STONE SUCKED IN a breath, surprised that she was actually listening to him. Had he finally gotten through to her? Maybe she’d realized when she’d seen his witness list that he wouldn’t have called a guilty client to the stand. He couldn’t knowingly suborn perjury. That was how his friend had nearly lost his law license—because someone had forged documents to substantiate that claim against Ronan.
But because the evidence had been forged, and proved so, the complaint had been tossed out. Now Ronan was seeing the woman who’d filed the complaint. She hadn’t forged the documents, though. They had been sent to her just as the bank records had been sent to Hillary.
Who the hell was out to make trouble for Street Legal? And why?
Hillary smiled over his hesitation. “You can’t come up with any other suspects, either.”
“I can’t come up with a name,” he explained, “because no one knows what it is, but even you insist the man exists.”
She sighed and settled her butt onto her desk. He wanted to lift her onto it like he had that first time he’d come to her office. He wanted to push up her skirt and push aside her panties and drive her crazy with his tongue and with his mouth.
But he drew in a deep, albeit unsteady, breath and forced himself to focus. He had made his client a promise—to do his best. And he hadn’t been doing that because of her, because she distracted him, with her silky blond hair, with her full lips, with her sexy body.
Her blue eyes darkened, dilating as she stared up at him. And it was as if she could read his mind, or maybe she was reliving that first time as well.
He nearly reached for her, but he curled his fingers into his palms instead. “No.”
“Yeah, it’s not him,” she agreed. “It’s Byron.”
He chuckled and shook his head. “That’s not what I was denying.”
“What were you denying?” she asked. And as if she knew she had him teetering on the edge, she tried his control more, reaching for the buttons of her suit coat. She flicked them open and shrugged off the jacket. It dropped onto the desk behind her.
And he swallowed hard. There was no denying his attraction to her. It was ridiculously powerful like the passion that burned between them.
He closed his eyes because he couldn’t look at her—her shoulders bare but for the thin-strapped camisole she wore—and not want her. “It’s the lover,” he said.
“Lover?” Her voice was husky as she whispered the word. It was also close, so close that her lips brushed across his earlobe as she uttered it.
He nearly shivered in reaction to the warmth of her breath, the touch of her lips.
It wasn’t fair how she affected him. Not when he was trying so hard to focus. But didn’t that alone prove his point? Her point. She’d made it first.
“It was a crime of passion,” he said. “Just like you said.”
“So you agree?” She’d pulled back. So he opened his eyes and met her gaze. She looked almost disappointed when she should have been triumphant as she added, “You think your client’s guilty, too.”
He groaned with two kinds of frustration. He’d thought she was finally going to listen to him. And he wanted her. His control snapping, he reached for her, closing his hands around those sexy bare shoulders. “Damn, woman, you are so infuriating!”
She smiled and acted all innocent. “Me?”
He laughed. Nobody had ever challenged him like Hillary did. In the courtroom and out of it.
But she wasn’t fighting him now. She reached for the buttons of his shirt. He’d left his jacket and tie in his SUV, along with his briefcase. Just as she had before, she jerked his shirt open. A button pinged off her desk and another off the wall.
“My dry cleaner wonders what the hell’s been happening to my buttons,” he teased.
“Did you tell her?” she asked.
“I showed her,” he said.
She tensed and pulled back. And he saw on her face what she’d made him feel that night when he’d shown up along with dopey Dwight at her door. Jealousy.
He grinned, as something warm rushed over his heart. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Jealous?”
She narrowed her eyes in a glare. “You’re just proving my point. It was a crime of passion.”
“That’s what I told the dry cleaner,” he said.
She laughed. “You probably just threw out the shirts and bought new ones.”
She knew him too damn well. That was why she was such a formidable adversary in court and such a thorough and exciting lover.
He tugged off her camisole and found another nude lace bra beneath. “Isn’t that what you did?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No. I have several of these. They don’t show beneath my clothes.” She wrinkled her nose. “Sorry I’m not like the lingerie models and designers you date.”
