Thirteen
After Brad thoroughly touched, licked and coaxed the Russian through three orgasms, she fell, exhausted, on the bed, a smile plastered to her face. She reached for me, pulled me to her lips and kissed me once, gently. Her hands turned my head and I felt her breath on my ear, her accented voice speaking. “Thank you. For sharing.”
I tried to think of an acceptable response, but my mind was useless, drugged with champagne and sex. I smiled, and she rolled over, reaching for the blanket and pulling it over her body. Brad gathered our clothes and pulled my arm, tugging until I was upright and naked in front of him. He looked down, staring at my nakedness, then leaned over, kissed me gently along my cleavage, scooped me up and carried me out of the room and into the other bedroom. He avoided the bed, setting me on the floor, and I looked up at him in puzzlement.
He lay on top of me, completely bare, his arms keeping him light on my body. “I haven’t come yet,” he whispered.
I smirked. “I know. But I’m a little tired. I was thinking about going to bed.”
He nuzzled my neck, biting it gently while he pushed against me, his shaft sliding up between my legs, almost inside me, but a fraction too high. I groaned, untangling my legs from underneath his body and wrapping them tightly around him, my pussy now impossible to avoid, my need wet against him.
“Going to bed, huh?” His arrogance in my ear, my moan in response. His cock, so close, so teasing,
there
but not yet inside, lying hard against my ass instead.
“Maybe I’ll stay up a little longer.” I gasped as he was finally there, just the tip of him inside me, and I dug my heels into his back, panting, trying to push him farther in. He leaned down, whispered something against my mouth, then kissed me, softly, sweetly. As un-Brad-like as anything I could imagine. He tasted my mouth, trailed kisses along my jaw, sucked gently on my bottom lip. And when I finally relaxed, finally surrendered to his mouth and kiss, my legs going slack, he pushed his cock all the way in, taking my breath. I almost orgasmed right then, my need had been so great, then so fulfilled, his cock insanely perfect inside me. It took about a minute of deep slow strokes, almost painful in their perfection, and then I was done, shattering into pieces in his arms, my mouth open, frozen, as the swells washed over me. I was whimpering by the time I was done, and he held my face in his hands, looking into my eyes, his fire burning into me.
What had just happened, in the other room, that had been us, an experience we had shared, the blonde somehow an extension of our union. But now, alone in the room with each other, I was captivated, held in his arms, him filling me, his strokes quickening, our eyes locked in identical pools of lust. Then he took in a quick breath, closed his eyes and buried himself deeper, his thrusts stronger. I wrapped my arms and legs tight around him, riding his wave of orgasm, burying my face in his neck, his strong heat inside me.
He rolled over, pulling me with him, and I lay limp across his chest. I ran my hands down the clefts of his body, his skin damp with sweat, his muscles tight from exertion. His eyes were closed, and I pulled myself up until my face was above his. I ran my fingers lightly over his face, awestruck at the beauty in his strength. God, I was in trouble. In more ways than I could count. I didn’t know what I would become if I stayed with him, to what further depths I would plunge inescapably into, a slave to his sexual drugs. And I didn’t know what I would become if we parted, and how I would ever again find sexual satisfaction without the man.
We could just stop in, see how it works and leave.
I made a mental note not to fall for that one again.
Fourteen
The limo moved quietly through the dark streets. Curled into a ball in Brad’s arms, my body limp, weakened by orgasms, four-inch heels and champagne, I watched passing streetlights flickering by, softened by the car’s dark tint. I closed my eyes and let my body go limp, kept warm by Brad’s jacket tented over me.
A few minutes later, on the verge of sleep, I heard him talking, softly, and my ears strained to catch his words.
“I need you to take care of something.” Brad spoke into his cell, looking out on the passing lights.
“What, a body?” The voice laughed roughly, loud enough that I could hear it. He shifted, and I saw his jaw tighten, face hard.
“There’s a Russian girl, at 42 Hemingway Drive. In the morning, have Maria call Beverly Franklin—I’ll text you her number. Tell Maria to offer assistance to Beverly, see if there is anything she can do to help out with the girl’s situation. Have her mention our contacts in immigration.”
There was silence for a moment. “You fucking this girl?”
“No. Not that it matters.” Brad’s voice changed when he was on the phone. Softer in volume, but harder in tone. The smooth cadence and cultured voice were gone, replaced with a rough brogue and steely tone. He ordered rather than asked.
“Okay, okay. I was just asking.”
“If I was fucking her, I wouldn’t have left her there. Just tell Maria and call me when it’s taken care of.” Brad ended the call, tapping his phone to his mouth and then looking down at me.
