“What did they say, Caleb?” Her breath is hot and thunderous in my ear, a deafening rush like waves roaring against the sand. She takes a ragged breath in response to my silence.
I take a bite out of her lower lip and find her achingly delicious.
“I’m going to have my way with you, and then I’ll tell you.”
She pulls back, her lids heavy, her lips red as berries. “Tell me what, Caleb? What you did or what I did?” Kennedy examines me with those crystal eyes, her beauty bright as a flame in this dismal room.
“Both.”
Kennedy gives a delayed grin, the slight patina of anger hiding behind her eyes. Her fingers glide over my tie, smoothing it until she gives the knot a firm tug. Her fingers move slowly over my buttons as her cool hands fan across my chest like a rainbow. I tilt my head back and give my belt a firm tug, pulling down my zipper with a marked deliberation. Kennedy and I have always held each other at bay just enough to remain clever strangers in one another’s worlds. For as much as we craved a relationship, we each found excuses for not having one, and here we are, together at last—toxic in every capacity.
I strip her dress off, send her bra flying, and take a moment to enjoy the view. Kennedy has a perfect body—a body that can move me to tears, drive me to the point of insanity. If I were moved to break the law for my brother, what wouldn’t I do for her? I wonder. I already know.
My thumbs hitch into her panties as I glide them over her hips. Kennedy rolls her head over her neck, moans as if this were the height of pleasure. It won’t be. I can promise that.
She begins to flick her heels off, and I give her hips a firm squeeze. “The shoes stay on.”
“Yes, sir.” Her eyes widen, round and soft, as if she were dazzled by the command. Maybe that’s what Kennedy needs, someone to bark out orders at her. Some women eat that up in the bedroom. They crave a personality bigger than themselves when it comes to getting dirty beneath the sheets, and Kennedy’s personality is pretty damn big.
I lean in and give a hard bite to her earlobe. Kennedy explodes with a groan that rattles her whole body.
“You like that don’t you? A little pain with your pleasure?” I whisper hard in her ear. My hand travels to the inside of her thigh, and I’m met with her wet warmth. My fingers glide into her body, hard and fast, greedy to be inside her. She wraps her leg around my waist as she pulls me from my boxers and lands herself on top of me. Kennedy impales herself over my body with an enthusiastic jump as if it were her favorite sport. Her warmth glides down over me, slow and tight. Kennedy feels better than a virgin, better than a wet dream, better than any other woman I have ever had. Kennedy feels like the finish line, what I’ve spent my whole life wishing for and waiting for—and she is.
I back her against the window, as large and wide as the wall, and let the entire city watch as she rides me—as I have my way with her mouth, her perfect tits, her tight ass, for as long as I can hold out. I’m not sure why I didn’t push her against the door, the wall, my desk for the sake of keeping things intimate, instead I’ve invited the entire world to lend a watchful eye to our madness. I think, deep down, I wanted the lunatic who’s watching to know—to let the world know—that no matter what transpires, Kennedy and I will survive. Kennedy Slade is mine. The end.
Afterwards, after a long riotous session of aggressive trashing-the-office sex, I hold her on the uncomfortably small leather sofa, her body wrapped in my suit jacket like a blanket.
Kennedy curls up in my arms, her head turned toward mine. Her eyes glow like white powder. Outside, the skyline of Collingsworth lights up like a miniature version of Manhattan. It’s a beautiful portrait we get to look out at and be a part of.
“Tell me, Caleb. Tell me what they’ve done now.” Her voice is as steady as her gaze, and I’m left questioning her innocence once again. If she is innocent, this is what they wanted, to create a fissure of doubt, if she’s guilty then—well, hell, I’d still try to find a way to prove her innocent. It’s what I’m hardwired to do. It’s what she hired me for.
“First, I want to tell you what I did for my brother—the shithole he pulled me into, launching the both of us into this nightmare.”
Kennedy lets out a hard sigh, rubbing her thumb over my cheek, with grief pulling down her features. “Before this gets ugly, I just want you to know that no matter what you’ve done—I love you, Caleb.” Her eyes laser into mine with a painful clarity that only comes with the truth. “I will love you forever.”
