That was all it took to set my skin on fire. Just that small, subtle embrace, and every nerve ending was lit, throbbing, crying out in shock waves.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
He signed the credit card receipt and tucked his card away. “Tell me something else, Hannah …”
As he paused, I tried to remind myself that this was the time to ask him questions, to pick his brain, to find out the secrets of our trade—an opportunity that probably wouldn’t present itself again.
But I couldn’t.
I was completely locked up.
Speechless.
Drowning in a pool of Declan.
“When you walk into a courtroom, what’s going to be your secret weapon?” He watched as I licked my lips, and it felt as erotic as stripping off my clothes. “I’ve told you mine. I want to know yours.”
“My secret weapon,” I repeated.
“You know, not only can I read people, but I also use my reputation to my advantage. I don’t give any motherfucker a chance. I find what it’ll take to make them bleed out, and that’s where I cut them.”
I knew that.
I’d read the transcripts from his cases.
Declan gave zero fucks. He pushed limits. He tested everyone.
“A lot of girls in my class want to use their looks.”
“Is that you?”
His stare slowly dipped down my body, and I felt every inch, his eyes like fingers stroking my skin. Taking me in. Teasing me. I’d never felt anything like it, and he wasn’t even touching me.
“No.” I shook my head, trying to breathe. “It’s definitely not.”
His gaze lifted unhurriedly. Each spot he observed—my thighs, my navel, my breasts—caused a stronger sensation to build inside me.
He was more than a magician.
He had powers, and if this was just his stare, I couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to have his hands on me.
His lips.
His …
Oh God.
“I didn’t think it was.” He brushed his fingers over his cheek, the friction against his short whiskers made the most appealing sound. “Even though it could be.”
I took a large drink of my martini. “My plan is …” Do I have a plan? Do I even remember how to speak? “I guess I’m going to find a piece of evidence that my opponent is unable to locate and use that to make my case.”
He turned toward me. “How will you find it?”
“I’ll dig. Hunt. Whatever it takes.” But I knew I wouldn’t be alone. No litigator worked solo. They had a team of assistants, a paralegal, clerks who helped them prepare for court. “I know I’ll only be as strong as my team, so I also plan to have the best.”
A smile grew across his lips.
It couldn’t have been sexier.
“An important part, yes,” he agreed.
“Can I ask you something? Even if it’s slightly inappropriate?”
“Go on.”
I couldn’t believe I had blurted that out. That my thoughts were so unhinged that I no longer had control over my mouth.
“Do you make all your opposing counsel feel this way? If they’re women?”
His thumb traced around his lips. “What way is that, Hannah?”
My body hummed like he was breathing against it.
My hands squeezed the glass so hard that I was surprised it hadn’t shattered.
“Connected.” That wasn’t right. I needed to better describe this. “Like you’re on the verge of …”
“Devouring them.”
I nodded.
Because that was all I could do.
“As I’ve said, if they’re facing me in the courtroom, I want their blood. I don’t want their lips. I don’t want their body. I don’t want”—he gazed down again, stopping at my waist—“anything from them.”
“Then, what’s this?”
“This is the way I treat a woman when I find her so sexy that I can’t take my eyes off her.”
He knew I felt the same way.
Because he knew what I was thinking.
How I was feeling.
He’d told me so.
“In fact, if we had met under different circumstances, you would be coming home with me tonight.”
I couldn’t wrap my head around this news.
A night with Declan Shaw.
A man I’d studied since he’d begun making a name for himself in the industry.
A man I followed on social media.
A man I was so utterly, consumingly attracted to that I’d been wet since he had walked into our classroom.
But going home with any man wasn’t something I usually ever did.
I’d dated in the past, but my current schedule was far too packed and daunting to even consider it. I went from school to babysitting my cousin’s daughter to prepping for the bar. Even though my best friend and roommate, Oaklyn, was constantly pushing me to find a man, I wasn’t looking.
But I was definitely looking at Declan.
