Chapter 1

Objection

 

Ethan Miller

The judge’s frown was more than just the usual stoic look that a public official appointed to decide cases in a court of law normally wore. This magistrate wasn’t just mad—he was downright pissed off—at me, and at her. Still, even knowing this didn’t shut me up.

“I object!” I voiced without a second thought. Hey, as opposing counsel, it was my right especially given the lack of foundation being presented, as she offered poorly established evidence.

Over the rim of his glasses, the judge gave me a glare that made the hair on the back of my neck curl.

Okay, so what if the defense attorney was only arguing a simple motion. I wanted to object. No, I had to object.

I had to shut her up.

After thirty days of standing in the same courtroom as Fiona Hargrave, breathing the same air she breathed, watching the way her tight little ass moved as she strode down the aisle in those fuck me pumps, and sporting an erection the size of a steel rod all goddamn day long, I would have objected to just about anything that pretty little mouth had to say.

The truth was—every time those full red lips moved, all I could think about was how they would feel wrapped around my cock, and the thought was messing with my professionalism.

It was ticking me off.

The harsh sound of the gavel was loud in my ears. “Overruled!” the judge shouted, or maybe spat.

I tried to back up my objection with undisputed facts, but he spoke right over me. “This hearing is adjourned for the day. It will be continued tomorrow at nine a.m. sharp.”

I glanced at the large clock. It wasn’t even four in the afternoon. My eyes darted to the defense attorney, who, by the look of the O that had formed on her luscious lips, was just as shocked as me.

Right as I started to place my legal briefs and file folders neatly in my briefcase, the judge cleared his throat. “Mr. Miller and Ms. Hargrave, the early dismissal doesn’t include either of you.”

Fiona paused with her messenger bag already on her shoulder, and stared up at him. “Your Honor?” she questioned.

I, on the other hand, was being smart and kept my mouth shut.

The judge must not have had the same fondness for beautiful women that I did because his responding glare was the same as the one I had received moments earlier. “I want to see the two of you in my chambers, now!”

Shit, this was not good.

For me, or her.

The eight-minute walk to his office seemed to take forever, and I was certain once the three of us arrived we weren’t going to be talking about baseball.

The older robed man opened the giant wooden door that led to his chambers and hurriedly escorted Fiona and I through it. I glanced around. There were piles of thick law books and old files haphazardly stacked everywhere. The clutter would have been enough to drive me mad.

To my surprise, we didn’t stop beside his desk to confer on the case, but rather, Fiona and I were practically shoved into an adjoining conference room. The judge did not step inside himself though, instead he stood just outside the threshold. “Ethan and Fiona,” he addressed casually, “I have to meet my wife for dinner by five. That means the two of you have less than thirty minutes to work out your hostility.”

Fiona and I both protested. “We have nothing to work out,” I barked. “We don’t have anything to say to each other,” she quipped.

He held up a hand to silence us, but at least his eyes were no longer filled with rage. “Obviously, you do. After all, the two of you have been arguing over the most trivial issues, and to be honest the evidence presented on both sides is lacking. I’m tempted to sanction you both for wasting the court’s time.”

I inwardly sighed.

Fiona, on the other hand, wasn’t so inconspicuous. Her eyes went wide. They were puppy dog eyes, and they made me want to, well, I’m not sure what. “Your honor is that really necessary?” she asked softly. “That would not be fair or just to my client. This case has been pending way too long, and he deserves justice.”

That left me with nothing to say that wouldn’t piss the judge off, but again, that didn’t stop me. “Your Honor, that is total bullshit, and she knows it.”

Those old eyes of his filled with anger all over again.

Okay, I went too far.

He glared at the two of us, alternating from Fiona to me, and back to Fiona as he spoke. “This is my courtroom! My chambers! And I refuse to spend another minute listening to irrelevant arguments. The two of you need to learn to stay on point.”

“I am trying, Your Honor,” I said. “But she—”

Those eyes narrowed on me. “No, Ethan, you are not.”

The smug smile that crossed Fiona’s lips, those lips, irritated the shit out of me.

The judge then looked at her, and the smile was gone, immediately.

Ha!

“Just to be clear,” he said, pointing his finger at the two of us, “I want your personal issues resolved. Now! They have no place in my courtroom.”

We both nodded.

He dipped his chin. “Good, then I am confident this will be resolved in whatever manner it needs to be resolved before I return.”

