The Proviso (62 page)

Finally, “Giselle.”

She couldn’t decipher his mood with two syllables,
and she slowly lifted her gaze to see him lounging back in his
chair, his elbows on the arms and his fingers steepled under his
chin. The cocked eyebrow, the tightness of his mouth . . . Her eyes
widened a bit.

“
Strip.”

Giselle swallowed at his unexpected reaction, then
felt her juices start to flow. “Make me,” she whispered, aghast and
aroused and relieved all at the same time.

His eyebrow arched and she felt the fire in the pit
of her belly begin to kindle and flare. “You know, I don’t think
you want to challenge me on this, Wife.”

That only meant she’d have to fight harder and she
was more than prepared after the draining day she’d had. She needed
that hit of adrenaline and testosterone.

“Really, why?”

“You’re not stripping,” he said, his voice hard. He
slouched in his chair, unmoving, watching her. “Why?”

She rose then and, as she passed him, she said,
“Maybe I’m tired.”

“Oh, really?” He arose and stepped behind her to
wrap his hands around her arms, and she smiled. He turned her
around and she crossed her arms over her chest, watching him look
at her.

His hand went to the towel on her head and he ripped
it off, letting her damp hair fall free. His hand went to her
pajama bottoms and ripped the drawstring and waistband with one
swift yank. His eyebrow rose. “Take ’em off.”

“Make me.”

Like lightning, Bryce swept her off her feet and
threw her at the bed. She bounced. Her legs far apart, she propped
herself up on her elbows and laughed.

His face darkened and he approached her, stealthy,
ever the predator. He grasped her ankles and straightened out her
legs with a jerk. Then he ripped her pajama bottoms right off of
her with one pull. He knelt on the bed slowly and crept over her
until he had her trapped under him, his thighs straddling her and
one hand on either side of her face, the way he’d had her in front
of the bodhisattva. She stared up at him, then grasped his face to
pull him down for a long, slow kiss.

“When I tell you to get undressed, you get
undressed,” he growled into her mouth.

“No.”

His eyes widened and his nostrils flared. His kiss
plowed her down into the mattress and she returned it with the same
ferocity, then she put her hands flat against his chest and pushed
as hard as she could.

Surprised, he rose enough for her to roll out from
under him and off the bed. Her chest heaving, she watched him
warily as he slowly unfolded his big, lithe body to step onto the
floor.

He stripped off his shorts in one smooth movement,
so he stood naked before her, his cock hard, erect, proud. Long,
thick. She sucked in a breath at how beautiful he was, but then
turned away with a flounce to drop into the club chair.

Giselle relaxed back into the cushion, then hooked
her knees over each arm of the chair, opening herself for him. She
gestured to the floor. “You know what to do.”

He shifted his weight to one foot and crossed his
arms over his chest. “No, I don’t. Tell me what you want.”

“You. On your knees. In front of me.” His eyebrow
rose. “Eat. Me.”

He waved a hand. “And . . . you think that’s all it
takes.”

Staring at him, she ran her hand down the inside of
her thigh and spread the folds of her bare vulva wider, then dipped
two fingers up inside herself. He sucked in a sharp breath, but he
didn’t budge.

“You know,” she said matter-of-factly as she brought
her hand to her mouth and licked her fingers, “I taste pretty good.
If you don’t want to service me, I can always go find one of my
toys—”

Giselle jumped when he dropped to his knees in front
of her, wrapping his big hands around her thighs. Her head fell
back when she felt his tongue on her clit, then up inside her. She
sighed and threaded her fingers through his silky hair, feeling
every stroke of his tongue, his lips, his hands wherever he
touched.

With every lick and caress, her orgasm built until
her body tightened, her chest heaved, and she shrieked his name
because she felt it there, right there, but not . . .

“My queen,” Bryce murmured reverently against the
inside of her thigh just before he jerked her out of the chair and
lay back onto the floor so that she straddled his hips. She took
his cock in her hand and guided him into her all the way, slow and
easy.

