Lovers and Takers (16 page)

“And the only reason you keep plugging away is because somebody has to do it?”

Roni nodded.
 
“And because I couldn’t do it before,” she said.

Jake waited for more.
 
Roni just stared at her drink.
 

“What do you mean?” he asked her.

Roni exhaled.
 
An anguished look appeared on her pretty face.
 
“Years ago, when I was a public defender, I defended a young man, Michael Tate, who was accused of murdering his father.
 
He denied it, oh how he denied it, and he was right to deny it.
 
He was innocent.”

“You knew this?”

“Yes.
 
The prosecution didn’t have squat on him, and they knew they didn’t.
 
But I was a young Public Defender, I was only twenty-six, and I had something like eighty cases that I was responsible for.
 
How in the world was I going to juggle eighty cases?
 
But I had to.
 
And many of them were in the same boat Mike was in.
  
They were accused of murder, and rape, and other violent crimes too.
 
They were facing life sentences too.”

“Why would they give murder cases to a young public defender?”

“They had no choice.
 
The veterans had the death penalty cases.
  
And I was stretched way too thin.
 
So Michael’s trial came up, and boy was I unprepared.
 
The prosecution shredded every one of my witnesses.
 
My witnesses were just a bunch of crooks and
crackheads,
was how the prosecution portrayed them, and the jury ate it up.
 
It was as if the prosecution knew the jury would give them the benefit of the doubt.
 
The jury was supposed to give Michael that benefit, but they never did.
 
So to make a long story short, Mike was found guilty of first degree murder, and sentenced to life in prison.”

Jake exhaled.
 
What a lousy break, he thought.

“I told the judge that it was my fault. I told him how I didn’t have the time to properly vet our witnesses, and that we didn’t have any investigators to track down other witnesses.
 
He knew what bad shape the public defender’s office was in.
 
He knew we were all stretched too thin.
 
So I begged that judge, I begged him to at least go easy on Mike’s sentencing, in case his appeal fails.”
 
There was a long pause, as if Roni was reliving a moment in time in her mind.
 
“I’ll never forget what that judge said to me,” she said.

Jake stared at her.
 
“What did he say?”

Roni shook her head.
 
“He said, ‘that’s just tough, Miss Wingate. That’s what they get for being poor.’
 
And Michael Tate was sent away on a life sentence.”

Jake’s heart dropped.
 
“I’m sorry to hear that, Veronica.”

“But his conviction bothered me so badly, Jake, that I knew I had to do something.
 
I couldn’t just let this happen and go on with my life.”

Jake stared at her.

“So I hired my own investigators to search out the truth.
 
It nearly broke me, but I knew that man was innocent and I knew if he had been wealthy, and had money to hire a real attorney not some overworked P.D. like me, then he would never have been convicted.”
 
She paused, as the pain still seared her.

“It didn’t take those investigators two weeks to uncover the real murderer and have him arrested.
 
Just two weeks was all it took.
 
That was how badly I had handled that case.
 
That was how badly many of my colleagues were handling cases because of a lack of resources.
 
But before I could even notify Mike that I had finally gotten my act together and he would be going back home to his family, he was murdered in prison.”

There was a long pause, as Roni seemed to be reliving that event all over again.
 
Jake could feel her pain.

“This kid, who was on his way to a promising career,” she said.
 
“This kid, who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
 
This kid, who had no money and no connections.
 
This kid, who put his faith in a justice system that didn’t give a damn about people like him, died because of what I couldn’t do.”
 

Roni shook her head.
 
And looked at Jake.
 
Her hazel eyes were as bright as brass.
 
“That’s why I have to do something now.
 
Ten lives saved?
 
Yeah, that’s a small number.
 
It’s a disgracefully small number.
 
But to me it represents ten Michaels with a chance.”

Jake reached across the table and placed her hand in his.
 
“And you keep doing it, Veronica,” he said, heartfelt.
 
“You keep giving them that chance.”

They both were well exhausted by the time they got into Roni’s bed.
 
Both were on their sides, with Jake behind her.
 
He had fore-played her with his dick and fingers, getting her wet and ready, as they both lay in bed in a kind of quiet lovemaking.
 

By the time he slid his penis inside of her in a slow entrance, their need was still more in the relaxation of sex than the activity of it.
 
They wanted to take this easy.
 
He moved in and out of her in the kind of slow drag that was just as effective as the pounding he had previously put on her.
 
It was so effective that it caused her cunt to constrict around his cock within seconds of his entry.
 

And they fucked for nearly an hour, in a slow, calming, peaceful fuck.
 
Roni just lay there, like the sweetness he was beginning to view her as, while his cock continued to slide in and out of her.
 
His dick alone was causing her small body to move up and down with its every movement, as the feeling of slow expansion was creating a friction of profound pleasure.
 
She
felt
his cock.
 
She felt every slide inside of her, every pull out, and every reentry.
 