I shifted, turning onto my back and gazing up at him. “What’s going to happen to the girl?”
He smiled down at me. “Don’t worry. Beverly won’t abandon her. She will be fine.”
“Who’s Maria?”
He looked away from me, out the window for a brief moment. “My sister. She is the saint of our family. She is the one person I would trust with something like this.”
“Why don’t you just take care of it? Doesn’t someone in the firm deal with immigration?”
He shifted underneath me, looking down again, locking me into his stare. “Julia, one danger of our type of relationship is the risk of getting involved with a sexual partner. I don’t ever want to worry about you falling for someone that we meet with, and vice versa. We have to be very careful to separate ourselves emotionally. What happened tonight, everything that went on, it was too much already. I shouldn’t have touched her, shouldn’t have done that.”
I frowned up at him. “Because you’re worried you have feelings for her?”
He chuckled. “No. It is very rare for me to have ‘feelings’ for anyone, which is what makes my relationship with you unique. But I’m not the only person involved in a threesome, and other people don’t have the same cavalier opinion of sex that I do. I shouldn’t have done anything with her because of everything else that went on. The fact that she was a virgin was a whole other moral issue, but in her state tonight, upset and scared, there was more of a chance for her to take that experience as more than it was. All I’m saying is that there are a billion people out there for us to meet with, to fuck. We have the means to be picky, to isolate our experiences, to only be with other people or couples who are emotionally safe. Some couples in this lifestyle like to ‘hang out’ with their outside partners. I don’t follow that philosophy. I feel like that is a dangerous game, not to mention a colossal waste of time. I don’t want to ‘care about’ or ‘become friends’ with the people in this lifestyle. That leads to nothing but problems.”
I laughed at his serious expression. “Yeah, you like to skip the talk and go straight to sex.”
He leaned over, pulling me up to him for a kiss. “When I can.” He laid me back down and ran a hand through my hair, snagging my extensions, and I winced. “Sorry.”
I swallowed, closing my eyes and trying to focus my mind on anything other than what lay beneath my head. I liked what he had said. The “getting involved” part seemed to be what my feminine jealousy had the most trouble with. I relaxed, pushing my hands underneath his legs, the warmth of his body comforting. “I didn’t know you had a sister. Just one?”
“Yeah.” His tone was short, and the stress in it caused my eyes to open again. I turned to him with a question in mine. “I have two brothers.”
It didn’t answer my question, but I sensed the land mine behind the simple statement. I reached up, capturing his hand before it went through my hair, and brought it to my mouth, kissing it softly. He ran his fingers over my lips, and then looked out the window again.
“You mentioned that you rarely have feelings for anyone. What did you mean when you said I was unique?”
He looked at me carefully, his eyes a cluster of competing emotions. “You are unique in that I am developing feelings for you.”
“Developing.” I pursed my lips and looked at him.
“Fine. There may be a few already developed. Little ones.”
I rolled my eyes and shifted, burrowing deeper into his lap and putting his hand back on my hair, his fingers obediently resuming their movement. Little, barely developed feelings, he said. I did a spot check of my own warm and fuzzies.
Hmmph
. Well, Mama always said I developed ahead of the others.
I closed my eyes, the gentle feeling of his fingers wiping any thought from my head. I must have fallen asleep, because I woke up in Brad’s arms, being carried like a small child, up the inner stairs of his home. At the top I untangled myself, standing up and stumbling to the bathroom, where I ran hot water over a washcloth and wiped down my face, turning his white terry cloth nine shades of colors. After thoroughly rinsing my face, I flipped off the light and shuffled toward the bed. His grip stopped me, and his hands brushed down my body, grabbing my dress and pulling it up and over my head. He then helped me into bed, pulling the covers up and over my naked body.
I awoke when he got in the bed, sometime later, smelling of fresh soap and toothpaste. He wrapped his arms around me and we fell asleep, our bodies spooned together, the hum of the fan the only sound in the dark room.
Fifteen
Brad’s hand was on my cheek. He traced the curves of my face, gently, light, his soft touch a strange contrast to his muscular hand. I smiled, my eyes still closed, and felt his fingers move to brush my lips. I opened my mouth and sucked on a finger, opening my eyes to find his handsome face, close to mine, his eyes on mine.
I gave a contented sigh and closed my eyes again, his fingers leaving my mouth and traveling back up, smoothing my hair back and tracing their way down my shoulder and back.
“It’s late.” His voice, husky and dry, sounded in my ear as he leaned over and gave me a soft kiss on my neck. I pulled the blanket over my head in response, burying down deeper into the soft down. He tugged on the blanket, trying to pull it off, but I held firm, locking my fingers tight and using my body to pin the edges down.
