Exit Strategy (28 page)

“I sold Blake, I mean Byron McCaskill, drugs for... for industry parties, for his personal use, whatever. Roofies, weed, cocaine... all kinds of sh—” He side-eyes the judge. “Uh... stuff.”

Byron drops his head slightly, but Juanita Wise glares at him and he straightens in his seat. Only then does she stand. “Objection, Your Honor. The only substance we have interest in for this case is the GHB. If the prosecution is amenable, move to strike any reference to other illegal drugs.”

“Mr. Todd?” Judge Summers nudges.

“The prosecution has no interest in the other drugs, Your Honor.”

Karen squirms in her seat. I know she doesn’t like this move any more than I do. Giving Juanita Wise a concession is like giving a reprieve to a demon, but I have to give the sister props. She’s a really good lawyer and Byron is likely plunking down a boatload of cash to retain her. At least I have the pleasure of knowing this trial has hurt his pocketbook, even if he doesn’t do a day of time for what he tried to do to me.

“The court reporter will strike the references to other drugs from the record, as well as the mention of Mr. Slayton’s records. The Jury will be advised to disregard that part of the testimony during Jury instruction.”

The prosecutor clears his throat. “I have no further questions for this witness, Your Honor.”

“Cross, Ms. Wise?”

“No thank you, Your Yonor.”

Juanita Wise won a lot of little skirmishes for the day, but the battle goes to Mr. Todd, and she knows this, but doesn’t show any concern. In fact she looks just a tad pissed, and I know what happens when you piss off a sister. She’ll cry or fight harder. The next day in court is doomed to get ugly.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

TRISTAN

As much as he wants to, Tristan doesn’t ask Keisha into the Grotto when they return to the condo after their day in court. Karen relayed from Prosecutor Todd that Tristan and Princess Danai will be the final two prosecution witnesses before Keisha will have to go on the stand.

For almost a year, since he discovered and foiled Byron McCaskill’s diabolical plot, Tristan has wanted nothing more than for Keisha to have her day in court to confront her former lover who stooped so low as to drug her to exact some sort of fucked-up revenge against her. Now, he questions pushing her into pressing charges against the bastard, but only because the defense has those damnable pictures of a college girl having fun at Mardi fucking Gras. Society’s idea of justice hurts just about as many people as it helps, and now it’s hurting his own and he doesn’t like that shit one bit.

Tristan knocks back a couple of fingers of Scotch and slams the shot glass on the unforgiving marble wet bar in his office so hard it breaks, slicing open one of his fingers in the process.

“Fuck!” he bellows.

Keisha runs into the room from the library where she’s been plunking out a melody on the piano. He’s giving her space, because she says she writes better when life is fucking her over. He’s running cold water on his finger when she joins him at the sink.

“Hey, what’s going on?”

“Apparently, I can’t finish off a drink properly,” he says and pops his finger into his mouth.

Keisha steps into his personal space, pulls his hand down, and drags his finger out of his mouth. “You know, self-deprecation doesn’t suit you,” she says, then pops his injured finger into her mouth. The moment she draws on it, first gently and then sucking with increasingly insistent draws, his cock punches the front of his pants like a goddamned piston.

He pulls her into him with his unoccupied arm and presses her belly against his growing situation. When she feels him, she lets his finger go with a popping sound, burrows her hips into his and reaches up to capture his mouth with her lips. Their kiss is greedy and long overdue. His finger is forgotten for a few minutes until he feels dampness against the back of her waist, undoubtedly where his finger has bled again. Breaking the kiss, he looks over her shoulder to be sure.

“Keisha, baby, I’m sorry. I’m bleeding all over your blouse.”

She grabs a towel out of the drawer under the sink and quickly wraps his finger to staunch the flow. Then she pushes him back gently until the backs of his legs hit his desk chair. Once he’s seated, she climbs onto his lap, straddling him with a knee on either side of the leather chair seat, her warm center covering where it matters most. She kisses him again and begins a slow grind, a dry hump on his dick. He can’t remember the last time he’s done anything as innocently delicious as this, probably not since the Academy, and his cock becomes even further engorged.

They continue in this fashion until the friction is driving them both mad with lust. At each pass she makes, he becomes more and more aroused until he’s quickly ready to blow. However, Keisha, the little minx, has other ideas. She stops abruptly and hops off his lap, leaving him reeling with lust on his office chair. He watches bemused as she heads for the door.

“If you’d like to finish this properly, Sir, please meet me in your Grotto in five.”

There’s never a dull moment with the delectable Ms. Beale, and despite his edict that the Grotto be off limits tonight, she’s made the choice. Far be it from him to turn her down.

~*~

Later, Tristan releases Keisha from the swing and carries her, bound with the most intricate knots he could tie in rope play. He admires his handiwork one last time before he begins to untie her. Oh, but she’s gorgeous like this, her lips pouty and tender from his ravenous kisses, her hair wet and wavy from exertion, her eyes smoky from mascara and eyeliner blurred by perspiration—all caused by them fucking like neither of them has had any in days.

Passion and excitement were never absent when they coupled—and it doesn’t seem like that will ever abate in their case. All the others he began to tire of within a year, and after that, all bets were off. Then he would begin the meticulous search for someone to intrigue him yet again in his Grotto and his bed.

