CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Lori
I stick my phone back in my purse, and do my best to set aside my one-time Prince Charming with mad bedroom and courtroom skills, and start reading Cat’s manuscript, and in a matter of a minute, I’m absorbed in a case that has long intrigued me; June Smith, a college-aged girl, was convicted of killing her dorm mate, and sentenced to death row. She died of cancer while in prison, and now, five years later, she’s innocent, and a now deceased janitor for the school was the killer.
I’m a good portion through the parts of the book I haven’t read when Cat shows back up. “Well?” she asks, sitting back down.
“It’s amazing,” I assure her. “This story is mind blowing in so many ways; tragic and compelling, and you embrace that in every way.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. Of course. You have hordes of fans for your column and books for a reason. Deep down, you know you nailed this and you’ll embrace that too, once you get past the deadline. That’s how you work. I’ve seen it with every big project you start.”
“Maybe,” she concedes. “What about comments? I always love your comments.”
“I did mark a few places that concern me. Some of the research I did right before I left isn’t connecting.”
“Tell me,” she says eagerly, because that’s Cat. She is all about telling the best story.
We start going through the sections I’ve marked, and hours pass in which I can’t help but anticipate Cole’s call that doesn’t come. He’s either still in his meeting or just can’t talk freely, and I’d rather wait than rush with him, anyway. Just as long as we can talk before I’m faced with tonight’s decision, I’ll be happy.
It’s near noon when we both shove down bagels and try to wrap up. “I still need an interview with the twin brother,” Cat says. “This is his sister, and his life was torn apart as well.”
“He told me he’d talk to you,” I say. “I pre-screened him weeks ago.”
She holds her hands up. “I know, but he changed his tune. He won’t talk to me. I’ve tried. I’ve given up.”
“I connected with him,” I say, grabbing a file on the counter to look up his number. “I’ll call him and see if I can recreate that and convince him to talk to you.”
“Thank you,” she says. “But FYI, my public persona seems to really turn him off and I get it. He’s been abused by the press.”
“He has,” I say. “And some pretty horrible things were said about his sister, and even assumed about him as her twin.”
“Exactly,” she says. “He had to leave his employer and do contract computer programming. It ruined his life and hers.”
“Which is why he needs to speak out,” I say, punching his number in my cell phone, and he answers quickly. “Hello.”
“Dillon, hi. This is Lori Havens. Do you remember me? We spoke once before.”
“I remember you. You’re working on that book with Cat Summer.”
“I just read the book,” I say, baiting his curiosity, infusing my voice with the excitement I genuinely feel for the project.
“And?”
“It would be perfect if it had your viewpoint,” I say. “How can Cat tell this story without showing how the failure of the justice system destroyed everyone in your circle? We need to make sure this doesn’t happen to other people.”
“How do I know that’s how she’ll represent this?” he demands. “I don’t want to be a pawn, used for headlines and scandal.”
I look at Cat. “I think you should ask her that question. Look into Cat’s eyes, and I promise you, you’ll know she’s a good person. Read her ‘Cat Does Crime’ columns. She’s the right voice to tell this story.”
“I’ve read her stuff,” he says. “It seems okay.”
“Then you’ll talk to her?” I ask, seeing his reply as an olive branch. “Just talk to her, interview her.”
“I’ll talk to you.”
“Can I bring her?”
“Yes,” he says sounding irritated. “Bring her. This afternoon.”
“What time?” I ask.
“Three o’ clock.”
“Well see you then.” We disconnect, and I set my phone down. “I know the party is tonight, but he said he’d see us today, and I didn’t want to talk myself out of it. Three o’clock.”
“You’re brilliant,” Cat declares.
“Which is why we hired her,” Reese says, joining us and quickly stepping to Cat’s side.
A tingle along my skin tells me Cole is behind me, and I twist around in my seat to find Reese headed toward Cat, and Cole leaning one shoulder on the archway, and Lord help me, my adrenaline spikes and my heart starts racing. He’s gorgeous. He’s here. He’s intensely focused on me, his expression unreadable, but there is an edge to him, a cutting undercurrent I’ve seen in him before now, just not directed at me. It’s definitely directed at me now. “Walk me to the elevator, Lori?”
Our phone call is here and now, in person. Somehow, that’s so much more intense. “Yes. Of course.”
Cat gives me a knowing look before I turn away and slip off the barstool. Cole straightens and steps out of the archway to allow me to pass. He joins me immediately and once again we walk down the hallway, but this time we don’t stop in the foyer. He motions me to the door, and I walk that direction. He’s there by the time I’m there, opening it for me to pass through.
