I tug down her skirt and unzip it, sliding it down her hips. I go to my knee and help her get rid of it and her panties. And then I’m back right where I want to be, right where she wanted me before she decided an orgasm was a prelude to me killing her.
I kiss her belly, fingers sliding between her slick thighs, then pressing inside her. Her soft moan and arched hips stiffen my cock, and if she were anyone else, I’d be inside her right now, thinking about me, not her. That’s how selfish the devil’s made me, how self-centered. But back then, I wanted everything with anybody to just serve a purpose and be over, usually forever, nice and simple, but as I’ve already realized, nothing about her is simple. Nothing about me with Pri is simple.
For the first time in a very long time, I want another’s pleasure far more than I want my own. I lean in and lick her clit. She sucks in a breath and my lips curve. Holy hell, I don’t know the last time I smiled during sex, but Little Miss Pri is a first in all kinds of ways. I know better than to fuck who I protect and I am protecting her. I slide my hand down her bare leg and lift it to my shoulder, my hand on her backside, cupping it and fitting her snugly against me. I suckle her, lick her, explore her with my fingers, my tongue, my mouth, and too damn soon as far as I’m concerned, she’s gasping as her body spasms around my fingers. I ease her through it with slower licks and when her knee starts to give out, I catch her around the waist, holding her up, lowering her leg.
I’m staring up at her, her hands on my shoulders, her eyes all satisfied and awed, when she says, “It’s been a long time since—I haven’t—”
I’m hanging on that sentence for reasons I can’t explain when the doorbell rings and my cellphone starts buzzing. I’m grabbing her clothes and on my feet handing them to her in about two seconds. “Expecting someone?” I ask softly.
“No,” she whispers. “No one.”
I answer my phone to hear, “Her ex-fiancé, Logan Michaels.” I disconnect as the doorbell rings again. “It’s your ex,” I say. “Get dressed.” I slide my phone into my pocket and snatch up my shirt, tugging it over my head. “I’m not in the habit of getting a woman ready for another man.”
When I would move away, she grabs my arm. “Really? Did you really just say that to me?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I want you to not be an asshole. There’s nothing between me and Logan. Nothing. And besides, fucking me to get through the trial doesn’t exactly give you a say in what I do anyway.”
And yet I seem to want one, I think but what I say is, “And yet he’s here.”
“I don’t know why. I don’t even take his calls. He wants something. He’s my father’s protégé. That’s how they operate.”
“Like I said—”
“Not me,” she snaps. “He doesn’t fight battles he can’t win.” Her cellphone starts to ring. “That’s going to be him,” she says. “When I don’t answer, he’ll leave.”
We stare at each other, the air pulsing between us as the phone rings and then goes to voicemail. Aware that Logan could be tapped by Waters in some way or some game, I say, “Listen to the message.”
“No, I—”
“We need to know what he wants.”
Her lips press together, her eyes searching my face before she concludes, “You think Waters got to him.”
“If you’re out of his life—”
“I am.”
“Then I don’t like how it reads with him suddenly showing up. We need to know who’s vulnerable to Waters’ influence and who’s not. Check the message.”
She doesn’t need further nudging and to my surprise, she plays the message on speakerphone.
“Pri, if you’re home let me in. I need to talk to you. It’s about your father. It’s urgent.”
“My parents are worried about the Waters’ case,” I say. “He’s now tasked with scaring me straight, so to speak. Straight out of the DA’s office.”
Another time, I’d ask her why she left the firm, but right now, Logan is outside the door. “Be sure,” I say. “Talk to him. I’ll hide.”
“I hate this,” she murmurs, but she doesn’t argue.
Logan rings the bell again and she scrambles to get dressed, almost done when her phone rings again. She glances at the caller ID. “It’s him.” She answers. “Why are you here, Logan?”
The phone is close and Logan is loud. I clearly hear his reply of, “Just open up, Pri.”
Her name on his lips irrationally irritates me.
