Darian looked confused, his blond brows furrowing over his eyes, “Are you sure I shouldn’t stay late tonight and make sure I know the case in and out?”
Marcus shook his head, “No, you are going to be no good to anyone if you are asleep on your feet tomorrow.”
“Go home, get some sleep. We’ll prepare more on the drive over, okay?”
The beta looked like he wanted to argue with me, but he finally heaved a sigh and nodded. He gathered his files and left the office, looking more like a sad puppy dog than a great lawyer. I turned to look at Marcus, who had already begun to clear the documents from the table. Marcus, himself, looked worse for wear after the past week, his dark hair was in disarray from running his hands through it all day, and his beard—which was normally neatly trimmed—was starting to become scraggly.
“Marcus, you also need to go home tonight and rest.” I helped him to finish cleaning up, sliding all of the documents into my leather satchel and turning off the projector.
Marcus ran his hand, yet again, through his hair, leaving the dark strands standing on end as he leaned a hip against the table and crossed his arms over his chest. “He’s a good lawyer. So good in fact that I kind of want to poach him for our office, but there’s no way that he will be able to pull this off in five weeks, he’s too nice.”
I nodded, “You’re not wrong, but I think things will shift and change tomorrow after meeting with Hezekiah Jordan and his lawyer. You won’t know this, but most of us finally toughened up as lawyers after going against an absolute monster of a human being.”
Mine had been a man who’d been stalking a woman for years. The woman had tried for years to get the police to do something about him, cataloging all of the phone calls, notes left on her property, his showing up to her work functions uninvited, but the police had told her that their hands were tied because of the gray area when it comes to stalking.
He had murdered her when she was walking to her car after work. I can still hear his defense lawyer trying to argue that it was a crime of passion, versus premeditation. It was the difference between life in prison with or without the possibility of parole, and I had wanted him to be put away forever. Prior to the trial, I’d been a good lawyer, sharp and consistent, but something had hardened inside of me during that man’s trial, and I tore him apart on the stand. I had forced him to slip under the pressure of my questions, proving that he had indeed planned to kill her before he even approached her that night. I’d never looked back from there, and it had garnered me my bulldog courtroom status.
Darian Bellis just needed to find his moment, and I was betting that a monster like Hezekiah Jordan would be just the person to do that for him. Marcus was less than convinced.
As we headed for the office elevators, he shouldered his messenger bag more firmly on his shoulder and muttered, “I sure hope so.”
––––––––
––––––––
I’ll be the first toadmit that I had sent Darian Bellis home early so that I could make it home by dinner. It was still light out by the time I made it home, a feat that I was still surprised that I’d been able to manage today. Upon walking in the front door, I was immediately greeted with the smell of something positively divine cooking.
I kicked off my heels and left them next to the door despite the fact that I knew that Theo would scold me later when he inevitably tripped on them.
Making my way into the kitchen I was greeted by the image of Tibby, with her back to me as she stirred something in a massive pot. She stood on her tippy toes so that she could peer inside, it was cute that she was too short to look into the pot on flat feet. She was dressed comfortably in a pair of black leggings that molded to her ass, and an oversized v-neck t-shirt. I had to force my eyes away from her butt as a devious thought came into my mind. I snuck up to her silently, glad that I had taken off my heels so that I could creep up on her with my bare feet.
I ran a finger down her back, making her jump and squeal as she spun around, ready to whack me with her wooden spoon. “Aria, you just scared the shit out of me!” She scolded as she pressed a hand to her chest as if she could calm her thudding heart with just the touch of her fingers.
I grinned down at her, “Sorry, sweetheart, I couldn’t resist.” I pucker my lips, waiting expectantly for a kiss. Tibby continued to glare at me for a few more seconds before she finally sighed and gave me a kiss, her lips shyly touching mine before she started to pull away. I was having none of that, though, it was so rare for me to see her awake that I brought my hands to her face and deepened the kiss, nibbling on her plump lower lip and pulling a gasp out of her.
When we finally broke apart, her eyes were more than a little bit glazed over with lust, “Welcome home, Ria.” She murmured through swollen lips.
Someone whistled behind us and a glance over my shoulder told me that Matteo had been watching our whole interaction.
“Can I have some of that too?” The other alpha asked as he joined us in the kitchen, and I obliged, and planted another blistering kiss on his lips as well.
Afterward, Matteo’s smile was pleased, and I reached up and wiped some of my lipstick off of his lips with my thumb. “Thank you,” he rumbled.
Tibby had watched us, her pink lips open slightly as her multicolored eyes ping-ponged between Matteo and me as we kissed. Judging by the added heat in her eyes, I could tell that our little omega liked to watch, and that she liked it alot.
I wanted to kiss her again, but our little threesome in the kitchen was interrupted by someone clearing their throat.
“Hello to you too, Cobb, would you like a kiss as well?” I asked, grinning at the man who was watching us with eyes that definitely weren’t as cool, calm, and collected as he’d like us to think. I’d hardly seen Cobb as he was usually in his room staring at what I was very quickly starting to call his ‘serial killer’ wall.
Cobb and I had never made it past the ‘really good friends’ zone when Theo had brought him more firmly into our circle. I wasn’t sure if, given the chance, I’d ever take that final step. I was protective over the beta, but my affection for him always erred on the side of sisterly friendship rather than romantic.
In fact, I was pretty sure that Cobb felt the same way, if the scrunch of his nose at my offer was any indication. I couldn’t help the bark of laughter that came out of me, and we exchanged a friendly grin. “Thanks for the offer Ria, but I’m all good.”
“Just thought I’d offer, in case you felt left out.” I continued, teasing the man and delighting in the darkening of his brown skin as he blushed.
“Nah, not feeling left out. I just want to know what Tibby is cooking. I could smell it from upstairs, and my stomach was about to eat itself.”
Tibby jumped into action, stepping forward with a grin. “Chicken and wild rice soup with freshly baked bread. I was feeling antsy today, so we’ve got enough bread to feed all of pre-revolution France.” She joked as she grabbed a ladle laying on the counter and scooped up some of what was in the pot, showing us the steaming mixture of rice, chicken, carrots, and celery.
