God, I want to fuck her bad right now.

Leary turns her gaze to me and politely says, “I’m finished with my questions of Dr. Summerland, Mr. Holloway. For now, anyway.”

I open my mouth to suggest to Dr. Summerland we leave, but he simply barrels past me and storms out of the conference room, slamming the door so hard behind him the prints on the wall rattle.

I can’t fucking help myself. I turn to Leary, completely uncaring that the court reporter and cameraman are still in the room. I shoot her a grin and say, “I’ve never seen anything quite like that before.”

The cameraman snickers, but I don’t take my eyes off Leary. She shrugs and starts packing up her materials. “Your client is a prick, Mr. Holloway.”

“Not going to argue there,” I mutter, stuffing my own belongings into my briefcase.

“You have a few minutes to talk?” Leary asks me casually. “To discuss the case.”

I look up at Leary and she’s staring at me with a look that almost makes my knees buckle. It’s one of starving need.

“Sure,” I say, hoping my voice doesn’t give way to the matching lust I’m feeling right now.

“I think we should have a legal rule that says we end all depositions this way,” Leary pants in my ear.

She’s lying on her back on the carpet of her office, her skirt bunched up around her hips and her panties dangling from one ankle. My pants and underwear have only come to midthigh, and my tie is tossed over my shoulder so it doesn’t obstruct my view when I look down to see my cock pounding away between her legs.

“Fucking awesome rule,” I groan as I push and grind in and against her.

“Shit . . . I’m going to come,” she moans.

“Give it to me, baby,” I encourage her with a particularly brutal thrust.

And she does . . .

And it’s spectacular.

I follow right along behind, my mind going blissfully blank as I start to unload inside her, concentrating on nothing but the feeling of her wrapped around me, milking me dry.

When every last spasm has quieted in my body, I roll off Leary and lie beside her on the carpet. Our panting fills the air, but I can hear the noise of the Pit just outside her door.

I can’t believe we just fucked on her office floor with dozens of people right outside. For Christ’s sake, the door isn’t even locked. I followed her into her office, thinking maybe we might make out. She’d no sooner shut the door than she was pulling me to the ground. She was instantly wet for me, and of course I was brutally hard for her.

And one hard and fast fucking later, I am completely at peace with my world.

I slide my hand over to hers and grasp it. She squeezes me and I can actually feel a satisfied smile in her touch.

“You tore my doctor up,” I say offhandedly.

“He deserved it.”

“Again, not going to argue,” I say with a laugh. “It was kind of hot . . . watching you walk all over him.”

“You were kind of hot just sitting there watching me walk all over him,” she says with a chuckle. “I’d actually planned on torturing him a bit more, but then I made the mistake of looking over at you, and I was just done. Had to get you here in my office.”

A languid smile comes over my face, but she can’t see it because we’re both still staring up at the ceiling, holding hands and waiting for our heartbeats to go back to normal.

Normal, I think with an inner smile to match my exterior one.

I don’t think anything is going to be normal for me ever again. At least not where Leary’s concerned.

CHAPTER 11

LEARY

Blinking my eyes, I give them a quick rub and then peer back at my computer monitor. I’m trying to read our bar association’s weekly periodical that provides digest opinions on all recently decided appellate and supreme court cases. While this isn’t actual legal research, it does qualify as highly boring.

I’ve always been the attorney who shunned relying on the actual particulars of the law, instead trying to argue my way through to victory using cunning and emotion. It’s served me well so far, but I’ve also become dependent on my ability to talk my way out of just about any situation. It’s made me weak on the actual law itself, so I sit down every Wednesday afternoon and read the digest, hoping that maybe if just one-tenth of what I read soaks in, I will be a better attorney for it.

Glancing at my watch, I see I’ve been struggling with this asinine idea for the last hour, and I’m not making any headway. I decide on a break and do a quick scan of my e-mail.

My lips pull into a smile when I see an e-mail from Reeve. He’s been gone the last two days on out-of-state depositions, and I hate to admit it, but I miss him. He sent me a short message to let me know he’ll be flying back into Raleigh tomorrow morning, and wants to know if we can do dinner.

I invite him to my house. While I won’t have time to cook something on a work night, I’ll make sure to pick up something good from the local market we can heat up.

My next e-mail is from a reporter from the Raleigh Times, wanting an interview about the LaPietra case. This pleases me immensely because it’s always good to get public opinion behind you if possible. The bad news is that I suck at the PR stuff. The good news is that Midge does not and prefers to handle it anyway, so I forward the e-mail to her and ask if she can call the reporter.

Then I see an e-mail from Ford. It’s short—not that I’d been expecting an essay. I invited him to lunch today, but his quick reply is that he already has plans.

My eyebrows scrunch up in skepticism as I read it. He’s been avoiding me like the plague the last few weeks, since I started seeing Reeve, claiming that he’s been too busy to get together. This could be true, because Ford is a busy man and we’ve gone long periods in the past when we couldn’t hang. But usually he compensates by at least calling me to check in or stopping by my office to discuss a case.

Since the charity event at the Marriott, he’s been completely absent from my life. This bothers me, because while I don’t miss the sexual intimacy we’ve shared from time to time, I miss his friendship and wisdom.

Resolved to put this out on the table with Ford, I start to pick up my phone to buzz his office when Midge responds to my e-mail.

Be glad to handle reporter. Come talk to me first, though. Bring me up to speed on the case. I feel like drinking a whiskey and I don’t like drinking alone.

My heart starts racing.

I’ve been summoned. I’m being granted entrance into the reclusive Midge Payne’s inner domain. I hate whiskey, but I’ll gladly drink one with her just to spend some time in her presence.

I snicker to myself over the dramatics of my thoughts. It’s true, I don’t see Midge a lot, as she truly does hole herself up in her office. But we have sat down for some meetings on occasion over the years. But just because I don’t have many face-to-faces with her doesn’t mean we don’t communicate. I talk to her several times a week through e-mail or on the phone, and over the years we’ve developed an easy personal and professional relationship.