Legally Binding
Reese Gabriel
Book 3 in the Tall, Dark and Dominant series.
Kat Cartwell is a lawyer on vacation. She wants nothing more than to simply lie in the sun and catch up on her law journals, but the handsome and mysterious Julian Morrell has other plans when he introduces himself on the beach. A seasoned sexual dominant, he senses in the coy litigator a true submissive heart. After he manages to invite himself to her dinner table, sparks fly and their strong personalities collide.
Kat is intrigued despite her initial resistance. By the end of the night she’s agreed to take a chance. He promises her a once-in-a-lifetime experience as his slave, but what happens in the morning when both of them want more? Kat makes a quick getaway but Julian is not about to give up on a chance for a more serious relationship.
All bets are off when he shows up at her firm, meeting with her bosses and putting her on a huge retainer. Now he has control of her again. The question is whether or not that will carry over into the bedroom.
Ellora’s Cave Publishing
www.ellorascave.com
Legally Binding
ISBN 9781419937392
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Legally Binding Copyright © 2011 Reese Gabriel
Edited by Shannon Combs
Cover design by Syneca
Models Shanon and Georgio
Electronic book publication November 2011
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Legally Binding
Reese Gabriel
Chapter One
He was the proverbial TD and H—Tall, Dark and Hell No.
Sure, he was pure eye candy standing over her in his navy blue swim suit, six feet three, two hundred pounds of well-defined muscles, lean lines, a clean, solid chin and gorgeous blue eyes.
But men like him always came with a price tag nice girls like Katherine Cartwell—Kat to her friends—could never afford.
“You’re blocking the sun,” she informed him, peering over the edge of her leather-bound law volume, infinitely better suited for a mahogany bookshelf than a tropical beach.
The modern-day Greek god stepped aside, a wry smile on his face. “I’m surprised you notice the sun at all with your nose buried in that godforsaken tome.”
Kat frowned. He might have curly dark hair, luscious biceps and pectorals good enough to eat, but she’d be damned if he’d talk to her like that. “Where I put my nose is none of your concern. Good day, sir.”
His hands went to his hips. “Actually, there are other parts of you that hold a good deal more interest.”
Kat’s jaw dropped. She felt her cheeks turn pink and her chest too. She might as well have been naked in front of the man. Wearing this bikini had been a mistake, a very big mistake. “I beg your pardon,” she said, employing her best courtroom manner. “But you have no right to speak to me that way.”
“Such a world,” he lamented, his accent vaguely European and deeply sensual. “That a man has no right to tell a woman she is beautiful.”
Her pulse quickened. She looked for her towel to cover up. “I’m sure you mean well. But I really would appreciate it if you would move on.”
“Actually I don’t mean well at all.”
“Excuse me?”
“I want to make love to you. I’m jealous as hell of that book and I want to toss it in the ocean and make you forget it ever existed.”
Kat swallowed hard, clutching the towel.
“If you were my woman,” he said, taking advantage of her stunned silence, “I wouldn’t let you out on the beach like this for every man to see. Your body would be for my eyes only.”
“I have a boyfriend,” she blurted. “He’s gone to the bathroom and he’ll be back any moment.”
“You’re lying,” he said.
She tried to keep his eyes off his crotch. She could imagine his cock, large and well formed as he was. “What if I am? I don’t owe you anything, not so much as the time of day.”
“That is true,” he inclined his head. “I will leave if that is your wish.”
“It is,” she insisted, even as her body was screaming for him to stay and make good on his erotic promises.
“Very well,” he said as though he had done not a thing wrong. Such a smooth, cocky bastard he was, so totally prepossessed. Why wasn’t he flustered like she? Damn her female anatomy—nipples that hardened to tight buds, a nether crevice that eased heat and moisture at the very possibility of physical contact.
“I hope you enjoy the rest of your stay on the island, Miss… I’m sorry I didn’t catch your name.”
“It’s Kat,” she said softly. “Kat Cartwell.”
Why was she revealing her identity to a perfect stranger? Was she out of her mind?
“It’s been a pleasure.” He bowed low, the gesture re-enforcing her old world impression of the man. “Kat Cartwell.”
She felt a chill down her spine. The way he said her name—it was so full of anticipation, as if he wasn’t finished with her yet, as if they’d meet again.
She wanted to know his name in turn, she wanted to hear it emanate from those dark, sensuous lips of his, deep and masculine and strong, but she didn’t dare ask. She couldn’t afford to know. She couldn’t afford to be anymore invested than she already was.
