Serendipity (Southern Comfort) (13 page)

Ava snorted, and pulled her legs up onto the cot beside her.  Pretty legs.  Really, really pretty legs.  “Let me guess.  You thought I spent my time vaccinating cats and tying little bows in poodles’ topknots.”

“Something like that,” Jordan admitted uncomfortably.

“Typical.  Sort of like saying that lawyers only chase ambulances.”

“A practice I’ve sworn off.  It was hell on the feet.”

Ava cast him a sideways glance.  “So tell me, Mr. Assistant District Attorney. Are you any good?”

“I’ve been told that I’m spectacular.  But I’ll be happy to demonstrate if you’d like to find out for yourself.” 

Jordan chuckled at her bland stare.  “Oh.  I take it you were referring to my professional skills.”

“I believe that was the topic.”

“Right.  Well, yeah.  I’m damn good, if I do say so myself.”

“You know, you’re a very cocky man.”

Jordan flicked a crumb off his thigh.  “I believe a more appropriate term would be self-assured.”

“That’s the third time you’ve nitpicked my word choice.  What are you, a damn thesaurus?”

“As we’ve already discussed, I’m a damn lawyer.  Playing with words is what I do.”

“I see.”  Ava shifted so that she was facing him, legs tucked to the side.  The cot frame creaked ominously, and a metal brace popped out of nowhere to stab Jordan’s butt.  The thing clearly hadn’t been intended to hold two.  Glancing over, he considered that a gentleman might point out that he could see straight up Ava’s dress and into the Promised Land, currently covered by a very sexy pair of black lace panties. 

“And here this whole time I’ve been under the impression that you presented the evidence brought forth against a defendant in a criminal investigation.”

“What?”

“Being a prosecutor?  Hello?”

“Oh.  Right.” Jordan guessed he wasn’t a gentleman, after all.  He struggled, with a questionable degree of success, to keep his attention on the conversation.  Flicking one last appreciative gaze toward her legs, he forced himself to look into her eyes.

“You’re correct on the most basic level.  But as my brother Jack, who’s a defense attorney by the way, always says: there are two sides to every crime.  Evidence, however concrete it may be, is often open to interpretation based on circumstance.  As a prosecutor, I choose my words very carefully when I present the evidence, so that it is most likely to be interpreted in a manner which falls into accordance with the current law.”

“
That’s an interesting way to put it.
”

“Laws change,” Jordan explained.  “Societal mores are fluid, and laws generally reflect their times.  Eighty odd years ago, hemp was poised to become the country’s first billion
dollar
crop, and twenty years before that we could have been arrested for the consumption of the alcohol we imbibed tonight.  Now there’s a war on drugs, and liquor is perfectly legal.  Several hundred years ago you could have been jailed, banished, or maybe even stoned for spending the night with me without the benefit of marriage, regardless of the fact that we may or may not have had sex.”

“It seems t
he law doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with justice.”

“Sometimes it doesn’t,” Jordan admitted.  “
Especially when it’s used to support some questionable
government or corporate
agenda.  But a
very wise man told me just yesterday that I can do no more than practice the law to the best of my ability, and leave justice in the hands of
a higher authority
.”

“Interesting advice.”

“Yeah.  My dad’s full of it.  Advice, that is.”  He looked at Ava thoughtfully.  “You know, I’ve told you quite a bit about my family over the past couple of hours, but you’ve yet to tell me one thing about yours.”

AVA
did her best to swallow past the lump in her throat.  And berated herself for allowing him to stay, for starting this conversation.  “What do you want to know?”

“Anything.  Everything.”  He waved a hand in the air.  “Brothers and sisters?”

“Nope.  It’s just me.  There were some complications when my mother had me, and she ended up having a hysterectomy.  Otherwise, I probably would have been the first of many.  Big families run in the blood.  My mother’s sister has ten children.”

“Yikes.  And I thought five was a lot.  Are you close to your cousins?”

