The rest of his profile reveals the most important piece of information I can glean, though.
He's single, and while it truly doesn't matter if he's married or not, I can definitely work much more quickly against a single guy than someone who's bound by commitment.
An idea starts brewing in my head.
CHAPTER 2
REEVE
Glancing down at my watch, I see that I have plenty of time to make it to courtroom 21A on the twenty-first floor of the judicial building to argue my motion to dismiss. It's a bullshit motion.
I know it.
The judge knows it.
My opposing counsel, some guy named Leary Michaels, knows it.
Everyone who'll be standing in courtroom 21A knows this is a bullshit motion, and that after just a few minutes of argument, Judge Henry will deny me. The only reason I'm heading to court on this seasonably warm October day is because my new employer, Battle, Carnes, and Pearson, has an unspoken policy to bilk our corporate clients for as much money as possible. Seeing as how I bill $300 per hour, preparing for and arguing this unwinnable motion hearing will bring in about $1,200 to my esteemed employers. Doesn't matter that I'll lose--it will earn money for the firm, and our client is too rich and self-absorbed to question the billing or why I'm arguing a losing motion.
My phone buzzes from my jacket pocket, indicating a text. Pulling it out, I smile when I see it's from one of my buddies inviting me for a few beers tonight. As I walk toward the courthouse, I shoot a quick return text that I'll see him later.
Just as I hit Send, I slam into something extremely soft and very movable, and my hands come out to grasp at whatever I hit before it can get knocked over. I wince at the cracking sound my phone makes as it hits the sidewalk, and my fingers clasp toned arms encased in red silk.
I hold on firmly to what I now realize is a woman who I easily could have slammed to the ground because I wasn't watching where I was going. When my cognizance kicks in full force, I find myself looking into a pair of amber-colored eyes set into a stunningly beautiful face.
Flawless skin.
Full lips.
Perfectly arched eyebrows.
Dark hair pulled back into a sleek ponytail that rests at the back of her neck.
She exudes a chic, confident style in her power suit, with a tasteful but narrow pencil skirt in cherry red and a matching formfitting silk jacket with notched lapels. Her long legs are encased in sheer black stockings, with the fucking sexiest black pumps ever made to walk across a man's back.
Utter perfection.
"I'm so sorry," I tell her, refusing to let her go just yet.
She smiles at me with genuine warmth, and chuckles. "It's all good. I wasn't watching where I was going, either."
I stare at her, unsure of what to say next. It's a rarity that I'll lose my tongue around a woman, but damn if her voice isn't smoky rich, sexy beyond belief, and fuck . . . she even smells delicious from where I'm standing.
"I'm afraid you may have broken your phone, though," she says as she looks pointedly at the ground.
"Shit," I mutter as I release her and bend to pick it up, glaring at the shattered screen. Looks like I'll be making a trip to the store rather than the gym and drinks with the boys tonight.
Shoving the phone in my pocket, I grab the courthouse door and hold it open for her. Giving her a "no worries" smile, I motion for her to precede me in. She inclines her head in thanks and walks in, carrying an expensive-looking, black patent-leather purse over her shoulder.
I'm not a southern man, having been born and raised in the small but great state of Vermont, so it certainly wasn't due to ingrained manners that I opened the door for her. I merely wanted to get a gander of her ass in that narrow skirt.
Just kill me right now. I groan internally because her ass is slammin' and her sex appeal is ramped up by the fact that those sheer stockings have a thin black seam running up the back of each leg.
We reach the elevator at the same time, and she pulls out her own smartphone to study something. She hasn't given me a backward glance, so I use the opportunity to continue checking her out. This woman oozes sophistication; her eyes--from what little I was able to see--hold intellect and maybe even a bit of cunning.
I wonder what she's doing in the courthouse, because while her cherry-red suit is professional, it also shows a hint of cleavage and borders on just a tad too sexy for an attorney, and besides, she's not carrying the telltale briefcase that would give her away as one of my legal brethren.