She
felt
it. Their long work days had precluded any hyper sexual activity, but the emotion of making love was still strong.
 
Because both of them felt the intensity.

This was especially true when his cock continued to expand to the point of releasing, and his grinding began to increase.
 
He slid into her a little deeper with each time until he was servicing her at her g-spot.
 
It was still relaxing, but it was no longer easy.
 
Because as soon as he hit the spot, her body responded and his dick felt the response.
 
He then began to thrash into her.
 
Her body was half way off of the bed as he began fucking her harder and harder.
 
He felt her too.
 
Every inch of her too.
 
And the intensity continued to increase, and she continued to feel as if she couldn’t possibly take any more.
  
Except she could.
 
And she did.

He lifted her leg as he fucked her, to feel her in full, and the sounds of their mating could be heard throughout the quiet home.
 
Jake wanted her to never forget him.
 
He wanted to leave his mark on her.
 
And the more he thrashed into her, with his balls slapping her ass, the more her body leaned over with that sensual, euphoric high she could only achieve when a man fucked her repeatedly in just the right spot.
 

And her small body was moving with the thrashing, nearly bent over and half off the bed, and she felt every inch of him as if his cock was her second skin.
 
Until it was a fact: she couldn’t take it anymore.
 

She came, screaming his name as she came.
 
And her elation caused his to escalate, too, and he came.
 
Hard.
 
His body slammed against hers for the final release, as he squeezed his dick into her deepest pocket and let it out in a series of spasms that nearly took them both over the bed.

And then, when he was poured out, they both came back to themselves, breathing heavily in a kind of controlled, exhausted,
no more left to give
, crash.

Early that next morning, as Jake still slept, it was Roni’s time to stare at him.
 
He was adorable to look at, that was for sure.
 
From his long, strong body, to his beautiful face.
 
But a real relationship couldn’t be built on looks alone.
 
What was behind the mask, she wondered.
 
And she wondered if she was out of her mind to even consider finding out.

But the night she just shared with Jake felt different to her.
 
It felt like a turning point.
 
It was still early, and she wasn’t about to get her hopes up, but it certainly felt that way to her.

EIGHT

Two weeks later and Pam drove onto her father’s estate as if she was driving onto the interstate.
 
Security at the gate were so accustomed to her wild maneuvering that they often opened the gate as soon as they could see her near the top of the street.
 

But this time Pam was in a real hurry.
 
She was about to miss her father’s departure, who was leaving for Europe on business and could be gone for weeks.
 
But when she saw his limo still parked out front, she
sighed
relief.
 
She didn’t miss him, after all.
 
But that didn’t mean she had time to waste.

She jumped out of her Miata, waved at her father’s chauffeur, and hurried up the steps to the front door.
 
She slung open the door just as Hudson was about to open the door, and the two nearly collided.

“Sorry, Huddie,” Pam said to the family’s long-time butler and hurried up the staircase toward the home’s east wing.
 
She could hear her father and Aubrey in conversation as soon as she stepped onto the landing.
 
She stood outside her father’s bedroom and listened, just in case the conversation was about her.

“You’re still young enough,” she could hear her father say.

“I’m almost twenty-six, Dad,” Aubrey replied.
 
“You got married when you were nineteen.”

“And I got divorced, too.
 
Don’t forget that part.”

Inside the bedroom, Aubrey didn’t say anything.
 
How could he ever forget his parents’ divorce?
 
The night his father caught his mother in bed with another man was still the defining moment of his life.
 
That was why, he believed, he was determined to remain single and unencumbered.

“What about Kara?” Jake asked his son, as he tossed a stack of new, still-in-the-package dress shirts into his suit case.
 
“Isn’t she your girlfriend?”

“She’s my friend,” Aubrey made clear, zipping his father’s garment bag.
 
He was seated on the edge of the bed.
 
Jake was standing in front of the bed, his hands on his hips, his mind revisiting what all he may need in case he was forgetting something.

“Your friend?” he said.
 
“I don’t think friendship is all she has in mind for the two of you.”

“I told her a friend is all I’ll ever be to her.”

“Why do you bother with her at all?” Jake asked.
 
“That’s the real question.
 
She’s a designing woman if ever there was one.”

Aubrey almost smiled at his father’s old-fashioned description.
 
“They all are,” he said.

Jake looked at his son.
 
He was the one human being he relied on most in this world.
 
But he worried about him.
 
He always feared he’d been a lousy example to his children in the relationship department, and he always feared they’d follow in his footsteps.

“Not all of them are gold diggers, son.”

“Yeah?”
Aubrey asked.
 
“Name one?
 
Even one out of all those women you date.
 
Name one of them that isn’t after your money or position or power.”

Jake almost blurted out Roni’s name, and then was surprised that he almost said it.

“See,” Aubrey said.
 
“You can’t name one, either.”

“Name one what?” Pam asked as she entered the bedroom, although she’d heard the entire conversation.