“Kennedy.” I pull her hand to my lips and hold it there as I try to get my emotions in check. The last thing I want is to cry like a pussy. “I love you with everything in me. I gave you my heart that day I first laid eyes on you. Before we ever really met, I knew you were the girl I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.” I hesitate a moment. “And I still want that. Do you want that with me?”
“Yes.” She ticks back, stunned. “Hell, yes.” Her palms cup my cheeks as she pulls me in. “I can see the doubt in your eyes, Caleb. Someone is fucking with us good. Tell me what’s going on. Please.”
The air grows still between us. I’ve had these moments with my clients before, the stillness before the inevitable truth vomits out of them. This is the fork in the road, where the lie meets the truth. There always seems to be this awkward pause that each of my clients partake in, and, to be honest, I never knew why. But here I am, crossing that same intersection, and I suddenly get it. This is the moment where you admit defeat. I had held fast to the manufactured truths that Solomon gave me, but my next words will draw a big, fat red line over everything we firmly stood for. Sometimes telling the truth is painful, and, up until now, I never really understood that.
“About a year ago I was heading out for a day hike to the Gideon Wilderness right outside South Lux. Somehow, I managed to convince Solomon to come with me.” That day comes back in jags, heavy spring air clinging to a clear blue sky. “My father had just made my brother, Abel, partner—Abel who hated,hatedthat he had succumbed to the law disease as he calls it. I was resentful, mad as all hell. I was the one busting my ass for my father. I was the one with a belly full of fire, ready to take on the legal world, take over his company when it came time. But the golden chalice wasn’t offered to me. I didn’t get a sip of my father’s successful firm. As usual, I was left out in the cold. So”—I lean in and kiss her temple—“I took a day off and went for a hike.”
“I’m sorry you were bypassed, but maybe he was planning on pulling you in at a later time?”
“Perhaps, but I don’t see the reasoning, and I’m not sure why he wouldn’t have mentioned it by now. My father has a dark side. You saw the psychological aftereffects he left with my mother.”
“So what’s the crime? Did Solomon wear the wrong shoes?” She gives a gentle scratch to my chest, coaxing me along.
“No. He didn’t do a damn thing wrong. When we got back, he went home. The rest is a twisted, contrived version of history that I was asked to play along with. Solomon had a girlfriend,has, who the hell knows where they’re at. She went out that afternoon to her ex’s to pick up some money he owed her. They have a kid he was trying to wrangle from her. She was alone, and her jerk of an ex-husband was in the middle of the road when she got there, and she gunned it. She mowed him down in the middle of the street, and the only witness around saw my brother’s pickup. She was pretty messed up when Sol found her—terrified that not only did she kill her ex, but she was about to lose her daughter. Solomon, being the kind-hearted bastard he is, volunteered to take the blame.” I shake my head. “He called me up and told me to meet him at a bar—told me what story to stick to, that I went hiking alone, he didn’t need or want an alibi. He wanted to play hero for this crack whore who killed a man with a decent wife and two kids, and now my brother is paying the price for her very impaired judgment.”
“Oh my, God.” She buries her head in my chest a moment. “That’s so terrible. Are you going to do something?”
I let out a breath I’ve been holding for over a solid year. “Solomon.” His name breaks as I say it, and I swallow hard as my emotions try to jerk out of my throat. “He made me promise, swear to him, that I wouldn’t step in. He asked me not to come to the trial. To say the least, it’s baffled my family. He asked them not to go, but they’ve defied his wishes.” I wrap her silky hair around my fingers. “I’ve been thinking about things, and I’ve decided I’m not going to let my kid brother rot in a cell just because he wants to put on a cape and play hero. I’m heading to court first thing.”
“Caleb.” Her eyes glitter with tears as her smile widens. “I’m so proud of you. You’re my hero, you know that?” Her lips find mine again, and we share a hot, fevered kiss mingling with tears, hers and mine. Damn I hate it when I’m a pussy.
Kennedy pulls back, her face slicked and shining under the duress of the city lights filtering in. “Now tell me, Caleb.” Her tone sharpens. Her features harden to stone. “Tell me what the spineless bastard who is haunting me has done now.”
