In His Own Defense

by Ann Jacobs

  Lightning crackled in the distance, its danger registering the split second before he rolled them to their sides and took one of her nipples firmly between his lips. A jolt of a different kind passed from her breast to a spot deep inside her, and she wanted more.

  She twined her fingers in his damp hair, holding him to her breast. As if he knew what she wanted, he suckled harder and flicked the sensitized nub with his tongue. When she moaned he shifted to her other breast.

  No one else had ever made her burn like this. Only Tony. He felt like silk over steel when she stroked him, tangling her fingers in soft dark chest hair that disappeared into a fine line at the waistband of his swimsuit.

  She slipped her hands under the elastic and cupped his warm, firm buttocks.

  “Take them off,” he growled, echoing her last words and lifting his hips so she could wrestle the boxer-style suit down and off.

  Hot and hard and huge, his penis pulsed now against her belly. It was velvety smooth, its tip blunt and slick as it nudged her flesh. She shuddered more with primal need than fear when she encircled him with both hands.

  The coarse bristle of his five o’clock shadow rasped softly against her throat, its faint sound barely audible in the silence that came between the crashing noises of the storm. His breath, fast and shallow, reminded her she must breathe, too. She inhaled. As long as she lived she would never forget the smell of fresh rain or the taste of Tony on her lips.

  She ran her thumb across the satin-smooth tip of his penis, then slid her hand down the long, thick shaft. The tangle of curls at its base felt like a springy cushion and cradled the softest, most vulnerable part of him. Gently she fondled his testicles, felt them grow firmer and tighter against her palm.

  Despite the darkness and the storm’s chilling air, Kristine felt flushed. Hot. Electrically charged everywhere naked skin touched naked skin and deep within her in the wet, tingling places she yearned for him to go.

  Places no man had gone before. “Tony?”

  The wind carried away the words she felt against the tender skin of her breast as he slid his callused palms across her belly. Lower. His fingers combed through the hair between her legs, seeking. Finding the hot, wet heart of her femininity, making her forget what she’d meant to tell him.

  “So wet. So ready. Damn, Krissy, stop. I’ve got to fuck you now.” Abruptly he stilled his hands. Sat up and tore open that shiny foil package. Shuddered when she ran her fingers down his sweaty, beautifully sculpted back, tracing sinew from his shoulders to his tight, muscular buttocks.

  “Lie back, honey.”

  She did. She had to tell him now. “I’ve never…”

  “Never what?” Settled now between her legs, he rubbed his penis against her. Paused and shuddered at the opening of her vagina. “You’ve never had sex before?”

  “No.” But she wanted to, so much. She wiggled beneath him, savored the sensation of fullness that increased when she wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him farther in.

  He raised his torso, met her gaze. “You’re sure?”

  She smiled, clutched him tighter, drew her calves down on his buttocks. “Make love to me, Tony.”

  A saint couldn’t resist her. And Tony was no saint. Lightning crackled, its eerie brilliance illuminating them. Primal beings, woman and man barely joined, fitted together the way nature intended. He closed his eyes and covered her open mouth with his. The vision remained.

  He told himself to go easy. Slow. She made his balls ache, grow impossibly harder each time she flexed her untrained pussy muscles as though she thought she could pull him in. Her heat enticed him. Made the blood pound in his head and his cock.

  He tried to focus on the sounds of the storm. Hear each separate raindrop as sheets of rain pelted the boat’s deck. Count the seconds between thunderclaps. Concentrate. If he did, maybe he could rein in the raging need inside him. Make this good for her.

  Her legs grasped him, and her hands framed his face as if to hold him captive. Each rocking motion of the boat conspired to drive him deeper into her tight moist cunt until he felt it. A barrier.

  His mind shut down. Instinct took over. He pulled back and plunged deep. Took her cry into his own mouth. Gathered her in his arms and lay still, savored the incredible heat and tightness surrounding his cock. She was his. Only his.

  She strained as if to take him deeper. He shifted onto his haunches. Slid his hands under her sleek buttocks, lifted her. Withdrew a fraction of an inch and thrust forward again, deep. Deeper still, until he could go no farther. Until he couldn’t tell where he ended and she began.