She closed her eyes. Sighed. Stayed that way to feel
him inside her, filling her to overflowing. He gently wrapped his
big hands around her hips to keep her still. After a long moment of
savoring the stillness of their connection, she opened her eyes to
see him watching her, a seriousness on his face she had never seen
before.

“What?” she whispered.

He swallowed. Opened his mouth.

“I love you, Giselle.”

Her heart thudded in shock that not only had he said
it, but under circumstances he’d forbidden.

The tears came. She bit her lip. She shifted to lie
full upon him, wrap her fingers in his hair, bury her face in his
neck. To cry. She felt his arms cradle her.

“What—?”

“Thank you,” she hiccuped, only vaguely aware their
bodies weren’t connected anymore, his erection gone, but it didn’t
matter. She kissed his scarred face, his ear, his jaw over and over
again. “Thank you, Bryce, thank you so much.”

“Giselle—”

“My whole life,” she murmured, still kissing him,
her tears smearing over his skin, making the crevices of his scars
glisten in the dim light. “My whole life, waiting for a man I love
so much to say he loves me too.”

She could feel him relax, his hold tighten around
her. He brushed her ear with his mouth and whispered, “My
queen.”

* * * * *

54:
NEW WORLD MAN

There he was, all six feet and one inch of big-boned
muscle, just the way she remembered him. Maybe a couple of new
crow’s feet here and there. Raw masculinity encased in a gray suit,
the jacket open to reveal a crisp white shirt and contrasting tie,
with fine Italian tasseled loafers on his feet. Mere approximation
of civility for a man who looked as if he’d be more at home in a
Chiefs uniform.

He had a quarterback’s body: long face, square jaw
covered by a five o’clock shadow even though it was only three, and
a neck that fell straight from his ears to his shoulders without
curving in. His nose was long and straight, his mouth hard. His ice
blue eyes did nothing to diminish his aura of imminent danger. His
short golden hair contrasted sharply with his tanned skin and made
his pale eyes seem sharper, more omniscient.

He walked with an easy grace, a relaxed purpose to
his long-legged gait that would allow him to stop on a dime or slow
to accommodate the shorter stride of a person—a woman?—he
respected. Or loved.

Justice sat on a bench in the hall just outside the
Chouteau County prosecutor’s office and watched him stride toward
her, each step screaming leashed power. Her throat clogged as he
got closer, and her heart pounded in her ears. She prepared what
she thought must be her most captivating expression and witty
conversation, so that when he stopped to ask her to dinner using
that devastating grin he possessed, she would not seem at all as
immature and gauche as she had three years before.

Each self-assured step brought him closer to Justice
and her smile grew with each one. Any moment now, he would see her
and be taken aback in sheer delight that she was here. He would
tell her that he had not forgotten about her, that he had waited
until she graduated from law school before attempting to find her,
that he’d read every word she’d published, that he followed her
blogging—and wasn’t it lucky that she had found him instead?

However, as he drew closer, Justice’s smile dimmed,
for he glanced at her, or more precisely,
through
her, then
proceeded past her without a glimmer of recognition. Her mouth
turned down in a full-fledged frown as the faint scent of the
cologne she’d never forget wafted to her nostrils in his wake. Her
bottom lip trembled as she watched him round a corner, out of
sight.

Well, heavens to mergatroid!
What
had she
expected? Justice scolded herself with a sternness she reserved
only when she caught herself squeeing like a prepubescent girl over
a boy band. He was a busy man, with lots of things on his mind.
Justice would wait until the time was right and speak to him, give
him the opportunity to take the first step toward a
relationship.

“Miss McKinley?”

Justice’s gaze snapped up to her left to see a
not-so-expensively dressed but very tall and handsome black man
lean out of the threshold of the prosecutor’s office to call her
name. She gulped, a pre-interview attack of the jitters assailing
her. Standing, she smoothed her best business dress, a printed
cotton chintz of cream and blue and green, and hoped that her tight
French braid held her unruly hair in check.

Once she had her messenger bag over her shoulder,
she took a deep breath and chucked her chin up a notch for the
appearance of courage. The man’s smile of approval dazzled her and
she took heart. “Okay,” she murmured.

