I push into the next courtroom and slide into one of the conference rooms attached to the back, waiting for my client. It’sa perpetually tardy pop star who goes by the nameThree Bright Diamonds.
She’s late, as usual so with time to kill, I pull out my laptop and against my better judgment, navigate to Rhiannon’s social media page. Her latest video starts to play, her voice warm and steady over a series of visuals that never show her face.
Hearing her voice now, I have no idea how I missed that the steady, sultry one I’m hearing was her. It’s the same one I heard moaning my name in Hartford and felt coming around my cock in NYC.
“Hey guys, just a reminder to do whatever is best for you and your family,”she begins, her tone calm but assured.
Her hands move with purpose, ending the video with a thumbs-up as she says,“If no one has told you today, you’re doing an amazing job taking care of yourself, your family, and the people that you love. Your best might look different from someone else’s. Don’t put so much pressure on yourself to always have everything figured out. None of us really know what we’re doing. This is all our first time being humans on this earth. Talk soon.”
I exhale slowly, leaning back in my chair. The sincerity in her voice, the message she’s trying to get across, it all gnaws at me. It’s not fake. It’s not forced. And despite her wanting me to know absolutely nothing about her, I finally feel like Ido know something and it’s good. Fucking way too good.
This is who Rhiannon is. This is her character. She’s someone who wants to project light into a world that rarely gives any back. Someone who feels deeply, who leads with empathy, who believes she can make things better just by showing up.
She might be the woman I slept with twice, the one I haven’t been able to stop thinking about but never truly understood, butnow, I think I’m starting to. And what I know only makes me want to know more. I want to know everything about her and that terrifies me.
She shook something loose in me. Cracked open the monotony of my overly structured, lawyer driven life filled with boardrooms, client meetings, overpriced cologne, and the same rotation of tailored suits.
She may have joked that I was “a Suit,” and she wasn’t wrong. I am one. The guy who orders takeout instead of cooking in his million-dollar, state of the art kitchen. The one who works thirteen-hour days including weekends and calls that balance. The one that ex-girlfriends have labeled distant, distracted and emotionless. Someone who knows how to please a woman’s body but can’t quite figure out how to reach her heart or mind.
Rhiannon, though, she’s the opposite of all of that. Warm. Inviting. Soft in a way that doesn’t make her weak but magnetic. She didn’t want me to know anything about her, yet she’d pry little pieces of me loose without even trying.
I know she loves my arms. My glasses. That she hadn’t been with anyone in years prior to me. That her birthday was that night in March, and yet she was spending it alone in a massive city watching a movie. That she’s never been to Bryant Park because she never has time for movies.
But who is she, really? Why did she create a social media page providing an alternative perspective that’s counter to Matt and Madisons that she doesn’t profit from? That I don’t know. And it frustrates the hell out of me.
The part of me that’s built to dig, to uncover, toknow everything as a form of protection, it’s restless now. My skin itches with it. That familiar burn in my chest that comes when something doesn’t add up, when I’m being kept in the dark.
And the idea that Rhiannon might suddenly reappear for a third time, has me on edge. Because I’m not sure whether I want to run from her… or go find her first.
I think about the way that her hazel eyes widened when she first noticed me in the courtroom, and the way she looked today in that fiery red two-piece suit. And was she even wearing a shirt underneath that jacket? Who wears something like that to court when they’re being sued?
She looked like a sexy, modern-day Carmen Sandiego.
The song “Where in the world is Carmen San Diego?”plays in my mind when really, I want to know where Rhiannon Carpenter is right now.
My mind drifts back to that night a month ago at the hotel in Hartford—the one I can’t seem to forget no matter how hard I try. Likely because it’s the last time I let loose and had fun. The last time I gave myself permission to slow down and spend a day in bed with a woman.
She hadn’t asked for my last name, though I’d managed to learn her first when the director shouted it over the music. She didn’t ask why I was on the set of Davey’s video or what I did for a living. She didn’t care. She was completely in the moment, focused on one thing—her pleasure. And I fucking loved it.
There was no hesitation in her, no trace of insecurity. Just confidence. Control. And, like before, we both knew exactly what it was. A onetime thing.
The difference was, for Rhiannon, it was another one-night stand. For me, it was something I haven’t been able to put a label on since. Watching this mesmerizing, self-assured woman take me apart piece by piece with confidence I’ve never seen in another.
She’d undressed slowly, revealing curves that were all her own. Full breasts, soft hips, skin that made my palms itch to touch. Then she’d climbed on top of me, moved like she knew exactly what she was doing, like she was built for it. For me. The way she rode me, had me coming fast. We stayed tangled together for hours, exploring different positions, and telling our lies mixed with a rare truth.
And then she was gone.
No note. No number. Just gone again.
It pissed me off more than I’d ever share. She’d ghosted me like I was just another forgettable body, a box checked and dismissed.
For once,Iwas the one left wanting with questions I knew I wouldn’t get answered.
And hell if that doesn’t make me want her that much more.
My cock stirs at the memory, and I shift in my seat, forcing my focus back where it belongs—on the client I’m about to meet with, not the woman who keeps showing up in my head every time I close my eyes.
“Hey, counsel.” There’s a knock at the door of the conference room. I look up. Thankfully, it’s just the bailiff.
