The jury was out less than a minute when Lauren found herself sitting in the ladies’ room, on the floor, her head between her knees. She had been so ready for this. She’d been confident, just that morning, that she could face Jack today, knowing where he was headed. When she looked in the mirror, she could see that the bruises around her neck were completely gone and that seemed to be her sign that everything was going to be okay.
But how long would that last now? What if Jack served no time? What if the press just made her out to be a gold-digging whore? What if—
“Would you stop it?”
Lauren jumped at the sound of the very masculine voice in the ladies’ room. When she looked up, she found Marc standing there, tilting his head at her, his eyes filled with annoyance.
“I could hear your thoughts from a mile away,” he said, gruffly. He locked the door behind him and stepped further into the room. “Everything is going to be fine,” he added, in a slightly softer voice. “That asshole is gonna get what’s coming to him, one way or another.”
“You’re not going to have him killed, are you?” Lauren asked, only half-joking.
Marc shrugged. “I could,” he said. “You just say the word.” He grinned and shook his head. “But you don’t want that.”
“Why not?” she asked, bitterly. “He deserves it, after what he did to me.” She wrung her wrists, feeling a phantom pain that she hadn’t in nearly two years.
“Maybe so,” Marc conceded, “but you know what he deserves a lot more than that?”
“Castration?” she huffed.
“Ha! No.” He shook his head. At Lauren’s raised brow, he shrugged. “Okay, yes. But, more than that, he deserves prison. He deserves to be treated with that kind of disrespect. He deserves to be the bitch for once. Nobody is going to listen to a single word he says. I mean, look at those dainty little hands of his.” He snorted. “They’ll eat him alive.” He settled down next to her on the floor, his back sliding against the wall until their thighs were pressed together, side-by-side. “He’s gonna wish all we did was castrate him.”
“But it’s not gonna happen,” Lauren said. “That lawyer is too good. You heard her. You saw the way the jury was reacting to her words.”
“She’s Eris.”
“What?”
“The Greek Goddess of Discord? Didn’t you learn any Greek mythology in all your years of school, Miss Fancy Trauma Surgeon?”
Lauren snorted. “Not as much as you, apparently. But what does that have to do with anything?”
“Eris was the cause of a lot of strife for the Greeks,” Marc explained. “She indirectly caused the fall of Troy and a whole lot of other shit. Always causing trouble and looking pretty while she did it. Also she had quite possibly the flattest ass in Ancient Greece.” Lauren laughed at that and Marc gave her a sideways grin, his eyes raking over her curvy form. “Yours is way better.”
“Oh?” she purred, suddenly feeling much more confident than she had just seconds ago. She slid toward him, draping her body over his. Marc wasted no time in grabbing said ass and pressing his lips to Lauren’s as she straddled his hips. She moaned. “It is quite a nice handful, isn’t it, Agent Kelly?”
“I’d say so, Dr. Stanton,” he growled in response, his free hand already slipping beneath the hem of her skirt, finding her heat as he pushed away the crotch of her underwear. “Two perfect handfuls, actually, but I can’t exactly prove that to you at the moment. I’m a little…” he plunged two fingers into her and Lauren gasped, “busy at the moment. Maybe later.”
“Mm, yes,” Lauren sighed. “Maybe later.” She reached for his belt, quickly undoing it and unbuttoning his pants until she could reach in and pull him from the slit in his boxers. She stroked him a few times, riding his thick fingers as she did, before batting his hand away and positioning him at her entrance.
His length was much thicker than two of his fingers, she thought as she began to ride him in earnest. They were both painfully aware that they were not the only two people in this courthouse and that, sooner or later, somebody else would be outside that door, questioning why it was locked. Or why there were two people on the inside, screaming at the top of their lungs in ecstasy.
In order to keep herself quiet, Lauren pressed her open mouth to Marc’s, allowing him to swallow her murmurs and sighs and gasps of his name as she did the same for him. When he pressed his hands to her ass cheeks and squeezed, she let out a sound that was somewhere between a screech and a giggle, her hands going for his hair, careful not to muss the recently cut strands too much, lest somebody in the courtroom notice when they went back in to hear the verdict. She could only imagine that having sex in the bathroom during their recess would not look too good for her.
But she honestly didn’t give a shit as he entered and exited her at rapid-fire pace, bringing her closer and closer to that elusive edge. It was getting harder not to scream as they made love and her nails dug into Marc’s shoulders, keeping him from pausing or moving too harshly within her. She didn’t like it when this was over too quickly, but this time they didn’t really have many options for prolonging their pleasure.
Finally, when Lauren felt herself break, she sobbed Marc’s name into his mouth, letting go of his lips and pressing them to his neck, even as he continued to grunt and he emptied himself inside of her, his hands still firmly planted on her ass.
“No matter what happens,” he husked in her ear, as they both came down from their highs, his rough hands rubbing up and down her back, “I am going to protect you. He will never hurt you again. Okay?”
“Okay,” Lauren sighed, allowing her entire body to relax for a long moment. It was the first time all day.
There was a knock at the door.
“I don’t know what y’all are doing in there,” the prosecutor hissed through the door, “and I don’t wanna know. But I though you oughta know that the jury’s back.”
“Already?” Marc murmured. Lauren locked eyes with him as fear once again raked through her. He didn’t allow her to hold onto it for long, though, as he pressed another hard kiss to her lips. “No matter what,” he huffed into her mouth.
“No matter what,” Lauren echoed.
He held her hand as they walked out of the bathroom together, not caring who saw.
*****