Return?

Return from where?

Before I could say another word in protest, the door was slammed closed, and locked.

All I could do was stare at it.

What the hell?

Fiona and I both might have only been junior associates at our respective law firms, but we were both experienced enough to know this was highly unconventional.

When I heard the sound of her bag being dropped on the table, I realized she had moved away from my side, and I wheeled around. “Don’t get too comfortable. We need to get out of here.”

Her responding laugh was sexy, but I couldn’t let my attraction toward her tarnish my career. “In case you didn’t notice, we aren’t going anywhere.”

I huffed in frustration. “Yeah, because of you. What the hell do you think you are doing?”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “I’m not doing anything. It’s you. This is all your fault.”

“My fault?”

She cocked a hip. “Yes, your fault. If you would just learn to shut up and present the facts instead of arguing about everything, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

As if that petite, curvy body and that sexy blonde hair weren’t already hard enough to ignore, the fire in her eyes was damn near impossible. Still, I forced myself to stand my ground. “Shut up?” I repeated with indignity. “You have some nerve. The last time I checked, the purpose of a trial was to present the facts.”

That cute chin of hers lifted, and at the same time, so did her perfect tits…and my cock. Goddamnit! “What is your problem, anyway?” she asked.

All she had to do was look down at my crotch. Shit, my raging erection was going to be hard to hide. I had to keep her eyes up, and that meant pissing her off even more. To keep her focus above my waistline, I walked toward her and pointed my finger right toward the middle of her chest. “Look, you uptown girl.”

As if taking offense, she cut me off. “No, you look, Kalamazoo!” Everything about her screamed badass, and I was way too turned on by it. “I will have you know that I grew up in the suburb of Elmhurst, and not that I would expect a leave-it-to-beaver country boy like you to know anything about Chicago, it is as far from uptown as you can get.”

“Whatever,” I said, wondering who she had been talking to about me that she knew I grew up in Michigan, and how she’d nailed my family so perfectly. “That’s irrelevant,” I scoffed. “How about you tell me why you have done nothing but taunt me since day one of this trial?”

She looked taken aback, but not for long because she marched right toward me, copying me by pointing her finger at my chest. “Taunt you.” She rolled her eyes. “You have been the one trying to brown-nose the judge every chance you get.”

I laughed at that.

“You have!”

“Give me one example.”

“Oh, that’s easy. On the very first day, you know, when we were supposed to argue the motion to regulate trial, you decided to have a fun little sidebar with Judge Jenkins about the World Series instead.”

True.

Not that I was going to admit it.

There were no holds barred now. Despite the fact that my chest was rising and falling very rapidly, and my heart beating a mile a minute, I took that last step toward her, and it left me a breath away from those lips of hers. “I had to do something to get his attention off that low-cut wraparound dress you were wearing. I mean, come on, you had to know it showed off your tits terrifically.”

This time she put her hands on her hips in indignation. “Maybe you shouldn’t have been looking.”

I gave her a rueful smile. “It was hard not to with the display so out in the open.”

Perhaps I had gone too far because I thought she was going to slap me, and I kind of wanted her too. But instead her eyes drifted down, and as soon as they did, her breath hitched and those lips trembled. “Yes, hard. That is a very good way to describe the situation.”

I swallowed, hard, and met her gaze. Yes, hard. I was hard all over, and she did it to me. I didn’t have to tell her so—she knew it.

In that moment of silence, her lips parted in the sexiest way, and the hint of her pink tongue made me want to lean in even closer and taste her.

I didn’t, of course.

Kiss my nemesis, the defense attorney, the most beautiful woman I had ever seen? Craziness, even if, fuck, she smelled so good it was making me want to drop to my knees.

So yes, I was crazy, because before I could stop myself, my hands were skimming down her hips, and hers were reaching for me. All of a sudden the denied heat that had been simmering between us for weeks became white-hot.

I moved forward, she moved back. We stared at each other, not even blinking until we reached the conference table, where I roughly lifted her and sat her on top of it.

“I don’t like you, at all,” she breathed as she ran her nails down my back.

“Then it’s mutual, because I really don’t like you,” I told her.

That was a lie.

The press of my rock-hard cock inside my pants became painful, and I pushed my heat into hers.

She rocked her hips the tiniest bit, pressing herself against the bulge in my pants. Her eyes never left mine. “You really should get off me,” she whispered.