“Not me,” he corrected her. “My partners date those women.”
“What kind of women do you date?” she asked, cocking her head as if interested but also a tiny bit jealous.
He loved that jealousy on her. It felt better there than feeling it himself. “Oh, smart, practical women who buy bras that won’t show beneath their clothes.”
She smiled.
He fingered the strap of her bra before he reached for the clasp behind her back. He undid it and pulled it from her beautiful breasts. “But if you have more than one of these, why did you want that one back?” he asked.
Her smile turned into a grimace. “I didn’t want you showing it to anyone else.”
“You’re the only one who saw it,” he assured her.
And she released a breath of release.
“But your panties...” He waited for a long moment before adding, “...are dangling from my rearview mirror.”
And she smacked his shoulder. And laughed.
There was something about her laugh that reached inside Stone, that wrapped around his heart and squeezed it tightly. As much as he enjoyed sparring with her in court and having sex with her out of it, he enjoyed talking to her, joking around with her.
“Did I hurt you?” she asked.
It had hurt—that twinge in his heart. But he rubbed his shoulder instead and groaned. “Yeah, woman, you don’t know your own strength.”
“Oh, I know,” she said, and she wrapped her arms around his neck and tugged his head down toward hers. Then she kissed him—deeply, passionately—her lips nibbling on his before she slid her tongue into his mouth.
She tasted like chocolate again. But it wasn’t dark this time. It was smooth and mild. Milk chocolate...
He smiled against her lips. Just like the nude bra, he found it incredibly sexy. Hell, he found everything about her sexy.
That twinge struck his heart again, and he recognized it this time. It was fear.
* * *
Stone’s lips stilled beneath hers. He wasn’t kissing her back. He was in a strange mood tonight. Playful one minute, morose the next.
She pulled back and asked, “What’s wrong?”
But he didn’t answer her. He only stared at her with an intensity she’d never seen in him before. She’d always considered Stone intense. Then he lifted her up and clutched her closely to his chest. His hair tickled her nipples, making them taut and sensitive.
A moan slipped through her lips. She arched her neck, and his lips were there, sliding down her throat. He nibbled and suckled.
“Are you trying to give me a hickey for court?” she asked.
He chuckled. “That’s a good idea. Maybe if you wore a turtleneck, you wouldn’t distract me so damn much.”
“I distract you?”
His eyes widened as he stared. He eased her back and moved his gaze over her, from her tousled hair over her bare breasts down to her feet, which were bare too since she’d kicked off her shoes a while ago.
“You know you distract me.”
She’d thought so, but she’d wondered if she’d only been fantasizing again, like she used to about him. “I thought I was just cute.”
His lips curved into a grin. “I can’t let you have the upper hand.”
Would that always be the issue with them? They’d always be jockeying for position? For the victory?
Before she could think about it any more, he lowered his head to hers and kissed her deeply. When he pulled back, she was panting for breath, and so was he. But he managed to say, “I think you’re beautiful.”
It could have been a line. But that didn’t seem like Stone’s style. He didn’t have to sweet-talk women to get them into bed, especially not her as he was already well aware. So he must have just said it because he meant it.
Warmth rushed through her heart, then moved lower, burning in her core. She wanted him so badly. Her hand shook as she reached for his belt, but she managed to unclasp it. Then she lowered his zipper and freed his penis. It was engorged, a vein standing out.
He wanted her just as badly as she wanted him. She pushed down his pants and his boxers. And her breath whistled out in appreciation. “You’re the beautiful one,” she murmured.
No. Stone Michaelsen didn’t need to sweet-talk women to seduce them. All he had to do was be—Stone.
He shook his head, though, as if he didn’t believe her. But before she could argue with him, he covered her mouth again with his. Then he covered her breasts with his hands. He cupped them and teased the nipples with his thumbs.
