Second Chance on St. Patrick’s Day

Blurb

He seduced me, used me, and broke my heart.

And now…

He’s back!

My brain says ‘no.’

But my heart screams ‘yes.’

Who wins amongst the two is a different story altogether!

Well, let’s just say, Conner McGee is a HARD man to forget.

I had no idea that a one night stand would lead to this.

Our lives are full of lies, secrets, and seduction.

He stole my heart long before I found the truth.

Maybe I did not see it coming.

Maybe that’s why it hurts so bad.

Maybe that’s why they say timing and love never go together.

Chapter 1: Conner McGee

She told me her name was Polly. Or Dolly or Molly or something like that. I can’t really remember it too clearly now. In fact, the whole night is kind of a blur. I remember that it was really, really loud in the bar, and so crowded you had to elbow your way through. And we had to yell and lean in close to hear each other speak.

It was New Year’s Eve, after all, and the packed crowd was already rowdy and drunk by the time I arrived. I was more than a little drunk myself. So was she. All I can remember clearly now is gazing into her gorgeous green eyes, the freckles that dotted her perfect little nose, her plump lips… I remember wishing that I could rip off her clothes and make mad, passionate love to her right there on the bar. Now that would have been one hell of a party favor!

She had red hair… flaming red hair that cascaded over her shoulders and hung across her face when she looked up at me. She would give me this little seductive glance each time she tucked her hair behind her ear, as if she were inviting me to do it for her. I wanted to touch her cheek with my fingertips. I wanted to put my tongue in her ear and trail it down the slope of her elegant neck. I felt an ache for this woman I barely knew. I can’t really explain it even today.

Her eyes were the color of jade and her lips, holy fuck, those gorgeous lips. She wore red lipstick and would slide her tongue slowly across her lips when I looked at her. I wanted to suck on her tongue. I wanted to slide my tongue into her mouth.

And then there was that body. That killer fucking body. She was tall and curvy and had big tits and this round ass that I wanted to dig my fingers into. She was wearing a tight red sweater and black skinny jeans and knee-high boots. I stood there trying to carry on a conversation with her, but my brain had already started undressing her and sending signals to my cock to get ready to play.

Okay, hang on, let me back up a little bit to give you the whole story so you don’t think I’m a total asshole just out on New Year’s Eve looking for something strange to fuck. I mean, that ended up being the case, but there’s far more to the story than that.

I was not just out cruising to get laid that night. To the contrary, I had the numbers of a dozen girls in my iPhone that I could have called if I just wanted a quick fuck. When you’re a young, good looking, rich investment banker in New York City, there is no shortage of pussy at your disposal, even on New Year’s Eve. I could have booty-called a dozen girls, but I didn’t. Like I said, I did not start out the evening planning to get laid by anyone, especially a gorgeous redhead I had never met before or seen since.

I was in the back of my limo headed to the annual New Year’s Eve shindig at my friend Reed Helstrom’s penthouse in midtown Manhattan when I got a text from Andy Whitlock, an old college buddy who happened to be in town for the night. He was hanging out with friends at O’Grady’s, an Irish pub across town away the chaos that was Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Did I want to come by for a quick drink? I figured, why the hell not. The night was young and maybe slumming a little before going to Reed’s swanky party would be fun. The one thing I’d come to learn about drinking with rich assholes like Reed was, the drunker they get, the bigger assholes they become. Myself included.

I had the driver drop me off at O’Grady’s and told him to drive around until I texted him to pick me up. Even though O’Grady’s was blocks away from Times Square, the sidewalk was still teeming with revelers, most of them drunk off their asses or well on their way. I pushed my way through the crowd and went inside to look for my friend, Andy. I found him belly up to the bar chatting up with two gorgeous women. One of them was a curvy black girl with beautiful brown eyes and the other one was Polly. Or Molly. Whatever.

I think my mouth hung open when I saw her for the first time Naturally pretty, with the aforementioned flaming red hair and fair Irish skin and eyes so green I thought they had to be contacts (they weren’t). She seemed to do a doubletake when she saw me, as well. She watched me as Andy put me into a bear hug, then glanced at her friend and wiggled her eyebrows. I took it as a sign that the night might get very interesting.

Andy introduced the black girl as a former coworker from his contract law days in DC, Monique Griggs. I knew Andy was the biggest pussy hound no matter where he worked, so Monique was probably an old flame or recent fuck buddy. The way she was hanging onto Andy’s arm told me she was more than just an old coworker. Good for Andy. She was drop dead gorgeous. Monique shook my hand and introduced the gorgeous redhead as her roommate. It was so loud I missed her name, but did not miss her smile. Or the way her eyes locked onto mine.

Andy and I chatted for a minute while the girls ordered another round of drinks (on Andy’s tab) and I shucked off my coat and gloves and gave them to a passing waitress for safe keeping. She looked at me as if I’d shoved a dog turd in her hand rather than a two-thousand dollar overcoat, and told me in no uncertain terms that taking my coat was not her fucking job.

When I held up a hundred-dollar bill her expression changed and she gladly took my coat and promised to keep it safe. I told her there was another hundred for her if the coat and gloves made it back to me when I was ready to go. It’s one of the things about being super rich. You get used to people waiting on you and doing everything you tell them to do. If they resist, you simply pull out a wad of hundred-dollar bills and start peeling them off until they see things your way.

When I turned back around, Andy was making out with Monique like two teenagers in the backseat of a car, leaving me to talk to the redhead, who was holding a glass of red wine to her lips and swaying to the loud music that was coming from the overhead speakers. She was being coy, pretending to ignore me. I got the bartender’s attention and ordered a double bourbon, straight up, and leaned an elbow on the bar to give her a smile.

“So, what did you say your name was?” I asked, leaning in so she could hear me. I took a deep breath. She smelled glorious, like soap and wild flowers.

“I didn’t,” she said, wine glass at her lips.

Ah, so that’s how this was going to go. “Okay, then tell me now.”

“You can call me… Molly,” she said, giving me a sideways glance. I knew that wasn’t her real name, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to know what to call her later when I was fucking her from behind. She batted her eyes at me from over the wine glass. “And what was your name again?”

My name was Conner McGee, but for some reason, I said, “Brad. You can call me Brad.”

She eyed me for a moment as if she knew I was as full of shit as she was. She licked the wine from her lips and smiled. “So… Brad. What do you do for a living?”

Conner McGee was a wealthy investment banker who worked as the youngest partner at one of the top firms on Wall Street. He lived in a ten-million-dollar penthouse on the Upper East Side and banked a hundred-million dollar a year in salary and bonuses. Brad, however, was just a normal guy.

“I work in banking,” I said. “Small firm downtown. Nothing major.” I took a sip of the bourbon and studied her eyes. They were like green pools with little brown specks. “And what do you do for a living, Molly?”

She set her glass on the bar and turned toward the crowd. Her head bobbed to the music. She was being coy, I could tell. That was fine. I enjoyed the view of her profile. “I’m a paralegal,” she said. “Small firm downtown.” She grinned at me. “Nothing major.”

I smiled and finished the bourbon, then ordered another for myself and another glass of wine for her. I held out her wine glass, so she would turn to face me. I was enamored of this girl for some reason. Probably because girls never played coy with me. Girls came easy when you were Conner McGee. Everything did.

I said, “Molly the paralegal.”

She grinned. “And Brad the banker. Aren’t we the odd pair?”

Smiling, I said, “Yes, we are. Are you originally from New York?”

“No, Boston,” she said, head bopping to the music. “You?”

“Born and raised upstate.”

“That’s nice,” she said, starting to sound a little bored. I looked around. There were a dozen guys eyeing her, like hyenas on the prowl, just waiting for me to strike out.

“Where did you go to school?” I asked, wincing at my own words as they left my lips.

For the love of god, I sounded like a total social retard. I felt like an idiot making small talk, but it had been so long since a girl had made me work for it, I didn’t really know what to do.

Thankfully, Molly was not the kind of girl I’d have to woo. She knew what she wanted. And obviously had no problem saying so.

“Tell you what, Brad the banker, line us up a few rounds of shots and we’ll play Truth or Bullshit.”

“Truth or Bullshit?” I gave her a playful frown. “I’m not familiar with that game. How does it work?”

“Oh, it’s super easy to learn,” she said, leaning over the bar to wave down the bartender. “We line up five shots of tequila each, I tell you something about myself, and if you call bullshit and it is, I have to take a shot. If you call bullshit but it’s not, you have to take a shot. Then, it’s your turn to tell me something. We take turns until the shots are gone or we puke on our shoes. Got it?”

“Yeah, I got it,” I said. “Why don’t we just line up a bunch of shots and knock them back?”

She gave me a scolding look. “Now where would be the fun in that?”

“Good point,” I said as the bartender came over. I tapped a finger on the bar. “Ten tequila shots. And another red wine for her and another scotch for me.”

He gave me a funny look for a second. The look turned into a smile when I slid two one-hundred-dollar bills across the bar. A minute later, we each had five shots lined up in front of us and our other drinks. I told her to go first.

She tapped a finger to her chin and pooched out her lips thoughtfully.

She said, “Okay, let’s see… I have six toes on my left foot.”

I chuckled and glanced down. She was wearing knee-high boots. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” she said, looking hurt. “Don’t make fun of girls with six toes.”

I blinked at her. “What? No, I was just… hang on…” I smiled. “I’m calling bullshit.”

She giggled and picked up her first shot. “You got me, Brad the banker.” She shot back the bitter tequila and sighed. “Okay, your turn.”

I looked deeply into her eyes as if I was thinking up some dark secret. What she didn’t know was that I made my living sorting the bullshit from the truth. I was very good at it. I could also dispense bullshit with the best of them when I wanted to.

But I didn’t have time for games.

I wanted to get this girl in the sack, not play fraternity games with her at a dive bar.

I picked up my first tequila shot and said, “My name’s not really Brad.”

She rolled her eyes and huffed. “No shit. Truth. Drink up, Brad.”

The game ended quickly because we wanted it to.

Five minutes later, the shot glasses were drained, and we were both drunk.

“So, what next?” I asked, wiping my mouth on a napkin. “More party games or can we just cut the shit and get the fuck out of here?”

She took a long sip of wine, eyeing me over the glass, then set the glass on the bar and grabbed my tie, which probably cost more than her entire outfit. She pulled my head down to growl in my ear.

“If you hope to fuck me before the night is over, Brad the banker, you’re gonna have to get a lot more interesting or get me a whole lot drunker.”

I smiled. Bingo. “I think I can do both,” I said.

She cocked an eyebrow and pursed her lips.

“And you’re gonna have to dance with me. Do you dance, Brad the banker? Or do you just like to stand around and watch other people having fun?”

I pulled back with a devious smile on my face, glad she had broken the ice.

Broken the ice?

Hell, she had pulverized that shit like a Waring blender.

I shot back the bourbon and wiped my mouth on the back of my hand, then gestured toward the crowded dance floor.

“Alright then, Molly the paralegal. Let’s get this fucking party started!”

Chapter 2: Katie O’Hara

I don’t know why I gave him a fake name. I don’t know what made me decide to act as slutty as I did. And I really don’t know what possessed me to grab onto his tie and say what I did. I mean, anyone who knew me would have been shocked. I know I was. And so was Monique, my coworker and roommate, who pulled her tongue out of her old boyfriend’s ear long enough to witness the whole thing. Even though she had been rubbing Andy’s cock through his pants under the bar, she couldn’t believe the way “little old innocent Katie O’Hara” was acting.

“I’m the one who usually gets down and dirty with a guy,” she said later. “Girl, I don’t know what you were thinking!”

I’d like to just chock it up to being drunk and horny on New Year’s Eve, but I don’t think that was it, not entirely. Or maybe it was just that I’d had a really tough year at work and dealing with personal crap, that the thought of just letting myself go on New Year’s Eve was too much to resist.

Honestly, I just think that it was one of those rare occasions when you meet a guy and sparks just fly like the Fourth of July! I had no other sound reason for it because it was totally and completely out of character for me.

I simply found this guy (Brad the banker… yeah, right) that I had only known for five minutes to be sexy as hell. There was something about him that made every nerve in my body stand on end, like he was emitting an electrical charge or something. My nipples got hard inside my bra. I started feeling a moist heat between my legs. And there was this attraction, this immediate attraction, that I didn’t understand and still can’t explain to this day. The moment our eyes met I knew I would end up doing things with him I’d only dreamt of doing before that night.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m no slut, but I’m certainly no prude. I’d had my share of sex— some of it great, most of it not— but that was the first and only one-night stand of my life. I’m a good Irish Catholic girl from a big Boston family. My mom died when I was young, but I have six older brothers—three cops, three firemen—and a dad who owned an Irish pub called “O’Hara’s” in Southey who would kill any boy who looked at his little girl with lust in their eyes.

I didn’t lose my virginity until I was nearly twenty-years-old and a sophomore at Harvard, where I’d won a scholarship to major in law. I was the smart girl in high school, perfect SAT scores, belonged to all the scholastic clubs, and all I ever wanted to be was a lawyer. Don’t ask me why. There were no lawyers in my family and my cop brothers detested most people in the profession. I think it was watching that old LA Law show on reruns with my dad when I was younger. The law just looked so glamorous. You could make a ton of dough, wear fancy clothes, and hobnob with the rich and famous who were always doing something that required legal representation. I had no idea at the time that it would be such a grind just getting a law degree, then finding a firm that would hire me right out of school and pay me enough to even live on.

I was luckier than most. My grades were top notch. I graduated at the top of my class, and I seemed to have a knack for contract law. I applied for an associate position with Yates Hamilton & Booz, a prestigious Wall Street law firm after graduation. I had the luck of the Irish, my dad would say. I was hired and moved to New York City a week after graduation. Now, after six years of grinding it out sixteen-hours a day and having no personal life, I was on the fast track to making junior partner before I was thirty years old.

So, it had been a tough, ass-kicking sort of year. I had done nothing but work. I had not had a single date. I hadn’t been laid since I didn’t know when. So, when Monique asked if I wanted to go to O’Grady’s for New Year’s Eve, I said why not! I could use a little party time, blow off some steam, get shitfaced drunk, and wake up on the floor in a puddle of my own puke like the good old days of my freshman year.