With my hands gripping her hips, I answered her. “Get off, yeah, that is exactly what I am thinking.”

Fiona slanted her mouth to mine, but our lips didn’t touch. “What else are you thinking?”

I skimmed my fingers down her skirt and then up the inside of her thigh. Her pantyhose were silky soft, and I wondered if her pussy was the same. “How loud you are going to scream when I give you the best orgasm of your life.”

She breathed in.

She breathed out.

She was turned on.

She liked it dirty.

So did I.

Her hands circled to the front of my shirt and she was undoing my buttons, leaving my tie in place. “Not only are you arrogant, Ethan, you are also very presumptuous. Too bad I am not easy to please. I honestly don’t think a good boy like you is up for the challenge of me.”

I licked my lips, touching hers with my tongue. Both of us shuddered. “Oh, Fiona, I might look like the boy-next-door, but I promise you, I am not.”

She pulled back and stared at me, studying me. Something nameless twisted between us when she did, and I crashed my mouth to hers.

Of fuck, she tasted so good. Her lips were soft. I had to touch her. Taste her. Have her. Unable to control myself, I tore a hole in her pantyhose and slipped my fingers into the silk of her panties.

Fuck, she was soaking wet, and I smiled around our kiss.

Her nails dug into the skin of my chest, and I wondered if she drew blood. I didn’t give a fuck. I kissed her, hard. Harder. Hard enough that our teeth clashed. Tongues battled. Lips crushed. It still wasn’t enough.

That’s when I slid my finger inside her heat, and as soon as I did, she made a tiny noise that I knew she wished she hadn’t.

She liked it.

I moved in, out, slow, then faster before adding another finger and curling them just right. This time her responding noise of pleasure couldn’t be denied. I gave her all I had; moving my fingers in, then out to circle her clit with her wetness of her arousal.

She leaned back to give me better access.

I grinned at her as I continued to move inside her. The tight knot of flesh, the slickness, it was heaven.

“Is that all you have, counselor?” she breathed.

That was it; I was going in for the kill. I raised a brow. Tempted to stop and leave her wondering, wanting, but I was too determined to let my mind rule over my body.

I let one finger drift slowly over her swollen flesh, and then I slid it inside her, crooking it down to find the soft spot that would send her over the edge. I drew up and repeated the process.

As soon as I did, she was shamelessly grinding into my hand, and her fingernails scratching against the wood of the table to control herself.

Little sighs and moans escaped her throat, and then she started to shake, no tremble, and I watched as she closed her eyes and pleasure coated her face. It was so erotic, especially when she bit her lip to remain quiet.

When she opened her eyes, she swallowed, licking her lips. “I have to say, you’re not so bad.”

I gave her a cocky smile. “Bad, oh, I’m bad alright. You have no idea. Just wait until my cock is pounding inside you.”

For the first time since I met her, she smiled at me. That smile did something to me, something I couldn’t explain even if I were forced to.

I didn’t like that feeling, so I shut it out.

“I hope you’re not an all talk and no action kind of guy.”

“Oh, I’m not. I can promise you that.”

She looked doubtful.

To prove my point, I slid my hand out of the hole I’d nicely put in her hose and brought it to her lips. Once there, I used the finger, which had just been inside her, to outline that mouth that I was obsessed with. “In fact, I’m full of action.”

She breathed in deeply, knowing exactly where my fingers had been, and what I could do with them.

Just then, the lock turned. Judge Jenkins was back, and lucky for us we were going to be able to tell him we had worked everything out.

Hey, we had or we were about to.

I backed away and quickly began to button my shirt. The bloodstain would be obvious, but then again, he must have known what we would be doing. “There’s a hotel on the corner, meet me there as soon as we get out of here. I’ll wait for you in the lobby,” I said softly.

She was smoothing her hands down her skirt when she spoke. “We’ll see,” she said, “and you owe me a pair of pantyhose. These were silk.”

“Whatever you say, Uptown Girl,” I smirked.

“I still don’t like you,” she murmured.

“Don’t care,” I whispered back.

Right then she looked up, and by the look on her face I knew she would be joining me. I also had a feeling the night was going to be whatever she said.

Normally, I would have drawn the line at that. I liked to be in control. But this time, it was fine with me.

I had no idea why…nor did I know that my world was about to be rocked.

That life was never going to be the same.