Lawmakers

Lawmakers

By

Tressie Lockwood

Dahlia Rose

Lawmakers

Copyright © August 2014, Tressie Lockwood and Dahlia Rose

Cover art designed by For the Muse Designs © August 2014

Formatting by Bob Houston eBook Formatting

ISBN 978-1-627620-72-7

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious or used fictitiously. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

Amira Press

Charlotte, NC

www.amirapress.com

In Santi’s Defense

Tressie Lockwood

Chapter One

The phone on her desk rang, and Della grunted, scratching out a few more words before reaching for the receiver. Even as she did, her gaze never left the page as she puzzled over contract edits. She had three more hours to get it in to her boss. Her eyes burned with too little sleep, and her tongue felt thick from a billion cups of coffee. Distracted, she picked up the phone and managed a grunt as a greeting.

“I waited for you in the rain,” came the deep, sexy voice with a lilt that identified him as Latin.

She paused her pen over the surface of the page, and she focused unseeingly on the computer screen in front of her. “Oh, you did?”

“Si.”

She chewed her lip, thinking she picked up the sound of falling rain in the background. Glancing toward her office window presented an overcast day but no rain. “Have you considered you might have the wrong woman?”

“Never,” he asserted. “
Te deseo.
I will pleasure you.”

“Te deseo,”
she repeated. “That means…”

“I want you.”

Chills raced up and down her spine, and goose bumps popped out on her arms. “You could be a creepy stalker, or you don’t care who you pleasure, just as long as she’s a warm body.”

“Is that what you think, Della?”

She almost dropped the phone and pressed fingers to her forehead as she shut her eyes. The way he spoke her name did things to her body that should be illegal. What if she gave in to him? No telling how she would come out on the other side. How had she gotten into this situation anyway? Five foot eleven, muscular with bronzed skin, Santi Otero Varela captured her interest from the moment he walked into the law firm of De Leon and Associates. Fresh off the plane from A Coruña, Galicia, he was an old friend of the company owner’s son and intended to expand his business interests to America. She’d learned all this from the gossiping coworkers because Santi had no need at the time to work with her, a paralegal. Still, she didn’t require any of the ladies to point out how his long lashes shaded sparkling topaz eyes and how his dark, wavy hair called to a lover’s fingers. She saw all that for herself.

What intrigued her and threw her for a loop she didn’t know how to deal with was the day Santi turned his attentions her way. When had he noticed her? To be fair, men like Santi noticed
every
woman. His culture seemed to dictate it. Each of the ladies, from the lawyers to the mail staff, were greeted with a bright, white smile and a compliment as Santi passed by. His confidence was a force to be reckoned with—or given in to. Amid all the charisma he spread around the office, he had singled her out and begun a seduction that whittled away what resistance she had erected to keep players such as him at bay.

“To be honest, I’m not sure what to think,” she said after some thought. “You’re only here until your business is concluded, and then it’s back to Spain. I’m not in the market for a broken heart.”

“No, no,
cariño
. Your heart will not be broken. I will leave you… How do you say? Satisfied.”

“Hm, I wonder.” She stood from her desk and peered over the low wall toward the window. Someone had opened the blinds, and she watched the rain start to fall. Santi must be at his hotel. “I’d like to play with you all day, Santi”—she got off on saying his name too—“but I have a contract draft to get done. You’ll be in the office later?”

“If it means feasting my eyes on you, beautiful woman,
si
. Before I go, have dinner with me tonight. I will make you happy.”

She laughed. “You don’t give up.”

“Never, until you are in my arms, and our passion burns the sheets.”

“Good-bye, Santi.” She hung up before he could say more, and she discovered herself wrapped in the phone cord. After unraveling, she sat at her desk and set to work, not looking up until she’d crossed the last T and added a period to the final sentence.

A knock on the doorway into her cubicle made her pause while sifting through the contract pages. She spun around in her chair to find Stephanie, one of her fellow paralegals. “Bob wants you.”

Della frowned. “He couldn’t call?”

Stephanie shrugged. “They’re in the fishbowl. He forgot your number.”