I did not count on meeting a man that made my juices flow like ice melting down a mountain side. But when he walked in and our eyes met, I knew it was going to be a very interesting night.

I deserved to have a little fun.

And Brad the banker looked just like the kind of guy to have a little fun with.

Chapter 3: Conner/Brad

Molly the paralegal dragged me onto the crowded dancefloor by my expensive tie. I won’t lie, I’m not much of a dancer, but the warmth of the bourbon flowing through my veins, and the pounding rhythm of the music, and the prospect of putting my hands on her ripe body quickly overrode any hesitation I might have been feeling. Besides, nobody would know me here. I never came to this part of town. Ever!

Molly pushed her way through the crowd like a three-hundred-pound linebacker going after a quarterback, stopping only when we were at the center of the dancefloor, which I quickly realized was not a dancefloor at all, but a space the patrons had cleared of tables and chairs to give them room to get down and get funky.

Molly spun around toward me and draped her hands over my shoulders and started moving to the music, her hips swaying back and forth, her green eyes locked onto mine, a devious smile on her lips. All thoughts of making it to Reed’s swanky New Year’s Eve party disappeared from my mind like dust in the wind. I could only focus on Molly. That beautiful face. Those green eyes. Those luscious lips. And her words that kept echoing in my ears.

“If you hope to fuck me before the night is over, Brad the banker, you’re gonna have to get a lot more interesting or get me a whole lot drunker. And you’re gonna have to dance with me. Do you dance, Brad the banker? Or do you just like to stand around asking dumb questions?”

Brad the banker was one lucky son of a bitch. And he would gladly dance till the cows came home if that’s what it took to get between sweet Molly’s long legs.

I put my hands on her hips and we did this kind of sexy, fast, slow, side to side kind of thing. She laughed and threw her head back. “Damn, Brad the banker, you got moves! I have to admit, I was worried that you were all looks and no swag.”

I grinned and kept doing whatever I was doing because it was passing as being able to dance. “Oh, I got your swag right here.”

“I’ll bet you do,” she said, lacing her fingers behind my neck. “You almost look like you’re dancing!”

“Dammit, I thought I had you fooled!” I gave her a goofy look just as the song ended and another began. I was hoping that one dance would do the trick. No such luck. Molly started moving again. So freakin’ sexy… The song was some hard driving, obnoxious, loud number I’d never heard. I did not listen to dance music or EDM or whatever the fuck they called it now. I was more of a classical kind of guy, with the occasional dose of classic rock and even a little new country. But this music ground into my ear drums like a drill on high. Molly, on the other hand, let go of my neck and threw her hands in the air and squealed.

“Oh, I love this song!” She tossed her head from side to side and wiggled her hips. “It’s Bruno Mars!”

“Bruno who?”

“Bruno Mars!’ she said, tugging on my hands. “Jesus, Brad the banker, do you live in a cave?”

“Well, not exactly, but—”

“Then come on, shake that cute ass of yours!”

“You think I have a cute ass?”

She didn’t answer. She just left me standing with my mouth hanging open. She twirled a few times, waved her hands in the air, and started singing along. I had to admit, the song wasn’t half bad. It was catchy. I quickly found myself dancing close behind her like several of the other couples were doing. It almost looked like they were screwing with their clothes on. Maybe this was what they called “dirty dancing” these days. I put my hands on her hips. She stuck her ass out and giggled at me from over her shoulder. I pulled her back into me so she could feel the growing bulge in my pants pressed against her tight ass.

“Wow, Brad the banker,” she said, leaning her head back against my shoulder, bringing her hands back around my waist to pull me even closer into her. My cock plumped in my suit like a ballpark frank. “Is that a big noise maker in your pants or are you just happy to see me?”

I put my lips to her ear and ground into her. “Why don’t we go to my place and you can find out. Or your place if it’s closer.”

She twirled around and put her hands to my cheeks, then pulled my face to hers. She gave me a sloppy, drunken kiss and rubbed her nose to mine. “Later, Brad the banker. Let’s ring in the New Year here, then we’ll have our own little party at my place. It’s just around the corner. Fair enough?”

“Fair enough,” I said, jerking her toward me, kissing her again. “But midnight better get here soon, Molly the paralegal. I’m not sure how long I can hold out with you doing that.”

She put her hands around me and clutched my ass in her fingers. She ground her crotch to mine and growled in my ear. “Come on, Brad the banker. Show me what you got.”

Chapter 4: Katie/Molly

It was starting to feel like I really was a wild girl named Molly the paralegal, out at a bar on New Year’s Eve, partying, drinking, dancing my ass off, and trying to get laid by the hottest guy in town.

There I was, in public no less, coming onto a gorgeous hunk of a guy who already had a very sizable hard-on just from dancing with me. God only knew what he'd do when he got me naked. I could barely wait to find out.

When he put his hands on my hips and pulled my ass back into his crotch, I nearly screamed and knocked his block off. But then, Molly kicked in and I found myself reaching back to grab his ass. I pulled him into me. I could feel his cock hard in his pants, pressing against my ass, making my juices flow.

He didn’t beat around the bush. He immediately asked me to leave with him and I almost jumped at his offer, but Molly wasn’t finished having fun. Midnight was still a few minutes away. There was more booze to drink and more dancing to do. And more flirting and fondling. I had already kissed him once and he had kissed me back. I liked the feel and taste of his lips on mine. I wanted to feel and taste other things.

The Bruno Mars song ended, and a slow number came on. I was sweating like crazy in the red sweater. When I had gotten dressed earlier in the evening, I had not anticipated dancing my ass off in a hot club. I could feel the sweat pooling between my breasts, sluicing down my spine to the top of my ass. I needed a drink and a napkin—several napkins, in fact—but Brad the banker had other ideas. Before I could walk off the dance floor, he took my hand and pulled me close.

“Uh uh, not so fast,” he said, pulling me into his arms. My hands went around his neck and he put his hands on my waist, then slid them around to the top of my ass to pull me in close to him.

“I need a drink,” I said playfully, our noses touching. His eyes were deep brown, like two dark pools. I could see myself reflected in them. “And a visit to the ladies’ room. I’m melting in this sweater.”

“That sweater will be off soon enough,” he said, putting his cheek to mine and moving us slowly around the floor. “But first, you have to slow dance with me.”

“Okay…” I sighed in his ear. There was no way I could refuse. It felt so good being in his arms. He was wearing an expensive suit and smelled heavenly. I could feel the lean muscles in his shoulders, his chest pressing to mine. And his cock, harder now, was pushing into my leg. I shifted to the side a little, so it could rub against my cunt as we moved around the floor.

“I like the way you dance,” I said, my lips at his ear. “And you smell amazing. What is that?”

“Aramis,” he said, pressing his nose to my hair. “You smell nice, too. Is that lavender?”

“It is,” I said, pulling my head back so I could look him in the eyes.

He pushed his eyebrows up. “What?”

“Are you married, Brad the banker?” I asked.

He smiled. “Would it matter?”

I tried not to look too disappointed. “I’m afraid so. I don’t do married men.”

“What kind of men do you do?” he asked, smirking.

I gave him a scolding look. “The unmarried kind.”

He shook his head. “That’s good to know. I’ve never been married.”

“Swear?”

He held up three fingers. “Scouts honor.”

I had already checked his left hand for a ring. He wore a large garnet on the finger, but no wedding band. “Okay,” I said, starting to stroke the back of his neck with my nails. “How about a fiancé?”

“Nope, never been engaged,” he said. “Never even close.”

“Not even close?” I asked, giving him a sideways smile. “How can someone who looks and smells and dances like you not have women lined up around the block to sleep with them.”

“I never said I didn’t have women lined up around the block,” he said. I couldn’t tell by his expression if he was joking or not. I was too drunk to notice the little red flag waving in my brain. “I just said I’d never been engaged.”

“Ah, so you do have women lined up around the block.”

He slid his hands down over my ass and lifted me up to my tiptoes. “Other women may be lined up around the block, but I’m here with you.”

I bit my lip and gave him a drunken, horny stare. “Is that supposed to make me feel special?”

Before he could answer, the crowd started the countdown to midnight. Brad the banker and I held hands and chanted right along with them.

“Ten… nine… eight… seven… six… five… four… three… two… one… Happy New Year!”

The crowd erupted in cheers and hollers. The bar filled with the sights and sounds of New Year’s: noisemakers, horns, streamers, balloons, and kissing. Lots and lots of kissing. I turned back to Brad and put my hands to his cheeks. “Happy New Year, Brad the banker.”

“Happy New Year, Molly the paralegal.”

I pulled his face down to mine and gave him a deep, wet, hot, sloppy kiss. I wrapped my arms around his neck and put my lips to his ear and sighed.

“Okay, whatever your name really is, let’s get the fuck out of here.”

Chapter 5: Conner/Brad

Molly and I went over to say a quick goodbye to Andy and Monique, who looked at us as if we had two heads. Andy wasn’t shocked at all that I had been there less than an hour and was leaving with the most beautiful girl in the place. Monique, on the other hand, gave me a hard, suspicious look, like I was forcing her friend to leave against her will. While Monique was doublechecking with Molly to make sure things were cool, I gave the waitress another hundred-dollar bill and asked her to bring my coat. While the girls chatted, I pulled Andy aside.

“Hey, what do you know about this girl?” I asked.

He narrowed his eyes at me. He was shitfaced. “What girl?”

“The girl I’m about to leave with,” I said. “Monique’s friend.”

“Uh…” He turned to look at the girls for a moment as if he didn’t have a clue who I was talking about, then turned back to me and shrugged. “She works with Monique at some law firm downtown, I think. Can’t remember the name of the firm. Why? What difference does it make? I mean, did you see those tits?” He cupped his chest with his hands and wiggled his fingers. “Freakin’ unbelievable.”

I rolled my eyes at him and leaned in to lower my voice. “If Monique asks, my name is Brad Smith, and I’m a banker with a small firm downtown. Understand?”

Andy gave me a drunken smile and punched me in the arm. “You haven’t changed a bit, you old pussy hound. Always playing games.”

“I’m a pussy hound?” I asked playfully, nodding at Monique, who was giving Molly a wide-eyed look like she couldn’t believe she was leaving with a total stranger. “I’d just rather not deal with the fallout if she knew who I really was. I have a certain reputation to protect. You understand.”

“Oh, trust me, old pal, I understand.” He put a hand on my shoulder and gave it a shake. “Can’t have Wall Street thinking its golden boy is out slumming with the common folk. Those Victoria’s Secret super models wouldn’t like it if they found out you dipped your gold-plated cock in a little low-class pussy.”

“That’s not it,” I said with a frown. “Jesus, Andy, I forget what an asshole you can be.”

“I’m just fucking with you… Brad was it?”

“Brad Smith. Banker. Small firm downtown.”

“Got it, Brad Banks from downtown Smith,” he said as the girls stepped up to join us. He patted me on the shoulder again and lied badly on purpose. “Great seeing you again, Brad, you old banker from Smith, you.”

I exchanged a quick glance with Molly, who was smiling back at me. She knew Brad Smith wasn’t my real name, and I knew she wasn’t really Molly the paralegal. It was a fun game to play for two people who had no intention of seeing each other past sunrise. I had my reasons for playing the game and so did she. As long as we both woke up and walked away happy, where was the harm?

“Okay, Brad the banker, let’s go,” Molly said after giving Monique a final hug and giving Andy a pat on the arm in an obvious move to avoid giving him a hug. Andy was a leech and Molly seemed to know it.

My guess was that if I hadn’t shown up he would have tried to get them both back to his hotel room for a little three-way fun. Andy was a good-looking guy, but I doubted Molly would have taken him up on his offer. Even though she was leaving with me, a total stranger, for a one-night stand, she just didn’t impress me as the type who did this sort of thing too often. And quite honestly, Andy’s personality was often the best contraceptive.

I put on my coat and helped with hers, then took her hand and led her through the crowded bar toward the door.

“I have a car,” I said after we finally managed to push our way onto the sidewalk. I started searching my pockets for my cellphone. “Just let me call the driver.”

“You have a car and driver?” she asked, a snarky look on her face. She wrapped her hands around my arm and gave me a tug. “Come on, Brad, I live two blocks away. We can be naked in a hot shower by the time your car gets here.”

I shoved the phone in my pocket and l gave her a smile.

“I like the way you think.”

“Just wait till you see how I do other things,” she said, teasing me with her eyes. “Not come on, I’m freezing my ass off out here.”

* * *

Molly lived in a sixth-floor walk-up four blocks—not two—from the bar. It was freezing outside, and our teeth chattered along the way. We buttoned our coats and wrapped scarves around our necks and huddled together as we hurried down the sidewalk toward her place. She was more drunk than me. She giggled the whole way, like a giddy school girl sneaking off to do something she shouldn’t be doing, something naughty… really, really naughty.

I briefly thought about what Andy had said. I wasn’t worried in the least about what my associates in my firm on Wall Street would say if they knew what I was doing. Most of them were men who screwed whoever they could, whenever they could, I couldn’t imagine them passing much judgment on me for having a one-nighter with a paralegal. Many of them used high-end escort services because the escorts were more trustworthy than women they’d meet in bars or at fancy parties. Normal women liked to talk about the rich men they fucked. Escorts were paid not to.

We were all filthy rich and powerful, and there wasn’t a monogamous one in the bunch, even among the older married partners. Hell, they were the worst. Talk about pussy hounds. The richest men always are. Money and power are better than a bottle of Viagra. If having them doesn’t make a man’s dick hard they’re in the wrong profession.

We finally got to Molly’s building, an old brownstone on a quiet side street. There was no doorman, of course, so Molly used her key to let us inside a small lobby that contained a bank of mail slots on the wall and one door to the stairs.

“There’s no elevator?” I asked, huffing out cold breath. It wasn’t much warmer in the lobby than it was outside. Damn, what had I gotten myself into? I hoped that her apartment had heat to keep us warm until our bodies started generating a fire of their own.

“There is no elevator,” she said, tugging open the stairwell door and hitching her head to the side. “Come on, Brad the banker. A few stairs gonna wear you out?”

“Uh, no, I run marathons,” I said smugly. “What floor do you live on?”

