Her inner muscles convulsed, squeezing him as she came, screaming his name. And his name on her lips snapped the last of his control.
He thrust again and again until his body tensed, then shuddered as a powerful release overtook him. He came and came...like he had never come before.
And when it was over, his knees shook, and he felt a fear like he hadn’t felt since he’d been living alone on the streets—before he’d found the other guys. No. He felt even more vulnerable than he had then. Back then he’d been afraid of losing his life.
Now he was afraid of losing his heart.
* * *
“What the hell was that?” Hillary asked as Stone stepped out of the small bathroom. Like her, he’d dressed again. He must have even splashed some water on his face because a droplet dripped off his rigid jaw.
Or maybe it was sweat. Hillary’s skin was damp beneath her sweater. She felt flushed yet, hot. And despite that release that had turned her muscles—the few she had—to mush, she wanted him again.
He looked so damn handsome, even with his jaw clenched and his brow furrowed. He seemed as frustrated as he’d been when he’d shown up at her door.
“I don’t know,” Stone said.
And she believed he was being honest. He had no idea. And neither did she. What was it about him that affected her so much, that made her want him?
Even now, after that mind-blowing orgasm, she wanted him again. But she wanted some answers first. “Why are you really here?”
“After that, you need to ask?”
“You don’t need me for that,” she said. “I’m sure there are slews of women who would be happy to have sex with you.” Desperate even. And she’d vowed not to become one of those women. But anytime they were alone together she forgot that vow, forgot what a bad idea it was to have sex with opposing counsel in the biggest trial of her career.
“Is that whyDwightwas here?” he bitterly asked. “For sex with you?”
He sounded so pissy that she couldn’t help but smile. “Jealous?” she asked.
His eyes widened as if the thought hadn’t occurred to him. But then, given his life, the way women threw themselves at him and his partners, he’d probably never had a reason to feel jealous before.
But he shook his head. He was either in denial or too proud to admit the truth. “I just want to know what the hell you have with that guy,” he said. “The same thing you have with me?”
She’d never had with anyone else what she had with Stone. But she wasn’t about to admit that to him. “Wedon’t have anything,” she told him, “except a trial in common.”
He stepped closer to her and called her on the lie. “Bullshit. You know we have more than that—we have this...” He leaned down and kissed her, driving his tongue inside her mouth like he’d driven himself into her body. When he pulled away, they were both panting for breath. “You don’t have that with skinny little Dwight,” he said. “You can’t.”
“I can’t have anything with you,” she said. “Not when we’re both on this trial.” Maybe she shouldn’t have talked her boss out of taking the case from her. It was what Stone had wanted, but she didn’t think it was because he wanted to publicly date her.
He only wanted sex with her. Not a relationship. And that was all this was: sex. And she wouldn’t let that—or anything else—affect how she handled the trial.
His lips curved into that slight wicked grin of his. “How the hell did you talk Wilson Tremont out of taking it away from you?”
“I pointed out it’s what you want,” she said. “Because you think you can beat him. You know you’re going to lose to me.”
He shook his head. “If you get a conviction, the one who’s going to lose is Byron Mueller,” he said. “He’s innocent.”
She laughed. “How can you say that? I’ve pretty much presented my whole case, and there’s overwhelming evidence showing that he did it. He killed his wife.”
But Stone just stubbornly shook his head again. “No, he didn’t.”
“The only thing you had to prove his innocence was that fake alibi,” she said. “And those bank records blew that up. You’re going to lose.”
That was probably what was wrong with him—just like Dwight had suggested. He really hated to lose—probably because he’d done it so rarely. If ever...
She wasn’t sure if he’d ever actually lost a case. Usually if it looked like he wasn’t going to win, he pleaded them down to lesser charges.
“You wouldn’t have those records if not for that damn office mole,” he muttered as he glanced around her apartment. It was small. The hall opened onto a tiny living room that doubled as the dining room with a kitchen in a corner of it. There was one other door off the hall and that was to her bedroom. She wasn’t letting him in there, though.
