting out slowly and then gradually working up speed. I clung to Shawn like I was trying to keep my head above water, pushing my hips down to meet his thrusts, twisting to take him deeper and deeper as I felt the tension mounting up somewhere deeper down than even the pit of my stomach. The tightness kept getting more and more intense, like a knot someone was pulling on bit by bit every moment that we moved together. I could feel Shawn’s body going tense as well, feel him getting closer and closer to climax.
All at once, it was like the knot deep down between my hips had unraveled, and I cried out, every muscle in my body flexing and then relaxing in erratic spasms that matched the crackling jolts and waves of sensation that washed through every nerve in my body as I hit my climax. Shawn managed to hold back until the sensations began to ebb, slowing down just enough to keep himself going, and then starting up again, slamming into me harder and faster, faster and harder, even as he kissed me everywhere, even moving down to my breasts to claim each of my nipples with his lips and tongue. I was turned on again before I knew it, and once more all that tension was growing inside of me, to the point that it was almost unbearable.
Just when I thought that I might explode, the tension so high in me again that it was almost not even pleasant anymore, I hit my second orgasm, shuddering and trembling as I tumbled into the sensations, giving myself up to them. Shawn managed to hold back for a few moments, but then I felt him climax too, right along with me, adding another layer of sensations to the hot and cold flashes rushing through my nerves. We kept moving together until we both collapsed, panting and gasping, limbs tangled up together on the couch.
When the afterglow finally began to fade, I turned to Shawn, who’d slithered down to my side on the couch next to me, and groaned. “You said you wouldn’t make a move on me,” I protested.
“You hugged me!” Shawn half-scowled at me.
“That was a hug, not sex,” I pointed out.
“You didn’t stop me at any point there, and besides, you were with me all the way,” Shawn insisted. I sighed; I couldn’t argue with him on that side of things. I’d been only too eager to get into it with him.
“This is why I wanted you to pick another lawyer,” I said. “I clearly can’t keep it in my pants.” Shawn chuckled.
“Well, soon enough you’re not going to have to,” he told me. “I won’t be your client for much longer.” I thought about that and he was right. But there were bigger issues at hand.
“We can’t get together,” I said. “You broke my heart, and I just...I don’t know if I can ever get over that, not really.”
“It’s been how many years, and you know--you know--that I never stopped having feelings for you,” Shawn said, firmly.
“That doesn’t matter,” I countered. “Your father demanded you break up with me because I wasn’t good enough for you precious Petersons. And you did it. I...I just don’t think I can be with someone who would do something like that.” Shawn held my gaze steadily for a moment.
“It wasn’t because of Dad,” he said quietly.
“So you thought I wasn’t good enough for you? How is that better?” Any afterglow I’d felt was long gone. Shawn shook his head.
“I was going to run away,” Shawn said. “I told Dad that if he didn’t let me be with you, I was going to cash out my account. I was legally allowed to do that and run away from home, to be with you.” I stared at him in shock.
“So then, how did he make you do it?” Shawn closed his eyes for a moment and sighed.
“I didn’t get a chance to run away,” he said. “I got snatched outside of school about three or four days after Dad gave his ultimatum. Someone in the business wanted him to say yes to a deal, and they had me as collateral.”
“And you seriously...this is the world you’ve been in since you were a teenager and you participated in it?” Shawn gave me a wry smile.
“I di
dn’t have much choice,” he said. “But I knew I couldn’t bring you into it. I had to make sure you wouldn’t get snatched up the next time someone wanted Dad to say yes to something, and Dad pointed that out to me, too.” I didn’t want to give Shawn Senior any credit for altruism, but I couldn’t quite deny Shawn at least a little.
“So you dumped me so I would be safe,” I mused. Shawn nodded.
“I actually talked to your mom about it first,” he said with a slight smile. “I swore her to secrecy that I’d talked to her, and I didn’t tell her the specifics but I explained that there were risky things going on and I didn’t want you to be pulled into it.”
“She told you to tell me your Dad thought I wasn’t good enough for you?” I didn’t believe that. My mother had always given me excellent advice. I couldn’t believe she could give Shawn such terrible information.
“No,” he admitted. “And, at first, Dad really had made that point. But she told me that I shouldn’t feel bad about blaming Dad for it. That if I couldn’t tell you the real reason, I needed to give you a good reason.” I looked at Shawn wryly.
“Well ‘my Dad says you’re not good enough to be in the family and I have to get serious about my love life’ is not a good reason,” I said.
“It was the best one I could come up with, and it was true,” Shawn said. “I couldn’t tell you the other part because...well.” He shrugged.
“Well, that kind of proves my point,” I said quietly. “I can’t be involved with you, not if you’re going to keep doing things like you have been.” Shawn grimaced as he pushed himself up onto his elbows to look down into my face.
“I assume you mean working for my father, and everything that goes with that,” he said, quietly. I nodded. I fully expected him to make some kind of argument about why it was okay, about me being narrow-minded and anything like that.
“Before you try and play devil’s advocate…” I didn’t get a chance to finish my sentence.
“I want out,” Shawn said. “This whole situation has kind of...made me think. If Dad weren’t engaged in some stuff that he shouldn’t be, and if I hadn’t been involved with him, this whole situation would never have happened.” I stared at Shawn in shock.
“Really?” Shawn nodded.
“I have enough money in my own right to start a business of my own,” he said. “And that’s what I’m going to do. Not in finance, though. I’ve got some plans to do some real, honest work.” I laughed.
“You’re really not just saying this to keep me around?” Shawn shook his head.
“No,” he said. “I really want to do this. And I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather do it with than you.” He kissed me lightly on the forehead. “Are you game?” I thought about it for a long moment. Was I ready? Did I really, still, not want to have anything to do with Shawn, or his family? I couldn’t deny how good it had felt to work with him, to have sex with him again. I just didn’t want his Dad involved at all, and apparently he wouldn’t be.