Ava recalled the way her nervous aunt had all but shunned her during childhood, worried about the effect a Martinez might have on her children.  “Not really.”

“That makes you sad.”

When she merely stared at him he touched a finger beneath her eye.  “You got a sort of wistfulness here, when you said it. 
M
y father’s an only child also
.” H
e took his finger away
. “S
o I don’t have any cousins stateside. But the Australian branch of my family, my mother’s – my dad met her during a semester abroad, fell like a stone, but that’s a story for another time.  Anyway, they breed like rabbits.  You know, I seem to be using an awful lot of animal similes tonight.”

Ava grinned.  “Well, you know what they say about being in Rome.”

“Yeah.”  He ran his gaze around the room.  “So did you always know this was what you wanted?  Being a vet, I mean.” 

“For as long as I can remember.  I was forever bringing home an orphaned this or a wounded that. It horrified my poor, long-suffering mother to realize that all of those pink frilly dresses she’d bought were being wasted on a tomboy.  She had visions of tea parties and ballet lessons, and I was busy raising a family of frogs in the bathtub.”

Jordan laughed.  “That sounds like the stuff my brother Justin used to pull.  But as he’s a
n MD
and not a veterinarian, he used us as his guinea pigs.  Of course, that meant he was obliged to bloody one of us before patching us up.  But anyway, despite the trials and tribulations, I’m sure your mother’s proud of you now.”

“She was,” Ava admitted, and couldn’t quite keep the thickness from her voice.  “Very.”

“I’m sorry.”  His tone gentled.  “I didn’t realize you’d lost her.”

He had no idea how appropriate his word choice actually was.  Her mother had disappeared from her church parking lot and hadn’t been seen for almost two years.

“What about your father?”

“You know.”  She looked down her nose. “You’re very nosy.”

“Curious.”

“There you go again, playing thesaurus.”  But she was relieved that the conversation had turned back to safer ground.  “Let’s hear the definitions, Lawyer Boy.”

“WELL
, nosy is a next door neighbor who buys a pair of binoculars and pretends to watch birds while in reality hoping to get a glimpse of what you’re doing in your backyard.  Trust me, I know whereof I speak.”  Jordan thought of the way Mrs. Phillips had hawked him and his brothers when they were growing up, waiting for a chance to tattle.  Of course, her choice of veterinarians had redeemed the woman somewhat. 

“Curiosity,” he tilted his head toward Ava, “is what leads two people who are interested in one another to find out all they can about the other party.  It’s also known as getting to know each other and, more specifically, dating.  Being a veterinarian – and an incredibly attractive woman – I would think that you would know a thing or two about mating rituals.”

Her brow shot up.  “That’s what you think this is?  A… mating ritual?”           

“Doc,” he mirrored her expression. “We’re sitting on a bed. And despite the fact that it feels like at any moment it’s going to collapse under our combined weight and is adorned with Mickey Mouse sheets – it’s still a bed, and as such is a traditional forum for the whole mating thing.  It’s…” He checked his watch “nearly one o’clock in the morning, neither one of us has made any sort of overture indicating we’re interested in sleep, and since the first moment I laid eyes on you I’ve been… Well, let’s put it in some terminology you’ll understand:  I’ve been quivering like a stallion anxious to mount a ready mare.”  

He didn’t want to rush her, but the leash he’d kept on his libido was definitely ready to snap.  “Cut me some slack here, Ava.  If I don’t touch you soon I’m going to break down and weep.”

“Jordan, it’s not you.  What I mean to say,” she continued when he winced “is that it’s just… it’s that I...”  He met her eyes, watched her bite back the refusal that trembled on her lips.  “Oh, what the hell. I’ve never liked to see a grown man cry.”

With a noise of thanksgiving, Jordan pulled her into his arms.

HE
wasn’t gentle. 

And why, Ava wondered as his lips molded to hers, had she assumed that he would be? This was a man who knew what he wanted.  And knowing, took.

