Page 71 of A Legal Affair
“Yes! I’m so pissed right now!”
Caleb’s eyes raked over her face, searching, assessing, a muscle twitching in his cheek. He didn’t believe her.
“I’m not lying!” she snapped and then lowered her voice, remembering where they were. “He’s a conniving little creep. I can’t believe I didn’t catch on to him sooner.”
Caleb’s gaze dropped to her lips, then back up again to her eyes. There was no mistaking the hint of menace in his stare,in the slight tilt of his head. “Are you playing me, Daniela?” he asked softly.
“No!” she cried, even as white-hot guilt stabbed her through the chest. It would be the cruelest irony if what toppled her house of cards was someone else’s lies, not her own.
Caleb’s inked hand lifted to her face, his thumb grazing her cheek before ghosting over her lips. His touch sent a tremor through her, equal parts thrill and warning. “Layers,” he mused, dragging his thumb across her bottom lip. “So many layers. Too many, maybe.”
Her breath hitched at his enigmatic words. She could hear noises outside the room—a distant laugh, the clatter of dishes from the kitchen. This was a bad idea. A very bad idea. They shouldn’t be seen together, not like this. Going for coffee in broad daylight was one thing. Sharing a stolen moment in a dimly lit lounge was something else entirely.
“I…I should go,” she whispered, her voice shaky. “Please let me?—”
“Let you what?” His hand slid to her nape, his fingers tangling in her hair and roughly pulling her head back. “Let you go back to your table? Back to your cozy little date with thatboy?”
“It’s not a date!” she insisted.
“Sure as hell looks like one.” The dangerous glint was back in his gaze, his lips twisting into a snarl. “What the hell am I supposed to make of you with him—holding hands, teasing, flirting? Am I supposed to enjoy seeing you with someone else just hours after I had you bent over my desk and coming on my hand?” His eyes darkened to obsidian, his fingers tightening in her hair. “You got me all the way fucked up.”
His darkly possessive words hit her with the force of a physical blow, nearly dropping her to her knees. He was jealous. Unmistakably, viscerally jealous. And the realization sent a blastof heat through her, a forbidden thrill that transcended all logic. All danger.
“W—We shouldn’t be doing this here.” The words were a feeble protest undermined by the way her body leaned into his touch, desperate to bridge the remaining inches between them.
“I know we shouldn’t.” He made her toes curl with that searing stare of his. “You think I don’t know how goddamn reckless this is?”
Her chest rose and fell with shallow breaths. She could feel the primal heat radiating from his body, could feel the sheer force of his warring urges, a mirror of her own. Her eyes dropped to his mouth, those firm, sensual lips that had tasted her, devoured her, made her scream.
“Caleb…” she whispered, her voice a plea.
With one hand fisting her hair, he wrapped his other hand around her waist and crushed her against his body. Before she could even gasp, his lips came crashing down on hers in a hard, ruthless kiss, ravaging her mouth with a feral aggression that stole her breath and sent her senses reeling.
Her eyes closed as he groaned darkly and parted her lips, his tongue plunging between them to explore every recess of her mouth. It was like a release valve had snapped inside him, unleashing a torrent of pent-up tension, frustration and taboo longing. The kiss wasn’t tender or gentle or patient. It was a kiss meant to inflame, to own, to possess.
Daniela coiled her arms around Caleb’s neck, pressing her body harder into his. He responded by sucking on her tongue and biting her lower lip, pulling it firmly between his teeth and breaking skin. She tasted blood before a thready moan escaped her, swallowed right up by his hungry mouth.
She could feel his cock huge and hard against her lower belly. An insatiable need pounded through her, a desperate need to bedevoured by him, here, now, despite the risks, despite the very public setting.
She whimpered when he tore his mouth away, panting, his lips slick from hers, dark eyes blazing as he rasped in her ear, “God, Daniela. You have no fucking idea what you’ve done to me.”
She leaned her forehead against his heaving chest, her heart pounding a frantic drum against her ribs and between her trembling thighs. “You’ve been pretty hazardous for me, too.”
A ragged breath shuddered out of him. He pulled back just enough to look at her, his thumb rasping over the sensitive skin behind her ear, sending sparks up and down her spine. “We can’t do this. Not here.” He glanced around the empty lounge, as if the walls themselves had ears. “You’re coming home with me.”
“But—”
A soft thud of approaching footsteps echoed from the hallway. They both froze, their eyes locking for a split second before Caleb stepped back, putting an appropriate amount of distance between them although the lingering heat of his body, the scent of him, still suffused every part of her.
Just then a tall figure emerged from the corridor, a man in an expensive dark suit with perfectly coiffed gray hair.
Hoyt Philbin.
The sight of him made Daniela’s blood run cold. The panic she’d felt earlier returned tenfold. This was it. The moment she’d dreaded. The moment her two worlds collided. The moment her cover got blown to smithereens.
She forced a neutral expression onto her face, her mind racing with a million scenarios of how this would play out, none of them good.
Philbin came forward, his gaze sweeping over them with a knowing little smile. “Well, well, well. If it isn’t Caleb Thorne. Fancy meeting you here.” His voice was smooth as churnedmolasses, deceptively cordial as his gaze shifted to Daniela. “And you must be a friend of Caleb’s,” he drawled, playing his part with the silver-tongued perfection of a Marvel villain.
