Lovers in law (21 page)

“Call it a down payment. What
else are you offering?”

“I’ll let you see my file.”

“Is that a euphemism?”

“No, it’s a stack of papers
relating to Aiden’s abandoned factory site in the East End. Take it
or leave it.”

Radford
laughed and opted to take it, following me into the lift.
“Are there CCTV cameras in here,” he asked, slipping an arm around
my waist and pulling me closer.

“Every angle’s covered. And
besides…” I put my hand in the centre of his chest, feeling his
body warmth through the fine fabric of his shirt, “…there aren’t
enough floors in the building for me kiss you the way I want
to.”

“I like the sound of
that.”

So did I. More than I cared
to admit
and asked myself how much longer
I could resist him.

In
the conference room, Radford stripped off his jacket,
rolled up his sleeves and spread Aiden’s file out across my desk.
My fingers burned to stroke the dark hairs shadowing his forearm,
or slip in between his shirt buttons to tickle his stomach. As it
was early morning, he was freshly shaved and showered, and smelled
wonderful, although it would have been a lot of fun to crease his
shirt and get him all hot and sweaty again.

Radford’s
thigh rested against mine – deliberately, I guessed – and
he began asking questions about the papers. I soon realised that,
even if our love life foundered, our working relationship would
always remain spectacular. Trading legal points with Radford was
like an elaborate courtship ritual. The cut and thrust of his
arguments a kind of intellectual foreplay and the biggest turn
on.

“Do you know what this file
needs?”
Radford asked eventually, staring
at my mouth as if imagining all the places on his body it had been.
“It needs you spread naked across the paperwork with a hot
barrister between your thighs.”

The same thought had occurred
to me more than once over the last hour. “I’m not sure how Aiden
would feel about that,” I said, running my hand up the inside of
Radford’s leg but stopping well short of the danger
zone.

“He’ll understand. He’s a man of
the world. I think he’s already guessed there’s something between
us.”

“Pity
this room has glass walls then. Because right now, I
really, really want to kiss you.”

“I dare you.”

Radford pulled my hand up and
over his groin. His cock bulged and hardened under my fingers while
my pussy tightened and tingled.

“Go on. You know you want
to,” he urged
. “Just one.”

But I wasn’t prepared
to
give in that easily and got up from
the desk. The familiar excitement had begun bubbling all around my
lower body and boiling up into my nipples which hardened against my
lacy bra – a bra Radford had been trying to catch a glimpse of all
morning.

“I can’t think straight with
you in the room,” I said, trying to sound cross but wanting to pull
hi
m across the desk with his tie and kiss
him to within an inch of his life.

“So have dinner with me
tonight.”

“I can’t.” Yet again I had
plans. “It’s a girlfriend’s birthday. We have theatre
tickets.”

“Meet me for drinks
afterwards.”

“Impossible. I’m living with
her while my flat’s still rented out. She’ll have to travel back
out to Islington alone.”

“Beforehand then.” Radford
was nothing, if not persistent, but I doubted women refused him
very often. “I’ll pick you up here at five-thirty. Come back to my
apartment, change, have a glass of wine and I guarantee to drop you
in Leicester Square before curtain up.”

“I don’t know.” I was sorely
tempted but
I could see how things could
quite easily get out of hand once I was alone with Radford, leaving
my friends standing outside the theatre.

“I won’t make a move on you.
I promise,”
he said, reading my mind.
“But I’d really love to show you my apartment and have just half an
hour alone with you.”

There was no way one of
London’s top barristers was going to leave without getting his own
way, so I gave in
but attached
conditions. “A glass of wine and that’s it?”

“There may be nibbles too.”

“What kind of
nibbles?”

“Not the kind I’d like.” He
grinned. “I’d say nuts but it might scare you off.”

He stared me down, a sexy
smile play
ing at the corner of his mouth
and my bones turned to water. I’d seen the look a hundred times;
usually when he was lying beneath me and begging for sexual
favours. I didn’t read anything different into his expression that
afternoon.

“Anything more than a stuffed
olive and I’m out of there,” I warned
,
hoping I could stick to my guns. My willpower always took a nose
dive whenever Radford Byrne walked into the room.

Despite my misgivings, I
found myself spending the entire day looking forward to Radford’s
reappearance. He arrived late – not
so
late as to be rude but keeping me waiting long enough to make me
think he might not show up. Disappointment was just setting in when
he finally arrived and apologised beautifully.

“My hearing
overran
,” he explained. “Eventually I had
to get to my feet and tell the judge I had a hot woman and a cold
bottle of champagne waiting for me.”

“Did he fall for it?”

“No. But I’m hoping you
will.” His eyebrows flicked up suggestively and he helped me on
with my coat.

Once we were outside, Radford
surprised me by taking my hand and holding it tightly during the
short walk to his apartment. The stunning low-rise block sat right
next to the Millennium footbridge linking St Paul’s cathedral with
the South Bank of the Thames. Predictably, Radford owned the
penthouse.

He opened the front door and
I immediately stopped short; brought to a halt by the expanse of
white marble, huge windows and a fourteen-seater dining table that
looked lost in one corner of the vast room.

“This is spectacular,” I
gasped.

I’d imagined Radford living
somewhere contemporary and spacious but nothing prepared me for the
apartment’s stunning interior nor its expansive views over darkened
London.

“I hoped you like it,” he
said, opening the door onto a balcony that led to a terrace high
above the shadowy river.

The cold, winter wind caught
me off balance until Radford’s arms came around me, pulling me back
against
him as I took in the breathtaking
view down the Thames.