“In case you are curious,” he added parenthetically, as if reading her mind. “My name is Julian. Julian Morrell.”
Kat wanted to say something back—something rude like how she wasn’t in the least curious and how now that she knew she would be sure to forget it as quickly as possible, but nothing was coming out of her mouth. Just her own breath, which had disturbingly quickened since the man’s arrival.
So much for her vaunted identity as a legal barracuda, a rising star at the firm, a silver-tongue barrister, the next Cochrane or F. Lee Bailey.
A few blinks later and Julian Morrell was gone. She watched his confident stride across the beach, tight ass cheeks and strong calf muscles. Incredible. He had been utterly rejected and he was acting as if he didn’t care. No, scratch that. He had behaved as though it were not even in her power to reject him. Somehow he had retained the upper hand throughout. The terms, the discourse, all of it was controlled by him.
Had he even propositioned her at all? He had said what he might do with her, but had that been his immediate i
ntent? What if she had let him stay? Would he have tried to push her immediately into bed?
If you were my woman, he’d said. That didn’t sound like a fifty-fifty deal at all. That sounded like domination.
A deal breaker for sure.
Kat Cartwell did not submit to any man. Not in real life. Sure, she had her fantasies. Many women did. But when it came to actual sex, things had to be carefully defined and laid out, the boundaries drawn well in advance.
Kimmy, the firm’s newest associate and her self-designated protégé and partner in crime, had dubbed Kat’s intricate idea of coupling “sex with a pre-nup”.
“You make it so much like work, it’s no wonder you don’t get any,” the willowy blonde loved to tease her.
“There’s more to life than bedding every available man,” was Kat’s standard reply.
“If there is,” Kimmy was wont to say. “I’d love to see it—along with the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot.”
She wondered what the nubile young woman would make of Julian Morrell. Kat pegged him at forty, though he had the kind of body and wrinkle-free looks that could help him pass for thirty something.
Kimmy would probably have him back up in her room by now. Then again, Mr. Morrell did not seem to be the type to succumb easily to a woman’s seductive authority, no matter how beautiful she was.
Likely he would have made Kimmy wait in order to put her off balance. Later he would let her give it up, putting her through paces.
What sort of things would Morrell do to a woman in bed? He would drive a woman crazy but he would also know what he wanted in return and he would get it.
It might even go further than that.
What if he was dominant in bed? A woman would have to respond as he told her. And if she didn’t…well he might just punish her. Perish the thought.
Kat stuck her nose back in the book, a condensed review of precedents with regard to product liability case law. She’d been meaning to brush up for some time and what better opportunity than on vacation where there was precious little else to fill her time?
Technically, she was supposed to be relaxing. Marvin Wannamaker and George Tallows, the senior partners had insisted she take this trip, not only as a reward for her winning a recent seven-figure settlement against a large chemical company but because she had not taken a single day off in the past three years, including Christmas and Thanksgiving.
“You’re making us look bad,” had said the white mustachioed, bull moose sounding George—the king of all work-a-holics.
It was the thin, tall, bespectacled Marvin who had personally handed her the set of tickets to Miracle Resort on Cartiva Island. “You’re getting on that plane, Ilsa.” He had done a terrible impression of Bogie.
George, a modern day Teddy Roosevelt complete with bear heads on his wall, had cut off all possible objections. “We expect you gone, Miss Cartwell. Should your face appear in this office before a week from next Monday I shall be forced to dire measures.”
“But my caseload…” She had made a last ditch attempt to weasel out.
“You’ve nothing pending in court. As for the rest, there is a wonderful little invention we have around here, called the paralegal.”
Paralegal was another word for slave in her business.
There was no getting out of it, then. Although not even the senior partners could keep her from smuggling a law book or two off her shelves. And some legal journals too.
So what if she enjoyed reading about the law in her spare time? Was that a crime?
What was offensive was accosting women on the beach. Treating them like…like mere pleasure objects. Try as she might, Kat could not concentrate on the page in front of her. Dryer vs. Standard Chemical Company, 1986.
She took peeks over the top of the gilded pages, looking to see what Morrell was doing. She half expected to see him working his way down the beach, going after every woman he saw until one turned out to be weak enough or foolish enough to keep talking to him.
The idea of another woman engaging him really irritated her though. Really she shouldn’t care less.
Surprisingly, he didn’t stop at all. Four or five females were neglected in his barefoot march across the crisp, white sand, including a pair of luscious young coeds, one brunette and one blonde.
They had fine, young bodies, and supple, natural breasts, defying gravity.
