Legal Passion

Chapter Sixteen

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

ANGERCOURSEDTHROUGHStone, and he didn’t know who he was angrier at: his client for refusing to speak the truth or Hillary for refusing to listen. Even if Byron had talked, Stone doubted she would have believed anything he said about the murder.

The only thing she had listened to and believed was the two-million-dollar bonus Stone would receive for a not-guilty verdict. That that was the only reason Stone was so determined to win.

The minute Byron had told her that, she’d jumped up from the chair and pounded on the door for the guard to let her out. Before she’d stepped out, she’d turned back to him—and the look she’d given him.

Stone shivered at the iciness of her blue eyes. He hadn’t thought she—with all her passion—could ever look that cold. Did she think the only reason he’d kissed her and had had sex with her was to get that not-guilty verdict?

Damn it!

And damn Byron Mueller for not telling the truth. He’d refused to talk to Stone, too, and had had the guard bring him back to his cell. Apparently, he’d rather rot behind bars than implicate his son.

Stone could understand wanting to protect your kid. But when that kid was a killer...

He shivered, but maybe it was just because the November wind whipped through his clothes as he hurried down the street from the Tombs. Hillary must have gone down into the subway, because he didn’t catch a glimpse of her. So he hurried to his car and drove straight to her apartment.

He suspected she’d gone there instead of her office. But when he rang her bell, he could detect no movement inside. He heard something behind him, a soft gasp as she turned the corner from the elevators and saw him.

With his driving, he’d beaten her home. Of course, it looked, from the bag that she was carrying, like she’d stopped to pick up dinner.

“Candy bars?” he asked her, his pulse quickening as he remembered how the chocolate tasted on her lips, in her mouth.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. “Harassing me?”

The wind and the drive had cooled his anger—until now. Now it whipped through him even more sharply than the wind. But instead of chilling him, it made him hot. “Did I ever do anything that you didn’t want me...” He stepped closer and, lowering his head and his voice, whispered in her ear, “...to do to you...”

She shivered. “I’m not upset about what you—we—did,” she said.

He was glad that she’d owned her part in their after-hours adventures.

“I’m upset about why you did it.”

“I had no reason,” he said. No ulterior motives. He hadn’t had a thought in his head except desire that first time he’d kissed her.

“You had two million reasons why,” she said.

“It was only one until recently,” he said.

She swung her hand toward his face. He would have let it connect if he’d had it coming. But he’d done nothing wrong. So he caught her wrist and jerked her against him.

Her eyes widened; he hoped it wasn’t out of fear for how he’d reacted but because she felt his reaction to her closeness. Because even as furious as he was with her, he still wanted her.

He always wanted her.

He rubbed his erection against her belly. “This is why,” he said. “Because I want you.”

“You want me to drop the charges against your client,” she said. And instead of melting into him, like she usually did, her body was stiff and tense.

“Yes, I do,” he admitted. “But I’m not using sex to manipulate you into doing that.”

“Then why after years of never noticing me did you suddenly kiss me?” she asked. And she was the one backing him up against the wall now, like she sometimes got in the face of a hostile witness to get them to crack.

Stone just grinned. “Why the hell do you think I never noticed you? I’ve lusted after you for years, Hillary Bellows. I just had self-control until we were finally alone together.” That had been his downfall.

She was his downfall.

Her blue eyes narrowed and she studied him through her lashes.

So he turned the tables on her. “What about you? Why are you having sex with me?” he asked. “Was it just so you could distract me so much with thoughts of being with you, of being inside you?” He groaned as he thought of it, of how damn wonderful it felt moving inside her.

And a little moan slipped through her lips. She’d been holding her keys in her hand, along with her bag of food; they jingled as she turned toward her door with them and suddenly jammed them into the lock.

He knew she wanted to feel it, too—what he felt every time they were together. The passion. The heat.

The rightness.

“If that was your plan,” he said, as he lowered his head to brush his lips across the nape of her neck, “it worked. You’ve distracted the hell out of me!”

The locks clicked, and she pushed open the door. He waited—uncertain what to expect. Had he gotten through to her? Or was she still as icily furious as she’d been at the Tombs?

When she turned back toward him, her eyes weren’t cold. They were dark, dilated with desire. She reached out, but instead of slapping him, like she had earlier, she grabbed his tie and tugged him into the apartment with her.

The door slammed behind Stone. He wasn’t certain if she’d kicked it or he had. He covered her hand on his tie and asked, “Are you going to use this to strangle me?”

“I should,” she told him.

“Why?” he asked.

“You know why. You never told me about that bon—”

He covered her lips with his fingers. “No. Why did you kiss me back that first time I kissed you?”

Her face flushed, and her eyes got bright. She sighed and admitted, “Because I lusted after you for years.”

He couldn’t help the grin from spreading across his face. “Really?”

“Like you didn’t know,” she said.

He shook his head. “I had no clue.”

