Page 57 of A Legal Affair
She scowled to herself.The least he could’ve done was hung around for a quickie, she thought sulkily, throwing back the covers and rising from the bed.
Fortunately, she didn’t have time to dwell on her burgeoning horniness. It was ten minutes to seven, and if she didn’t hurry, she’d be late for her eight o’clock class. Although Caleb had encouraged her to take another day off to get some rest, Daniela didn’t want to fall behind in her studies. Shedefinitelycouldn’t afford to miss Shara Adler’s class. The woman was just looking for a reason to fail her, and Daniela refused to give her one. But she knew that if Shara somehow learned that she and Caleb had slept together, there’d be hell to pay.
Bring it on, thought Daniela as she stood beneath the hot spray of the shower, allowing herself to savor the steamymemories of Caleb’s lovemaking. She remembered the feel of his big body moving against hers, the flex of warm muscle beneath her hands, the hardness of his cock stroking her walls. Her skin tingled as she relived his masterful touch, his scorching kisses, the erotic explorations of his mouth and fingers.
He was, without question, the best damn lover she’d ever had, far surpassing her deepest, wildest fantasies.
Being with him, she decided, was worth any price.
She just hoped she wouldn’t be forced to pay the ultimate price: getting her heart broken.
19
As the first blush of dawn spread across the sky, Caleb drove home in a daze. For the first time in his five-year tenure as a professor, he’d crossed the line with a student.
It shouldn’t have surprised him. He’d been in trouble from the moment he laid eyes on Daniela one week ago. His reaction to her had been visceral, primitive, the most potent response he’d ever had to any woman. From that moment on, every look that passed between them, every word they exchanged, every fleeting touch, had been building inexorably toward this outcome.
When he left campus yesterday and drove across town to the address he’d looked up in her records, he knew he was courting danger. When he accepted her invitation to stay and watch a movie, he and danger were doing the tango. By the time he crawled into bed with Daniela, he was beyond the point of rescue.
He grimaced, hooking a hard right at the next intersection. He’d never left a woman’s bed without saying goodbye. But when he woke up that morning to find Daniela’s naked body curved against his like they were two halves of a perfect whole, he’d panicked. Even as he carefully untangled himself fromher warm limbs, he’d felt an overwhelming surge of lust. As he hurriedly dressed in the shadowy room, it took supreme willpower not to part Daniela’s thighs and slide back inside her honeyed warmth. To his immense relief, she’d remained fast asleep—even when, unable to resist, he’d knelt by her bedside and drank his fill of her fresh morning beauty.
He frowned darkly, his hand tightening on the steering wheel. Before meeting Daniela, he’d never understood the power of obsession, never understood what drove perfectly sane people to do remarkably stupid things. Until a week ago, he’d never fathomed becoming so obsessed with a woman that he would willingly compromise everything—his career, his integrity, his peace of mind—just to have a taste of her. But there was no other word to describe his behavior where Daniela was concerned. He was obsessed with her, completely and thoroughly consumed. No other woman had ever made him feel this hyperaware, this electric, thisalive, her very presence heightening all his senses. She fascinated him like no one else. She challenged him. She made him laugh. And she drove him out of his fucking mind with pure animal lust.
A memory of her hot silky mouth wrapped around his dick made him harden and shift uncomfortably in the driver’s seat.
He’d never lacked for sexual partners, and he’d had more than his fair share of lovers whose appetites in the bedroom ranged from tame to shockingly kinky. None of those experiences, even the most pleasurable ones, came close to matching what he and Daniela had shared. Their sexual chemistry was so explosive it took his damn breath away. If it weren’t for the fact that she was recovering from the flu and needed rest, he would’ve kept her up all night long, making love to her until neither of them could move a single muscle.
The rational, thinking part of his brain told him he shouldn’t—couldn’t—have her again, to chalk up the forbidden encounterto a terrible lapse in judgment that would never be repeated. But his willpower had been severed from his intellect, leaving him completely open to anything and everything.
Thorne men don’t obsess over women, he heard his father’s voice as clearly as if Crandall sat in the truck beside him, shaking his head in grim disapproval over his son’s reckless behavior.