  Slow, rhythmic, like the rain that beat a steady cadence on the deck above them, he pressed in and out of her. Ebb and flow. Fire and ice. Every cliché for extremes of sensation Kristine had ever heard seemed apt to describe the delicious feelings, the passion that came from this act of sex. Love.

  Tony. Only he could make the tension build, stroke it to a fever pitch. Make her feel…

  “My God, Tony. Yesss.” The sensation eclipsed everything she had imagined, all she had dreamed. White-hot, concentrated around his throbbing penis at first, the feelings intensified then burst. A surrealistic glow spread to every place their bodies touched. The incredible feelings stole her breath, made her gasp with the pleasure of it all.

  As she began to breathe normally again, she felt him plunge deep one more time, heard him cry out at his own release.

  She lay beneath him for a long, long time, listening as his heartbeat slowed. Listening and admitting to herself that what she felt for him was probably love.

  He rolled to his side, taking her with him and holding her close. Dark eyelashes rested against the tanned skin of his face. He looked sweet. Innocent.

  Hardly, she told herself. No innocent could make love the way he just had.

  She loved him. Not probably. Definitely. Love was exactly what she felt for Tony Landry.

  Maybe love could overrule the basic differences between them as easily as a judge could overrule objections during a trial. More wishful thinking, she told herself as she drifted off to sleep.

  * * * * *

  Silence. No more wind, no crackling lightning. The boat rocked gently against its anchors and Kristine dozed in Tony’s arms. Tony watched her, trying to sort out the feelings she evoked—feelings beyond the obvious lust they’d let loose last night. Emotions unfamiliar in his experience, yet not unwelcome. Care. Protectiveness. Tenderness. Pride.

  Oh, yes, pride. A primitive sort of pride that she’d chosen him to give him a gift he’d never thought about before, one way or the other. His cock hardened. He wanted her again, craved the warm, wet haven where no other man had ever been.

  Shifting onto one elbow and looking down at her, he fought for self-control. He could wait. Let her recover, heal. She was his woman now. His alone.

  Possession. What a heady feeling. He visually scanned her gentle curves, settled on impossibly long, dark eyelashes laid against skin the color and texture of heavy cream. Swollen lips, reddened cheeks, a love bite on her shoulder—he’d left his marks, as surely as if he’d seared her with a brand.

  Love? Was that the word that defined the turmoil of emotions swirling like last night’s wind inside his head? Tony suppressed a bitter laugh. Long ago he’d convinced himself love was nothing more than a civilized word for lust, a placebo to cure a reluctant lover’s reserve.

  Maybe he’d been wrong. Perhaps he’d only been waiting for Krissy, marking time until fate brought her into his arms. Love. The word rolled off his tongue, soft, silent, not ready yet to be voiced even in the softest whisper.

  I love you.

  He’d said it before in the heat of passion and in the aftermath of satisfying sex. The words meant more now, so much more that he wouldn’t say them until—unless—he could offer them with a promise of commitment he’d never thought before of making.

  A promise he couldn’t make. Not yet. Not until he was certain he had truly become the kind of man w
ho could walk comfortably in her world. He had to find the courage to reveal his deepest secret about his past, the words to persuade her to let go of the pain that fueled her quest for vengeance.

  Fear washed over him, made him shiver despite the warmth of his body and hers, curled together on the narrow bunk. Would Krissy turn away, aghast to learn she’d given herself—her virginity, for God’s sake—to the son of two people who could best be described as the worst kind of trailer trash? To a man who’d spent the first ten years of his life following the truck crops around the country, the next eight in a series of foster care homes while his old man rotted in prison?

  Morning approached, darkness turning to light, the sun casting shades of pink-orange light in surrealistic patterns around the little cabin. Soon they’d have to go. Work, an obligation Tony would never take lightly, had to take precedence over the need he had to explore these new, confusing emotions.

  Krissy stirred and shifted her hips, nudging Tony’s enthusiastic cock with her soft, flat belly. Opened sleepy-looking blue-green eyes, met his gaze. Smiled. For almost too long, he forgot to breathe. He forgot everything but how good it felt to hold her.

