Beyond Bliss (15 page)

He took a deep breath and looked into her eyes. “I’ll understand if you get up right now and walk away. I’ll continue to pay the retainer to the firm until the contract is up, and if you ever need anything at all, I want you to come to me. But Sophie, there’s something between us, something strong and crazy and good and deep. I know it, and I’m pretty sure you know it, too.” 

He drew in a shaky breath before he finished. What he had to say to her next would be a gamble. “Question is, are you going to give it a chance or run away because you’re scared?”

Her mouth parted, and her gorgeous, soulful eyes were impossibly wide. Seconds ticked by, and she looked like she was struggling to come up with the right words for what she wanted to say. Her brows rose and something like dismay laced through her features when she finally opened her mouth to speak. 

His heart clenched painfully when words finally tumbled out of her mouth. “I’m probably going to regret this, but ...” 

*****

She trailed a finger down his chest and snuggled closer. She stayed quiet as both her pulse and breathing returned to normal. A gentle breeze drifted in through the open balcony doors over their damp skin. Moonlight filtered in, and she watched as shadows danced along the ceiling in the dark.

She was living in a parallel universe. Either that, or she now existed in some sort of fantasy dream state, and if that was the case, then she never wanted to wake up. 

“I can hear you thinking. What’s going through that little brain of yours?” he murmured throatily, trailing fingertips along the curve of her throat. Even though she’d already climaxed several times, she shuddered against his touch, the pleasure receptors in her brain lighting up like it was the Fourth of July. 

“Objection. My brain is anything but little. This, you would know if you had me working on anything that required me to use my brain cells.” 

Underneath her, his shoulders started to shake. She raised her head and peered at him suspiciously. 

"Are you laughing at me?" she demanded. 

White teeth flashed at her in a boyish grin, and for a moment, she lost her breath. A shadow of stubble graced his jaw, and his eyes gleamed like dark pewter. She briefly contemplated sliding up his body and initiating round four, but the sore ache between her thighs killed the thought.

What he said next helped, too.

“What was wrong with the work you had to do?”

She arched a brow at him. “You could get a high school student to do what you’re retaining the firm to do. Also, what is the point of having rules if you’re not going to follow them?”

“Huh?”

“Your employee handbook says fraternization between colleagues, vendors, and other third parties is strictly prohibited.”

In a heartbeat, he rolled over so she lay underneath his firm body. His lips ghosted over collarbones slowly, from one side to the other. “Would you consider this fraternization?” he asked, punctuating each word with a kiss pressed to her damp skin.

“Well, say what you will about how collegial we are to one another, but our genitals are certainly fraternizing,” she joked breathlessly.

A corner of his mouth tugged up in a sexy smirk, and he turned his attention to nibbling at her bottom lip. “So change the handbook.”

It was impossible to think when his hands and mouth were busy driving her to distraction. “Hmmm?”

He pulled away, and his silver gaze bore into her. “Change the handbook, baby. Don’t plan on firing myself, so now you have something else to do.” His head dipped once more, but she twisted away and pushed her hands against his chest.

“Give me a second, eager beaver.”

The corners of his eyes creased as he smiled wickedly at her. “I thought
you
had the eager beaver,” he teased.

She pressed her fist against her mouth, but horrified laughter erupted nonetheless. “You are
awful.
”

“Wasting precious seconds, sweetheart. I could be in you or using my mouth on you or you could be using your mouth on me …” he wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

She couldn’t help but return his grin, but she held up an index finger to signal a pause. “Can we just talk seriously for a minute? Maybe a few minutes?”

He groaned before rolling over and dramatically covering his eyes with his forearm. “Now she wants pillow talk. This is what I get for banging a lawyer.”

She swatted at him. “Be serious for a minute, Sinclair.”

“Okay, okay,” he grumbled back at her.

Her mind raced, the points she wanted to make already prepared, but it wasn’t lost on her how simple this was.

How easy it felt.

How
right
it seemed.

Even though they’d spent the last weeks either avoiding one another or at each other’s proverbial throats, once she’d acquiesced to what he was asking of her, they both slipped easily into place.

As if they’d been doing this—loving each other, bickering with one another, sharing laughs and secrets—for decades instead of an evening.

He cleared his throat and looked at her expectantly, jolting her back into the moment. “The sooner you finish talking, the sooner we can get back to business,” he pointed out.

She rolled her eyes. “This shouldn’t take long, but now that you’re finally being honest about your motives, maybe you can let me get back to my real job. It’s clear that you don’t need me.”

He shook his head. “No.”

Anger was quick to flame. No explanation, no other words or context, just one syllable that shot her down. She ineffectually pushed at his chest and tried to squirm out from underneath him.

“Impatient woman,” he muttered. “Let me finish explaining.”

She paused and narrowed her eyes at him. “Well then, by all means, don’t hold up your explanation on
my
account. After all, you’re
paying
for my services, aren’t you?”

His handsome face turned cold. “Is that how you want to play this? I thought we agreed no games.”

Before she could respond, he pushed away from her and turned the lamp on the nightstand on. She quickly yanked the sheet up to cover her breasts, and she turned to her side.

He sat on the edge of the bed, his body tense and unmoving, eyes trained solely on her.

“What are you angling at? Do you need to prove I’m a monster so that you can walk? Or do you want to push me so that I walk away from you?”

The butterflies from earlier faded into something else, something unsettling. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I don’t want any of that.”

“So what gives?” he asked harshly.

In a split-second, she made her decision. She drew in a deep breath before continuing. “This is all new to me. I haven’t been with anyone like this, even casually, in years. But there’s a reason for that.”