Kat herself was no slouch at thirty-three, though she was kidding herself if she thought her best days weren’t behind her. The young golden-haired girl who had represented Hawthorn High School as homecoming queen fifteen years ago was a creature long gone, buried in the shrouds of history.
Of interest to no one but an elite few, just like these silly old cases she was trying to review.
The two girls were looking at Morrell, practically drooling. Kat watched them do typical female attraction things as he passed—hair flips, back arches, thrusting out chests and pointing their toes.
The man couldn’t care less.
Ha ha. Silly little cows.
Julian Morrell was a man’s man. He liked his women, and while she didn’t know exactly how he liked them, he thought she was beautiful.
Kat felt herself preening a little and that made her mad. What kind of game was Morrell playing with her? Her whole life Kat had struggled to be recognized as a person, for better or worse, capable, talented, and not just a pretty girl.
If she had to, she would die a spinster if only to maintain her hard fought asexual independence. Julian Morrell had no right to take that away from her. Reducing her to fluttering female helplessness, making her feel squirmy and moist between her thighs, making her want him to do just as he’d said—taking this ridiculous law book and tossing it into the sea.
I want to make love to you, he’d said. I’m jealous as hell of that book.
Here it came again, that weird feeling that Morrell, if he ever did make love to her, would give no quarter.
After all, look what he had been prepared to say to her right off the bat, a perfect stranger. What words would come from his mouth if they were truly intimate?
As if that would ever happen!
Kat watched discretely as Julian found an abandoned piece of beach front. The sky was crystalline blue, with a shade of green, nearly as pale as the glassy waters. He proceeded to wade into the light foam, up to his ankles and then his knees.
There was something ritualistic about the way he moved, as if he were making some kind of sacrifice to the sea, his own bronzed and perfect body as the offering.
Sure enough, as soon as he was waist deep, he lifted his arms overhead, bending his head back, slowly, with perfect grace and composure.
What arrogance, she thought, and yet at the same time, what perfect nobility. There was something so utterly majestic about it. Clearly this was not for anyone else’s consumption. Just as with her, he didn’t give a damn how the world responded.
Suddenly she felt as if he was mocking her.
Trembling, she rose from the lounge chair. It was all so quick—her thought processes, the decision to go after him. She’d been this way all her life. Her father had called her Wild Kat because of her propensity for pouncing.
“It’s not fair!” She would pronounce loud and long over the simplest of pre-school injustices.
Her mother was apt to dismiss her but Daddy saw the importance, the potential of her fearsome spirit. Never once did he fail to take her seriously. Together they would reason things out to a solution. It was his influence, more than any other that had made her the lawyer she was today.
All of a sudden it became clear to her.
This injustice would stand no more than any other in her life.
She would give this Morrell a piece of her mind.
He would not intimidate her or have the last word.
Let him feel uncomfortable now as she took the battle to him.
Yes, she would go after him.
Much to his shock she would beat him too at his o
wn game of verbal bravado.
Heart pounding she made her way down the beach, abandoning her chair, towel and book.
When she got within range Kat waded out after Julian, her hot skin stung by the sudden wash of cool water.
If he knew she was behind him he gave no indication.
“You!” she called out, not deigning to use his name.
Morrell turned in all his glory now, unperturbed, self contained, like a small, radiating engine of manhood packed inside the body of Michelangelo’s statue. “Yes?” He inquired, his eyes honing.
The effect was more than a little disconcerting.
Everything went out the window, most of what she wanted to say and the reasoning behind it.
It was like her first time in front of a jury, or when she took the bar exam.
Oh god, now what?
The sight of him in the foam, his body glistening, drops of water on his chest, his hair moving in the light breeze was nearly enough to make her faint. Think, Kat, hold yourself together.
“You were way out of line back there.” She found her voice, reaching to a place deep within. “I’m not just some bimbo, you know.”
“I never said you were,” he pointed out with absolute technical accuracy.
“You talked about my looks.” She sought to recover herself, feeling her resolve slip away.
“I said you were beautiful.” He summarized their conversation with all the aplomb of a top notch courtroom closer. “I said what I wanted to do with you, as a man, completely taken with you as a woman. You indicated you did not wish to continue the conversation and I moved on. Where is the offense to your character?”
“You came on to me.” She went for the throat. “You practically solicited me like I was a cheap whore.”
One of Julian’s eyebrows arched, critically. Kat felt obligated to retract. “Okay, maybe not like a whore, but what do you call all that talk about my being your woman?”
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