She moaned against his mouth. And he deepened the kiss, sliding his tongue inside, and as he did, he bunched up her skirt, pushed aside her panties and slid his fingers inside her. She was so ready for him that she nearly came then. But he pulled his hand back. As he had that first night, he lifted her onto her desk and dropped to his knees.
She would have never believed in a million years that she would bring Stone Michaelsen to his knees not once but twice. But then she was the one writhing and begging for more. She was so close...
But each time she nearly came, he pulled back and moved his tongue or his fingers.
And she murmured in frustration. “Stone...” His name was a plea.
Instead of answering, he just flicked his tongue across her clit.
“Stone!” She covered her breasts with her hands and stroked the nipples herself, and as she did, she came.
And Stone groaned. “You’re going to make me come, too.”
“That’s the idea,” she said, and she reached for him.
But he pulled back and pulled out a condom instead.
Why wouldn’t he let her go down on him? Was it an issue of control?
Because he’d just had full control over her. And now he did again as he turned her over her desk so her ass was in the air. He eased his way inside her core, thrusting deep. And his hands cupped her breasts now, like she’d wanted. He stroked her nipples and nibbled on her neck as he bent over her, bent over the desk.
And he took her, thrusting deep. She arched back, grinding her butt against him—meeting his every thrust. They moved together in a frantic rhythm. He was as desperate for release as he’d just had her. She could feel it in the mad pounding of his heart against her back, in the shakiness of his hands on her breasts...
The tension wound tightly inside her again. He moved one hand from one of her breasts and stroked his thumb over her clit. And she came again, barely suppressing the urge to scream his name. But she wasn’t sure they were entirely alone in the office.
Sure, it was after hours, but the cleaning crew might have been around yet. She hoped not, though, because she hadn’t been quiet.
He was, as he buried his face in her neck, clutching her against him, his cock pulsating as he came. A deep groan escaped his lips.
A sound echoed it, the sound of something rattling outside the door. It must have been the cleaning crew’s cart.
Hillary gasped and pulled away from him. She dressed quickly, making sure she found her bra this time.
Stone had dressed, too, but he had a gap on his shirt where two buttons were missing. “Crime of passion,” he said, gesturing at the loose threads.
Hillary smiled. “You don’t give up.” And maybe that was it, what all having sex with her was—a way to win. Her smile slid away and she sighed before asking, “Okay, why would her lover have killed her?”
Stone’s eyes brightened to a shiny silver. He thought he’d swayed her.
“I don’t think you’re right,” she warned him. “But give me the lover’s motive for killing her.”
“If the husband can be jealous, so can the lover,” Stone pointed out. “Maybe he wanted her all to himself, and she wouldn’t leave her husband.”
A little doubt began to niggle at Hillary. “You mean his millions.”
“Billions,” he automatically corrected her. “And yes, she knew that the prenup locked her into the marriage. If she left, she got nothing.”
“But why would the lover kill her?” Hillary persisted. “Why wouldn’t he kill Mueller? Then he’d get the woman and the money.”
Stone groaned. “You are so damn stubborn.”
She shook her head. “I’m right.”
But he had a point. She needed to find out who the lover was. Then she’d know the truth beyond a reasonable doubt. And so would the jury.
“What are we?” she wondered aloud and hated herself for asking the question. Like Dwight had said, she wasn’t one of those girlie girls who wanted a relationship or, worse yet, to discuss a relationship. She didn’t care what they had. She knew it wasn’t going to last. “Forget I asked that. I know what we are.”
He arched a dark brow. “Lovers?”
“Opposing counsel,” she replied.
“Really?” Stone asked. “Seems like we’re both on the same page for this case. We both want justice.”
She snorted. “I want justice. You want to win the trial.”
“I will win.” And he said it as if he was warning her.
Did he have some trick up his sleeve like he usually did? Was he going to use their—whatever it was—against her?