Legally Yours (Spitfire Book 1)

by Nicole French

  Hearts and flowers. That definitely wasn’t me, at least not all the time. And while our interlude in the stairwell was many thing, romantic wasn’t one of them. Not most women’s ideal for the first time they had sex with their new lover, but I wasn’t regretting anything. And I hoped I wouldn’t.

  The truth was, I wasn’t really sure what I liked. No matter what I told the guy, or how great one particular style of sex was, after a while it started to feel one-sided. Sweet or rough, in the bed or on the floor, after all while the actions started to feel routine—the same sort of touches every single time. My mind would start to become easily distracted, wandering around the room while my partner finished his business. Most men seemed to think that the sex part was enough, but I needed more to make it good. The problem was, I wasn’t sure what that kind of engagement should look like past the first, exciting stage when everything is new.

  “Do you…do you always need it to be…like that?” I asked quietly. I didn’t know the right words to describe what we’d done. Rough? A little, maybe. Public? Very. Raw. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer. If it was yes, I already knew how this would end.

  Brandon frowned. “I thought you said you liked it.”

  “I…I did. I do,” I said, tracing my finger on the rough edge of the wooden table next to me. “But I think I might like it a lot of ways. I just know I don’t always want it to be like that.”

  He frowned, confused. “Okay, then how do you like it?”

  This conversation was beyond mortifying, but I persevered, trying to ignore the heat rising to my face and the likelihood that I looked like a giant tomato. But, I decided, if he could bare himself the way he’d done for the past several hours, I could tell him the truth about my sexuality.

  “I…I don’t know,” I admitted weakly.

  He sat back thoughtfully against his desk. “What do you mean?” He looked up, a sudden look of panic crossing his handsome features. “Christ, Skylar, you weren’t a virgin, were you?”

  His panic made me laugh hard from my gut.

  “Oh, god, no,” I replied, chuckling. “I mean, I don’t have eons of experience or anything, but I’m not a virgin. And I wasn’t before we had sex, either,” I clarified snarkily.

  “So, it’s just never been that good?” he asked with a smirk.

  I shook my head, and tried to explain it to him. “No, it’s been fine, I suppose. I just…after a while it starts to feel the same. Once the excitement dies away, my mind starts to wander…and I don’t know how to make it stop.” I looked up helplessly. I wasn’t even sure why I felt like that, so it was hard to explain it to someone else. “I’m sorry,” I said. “It doesn’t seem like men have that kind of problem.”

  He crossed the small space between us and came to sit next to me on another stool. He took one of my hands in mind and tinkered with it delicately, pressing my fingers straight and touching his fingers into the pads of my palm.

  “I read somewhere,” he recalled, “that for men, sex is ninety percent physical and ten percent mental, and for women it’s the other way around.” He shrugged. “I don’t know about that. I’ve always felt like it’s a solid fifty-fifty for me. Okay, okay, maybe seventy-thirty,” he confessed when he caught my bemused expression. “But the point is, it definitely seems like sex is more of a mental game for some people than for others.”

  I pondered that. “Yeah, I guess so. I mean, for me it definitely is.”

  He nodded. “I can see that. You’re too quick for most.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I’ve seen you in mock trial, Red,” he said with a sneaky grin.

  I stared at him, confounded. My mock trial was last spring, back when everyone was applying for the Sterling Grove internship. That the name partner of the firm would have dropped in to check out potential interns was beyond unheard of.

  “I don’t like to leave hiring to chance,” he said seriously to my unvoiced thoughts. “If anyone of you was going to be kept on as a junior associate, I needed to know you all could actually handle yourselves in court.” He grinned wider, clearly recalling his visit. “You were arguing the plaintiff’s side of a case to overturn Roe V. Wade. I think you made the witness cry during the cross examination.”

  The memory of that argument sailed back into the present, and I groaned and smacked my palm against my head. “Oh my God, you saw that? I hated that assignment! It went against every single thing I believe in!”