The tic on his jaw worked, but he nodded tersely, indicating for her to continue.

“It feels like it’s been a million years, but I was engaged around three years ago.”

He stiffened at her words, but she continued, “I’d been with him since I was in law school. He humored me, really, he didn’t even think that was important. I think he always assumed that after I graduated, I would just play the part of the doting housewife. He never fought me on it, but I think that’s because he planned on getting his way eventually, once he had a wedding band on my finger. He was used to getting his way and not having to fight very hard for it because he could put his money where his mouth was. Meaning—he was filthy rich, and if something didn’t go his way, he would toss his money around, wherever he needed to, until it finally did.”

“You think that I’m the same?” he asked, his body tight with anger.

“Aren’t you?” she responded quietly. “If he was just a rich jerk with some redeeming qualities, I’d probably have a different last name right now and maybe a kid or two. But Lucas, he had no boundaries, and his lines between right and wrong were so blurry, he didn’t even see what he did as wrong. The day we were supposed to get married, I was alone in the bridal suite. It was twenty minutes before the wedding, and my hair, makeup, dress—everything was done. I had asked for a few minutes alone so I could gather my thoughts, and I was in the room by myself when someone knocked on the door. Her name was Carmen, and she was in her last trimester.”

At his sharply drawn breath, she rallied on. “It was his. She was barely twenty, and her mom was part of the household staff at one of his parents’ estates. She had no idea about me, and he kept her out of sight so no one knew. When she got pregnant, he wrote her a check, fired her mother, and told her it was over. I confronted him, and do you know what he told me?”

She didn’t wait for him to respond, and by this point, she wasn’t even focused on him anymore. Her eyes stared off in the distance as she spoke in a surprisingly strong, steady voice. “He told me that he would pay to make it go away, and that we had guests waiting downstairs. That he’d take care of it all, but my mother was waiting outside the door so that she could walk me down the aisle. He also told me that part of my wedding gift was him paying off my law school loans and the mortgage on my mom’s home.”

“He threatened you?” he asked harshly, fury blazing from his eyes.

She nodded. “He didn’t hesitate. I guess he thought it would change my mind for me, but it only validated it.”

His shoulders relaxed, but she could tell he was still upset by her story. “What did you do about the money?”

She smiled sadly. “I hocked my engagement ring. It was obscene, his style, not mine. I’d had a car, too, so I sold that. I sent a check to cover everything by messenger to his office the next week. I don’t know why, but he kept trying to reach out to me afterwards. I moved, changed my numbers, but he managed to always find them out anyway. I just kept ignoring him, and eventually he gave up.”

“You don’t know why he kept after you?” he rasped.

She shook her head. “I’m not anything special, Lucas. I certainly wasn’t made for that lifestyle, but I think he figured he could mold me into what he wanted. I was on the path where I was letting him do just that until I walked away.”

“Baby, it’s not hard to figure out. You look like an angel. You have a heart of gold. You fight for what’s right, and you’re not scared to dish it out. He knew what he lost, that’s why the bastard kept at it.”

Her lips parted as his slate gray gaze pierced into her, but she tried in vain to keep her wits. “Lucas, I’m not some plaything. I don’t know what this is, and I don’t need to know what it’s going to turn into, but can you at least understand how hard it was for me to come to you willingly given everything I just told you, and the fact that I know you had to use your money so you could get me where you wanted?”

“Yes,” he admitted gruffly. “But you have to know that I’m not him. I don’t even know why you would be here if you thought I was anything like that asshole.”

“And you’re right. You’re absolutely right. If I thought you were him, I wouldn’t be in this bed right now, I wouldn’t have come down to meet you for dinner no matter what my professional obligations are, but I will not let you manipulate me. You put yourself in a position where you can basically dictate my professional life, and as much as I want you, I don’t know what to do with that.”

Her skin warmed to a slow and steady burn when he reached over to caress her face. His hand trailed down the curve of her arm until his thick fingers twined into hers. He looked at her intently, and it seemed as if he chose his next words carefully. “Sweetheart, I need you to hear me—no, I need you to listen to me. This has got to sink into your head. Get me?’

Her lips tilted up at the corner. “That depends on what you say.”

His mouth twitched, but he pressed on. “Doing what I do, I didn’t get this far by making stupid or uninformed decisions. Did I track you down? Without a doubt. But I didn’t have the first clue what I would do when I found you. Now, when I did, and I found out what you did for a living, I was thorough in getting my facts straight. You graduated second in your law school class. The only person ahead of you was your friend Liz. You have a phenomenal track record with your clients, but after the first few years of working, you got extremely selective in cherry-picking your clients. You gravitate towards not-for-profits and clients with social causes,” he paused, drawing in a deep breath.

As his words permeated, shock pricked along her nerve endings. “You bullied Carter into letting you take them on and charging them lower bill rates. He has a soft spot for you because he was good friends with your dad, and you’re almost like a daughter to him, so he let you do it. You know what you’re doing, and you have your shit together. By the way, when I met with him, he tried to get me to go with Liz; he told me she was his best, but you were right there with her. Just so happened that I was unhappy with my legal representation at the time and had been considering bringing on new blood for a while. And that, baby,
is
a coincidence. I actually wanted to hire someone full-time, but I didn’t think you’d walk out on Carter
or
accept a job working directly for me. That’s the reason for the exclusive retainer. Did I need you to work out of my office? Probably not, but it made sense and it gave me the added advantage of getting to see your gorgeous face every day. And every damned day that passed by, I cursed myself for my stupidity because it was the purest form of torture, seeing you in those tiny fucking skirts and knowing what was underneath those prim and proper suit jackets, and not being able to touch you.”