  “I love waking up with you,” she murmured, her breath soft and sweet against his neck.

  The wind blew gently through the portholes, bringing with it the tangy smell of seawater after a storm. Krissy’s words hung in the humid air, tempting Tony to repeat them.

  He didn’t. He couldn’t. Untangling himself from the sheet and blanket, he got up, silently cursing himself for a coward as he slipped into cut-off jeans and muttered morning-after platitudes.

  “Sleep, Krissy. I’m going to head us back to port.” He leaned over and gave her a swift, hard kiss. When he pulled away, she rolled over, a smile on her face.

  On deck, he squinted into the morning sun as he hauled in the anchors and got the boat underway.

  Chapter Twelve

  The rocking motion woke Kristine again. She stretched, then curled up on the bunk and listened to the drone of the boat’s powerful engine. Waves slapping against the hull reminded her of the sounds of lovemaking, warmed parts of her that ached pleasantly from the invasion of his huge, beautiful penis.

  Tony. Was he hero or villain? Her boss’s accusations still rang in her ears, but what he’d said in his own defense about the circumstances that had caused him to take Dino Martinez’s case despite his guilt made sense. She couldn’t discount her firsthand knowledge that he defended men who trafficked in death and destruction of their fellow human beings. Still, he’d planted the seed of doubt that this made him bad.

  Kristine laughed. Devil or angel, Tony had filled her heart, her mind, and her body with himself, and she’d never be the same. Straightening, she kicked off the covers and pulled his T-shirt over her head.

  Warm, damp air washed over her when she came through the cabin hatch, and a strong scent of salt water and seaweed tickled her nose. A bright orange sun shone through pale clouds, made stray strands of Tony’s dark hair glisten as a gentle breeze tossed them across his broad, tanned forehead.

  Powerful looking muscles rippled lazily across his shoulders and chest as he steered the boat through waves as soft this morning as they had been violent last night. His cutoff jeans rode low, and the faded denim clung like a lover to all those places she’d come to know by touch and feel while they created their own tempest no less fierce than the thunder and lightning that had raged outside their safe cocoon.

  “You okay?” His grin faltered, as though he wasn’t quite certain what to say.

  Hesitation? From Tony, who usually reeked of smug self-confidence? Kristine met his dark gaze, hoped he’d open up and talk to her, wished she had some experience to draw on.

  “I’m fine. How about you?”

  He looked down toward the deck, drawing her attention to his tanned, bare feet. “Tell the truth, Krissy, you blew me away.” He reached out, drew her to his side, held her with one arm. He kept his other hand on the wheel, held Miss Trial on a steady course toward her cozy berth. Toward reality.

  The heat that radiated from his body warmed her, made her feel they were still making love. She didn’t know what to say, so she kept quiet, willed him to discern feelings she couldn’t put into words.

  As if he, too, struggled with his thoughts, he stroked her side as he kept his gaze focused on the calm waters of the bay.

  “We’re being awfully quiet for a couple of trial lawyers, aren’t we?” His tone conveyed wry humor—and some deeper meaning she sensed but couldn’t name.

  What was he thinking?

  Kristine had no illusion that lovemaking had been a new experience for Tony. She hadn’t needed experience to appreciate his practiced skill in bed, any more than she’d needed it to recognize his uncanny ability to sway a jury in the courtroom.

  “Last night meant a lot to me,” he said, as though he’d guessed the path her thoughts were taking. “More than I can put into words.”

  “Where is this going, Tony?”

  He brushed a kiss along her jaw, set off sensations that robbed her of her breath and senses. “Where do you want it to go?”

  Kristine didn’t know. He tempted her to throw away all the vows she’d made, turn her back on the quest she’d begun when she’d seen up close and personal how drugs could destroy a happy family. To embrace him fully, support him in the path he’d chosen.

  Then she saw Helen, sixteen years old, frozen forever in death dealt by the kind of scum Tony made his living by defending. And their father, red-faced and clutching his chest as they’d lowered Helen’s body into the ground.

