Page 52 of Already At Risk
I got so caught up in the moment with Natalie, with her admission that she wantedmeto be the one to give her what she needed, that I lost track of time. I got off track. I didn’t use the last minutes before her deposition to ground her and encourage her, like a good attorney would have done.
No, I used it to tell her how good I wouldfuckher.
Great.
Excellent.
A clear goddamn example of why this wasn’t a good idea.
Yet I still couldn’t stop thinking about it, even as I settled in beside her at the conference table. I couldn’t stop imagining what it might be like to be the one Natalie let in, the one Natalie trusted with her body and her desires. To be the one she felt comfortable enough experimenting with. I’d let her do anything to me. I’d give her anything she wanted, anything at all. I’d be so good to her. So careful, so cautious, until she asked me not to be. And then I’d give her fucking everything.
Not only did I hate thinking about her with other men, but I alsocouldn’t. I couldn’t imagine any other man giving her what I would, what I could.
Honestly, itshouldbe me.
But that didn’t negate the fact that it reallyshouldn’t—all at the same time.
I sighed, feeling frustrated as I shifted in my seat. It probably had something to do with how close she was and how good she smelled, how her presence sort of wafted around me, invading every single breath I took, until it felt like I was slowly poisoning myself with want for her.
I looked at Natalie, who had lifted her chin, sitting tall. Even though everything about her outward demeanor portrayed confidence and readiness, I could see the anxiety in her gaze, in the quick flick of her eyes as she looked from the camera to the court reporter next to her ex-husband’s lawyer, Mr. Keller, and then finally, to me.
You got this, Sunny.
Depositions were a big step in the discovery process. There wasn’t a judge here, but this information would be provided to the judge, giving a lot of the necessary background for the case. Depositions could be long and arduous and emotionally taxing for the client involved, but I had every faith that Natalie was going to do great.
Based on the look in her eye, I wasn’t so sureshehad that faith right now, though.
I opened my mouth to reassure her before thinking better of it. Had he started the recording yet? I might have missed it when I momentarily got trapped in my own head, thinking about Natalie in contexts that had no place here in this room.
Pressing my lips together, I watched as Natalie drummed her fingers on the table, waiting for Korey’s lawyer to find the piece of paper he was looking for in the stack he’d brought with.
Her hand shook.
It was slight, likely imperceptible to most, but my brain seemed to automatically catalogue every small detail about Natalie London, which made it hard for me to ignore.
I couldn’t imagine that surgeons’ hands shook often.
Refusing to just sit there and let her be nervous on her own, I curved my palm over Natalie’s knee under the table, giving it an encouraging squeeze. Her breath hitched as she focused forward again, but then she seemed to relax ever so slightly. I didn’t trust myself to do anything else, not even a smile, not while other people were watching. Noah had said something aboutlooks, and that told me I hadn’t been hiding my emotions about Natalie as well as I should have. I needed to work on that. Especially when we might be on camera.
Even this, the touch of my fingers on her bare skin where no one could see, was taking a gamble. Especially when it reminded me of how much heat we could conduct between the two of us, like some kind of goddamn science experiment. And that skirt? The one my fingers brushed as I found her warm skin? God, she looked so fucking good in that tight skirt today. Seeing her walk through the front doors of Gardner Law had been a punch to the gut, Gemma’s words on repeat in my mind.
You deserve to get laid, girl.
She did. By me, preferably.
No one fucking else.
I cleared my throat and started to pull my hand back, knowing I needed to keep it to myself, knowing that touching her right now was not going to help any bit of our situation. But Natalie grabbed my hand beneath the table, staying it. She put it back where it was and then placed her palm on top, smoothing my hand down so it gripped the inside of her knee.
Fuck me.She felt so warm, so welcoming.
I tried to keep the pressure of my grasp light, casual, but my heart pounded with a ferality that was anything but. I wanted to ease her trembles, sink my fingers into her flesh and become her anchor, stilling her in a storm.
That was what I did, after all.
Although Gardner Law was on the smaller side, it had enough breadth that it was able to provide specialized consultation in more than one area of law. Family law was what I gravitatedtowards, though. Families came to me with problems, and I went to battle for them. I became the person they looked to when a part of their world crumbled. And I liked doing it, liked the process, the learning, the fight, the outcomes. It made me feel useful, like I had control in my fingertips.
I wanted to win for Natalie.