“And you think I’m the kind of girl who would climb right into your passenger seat and let that happen?”
He leaned into my ear, something he’d done before.
I remembered how incredible his breath had felt against my skin.
And it did again.
“Do I think you’re the girl who has one-night stands? No. But I think, eventually, you would find it impossible to resist me.”
As I turned around, he stretched his arm across the bar, moving it behind me. A slow, torturous scrape across my shoulder blades with just enough pressure that I trembled. My nipples were so hard that I swore they were on the verge of breaking through my bra.
“I take that back. I don’t think … I’m positive you would.”
“What makes you so sure of yourself?”
“I told you, Hannah, I can read you.”
“And what are you seeing?”
His face, still near my ear, moved to the front of mine. For the briefest of moments, he glanced away, and when he returned, I realized two things.
One, I missed him, even during that brief break.
And, two, he really could see right through me, his expression telling me so.“I see a woman who’s trying to argue against her body. You don’t want me to have this effect on you, but I do. You’re shivering. I can feel it.” His hand moved around to my arm, his finger running up and down the back of my bicep. “Your pulse is hammering away; your heart’s pounding. You have to really focus on everything I’m saying because you find yourself getting lost in my words.”When he leaned into my ear this time, I was sure I felt his lips against my lobe.“You’re dying to know what my mouth tastes like. If my cock fits my body type—large, thick … manly.” I tried to fill my lungs as he added, “It does.”“Declan—”He shifted, so our eyes met. “What would tomorrow feel like, Hannah, after I spent the whole night with you? How satiated … how sore would you be?”I wasn’t thinking.Because he’d sucked every thought out of me.“Isn’t that what’s on your mind?”I couldn’t answer.I couldn’t even force the
“Do you take the courtroom home with you?” She glanced around the group, her voice lowering as she added, “I think we’re all in similar stages of our lives here, but I wonder what it’s like for you. When you return to your house and Mrs. Shaw is waiting in the kitchen, a plate of cookies on the counter, can you eat the cookies and chat about where you’re going to vacation the following weekend? Or do you spend the entire dinner recapping every moment of the day’s trial before doing it again over coffee the next morning?”Oh, Hannah …I see right through you.I had a reputation.Bachelor. Serial dater. Playboy.Whatever the fuck they called me.I liked to think of it as not being tied down.I was surprised Hannah didn’t know that about me.Or maybe she did, and she was just confirming.“When my driver takes me home every day, whether that be from the office or the courtroom, I leave work behind. Of course, there are evenings and weekends where I spend time doing paperwork or I take cal
“Yes.”Then, there was no reason to wait.I took a step closer, halting directly in front of her, our bodies only breaths apart. I placed my palm against the wall above her head, her body caged beneath me. “Do you want me to make you scream so loud that everyone in the bar can hear you?” I leaned my face into her ear. “Is that what you want from me?”She was quivering.Panting.When her teeth skimmed her lip this time, it was a slow, painful scrape. “I don’t want an audience”—she took several breaths—“but yes. Yes to all of it.”I gripped her face, aiming it up to mine.I didn’t kiss women.Lips were something I could easily get attached to.They were the most personal part of a woman’s body.They expressed emotions. They spoke the truth. They even tried to mask and hide the real feelings inside.I didn’t fuck with them.But as I gazed down at Hannah’s mouth, it was so goddamn beautiful. Those full, pouty lips, silently begging for mine.She was giving herself to me.And I’d accept ev