When the elevator doors open, she doesn't even lift her eyes, but we both wait for it to empty. A young guy in a short-sleeved shirt and skinny tie, whom I peg as an overworked, underpaid clerk, joins us, and then all three of us enter for the ride upward. I immediately walk to the back of the car and lean my back against the wall, setting my briefcase on the floor.
The guy pushes the second-floor button, and I roll my eyes. Lazy ass, can't walk up one flight of stairs?
The woman in red pushes the button to the twentieth floor, and I say to her, maybe in a vain attempt to get her attention, "Number twenty-one, if you don't mind."
She cuts her eyes at me with a small smile and hits the button, then ignores me as she steps to the wall to my left and studies her phone.
The ride to the second floor shouldn't take any time at all, but these old elevators in the justice building seem like they're powered by hamsters or something. After several seconds of chugging upward, the car slowly stops and the dude exits. No one else joins us, which isn't surprising because it's late Friday afternoon and the courthouse is pretty much dead at this time. There are only a few judges milling around hearing stupid motions like mine, with the other courtrooms usually cleared of the dockets by Thursday.
As the elevator starts its slow ascent again, I can't help but notice movement from the vision in red. She glances down at the side of her leg and whispers, "Shoot."
My attention moves with laser focus, and I watch as she drops one hand down to the side of her right knee, fingering the material at the hem of her skirt. Against the dark shading of her stockings, it's not hard to see that she has a tiny tear in the silk, and I have to wonder if my briefcase snagged up against her when we ran into each other.
I expect her to just drop the hem of her skirt, but instead she raises it a few inches higher, tracing the path of the run that's creeping up her leg. My breath catches in my throat as she slides the edge of her skirt up an inch, two, three . . . right to midthigh, and yet the run seems to go higher than that.
I silently beg her to keep going, but she drops the skirt and looks up at me with a sheepish grin. "Well . . . that just won't do at all."
I open my mouth to say something that I'm sure will be full of wit and charm while trying to figure out how I can get her phone number, but she stuns me when she holds out her phone to me.
"Here . . . if you don't mind holding this."
I push off from the wall and accept her phone under no volition of my own. She smiles at me coyly and I return the smile with uncertainty.
She stuns me yet again when she puts all her weight on her left leg, balancing herself with one hand on the wall. Lifting her right foot up and back, she bends to the side and takes off her shoe, dropping it the floor.
Shocked is not the word I would use to describe my feeling when she shoots me a grin and then starts to lift the hem of her skirt back up with both hands. She slides the silk material up her thighs and I'm helpless to look away as it climbs higher and higher. Right to the fucking tops of her stockings, which are trimmed with black lace and tiny red bows and clipped into place with red garters.
Swallowing hard, my pulse hammering madly, I watch as she uses her perfectly manicured hands to pop the clips holding her stocking up.
I see the pale, smooth skin of her upper thigh, and if she'd move that fucking skirt up just another two inches, I'd get a peek of what I'm betting is matching black lace covering her pussy. But no such luck. She then
deftly hooks her thumbs under the lace edges of the stocking and slides the offending ripped silk down her leg.
Vaguely, I hear the chiming of the elevator as it passes floor after floor. My heart is galloping over the thought that the car could stop at any moment to let another passenger on, but she doesn't seemed to be fazed in the slightest by undressing in a public place in front of a perfect stranger.
Right about the time the silk travels down over her knee, I start imagining what it would be like to have my tongue trace that same path, and I start to get hard.
When the silk finally clears her foot--which I might add is a fantastically sexy foot with cherry-red nail polish to match her suit--I finally remember to pull a breath into my starved lungs before I suffocate.
Standing back up straight, the woman reaches her hand out with the stocking in it and says, "If you don't mind holding this, please."