“Sixth,” she said with a smirk. “You can come up or we can just have a quickie right here on the stairs. Up to you. I do have to warn you, screwing on these stairs will get your expensive coat dirty, so…”

I couldn’t tell if she was joking or not until she smiled and held out a gloved hand. I joined her at the door and took her in my arms and kissed her again. She kissed me back hard, shoving her hot tongue in my mouth and pressing her body into mine.

“Now, unless you are too old and out of shape to climb stairs…”

I grinned and took her hand. “You just try to keep up.”

We bolted up the first couple of flights, then the alcohol kicked in and we both slowed down. I wasn’t kidding. I did run marathons, but climbing six flights of stairs in the middle of winter when you’re freezing and drunk was proving to be a chore.

“You okay?” she asked with a smile.

“Yes, just a little drunk,” I said, trying to breathe.

Molly grinned at me and unbuttoned her coat.

“What are you doing?” I asked, my eyebrows arching.

“Giving you a little incentive,” she said with a devious grin.

She opened her coat and lifted the bottom of her sweater to show me her beautiful tits. She was wearing a sheer, black lacy bra that was doing its best to hold the large milky melons. The bra snapped in the front. She tweaked the snap with two fingers and her glorious boobs popped free.

Her tits were round and white, with large areolas and pink nipples the size of my little finger tip.

“Just a few more stairs, Brad the banker, and these can be all yours.”

Chapter 6: Katie/Molly

I know, what kind of good Irish Catholic girl flashes her tits at a total stranger in a freezing cold stairwell? This kind, I guess. It was a fun, silly thing to do. The truth was, I was so drunk and horny by that time that I would have had sex right there on the stairs if that was my only option. Funny, he was in great shape and kept talking about running marathons, but Brad quickly discovered there was a big different in running long distances on level ground and climbing six flights of stairs when you’re drunk.

So, I decided he needed a little incentive.

Actually, Molly decided.

She was a fun girl with great tits. What better way to motivate Brad to get his ass up the stairs. So, I opened my coat, pulled up my sweater, unhooked my bra, and set the big girls free.

The look on his face was priceless.

His mouth hung open and his eyes went as wide as saucers.

“Just a few more stairs, Brad the banker, and these can be all yours.”

“What is your apartment number?” he asked, grinning.

“6-D, last apartment on the right.”

“As in double D,” he said, licking his lips. “Well, Molly the paralegal, try to keep up!’

Brad bolted up the stairs, leaving me standing there with my tits hanging out and nipples rock hard from the cold. I pulled down my sweater without worrying about the bra. With any luck, it would be on the floor in my apartment within the next two minutes anyway.

Brad ran like a man possessed. He made it to the sixth floor well ahead of me. When I pushed through the stairwell door and fell into the hallway, laughing and panting like a whipped dog, he was already standing next to my door. He was leaning against the door with his arms crossed over his chest and a smug smile on his face.

“What took you so long?” he asked as I shuffled toward him. I pulled my purse off my arm and dug through it to find my keys.

“You don’t play fair,” I said, shoving my key into the lock. “What kind of gentleman leaves a lady standing in a freezing stairwell with her boobs hanging out?”

His smile made me melt. “The kind of gentleman that will make up for it as soon as this door is unlocked.”

I turned the key and pushed open the door. I put a finger under his chin and stood on my tiptoes to bite his chin.

“Come on in, Brad the banker,” I said, taking his tie in my fist again to pull him inside. “Come show Miss Molly what you’ve got.”

Chapter 7: Conner/Brad

Molly pulled me inside her apartment and kicked the door closed with her foot. It was dark inside the apartment. We were in a small foyer with coats hanging on one wall and a couple of pair of snow boots on the floor. The place was toasty warm, thank God. The air smelled of perfume and fresh-baked cookies, which was a bit of an odd combination that I didn’t really give much thought to at the time. Girls wore perfume and baked cookies. I would have felt differently if the place smelled like Old Spice and a boyfriend’s sweaty gym socks.

She was immediately on top of me, the aggressor, pushing my overcoat off my shoulders and ripping the scarf from my neck. She grabbed my lapels like a bouncer and pushed me against the wall. She pressed her lips so hard to mine that it caught me off guard for a second.

I was used to being the alpha male, the one in charge, the one telling the girl what to do. Obviously, Molly liked setting the pace. She was an alpha girl. And that was fine with me. I was just happy to be there. This was going to be a hell of a lot more fun than Reed’s stuffy old party. Yes, I probably would have picked up some socialite or groupie and took them back to my penthouse for a night of fun, but I had a feeling that a night with Molly the paralegal was going to be way more fun.

She pressed her body to mine. She was strong for a girl. I could feel her big tits mashing against my chest. My cock was full-on hard as rock now, pushing against my slacks like an anaconda trying to force its way out of a burlap sack. Molly moaned and pressed her cunt to me. I could feel the heat coming from between her legs.

“God, I want you,” Molly said, breathing in my ear. She started tugging at my belt, anxious to get my pants down. I raised my hands in surrender and let her have her way. She quickly got my pants and boxers down to my ankles. When my ten-inch cock sprang free in all its crimson-tipped glory, she gave me one last kiss and dropped to her knees in front of me.

“My goodness, Brad the banker,” she sighed as she wrapped her fingers around my cock and gave it a squeeze. “What a big cock you have.”

“The better to… oh… shit…” She held my cock steady with her hand and brought her lips to the head. She swirled her tongue around the tip, teasing the slit and the sensitive underside. Her hand moved back and forth over the shaft as she sucked on the head. I suddenly found myself unable to speak coherently, so I just shut up and enjoyed the ride.

Flames shot through my body as she sucked my cock, taking it deep into her mouth and out again. My toes curled in my Italian leather shoes. She brought her free hand up to my balls and started tweaking the sack as she milked the shaft. Two hands, one mouth, one happy guy. Man, I don’t know where this girl learned to suck cock, but she was amazing at it. It was all I could do to keep from exploding in her mouth right there in the little foyer.

I leaned back against the wall and closed my eyes, forcing myself to breathe slowly in and out. I could control my orgasm pretty well, but I knew if Molly kept doing what she was doing, deepthroating my cock and playing with my balls, I was going to lose control before ever seeing her naked. And that would have been a waste of a completely good orgasm.

“I want you,” I said, reaching down for her. “I want to fuck you. Now.”

Molly pulled her lips from my cock with the smack of her lips. She looked up at me with a smile. Licking her lips, she said, “I want to fuck you, too. Help me up and I’ll show you my room.”

I took her hands and lifted her up. She immediately wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me again, salty, hot and wet, her tongue swirling around my lips.

She backed away and crooked her fingers at me. “Well, don’t just stand there with your pants around your ankles and your cock sticking out, Brad the banker. Come on, big boy. Fuck me now!”

Chapter 8: Katie/Molly

The last time I dropped to my knees to give a guy a blowjob like that was seven or eight years ago, the summer before my last year of law school. The guy’s name was Martin Dean. Professor Martin Dean, to be exact, my contract law professor at Harvard.

I know what you’re thinking: aren’t all contract law professors frumpy old men who wear bow ties and wool jackets with leather patches on the elbows? You’d be partially right. Most law professors are frumpy old men, but Professor Martin Dean was just forty-five, with jet black hair, a swimmer’s body, and a neatly-trimmed beard.

And blue eyes that could make me melt in my panties. He did wear a wool jacket with leather elbow patches, but on him it looked like something out of a Calvin Klein ad.

We bumped into each other at a campus fundraiser for Legal Aid. We started chatting and after the event, went to a local bar with mutual friends for drinks. He drank several scotch and waters, and I downed half a dozen glasses of wine.

We got drunk.

Then we got handsy.

Things progressed quickly from there. He put his hand on my thigh under the table and slowly slid it under my skirt. I spread my legs and tried to pretend that nothing naughty was going on. He pushed my panties aside with his fingertips and fingered my clit until I came right there at the table. I put my hand on the bulge in his pants and ordered him to get me out of there.

Fifteen minutes later, we were at my place, him leaning back against the front door and me on my knees in front of him with his cock in my mouth. That seemed to be my thing. I barely gave either one of them time to get inside the door before attacking them and filling my mouth with their cocks.

Martin was average on the cock size scale, about six inches. Brad’s cock, however, was long and thick, girthy in my hand, veiny, with a bulbous head that blossomed in my mouth. I sucked him long and deep like my life depended on it.

Brad was breathing heavy within a few seconds. His body twitched as I sucked him deep in my throat. I knew I could have made him cum right there in my little foyer, but where was the fun in that. I wanted to feel the heat of him deep inside me. I’d never had a cock so big. Just the anticipation was nearly enough to make me bake a cream pie in my pants, as Monique would say.

When Brad reached down and told me he wanted to fuck me, I didn’t hesitate to comply. I let him pull me to my feet, gave him a hard kiss, and backed away, crooking my fingers at him playfully.

“Well, don’t just stand there with your pants around your ankles and your cock sticking out, Brad the banker,” I said with a grin. “Come on, big boy. Fuck me now!”

Brad stood there for a moment, his mouth hanging open and his cock bouncing in the air. He laughed and started shuffling toward me with his pants around his ankles like an old man. When he realized I wasn’t going to wait, he kicked off his shoes and socks, and peeled off the pants. By the time he appeared in my bedroom door, his jacket and shirt were gone. He was totally naked and ready to go.

Brad’s body was amazing; muscular, lean, deeply tanned, hairless. Even his pubes were trimmed super short, which made his cock look huge. I mean, it was huge, but the lack of hair made it look REALLY huge.

I ripped off my clothes and jumped backward onto the bed. The only light in my tiny bedroom was a lamp on the nightstand, but it was enough. I spread my legs to give him a good look at my neatly-trimmed red pubes. I think it’s sick, but guys always want to know if a girl with red hair also has red pubes. It’s my hair color, you fucking asshole, of course my pubes are red! I could tell Brad was curious, too, because when he saw my pubes he gave me a little smile.

“The carpet does match the drapes,” he said with a smile.

“Of course,” I said, cocking my eyebrows at him. “You like what you see, Brad the banker? Is red your favorite color?”

“It is now,” he said.

I used two fingers to show him how wet my pussy and clit were, hot pink and glistening with juices. When Brad saw me touching myself, he wrapped his fingers around his cock and sighed.

“That is beautiful,” he said, moving to the foot of the bed. I leaned up on my elbows to watch him masturbate, his cock swelling in his hand. He reached down with his free hand and dipped his fingers between my wet folds. He brought the fingers up to his lips and sucked them dry. “And you taste amazing.”

“So, did you,” I said, playfully licking my lips. “God, you’ve got me so hot.”

I was flowing like a hot river as I watched his hand moving up and down over his cock. I slid my fingers down over my clit and spread my pussy lips for him, revealing my throbbing hole.

“I want that inside me,” I said, breathing hard as little tingles of pleasure rippled from my pussy to my nips. “Now.”

“My pleasure,” he said, moving closer to the foot of the bed. He got onto his knees between my legs and guided the tip of his cock to my pussy hole. He swizzled it around for a moment, getting it nice and slick. Little shockwaves ebbed through me at his touch. He pushed against me and my pussy spread to accommodate his bulbous cock head. I suctioned tight around his shaft, but I was lubed up enough that he slid easily in.

“Oh… yes…” he sighed. “That’s the ticket…”

He braced his palms on the bed next to me and eased himself inside me. I wrapped my legs around his waist and closed my eyes as he slid slowly in until he could slide in no more. He rocked his hips back and forth slowly, setting a fire that swept through my body, making my nipples rock hard and my mouth bone dry.

“That is the ticket… oh… jeez… fuck me… Brad… slow… steady…”

Brad sighed as he moved in and out in a steady rhythm. He slid in until he hit my cervix, then slid out until just the head was inside me. He did it again. And again. And again. I felt the orgasm building from my head to my toes. My toes curled. I sucked in air between my clenched teeth.

“Fuck… you are so… fucking… tight…” Brad said.

“Faster now…” I said. “Fuck me faster… I’m… close…”

Brad sped up the pace, his hips moving faster, his cock ramming into me, jarring the entire bed, which creaked like a rusty door hinge. The headboard slammed against the wall. I expected the neighbors to bang on the wall, but didn’t care if they did. Brad was giving me the best fucking I’d had in a long time.

He was ending a very long dry spell.

Jeez, I loved to fuck.

I really needed to do this more often.

“God… faster…” I moaned, digging my heels into his ass to prod him on. “I’m going to… fuck… going to… cum… Brad… faster… harder… faster…”

Brad grunted like a wild animal and started banging into me harder and harder.

I put my hands on his arms and dug in with my nails.

He moaned in pain, but didn’t stop.

He was like the Energizer Bunny: he just kept going and going and going.

And I started cumming and cumming and cumming.

Chapter 9: Conner/Brad

I couldn’t hold back the orgasm any longer. I thrust hard into Mollie as the orgasm erupted from my tight balls, filling her with my hot sticky seed. “I’m cumming… oh… shit… fuck... I’m… cumming…”

I jackhammered into her until she started moaning, then groaning, then screaming my name.

“Brad… fuck me… Brad… shit… I’m cumming… I’m … cummmminnngggg…”

I thought for a moment that the bed was going to collapse from me bouncing up and down on top of Mollie and her thrashing up and down beneath me.

The headboard was beating the fuck out of the wall. A framed picture above the bed fell off the nail and crashed to the floor.

We ignored it.

We were too busy to think about anything other than finishing what we’d started.

After a moment, Mollie screamed one last time and I pushed out the last drop of cum that I could.

We were a wet, sticky, gooey mess, but neither one of us seemed to care.

I lowered myself to lie on top of her, and once I caught my breath, gave her a long, wet kiss.

“Happy New Year, Mollie the paralegal,” I said.

“Happy New Year to you, Brad the banker,” she sighed. “Thanks for coming to my party.”

* * *

A short time later, Mollie was curled into a ball beside me, snoring softly with her luscious ass pressed to my hip and her cold feet pressed to my leg.

We’d cuddled for a while. I know, women love that shit and she did feel wonderful in my arms. After a while she kissed my cheek, told me goodnight, and rolled over.

Within a couple of minutes, her breathing grew heavy and she went out like a light.

I thought about just closing my eyes to join her. I wasn’t as drunk as I had been a couple of hours earlier, and her small bed felt warm and cozy. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so relaxed.