  Brandon laughed as he leaned back on his stool to rest one elbow on the table behind us, and reached the hand around to toy with the ridges of my knuckles while he spoke. “I know. After the class, I heard you say just that to one of your classmates. And yet, you had clearly won your case in a Massachusetts courtroom. You were about ten steps ahead of the defense the entire time, like you know what everyone was going to say before they said it. But when you walked out and it became clear that you had done that—played the game despite what was going on in your own mind—that was when I knew you’d be one of the best litigators I’d ever seen.” He arched a blond brow. “I still think that.”

  I stared at him, uncharacteristically without words. He seemed to do that to me a lot. We sat there, examining each other. I was shocked by how much he had figured out about me, how much he seemed to know.

  “So I’m thinking that in the bedroom, you probably don’t want to have to work so damn hard,” he continued, his voice falling just a bit lower. His tinkering with my hand became a little bit more suggestive as he wrapped his fingers tightly around my wrist. “I’m guessing you want to be with someone who’s as observant as you are, who doesn’t become predictable. Who can engage you on your level. Because being ten steps ahead of anyone in the bedroom is boring.”

  I gaped.

  He cocked his head with a smirk. “I’m right, aren’t I? I didn’t really intend for that to be our first time, but you liked what happened tonight because you didn’t have to think about it, didn’t you?”

  I thought back to our encounter under the stairs, and the one in my bedroom. I realized it wasn’t just Brandon’s touch that had made me want him so badly—it was his words too, the way he had spoken to me, the way he had controlled my focus.

  “Was that just some kind of a game?” I finally managed to whisper.

  The best sex I had had with other partners had also been with people willing to play games, but they had all been the same kinds with the same kinds of people. There was only so many times you could be blindfolded and told you were a dirty bitch before it stopped being exciting and started feeling predictably misogynistic. I had thought our interaction to be so honest, so raw. I didn’t think I could bear it if I found out he’d planned it all beforehand.

  He ran a hand through his hair. “It wasn’t premeditated, if that’s what you’re asking. But it was definitely an interplay of mental connection as much as it was physical, don’t you think?”

  I looked up to meet his gaze, which was burning at me as he waited for my response. The memory of him shoving my pants down, fucking me with his fingers and shoving me harshly against the cold stone wall. I had barely had a choice in the matter, and that was part of what turned me on so badly. It was also completely unexpected. Suddenly I felt short of breath again as my eyes flickered from his full lips back to his eyes.

  “Yes,” I said confidently. “I do.”

  ~

  Chapter 23

  We sat there for a moment on the stools, surrounded by the hodgepodge of his tools and inventions. A light snowfall was visible through the glass walls, but all I could see was him.

  “So,” he said softly, apparently under the same trance. His eyes suddenly burned brightly with obvious desire.

  “So,” I said, just as softly.

  It was clear that wires and temperature monitors didn’t matter much anymore. We stared, unblinking. All I could think about was that he had already had me against one wall this evening, and now I was more than ready for him to h
ave me on a table where the whole world could watch if they cared to look. The thought of it had me licking my lips. His eyes trained on my mouth like a big cat’s on its prey: glowing, two bright blue orbs in the dim light.

  Brandon breathed in and out, the rise of his chest the only betrayal of his calm. Slowly, he stood up, his shoulders blocking the shadowy moon shining through the glass walls. I managed not to cower, though it was hard when he loomed from at least a six-inch advantage. With two fingers, he tipped my chin up to look him in the eye.

  “Stand up,” he said in a low voice just a few decibels above a whisper. It was a quiet voice, but no less menacing.

  Obediently, I slid off the stool and stood before him. His gaze walked up and down my body with an expression that seared my skin beneath my clothes.

  “Take off your clothes,” he commanded softly. “Slowly.”

  I didn’t even have to think about it. Wordlessly, I bent down; he would get an ample view of my cleavage as the wide neck of my blouse fell forward. I unzipped my boots and kicked them away, where they clattered together on the tiled floor. My socks followed, and without breaking our eye contact, I stood back up, trailing my hands up my legs until I could grab the bottom of my shirt and tug it over my head with a dramatic flourish.