I wasn't going to say no, so I reach out and grab the delicate material from her, rubbing it in between my fingers as I bring my own hand back toward me. My cock is now pulsing in my pants, and pornographic images of me pushing her against the wall and hammering my way inside her flood my senses.
My eyes are burning as she reaches calmly into her purse and pulls out a spare stocking.
That's handy.
She efficiently, but in no less sexy a manner, bends over and slides her foot into the silk, pulling the edges up her calf, over her knee, up that smooth thigh, while pulling the skirt up along the way, and then she's clipping the lace with the garters again.
Fucking beautiful.
She makes a little bit of a show of smoothing the edges of the stocking against her skin, then she slowly lowers the material of her skirt. I take a quick glance and see we're almost to the twentieth floor, and a sense of urgency takes hold of me as I realize this sexy-as-hell woman will be walking away from me in just a few moments. I want to slam my palm against the Stop button and demand that she change her other stocking, but that would, of course, be ludicrous.
Because there's nothing strange about a woman stripping in front of me in the elevator, right?
She reaches down and picks up her shoe, puts it back on, and snaps her purse shut. Turning to me, she gives me another coy smile and says, "Can I have my phone back?"
I blink hard, just as the twentieth floor chimes and the car comes to a slow, grinding halt. I hold her phone out to her, and she takes it, scraping her pinkie nail across the back of my hand, which causes lust to bubble hot inside me and my dick to swell larger.
"Thanks," she murmurs, and steps toward the doors as they start to open.
"Wait," I call out, and she looks over her shoulder at me. Holding out her stocking that I'm now clutching quite tightly in my hand, I say, "Here."
I can't think of anything else to say, because most of my blood has congregated south of my waist.
She grins at me, gives me a quick wink, and says, "Keep it."
My hand drops down, my thumb and forefinger rubbing against the soft material that I'm betting smells fucking delicious.
Turning away, she starts to walk out of the elevator car.
"Wait," I call out again and slam my other hand against the button that keeps the doors open. She turns all the way around to me and tilts her head in curiosity. She's a fucking vision. "What's your name?"
Cocking an eyebrow at me briefly, she leans in slightly and whispers, "That's for me to know and you to find out."
She then walks away and doesn't look back. A quick glance at my watch shows me I have about two minutes to get to the courtroom for my motion hearing, which means no time to chase her.
"Then how do I find you?" I call out to her retreating figure as she makes her way down the hallway, her heels clicking against the tile.
She doesn't even turn around, but I distinctly hear her laugh and say, "Oh, I'm sure we'll meet again. Karma has a way."
I release the button to the doors, and they close slowly. I practically stagger backward against the back wall and involuntarily bring her stocking up to my nose. Hints of lavender and vanilla. Yup, fucking delicious. As soon as this motion hearing is over, I'm going back down to the twentieth floor and finding this woman. I'll get her number, and if there's a God, I'll talk her into going out with me tonight. And if miracles really do occur, I'll be fucking her, too.
Grinning stupidly, I shove her stocking into the side of my briefcase and try to banish my erection so it's not standing out when I walk into the courtroom.
I can't believe that just fucking happened to me.
Shit like that never happens to me.
Absolutely surreal.
It's now five minutes past the time my motion hearing should be starting. The courtroom is eerily silent. It's only me, the judge, and the bailiff, and we're patiently--okay, not so patiently--waiting for Leary Michaels to show up. The judge doesn't look too perturbed, but then again, Judge Henry has a reputation for being mellow and laid-back. He's got his reading glasses perched on the end of his nose, scanning something on the laptop that sits in front of him. The bailiff looks supremely bored, but that's par for the course. I can't imagine his job is very exciting.
I didn't think I had a snowball's chance in hell of winning this motion, but if opposing counsel doesn't show up, the judge will probably grant me the unexpected victory. Of course, the partners in my firm will go apeshit, because we'll lose out on the opportunity to bill thousands of dollars in future legal fees to our client on this case. Quick victories don't pay the bills.