Then I remembered that spending the night with a woman meant waking up with her.

Sure, there would probably be a nice round of hot morning sex, maybe more sex in the shower, but that would be followed by awkward small talk and the obligatory “getting to know you better” morning chit chat. Then the lie when I promised to call her.

As gorgeous and sexy as she was, my dance card was full.

I worked sixteen-hours a day and had more pussy than I could ever plow through. I’m talking primo pussy: models, actresses, socialites, and on and on.

And this girl did not impress me as the kind of girl who would settle for just being another of my fuck buddies.

I suddenly found myself wide awake, totally sober, staring at the ceiling, planning my escape.

 

Once I was sure she was sleeping, I got up quietly and gathered my clothes. I eased the bedroom door shut and got dressed in the living room so as not to wake her up.

I let myself out, made sure the door was locked behind me, and called my driver.

He was there by the time I stepped out into the freezing New Year’s night.

That was two months ago.

Though I’ve thought of her often, I never saw or spoke to Mollie the paralegal again.

Until tonight when she walked into the restaurant and sat down across from me with an angry look on her face.

Holy shit.

What was I supposed to do now?

Chapter 10: Conner

My best friend and boss, Reed Helstrom, breezed into my office like he owned the place, which, as a senior partner at the investment banking firm of Price Bean & Whitlock, technically he did. A small piece anyway.

I was sitting behind my oversized glass desk with my shoes off and feet up on the credenza, staring out the twenty-seventh floor window at the New York skyline across the way.

There wasn’t a cloud in the bright blue sky. It was another beautiful spring day in New York City. Too bad I couldn’t get outside to enjoy it. It was only four o’clock on the east coast, and I had conference calls with investors booked until at least half past seven, then a client dinner at eight.

By the time I was set free of my obligations the daylight would be a distant memory.

That was the downside of being me: I made millions of dollars every year, but had very little time to spend them; which was probably a good thing.

I was on a conference call on speakerphone, but had lost interest in anything they had to say nearly an hour ago. It was a venture capitalist firm in Silicon Valley, trying to convince Reed and I that PB&W should soak a few hundred million bucks into their latest and greatest find, some dating app for senior citizens called Gray Date.

Reed had been on the same call from his office. Obviously, he had gotten as bored as I had and decided to come into my office to hang out for the rest of the call. Or he had run out of liquor in his office and was looking for something to drink. It turned out to be a little of both.

He went immediately to the bar in one corner of my office and poured himself a tall scotch. He held up the crystal decanter to ask if I wanted one. I gave him a nod and held up two fingers.

He poured us both two shots of scotch and came over with a glass in each hand. He set my drink on the desk in front of me, made sure the mute button was pressed on the speaker phone, and plopped in the leather wingback chair on the other side of my desk.

“Remind me again why we’re even listening to this pitch,” he said, eyes rolling, head shaking. Reed was a good-looking guy in his early fifties, with short salt and pepper hair, a Kennedy jawline, bright blue eyes, perpetual tan. The women in the office loved him and he loved a few of them right back. So far without his wife, Gloria, finding out.

He took a sip of his drink and sighed. “Gray Date? Really? Do old people date?”

“The more important question is, do old people even know what an app is?” I asked, picking up my drink to take a sip. The scotch burned going down my throat. It made me all warm and tingly inside. “I know my folks wouldn’t have a clue.”

“No, the most important question is why should we give a shit about old people fucking?” he asked seriously. “Why should we give a shit about old people at all? Most old people are fucking broke and have one foot in the grave. If anything, we should invest in nursing homes or hospice care facilities, not dating apps.”

“You’re a cold son of a bitch, Reed Helstrom” I said with a smile. “You’ll be old someday. You’ll wish you had an app to help you get laid.”

“My money is the only app I need to get pussy,” he said. “Fuck old people. And fuck these guys if they think we’re going to invest one red cent in their hair-brained idea.”

“So, why are we wasting our time listening to their pitch?” I asked, a little confused. Reed was normally not a guy to waste a second of his time, which he claimed was more precious than money because he could get more money, but only had a finite amount of time. I always called bullshit on that one. Nothing was more important to Reed than cold, hard cash.

“We are listening to this pitch because that’s the old man’s great nephew speaking,” he said. He lifted his glass to me. “Try to pay attention because there will be a test afterward.”

The old man was Henry Wilson Price, the eighty-five-year old founder and senior partner of Price Bean & Whitlock, the Wall Street investment firm that paid Reed and I tens of millions of dollars every year to find and close deals that made the senior partners hundreds of millions of dollars. Gray Date was not going to be one of those deals, but the old man told us to listen, so that’s what we were going to do.

“So, guys, what do you think?” Price’s great nephew asked. I looked at Reed and held out my hand.

“You’re the senior partner,” I said. “You jack him off.”

Reed licked the scotch from his lips and tapped the mute button. “Very interesting concept guys. Why don’t you send over your financial and market test data and we’ll get with the powers that be here to talk it over next week.”

“Uh, okay, we can do that,” the great nephew said. I could tell by the tone of his voice that he expected a warmer reception than he was getting. “I was under the impression that we were already a go and this call was just a formality.”

Reed put his fist to his mouth and worked it back and forth, mimicking a blow job. He said, “You’re a go to send the financials and market data. We’d be happy to take a look at that and get back to you in a few weeks.”

We heard muffled voices on the other end of the line, then another voice came on the line. This one older and deeper, with an air of impatient condescension. “This is Oscar Patterson. I’m the senior partner here. Who are we speaking to again?”

“Senior partner Reed Helstrom,” Reed said with a sigh that was purposefully loud enough for the others to hear. “And Senior Vice President of Acquisitions Conner McGee.”

“Well, Helstrom, I was under the impression that this was a done deal,” Patterson said. “At least that’s what I was told before sitting through this long call.”

Reed gave me an evil smile. He ate cocksuckers like this for breakfast. He leaned his elbows on the desk and pulled the speaker phone closer. “Well, Patterson, old boy, there’s no such thing as a done deal when it comes to investing a hundred million dollars in unproven technology.”

“Unproven technology?” It was the great nephew’s voice again. “Dating apps generate hundreds of millions of dollars a year.”

“And there are a hundred million dating apps,” Reed said, just being a dick because it made him happy to do so.

“Yes, but there has never been an app for seniors,” the great nephew said. “We’d be breaking new ground with Gray Date. The upside is huge. People are living longer, having sex longer. This is an idea whose time has come.”

Reed shook his head. “Did your marketing people write that speech for you?”

“What? Well… no… but…”

“Look, guys, here’s my take on the idea,” Reed said seriously. “When it comes to old people, the only ground breaking happens at the graveyard.” He shot me a grin. He really was a heartless son of a bitch. I loved it. “I mean, come on, a dating app for old people? Really? Are there any old people in the room there? Patterson, how old are you?”

“I’m fifty-seven…”

“So not that old.”

“Well, no…”

“Okay, do any of you guys know any old people other than your parents?” Reed asked. “I assume you don’t want to think about your parents getting laid, so let’s not include them.”

“Well, I’m sure Uncle Henry would use this app,” the nephew said.

“Your Uncle Henry doesn’t even own a cell phone,” Reed said. “You’re creating technology for the one demographic who hates technology.”

“Well, I’m not sure that’s exactly true…”

“Have you guys done a focus group?” I asked, getting in on the fun.

“A focus group? I’m not sure I understand what use a focus group would do in this case.”

“Because you don’t think old folks can focus?” Reed shot back. He sighed again, louder this time, and shook his head. “You guys are digging your own graves on this one.”

Patterson spoke up. “I assumed we had done focus groups.” A moment of silence. “Have we not done focus groups?”

I smiled at Reed. The silence on the other end of the line was the sound of a job opening. Old man Price’s great nephew’s butt had to be puckering. I just hoped to God this didn’t backfire and the incompetent fuck end up back in my lap for mentoring.

“Let’s just cut to the chase guys,” Reed said. “You do not have a prayer in hell of getting funded by us or anyone until you have documentation that shows you got a few dozen senior men and women into a room to see if they would even be interested in using an app. More to the point, you need to find out if they even can learn to use one.”

“I agree,” Patterson said. “Gentleman, apparently we have wasted an hour of your time.”

“Actually, an hour and twelve minutes,” Reed said. “I’ll give your best to Mr. Price. Call us back when you have data to back up your assumptions.”

He clicked the button to end the call before they could respond. He walked to the bar and came back with the decanter of scotch and refilled both our glasses.

“That went well,” I said with a grin as I lifted my glass and tapped it to his. “The old man might not be happy, but we just saved the firm a few hundred million.”

“The old man won’t be a problem,” Reed said. “He knew his nephew was full of shit from the start. He also knew you and I wouldn’t have a problem calling bullshit on these guys.”

“We should have lined up shots,” I said, remembering the game I’d played with Mollie on New Year’s Eve.”

Reed frowned at me. “What?”

“Nothing. I’m just glad the old man isn’t going to have a problem with us turning them down,” I said. I glanced at my watch. I had another conference call already waiting for me on the line.

“Speaking of problems, we have a potential shit storm on our hands,” Reed said, smacking his lips. “The Benson acquisition seems to be running off the rails.”

I gave him a frown. “Benson? I thought that was a done deal. What’s the problem?”

“The problem is Allen Benson has called in an outside law firm to review our offer,” Reed said, referring to the CEO of Benson Digital, a small manufacturer of computer parts that PB&W was looking to acquire. We had no interest in the manufacturing end of the business, just the patents the company held on a new computer chip it had developed. Benson had no idea, but the plan was to buy the company, fire everyone, shut down the manufacturing plant, and sell off the patents to the highest bidder. PB&W stood to make a hundred million dollars or more. That was if the deal could be done before Benson realized what we had in mind.

“An outside law firm? I don’t understand. Didn’t Benson’s in-house counsel approve the deal?”

Reed sipped and nodded. “He did, but apparently Benson no longer trusts his own in-house counsel. Hence, the outside firm review.”

I laced my fingers together and rested my chin on my fist. “Do you think Benson found out that his lawyer is on our payroll?”

“Maybe,” Reed said with a shrug. “Or maybe he’s gotten wind of our plans somehow.”

“How could that be?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him. “The only people who know what we intend to do are you, me, and my team, all sworn to secrecy with signed confidentiality contracts.”

“Maybe somebody on your team has loose lips,” he said, shrugging with his eyes. “Money makes people talk.”

“Bullshit,” I said, angry that he would even made such an accusation. My team was hand-picked by me, everyone fully vetted and trustworthy. “Nobody on my team would talk. I’d crucify them on the stock exchange steps and they know it.”

“You sure about that?” Reed asked, his dark eyebrows arching over his blue eyes. “I know that you and I are solid, but these young players we have now, I’m not sure how much a nondisclosure agreement means.”

“It means that we can sue them into the fucking ground if they breathe a word,” I said angrily. I didn’t want to believe that anyone on my team would have let anything slip. Still, I made a note on my iPad to have a meeting to read the riot act to them.

“So, you and I have a meeting tonight with Benson and the lawyer he’s hired to look over the deal.”

“I already have dinner plans with a client,” I said.

“Would that client be a particular socialite with tits that rival the size of her bank account?” He gave me a smile because he knew he was right. “Let me guess, she wants your advice on which diamond nipple rings to buy?”

“Fuck you,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“Fuck me?” He grinned. “I wish she would, buddy boy. I wish she would.”

He was talking about Cassandra Leone, my on-again, off-again girlfriend for the last few years. Her father was a billionaire industrialist and she spent his money like it was going out of style.

She was blonde, beautiful, and busty, and could suck the chrome off a trailer hitch. Sex with Cass was like going three rounds with Hulk Hogan. She was the wildest fuck I’d ever had. Energetic. Passionate. Creative. Nothing held back. Not afraid to try anything.

I always came away battered and bruised, but grinning like a fool and wanting more. Years ago, I thought she was the girl I would someday marry. Now, we were more fuck buddies than a couple, mainly because Cass did not have the ability or desire to be faithful to any one man. She loved me, she said, but she loved a lot of other guys, as well.

So, now we got together every week or two and fucked each other’s brains out, no strings attached. We were going to have dinner tonight and screw like rabbits afterward. I supposed I’d just have to put her off a few hours to help Reed put out this Benson fire. Hopefully, she’d wait for me to come put out hers.

“Just tell her to keep her thong on until you get there. This is more important.” Reed finished his drink and set the glass on my desk. He glanced at his watch. “We’re meeting them at the Roxie at eight.”

“Shit,” I said, blowing out a long breath. “Any idea who this lawyer is that Benson is bringing?”

Reed got to his feet and stood adjusting his diamond cufflinks. “Supposedly some hotshot contracts guy from Yates Hamilton & Booz.”

“Fuck, I hate Yates Hamilton & Booz.”

“I do, too,” Reed said as he walked toward the door. “The bastards are too honest for their own good. See you at eight.”

Chapter 11: Katie

“Is there a particular reason you think Price Bean & Whitlock is not telling you everything?” I asked, looking up from my uncle’s long conference table where the contract detailing the offer to purchase his company was laid out for my review. I picked up the financials page and looked over the numbers again. “I mean, this is a great offer, Uncle Allen, at least on the surface.”

“That’s one reason I’m a little suspicious,” he said with a sigh that told me he was tired of thinking about the offer, which would have put more than a hundred-million-dollars in his pocket. He sat back in the chair across the wide mahogany table and arched his graying eyebrows at me. “I think this offer may be too good to be true.”

My uncle was Allen Benson, founder and CEO of Benson Digital, a successful manufacturer of computer parts and chips in upstate New York. Price Bean & Whitlock was the Wall Street investment bank that wanted to buy his company for three-hundred million dollars, an enormous sum that was twice what the company was worth on paper, but we both knew investment firms often overpaid to block someone else from making a bid.

“I wouldn’t say the offer is too good to be true, Uncle Allen,” I said. “I would say they’re paying you a premium, probably so you don’t entertain any other offers.”

“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not. That’s why I wanted you to look over the contract. You’re the sharpest contracts lawyer I know, Katie. I trust your judgment.”

Allen Benson was my mom’s older brother. He was the smart one of a family of idiots and derelicts, leaving South Boston when he was just eighteen to attend MIT on a full scholarship.

