Lovers in law (6 page)

“They do when they pocket my level
of fees,” I retorted and smiled coldly at my less well paid
counterpart, unreasonably angered at being caught out. I also
didn’t appreciate his lecherous interest in Allie.

I carried the wine and a couple of
menus over to her. She’d moved two chairs further back into the
alcove, making our corner surprisingly discreet.

“I’m hiding from the old lech at
the bar,” she explained, nodding in the direction of the man I’d
just been talking to. “Men like that make me want to go home and
shower.”

I sat down, realising I couldn’t
have been given a better opportunity to ask the questions that had
plagued me since I’d first met her.

“So what kind of men do you like?”
I asked.

Hardly subtle but I was curious and
Allie wasn’t a woman who gave much away.

“Isn’t that a leading
question?”

She smiled flirtatiously as
she took off her jacket. Her lacy bra showed through her white
blouse and I imagined I saw the shaded circle of her nipples. I
won’t say I’m a breast man, because I adore every single inch of a
woman’s anatomy, but there’s something very eye catching about a
pair of nipples playing hide and seek through flimsy
fabric.

Realising Allie was waiting for an
answer, I reluctantly dragged my attention away from her breasts
and poured us both some wine.

“Even leading questions need to be
answered sometimes,” I said, raising my glass to her. “As we’re off
company time, imagine I’m someone you’ve just met in a bar and tell
me what you look for in a man.”

She didn’t take long to think about
it. “Good looking obviously,” she said, clinking glasses with me
and biting her lip to stop herself smiling. “Tall, dark and sexy,
same as any woman.”

At six foot three, and with
black hair, I qualified on two of the counts. As for the rest, it’d
be fun working it out.

In the meantime, Allie Lawless
certainly ticked all of my boxes.

“Tall, dark and handsome is too
predictable,” I said. “There must be something else.” I hoped
successful barrister was somewhere close to the top of her
list.

“Intelligence,” she added,
giving me a significant look. “I find that having a good brain, and
not being able to use it socially, is like driving a Ferrari in a
built-up area. Very restricting.”

“So you only date men as
intelligent as you are?”

Things were looking up but
then Allie gave me a look of disbelief. “How many other winners of
the Melton Prize have you met?”

“Two. You and an elderly professor
of jurisprudence.”

“Exactly. If I restricted my
social life to prize winning, Oxford graduates, I’d be a very
lonely girl indeed.”

I didn’t let her verbal slip go.
“That implies you’re not lonely at all.”

She laughed and her breasts wobbled
deliciously under her blouse. The nipple shadow wasn’t a figment of
my imagination after all. My cock stirred at the thought of
wrapping my lips around them and sucking until they grew hard
against my tongue.

Even though it’s rude to stare, I
did anyway.

“I keep forgetting I’m dealing with
a man who analyses everything,” she said, taking a sip of wine.
“I’ll aim to be more careful in the future.”

“I hope not. I like reckless
women.”

Her lips glistened deep red, making
me want to lean across the table and lick the wine away in full
view of everyone in the bar. The taste of Allie and a good Rioja
together would be intoxicating. Particularly if I were allowed to
lick it off those pert nipples of hers. I swallowed
unconsciously.

“Male companionship isn’t difficult
to come by,” Allie went on, seeing how distracted I was but
choosing not to make an issue of it. “I can more or less take my
pick. When one man falls by the wayside there’s usually another one
close behind.”

I couldn’t work out whether I was
being warned off and so made a joke.

“A string of casual relationships
is the sign of a successful lawyer,” I said.

“In which case your past must
be littered with bodies.” She looked at me expectantly and waited
for me to deny it. When I didn’t, she gave me a knowing smile. “I
thought as much, I knew you were a flirt as soon as I met
you.”

“Takes one to know one.”

“Very probably.”

A waitress appeared to take
our orders, breaking the spell. I cursed silently, doubting we’d be
able to reclaim the intimacy that had been building nicely in our
corner, but I needn’t have worried. As soon as we were alone again,
Allie leaned across the table and lowered her voice, giving me her
best courtroom stare.

