by Beth Yarnall
“Maybe it’s not so much the world working against you as it is you working against yourself.”
“That’s a fair summation. My point is that things aren’t always cut and dry. People aren’t what they seem like on the surface. There’s more to me and you too than it looks like from the outside. That’s all I’m saying. And if you can overlook Carla’s faults, why can’t you overlook mine?”
“You really care about what I think of you?”
More than I should. “Why not? We’re friends or working toward it. We have crazy chemistry. Who knows where that will lead if we decide to follow it. We’re going to be spending a lot of time together. And I’m…I’m going to shut up now.” Before I dig myself in any deeper with my shovel of desperation. Idiot. Talk about working against yourself.
She twists the stem of her wine glass, then drinks the remainder of its contents. I refill her glass—her third—as she starts talking, her manner a lot more relaxed than it was when we first walked in.
“You go to church. You took on Carla’s case with nearly the same enthusiasm as I did. You seem to have a good sense of right and wrong. At the same time you do things that ride the line, but somehow manage to stay barely legal, which tells me that you have morals that are important to you. You’re hot and you kiss like you took a master class in making out. And your apartment…”
“What about my apartment?”
“It’s cleaner than mine.”
“Can we go back to the kissing part?”
“What I’m saying is I don’t have a bad impression of you.” She sets her wine glass down after a drink and I notice it’s half empty. “I might even like you.”
I sit back in my chair stunned. “Well, shit. I hope that’s not the wine talking.”
“It probably is and I probably shouldn’t have any more if I’m going to drive home.” She pushes her glass away from her.
“You could always spend the night.”
“You’re riding the line again, buddy.”
“Right. Okay. Shutting up now.” I stand and clear away the dishes and trash.
Behind me I hear something that sounds suspiciously like And you have a nice ass too. But there’s no way Lila would ever say something like that, is there? The wine must be affecting me too. I grab the bottle off the table and stuff the cork back in it. I rinse our wine glasses and put them in the dishwasher, then grab a couple of bottles of water out of the fridge. The last thing I want is one or both of us getting drunk and doing something we might regret later.
“Follow me back to my office,” I tell her. “And bring your phone and charge cord.” It’s time I got my head back on business and try not to think about how she said I’m a good kisser. Although that was my favorite part.
She casually peels off her high-heeled boots and grabs her purse. She’s much smaller without them than I’d anticipated. I’m not a big guy, but I’m suddenly conscious of how much larger I am than her. It’s weird. I never thought a woman being so petite could be a turn on, but with her it totally is. But then nearly everything about her does it for me. Like how she took off her shoes and made herself comfortable in my apartment. That has to mean something, right?
She follows me down the hall to my home office. I’m a bit of a geek when it comes to computers, but even more so when it comes to surveillance equipment—spy cams, bugs, computer and mobile phone spyware, GPS trackers, and bug detection equipment. That’s why I’m so upset with myself that I didn’t bring my hidden camera and bug detector. Another lesson learned—keep one on me at all times.
Behind me Lila gasps. I turn to look at her. Her eyes are wide as she takes in the room with its shelves and shelves of equipment. I try to see the room as she might. Some of the pieces blink and whir while they carry out their various tasks. Most are new, but some are old technology like the CB radio and a PC that only accepts floppy disks.
Some guys are into computer games, some cars. I’m into electronics—how they work, what they can do, and how I can use them. I’ve been fascinated with computers and electronic devices since I was a kid. In fact, my parents’ old VCR sits on a lower shelf, a tape hanging out the front of ALF, that old show about an alien stranded on earth who hides out with a family and tries to eat their cat. It’s a favorite of mine. I’m kind of a geek and I’ve just let the pretty lawyer lady see how big a dork I really am.
I focus on her and her reaction, which seems to be hovering somewhere between awe, confusion, and shock. She doesn’t know it, but when we entered my apartment we triggered the hidden cameras throughout much like the one we found in Martin’s office. Fortunately that screen is currently off. She walks the room, checking everything out. Holding my breath, I wait to see what she’ll say when she’s done.
“This is…awesome. How long have you been collecting?”
I let out the breath I was holding. This is a good response. The one I was hoping for.
“Since I was a kid. I’ve traded up as technology advanced, but I still like some of the old machines like the two different kinds of VCRs, the cassette deck, and the reel-to-reel tape recorder. You never know when you’ll come across old film reels or cassette tapes and you’ll need something to play them on.”
“My parents still play records. They insist the sound is better than CDs.”
“They’re right to a certain extent.”
She glances around again. “This is really cool. You surprise me.”
“In a good way I hope.”
“This time, yes. Absolutely.”
I clear my throat, trying to dislodge the lump that’s suddenly formed. “Your phone and cord?”
“Oh, yeah. Here.” She starts to put them in my hand.
“If it’s password protected I’ll need you to key it in.”
I look away when she punches in her code. She hands it to me and I plug it into the USB port on my computer. This machine is my baby, my most prized piece of equipment. I built the PC myself to the specifications I wanted. I login in and click on the icon to upload her photos. I could upload everything on it into my computer and she probably wouldn’t know it. But that’s a line I would never cross.