I was no match for him, though he went easy on me to begin with. My giggles finally lost the battle for me, and when I finally came up for air he was there, playful and sexy, pushing me back on the bed and smothering my body with his hard bare chest. I kicked and screamed, pushing against his hard chest, and he leaned down, silencing me with his mouth and tongue, till my muffled screams subsided and I wrapped my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist, losing myself in the kiss.
Then, in the soft sheets and morning light, I had my seventh, eighth and ninth orgasm in twelve hours.
* * *
“I
DON
’
T
UNDERSTAND
the problem,” Brad said.
I sipped my lemonade and looked at Brad over the rim of the glass. We had driven three ridiculously short blocks from Brad’s home, and now sat beneath teal umbrellas at a restaurant on the edge of a large park. “There isn’t really a problem, per se. Not now, at least. But it’s only a matter of time before someone finds out about us. I am one week from that no longer hanging over my head. If I stay on, and Broward finds out...” I couldn’t finish the sentence, the idea too bleak to even consider. Brad’s snort brought me out of my pity party and I looked up at him, frowning. His bemused expression only increased my exasperation. “Don’t give me that look—you have no consequences if they find out about us. He already hates you.”
“He
won’t
find out. How long is this...extension he offered you?”
“I don’t know. This next semester, I think.”
“He’ll still get a new intern. We all do. So, if he’s keeping you on, it probably means that he’ll expand your duties.”
I nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, he mentioned expanding my duties, and even bringing me to
court
.” I couldn’t help it; reverence entered my voice at that word, despite my best efforts to contain myself.
He smiled at me. “You know I take Todd to court with me at least once a week. It’s not that big a deal.”
I slapped my hands over my ears. “Don’t tell me that! I barely got over that fact the first time he rubbed it in my face!” I glared at him, his damn mouth twitching in response.
He leaned forward, tugging my hands away from my ears, holding them in between his. “What do you want to do?”
I leaned back, snatching my hands away from him before his damn sexuality hijacked my common sense. “I don’t know. I want the additional experience and money without worrying about death by a Broward staff firing squad.”
“So work for me instead.” His impossible-to-read eyes stared at me, a relaxed expression on his face as he signaled for the waiter.
“Like
that
would work. We both know you wouldn’t be able to keep focused on clients when my delicious self was in the same wing.” I grinned at him confidently.
He laughed. “Right. That’s me. Easily distracted by beautiful women.”
I twisted my mouth at him. “No.
One
beautiful woman. Remember? You’re committed now.”
“Oh, that’s right. How could I ever forget?” he asked, snaring my hand and bringing it to his mouth for a quick kiss. “So. What’s your decision?”
I sighed, trying to decide whether the risk was worth the reward. The issue was, I was dealing with multiple risks and multiple rewards. Broward’s wrath, a law school recommendation and my professional reputation all hovered menacingly above me. But those threats paled against the danger that had been worrying me the most lately. My heart, and the danger those inexplicable dark eyes brought to it.
* * *
M
ONDAY
MORNING
, I
waited in Broward’s office, watching the top of his head as he scribbled on a notepad. He paused, processing my sentence, before responding. “That’s great, Julia. Good to hear.” His voice did project an air of enthusiasm, an emotion I was grateful for, though my mind was still filled with trepidation about my decision to accept the job. “Human Resources will send you the paperwork, and you may have to take another drug test, but we’ll get you in the system by next Monday. How many hours a week can you give me?” A loaded question, since I had no doubt he would push the limits of whatever answer I gave him.
“Twenty hours, sir. I have classes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so I can work on Tuesdays and Thursdays.” It wasn’t
my
fault that those were the days he frequented the courtroom. Okay, so maybe I had shifted my classes around a
bit
.
“Great. You’ll work out the rest of this week?” He looked over his calendar, making a notation.
“Yes, sir. And in a few weeks I’ll have a form from my professor that I will need you to complete.” I shifted in front of his desk, the new heels I wore rubbing a blister on the back of my ankles.
“Great. Just print it out for me when you get it.” He nodded at me, a quick smile crossing his features. Then his cell rang. He looked at it, the now familiar stressed look returning to his face. I gave him a quick wave and backed away from his desk, turning and stepping into the hall.
“Julia, please shut the door,” he called out. I obliged, grabbing the knob and pulling it tightly closed. The instant the door clicked, I leaned down, loosening the strap of my shoes and unbuckling them, anxious to get the damn things as far away from my ankles as humanly possible. I was working on my second stiletto when I heard Broward’s voice, cold and irritable, a hateful tone that I had never heard from him, seep out from underneath his set of double doors.