Counselor Undone (19 page)

The clipped edge to his voice dissipated into a low rumble.
“I’m also not Keith Wilson. I’ll
always
be your champion. Trust me to
take care of you.”

He released her and moved to leave. After a few steps, he
realized he still held the basketball against his side. He turned. “This isn’t
over between us, Jordis.”

He dribbled once and put up a jump shot. The ball flew
through the air in a perfect arc and drilled through the hoop with such power
the net didn’t move.

One side of his mouth quirked. “Not by a long shot.”

Late the next evening, Jordis entered Michael’s office cranking
her neck from side to side. She hadn’t meant to work so late, but something
didn’t add up in the reports from the opposing side’s current expert witness.
She’d been determined to make sense of it before she went home. She’d compiled
a few notes she wanted Michael to read when he first arrived in the morning so
she dropped the papers on his chair where he couldn’t miss them.

As she reached for the pull chain of his still-lit desk
lamp, her eyes fell on a masculine body sprawled on the office couch. Unlit
recessed lights left shadows that danced across the lithe torso. Jordis stepped
over to the brown leather sofa, her bare feet soundless on the plush Berber
carpet. She’d abandoned her shoes in her office and hadn’t bothered to put them
back on for the short walk to Michael’s office. She hadn’t expected anyone else
to be here.

She perused the coffee table adjacent to the couch and took
in miscellaneous papers, various ballpoint pens, and several different color
highlighters scattered about. She picked up a page from the table and glanced
over the sheet. Notes in Michael’s fluid, masculine cursive filled the margins,
annotating the possible source of certain facts.

She studied Michael. He’d kicked off his dress shoes made of
soft Italian leather and rested in black sock-covered feet. One foot was up on
the cushions, his knee bent against the back of the couch, and the other rested
on the ground. His head lay propped against the corner of the couch. One arm
draped over his chest; the other was caught between his body and the back of
the sofa. She allowed her eyes to travel the length of him, enjoying an
unobserved opportunity to appreciate his physique.

Goodness, he was sexy. Even in his sleep, he radiated a sex
appeal that made her long to climb onto the couch and stretch out on top of
him. She’d always had a thing for tall, athletic men. Michael had that in
spades, plus a confidence and intelligence that made him almost irresistible.
But, resist him she must. Nothing was more important to her right now than making
partner. She couldn’t let anything distract her—not competitive
colleagues, not worries about keeping a masked interlude secret, and certainly
not an affair with a senior partner.

She hadn’t spoken to Michael all day. She’d tried to hold
onto her fury over everything that had happened between them. Avoiding a
liaison with him would be so much easier if they were at odds with each other.
The chemistry between them in itself made it hard to resist the lure of a
sexual tryst.

Over the weeks they’d worked together, her professional
admiration for the man had grown and her personal interest had followed. She’d
like to think she’d simply fallen for his charm, his innate charisma. She could
dismiss that as a shallow offshoot of their mutual physical attraction. The
emotional draw he now held for her, however, couldn’t be dismissed as something
trivial.

The playful side of him she’d glimpsed while he’d tried to
cajole her out of her funk with him had made her smile—behind his back.
She understood his end game, but she hadn’t been able to completely resist the
appeal of his overtures. After thinking through what he’d said during his apology,
she been unable to hold on to her anger. Without the shield of animosity, her
heart couldn’t stave off the softer emotions.

Michael admitted he’d been jealous. Try as she might to
ignore that, a part of her felt flattered.

While Michael’s assumption about her involvement with Eric
had been insulting, from Michael’s position at her office door, it had probably
looked like she and Eric had been kissing or were about to kiss. In hindsight,
she figured that’s exactly what Eric had wanted. What better way to eliminate
competition from the boss’s presumed paramour than to make the boss think she
was two-timing him? In so doing, he would destroy the boss’s motivation to give
her preferential treatment.