“Come with me. Eric Cipriani is the one who’ll be
talking to you today. By the way, my name’s Richard. Richard
Connelly.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“Same here. And don’t worry. You’ll do fine.”

“Thanks,” she said, the word released on a tremulous
sigh.

Justice followed Mr. Connelly through a maze of
desks in the open-area office, garnering barely a notice as men of
every age and race imaginable, some dressed expensively and some
not, buzzed this way and that, talking, shouting, cussing and
discussing. Deputies, troopers, and KC cops roamed freely in and
out.

Not a woman in sight. Not even an administrative
assistant.

She lowered her eyes as she followed the man to a
desk separated from the others by a rickety thigh-high railing that
wouldn’t hold up under the weight of a small cat.

Richard Connelly pulled a chair out from under a man
who was about to sit in it. He left the poor man cursing on the
floor to seat Justice with a gallant flourish and told her he’d be
right back with her interviewer.

“So,” said the man who had had the misfortune to try
to sit in the wrong chair. He propped one hip on the absentee Mr.
Cipriani’s desk. He was clad in a designer suit comparable to the
one Mr. Hilliard wore, but he was not nearly so handsome, with his
bald pate and mushy belly. He took her in from head to toe and back
again. “
You
want to work in the Chouteau County prosecutor’s
office?”

“Yes,” she said slowly, beginning to get the feeling
that, her plan to give Knox Hilliard access and time to fall in
love with her aside, this might not be the best idea she’d ever
had.

“Okay,” he breathed and whirled away; Justice could
hear
the man’s eyeballs rolling in his head.

Justice stood as Mr. Connelly came back with yet
another expensively-dressed man, as handsome as Mr. Hilliard, but
much younger, taller, and darker. Carved, angular, and olive-toned
features; black eyes, close-cropped black hair. He rolled the
sleeves of his fine white shirt up to his elbows and his tie was a
little too loose. He flapped the latter to straighten it as he sat
without having either looked at Justice or acknowledged her
outstretched hand.

She swallowed. Adjusted her bag awkwardly. Smoothed
her dress under her as she re-seated herself.

“So. You’re Justice McKinley. Quite the rising
star,” he said conversationally, a slight smile at the corner of
his mouth, though he never looked up from her CV.

“Well, I don—”

He looked up at her then, and she abruptly quit
speaking at his searing glance. “I do the talking, Miss McKinley.
When I ask you a question, then you may speak.”

Justice gulped. Should she say
yes, sir
or
not?

He went back to perusing her credentials. “
Summa
cum laude
, very good. Two articles in the UMKC
Law
Review
. Published many times over in the
National Review
and other conservative journals. You’re a regular contributor to
several prestigious conservative blogs and you’re quoted all across
talk radio. Your endorsement of Kevin Oakley was influential enough
to put him ahead in the polls—and you only graduated from law
school last week. I’m confused. Your emphasis is in litigation, but
your field of interest is constitutional law and commentary. Why
both?”

She cleared her throat. She had expected this
question, practiced it in front of a mirror, but she couldn’t seem
to quell her unease and hoped it wouldn’t come out in her
voice.

“I would like to try cases, but I also enjoy
studying and publishing on the Constitution; I guess you could say
it’s a sideline.”

Mr. Cipriani pursed his lips and said, “Well, that
seems reasonable.”

He sat back in his seat and clasped his hands behind
his head. Stared at her. “Miss McKinley, I understand that you are
eager to work here.”

She nodded.

“Why? I can’t imagine you haven’t had offers from
every conservative think tank from here to DC. I’d be surprised if
you haven’t been approached about your own talk show. You have a
certain, ah, cachet in conservative circles.”

At the moment, Justice wished she’d given all those
offers more than a cursory glance because she had no backup
plan—and now she might need one.

“What I do is theoretical, academic,” she said
without hesitation. She knew she’d be asked this question, but she
couldn’t very well state the real reason. “I want to learn the
practical side of things and I want to train with Knox
Hilliard.”