I sit up, stretching my arms, and turn back to look at him still sprawled out in bed. “And that is absolutely no way to wake up your…employee that you sleep with casually, is it?”
He props himself up, sheets pooling at his waist, and the way he looks at me makes me want to curl back up next to him.
“No, you’re right. Let me try that again.” He places his hand on the nape of my neck, pulling me towards him, and kisses my forehead. “Good morning, beautiful.”
“Much better,” I say with a sheepish grin.
James’s hand slides up my back, knuckles tracing the fine line of my spine. “We should get going.”
We ready ourselves in a comfortable silence and head downstairs to meet the other attorneys in the breakfast line before heading into the ballroom for the start of the conference.
***
The conference is exactly as exhausting as I expect. The first three days are a monotony of rotating lectures and panels, all variations on a theme: new trial tactics, tort reform, the advances of legal technology.
I still take notes on all of it.
I fill pages in my legal pad with bullet points I know I’ll never look at again, but it helps to keep my head down and my hands busy, projecting the aura of someone who is here for professional enrichment and not the electric current running under my skin every time I look at James.
We’re careful, keeping business and pleasure completely separated by the doorframe of our hotel suite. But every night, as the door clicks shut, it’s like a dam breaking. Hours of lookingbut not touching all flooding at once, drowning us in our own desire.
We’ve christened nearly every surface in the suite: the couch, the bar, the bathtub, even the piano bench.
If this was the Sex Olympics, we’d be taking home the gold.
Thursday is James’s day to present. I find my spot in the middle of the crowd.
James moves differently up there. His voice, always controlled, takes on a deeper resonance on stage. It’s projected so that even at the back of the ballroom, you feel it thrumming in your ribcage.
He fields questions on litigation strategy and client wrangling, cuts through bad hypotheticals without so much as blinking. Every answer is precise, but laced with the kind of dry humor that keeps an audience engaged.
Behind me, a pair of young attorneys debate whether he’s hot or just intimidating. Someone says “both,” and the quiet laughter infects a whole row of seats.
I can’t look away from him. It’s a problem. I keep picturing his hands on my hips instead of on the podium, his voice in my ear instead of drifting through the speakers.
By Friday afternoon, the main conference is over, and the event shifts into “networking and team building mode,” which means several hours of structured “fun”.
The day flies by, which I’m grateful for because this has felt like an incredibly long week, no matter how much I’ve enjoyed spending time with James.
When we return to the hotel suite that afternoon, I’m ready to start packing up and relax in the room with James. Those plans come to a screeching halt when James tells me we have dinner reservations this evening.
“Dinner reservations?” I ask.
“At six. And if I recall, you have a teeny black dress I still haven’t seen.”
“Isn’t it kind of risky to go out to dinner when our coworkers are here and will probably be out on the town and could see us together?”
“We have a private table. Nobody will see us.”
“Oh…okay. I’ll just get ready then.”
I pull the silk dress from the closet, careful to keep it from slipping off the hanger. I giggle to myself thinking back to Mina bullying me into buying it.
When I slide it over my head, the silk ripples down my body, clinging in places I’m not sure I want to be clung to.
I study myself in the full-length mirror. The slip dress is midnight black, barely skimming the knees, slim straps and a neckline cut deep enough to scandalize my mother. Wearing this dress feels like an alter ego, and suddenly, I decide to forgo the boots and leather jacket altogether and opt for the strappy heels, wanting to look my best for James.
I touch up my hair and makeup, grab my purse, and head to the living room where James is waiting for me. When I enter, his eyes rake over me slow and deliberate.