“Pull up that chair,” I tell her, motioning to the office chair across the room that I use with my Mac computer. Yes, I have both a Mac and a PC. “And bring it over so we can look at the photos together.”
When her phone is finished I plug mine in and upload the pictures of the files that I took. I had no idea if any of it will help us or not. Lila will know more about them than I do. There was a lot of legalese I didn’t understand. I just photographed everything I could find with either her or Diego’s name on it. I even shot the file Martin had with his own name on the tab.
Lila drags the chair over and sits, taking a long drink from her water bottle. She dabs her mouth with the back of her hand. “Are those the pictures you took of the files?”
“Yeah. I’m glad you’re here. You can help me decipher it. There was one in particular…” I scroll through until I find the one I want to show her. “This one.” I lean back so she can get closer to the screen.
Her eyes narrow. “No. It can’t be.”
“Is it what I think it is?”
“Holy shit. Why didn’t he file it? Can you print it out? Just the first three pages are fine. I want to see what his argument was.”
I do as she asks. In seconds the printer is done and I had her the sheets of paper.
She scans the pages, flipping through them a couple of times. “His argument was solid. He probably would’ve won. Why didn’t he file it? I don’t understand. This is a motion to dismiss the case against Carla. He sites the coroner’s report declaring Diego’s death an accident and the judge’s misapplication of the burden of proof in Filipe Nuñez’s competency hearing as a witness in the case as well as his denial to hear the testimony of an expert who would’ve shown that Filipe’s recollection of Diego wrapping the cord around his own neck was credible and consistent with what Carla said in her ini
tial statement to the police.”
“In English?”
“It means that the when the judge declared Filipe unfit to testify because of his age that he put the burden of proof on the defense to disprove the charges against Carla rather than putting the burden on the prosecution to prove the charges. He totally ignored the principle of innocent until proven guilty, the very foundation of our justice system.”
She shakes the papers. “Again, why didn’t he file this? He was right. Why did he choose to be incompetent and let the trial go on? Why did he let his client get convicted for a crime when he could disprove the entire basis of the prosecution’s case with the coroner’s report? There was no crime. There never should’ve been a trial let alone a conviction. Why? I just don’t get it.”
“Doesn’t this give us what we need to free Carla?”
“Oh, yes. But I want to know what made him not file this motion. There must be some reason. I want to be really sure here. We need all of our ducks in a row. We may only get one shot at reversing her conviction and I don’t want to waste it going in with only part of the information. What else did you find in his files?”
“He had a file on himself. Let me see if I can find… Ah. Here.” I’m glad I took a picture of the file tab before photographing the contents inside so I know what goes where.
“Bank statements,” Lila says. “I wonder if Debbie knows about this account.”
“Huh, not likely. Look at the charges.”
“What do you mean? He could’ve bought anything from Two 2 Tango or Leah Unlimited.”
“Actually those are spank-by-the-minute websites.”
She turns to look at me at the same time I look at her and I suddenly realize how close we are. Closer than we were in the car. I can smell the mixture of wine and cheeseburger on her breath mingled with her perfume. The combination is like some strange aphrodisiac that has me semi-hard in an instant. Or maybe it’s just having her near that makes my whole body hot.
“Spank by the what?” Her words are breathy or else it’s me projecting because the way she says spank sets off flares inside me.
“Spank-by-the-minute. You know, those sites where you watch someone get themself off while you get yourself off.”
Her lips part on a soft oh and I imagine all sorts of things involving her mouth. “How do you know this?”
“I did some webcam work for Leah Unlimited. They wanted cameras the customer could control with simple keystrokes—zooming, switching camera angles, and so on. They gave me a list of other websites to ah, visit to get an idea of what the competition was doing so they could do something different.”
“And one of the other websites you had to visit was Two 2 Tango?”
“Yes.”
“For research.” She makes air quotes on the word research.
I can’t help the smile that creases my cheeks. “They paid me a lot of money to do it too. I still do some contract work for them from time to time.”
“So you have to check their site to make sure it’s working properly.”
“Are you asking me to show you the website?”
“I just can’t imagine John Martin doing…that.”
“There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s perfectly safe. The safest sex available.”
I pull my gaze from hers and use my backdoor access code to enter the site. The screen fills with smaller screens or rooms of men and women in various stages of arousal. We’re immediately surrounded by the sound of their panting, moans, and dirty talk. Lila’s gaze is glued to the screen, her eyes wide.
“Which room do you want to enter?” I ask her, my attention fully on her.
“Is there a…” She licks her lips. “Is there a way to see which room Martin entered?”
“No. They don’t give me access to their billing department. But, if I had to guess…” I choose a box at random because they’re all pretty much the same and click on it.
The screen is suddenly full of a young blond woman dressed like a schoolgirl. Her skirt is hiked up around her waist and her blouse gaps open. She’s not wearing any underwear. I watch Lila as she watches the girl thrust a huge black dildo in and out of herself while twisting her nipples and crying out. The camera zooms in on her face, then out to focus on the way her breasts jiggle.