He had started his company right out of college and spent thirty-years building it into one of the top computer parts manufacturers in the country. Then he started designing and manufacturing custom computer chips for work stations and file servers, then released his own line of computer chips for the mass market. That’s when his business boomed.

You couldn’t tell it by looking at him because he wore jeans and a black polo shirt to work every day, but he was one of the richest men the country had. He was also fiercely loyal to his family, friends, partners, and employees. He had helped put me through law school and refused repayment. I would be forever in his debt.

“Well, the contract is pretty detailed, but there is nothing out of the ordinary jumping out at me,” I said, shuffling the papers. “It’s a standard purchase in entirety.”

“Purchase in entirety? What the hell does that mean?”

“That means they are buying the whole shebang: physical assets, intellectual property, real estate, customer lists, fixtures and furniture, equipment, employment contracts, debt, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Everything that is owned by Benson Digital is being acquired by them if you accept this deal.”

He gave me a thoughtful nod and scratched his chin. “So, no red flags? No ‘oh shits’ or ‘gotchas’?”

“None that I can see,” I said. “The only thing that might be of concern is what happens after the fact that’s not covered by this agreement.”

“Meaning?”

I smiled and gave him a look. Uncle Allen was exponentially smarter than I was, and probably knew more about contract law. I sometimes thought he asked me for further explanations just to see how smart I was.

I said, “Meaning, what do they plan to do with the company once they’re in control? What changes might they make? Have you had that conversation with them?”

His eyebrows knitted in the middle. “They’re not going to be in control after the acquisition,” he said. “Part of this deal is that I would remain as CEO after the acquisition for a period of three years, minimum. I will still be the one making the major decisions and controlling the board.”

“You may still be CEO and running things,” I said, scanning the clause in the document that detailed his employment contract after the fact. “However, you will still be at the mercy of the board of directors. At the end of the day, you still work for them.”

“The board will support me,” he said confidently. “They always have.” I made a sour face that he picked up on. “What’s with that face? You look your mother when you do that with your nose.”

“Boards come and go, Uncle Allen,” I said, rubbing the tip of my nose with a knuckle. I loved hearing that I reminded him of my mom. “And boards change.” I held up the page I had been scanning. “According to this, Price Bean & Whitlock has the right to add three new board seats and appoint members to fill those seats. That would give them control of a third of the board’s votes. And given their reputation, it would not be beneath them to buy the votes of the others.”

He narrowed his blue eyes at me and lowered his voice to an angry growl. “You think Price Bean & Whitlock would try to bribe board members behind my back to vote me out?”

“Not necessarily. I’m just saying that after the dust settles, even with a three-year employment contract, you’re only going to be in charge as long as they allow you to be.” I gathered up the pages into a neat stack. It bothered me that I was causing my favorite uncle such heartburn.

“Shit,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

“Look, Uncle Allen, on the surface it looks like a great deal for you and the shareholders. At the end of the day, you will personally profit over a hundred-million-dollars. That’s an enormous amount of money. Why are you letting this bug you so? Why not retire and enjoy it?”

“I’m too young to retire, Katie,” he said with a smile that I thought looked tired despite his best efforts to prove otherwise. “I have a lot of years left in these old bones. I’m only fifty-nine, you know. I’m not one to sit on a beach and sip fruity drinks or chase a little ball around a golf course. If I tried to retire I’d drive myself and everyone around me nuts. Besides, it’s not about the money. I already have plenty of money.”

“Then, why not take the proceeds from the sale, and do something humanitarian with them? Invest in small businesses. Start a business incubator. Fund school programs or scholarships? Give it away?”

“Yeah, I suppose I could just cash out and walk away,” he said, rubbing the bridge of his nose as if a headache was coming on. “That’s not what I’m worried about.”

“Okay, then just spell it out for me, Uncle Allen. Obviously, there’s something here that I’m missing. What are you worried about?”

He took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “Benson Digital employs three thousand people. Those people have families who rely on their weekly paychecks. I just want to make sure that those jobs do not go away.”

“So, you’re worried that Price Bean & Whitlock may want to move manufacturing out of the country?” I asked. “To China or Mexico, maybe?”

He gave me a slow nod. “Yes, that is a concern.”

“And what did your in-house counsel say?” I asked. I looked around the conference room as if I’d just noticed we were alone. “I assume he negotiated this contract. In fact, why isn’t he here?”

“Jeff has been pushing this deal hard,” he said, referring to Jeff Chase, his in-house attorney and oldest friend. “A little too hard for my taste. That’s why you’re here to offer a second set of eyes.”

“What exactly does that mean?” I asked. “He’s been pushing the deal hard?”

“He’s a shareholder, and the shareholders want to sell,” Uncle Allen said with a shrug. “And I don’t blame them. Especially Jeff. He’s been with me since day one and worked for peanuts a lot of those years. He owns a lot of stock. He’ll profit handsomely if we sell.”

There was a red flag if I’d ever seen one. I leaned in and looked him in the eye. “Do you think he is letting his own potential for profit influence his fiduciary duties? I mean, if he is offering you legal advice based on his own best interest, that is so unethical that he could be disbarred.”

“No, no, no,” he said, hands patting the air. “Jeff would never let personal greed sway his loyalty to me, or his professional duties as my in-house counsel.”

“Then why am I here?”

“You’re here because you’re the best contracts attorney I know, and I trust you implicitly. Anyway, back to your original question about outsourcing, Jeff said that even if we added a clause prohibiting Price from moving those manufacturing jobs out of the states after the acquisition, their lawyers could get such a ban squashed after the fact if they could prove the company would benefit by moving things off shore.”

“So why bother adding the clause?”

“Exactly.”

I studied his face for a moment. It pained me to see him so worried. “Have you had this conversation with Price? Who is your point of contact there?”

“Reed Helstrom, the senior partner who I’ve known for years, and the young guy in charge of acquisitions, hot shot investment banker named Conner McGee. He’s probably your age or a little older. Ever heard of him?”

“No, but if he’s in charge of acquisitions at Price Bean & Whitlock before age fifty he must be a shark.”

“Oh, he’s a shark, all right,” Uncle Allen said. “You’ll get to meet them both tonight at dinner.”

“So, when you talked to Helstrom and McGee about your concerns, what did they say?”

“Reed assures me that nothing is going to change. Things will continue exactly as they have been, with me in charge and manufacturing staying here.”

“And you believe them?”

“I have no reason not to, not really.”

“And that’s the only concern you have?” I asked. “That they will shut down the plant and outsource the jobs?”

He thought about it for a moment, then began to nod. “I don’t trust the bastards, but yes, that’s my only fear. Price Bean & Whitlock has a reputation of buying businesses and parting them out to sell off the weaker pieces, but BD is strong across the board. There would be one reason I can think of to sell off the pieces when the whole pie is worth ten times more.”

“Then it sounds like a great deal, dear uncle” I said with a smile, picking up the contract and tapping it on the table. “And I’ll be expecting a very expensive Christmas gift this year. Just tell me what you need me to do.”

“I need you to sit down with these bastards and go over this contract line by line before I present it to the board for signatures,” he said, leaning in to tap a stiff finger to the table. “Get across the table from Conner McGee and make sure we’re not missing something. Make sure that me and my people don’t get double-crossed somehow.”

“Three-hundred-million-dollars is a lot to spend just to double-cross someone,” I said. I sat back and thought things through for a moment. “How long will it take Price Bean & Whitlock to see a return on their investment if things continue as they are now?”

He took a long breath and did the math in his head. “Probably five or six years, give or take changes to the industry and our ability to keep up. Why?”

“You mentioned selling off the weaker pieces.”

“There are none,” he said quickly.

“If they did break up the company, would it increase the time it takes to see a return?”

“I’ve thought about that, too,” he said. “I don’t see how they could speed up or increase return on investment by breaking the company up. The pieces aren’t worth the sum of the whole business.”

“Well, then I guess we just sit down with them and see what they say,” I said. I pushed up my sleeve to look at the watch Uncle Allen had given me when I graduated law school. Instead of giving me a $10,000 Rolex, he’d given me a $50 Timex with a note that read: Time is money, don’t waste either one!

I asked, “What time are we meeting them for dinner?”

He glanced at his watch. “Eight o’clock, so three hours. At the Roxie downtown. It’s a little ritzy for my taste, but they do have a good porterhouse steak.”

“Okay, I’m going to go back to my place to freshen up.” I gathered up the contract and tucked it inside my briefcase, then let him escort me out. He had a car waiting for me at the curb.

“I don’t mind taking the subway,” I said.

“The subway is a dangerous place,” he said. “You need a car.”

“I wouldn’t even attempt to drive in New York City.”

“Then you need to demand a car service the next time you negotiate your employment contract,” he said. “Or just come to work for me.”

“I like my job and I don’t mind the subway,” I said before getting into the car. I stood on my tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “I’ll see you at dinner. And don’t worry, I’ll make sure they’re playing fair.”

“I knew you would, Katie O’Hara,” he said before closing the car door. “With you on my team, I know I can’t lose.”

Chapter 12: Conner

“I can’t believe you tried to ditch me,” Cassandra said as I held open the door to the limo for her. Just the sight of her made my mouth water. She looked stunning in a short, red-sequined dress that showed off her ample cleavage and long, tanned legs. She was wearing six-inch stilettos that made the muscles in her legs pop. Her hair and makeup were flawless, as always.

I knew she wasn’t wearing panties.

She never did.

The thought made my cock hard.

“I wasn’t trying to ditch you, my darling,” I said, climbing into the limo behind her and closing the door. “I just didn’t think you’d want to sit through another long, boring business dinner.”

“A long, boring business dinner at the Roxie, which happens to be my favorite restaurant,” she huffed. “My feelings are terribly hurt.”

“I’m sorry,” I said sheepishly. The air was filled with the sweet scent of her perfume. I inhaled deeply and sighed. “It won’t happen again.”

“It better not,” she said playfully, tapping the tip of my nose with one of the long fingernails that would bring blood to my back later tonight.

“To the Roxie, Sam,” I said, leaning toward the driver’s seat. “And take the long way.”

Sam, who had been my driver long enough to know what was about to happen in the back of the limo, gave me a nod. Our eyes briefly met in the rearview mirror as I raised the privacy screen behind his seat, so Cass and I could be alone. He gave me a knowing smile and pulled from the curb. Sam was paid three times what most limo drivers earned. He was paid for his discretion, not his driving skills.

“You know how business fascinates me,” Cass said. She had a small pocket book in her lap. She clicked it open and took out a compact, opened it up, and checked her lips in the mirror. They were pained deep red. She ran her moist tongue across them as she spoke. She glanced at me from the corner of her eye. “And you know how hot I get listening to you negotiate deals.”

“Well, hopefully this dinner will go quickly,” I said, drawing circles on her thigh with the tip of my finger. “And we can get on to more pleasurable negotiations.”

“Mmmm, that sounds promising,” she said as she put the compact away. She put her hand on mind to stop it from sliding between her legs. “Hang on there, Romeo.”

I frowned. We always had sex in the limo. It was kind of our thing. “What’s wrong?”

“Tell me who we’re meeting again?”

I kept frowning. I tried to tug my hand free, but Cass was stronger than she looked. “Why do you care who we’re meeting?”

“Because, my darling, I need to know if you need me to distract them with my tits or impress them with my brain,” she said seriously. “What’s the goal? And how can I help you obtain it.”

My hand relaxed on her leg. “We’re meeting Allen Benson. He is the CEO of a company we’re trying to acquire.”

“What kind of company?”

“A computer parts manufacturer.”

Cass was the one frowning now. “A computer parts manufacturer? Price Bean & Whitlock doesn’t play in the manufacturing space.” She cut me a sideways glance. “What’s the angle, McGee?”

I should not have been, but I was always surprised when Cassandra talked about business. As she would say herself, she wasn’t all big tits and tight pussy.

She had a BA from Harvard, and an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, and a brilliant business mind. Since joining her father’s company as the Senior Vice President of Global Strategy, she had increased profits threefold, making her daddy one of the richest men on the planet with her nipping at his heels.

Men often misjudged her because of her looks, which she loved because it gave her the advantage. She could distract a man with her looks and pick his pockets—or corporate accounts—clean before he knew what he’d gotten himself into. They had no idea that inside that beautiful head of hers was one of the sharpest business minds on the planet. There was not a business deal that Cassandra Leone could not negotiate like a killer shark and come out the winner on the other side.

“The angle is, Price Bean & Whitlock doesn’t give a shit about his manufacturing operation,” I said, my fingers gently massaging her thigh again, even though she was still holding my hand in place. “In fact, after the deal is closed we’ll part out the manufacturing and sell it off to the highest bidder.”

“So, it’s a flip?” she said, narrowing her blue eyes at me. “Nope, I don’t buy it.”

“What’s not to buy?” I asked innocently. Dammit, this woman knew me too well.

“Price Bean & Whitlock does not flip businesses,” she said, shaking her head without taking her eyes off mine. “There’s not enough return on investment.”

“Fine,” I said, pulling my hand back and pouting like a child. “We want his patents.”

“His patents?” I could hear the change in her voice. She was salivating like the aforementioned shark anticipating a meal. “What kind of patents? Equipment? Processes? Intellectual property?”

“Allen Benson designed a new type of computer chip that could possibly make all other chips obsolete within the next few years,” I said. “He was just granted a United States patent on the design, which alone could be worth billions of dollars. More if he chose to license it to other manufacturers.”

She put a finger to her chin and pooched her lips. “I don’t understand. Why would Allen Benson sell you his company if this new chip patent promised such profits?”

“Because he’s under the impression that Price Bean & Whitlock will buy the company and keep things just as they are.” I picked lint off my knee and flicked it away like I was bored with the conversation. “He believes the new chip technology will be used only for Benson Digital and not licensed to competitors.”

“And I assume that impression is incorrect,” she said. “And that Mr. Benson is in for a surprise after the ink on the contract dries—if not before.”

“That’s not my problem,” I said, shrugging. “He’s going to personally pocket a hundred-million-dollars, so, I don’t think he’ll have too much right to complain when we lay out our plans to the board after the deal is done.”

A look of recognition slowly washed over her beautiful face. “And you expect him to be resistant.”