Hadn’t he ended up here, with his mouth on hers, despite all her efforts to the contrary?

Hadn’t he herded her like a damn sheep?

Pride pricked, Ava raised a hand to his chest, considered bringing him to heel after she’d gotten a taste, just a taste of him.

But when she parted her lips, Jordan charged like a warrior into battle.

Open-mouthed and hot, his lips plundered hers, tongue dancing inside to pillage with light, teasing strokes.  The fingers of one hand tangled in her hair, and forming a fist at the base of her skull, tugged it like a rope.  With her neck exposed, he traded lips for teeth.

White knight?  More like a damn Viking.

He pulled her in close, heart pumping so that she felt it like her own. A shudder coursed through her, vibrated through him.  And when his hand closed over her breast, Ava heard herself moan. 

“Probably,” she sucked in air, felt it burn her lungs like flame.  “Probably we should slow down.  Try to get a grip.”

“I like the grip I have.”  Ava’s eyes nearly crossed when his thumb found her nipple.  He rolled it to a hard peak, then shifted his hand, cupped her.  “All those meals you haven’t been skipping?  Definitely keep that up. Your body is…” he let his eyes roa
m.
“Sorry.  I think my brain just fried.”

“You do have a way with words.”

He lowered his mouth to hers in greedy little nibbles, and Ava threaded her fingers into the curls at his nape.  The hair there was soft, and sifted through her fingers even as the power to reason slipped from her mind.  She knew she needed to stop, needed to consider, but it was all she could do to breathe. 

One more kiss, she thought vaguely.  And then got lost in the taste of him again.

It was like drowning.  In heat. In pleasure.

When he nipped her by the hips, she flowed like liquid onto his lap.  The protesting squeak of the cot was no more than an echo through the waves.

“Ava.”  He breathed her name, the murmur hot against her neck.  His fingers skimmed her collarbone, slid down her arms to squeeze her hip.  When he eased her dress up the length of her thighs, she sank her teeth into his bottom lip.

“Jesus.  Ava, let me see you.”

Aggressively now, he pushed at the clingy fabric.  Tried to pull it with han
ds that weren’t quite gentle over
her dampened skin.

“It’s just cruel,” he said between gritted teeth “to make a dress like this out of glue.”

“I… it’s… oh, hell.”  Ava gave up the protest, and added her efforts to his.

The dress was halfway over her head when the cot collapsed.

“Shit.” Ava was swamped by a sea of red.  As Jordan had muttered the same curse, though, she was pretty sure the second thunk she’d heard was his head hitting her office wall.

Discarding the dress in a heap, she saw that she was correct.  Hand pressed against his stitches, the unmistakable look of pain glazed Jordan’s eyes.

“Oh, poor baby.  Let me see.”  She lifted his hand away and saw the telltale streak of blood.  “You opened up your stitches.”

And her own blood cooled, degree by degree, as she studied the wound.

And studying the wound – the wound her uncle’s men had inflicted – reminded herself of exactly why she shouldn’t be sitting here, half naked, on the verge of having what no doubt would have been incredible sex with Jordan Wellington.  

“NO
biggie,” Jordan hissed, although it hurt more than a little. 

But
the headache was nothing compared to the pain in the part of his anatomy currently doing the thinking.  Her bra was pink.  Pink satin sort of… cut out here and there to reveal pieces of black lace.  Eyes burning, Jordan made an effort not to swallow his tongue.  “Where were we?”

He reached for her, but Ava evaded his hands.  “We were just about to go back to an exam room so that I can stitch you back up.”

“What? Wait.  What?”  Had she just said something about stitching his head?  “My stitches are coming out tomorrow.”

“Not anymore, they’re not.”  She stood up and made a grab for her dress.  “The skin on the head’s delicate.  It splits relatively easily, and tends to bleed a lot.  You’ve broken at least two sutures.  I’ll patch you up, and you can call your doctor tomorrow and tell him what happened.”  She pulled her dress over her head and held out a hand to help him up.