“Are you doing that?” Lila asks, her voice wispy and soft.
“Controlling the cameras?”
“Yeah.”
“No. The customer paying to watch her is.”
“Do you… Is this…the kind of thing you like?”
“I’m not into voyeurism, no.”
I lean a little closer, drawn to her by the charged air around us. The schoolgirl’s moans get louder and louder until she climaxes. Lila licks her lips again, her eyes wide on the image before her. In that moment I’m overcome with the desire to find out what Lila sounds like when she comes and what I could do to her to make her to scream my name the way the girl on the screen is crying out for some guy named Josh.
“I’d rather have the real thing,” I whisper hoarsely. “To touch and taste. Right in front of me.”
8
Lila
The girl on the screen writhes and moans, pinching her nipples and plunging the huge phallus in and out of her. I can’t look away. I’ve never seen anything like it. I had no idea such a thing even existed. Nolan watches me watch the girl. He doesn’t touch me or say anything, he just observes. Having him beside me as the girl nears orgasm does something to me. My nipples are hard, pressing against the cups of my bra. I want to take my breasts in my hands and do what the girl is doing, pinching and tugging her nipples.
I rock my hips forward, pressing my clit against the seat of the chair, trying to get some relief. It’s not so much what’s happening in front of me it’s what’s happening between Nolan and me. Maybe it’s the wine. Maybe it’s my limited experiences. Or maybe it really is the girl rolling around on her bed. I don’t know. All I know is that I want Nolan to touch me. The longer he doesn’t the more I want him to.
Can he feel electricity bowing and arcing between us? Is it affecting him the way it’s affecting me? Is it the girl or is it me or a combination of both?
“Do you…” I stammer. “Is this…the kind of thing you like?”
“I’m not into voyeurism, no.”
The girl’s back arches and she screams out for some guy named Josh. I’m wet between my legs. I press harder into the chair seat sure I’ll leave a wet spot behind, but I don’t care. I feel like that girl on the screen needing something, but it doesn’t come.
“I’d rather have the real thing.” He’s suddenly closer, his voice a rasp that rubs between my legs. “To touch and taste. Right in front of me.”
I bite my lip to keep from moaning.
“Lila.” My name is a whispered caress against my ear. “Do you like watching?”
I open my mouth to deny it, but all that comes out is a gasp. The girl on the screen pulls the dildo out of her and licks it. The sound she makes is less convincing than any of the others she’s made. This part of the fantasy isn’t hers.
“Turn it off.”
He does as I ask, bringing the bank statement back up on the screen. I’m on edge. I want—no need—him to touch me and yet I don’t think I could handle it if he did.
“I shouldn’t have showed you that,” he says. “I’m sorry.”
I turn to look at him. His eyes are a metallic brown like brass or copper. Mesmerizing. He’s looking at me with a mixture of concern and desire as though he’s not sure which he should be feeling.
I tilt toward him without really thinking about it. “I asked you to show me.”
“I know you did, but… Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” I want that to be true, but it’s not. It’s so not.
He brushes the back of his knuckles across my cheek. His gaze is everywhere on my face, bouncing between my eyes and lips and where he’s caressing me. I want him to kiss me. I can tell he wants th
e same thing, but something’s holding him back. Is it something I’m doing or not doing?
“You’re really beautiful.” His whispered compliment seems to have surprised him somehow. He drops his hand and sits back in his chair.
“Thank you.”
He clears his throat. “It’s late and it’s been a long day.”
“I… Yeah. Jeez. Wow. I didn’t realize it was so late.” I have no idea what time it is, but it’s clear he wants me to leave.
I grab my phone and start to stand. My legs are a little wobbly from the wine and the emotional overload of the day, making me tip to one side. I grab his shoulder to stabilize myself. It’s strong and steady under my hand.
He catches me by the arm. “Are you okay to drive?”
“I’m just tired.” I move away, out of his hold.
“Are you sure? Maybe you should stay…” His offer isn’t very convincing.
“I really should go.”
“What time do you want to meet up tomorrow and where?”
“Tomorrow?”
“To go over the rest of the stuff we found at Martin’s.” He tilts his head, concern on his face and in his voice. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
Something inside me snaps. The edge I’ve been walking all day lists to one side and I feel myself falling into uncharted territory and I realize I’m about to do something I’ve never done. Oddly I’m not scared. I’m not nervous. I’m determined.
“You know what?” I say, taking a step toward him. “No. I’m not okay.”
“What’s—”
I grab him by the front of the shirt and the back of his head and press my lips to his. His body jolts in a stunned jerk, then his arms wrap around me, dragging me tight against him. He angles his head, taking the kiss deeper. For a split second I’m too shocked to react and then I fist his hair tighter. He makes a low noise in the back of his throat and rocks his pelvis against me. He’s hard and hungry as though he’s been waiting forever to get me in just this position. His arousal sends mine into overdrive.