She keeps her eyes averted like a good little submissive, and that pleases him to no end. He touches her chin, signaling her to look up at him, and when she does, he sees it in her eyes.

My God! Keisha loves me.

The words he spoke in court earlier without thought or provocation are true. Yet, it doesn’t scare the hell out of him as he thought it might, as it did once before, when another felt that way about him. In a way, he welcomes how Keisha feels about him.

Does this mean I love her back?

He shakes his head as if to erase the thought from his brain. Is this part of the reason she’d run from him? When he trains his eyes on her again, she is still looking at him expectantly. Oh, right, he touched her chin.

He leans in and kisses her soundly, then whispers against her lips. “You were perfection personified.” Her broad smile makes him exceedingly happy.

“Thank you, Sir.”

But these words make him ecstatic.

After a quick shower together, they dress in pajamas for a change and retire for the evening. It feels weird knowing that, like today, they’ll appear in court tomorrow at nine a.m. and complete another rigorous day of testimonies, examinations, and cross-examinations. He wants to see where Keisha’s head is—how she’s grappling with the reality that she’ll be on the witness stand tomorrow. He knows she loves to snuggle, whether conscious or unconscious, so he reaches for her when they settle into bed and tucks her into the crook of his arm

“You’re going to be on the stand tomorrow afternoon at the latest. Are you ready for Juanita Wise, Esquire, to rake you over the coals?”

“You know, that chick scares me worse than Jada. Worse than Karen.”

“You haven’t seen Karen in action.”

“I can imagine her as a watered-down version of Juanita.”

“Don’t let Karen’s civilized act in the courtroom fool you. That chick has both nipples and her clitoris pierced.”

Keisha looks up at him, mouth agape.

Oh shit! Why’d I have to go there?

“And how, pray tell, do you know that?”

Tristan shakes his head and grins contritely. “Ancient history.”

Keisha punches him in the side. “Oopff,” he barks, then laughs hysterically. When he can speak again he says, “You’re not exploring your sadistic side are you, Ms. Beale?”

She folds her arms, fixes her lips in a full-on pout, and turns her back to him. Tristan scoots up behind her and pulls her back to his front and relaxes with his arms trapping her against him. She tries to wriggle away, but he holds her tight.

“You haven’t answered my question,” she grinds out. “Did you fuck Karen Southerland?”

“Yes, I did, but that was back when we were both just out of college and I was into a lot of crazy shit. I was with someone else and we decided to try sharing, but I learned I didn’t like to, so we never did it again.” All of a sudden he sounds like a boyfriend explaining to his girlfriend why he’s been screwing around, and it makes his stomach lurch. He morphs into Dom Tristan, so he can get this shit in hand. “Keisha!”

She turns in his arms docilely. “Yes, Sir?”

He softens his voice almost to a whisper. “Look at me.”

She complies and he hates the hurt he sees in her eyes, but it scares the hell out of him just the same.

“What happened between Karen and me was an experiment gone bad a decade ago. She and I laugh about it now. She began training to be a Domme shortly after that and never looked back.”

That is the extent of the explanation he’s willing to give, and about as close as he’s ever come to an apology for who he used to be. There will never be an apology for who he is now, and the sooner Keisha comes to grips with that, the better. If she feels about him the way he thinks she does, this will be the only way he will ever entertain the idea of having more with her.

Her moment of jealousy effectively stifles his exploration of her feelings, and if he were honest, it saves him from going there himself until he’s absolutely certain of his own.

~*~

Tristan asks Moses take them to the entrance into the courts at the back of the building rather than out front where all the news affiliate trucks and the lawyers willing to give sound bites enter. However, they aren’t completely out of the woods. The crews with courtroom access are still camped out waiting for them, clamoring to get close. When they can’t, they shout out questions to him, Keisha, and Karen, who joins them shortly after they enter the building. They walk in stilted silence after exchanging pleasantries.

Karen mouths to him when Keisha walks ahead. “She knows?”

He nods, and Karen just shakes her head.

When they round the corner and the cameramen pick them up, they hold their heads high and walk through the fracas and into the courtroom, their silence a willful act of pleading the fifth to the hungry reporters who hope they’ll feel like talking. The cacophony of voices yelling, “Keisha!” and “Tristan!” dies as they close the courtroom doors behind them. The photographers with still cameras inside perk up as they enter, and a synchronized whirring of digital cameras begins.

Karen stops them in a tiny huddle before they take their seats.

“Tristan, Todd will go easy on you because you’re his witness, but Juanita’s going to try to rip you a new one. Don’t let her get to you, because our friend Judge Summers loves to hold witnesses and lawyers in contempt of court. Don’t make me have to go down with you, okay?”

“I’ve got this,” he says as he places a hand in the small of Keisha’s back and leads her to the seats they occupied right behind Prosecutor Todd the day before. Karen brings up the rear, but then crosses over them and sits on Keisha’s other side.

“For what it’s worth,” she says, looking dead into Keisha’s eyes, “Tristan was a lousy lay back then. He had all the equipment but didn’t know what the fuck to do with it.”