“Yes. That is probably putting it mildly. He’ll fight us at every turn.”

“Which will give you the ammunition you need to lobby against him with the board to get him ousted so you can do whatever you want with the company and the assets. And the patent.”

“That will be his choice,” I said. “The agreement states that he keeps his CEO title and his seat on the board for three years unless he is outed for just cause. However, Price Bean & Whitlock gets three board seats and I already have several of the current board members on our side. They just had to do the math to realize the enormous return on licensing or selling the patent outright. It’ll be a simple process, really. The board vote will go our way. I’m sure of it. And Allen Benson can play ball, or he can take his hundred-million-bucks and go home. It will be totally up to him.”

“Why not offer to buy the patents outright and let him keep the company?” she asked. “Why go to all this trouble?”

“Because, my darling, Allen Benson is one of those goody-goody entrepreneurs who cares more about his legacy and the people who work for him than he does profits. If he had a clue what we had planned the deal would fall through. This dinner is to assure him that all is well, and he needs to sign the fucking agreement, so we can all move on.”

“So, we’re meeting with Allen Benson,” she said, nodding. I could almost hear the gears in her pretty head turning. “Who’s he bringing with him?”

“What makes you think he’s bringing anyone with him?” I asked.

“Because he’d be a fool to come alone,” she said, one eyebrow arching. “Who’s he bringing?”

“Some contracts attorney from Yates Hamilton & Booz,” I said, wincing like the words left a bad taste in my mouth. I hated Yates Hamilton & Booz. They were incorruptible. I had no respect for a lawyer who couldn’t be bought.

“Yates Hamilton & Booz? They do mostly corporate litigation work, white collar crime type stuff.” She cupped two fingers to her chin and hummed a moment. “Why would Allen Benson have a firm like Yates review the deal? I assume it’s passed muster with his in-house counsel?”

“Reed thinks Benson has lost faith in his in-house counsel,” I said. My hand went back to her thigh. I was like a little kid who was trying to keep his hand out of the cookie jar. I began drawing slow circles on her knee. She gave me a smile and ran her tongue across her top lip. I knew our conversation about business was ending. Now it was time to get down to my favorite kind of business. Finally!

She sighed out the words. “So, Benson is bringing in a fresh set of eyes to review the deal before signing.”

“Yes. It appears so.” My hand slid between her soft thighs. I nuzzled her neck with my lips.

She leaned her head to the side, so that my tongue could get to her ear.

She sighed again as my tongue circled the rim of her ear.

She said, “And Reed is not too worried?”

“Reed thinks Allen Benson can be pacified,” I said, nibbling my way down her jawline toward her chin. “The deal should close quickly if we can give him the warm and fuzzies at this dinner tonight.”

“Like the warm and fuzzies you’re giving me right now?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

“Something like that.”

She leaned back in the seat and gave me a dreamy look. “Would you like a little appetizer on the way to the restaurant?”

I smiled. “I thought you would never ask.”

Cassandra lifted her ass off the seat to hike up her dress. She leaned back again and spread her legs for me, revealing her beautiful, pink, shaved pussy to me. Her clit was pink and plump as my little finger. She ran her finger over it and sighed.

“Are you happy now?” she asked, biting her bottom lip in anticipation.

“I’m very happy now,” I said, leaning down to kiss her lips. Her mouth was hot and wet. Her tongue darted out to meet mine. My hand slid up her inner thigh. Her pussy was wet and warm, inviting. My fingers slid easily inside her. My thumb rolled over her clit.

“Mmmm, that feels good…” she said, putting her hands to my cheeks to kiss me again. “Use your tongue… you know I love it… when you use your tongue…”

“Yes, your highness,” I said. “Whatever you desire.”

“I desire your tongue… now…”

The back of the limo was roomy enough that Cass could lean back with her legs spread and I could kneel in the floor between her legs. I took off my jacket and set it aside, then got into the floor and pushed her thighs apart. The scent of her pussy filled the air. I inhaled with a smile. Lavender and strawberry, my favorite.

I lowered my lips to her clit and sucked on it gently. Cass gasped a quick breath and moaned. I glanced up at her while my lips worked hers. Her head was lolled to the side. Her eyes were closed. Her hands were on her breasts, squeezing. She was biting her bottom lip. And her juices were flowing like a warm mountain stream.

My fingers went to the knuckles inside of her. I plunged them in and out slowly, rotating them as I sucked on her clit. She moaned loudly and arched her pussy to my lips. “Lick me,” she sighed. “Lick my hot pussy, my darling.”

Cass had always been a dirty talker. She was a woman who knew what she liked and had no problem letting you now.

I was an alpha male, but I fucking loved it when she told me what to do.

I used my fingertips to spread her lips. She was gushing hot juices. I leaned down and flicked my tongue to her hole. I was awarded with a flood of hot, salty juices that washed over my lips and tongue. I drank it up like a man dying of thirst.

“You’re… gonna… make me… cum…” she said, opening her mouth, panting like a dog.

“Isn’t that the point?” I asked, my fingers back inside her, sliding, twisting. I curled my fingers to tease her G-spot.

“Yes… make me… make me… cum…”

I spread her pussy lips again and stiffened my tongue, then drove it deep inside her. I’m like that guy from Kiss. I have a tongue that’s almost as long as my cock. Almost.

She lifted her ass off the seat. I put my hands under her ass to hold her up and tongue fucked her until she moaned my name and gushed hot juices over my face.

I pressed my mouth to her cunt and sucked her dry like eating the world’s sexiest watermelon. When I looked up, my cheeks and chin were covered with her juices. She blew out a long breath and grinned.

“You’re a mess,” she said, reaching for me. She wiped my cheeks with her fingers, then pulled me in for a deep kiss. “Mmmm… I taste good…”

“Yes, you do,” I said. I was about to let her return the favor when the car rolled to a stop and Sam’s voice came over the intercom. I had a hard-on that was throbbing like a bitch, but it would have to wait. Business always came first.

“We’re at the restaurant, sir.”

“Shit,” I said, moving over into the seat to put my jacket on. Cass pulled a silk hankie from her clutch and handed it to me, so I could clean myself off. When I was done, she used it to mop up the mess I’d made between her legs.

“You owe me,” I said as I leaned in for one last kiss.

“Oh, don’t you worry,” she said, tapping a long nail to my chin. “You know I always pay my debts.”

Chapter 13: Katie

“McGee’s late,” Uncle Allen said for the third time in as many minutes. He pushed up his sleeve to look at his watch. He gave the man sitting across the table from us a hard look and a heavy sigh. “I don’t appreciate being kept waiting, Reed.”

“My apologies again, Allen, but I’m sure he’ll be here soon. He’s usual very punctual. Something unexpected must have come up.” He picked up his phone, frowned at the screen, then forced a nervous smile. “I’ve just texted him again. He will be here any minute. Let me get us another round.”

The man sitting across from us was the infamous Reed Helstrom, senior partner at the investment banking firm of Price Bean & Whitlock, the company that was making the play for my Uncle Allen’s company. Reed was probably fiftyish, tall and good looking, with neatly-parted salt and pepper hair, and a rich tan that probably came from time spent on some private island somewhere.

He was wearing an Armani suit, a gold Rolex, and a diamond on his pinkie finger that that probably cost more than my law school tuition. He waved down a waiter and ordered another round of drinks, then offered us a relieved smile and nodded toward the door.

“Ah, here he is now.”

Uncle Allen and I turned to see a gorgeous blonde in a lowcut, short, red, sequined cocktail dress moving through the restaurant toward our table.

She looked like something out of a Victoria’s Secret commercial as she guided across the floor, as if her feet were barely touching the ground. Every man in the place was gawking at her with their mouths hanging open. The women were gawking, too, myself included, albeit for another reason.

There was a man behind her, but I couldn’t see him clearly yet.

He was stopping along the way, shaking hands, patting people on the back.

When I finally caught sight of his face, I frowned.

He looked vaguely familiar.

Tall…

Broad-shouldered…

Handsome…

Holy shit…

Holy freakin’ shit...

Holy New Year’s Eve one-night stand shit…

Reed and Uncle Allen got to their feet to greet Conner McGee and the beautiful woman I assumed was his date, although bringing a date to a business dinner like this was a little out of the ordinary. Still, I had been around enough of these rich guys to know that they liked to flaunt their trophy wives and mistresses as much as they liked to flaunt their money.

I watched as Conner McGee shook Uncle Allen’s hand, greeted Reed, then introduced the woman as Cassandra Leone, his “dear friend and business associate”.

I recognized her name immediately.

Cassandra Leone was the daughter of Augustus Leone, the head of Leone Enterprises, the multinational conglomerate that had interests in shipping, transportation, telecommunications, retail, and a dozen other industries.

She was reportedly no slouch herself when it came to business.

If her legend was to be believed, she was even smarter than she was beautiful. Looking into her blue eyes at that moment, I found that incredibly hard to believe. She would always be the most beautiful woman in the room. She made me feel like a ten-year-old boy.

Then, Conner turned to look at me for the first time.

The moment our eyes met, we both froze.

“This is Katherine O’Hara,” Uncle Allen said proudly, putting a hand on my shoulder. “She’s the most brilliant contracts lawyer you’ll ever meet, and my favorite niece. Katie, this is the perpetually late, and somewhat infamous, Conner McGee.”

“Nice to meet you, Miss O’Hara,” Conner said, offering me his hand, which was warm and firm, just as I remembered it had been on my breasts and between my legs. “And please forgive our tardiness. The uptown traffic is horrendous this time of night.”

“Yes, simply horrendous,” the woman echoed. They exchanged a little smirk that only I picked up on. It wasn’t the traffic that had thrown them late, of that, I was sure.

I managed to mutter, “No problem…”

Conner let go of my hand slowly, letting his fingers slide away, then put his arm around the woman as if he were showing her off to me. “May I introduce Miss Cassandra Leone.”

“How do you do, Miss Leone,” I said with a nod, tucking my hands behind my back to keep them from shaking. She gave me the once over, her eyes drifting up and down, as if she were sizing me up for a boxing match. Or looking at a piece of raw steak in a butcher shop window. The words “I could eat you alive” came to mind. I wondered if she was there for arm candy or to be part of the contract review.

Her tone was far more pleasant than I expected it to be. “Nice to meet you, too, Miss… O’Hara, was it?”

“Yes,” I said with a forced smile. “Please call me Katie.”

“Like Katie Scarlett O’Hara,” Reed said, referring to heroine in the old movie Gone with The Wind. It had been my mom’s favorite. I had indeed been named after the character played by Vivien Leigh, only my full name was Katharine Ann rather than Katie Scarlett, thank you Jesus.

Reed held up a finger to signal a waiter, then gestured around the table. “Please, everyone, sit.”

Conner held the chair for Cassandra. He put his hand on her shoulder and she gazed up with a look that clearly said that they were more than friends and business associates. I made a mental note to Google them both as soon as I was back to my place. I was certain their names would come up together many times.

Conner sat directly across from me at the round table. I knew he recognized me by the little gleam in his eye, as if our one-night stand on New Year’s Eve was still fresh in his mind. I mean, it was just a couple of months ago, and we weren’t that drunk. At least I wasn’t.

I remembered the night vividly.

I had pleasured myself to the memory many nights since.

I also remembered waking up alone wondering where the hell he went.

I had to admit, I was a little pissed when I woke up the next morning and he wasn’t there.

Then Monique reminded me that was the point of a one-night stand.

To quote my wonderful bestie, “You meet, you fuck, you slither way.”

What had he called himself?

Brad?

Brad the banker…

And I had called myself…

Mollie…

Mollie the paralegal.

Shit…

“So, Miss O’Hara,” Conner said as he spread his napkin in his lap and took a quick sip of water. I watched him lick his lips. “Reed tells me that you’re with Yates Hamilton & Booz. You are their preeminent contract law specialist, I believe. That must keep you busy. Very little time to socialize and what not.”

“I’m just one of many,” I said. The waiter had refilled my wine glass. I took a slow sip and glanced at him from behind the glass, wondering if he was going to spill the beans about our night right here at the dinner table or keep our secret.

“Don’t be modest,” Uncle Allen said. “Yates Hamilton & Booz has about a hundred lawyers in their contracts department. Katie is their best.”

“Well, you might be a little biased, Allen,” Conner said with a smirk. “But I seriously doubt it.”

I watched the skin around Uncle Allen’s eyes tighten. He was half Irish and half Italian. He didn’t tolerate fools very well. “Meaning?”

Conner took a second to order a scotch rocks for himself and a Manhattan for Cassandra when the waiter came by. He held out his hands and smiled at me.

“Meaning that you’re not the kind of man who would call on someone just because they’re related to you,” he said respectfully to Allen. “If Miss O’Hara is here on your behalf, I suspect it’s because she is the best contracts attorney in the city, not because you’re her uncle.”

Uncle Allen narrowed his eyes at Conner McGee for a moment, sizing him up. I was waiting for all hell to break loose, until Conner smiled, and Uncle Allen smiled back.

“You’re right on that point,” Uncle Allen said. “She’s here because she is the best at what she does, not because she’s my niece.”

“I believe you might know my father, Mr. Benson,” Cassandra said, interrupting with a smile that made Uncle Allen’s eyebrows go up. Her voice was smoky, seductive, like Lauren Bacall’s in her youth. “Augustus Leone?”

Uncle Allen had never been married. He was a confirmed bachelor with a long line of broken hearts in his wake. A rich, good looking man with a heart of gold. There was no shortage of women who would love to have gotten their hooks into him. I’d seen him in action at social functions. Normally, very calm and cool, but he was having a hard time keeping the twinkle that was in his eye from blinding the room.

“Yes, that’s right,” he said, picking up his tall glass of draft beer and lifting it to her. “Auggie and I have known each other for years. We serve on several boards together. And please, call me Allen.”

“Only if you call me Cassandra,” she said with a smile that made him gulp down the beer. Wow, she was good. She was very good. It was no wonder she and Conner McGee made such a good team—if that’s what they were.

“O’Hara is Irish,” Reed said. He patted Conner on the back. “And McGee is…”

“Uh, Irish?” Conner said, rolling his eyes at me. “One thing you’ll learn about Reed, Miss O’Hara, is that he has an amazing grasp of the obvious.”