“I’m so jealous,” I said,
“when all I have is a
tiny flat in
Clerkenwell.”

Feeling me shivering, Radford
lead me back inside, out of the cold. “They say Elizabeth Bennett
fell in love with Mr Darcy once she saw where he lived.”

I laughed. “So this is your
Pemberley?
” Although there was a distinct
lack of open-plan living space in Jane Austen’s novels.

“Not quite.” Radford
l
iked the idea though. “Aiden designed
and built it for me five years ago. As you might guess, he doesn’t
do Georgian.” He helped me off with my coat. “Let me show you the
rest of the place.”

A
glass staircase led up to bedrooms, a study and a gym on
the mezzanine level although Radford’s bedroom led off the main
living area. He dropped my bag down onto the crisp, white bed linen
that had featured so prominently in my fantasies. The room was
minimalist and masculine, and came complete with the biggest bed
I’d ever seen, plus a private sun terrace.

“For nude sunbathing,”
Radford told me roguishly, before flicking a switch to bring down
blinds so I could change. “I wouldn’t want to shock the
neighbours.”

I imagined the number of
seductions that had taken place on the terrace
, or in the hot tub, and jealousy rose again.

“A real bachelor pad,” I thought
out loud. “I suppose women just fall into bed with you after seeing
all this.”

“They don’t,” Radford said
quickly. “See this, I mean. I never bring women back
here.”

“Why not?” Most men would
capitalise on a penthouse overlooking the river.
Not that Radford needed any help.

“Because, as you once
reminded me, I like to get up, put my clothes on and leave the next
morning. I wouldn’t want the awkwardness of women outstaying their
welcome here. The apartment’s mine and I don’t share it with many
people.”

“I’m honoured to be invited
then.”

“Trust me. The pleasure’s all
mine.”

If there were ever a perfect
time to make a move on me, that was it and I tensed, expecting
Radford to take me into his arms and lay me down on the
snowy-sheeted bed. Much to my surprise, he
smiled hesitantly instead, found me a clean towel and left me
alone.

When I
rejoined him fifteen minutes later, he’d also discarded his
suit in favour of jeans and a tight black T-shirt that revealed
skin three shades darker than when I’d last seen him naked before
the summer. My imagination hovered around the subject of tan lines
and nude sunbathing but I felt it was too dangerous to trespass on
just yet and shut down.

“I hope this is okay,”
Radford was saying, pouring champagne into
slender glasses. He raised his to me in a toast. “Tonight feels
like a celebration.”

He might have acted like a
perfect gentleman so far but that didn’t stop him taking in every
detail of my short black dress and high, patent boots.

“You look wonderful,” he
said, trailing his hand down my arm
and
taking my hand. “Now it’s my turn to be jealous. I wish I were
coming out with you.”

“We could make it tomorrow
instead.”

He groaned, his
disappointment palpable.
“I’m in
Birmingham for three days. Friday?”

“A
t
my brother’s for the weekend. My nephew’s first birthday. I can’t
miss it.”

“Next week?”

“Crazy busy. Aiden’s deal completes
and I can see us pulling in some late nights.”

He smiled ruefully. “Between
your schedule and mine, it’s always going to be touch and
go.”

“Literally. Snatched hours.
Stolen kisses. Never enough time.
” The
obstacles stacked up against us and I felt I needed to give Radford
a way out. “Are you sure you really want to do this?”

“More than anything.” Radford
kissed my hand to show how much he meant it. “We’ll make time.
Prioritise. Be ruthless about spending every hour possible together
and make the most of every minute.”

“We’d better start enjoying
the next half hour then,” I said at the moment a slow song came on
the iPod dock and I looked at Radford expectantly.

He
took my glass from me and opened his arms. “Dance with me,
Allie” he said. “Let me finally hold you without four layers of
winter clothes in the way.”

Without hesitating,
I stepped forward, fitting my right hand into
his left and watching his fingers clench around mine. His other arm
came around my waist, pulling me gently toward him but still
leaving space between us as we started swaying in time to the
music.

“You’re trembling,” he said
against my hair, his voice
warm and
intimate.

“Then hold me
tighter.”

I buried my face against his
neck as I curled into him and allowed the familiar, masculine scent
of his skin to surround me. Radford’s strong arms tightened until
it felt I was being absorbed into his body. Taken over. Possessed.
Held a willing captive.

His breath grazed my bare
neck and found its way down the back of my dress to heat up my
spine
and dissolve my bones. I melted
into him. When his soft mouth gently pinched my skin, up and behind
my ear, I was lost and my low sighs of pleasure harmonised with the
sultry music.

Unable to resist him
any longer, I turned my head and pressed my lips
against Radford’s stubbled throat, before letting them follow the
tendon in his neck up to his jaw-line. My lips moved relentlessly,
dropping gentle kisses wherever they touched – the creases beside
his mouth, the small cleft in his chin, the shallow indentation of
dimples on his cheeks – until they found the warm softness of his
parted mouth.

When my lips met his,
i
t was as if Radford’s body gave a huge
sigh of relief. The tension drained from him and I realised he’d
been holding himself taut, waiting for me to kiss him for days. His
lips parted to let my tongue explore and he relaxed into the kiss,
giving his whole body over to me and melding himself with me
wherever we touched.

Gentle, warm,
responsive
and tender. And yet with an
undercurrent of savage need that hinted at passion held in check.
Radford’s kiss welcomed me back to his body – the place I most
wanted to be at that moment.

“You have no idea how much
I’ve missed you,” he whispered against my lips. “I’ve wanted you so
badly.”