  When I let it drop, the vibrant blue irises of his eyes had darkened to the color of the night sky. Momentarily, I was struck with doubt. I had never attempted a naughty striptease before. Was I doing this right? I thought I was, but his fierce expression didn’t change.

  Ignoring the nervous goose bumps rising on the backs of my arms, I offered as coquettish a grin as I could manage and drifted my hands back down to unbutton my pants, peeling them down my legs until they were completely off. When I stood upright again, he had reached a hand up to tug his collar slightly away from his neck. I bit my lip to stifle a smile. Yeah, I was definitely doing this right.

  The space heater had turned the room from a chilly glass igloo into a toasty little greenhouse, pleasantly fogging up the windows with the condensation against the cold exterior. Despite the dropping temperatures and snowflakes falling outside, I was quite comfortable standing in front of him in nothing but a black lace bra and matching panties. As I watched him peruse my body, I silently thanked God for my swimming habit and for the presence of mind to wear decent lingerie. I didn’t think Brandon had gotten much of a look in the stairwell.

  Brandon reached out and traced with his knuckles the elastic edge of my bra, from the pin-thin strap across the delicate skin of my upper breast. He dropped his fingers into the hollow between the lace cups and drifted his fingertips back across the other side. My breath became shallow as he slid a finger under the other strap, worrying it provocatively before letting it snap back into place against my clavicle.

  “I like this,” he said, his voice catching noticeably over the words. “A lot. Where did you get it?”

  “La-la Perla,” I managed to stutter. He continued to play with my strap, and I bit my lip to prevent myself from grabbing his hand and forcing him to do the same thing with my nipple.

  “How does a poor law student afford this kind of lingerie?”

  I gulped. It was an indulgence—my only real one, beyond one expensive pair of shoes—that I allowed myself to have from time to time. For whatever reason, I loved knowing that beneath my consignment suits and ten-year-old jeans I was wearing something truly beautiful. It made me feel beautiful.

  “It’s…my thing,” was all I could barely breathe out. “It makes me feel pretty.”

  His eyes flickered back up to my face. “You couldn’t be anything but gorgeous, Skylar,” he said softly, and I swore that both of us could hear the thump of my heart in return. “Has anyone else seen it?”

  I looked down at the set and back up again.

  “Ah…no,” I answered lamely. Was that good? Bad? It was that irritating moment that always seemed to ruin the mood whenever any guy asked a question with a similar connotation. No man, no matter how enlightened, seemed to want to think of their date as having a sexual history, but they didn’t want her to be ignorant either. It was infuriating.

  Brandon interrupted me from my brooding by snapping my bra strap again to my collar bone again—harder.

  “Ow!” I cried, my hand flying up to press at the suddenly sore spot.

  “You’re thinking too much, Skylar,” he said curtly. “If I didn’t want to know, I wouldn’t ask. And so we’re clear, I couldn’t give a shit if you’ve been with one or one thousand other men, because none of them are going to light a fucking candle to what you and I can do together.”

  Well, that was confident.

  As if he could read my mind, Brandon gripped my bicep and pulled me tight against him. “You’re damn right I’m confident,” he breathed into my ear. “And with good reason, too.”

  There was no escaping his unique scent as he hovered his mouth over the contours of my mouth and cheeks, fluttering his lips over my skin without—quite—making contact. I started to shiver with anticipation, but he dodged every attempt I made to capture his lips with mine. Finally, he released me with a heavy inhale and took a heavy step back. His gaze traveled down my body and up again, burning every place it landed until it reached my face again.

  “Skylar,” he said, his voice low and almost menacing. “I said take off your clothes. I meant all of them.”

  Something about the way he ordered me to do it made my skin prickle in anticipation. I knew, mind game or not, that I didn’t have a choice here. I had to do whatever he told me. And hell if I wanted otherwise.