From the time Caleb was old enough to comprehend the basic physical differences between males and females, his father had lectured him about the dangers of falling victim to lust. It got to the point where Caleb could hardly look at a girl without hearing Crandall’s stern warnings about the “booty trap,” and how no woman was worth throwing away his whole future for a few minutes of pleasure.
Once, when Caleb was seventeen, his father threw a lavish dinner party to celebrate the acquisition of a large corporate account that would launch the firm to a new level of prestige. The exclusive guest list included prominent businessmen, politicians, civic and community leaders, as well as some of Crandall’s devoted employees, among them a beautiful twenty-two-year-old paralegal named Josephine.
Caleb, who’d only spoken to Josephine a few times prior to that evening, was a little surprised when the girl sought him out on the moonlit terrace, where he’d retreated to escape the roomful of perfumed strangers whose cool, calculated gazes appraised him as if he were champion thoroughbred material—which, as Crandall Thorne’s heir apparent, many perceived him to be. While the men openly speculated about whether Caleb would someday become as shrewd and formidable a businessman as his father, the women secretly wondered if his virility would surpass Crandall’s, whose charm and magnetism were legendary. Being a widower only heightened the old man’s appeal, as women on the prowl for wealthy husbands vied for the opportunity to become the next Mrs. Crandall Thorne.
Bearing an extra glass of chilled champagne and an engaging smile, Josephine had sidled up to Caleb that evening and struck up a conversation about…Hell, he couldn’t remember what she’d been talking about. All he knew was that he was seventeen, bored out of his mind and more than a little eager to change his status as a virgin. When Josephine innocently asked for a tour of their palatial house, Caleb swore the Fates were smiling down on him.
They’d wound up in his bedroom, kissing and groping each other like a pair of stags in heat. What followed were the most gratifying six minutes of Caleb’s life, and afterward he’d fancied himself halfway in love with the beautiful older woman who’d brought about his sexual liberation.
A week later, Josephine called in tears to tell him she’d been fired from the firm. When Caleb went to his father to demand an explanation, Crandall was already waiting for him with a look of amused long-suffering. As he calmly explained to his enraged son, on the night of the dinner party, he’d overheard Josephine remark to another woman how handsome Caleb looked in his tuxedo. He’d thought nothing of the girl seeking out Caleb’s company, until he later learned that she’d seduced his son. Afterward she’d bragged to some coworkers, and word had gotten back to the big boss.
“She was a gold digger, Caleb,” an unapologetic Crandall informed him. “She foolishly hoped that by ingratiating herself to my teenage son, she’d secure a permanent place for herself at the firm, and eventually within our family. Heed my words, boy. Beautiful women are rarely, if ever, to be trusted. Enjoy them. Wine them, dine them, hell, make ’em your slave in the bedroom. But never,evertrust them, or you’ll curse the day you were born.”
It was a hard lesson that followed Caleb into adulthood, enabling him to drift from one superficial relationship to thenext, always keeping women at arm’s length. Not even Shara—whom he respected and cared about—had been able to breach the fortress he’d built around his emotions, or threaten his ironclad self-will.
No woman had.
Until now.
Brooding, Caleb parked his truck in the underground garage and rode the elevator to the lobby to retrieve his mail. His boots rang out on the gleaming marble floor as he strode purposefully toward the steel bank of mailboxes.
“How’s it going, Mr. Hammond?” he greeted the uniformed security guard posted at the front desk, an older black man with salt-and-pepper hair receding from a broad forehead.
Eugene Hammond glanced up from theSan AntonioExpress-Newshe’d been reading and beamed when he saw Caleb, one of the few tenants who actually spoke to him on a consistent basis. He was a good man—solid, dependable, trustworthy. He’d been on vacation with his family when Hoyt Philbin bribed his way into Caleb’s penthouse last week. Caleb took some comfort in the knowledge that if Mr. Hammond had been working that night, he never would have allowed the security breach.
“Hey there, son!” As the older man’s dark gaze registered Caleb’s rumpled appearance, and the fact that he was wearing the same clothes from the day before, a knowing look crossed his face. “Long night, huh?”