“Give me a minute, Logan,” she says, disconnecting and setting her phone on the hall table before sticking her gun in the drawer.
Her gaze scans and lands near my feet, and fuck me, she squats right in front of me, her face at my belly. She’s trying to kill me, I decide, a point she proves when she stands, grabs my hand, and shoves her panties into my palm. “I’m going to fall over if I try to put those on.” She squeezes her eyes shut and then blinks up at me. “And my God, I just squatted in front of your crotch and handed you my panties, didn’t I?”
My cock is officially ramrod hard again and I pocket the panties and step into her, my hand sliding under her hair and settling on her neck, my lips lowering to hers. “Better you give them to me than to him. And better my tongue than his.” She gasps and I laugh, kissing her hard and fast before I thumb away the lipstick on her cheek and say, “Get rid of him quickly.”
I don’t wait for her reply, hurrying into the living room where I grab the champagne bottle by the neck and then finger the glasses with the opposite hand. The champagne goes in the fridge, the glasses on the island before I step into the hallway that runs behind the kitchen and the living room. I’m flat against the wall, just outside the foyer when Pri opens the door.
“What are you doing here, Logan?” she demands.
“Are you going to invite me in?” he asks.
She seems to hesitate. “For a minute,” she says primly.
The door creaks and footsteps hit the foyer before the door shuts again. “Are you alone?” Logan asks.
“Yes, I’m alone,” Pri replies testily. “Why?”
“Because you have that freshly fucked look that always made me want to fuck you all over again.”
My fingers curl by my side, and I decide right then that Logan Michaels will never touch Pri again, not as long as I’m alive.
Chapter Sixteen
PRI
My anger at Logan comes at me hard and fast, the history of our relationship an easily sharpened blade that cuts right to my core.
“Careful, Logan,” I warn, wanting to smack the blond pretty-boy right on his clean-shaven jaw. “I’ll show you my knee and we both know I’m good at putting it in just the right place.”
It’s a reference to one of our final fights when I’d had enough of his controlling ways, which too often got overly physical.
His lips curve in amusement, the air of arrogance a second skin he wears right along with his expensive blue suit. “You are,” he agrees. “You surprised me, but I suppose you had a right to be angry that night.”
“You suppose?” I challenge.
“Looking back gets us nowhere, Pri. Looking forward, everywhere. How about you invite me to the living room for a drink?”
“No drink,” I say, folding my arms in front of me, acutely aware of the draft up my skirt and the fact that I handed my panties to Adrian, who is still in the house. “You need something,” I add. “What?”
“Come on, Pri,” he coos in a low, seductive purr that used to work on me. It doesn’t anymore.
Apparently, tall, dark, and deadly with a goatee and tattoos, is what works on me now, considering my body is still thrumming from Adrian’s touch.
“Let’s sit,” Logan prods.
I clench my fist by my side with the realization that he’s not going to leave until he says his piece. And the truth is that I need to know all I can about anyone or thing that equals vulnerability to Wat
ers, including Logan. “You have five minutes,” I say turning away from him, leaving the door for him to handle and walking to the living room.
I round the couch and sit in the chair Adrian had been sitting in, wishing I hadn’t put my gun in the drawer before opening the door. Somehow, my gun on my person just feels better. Not that I think Logan wants to kill me, but it would keep him from getting handsy, and he likes to get handsy. I don’t even know how Adrian would handle that. Would he just let it happen? Not that it matters. I don’t need anyone to save me from Logan. I’ve already proven myself quite worthy of that task.
Logan joins me but doesn’t give me space. He sits down on the coffee table in front of me, too close for comfort. “We need to talk about the Waters’ case.”
Beneath the surface, I bristle, but my courtroom face slides into place. “I’m not at liberty to discuss the Waters’ case with you and you know it.”
