LOVING THE HEAD MAN (24 page)

       Bree smiled.  “Okay.”  Then she continued to gaze into his eyes.  “But I still worry about you, Robert.  You can’t just keep pushing yourself like this, from one case of the century to the next case of the century.  You’ve got to say no to somebody.”

       Robert looked up at Bree’s braids.  “I’ve had a lot of girlfriends in my life before,” he said, looking back into her eyes.  “But not one has ever shown any interest in me as a man.  Yes, they bring me hot meals, and I know you were dying to ask if my dinner cooker was a male or female.”  Bree smiled.  “And they call and ask how I’m doing as often as I bother to answer their phone calls.  But it’s all about them.  It’s all about doing whatever it takes to stay in my good graces, to stay on my supposedly hot list.  Well you don’t give a damn about any list, Brianna, that’s why I love you so much.  You love me as a person, and you wonder what you can do for me.  I love you as a person, and I wonder what I can do for you.  That’s what love is.  That’s why I love you.”

       Robert’s lips were on Bree’s just as he finished his last words.  And Bree closed her eyes as his passionate kissing branded her as his.  Every time he kissed her it felt like a new discovery, like something so special it was almost freakish.  And it made her want more and more.

       He pulled her onto his lap, straddle-style, with her face facing his, and continued to kiss her, his arms wrapping completely around her, rubbing her back, moaning as he kissed. 

       Then he moved down, from her lips to her neck, from her neck he unbuttoned his dress shirt she wore and began kissing, sucking, fondling her breasts. 

       Bree’s entire body ached as he fondled her, and when he laid her on the sofa, and his head was between her legs, she grabbed onto the arm of the sofa and gritted her teeth.  He was so expert, and so intense, that she felt as if she was going to lift off like some damn rocket.  She tried to control herself, but his passion kept her from succeeding.

       Robert’s control was far from chaste also, as he licked and kissed her womanhood. And with every lick, and every lift up of her pliable body, Robert knew he could hold out only just so long.  He therefore lifted that body into his arms and carried her to their bedroom.  And that was how he saw it now.  Nothing was his alone anymore, but theirs.  And that fact, too, sped up his already near its breaking point control.

       After laying her on the bed and undressing as quickly as he could, he was upon her, kissing her again, licking and sucking her some more.  And then he entered her.  He expected it to be gradual, just a little would do, but then he plummeted in, plowed in, his control no longer self-evident.  He pumped and pumped, grinded and grinded, as he wanted her even beyond any reasonableness, since he already had her. 

       But he kept going deeper and deeper in, and she was so juicy and wet, and all he could think about was how precious she was, how much he loved her, how much she would one day be his wife.

       He almost stopped pounding her, when he inwardly admitted that truth.  A man who had been so badly burned before, who planned to be a lifelong bachelor, was now thinking about a wife?  But it was true.  Every time he saw Brianna, he couldn’t see his own life without her.

       Bree held onto him with a kind of happy trust as he pounded her.  She loved how he made her feel.  She loved the way he always touched her where she needed to be touched, and slid into every pocket that needed his glide.  This man would put all other lovers to shame, she thought.  How any woman could have been with him, and not kill to keep him, to keep this kind of sexual ecstasy in their lives, was a mystery to her.

       And when he screamed her name as he came, and she screamed his as she reached her summit too, she knew it was now an absolute.  She was head over heels, no turning back, Johnny bolt the door, in love with this man.

THIRTEEN

Bree was the last to arrive, entering Robert’s office just as the gentlemen were taking their seats around the conference table.  In addition to Robert and Monty, Lee Clayton, Wade Furth and Gerald Steiner were also present.  And a new player, Matt Dougan, who Bree knew was one of Colgate’s best civil attorneys.

       “Hello, Bree,” Monty said as she entered and motioned for her to come over and take a seat.  “I think you know everybody here.”

       “Yes,” Bree said as she sat down.  She glanced at Robert, who was seated on the opposite side of the table.  He was on his cell phone, his big body leaned back, his eyes closed as he spoke to one of his clients.  He was already up and gone by the time Bree got up this morning, which astounded her given how spent he seemed after they made love, and made it repeatedly, last night.  She remembered when he kissed her this morning and slapped her on her bare butt, but she couldn’t recall what exactly he had said to her.  He left a note, however, telling her to be to work on time, and that he would leave the keys to his car.  He owned two, his silver Mercedes E-Class and an apple-red Porsche Carrera Cabriolet.  He left the Porsche for Bree to drive. 