She tugged his tie free and let it drop to the floor. Then she moved on to the buttons of his shirt. She didn’t rip them open this time. Instead, she took her time with each one, slowly opening his shirt. “How can you look like this and not know every woman in court is lusting after you?”

He chuckled. “I thought you hated me,” he said.

“I do,” she readily replied.

Even as a pang struck his heart, he laughed again. “Really?”

“Of course. You represent rich and privileged clients.”

“You’re rich and privileged,” he reminded her.

She wrinkled her nose at him. “No. My father is.”

And she’d made certain not to trade in on that. He respected that. If only she respected him, too.

“I don’t hate you,” he told her.

She tilted her head and studied his face. “But you hate losing.”

He couldn’t deny that. “I do.”

“And you’d do anything to win,” she said, repeating his client’s words.

“That’s not why I kissed you.”

“Word got out around the Meet Market that you and your partners deliberately set out to seduce women to get what you want.”

He pulled back and stared down at her, dumbfounded. “I don’t know what surprises me more—that you go to the Meet Market, or that you’d listen to gossip about us.”

“Gossip?” she said. “That’s all it is?”

Damn, she was too good.

“Simon and Ronan might have done something like that,” he admitted. “But they were just trying to find the office mole.”

“That’s why you came to see me that first night,” she said. “You wanted to find out how I got that information about Mueller’s alibi. Did you think I was the office mole?”

“You don’t have access to our office,” he said.

She smiled. “Miguel and I go way back.”

“Are you the office mole?” he asked.

She arched a brow. “Guess you’ll have to seduce me to find out.”

He laughed again. He’d been so angry with her just a short time ago. What was it about her that beguiled him so much that he forgot the anger—that he forgot everything but how much he wanted her?

* * *

What the hell was wrong with her?

Hillary never should have allowed him into her apartment. Hell, she hadn’t allowed him inside; she’d dragged him through the door with her. And just like that day he’d kissed her in her office, she was the one who’d undressed him.

His shirt hung open over his chest, glimpses of muscles dusted with dark hair teasing her. Maybe that was why she’d lost her mind. Why she was flirting with him.

The sight of his body turned her mind to mush.

It had to be mush for her to want him as much as she did. It was almost as if she needed him.

But that wasn’t possible. Hillary had never needed anyone. She’d gotten along just fine after her mother had died. And leaving her father for boarding school hadn’t bothered her a bit. She’d made friends wherever she’d gone. And if they left her for other schools, she’d made more. But she hadn’t needed them, either.

She’d never needed anyone. So, of course, she didn’t need Stone. But she did want him—badly—at the moment.

“I am not like my partners,” he told her. “I am not a charmer. I just say it like it is. So no, I cannot seduce anyone.”

He had no idea.

“You don’t need charm for seduction,” she told him.

“I don’t?”

She rose on her tiptoes and skimmed her lips along his jaw, down his neck. His pulse leaped beneath her mouth. “All you need is your lips.” She pressed hers to his. But she kept the kiss brief, pulling back. Then she skimmed her fingertips down his chest. “And your touch.”

“Ohhhh...” he said, and he smacked his forehead as if he’d had a sudden realization. “You’re right. I did seduce you.”

“Yes, you did,” she said and was surprised that a giggle slipped out.

“Or did you seduce me?”

“I don’t know.” And she didn’t care anymore. Because he was kissing her, sliding his lips across hers to her ear and her neck.

She shivered in reaction as her skin tingled. Then he touched her, skimming his hands down her sides to her hips, then over her ass. He found the button on her skirt, undid it and her zipper, and the skirt fell down. Then he pushed off her jacket, which she’d already unbuttoned in the elevator. She wore a thin sweater beneath it. He lifted that over her head and tossed it onto the floor, too.

She stood before him in just her bra and underwear. But it was her new bra and underwear. She’d splurged on some sexy lingerie she’d been seeing advertised everywhere.

And she was glad that she had when she saw his reaction. His whole body tensed and his breath escaped in a whoosh like he’d been kicked—hard.

“Damn, woman!” he exclaimed. “What the hell do you have on?”

She touched one of the cups of the bra, which was secured to the strap with a bow. “Bette’s Beguiling Bows.”

He shook his head. “No damn wonder Simon lost his mind...and Ronan.”

“What?” she asked, totally confused what his partners had to do with her new underthings.

“The lingerie designer, the model...” He gestured at her underwear. “That’s what they do.”

And his partners did them, apparently.

“Shouldn’t I have bought it?” she asked.

“Depends,” he said and he pushed her fingers away from the bow to toy with it himself. He tugged it loose so that the cup dropped away, freeing her breast. He cupped it in his palm and flicked his thumb across the nipple.

And she lost her breath for a moment as pleasure streaked from her breast to her core. “On what?”

He moved his hand from her breast to the bow holding up the other cup. He toyed with the end of the bow for a long moment before pulling it loose. Then he cupped that breast in his hand, but he held his thumb just a breath away from the nipple.