“I’m not asking you to discuss details. One of my clients came to me with a warning. He told me that you need to step away before it’s too late. And no, he didn’t elaborate but considering you have two dead witnesses and a clusterfuck over there at the DA’s office, we can both use our imaginations.”
My heart punches at my chest. “Which client?”
“It doesn’t matter and I know you know I can’t tell you that. I talked to your father. We want you to come back to the firm.”
I laugh bitterly before I can stop myself. “And my father thinks sending you to convince me will work? But then he really has no idea how badly we parted ways, does he? To him, all you did was fuck my secretary.”
He ignores my reference to our history and moves right past it. “He would’ve come himself but he says he made a pact of some sort with you.”
It’s not a false statement. After a year of turning every holiday or family get together into the hell I was avoiding, my father agreed to shelf the topic to save our relationship. On the surface, it worked.
“I went to bat for you,” Logan says. “He wants you back. I told him to show you he understands what you want from your career and the firm. I believe, I really do, that if you tell him you want your own division, he’ll give it to you. You pick the cases. You pick the staff. You have your own budget. I set the groundwork.”
“Even if he would,” I say, “even if I’d consider coming back, which is highly unlikely, I’m not walking away from this case.”
“Hand it over to the DA, who’s a pussy for having you frontline this. He’s protecting himself, his career and his life, and making you the fall guy. I’m worried about you.”
No, I think, studying his face, he’s not worried about me, but he is worried. Whoever this client is that warned me off the Waters’ case, Logan wants to please them. Or rather desperately needs to please them. Suddenly, it hits me. I know what this is about. The trade Waters offered me, the attorney linked to a long list of suspected money laundering schemes. “You’re representing Jason Whitaker.”
He leans back instantly, his spine stiffening. “My clients have nothing to do with this.”
“That’s a yes. My God, you never cease to surprise me. You can’t do anything honestly. It always has to be sneaky.” I stand. “Go home, Logan. Call me tomorrow at work and we’ll discuss your client’s potential dilemma. Maybe we can make a deal if he can give me something to use against Waters.”
His eyes bore into me. “When did you become such a bitch?”
“I’m pretty sure it happened about the time you buried yourself in my secretary on top of my desk.”
“Step away from the case,” he bites out.
I read beneath the words and say, “Or what?”
“I can’t promise to protect you.”
“You never did. I protect myself. Go home, Logan.”
He scowls and seems like he might argue, but finally turns on his heel and marches toward the door. I follow, and when he exits, I shut the door, locking it and leaning on the hard surface. Adrian is there almost instantly—tall, dark, and alluringly dangerous. His hands settle on the door on either side of me and I’m suddenly aware of how on display my past defending people like Waters is right now. “How much did you hear?”
“All of it,” he says, but he doesn’t comment further or ask a question. He just watches me with his dark brown eyes, unmoving, more stone than man, and I want to reach inside him and dig for his thoughts.
“What are you thinking, Adrian?” I whisper.
His hands come down on my neck, over my hair and he drags me to him. “What do you think I’m thinking, Pri?” he asks, his breath a hot tease on my lips, a promise of a kiss that doesn’t come.
My fingers curl in his T-shirt. “I don’t think I want to know right now.”
“No?” he challenges, stroking my hair from my face and tilting my gaze to his. “Well, here’s a hint: none of it includes giving your panties back.”
Heat flushes my skin, and I push to my toes. “Then kiss me already,” I say, not ready to face the blade from my past that just keeps cutting.
But he doesn’t. He doesn’t kiss me. His mouth lingers above mine, the air pulsing around us, time ticking like an old man walking a mile up a hill, so incredibly slow. I’m confused. I’m uncomfortable. I’m desperate in ways I don’t remember ever being desperate.
“Or don’t,” I say. “And just let me go.”
Chapter Seventeen
ADRIAN
“You may wish I did,” I say softly, “I may, too.” And then I do as she’s bid. I kiss her, licking into her mouth, and damn, she is like tasting heaven while I’m being pulled into hell. Because while she clearly believes she’s sinned, she has no idea what that even means. She is good and I am not, but damn it, in that one stroke, I’m drowning in Pri, lost in her, molding her closer.