“Where are you from originally?” Cassandra asked, giving me a warm look that almost made me think she was actually interested rather than simply making conversation.

“Um, Boston, originally,” I said. “South side.”

“You don’t have the Southie accent,” Conner said. He laced his fingers together and rested his chin on them. Damn, he was good looking. I could feel him undressing me with his eyes.

“Oh, she can still go full Boston on you,” Uncle Allen said. “Like her mother.”

“I’ve worked hard to lose the accent,” I said. “At least when I’m not in Boston.”

“I think it’s a lovely accent,” Cassandra said.

“It’s lovely until you say things like bah, and cah, and fah,” I said. “Then, not so much.”

“What’s the old line?” Reed asked. “Let’s get in the cah and go down to the bah because it’s not that fah?”

They all laughed. I smiled and bobbed my head. Jeez, like I haven’t heard that one a million times before. “Yeah, it’s hard to be taken seriously here in New York when South Boston comes out of your mouth.”

“Ah, the waiter,” Reed said as the waiter returned with another round of drinks. He picked up the menu in front of him and nodded around the table. “I’m starving. Let’s order.”

“Yes, let’s,” Conner said, picking up his menu. He looked directly at me. “Order anything you like, Miss O’Hara. The more expensive, the better. Reed will be picking up the tab.”

“That’s good to know,” I said, letting my eyes linger on his. I could feel myself getting wet just looking at him. Memories of him naked on top of me flashed through my mind. The feel of hard, lean muscle beneath my hands. His head buried between my legs. His cock in my hand. The taste of him in my mouth. The sensation of him sliding slowly in and out me.

“Katie? Katie?”

I blinked at the sound of Uncle Allen’s voice. I turned with a blank look on my face. “Hmm?”

He pointed toward the waiter, who was standing with a pen and pad waiting for my order. I glanced at Conner. He was smiling at me. I could see the devil dancing in his eyes. I could feel the heat rushing to my cheeks.

I quickly let my eyes drop to the menu, took a few seconds, then ordered the filet mignon.

“That sounds good,” Conner said, closing his menu and holding it out for the waiter. “I’ll have what she’s having.”

Chapter 14: Conner

I could barely believe my eyes when Cass and I walked into the Roxie and found our party waiting for us at a corner table. We were a few minutes late, but it couldn’t be helped. Besides, it was impossible for me to turn Cass down when she was in heat. Which was most of the time.

Sitting at the table was Reed and Allen Benson. Allen looked perturbed that we were late, and Reed already looked drunk. There was a woman sitting next to Reed who kept her seat. I figured it was Allen’s hired gun lawyer, so I ignored her while I greeted the fellows. When I finally set my gaze on her, I felt the breath catch in my throat.

Sitting next to Allen was Mollie the paralegal, the girl that I had had the one-night stand with on New Year’s Eve. I knew then that Mollie wasn’t her real name and that she probably wasn’t a paralegal. I would have never guessed that she was a hot shot lawyer with a firm like Yates Hamilton & Booz. They only hired the best. And if she was sitting here representing a guy like Allen Benson, she had to have been the cream of the crop.

My mouth dropped when I looked at her. She looked nothing like she did then. Her long blonde hair wasn’t down. She wasn’t wearing a tight sweater that showed off her big tits and skinny jeans that showed off her ass. She looked like every other female lawyer in town. Frumpy and boring as hell. Only I knew better. This girl was anything but frumpy and boring. This girl was a fucking firecracker. And I still dreamt of her lighting my fuse.

We both muttered our hellos and tried to pretend like we’d never seen each other naked. I sat directly across from her, which was a mistake because she kept distracting me, doing little things like licking wine from her lips and giving me those dreamy eyes. I tried to ignore the memory of her naked body, tits flouncing as she rode my cock like a rodeo bull. I took a drink to wash away the taste of her memory from my tongue. Despite my best efforts, my cock grew rock hard beneath the napkin in my lap.

Dinner was the usual business-casual chit chat, most of it made with Molly—I mean Katie—stealing glances at me while the others talked. Our eyes met several times and locked for a moment, moving on before it became too obvious that we were gawking at each other.

It was obvious that we both remembered that night well.

How could we not remember it?

It was one of the most amazing nights of my sexual life and hers, took judging by the way she screamed my fake name and dug her nails into my back.

We sipped our drinks and let the others make small talk.

Where are you from originally?

How’d you end up in New York?

How’d you get into that business?

What do you like most about the city?

Blah, blah, blah…

I would have been bored to shit if not for the gorgeous Irish lass sitting across from me trying to look interested in the conversation. I took the time to let my eyes take inventory of her now that I was sober.

She wore very little makeup because she didn’t need it.

She was dressed in a black business suit and white silk blouse that buttoned to the neck.

She wore no jewelry other than a simple watch. No ring on her finger. That made me smile.

Her long hair was pulled back at the sides and clipped behind her head.

The light gleamed in her eye when she looked at me.

We were having a mental conversation all our own while Allen and Reed fawned over Cassandra.

“So, Katie O’Hara, been in New York long?” I asked quietly, so the others wouldn’t feel like they had to stop their chatter and join ours.

“A few years,” she said formally. “I moved here right after law school to join Yates Hamilton & Booz.”

“I’ve heard that Yates Hamilton & Booz has a wonderful team of paralegals,” I said playfully. “In fact, do you know a paralegal named Molly who works there by any chance? I met her last New Year’s Eve at this little dive bar off Times Square. An amazing girl. Very… inventive.”

“I don’t know her,” she said casually. “I’d be happy to ask around for you.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “She’s probably moved on by now.”

“I’m sure she has.” She leaned into the table and lowered her voice. “You know how girls get when they wake up alone.”

I smiled and lifted my drink. “Touché.”

She sipped her wine and dabbed a napkin to her lips. In my mind’s eye I could see her on her knees in front of me, devouring my cock like an idol to be adored.

She asked, “How about you, Conner McGee? Been in the city long?”

“Yes, born and raised upstate. Moved here right after college to join Price Bean & Whitlock. Reed is the guy who recruited me out of Harvard. So, yes, New York City’s been my home for ten or eleven years now. I can’t imagine living anywhere else.”

“I’m told that Price Bean & Whitlock is a fine firm,” she said with a smile, although I detected an air of sarcasm in her voice, but I let it go. Most lawyers hated investment bankers and vice versa, mainly because we ended up fighting over the last nickel left in our clients’ pockets.

I decided that it was time to change gears to give my hardon time to ease. I nodded with my eyes at Allen Benson and said, “I assume you’ve read our offer to buy Benson Digital?”

“I have,” she said, lacing her fingers together on the table in front of her. Her nails were neat and short, without color. She pressed her thumbs together and arched her eyebrows at me.

She was such a stark contrast to the women I was normally attracted to. She was what Reed would call a “Plain Jane”. Then again, Reed didn’t spend New Year’s Eve with her all drunk and naked, banging the shit out of the wall with the headboard.

There was nothing plain about Mollie the paralegal.

Or Katie the lawyer.

“And?” I asked, eyebrows up.

“And?”

I leaned in with my elbows on the table and the glass of scotch between my hands. “And do you see anything that might prevent this deal from going through as planned?”

“No, not on the surface,” she said, shaking her head. “Still, I’d like to review it with your team once more before I advise my client to sign.”

“Review it with my team?”

“Yes, whomever you have assigned as the point of contact,” she said. “I’d like to come to your office first thing Monday morning and spend the day reviewing the points that Allen feels are the most critical, just to make sure we’re all on the same page.”

I gave her a slow nod as an idea formed in my head. “Tell you what. Why don’t you come to my house in the Hamptons this weekend? That way, you and I can personally review the finer points of the deal. Really get deep into it. Sink our teeth in, so to speak.”

“To make sure no one gets screwed?”

She said it with a smirk on her face.

“Yes. Exactly. Unless they want to be screwed, that is.” I held up my glass and waited for her to do the same, a little silent toast to seal the deal. “What do you say, Katie the lawyer? Shall we spend the weekend doing little one-on-one negotiating?”

I tossed out the idea just to see how she would react. Would she be offended? Intrigued? Disgusted? Or would she, like me, jump at the chance to spend a little quality time together reliving the glory and fun of New Year’s Eve?

She narrowed her eyes at me for a moment, like a lawyer assessing the finer points of a case.

She bit the inside of her lip.

For a second, I thought she was going to blow.

I glanced at the others to make sure they weren’t listening. Cass was doing a great job of keeping Reed and Allen busy, as per our plan before coming inside. They were enamored by her beauty and hanging on her every word. Cass could mesmerize a charging rhino into submission, so Allen Benson should be a piece of cake to contain.

It was good to know that if Allen wanted to be a thorn in my side over this deal, Cass would be there to pull him out.

No man could resist her.

Including me.

I had told Cass, “You keep Allen and Reed busy so I can have a private chat with this lawyer to see if he is someone we need to worry about. I had no idea at the time that this lawyer— he—was actually a she; and one that I’d slept with. Pulling off this deal should be a piece of cake.

“Well?” I asked after a moment of silence.

“I think Mollie the paralegal would jump at the chance to do a little…” she glanced over to make sure no one was listening. “One-on-one negotiating with you. However…”

I sighed and gave her a pitiful look. I said, “Katie the lawyer is not Mollie the paralegal.”

She picked up the wineglass and shrugged her eyebrows before bringing the glass to her lips. “Katie the lawyer has a fiduciary responsibility to her client to make sure he’s not getting screwed.”

“Very commendable of her,” I said, raising my glass. “But Katie the lawyer must realize, I’m not looking to screw her client.” That made her smile. “Come on, I already have my weekend planned and my calendar is booked solid for the next few weeks. This weekend is the only time I have to go over this contract with you. If we don’t close this deal quickly, it could be put on hold indefinitely. And I don’t think your uncle wants that.”

“Is that a threat?” she asked.

I held up a hand to ease her back into her chair. “No, it’s simply a fact, the way things work in my world. This is one of a dozen deals I have going at this moment. If it looks like this one is not going to work out, I’ll take the money we were going to pay your uncle and need to move on to the next one. It’s just business.”

She stared at me for a moment with hard eyes, like a fighter sizing up an opponent. “Are you having other people out to the Hamptons?” she asked, picking up her wine glass to hide her lips behind so I couldn’t see if she was smiling or sneering.

“Just you,” I said with a shrug. “Honestly, I’m having work done on my house there. I was going to drive up this weekend to check on things.”

The truth was, I hadn’t even thought about going to the Hamptons before the idea came to me just then. I was having work done, but nothing I had to worry about because my estate manager was overseeing everything for me.

We could have just as easily had our negotiations at my office or my penthouse or some hotel, but getting her out of the city seemed like a much better idea. The Hamptons are quiet this time of year, a perfect place for a quiet, weekend getaway.

“I’m not sure this is a such a good idea,” she said, biting her lip again. I could tell she was almost convinced.

“Look, I promise, business first. We do nothing but focus on the agreement until you are satisfied that your client is getting treated more than fairly in the deal. Then, if we want to get naked and…”

“Shhh…”

“Look, Katie the lawyer, if you don’t come, it’ll just be me in a big old house on the beach… all alone… with nothing but my memories of fun times with old friends.”

She dabbed her lips with her napkin and gave me the look I had been waiting for. “What time should I be ready to leave in the morning?”

“I’ll pick you up at nine,” I said.

“Nine it is.” She finally clinked her glass to mine.

“Excellent.” I pulled one of my cards from inside my jacket and jotted my cell number on the back. “Text me your address.”

I slid the card across the table to her and smiled.

She slid the card into her pocket without the others seeing.

We looked at each other for a moment, then joined in the conversation.

We spent the rest of the night trying to pretend that all was well.

She kept squirming in her chair as if it was hot and wet, and my cock refused to go down.

I couldn’t wait for the night to be over and the next day to begin.

Chapter 15: Katie

I know what you must be thinking.

What an awful girl she must be.

Self-centered.

Selfish.

Slutty.

Why else would she agree to go away for a weekend of sex and debauchery with a man like Conner McGee—a man she hardly knew other than a one-night stand where they both lied about who they really were?

I knew you were thinking that.

Because I was thinking it, too.

Although, I told myself that I was the one in total control, not him.

We would use each other as we did before, but this time, I’d have a higher purpose rather than just great sex with a total stranger. This time, there was far more than momentary pleasure on the line.

This time, what happened between Conner and I would affect countless others.

And I would not let them down.

I was the one who would have the upper hand because I knew what he was trying to do. And I was going to beat him to the punch.

Katie the lawyer might be a horny lass, but she was smart enough to know when she was being played. And too smart to not to turn it to her advantage.

Yes, I’d go to his house in the Hamptons for the weekend.

Yes, I expected there would be lots of wonderful sex.

And yes, by the time we got back to the city on Sunday night, my Uncle Allen’s fears would be allayed, and he could rest assured that selling the company to Price Bean & Whitlock was the right thing to do.

After Conner and I made our plans, I tried to focus on the dinner and the small talk rather than the tingling that was going on inside me. I told myself that business would come first before any hanky-panky began. I would be there representing the best interests of my uncle, not my own libido.

When I broached the topic of the agreement before dessert came, Cassandra waved her perfect hands through the air as if she were performing a feat of magic.

“Oh please, let’s not discuss business tonight,” she said. She put a hand on Uncle Allen’s arm and gave it a squeeze. “I find business to be such boring dinner conversation. Don’t you agree… Allen?”

“Well, I suppose…”

“I agree,” Reed said, lifting his glass. “Katie and Conner can handle all the boring detail stuff another time. Tonight, we eat, drink, and make merry.”

“Works for me,” Conner said with a smile, lifting his glass. Everything seemed so staged, but I seemed to be the only one who noticed. I lifted my glass and played along.

Conner said, “Here’s to a long and profitable partnership between Benson Digital and Price Bean & Whitlock. May our ties be strong, our future be long, and ne’er do we wrong.” He gave me a wink. “That’s an old Irish saying from my grandmother.”

“To the future!” Reed said, clinking his glass with mine.

“To the future,” I said, echoing the others.

As we all drank, I watched Cassandra give Conner a smile with the wine glass at her lips.

It seemed that the cats thought the canary cage had been opened.

They didn’t count on this canary having very sharp teeth.

