Page 25 of Café Diablo

She slips herself into the space she’s just created between me and my desk. Then, she lifts herself up gracefully so she’s sitting on the desk’s edge, turning my office into her own personal jungle gym.

“And if I have no kidney,” she continues with her ridiculous slippery-slope scenario, “that means no alcohol.” She adjusts her hips, baring her knees at me as she firmly sits back on my desk with her legs crossed. “Oh, and here’s the kicker—” She gives me a lifted eyebrow. “No alcohol means I won’t be getting piss-ass drunk around hot lawyer men anymore.” She nods to me definitively and lifts up the tart that she has sitting on her palm. “So, Mr. Voss—” Her eyes light on me as she uses my lawyer name in her mock-breathy tone.

I stare at her and don’t react.

She wants to play this game. She can.

I’ll win.

“Yes, Mr. Voss,” she continues, moaning a little as she lays it on thick. “I really think we’d better make these ten minutes count, because they’re going to cost me so much damn money, I’ll probably never be inviting you back to that dark corner of Flambé and getting down on my knees to make you curse at your maker for what my tongue was doing—if you know what I mean.”

Olivia stares at me.

Hard.

I do my best to sit there and pretend my cock isn’t twitching and she didn’t just bring up the massive elephant in the room. I don’t move a muscle. I don’t flick my eyes to the substantial amount of thigh she’s now showing from her position on my desk. I keep my eyes trained on her, as that pink mouth of hers turns up into a wicked smile.

“Do you want any legal advice for these ten minutes?” I ask darkly. “Or are you going to just sit on my desk and insist we have a staring contest?”

She bites her lip and I’m pretty sure I’m not going to like whatever she’s about to say next.

“Eeeeedwin,” she says, once again drawing out my name. “I already told you what I want.” She moves the pastry in front of her and tips it in my direction. “You haven’t even taken a look at how beautiful these are! Just look at the whipped cream and the espresso powder and the curls of chocolate. These are tiny abstract works of art. Think Rothko and Mondrian and Kandinsky.”

“Am I about to get an art history lesson?”

“Not with time ticking away, mister.” She shakes her head and waves the tart at me again. “Tell me you can resist this gorgeous piece of culinary decadence? Tell me your mouth isn’t watering! It almost seems wrong to bite into it, it’s so beautiful. But, I’m sure it tastes even better than it looks. If the Café Diablo drink Connor made us is any indication, this is going to—”

“I prefer a plain sugar cookie,” I clip out, not letting her try to hook me with that damn drink and all that followed.

Olivia lifts a sultry eyebrow and shakes her head. “That’s because you like to play it safe, Edwin.”

“With my desserts? Probably,” I grant, folding my arms over my chest in defiance. “But you’ve never seen me in the courtroom. You don’t know anything about the risks I’m willing to take for a client.”

“Is that so? Interesting.” She looks at me like I just revealed my hand. “So, if I have to pay for these ten minutes, that makes me a client, doesn’t it?”

I frown at her, knowing exactly what she’s doing.

“Technically,” I grumble.

“Good.” She sits up, uncrossing her legs and leaning forward. “Then prove it.”

“Prove what exactly?”

That smile dallies on her face again and it takes all my strength not to wheel this chair forward and wipe it off her damn lips with a kiss. But then she says something so hot and naughty, my heart jolts.

“I want you to eat my tart.”

She says it raw—sinful—holding that pastry precariously between her fingers like something fragile.

“Not a problem,” I reach out to take the damn delicacy, but she slaps my hand away.

“Oh no,” she scolds. “Mr. Voss, youdo notget to use your hands.”

“Excuse me?”

Then, like the damn minx she is, she shifts her weight back, opens her legs, and places the pastry on my desktop right between her thighs.

Right.

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