And she doesn’t need to be won over. She’s kissing the hell out of me, tugging at my shirt. I yank it over my head and toss it aside, reaching for her blouse. We’re all over each other, ripping at clothes. Touching. Tasting. I scoop her backside, squeezing that sweet little ass of hers, and drinking her in, savoring her as I do.
My lips part from hers and for a moment we just breathe together, and I swear right then, I feel something with Pri I have not ever felt in my life. I don’t even know what the hell she is doing to me. I know I should stop. I know she’ll hate me later for a hundred reasons, but I can’t seem to care right now. I shove the lace of her bra down and pinch her nipple, swallowing her gasp. I reach for my pocket and a condom. She’s working my zipper and then her hand closes around my cock, and I’m long gone, past the point of no return.
My pants stay put. So does her shirt. Everything that can be shoved aside is shoved aside and my fingers slide into the wet, slick heat of her sex before my cock follows. And holy fuck, she feels good, hot and tight and soft in all the right places. I lift her and her arms come around my neck. I’m not doing this here, with her against the hard-ass wall. I carry her to the living room and lay her on the long lounge chair, going down with her, on top of her. And that’s all the willpower I have. I thrust into her, my hand under her backside, squeezing and lifting, arching her into my pumps and grinds. She moans and bites and kisses. She’s as wild as I am, present, accounted for, and so damn hot. But I’m present and accounted for as well. I’m aware that she’s Priscilla Miller, with intelligent blue eyes, long brown hair, a runner who smells like flowers with a stubborn, tormented personality, and a love for a white mocha. And even now, fucking her, driving into her, somehow knowing these things only makes me want her more. I don’t want that little bitch Logan to fuck her. I don’t want anyone but me fucking her. And that’s crazy, so fucking crazy, but still, I slow down and revel in that craziness. I slow us down. I slow me down.
I kiss a path down her jaw, to her neck, to her nipple—I lick it, suckle it, move to the other side, and repeat. She moans, her fingers diving in my hair, her back arching. Our bodies sway nice and easy now, and when she
breathes out, “Adrian,” I smile against her neck and whisper, “At least you didn’t call me Rafael.”
“Rafael never fit you.”
I pull back and stare down at her, and it torments me, how well she once would have fit with me, the old me, the me before the Devils and I can’t bring that me back. “No,” I say.
“No?” she asks.
“No,” I say and I don’t know even know what I’m saying no to. I kiss her again and that slow and sexy thing we had going on is gone, replaced by urgency, and a pulse of something darker and harder. And so I pump harder, deeper, more furiously. And she is right there with me, arching into me, her leg at my hip, her fingers and nails digging into my back.
Too soon, and yet just in time, she gasps and then tenses. And then her body squeezes my cock, spasming around me, and I’m driving into her, my body quaking. She takes everything I am from me. I am completely lost and found right here, buried inside her. And then suddenly, it’s over, and I catch myself on my forearms and bury my face in her neck.
I inhale her sweet scent and ease back to look at her, and I read the nervous energy in her face. She doesn’t know what comes next. “If you meet my brother, call him Adrian.”
“No,” she says, a smile on her swollen lips. “He’s no Adrian.”
“You don’t know him. Maybe he’ll seem like an Adrian.”
“I know that there’s no one quite like you and that’s a good thing.”
“Considering I’m still inside you, sweetheart, that’s good to hear.” I roll us to our sides, pulling out in the process. “How about that champagne?”
“I do believe I could use a drink. We should talk, Adrian.”
“You think?”
“Yes. I do. I’m not sure what we’re doing but I’m certain it’s complicated.”
“You are correct. Which is why we should drink that champagne, order pizza, and then fuck again.”
When He's Dirty (Walker Security: Adrian’s Trilogy Book 1) Page 9