She also couldn’t ignore her own behavior. She’d let the
baggage from her prior firm affect her thinking. She’d accused Michael of using
his position to pressure an associate into having sex with him. As he’d pointed
out yesterday, her accusation hadn’t been a very favorable comment on her
opinion of his character. She’d painted him with the same brush as the lowlife
that had harassed her. He hadn’t deserved that.

She looked down at him. If she reached out, she could touch
his hair. Reason told her she shouldn’t, but her fingers itched to touch him.
She leaned over the couch, checking to make sure he was still asleep. His chest
rose and fell evenly. His closed eyes and relaxed posture evidenced deep
slumber.

She lifted her hand, inched it towards his head then hesitated.
Could she touch him softly enough not to wake him?

Her heart pounded.

Walk away, Jordis. Walk away.

Despite the warning voice in her head, she inched her fingers
the rest of the way. They flitted lightly over the hair at the top of his head.
The thick silkiness called to her. Her touch grew bolder. She eased her fingers
into the slightly longer hair at his forehead and stroked them to the tips of
strands.

Her breathing changed.

The tickle of his hair beneath her fingers set her blood
pulsing and made her want to touch more than his hair.
Good Lord.
She pulled in a long silent breath. How could touching
him so casually have such an intense effect on her?

She struggled for control, thinking she needed to get out of
here before he woke up. She glanced at his face and froze. His eyes were open,
his gaze locked on her face. Slowly, as if inching away from a rabid wolf, she
removed her hand.

In an unhurried move, he captured her wrist. “Don’t stop
now.” His husky voice slithered over her and further stirred her roiling
hormones.

“Sorry.” Her voice was a whisper. “I didn’t mean to disturb
you, but it’s late. Don’t you want to go home?” She tried to play off her
intimate ministrations with feigned concern for his wellbeing.

“I think things are a lot more interesting where I am.” His
grip tightened on her wrist as she sought to withdraw it from his hand. “Where
are you going?”

“Like I said, it’s late. I need to go.”

“Do you?” A clear challenge reverberated in his voice. “I
think you need something else.”

Her breath caught, and every nerve in her body began to
tingle.

“Come here, Jordis.”

Slowly, he drew her the last few inches to the couch. He
eased to a sitting position and placed her between his spread legs, releasing
her wrist and sliding his hands under the hem of her untucked blouse. He rubbed
his fingers along her lower back then up her spine until he reached the back of
her bra. He looked into her eyes.

The prospect of his hands on her breasts made her lower
parts dampen. Nevertheless, she made a half-hearted attempt to stop the
madness. “Michael,” she panted, “we can’t do this.”

He spread his hands wide along her back. Paralysis overtook
Jordis’s muscles. She stood immobile, transfixed by the look in his eyes.

They remained in that position for several long moments,
wordless, just breathing. Then, his thumbs moved in an arc, easing around her
sides until they found the swell of her breasts. He mapped the undercurve of each
breast, staring at the center of her chest as if he could see through the
material of her blouse to the naked flesh below or make the buttons open with
his mind.

“When you touched my hair, I could feel it all over.” His
voice remained low, husky. “It was as if you pulsed with electricity and sent a
charge through my entire body.” He glanced up into her eyes and rolled his
thumbs across the front of her bra to caress her pebbled nipples. “What would
it take for me to make you feel that way?”

She moaned and started to pull away.

He stopped her. “Don’t run from me this time.” His thumbs
worked over her nipples back the other direction. “Let me make you feel that
way.”

She stifled a whimpered. She certainly felt the charge now.
The excitement forced her to breathe through her mouth. “Don’t play games with
me, Michael.”

“Trust me, the play I have in mind has nothing to do with
games.” He pressed a kiss above the first button of her blouse. One hand
released a breast and began to unbutton the blouse from the bottom. “I need to
be with you tonight. Tell me what you need.”

Her hands went to his arms, squeezing his biceps. “You know
this is a mistake, right?”