I don’t hesitate to follow his direction and we don’t speak but I have never been so aware of any other human being in my life. I step into the hallway and Cole joins me. For a moment, he’s towering over me, and we’re facing each other, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to melt from the heat we’re radiating. Cat’s right. How does anyone fight something like this? Everyone wants to feel this, they wish for something this intense, and maybe it’s just physical, but it’s no less fierce.
“Come on,” he says, taking my hand, and I let him. I can’t stop him. I don’t want to stop him. I want to go where he’s leading me.
We round the corner to the elevator banks and instead of punching the elevator button, he heads for the stairwell. He opens the door and in a blink, we’re inside the corridor, and his fingers are slicing into my hair and his mouth is closing down on mine. I don’t even consider resisting. I need this. I need him, and when his tongue touches mine, I feel it everywhere. My sex. My nipples. My entire body. I moan into his mouth and grip his shirt, while his hand molds me close. I don’t want it to end. I don’t want to have to think or be logical or cautious.
His hand slips under my shirt and mine under his, that spicy familiar scent of him a drug seducing my senses. I need more. I want more, and I don’t realize how much that is true until right here and now. His hand slips under my sweats, and he cups my backside. The same hand that spanked me. Because he makes the forbidden sultry and sexy and necessary.
***
Cole
The only sound in the stairwell is the moan that escapes Lori’s lips when I mold her hips to my hips, my erection pressing against her belly. It echoes inside the concrete walls, a sound meant for my ears and only my ears, like I believe she’s meant for me and no one else. It’s the jolting moment that pulls me back to the present. I press Lori against the wall and tear my mouth from hers. “We have to stop before I forget we’re in a stairwell, and finally find my way back inside you again.” And now it’s a mix of her breathing and my breathing that fills the small space, both of us on edge, both of us needing what we’ve been denied for months. What should have been. What I won’t let her run from again.
Her chin lifts and she grabs fistfuls of my shirt. “You make me crazy, Cole Brooks,” she hisses. “You make me do things I wouldn’t do with anyone else.”
I lean in and press my cheek to hers, my lips by her ear. “The feeling is mutual, sweetheart,” I whisper.
“You’re still doing it,” she bites out.
“So are you,” I assure her.
She presses her hands to my chest. “Stop.”
I lean back to look at her. “I can’t stop. You can’t stop, and what’s crazy about that is that I don’t lose control. I don’t think about a woman when I should be thinking about other things. I don’t fuck people I work with. And yet here I am and here we are.”
“Exactly,” she says. “I don’t risk my future over a man.”
“You think I’d let you get hurt?”
“Not intentionally, but we’re in a stairwell, all over each other, Cole. Cat said we’re glaringly obvious and she’s clearly correct. Which, by the way is why I asked to talk to you, but I couldn’t remember that fact until this moment. And why is that? Because we were too busy doing everything but talking. I had to tell her that we met on the street that day and that you asked me to coffee.”
“And she said what?” I ask.
“If we’re obvious to her, we can be obvious to others.”
I narrow my eyes on her. “Did she say that, or did you say that?”
“I’m saying that.”
“Cat and Reese are friends. They’ll see what others do not.”
“We’re out of control.”
My hands settle at her waist and I pull her to me. “Let’s try a repeat of my prior question. Did Cat say that, or did you?”
“Me. I said it.”
“What else did Cat say to you?”
“Nothing that I want to repeat,” she says.
“Tell me anyway,” I order softly.
Her hands grip my wrists as if she wants to control me, or maybe herself, and holy hell, her hands on my any part of my body just make me want her hands on every part of my body. “Summarizing. The writing is on the wall. We’re going to end up naked, and I need to accept that, and plan accordingly.”
“What else?”
“She left the what else to us, but she told me that if it made me more comfortable, I could move to Reese’s team.”
“And you said what, Lori?”
A door above us opens and crashes shut. Lori shoves out of my arms as footsteps trample downward toward us. Lori heads for the door, and I quickly follow on her heels a moment after she exits to the elevator bank, and if I think she will run, I’m wrong. She whirls on me and pokes my chest.
“I told her that I’m staying with you. You need me, Cole. You have no staff and I won’t let you down or betray you. But Cat was right. This isn’t going away and I need to deal with that and you.”
“And how exactly do you plan on dealing with me, Lori?”
“I’m going to go home with you, fuck you, not you me, and get this out of my system and yours. Then Monday morning, I’m going to do my job, get my degree, and start my career.” She turns and starts to walk away.
I let her, because a) her ass is about as perfect a view in those sweatpants as any man could hope for, and b) I know what she knows but won’t admit yet. I do need her and not just professionally. Outside of my new role as her boss, I have wanted her so damn long at this point that I have a deep need for her I cannot escape, and I’m not alone. She needs me, too, and tonight, in between orgasms, I’m going to make her say it.