* * *

After dinner, Uncle Allen and I got into his car for the drive back to my apartment. He was a rich man who could have afforded any kind of car. He drove a ten-year old Toyota Camry and lived modestly in a one-bedroom loft downtown. He was truly an inspiration to me, although I would have been driving something a little more modern and living in a penthouse if it were up to me.

“I saw you chatting with Conner McGee,” he said, watching me from the corner of his eye, sounding very much like my mom. “What was that all about?”

“It was about their offer to buy your business,” I said, probably sounding a little more defensive than I should have. “We’re going to meet this weekend to go over every detail, line by line.”

“This weekend?” He frowned without taking his eyes off the road. “That’s odd.”

“Is it?” I asked. “Why?”

“Because guys like Conner McGee do not work weekends,” he said. “Hell, they barely work during the week. Are you sure he wasn’t hitting on you?”

I snorted a laugh. “Really, Uncle Allen? Did you see the woman he was with? Oh wait, of course you did. You couldn’t keep your eyes off her.”

“Hey, don’t fault an old man for appreciating a beautiful woman,” he said with a grin.

“You’re not an old man,” I said. “Not yet.”

“Nor am I an old fool,” he shot back. “I saw the way McGee was looking at you. He might have been talking business, but he was thinking other things.”

“You’re insane,” I said, shaking my head. “Guys like Conner McGee don’t give women like me the time of day.”

“It’s not the time they’re after,” he said. “Trust me.”

“Well, all I know is, he said he would be happy to meet me at his office tomorrow to review the contact personally, rather than put me off on his assistant or project manager”

“You’re meeting him alone?”

“No, of course not,” I lied. “His team will be there in case questions come up he can’t readily answer.”

“Well, that’s good do know,” he said. “I get the feeling that he wants to get this deal signed, sealed, and delivered as quickly as possible.”

“That’s my impression, as well,” I said.

“I also think having Miss Leone there tonight was just to keep me occupied while he took the time to see who I brought to the table.”

“You think that we were being played?” I asked, suddenly concerned that my flirting with Conner was not a great idea, after all.

“I think that McGee wanted to get a feel for the hotshot lawyer I brought with me,” he said. “I wouldn’t say that we were being played, but I still don’t trust them fully.”

“Maybe you should just walk away from the deal,” I offered, even though that would mean that I had no reason to spend the weekend with Conner McGee. I might have been wrong, but I believed part of the reason he wanted to see me again—aside from the sex—was to get me onto his team. What he didn’t realize was that no man, no matter how sexy, could make me betray my family.

“Maybe I should walk away,” Uncle Allen said with a heavy sigh. “But I need to do this deal, Katie. The quicker, the better.”

I got the feeling that there was more to the story than he was letting on. “Is there something you’re not telling me, Uncle Allen?” I asked. “You’ve gotten offers in the past that you refused to even consider. Is there a reason why you want this deal to happen?”

“I didn’t want to tell you, Katie,” he said quietly. “But my health is not good. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to keep running Benson Digital. And I don’t want to put that responsibility on anyone else’s shoulders.”

I shifted in the passenger seat to face him. The fact that he wasn’t well was not a total surprise. He’d gotten, and beaten, cancer several times before. It had been in remission for several years, but we all knew it was just a matter of time before it came roaring back and eventually took his life.

Cancer took my mother and grandmother.

Two of my brothers had already battled with it.

I prayed that the gene had not found its way inside me, but my health wasn’t the issue at the moment. Suddenly, the clock began to tick in my head.

“Tell me the truth,” I said quietly, putting my hand on his arm. “You’ve never kept things from me. Don’t start now.”

“The cancer is back,” he said.

“How bad?”

He sighed and flexed his fingers around the steering wheel. “It was detected early. I start treatment in a week. The doctor thinks I can beat it again, but there are no guarantees.”

He glanced over to give me a smile, as if I was the one in need of reassurance.

“The truth is, Katie, I’m tired. I want to quit the grind while I’m ahead and spend the rest of my life doing things I’ve always wanted to do.”

“Things like?”

“Travel the world. See Africa. Ireland. The Middle East.”

“What else?”

“Give away my money to people and causes that deserve it.”

He put his eyes back on the road and nodded slowly.

“I want to do good things with the time I have left. Selling the company at a premium to Price Bean & Whitlock will let me do that. But I’ll only do it if I’m certain my legacy can remain intact. The manufacturing plant, the jobs, the money it generates for the town. I won’t have the people who have been loyal to me for thirty years suffer because I’m tired of playing the game.”

“I understand,” I said, setting my jaw firmly. “I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen, Uncle Allen. You can count on me.”

Chapter 16: Conner

I thought about picking Katie up in my limo, with a full breakfast buffet in the back: eggs, bacon, muffins, fresh fruit, pancakes, French toast, coffee, juices. Then I realized that Katie was probably not the kind of girl who would be impressed by that sort of thing. She was a successful lawyer, after all, not some wide-eyed Irish girl come to the big city for the first time. She was already wary of me simply because we were negotiating two sides of a deal. She didn’t need to be impressed. She needed to be wooed.

So, I pulled up to the front of her apartment building, which was in a tony part in Midtown, meaning that she made a pretty good living at Yates Hamilton & Booz. I decided to drive my old 1972 Ford Bronco, which had belonged to my dad. It was a barebones little truck, with a huge steering wheel and hard bucket seats, but a heater that could thaw even the coldest New York winter from your bones.

The drive to my place in the Hamptons would take a couple of hours. While the little Bronco was not nearly as comfortable as my limo, it made for a fun ride. And when Katie saw it waiting at the curb, it made her smile… for a moment.

“This is your car?” she asked, clutching her hands to her chest as her breath steamed the air. She was wearing a heavy coat and hat, with a thick wool scarf around her neck and gloves on her hands. I took the overnight bag she had strapped over her shoulder and stowed it in the back, then opened the passenger door and gave her a little bow.

“This is a classic 1972 Ford Bronco,” I said proudly. “It belonged to my dad. Don’t you love it? Go on, climb in.”

“It’s… interesting,” she said as she stepped into the cab of the truck.

“I knew you’d be impressed,” I said playfully. “By the way, this has a great heater. You’re gonna burn up in that coat.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it,” she said, sliding into the slick vinyl seat.

The window rattled when I closed the door. I trotted around to the other side as the cold wind bit at my nose and ears. Thankfully, the air inside the truck was toasty warm.

I climbed in behind the wheel and gave her a big smile. “Buckle up. There are no air bags in this baby.”

“Does it have brakes?” she asked as she pulled the seat belt around her waist. She looked around the cab and into the back seat. The horrified look on her face made me grin. The truck was filthy, food wrappers in the floor, empty beer and Red Bull cans on the seat, a couple of old blankets, a tackle box. I tried to remember the last time I’d used the Bronco. A camping trip, maybe. Or the last time I’d gone home to see my folks. I always drove the Bronco when I went home so my old man wouldn’t give me shit about being a pretentious asshole.

“Or course it has brakes,” I said. “And a great heater.”

I turned the knob on the dash to pump out more heat. I wasn’t even wearing a coat, just a heavy sweater, jeans, and boots. I ground the gear into first, and wiggled my eyebrows at her. “Hamptons, here we come.”

Katie wrapped her arms around herself and kept quiet as I maneuvered out of the city, finally turning onto the Northern State Parkway toward Long Island. Traffic was fairly light this time of year, so I settled in at sixty-miles an hour, which was top speed for the Bronco. I glanced over to give her a smile.

“You know, you don’t have to worry,” I said. “I’m an excellent driver.”

“That’s what Rain Man said,” she said, rolling her eyes without looking at me. She peeled off the thick gloves and unraveled the scarf from around her neck. “It does have a good heater though, you were right about that.”

“Told you,” I said. “I’ll take us a couple of hours to get to my place. We can stop somewhere for breakfast if you like. Or I can phone ahead and have something prepared. There’s an excellent catering service there. I can have anything you want ready by the time we arrive.”

“I’m okay at this moment,” she said, unbuttoning her coat. I smiled when I saw the familiar red sweater under the coat. “Why don’t we just play it by hour and stop if we get hungry.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I said. “So…”

“So…”

We smiled at each other. I said, “So it really is a small world.”

“It is,” she said. “A very small world.”

“So be honest with me,” I said. “You had no idea on New Year’s Eve who I was?”

“Not a clue,” she said, shaking her head. “Obviously, you’re not as famous as you think you are.”

“Obviously not,” I said. “I’ll have to talk to my PR folks about that.”

“Now, you be honest with me,” she said. “You had no idea who I was?”

I frowned at her, thinking that I had missed something, then she giggled and put her hand on my arm. “I’m just messing with you. I’ve spent my entire life being a nobody. If you had known who I really was it would have creeped me out.”

“You’re not a nobody,” I said seriously. “You’re Yates Hamilton & Booz’s top contract attorney. That’s a pretty big accomplishment given the reputation of the firm.”

“I didn’t mean that I was a nobody,” she said. “I just meant that I’ve always shied away from the limelight. It’s not my thing. I like working behind the scenes. That’s why I went into contract law rather than litigation.”

“A shy Irish lass,” I said playfully. “And yet a spitfire when gotten alone.”

“Whatever,” she said, rolling her eyes again. “If I was such a spitfire, why did you sneak off in the middle of the night?”

“Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?” I asked, my shoulders going up and down. “It was a one-night stand, after all. I thought I’d save you the awkwardness of waking up with me. That whole ‘walk of shame’ thing I mean.”

“Guys don’t do the walk of shame?” she asked.

I grunted a laugh. “Rarely. Only if they wake up with a woman who looks like a dude in drag. And even then, they’ll probably go back for more.” I looked over and winked. “Men are pigs, remember.”

“Oh, I know that for a fact,” she said. “Some men more than others.”

I cut my eyes at her. “Be honest with me. Was that your first one-night stand or do you do that sort of thing all the time?”

She held the gloves between her hands in her lap and picked lint from them. “Honestly, that was the first and only one-night stand I’ve ever had. I had never done anything like that before. It’s really not who I am… I mean… well… you know what I mean.”

“So why did you do it with me?” I asked. “I mean, I was flattered, and boy, did I have a great time. But what made you take me home that night?”

“Are we fishing for compliments, Mr. McGee?” she asked, cocking one eyebrow.

“No, just trying to understand how Mollie the paralegal’s mind works,” I said. “And to see if Katie the lawyer thinks the same way.”

“I’m going away with you for the weekend, aren’t I?” she said shyly. “This is almost like a one-night stand. I mean, I don’t really know you any better now than I did the first night we met.”

“Okay, then let’s get to know each other,” I said, nodding with my eyes on the road.

“And how do you propose we do that?”

“Easy. You ask me a question, I’ll answer it, then it’s my turn to ask you. You can ask anything you want, and the other person has to answer. By the time we arrive at my house we’ll be like old friends. I’ll even let you go first.”

She seemed to like the idea of playing a game. She turned sideways in the seat and tapped one finger to her chin.

“Okay, let’s see, you told me last night you were born in upstate New York. Tell me about your parents.”

“Okay… My dad’s name is Edgar, he is a retired CPA. My mom’s name is Louise, and she is a retired school teacher. They still live in the house I grew up in outside of Rochester.”

“Are you still close with them?”

“I am still very close with them,” I said proudly. “I was the only child and they doted on me. We weren’t rich, so there wasn’t a lot of material spoiling, but lots of hugs and kisses and support. My mom especially. She was very religious, Irish Catholic. She was the one who gave me the old ‘you can be anything you wanna be’ speech, so long as you go to church on Sunday and say your prayers.”

“And do you?”

Do I what?”

“Go to church on Sunday and say your prayers?”

I shrugged. “I only go to church when I go back home, and probably don’t pray as much as I should. I’m more like my old man. He was the one who gave me the ‘work your ass off to get ahead’ speech.”

“Ah, I’ve heard that one,” she said, head bobbing. “Our parents sound a lot alike.”

“Okay, my turn,” I said. “You’re from South Boston. I assume from a large Irish family?”

“Irish… South Boston… do the math.”

“Tell me about your family.”

“Well, let’s see, my dad’s name is Sean, and he owns an Irish pub in Southie.”

“Shocker! An Irishman named Sean who owns an Irish pub,” I said. “Let me guess, it’s called Sean’s Bar. Or Sean’s Place. Something like that.”

“No, smart ass,” she said, poking a finger into my arm. “It’s called O’Hara’s. My grandfather called it that when he opened the place back in the fifties.”

“Ah, so your dad is a second-generation bar man,” I said. “Tell me about Sean O’Hara.”

“Sean O’Hara is your stereotypical Boston Irish Mick,” she said with an air of pride. She loved her old man. It was easy to tell by the lilt in her voice. “He is a big, barrel-chested, bear of a man, nose broken half a dozen times in street fights when he was a kid. He loves his friends and hates his enemies, and thinks Donald Trump is the Lord’s gift to mankind.”

“Ouch, and how do you feel about that?”

“Don’t get me started,” she said, making a sour face. “Anyway, his grandparents came off the boat from Dublin at the turn of the century and settled in Southie. He still lives in the same house my grandfather bought when he was just a boy. He had three brothers, all cops, and four sisters who married cops. He was a cop himself for a while, but took over my grandfather’s bar when he got sick, and never left.”

“I assume O’Hara’s is a cop’s bar.”

“You would assume correctly,” she said. “I grew up around cops. They were all like uncles to me. I thought about joining the force myself, then realized that dealing with assholes all day was not my idea of fun.”

“So, you became a lawyer,” I said. “Where you…”

“Yes, deal with assholes all day. Ironic, huh.”

“What about your mom?”

“My mom’s name was Lanie. She passed away several years ago. Cancer.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said, putting my hand on her knee for a moment. I gave her knee a pat and pulled my hand back. It was too soon to start getting handsy. “What kind of cancer?”

“Liver,” she said. “It was a horrible death, but she was strong for her family. She smiled whenever we were around. Never complained.”

“She sounds like an amazing woman.”

“Yes, she was.”

“What about siblings?” I asked, shifting gears away from her dead mother. “Let me guess, you’re the youngest—and only daughter—with a dozen older brothers, all cops, who would gut me like a deer if they ever caught me looking at you.”