  Innocent until proven guilty. Entitled to competent defense.

  Snatches of basic tenets of the law ran through her mind, as though to tempt her to follow her heart. Could loving Tony banish the pain she’d lived with for eight long years? Or was he only another addiction, as dangerous in his own way as the cocaine that had conquered her sister?

  Confusion muddied her mind, made her unsure. “I don’t know.”

  Tony pulled back on the throttle as they entered the narrow channel to the Harbour Island dock. After he’d tied Miss Trial securely in her berth, he walked Kristine to her car.

  He hugged her fiercely, then loosened his hold and tipped her chin up until she had no choice but to meet his gaze. “I know what I want, Krissy, but if I told you now, it would scare you half to death.”

  “Try me.”

  He shrugged, shot her a rueful grin, then looked out at the murky water in the nearby ship channel. “For the first time in my life, I find myself thinking about a vine-covered cottage—no, a vine-covered mansion on Old Tampa Bay. Six bedrooms, a big pool and a tennis court, a monster mortgage, and memberships at all the clubs where my partners keep trying to sponsor me.”

  Though she’d heard him speak as eloquently on behalf of the infamous Manny Garcia, Kristine believed without a doubt that Tony’s wishes were sincere. She smiled when he turned to her and lowered his voice almost to a whisper.

  “You and me and two-point-five good-looking, bright, well-behaved kids. On second thought, make that two kids, or three. I’m not into doing anything by halves. Hell, what I’m thinking I might want with you scares me half to death.”

  “You want all that? After we’ve spent just one night together?”

  “I’ve wanted it since I first laid eyes on you in the courtroom when we were picking jurors for Manny Garcia’s trial. I just didn’t know it right away.”

  “Why does wanting all this frighten you, Tony?”

  “Lots of reasons. You’re not certain you can accept what I do, or that you can love the man I am—and I’m not sure you should be able to stomach where I came from.”

  “You’re talking in riddles.”

  Smiling, he ran his hands up her arms and under the loose sleeves of his T-shirt to caress her shoulders. The rough feel of his palms and the warmth of his callused fingers against her bare skin sent shivers down her spine, made her want him ag
ain. More than she should, more than was prudent.

  “We’ll talk more later. This is one conversation I want to have when we’re not subject to time constraints.”

  His deep voice poured over her like honey, as if he were delivering a closing argument that could free his client or send him to death row.

  As he did with most juries he faced, he prevailed with Kristine. “All right,” she said.

  “Then let’s relax and enjoy each other whenever we can steal a few minutes. It’s going to be hard to squeeze out many spare hours until I finish preparing for Ezra’s new trial.”

  Tony’s smile made Kristine want to throw her arms around his neck and hold him, but she settled for stroking the back of his hands with her thumbs. “I thought big-time defense attorneys had an army of investigators and associates to do all the legwork.”

  “Yeah. Well, we don’t like to run up huge bills with contractors on pro bono cases. My two associates will do some of the digging, but most of it will be up to me.”

  “Could I help?”

  Tony laughed. “Can you say ‘conflict of interest,’ honey?”

  “Oh.” Stupidity wasn’t usually one of Kristine’s major flaws, but she’d clearly spoken before engaging her brain.

  “Yeah. Oh. Thanks anyway. I appreciate the thought. I’ll call you.”

  “Okay.” Straining on tiptoes to reach his lips, Kristine gave Tony one last kiss before climbing into her car.

  * * * * *

  When she began her workday in a misdemeanor courtroom two hours later, Kristine felt Tony’s presence as if he were still with her. Maybe he was, because she had the feeling he’d invaded her mind as surely as he’d claimed her body.

  “By the way, Harper wants to see you after you finish up with these arraignments,” Andi mentioned after she’d handed Kristine a folder bursting at the seams with the case files on Judge Hamilton’s docket.

  That wouldn’t be before afternoon, Kristine thought after Andi had left. She exchanged a few words of casual conversation with Bill Ward, the other assistant state attorney who would be working with her, alternately presenting the state’s cases against a hundred or so unfortunate souls who’d been caught breaking the law last night.