I had to admit, too, while I was being honest with myself, that there was something intensely gratifying and healing about hearing from Shawn that he hadn’t agreed with his father about me not being good enough for their family, that there had been more to it. And, that even as a teenager, Shawn had wanted to do something to keep me safe. He had loved me after all.
“I’m game,” I said. “But before we start planning out our future, can we get a shower?” Shawn laughed, and kissed me on the lips, and I thought that maybe we could enjoy round two before we moved things to the bathroom.
Chapter Twenty
“All rise for the Honorable Judge Carolyn Merchant,” the bailiff said, and I did as I was told. It had been about a month since I’d been released from the detention center, and I hoped that I was going to see the legal end of things within the next hour or so. Cynthia had been up at all hours for days, preparing her motion to dismiss, putting together everything that she, Nathan, Dad and I could come up with to illustrate how things had played out. She’d managed to get some of the biggest ringleaders involved in the conspiracy, charging them with a variety of crimes. But she had to still exonerate me for the hacking charges that the FBI had put on me, as well as a few federal-level charges that remained.
“Be seated,” the bailiff told us, and the judge settled at the bench, looking out over the courtroom. She looked to be about sixty, with faded orange-red hair and no-nonsense makeup that didn’t seem to be even trying to cover up her developing wrinkles. She tapped the gavel to remind us all to be silent.
“I have here a motion to dismiss,” Judge Merchant said, holding up a file folder. “Prosecution, I assume you’ve had time to review it?”
“Yes, Your Honor,” the prosecutor said.
“We’ll hear from you later, then,” the judge said. “First, Ms. Evers, I’d like you to explain this to the court. There is a lot of material here.”
“Absolutely, Your Honor,” Cynthia said, standing. “I would be happy to explain the situation, so that it’s on the record.”
I settled into my seat and watched Cynthia in her elements. She stepped away from the table and addressed the judge, the jury and the courtroom, as a whole, telling the story of what had happened in the course of the investigation she’d conducted.
“I was, of course, interested in demonstrating my client’s father’s innocence, as his attorney,” she said, smiling slightly. “But when it became clear that there were larger issues at play; that there was, in fact, an entire conspiracy involved, which had targeted me simply because I was putting in the work that a lawyer should to exonerate her client, I knew that it was imperative to secure as much information as possible, as quickly as possible.”
She managed to explain the whole course of events without once naming the DA, though she named the people in his office who’d been involved in the framing. She told the judge, and the jury, that I hadn’t been involved in any hacking, and even cited precedents that explained the logic of our actions in getting the information first in such a way that wouldn’t be admissible in court. “I am sure the court is aware that in spite of the illegality, people tend to destroy evidence,” she remarked, at one point. “Preservation of evidence relevant to a criminal investigation has been established as a paramount interest to the law.”
She finished just as strong as she started, and I took a deep breath as the prosecution stood to mount its counterattack; but they didn’t have anything, not really. The judge let the man go on for his entire spiel, which I could see I wasn’t the only person to question, but, on second thought, I figured that she didn’t want to be accused of taking it easy on a fellow woman in the profession.
Finally, the prosecution finished up. “On due consideration of the merits of the information presented by both, the defense and the prosecution, the court judges that there is no reasonable justification for moving forward with trial. The evidence presented by Ms. Evers has answered every point the prosecution has made. This case is dismissed.”
I had to work hard to resist the urge to jump up and cheer; Cynthia had managed to pull it off. She had told me the night before that in the worst case scenario, if it continued through to trial, she was certain she could get me acquitted. The information she had to present was more than enough to create reasonable doubt in even the most prejudicial jury. “Besides,” she’d said, “I can always bring out the big guns and subpoena the DA to testify to certain things.”
There were easily a dozen reporters waiting outside of the court, shouting questions about the case, about me, about the history of it, including the fire set to Cynthia’s apartment. “We don’t have anything to say at this time other than the fact that we’re pleased that justice was served,” she said, both of us pressing through the crowd towards the waiting car. Dana and Montgomery were in jail. We were still working out the details of the rest of the conspirators, but the biggest players were inactive now, not in a position to be able to attack us.
As soon as we were in
the car, I reached for Cynthia and pulled her face to mine to kiss her. “You were amazing, babe,” I said. Cynthia grinned.
“I told you,” she said, playfully.
“I know you did, and I never doubted you. But that was damned fine work,” I told her.
“Now you can start getting on with your life, at least until the trials against that collection of assholes start up,” Cynthia suggested. I nodded and kissed her again, but there was something on my mind that I’d held off talking about while we waited to see if she could get the charges formally dismissed.
“I want to ask you something,” I said. “And I don’t want you to rush to an answer. I want to really, really start the next chapter in my life, and I already know that I want you in it.”
“Where are you going with this, Shawn?” I took a small box out of my pocket; Cynthia had been doing last-minute preparations all week, so she had never managed to even notice I’d bought it and kept it hidden from her, even that morning.
“I want you to marry me,” I said, opening the box to reveal the ring. Cynthia’s eyes went wide as she took in the sight of it; a sapphire--her birthstone--surrounded by diamonds. It had been a fortune, but I had more than three fortunes to my name, even without working for my father anymore.
“We’ve only really been dating each other for about a month,” Cynthia protested.
“We’ve been living with each other for two months,” I said. “Besides, I’ve been thinking about you my entire adult life. I never stopped thinking about you. You accused me of being obsessed with you when I got you to take my Dad’s case, and you were right. I don’t want anyone else in my life.” I paused to let that sink in. “Please, Cyn.”
Redeemed: A Billionaire Second Chance Romance (Lost Love Book 1) Page 11