       “How are you this morning, Brianna?” Lee Clayton asked.  He was, in many ways, a hero of Bree’s and she was elated that he had remembered her name.

       “I’m doing great, Mr. Clayton, how are you?”

       “’Mister’ my ass,” Lee said, prompting Robert to open his eyes and look at him.  When he realized Lee was smiling, he closed his eyes once again.  “You’d better call me Lee.”

       Bree laughed.  “Yes, sir,” she said.  “I’m just still amazed that Lee Clayton is sitting here next to me.”

       “I know,” Lee said, his famous, whimsical look, with those piercing hazel eyes against his jet-black skin, legendary in courtrooms across America, “I have that effect on beautiful young women.”

       “Careful, Lee,” Monty said with a smile of his own, “we don’t need another sexual harassment lawsuit, now do we?”  

       Lee laughed. 
“Who?
 
Lil’ ol’ me?”
  Then he winked playfully at Bree, prompting Bree to laugh.

       When Robert finally ended his phone call, Matt Dougan immediately took over.  Although no-one bothered to point it out to Bree, it was obvious to her that Robert had selected Matt to run his defense, a move she wasn’t entirely convinced was a good one.  It wasn’t his skill that she questioned.  She understood that he was known for getting good results for his clients, she knew about his track record.  But he came across to her as a little on the arrogant and lazy side, a man who relied too much on fate and not enough on hard work.

       “My strategy is a simple one, Robert,” Matt said.  “We’ll let the little lady keep having her press conferences.  We’ll let her continue to make the rounds on the TV talk
shows,
we’ll let her have her fifteen minutes.  And then we’ll exhaust them with so many document requests, and document dumps, so many continuances and so many interrogatories, that they will settle this nonsense long before we get anywhere near going to trial.”

       “Settle it?” Bree blurted out in an astounded voice, and everybody turned in her direction.  Her heart pounded, but she didn’t back down.  “Your defense strategy in a sexual harassment law suit is for Robert to settle?”

       Matt looked at Bree over the top tip of his reading glasses.  At first he seemed as if he was above answering the question of some girlfriend masquerading as a serious attorney.  But Robert, his boss, looked at him as if he absolutely expected an answer. 

       “Yes,” Matt finally said to Bree, “we intend to settle.  That’s what we do with these
kind
of lawsuits.”

       “But Robert’s innocent,” Bree insisted.

       “And what, my dear,” Matt said, “does that have to do with the price of tea?”  He was twice Bree’s age and
with twice as much bravado
.  Nobody questioned his strategy. 

       “It has everything to do with it.  Robert can’t settle.  We’ve got to fight this.”

       “Fight it?”

       “Yes!  With everything we have.”

       Matt stared at Bree.  “She was your competitor, wasn’t she?” he asked her.

       It was one of those personal questions meant to embarrass and therefore redirect the conversation.  Bree glanced at Robert, expecting him to intervene and put this Matt Dougan back in his place, but Robert just sat there, as if he was fully expecting Bree to handle this on her own.  “What does that have to do with the price of tea?” was the only way she could think to respond.

       “You won the man,” Matt said, “but perhaps only after Miss Dentry turned him down.”

       Bree could not believe he had said that.  She stared at Robert this time, daring him to intercede.  Robert was disappointed that Bree had fallen for that old legal trick of Matt’s.  Instead of keeping the matter on the subject at hand, she allowed herself to be steered into defensiveness.  He leaned forward.  “You don’t approve of Matt’s strategy, Brianna?” he asked, to get her back on course.

       “Of course I don’t,” she said, more than ready to get back.  “You’ll have to admit guilt if you let him turn this into a settlement case.”

       Wade Furst rolled his eyes.  “Matt knows what he’s doing, Bree,” he reminded her.  “He was winning cases before you were even born.”

       “Oh, so does that mean I’m not supposed to say anything? 
Because he’s older than me?”

       “You’re supposed to respect the fact that he knows what he’s doing.”

       “I never said he didn’t know what he was doing, Wade.  Did you ever hear me say that?  I just disagree with
what
he’s doing.”

       “What do you suggest, Bree?” Robert asked her and everybody looked at her, too, as if they were just certain she had no good answers in her.

       Bree swallowed hard.  “I suggest we fight back in kind.  Deidra put you on trial, you put her on trial.  Don’t go around digging for information on Dee, the way Matt’s saying, but dig for dirt on that bitch, and nothing but dirt.  That’ll put an end to this frivolous lawsuit of hers faster than any interrogatory ever would.”