I hear the door at the back of the courtroom open, and Judge Henry looks up with a slight smile on his face. "Ah, Miss Michaels. Glad you found some time in your hectic schedule to join us here today."
Miss? Well, I guess that question has been answered.
I turn slightly in my chair to take a quick peek at my opponent, and gravity pulls my lower jaw down hard as I see the woman in red sauntering up the aisle toward us like she was on the catwalk.
What. The. Fuck?
She doesn't even spare me a glance as she pushes herself through the low swinging door that separates the gallery from the area that houses the judge's bench, the counsel tables, and the jury box.
My eyes narrow as I watch her take the table to my right, saying in a crisp tone as she sits down, "My apologies, Your Honor. I think all of our time is going to be wasted today with this motion."
My head jerks back in surprise at her temerity, not only because she didn't sound at all apologetic for keeping a judge waiting but by the blatant venom of her tone. She's clearly not happy to be here.
Can't say I blame her, as this motion borders on a fraudulent use of the court's time, so I just shrug and lean back in my chair, letting my gaze rake over Miss Michaels. She's sitting up so straight, I'm sure a steel pole is fused to her spine. Her hands are clasped firmly on the table, and she stares straight at the judge.
"Mr. Holloway," Judge Henry says, and my eyes snap to his. "I believe this is your motion, if you'd like to start. I'm sure we all have better things to do with our Friday afternoon."
"Yes, Your Honor," I say as I stand up, even though my head is spinning. I still can't let go of the image of her taking off that silk stocking in the elevator. That flash of skin on her thigh, the promise of the sweetness that was just beyond.
I'm discombobulated at best when I make my argument, fumbling several times in the process. This, of course, is almost unheard of for me. I'm a fucking phenom in the courtroom, and the last time I was tongue-tied was when Mary-Beth Schubert stuck her hand down my pants in junior high when we were playing Seven Minutes in Heaven.
Fifteen minutes later, having made the lamest and most excruciatingly unmeritorious argument in the history of law-dom, I sit back down and wait to see what Miss Michaels will do. She really shouldn't do much more than stand up, sneer in my direction, look back at the judge with arms outstretched, and go, "You're seriously going to listen to this dipshit, Your Honor?"
That's what I'd do . . . if I
didn't think it would land me in jail.
Miss Michaels stands with the cool sophistication she's exhibited from the moment I barreled into her. It's quite hard for me to remember that just twenty minutes ago, she was giving me quite a striptease, and I have no clue why that even occurred. My cock still twitches when I think about it, so I hastily try to focus on her argument, just in case I need to react.
"Your Honor, I'm not even sure I should waste my breath responding to Mr. Holloway's small-minded and timid arguments. The standard is that the allegations in Plaintiff's complaint should be deemed admitted for the purposes of this motion, and outside of Mr. Holloway showing some evidence of fraud, we really shouldn't even be here. Not only did he fail to make a showing of such, but clearly he needs to wipe the cobwebs out from what I would loosely call a brain to even think such a motion would pass muster under your keen gaze."
Fuck, she's ballsy and completely going out on a limb. Her tactic isn't to attack my argument but to attack me, as evidenced by the fact she slammed my intellect in front of Judge Henry by actually raising her hands and making air quotes when she referenced my brain. The woman is vicious and she hasn't even yet addressed the merits, or lack thereof, of my motion.
"But let me make clear to this esteemed court," she continues in a haughty tone. "Jenna LaPietra went to Mr. Holloway's client, Dr. Summerland. She paid him good money to have breast-reduction surgery, and in return, he left her maimed. Now, Mr. Holloway might not be a breast man, and in fact, based on what little dealings I've recently had with him, I'm not sure he'd know how to find one with a GPS, but I can assure you, Miss LaPietra's disfigured body has left her life in a shambles, with catastrophic medical bills and no means to earn a living."