“On what?” she asked, as desire burned inside her.

“Did you buy it for me or dopey Dwight?”

She smiled. “You.”

And he touched her nipple, rubbing his thumb across it. Once. Twice. “But you were mad at me and I was mad at you.”

“We usually are,” she said.

He nodded. “That’s right. You hate me.”

“I do.” But her heart felt all warm and big, and she was afraid that she didn’t hate him enough. She needed to hate him more. “That was another reason I bought this,” she said. “Figured I would let you sneak a peek and then deny you.”

“There’s one problem with that,” he said, and he pulled that hand away and stepped back.

“What’s that?” she asked, and her brow furrowed.

“If you deny me, you deny yourself, too.” And he turned as if he was going out the door.

She cursed. Him and herself.

But he only turned the dead bolt before whirling back toward her and lifting her in his arms. He headed straight toward the bedroom.

They denied each other nothing. Their mouths and hands moved hungrily over each other. He tugged loose the bows on her hips that had held her panties together. Then he slid his fingers inside her. He teased her, intensifying the pressure inside her, the need for release until she squirmed on the mattress.

She held out her arms, trying to pull him down with her. She had never needed anyone before, but in this moment—in the heat of passion—she needed him.

Finally, he stepped back and pushed down his pants and boxers. Then he sheathed himself before joining her on the bed. He lifted her legs, hooking them around his shoulders as he eased himself inside her.

She had never considered herself a flexible person until now. She was able to bend and contort so that he slid even deeper inside her.

The sensation was incredible. He was incredible.

He leaned over more and kissed her—deeply, hungrily—as he set a frantic rhythm. She joined him, grinding her hips against him, meeting his every thrust, until finally that unbearable tension broke.

He slipped away for a few moments before coming back and crawling into bed. He rolled her limp, satiated body into his arms and held her closely.

She had never been so satisfied. So content. So happy...

But then she tensed as she realized she was falling for him. She was beginning to need him. That could not happen.

“What’s wrong?” he asked as he stroked her back.

But his voice sounded funny, almost strangled as if emotions were getting to him, too.

“We have to stop doing this,” she said.

“You dared me to seduce you,” he reminded her.

She knew. And it had been stupid. “You know this will never work.”

“This?” he asked. “What is this?”

“Wrong,” she said. “We’re on opposite sides of this trial.”

“A trial that shouldn’t even be happening,” he said. “You need to drop the charges.”

She rolled out of bed and picked up his clothes from the floor, throwing them at him. “That is the only reason you’ve been kissing me, having sex with me—you want me to help you get that two million dollars.”

“Hill—”

“It’s all about money with you!” she accused him. “That’s why you represent the clients you represent. You don’t care that you could be putting a killer out on the streets—”

“And you don’t care that an innocent man could go to prison,” he said. “It’s better that ten guilty men go free than one innocent man suffer.”

“Don’t throw that quote at me,” she said. “You know you’ve helped more than ten guilty men go free.”

“So you’re going to make Byron Mueller pay for that?” he asked.

“No. I’m going to make Byron Mueller pay for killing his wife.”

Stone just shook his head as he pulled on his clothes. “It’s like you’re determined to think the worst of me for some reason,” he said.

“I didn’t say you murdered your wife,” she said.

“But you won’t believe anything I tell you.”

“I can’t trust you.”

“Why not?” he asked.

She grabbed the tangled sheet from the bed and wrapped it around herself. She didn’t want to have this conversation naked. She didn’t want to have this conversation at all. “You know why.”

“Because I’m a defense lawyer?” he asked. “C’mon, Hillary, you know everyone’s entitled to a fair trial. Is it just me or can’t you trust anyone?”

Maybe that was the problem. But she wasn’t about to admit that to him.

“Is it because your mom died when you were so young? Then your dad shipped you off to boarding schools. Don’t you trust people to stick around?”

She gasped with shock. “You’ve done your research on me,” she said. “Or did you have Allison McCann pull up that dirt for a press release? Going to use that against me?”

“Hill—” He reached out for her, but she slapped his hand away.

“Get out of here,” she said. “I’ll see you in court tomorrow unless you have the sense to accept a plea for your client. Murder two.”

He shook his head. “I’m not going to plead for an innocent man.” And she suspected he wasn’t talking just about Byron now. He was talking about himself. He didn’t think he’d done anything wrong.

But he’d done everything wrong.

He’d made her fall in love with him.

But she’d get over it—just like she had everything else in her life. She lifted her chin and shored up her resolve. “Fine. It’ll be better to beat you in court, anyway.”

“That’s all you really care about,” he said. “Winning. Not justice.” He headed out of her room, and seconds later, the apartment door slammed.

She would win. And yet she knew the victory would feel hollow, not because she had any doubts about Mueller’s guilt—but because she’d lost Stone.