“It doesn’t feel like a mistake.
You
don’t feel like
a mistake.”

Intellectually, she knew she should stop him, but her mind
couldn’t suppress the building eruption of a certain desire. She was a
successful career woman, financially independent, sexually
self-aware—everything women’s magazines touted as the modern-day
Superwoman—but Michael Remington was evidently her Kryptonite. She hadn’t
given herself to him yet, but it didn’t matter. She was his.

Something about this man drew her. The lure of the words
he’d uttered on New Year’s Eve pulled at her: You
are my true Juliet
.

He hadn’t spouted them as a come-on. He hadn’t known she
could hear him. He hadn’t known who she was then or even her name, but he’d
been inexplicably drawn to her, too. She’d replayed those words in her head for
days after that night, and she’d craved him. She still craved him, and she now
understood the craving was mutual.

“Jordis, tell me what you want.”

She wanted him.

What would it hurt to give in to him this one time? People
already thought she was sleeping with him. If she was going to be the subject
of gossip, she might as well reap the actual benefits of the torrid affair she
was supposed to be having. Right?

Wrong.

She was making excuses for herself, putting herself in a
dangerous position. She was already on the verge of falling for the guy. How
much more emotionally entangled would she become if she slept with him? And
what about her reputation and her career?

He’d told her to trust him to take care of her. She’d never
trusted anyone to take care of her before. She didn’t know how. This man made
her want to try, and she understood the folly of that. Even the indomitable
Michael Remington had limits to what he could accomplish. She, better than
anyone, knew he couldn’t protect her from small minds and petty behavior. But,
she also knew without a doubt he’d try, and she loved that about him.

He pushed against her back, causing her knees to fall
against the couch between his thighs. He released another button on her blouse
and skimmed his tongue in light circles against her skin.

Small minds and petty behavior quickly lost their significance.
She closed her eyes, unable to process her conflicting thoughts. She eased her
hands up his arms and rubbed her hands over the buzzed hair at the back of his
head, powerless to stop her heart from making a decision that plunged her headlong
into a carnal abyss.

* * *

Michael took Jordis’s touch as encouragement to abandon the
sampling and head for the feast. The taste of her made him hard and needy. A
woman had never made him needy before. He had to fill her with everything in
him soon or he was going to explode.

He pulled her closer, turning her and laying her on the
couch. His tongue eased into her mouth and touched the tip of hers. When she
hummed into his kiss, he tilted her face so he had a better angle to plunder
her mouth. He ran his hands down her sides, along her hips until he reached the
hem of her straight skirt. He started pushing the skirt slowly up her thighs.

She flinched before grabbing his wrists. He looked down to
where her hands gripped him. A knot formed in his stomach. If she stopped him
now, he wouldn’t survive it.

“We can’t do this.” She glanced over at his open office
door.

His eyes followed her glance. “There’s no one here but us.”

“You can’t know that.”

“Yes, I can. I checked.” He’d known she was still in her
office working. He’d stopped at her door to shoo her home when he realized it
had started to snow. She had looked so intense he’d decided to let her continue
to work. He’d stayed late for that reason alone. She still drove that damn
sports car, taking her chances the winter would stay mild. He hadn’t been able
to leave knowing she’d be alone in the building and possibly get snowed in so
he’d come back to his office to strategize more on his portion of their case.

His hands moved, attempting to continue his unveiling.
“Everyone left hours ago. You and I were the only ones left except for the
cleaning crew, and they all leave by eleven.”

Jordis pushed hard against his wrists. “Michael, please.”
She glanced at the door again, her concern about making this encounter a possible
exhibition apparent. “I can’t. Not here.”

Knowing her history, he understood her reluctance. With
eighty percent of his blood below his waist, his synapses hadn’t fired quick
enough to comprehend the foolishness of seducing her here at the office. Even
now with his brain kicking in, the swollen part of his anatomy ruled reason and
selfishly wanted to continue. “I could lock the door?”