Lawyers In Love: In His Own Defense Read Online Free Page B

still might get Garcia convicted.

* * * * *
    That night she sat at her home computer, searching in vain for precedents that would help her convict Garcia, while she munched on a pizza that had about as much flavor as the box in which it had been delivered. The image of the drug lord’s tall, drop-dead gorgeous lawyer with an incongruous little-boy dimple on his cheek kept distracting her.
    She sensed he’d be as skilled a lover as a defender, that he would know how to play a woman the way he played a jury. Her skin burned, though the regular hum of the air conditioner reminded her the temperature couldn’t be much over seventy degrees. Nothing, not even telling herself that Landry was almost as bad as the clients he defended, dispelled the fascination she felt for him.
    This was crazy. She didn’t fantasize about men, ever, and here she was, imagining doing all kinds of unimaginable things with the man who was figuratively ripping her to shreds in court. Kristine tried to put Landry out of her mind.
    She didn’t want to give up looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack that might help her win her case, but the logical part of her brain assured her she wouldn’t find anything. Angry at herself, she shut down the computer. At least, Kristine figured as she crawled into bed, she could start the morning rested. As she tried to sleep, though, visions of Tony Landry tormented her.
    Not since high school had Kristine felt so drawn to another human being. Never to a man like Landry, who should repel her as thoroughly as it seemed he was attracting her. She imagined how he’d feel, all tough sinew and sex appeal, when he stripped out of his elegant courtroom attire. He’d have a hard, fit body, satiny, tanned skin, soft except for cheeks and jaws roughened by the hint of a beard. Never mind that she’d never seen him late in the day. She could almost feel the rasp of his five o’clock shadow against her fingers.
    She imagined those dark eyes raking her with interest, interest much more personal than the visual caresses he gave the jurors. Not just interest, but desire. His big hands would touch her everywhere, make her hot and wet and ready for sexual adventure. Real sexual play, as different from the adolescent groping she remembered as the Gulf of Mexico during a hurricane from calm, protected Tampa Bay.
    Finally she fell into a restless sleep, but he stayed with her, even in her dreams.
    He was hot, so hot. His mouth took hers, his tongue tangling with hers while he used his hands to stroke her breasts, her belly…between her legs where she was becoming wet from his sensual assault.
    Groping blindly, she reached for him, needing desperately to touch him as he was touching her. His tanned skin felt silky, yet beneath it lay hard, fit muscle pulsing with life. When he nudged her legs apart and knelt between them, she grasped his butt cheeks, drawing him close, closer. Into her wet, aching flesh.
    Filling her. Stretching her. Moving slow at first, then faster. It felt so good…so real, the small, intense climax that left her trembling, wanting more. What was she doing? She had to stop, send him away before he stole her will to resist.
    But when she opened her eyes, he wasn’t there. Her legs lay tangled in the sweaty top sheet that she clutched tightly in her own clenched fists.

* * * * *
    Tony tossed the covers in a heap on the empty side of his bed, shivering at the cool air that blew over his bare body from the open vent. For a minute he sat there, shivering. Then he got up, pulled on a pair of running shorts, and stepped onto his open balcony. He picked out the building where he worked from the other high-rises on the horizon, just across the arched bridge between the convention center and the Wyndham Harbour Island Hotel complex.
    Stretching, he breathed in the warm, salty air and coughed when he got a whiff of acrid phosphate waste that had caught a ride on a westerly breeze. No matter. He would put up with a