I pulled away, my mouth hovering above hers. “You’re never going to forget this.”“Why’s that?”“Because you’ve never been fucked by someone like me.”I pulled out my wallet, removing the condom I always kept inside, and stored it in my jacket pocket to make it more easily accessible.“You come prepared,” she voiced.When it came to sex, yes.I had plenty of friends who worked in family law.Not using a condom was a gamble I wasn’t willing to take.“Aren’t you thankful for that?” I hissed against her lips.“In this moment, yes.”I kissed her neck, her skin tasting like the cake I smelled.I felt her swallow.And then she sucked in a deep breath.“How badly do you want me, Hannah?”I needed her begging.I wanted her neediness echoing through me.She tried to wiggle a hand loose, like she was going to steer one of mine toward her pussy. “If you felt me, you would know.”I didn’t budge.“I intend to, but I want to hear you tell me first.”“Declan …” She rose onto her toes, nipping my bot
Why I wanted to taste her exhales.But I locked us together, inhaling each of her breaths, rotating our tongues.Hannah. Fuck.She thought I was doing something to her … but she was the one doing something to me.Her fingers dropped from my dick, and her arms circled my neck, pulling me closer. The moment our lips parted, her head leaned against the wall, my mouth falling to her throat, feeling the purr that thrummed inside.“I need to feel you come.”She wasn’t far.Every sign in her body told me that.I left her throat and leaned down farther to take her nipple into my mouth, biting the end, sucking it as though she were feeding me. With my palm pressed against her clit, I worked my finger in and out, tapping that spot deep inside her, adding a second finger when she began to tighten more.“Declan …” Her nails stabbed the back of my neck, her body becoming slack. It only took a few more seconds before her moans turned higher, her wetness thickening as it coated my fingers.“Fuck yes
I slid in some more, and she squeezed her arms around my neck, her breathing labored.She needed something else to focus on.I slowly moved the rest of the way in and aimed my cock upward. “You have all of me.” As she pulsed around me, I pressed the short, coarse hairs above my shaft directly onto her clit. “Do you feel that?”“I feel”—she swallowed—“everything.”I kept myself sealed to her, urging her to accept me, and it felt like she was tightening even more.“Tell me when you’re ready.”She stayed put, breathing into my face, her body as stiff as stone, holding me even though she wasn’t going anywhere in my arms. And then, out of nowhere, she began to lift herself up, gently gliding me in and out.Bouncing over my cock.“Declan,” she gasped after several plunges.“You’re fucking ready.”I didn’t hold back.I couldn’t. And when I felt like my hairs rubbing her clit weren’t doing a good enough job, I reached down and grazed it with my thumb.It was like I’d flipped a switch
HANNAHWhen a BFF 911 text came through from Oaklyn, it meant drop everything and call her. So, that was what I did the second I got out of the alley, rushing inside the bar.“Oaklyn, what’s wrong?” I asked the moment she answered.I really needed a drink, and as I waited for her to respond, I went over to the bartender and mouthed, Water.Declan had fucked everything out of me, including the saliva in my mouth.“Hannah, h-he broke u-up with me-e.”I gripped the edge of the wooden bar, my eyes closing, my head falling forward. “What? No. Nooo!”“He d-didn’t even h-have the decency to c-call me. H-he did it th-through text.”“That asshole. I’m going to kill him.”My heart ached for my best friend.She loved Trevor.Oh God, she loved him hard.I lifted my head, opening my eyes, already wincing as I asked, “What did his message say?”“You’re n-not going t-to believe it-t.”But I would.Six months ago, when they’d first started dating, every alarm went off in my gut, telling me that Trevo
“Declan?”The only sound was my breathing and my feet swaying as this dreary space started to freak me out more and more.“Declan, are you back here?”When there was still no response, I took out my phone and turned on the flashlight, holding it up so I could see.Our condom wrapper was on the ground, and I could pinpoint the exact place where Declan had held me against the brick building, pulling sensations out of me that I’d never felt before. But he wasn’t here, nor was he on the other side of the alley or the small walkway that had led me here.Didn’t I tell him to wait for me?Right here?And not to move?Or did I dream that?Did I dream this whole thing?I went to the front of the building and scanned the entrance and the sidewalk, searching for his handsome face, but there was only a bouncer and a few girls standing out here. The girls were holding each other up—a sign that they wouldn’t be the most reliable source—so I walked over to the bouncer.“Have you seen a guy in a suit