“If we’re really off company
time, I can ask a few leading questions about you too,” she said,
pouring us both some more wine. “Dig up all the dirt.”

“Go ahead. But I want the
same privileges.”

Her eyes widened flirtatiously and
she bit her bottom lip. My cock lurched again at the thought of
that hot mouth exploring the intimate areas of my body. I’m not
just a self-confessed flirt, I’m also a huge fan of blow jobs. If
Allie was half as skilled at oral sex as she was at kissing, I’d be
a very happy man.

Always hoping it went that far.

“I reserve the right to keep my
deepest, darkest secrets to myself,” she said, implying there were
plenty.

“Shame. Because they’re the ones
I’m most interested in.”

“I bet you are! And I suspect you
have more than a few of your own.”

The temperature in our little
corner rose suddenly. I took off my jacket and rolled up my shirt
sleeves, noticing how Allie’s gaze dropped to my bare forearms. I
swear her fingers twitched towards them, telling me she wanted to
touch me as much as I fantasised about touching her. It may have
been wishful thinking but I got the impression she was having
trouble keeping her hands off me.

Perhaps taking her to bed wasn’t
such a hopeless cause after all, no matter what she said.

If I upped my game, the evening
might still end with a seduction – and I didn’t really care who did
the seducing.

“So what do you want to know?” she
said, taking my by surprise. I hadn’t expected her to be so
forthcoming. “Ask me anything.”

Her eyes focused unashamedly
on the exposed skin at my throat and lingered there. Obviously I
wasn’t the only one trying to see through shirt fronts that
evening.

If we were alone in my apartment,
would she undo my buttons slowly and teasingly, I wondered? Or
would she tear my shirt off over my head in a rush to feel her body
against mine?

For the court record, either was
fine by me so long as it happened.

And soon.

I asked the direct question my cock
and I were desperate to have answered. “Are you dating anyone?”

Allie pressed her wine-glossed lips
together and pretended to think hard. “You’ve been dancing around
that question for days. Define dating,” she said, sounding like a
true lawyer, but one with an extra diploma in flirting.

“Are you in a relationship?”

“Does going out to dinner three
times count as a relationship?”

“Not really.”

“In that case then, no. I’m
single.”

It was difficult to hide my
satisfaction. Battling Allie’s morals was one thing but taking on a
boyfriend as well would have made my job four times more difficult.
“When was your last long term relationship?”

“What’s long term?” She was
enjoying herself a great deal at my expense.

“More than six months,” I
clarified.

“At Oxford.” The answer back came
as quick as a flash. “In my second year.”

That made it a good eight or ten
years ago. Although I couldn’t believe she’d lived like a nun in
the interim. She must have seen me working it out because she
supplied the answer before I even had to ask the question.

“I went into articles with Brindley
& Ellis and was working ten-hour days from the start. You know
what this job’s like. Twenty-four hour commitment with no time off
at weekends for good behaviour.”

I was more interested in her bad
behaviour. I’m rarely attracted to good women.

I went on a fishing expedition. “So
no men at all?”

“I didn’t say that.” She grew
cautious suddenly. “But most men want something uncomplicated.
Fleeting. Fun. And so do I. I don’t have time for clingy boyfriends
and explanations. Neither do you, I imagine.”

She crossed those endless
legs of hers and her calf brushed mine. At first I thought it had
been an accident but she didn’t hurry to pull away so I didn’t
either.

“Who are you dating?” she asked. “I
imagine an ex-model. Tall and blond with a job in an art
gallery.”

She couldn’t have been more wrong
because I rarely went for blondes and shook my head. “No one
recently. I’m like you. Too busy for anything serious. A few dinner
dates here and there. Drinks. The odd weekend away. Nothing long
term.”

I played it down rather than
mention my fondness for casual encounters and hot, one night
stands. I may be a flirt but no one would ever accuse me of being
indiscreet.