  Too impatient now to continue my striptease rouse, I quickly unlatched my bra, letting it fall to the ground while my breasts bounced free. I heard a sharp intake of breath, but Brandon kept his eyes zeroed on mine. Without breaking eye contact, I shimmied my panties down my legs and kicked them to join my other clothes.

  I knew I wasn’t perfect. My skin, despite its light olive tone, was mostly covered with a smattering of light freckles. While I had a nice flat stomach and decent muscle, I had smallish breasts and enough wiggle to my parts that I wasn’t ever going to be the type to walk around in Daisy Dukes, no matter what my grandmother said. But standing in front of Brandon, I felt brazen, confident, and sexier than ever. His steely blue gaze, which was by this point burning up the entire room with its intensity, made me feel like I was the only person in the world he’d ever seen this way. Like nothing could ever make him to look away from me.

  “Sit back on the stool,” he said, his voice still low but menacing. “Spread your legs. We’re going to do this slowly this time.”

  When I did so obediently, he nodded in approval. He stood up in front of me, and I tilted my head back, practically begging for his touch, his taste. I remembered what we had done not long ago, and I wanted it again and so much more. My whole body was practically humming for those deft fingers.

  “Skylar,” he said, and I looked up to find his equally hungry gaze. “Show me how you touch yourself.”

  I hesitated. I had never done that in front of someone before. At least, not when they were just standing there, staring at me. “Why? You already do it just fine.”

  He frowned again. Apparently he really didn’t like being contradicted during foreplay. “Because I said so. Don’t be shy. Let me see.”

  Somewhat reluctantly, I closed my eyes and slid my hand down my stomach into the warm thatch of hair between my legs. I started to toy with my clitoris, my fingers finding the familiar rhythm I set for myself in those moments that had become a bit too common of late. Until now, I hoped.

  “Does it feel good?”

  Wordlessly, I nodded, frowning in concentration as I tried to ignore the obvious distractions: the slight occasional chill of the air on my bare skin, the cold steel rim of the stool against my ass, and the fact that Brandon was still fully clothed, watching me pleasure myself.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  I didn’t say anything, just shook my he
ad, frustrated. Goddammit. It was the same with everyone. This was the reason I never, ever managed to orgasm with a partner, at least until recently. Men always thought it just took a quick tap or two and magically I’d come. It didn’t matter if I tried to explain it or not—no one ever seemed to key in on the fact that my mind was what controlled my orgasm, not my body, and that it was hard fucking work keeping all the distractions at bay.

  And right now, I couldn’t. The spell I’d felt just moments before had dissipated; this felt like work, not play.

  “Do you need help?”

  I opened my eyes to find Brandon standing next to me naked except for his underwear, a pair of skin-tight boxer briefs that did nothing to hide his obvious erection. My fingers sped up involuntarily as I sucked in a deep breath at the sight of him, all six feet, four inches of perfection, even with the pair of small triangular scars just under his right pectoral. God, he was gorgeous. He gently pulled me off my stool and slid behind me, tugging me back between his legs so he could surround me with his warmth and slide his arm between my legs to cover my hand with his.

  He slid his tongue up my throat and nipped my ear. “Relax against me. Keep going and just listen to my voice.”

  Obediently I leaned my head back onto his shoulder and closed my eyes again, basking in the feel of his stubble cheek drifting over my throat as his fingers moving comfortably with mine over my clitoris.

  “Do you remember that first night in your apartment?”

  Wordlessly I nodded. How could I forget? No one had ever elicited that kind of response from my body so intensely or efficiently.

  “Do you remember how I laid you down? How I tasted you?”

  My fingers moved a little faster, applied a little more pressure of their own accord as I easily recalled his mouth between my legs. The hot, warm, slippery wet of it. The delicacy of his tongue feasting on my most sensitive parts. The slipperiness of his fingers, plucking and pulling at my body with the nuanced sensitivity of a musician. He had the touch, that was for sure.