“So we’re both free agents,” Allie
said significantly.

“Consenting adults,” I
confirmed.

“I get the impression you’d consent
to just about anything.”

She wasn’t wrong and I flicked up
my eyebrows to tell her she’d guessed correctly. “Let’s just say, I
have a broad brief.”

Leaning back in her chair, Allie
looked hard at me as if she were trying to read my mind. Thank God
she couldn’t see exactly what was going on in there. Even she’d be
shocked.

She unfastened the clip holding her
hair up and shook it loose. My reaction was intense and noticeably
physical.

I longed to bury my face in
that long, shiny hair, or wrap it around my fingers while I kissed
her senseless. It’d look so sexy spread out across my pillow. Or
better still, I imagined each curl tickling my stomach as her lips
edged down my body towards my cock.

As it had always had a mind of its
own, that reckless cock of mine hijacked my thought processes,
tired of behaving itself with such a breathtakingly beautiful woman
next to me. Before I had time to work out a polite way of
expressing myself, it made me drop the pretence and play it
straight with Allie.

“You and I need to have a
without prejudice conversation,” I told her, wanting whatever I
said next to be completely off the record. I was about to overstep
the mark by a very long way and didn’t want her using every word
against me in evidence.

“Whenever a lawyer says that, you
know there’s trouble coming,” she said, but didn’t stop me
talking.

“It depends how you define
trouble.”

“You’re trouble. All six foot three
and high IQ of you.” She didn’t seem to mind that much. “I spotted
the danger signs as soon as I laid eyes on you.”

“In that case, you must like
playing with fire. Why else would you have kissed me?”

“Ah.” She had the grace to blush
and look away. “I wondered how long it would take you to bring that
up.”

“It’s been the only thing on my
mind since it happened,” I admitted. “I can’t stop thinking about
you. Even when I’m in court.” I laughed. “And when I’m supposed to
be reading the most boring building reports on earth I can still
taste your lips.”

“Then stop!” She made it sound far
simpler than it was. “No good can come of it. Business and pleasure
never mix.”

“How do you know?” If she thought
she could talk her way out, she’d picked the wrong opponent. I
never let a line of questioning drop until I had exactly the answer
I wanted. “Surely it’d be worth taking the risk for the amount of
fun you and I could have together.”

Her reaction told me it had been
exactly the wrong thing to say. “It might be fun to you but it
amounts to professional suicide for me. I’ve worked hard to get
this far up the ladder. If this case goes well, I could make
partner next year. I won’t throw all that away.” Her green eyes
glittered with defiance and her cheeks burned.

Our meals arrived and Allie sat
back to draw breath, although she didn’t take her eyes off me the
whole time the waitress was at our table. When we were finally
alone again, I leaned back toward her and lowered my voice, even
though anyone with half a mind could read my intention in my
eyes.

I decided to do something I very
rarely did around women I was pursuing – tell the truth – because,
for some indefinable reason, I didn’t want to play games with
Allie.

“I could dress this up in
sweet talk but I won’t insult your intelligence,” I began,
wondering how straightforward I dare be. “You’re the sexiest woman
I’ve met in a very long time. I’m going crazy over you. I can’t get
you out of my head. I’m not concentrating, I don’t sleep, and all
afternoon, all I’ve thought about is taking you in my arms and
repeating that incredible kiss.”

“Stop it, Radford. Please.”

I loved the sound of my name on her
lips and wanted to hear her sigh it out when I sucked her nipples,
or scream it when I made her come. My cock doubled in size and I
longed to feel those red-nailed fingers clenched around it, pumping
hard.

“I won’t stop,” I growled, losing
control as desire surged through me. “That kiss was scorching hot.
And you meant it to be.” I paused to give her chance to argue but
she didn’t. After kissing me the way she had, there was no
defence.

“I’m constantly
horny
.” I said. “I fantasise about
stripping you naked and fucking you to the point of exhaustion. You
gave me a hard on the moment I laid eyes on you and, no matter what
I do, I can’t get rid of it.”