“Seriously?” Della shook her head. She took a moment to study the blonde the others claimed had slept with every attorney in the office as well as a few clients. She should have been fired if that were true, but Della guessed she’d been smart or Bob was on that list. Della doubted it though. Bob seemed devoted to his wife and was a decent guy all the way around.

Right now, Stephanie’s beautiful face was flushed, and she seemed distracted, raising Della’s suspicions.

“Are you feeling well?” Della asked.

Stephanie peered over her shoulder, ducked below the cubicle walls, and whispered, “Mr. Varela is here.” She fanned herself. “That man is so yummy. There’s like this aura of sexuality all around him that I can’t resist.”

Stephanie calling him Mr. Varela made Della speculate on when she herself had dropped the mister and started calling him by his first name.
Oh yeah, when he insisted on it that first time in the file room.
Her temperature rose, but she resisted copying Stephanie by fanning herself. “He’s attractive, I guess, if you like that type.”

“Are you crazy?” Stephanie’s eyes bugged. She crept closer to Della’s desk. “You never gossip like those other witches, so this is between me and you. From what he said to me a few minutes ago, I think he and I are going to go to dinner, and after that who knows.”

In a flash, Della’s mood plummeted, and her temper rose. “We are not allowed to date clients.” She ignored the fact that she’d been considering giving in to Santi.

Stephanie raised a finger. “But he’s not a client. He’s Bob’s friend, and we don’t handle acquisitions anyway. Bob is just helping him out or something. So I can go out with him if I want.”

Della shoved her chair back and stood. She snapped the pages she’d been working on together in a neat pile. “You most certainly can. I hope you two have fun together. If you’ll excuse me, I have to give this to Bob.”

She left the cubicle pissed, knowing she shouldn’t be. After all she had no claims on Santi, and she knew the type of man he was from the start. Leaving Stephanie confused at her attitude, she marched down the hall toward the large conference room, which they’d dubbed the fishbowl because of its feel of being on display. Glass from ceiling to floor, one couldn’t pick one’s nose in there without the entire office witnessing it.

Della drew up to the conference room and paused at sight of Santi behind the glass. Today he wore a dark suit that molded to his thick, muscular build like a caress. Instant visions of stroking the hard muscles and feeling that arm wrapped around her popped into her head. Her mouth watered, and her pussy clenched. She recalled Stephanie’s words, and her anger resurfaced. This was the way of Spanish men. They were lovers. She should not get her panties in a bind over him.
Just keep it professional, and move on, Della.
Besides, her experience was so limited, she shouldn’t even be thinking about a man like him.

She pushed the door to the conference room open and approached her boss. “Hey, Bob, you needed this contract?”

Bob DeLeon looked up and smiled. “Thanks, Della. You’re a lifesaver. Hold on a second while I glance through them.”

Della put all her weight onto one leg and avoided catching Santi’s eye. She forced her thoughts to focus on Bob, the firm’s top lawyer and son of the founder. Bob liked to tell her and anyone else how they had saved his ass even for the minutest assistance. She had no idea why he did such a thing, but it had endeared him to her from the first day she had come to his office to interview. She liked it here and would miss everyone when she passed the bar and relocated. Her plans for her life weren’t set, but she had her eye on San Diego at the moment.

Santi cleared his throat. Della turned her back and leaned on the conference room table. Bob stood as he studied the pages she’d given him. “Damn, I think these numbers might have been updated.”

He snatched up the phone and fumbled over the keys. She rolled her eyes. She started to lean across the table to offer her assistance, but he slammed the receiver down.

“Be right back,” he said. “Let me recheck this with Becky.”

“Ah, I can go,” she began, but he’d already disappeared. She started after him when Santi grabbed her hand from behind.

“Why are you running from me,
cariño
?
”
His fingers threaded through hers, and she tried not to fall to the floor.

“W-who’s running?” She coughed to clear her throat, but his smile when she glanced at him said he knew the effect he had on her. In heels, Della was at least five ten, so it seemed like they were the same height. Yet, his presence overpowered her and made her feel small and delicate. Coming up, she had never been the small one in her circle of friends. Long-legged and what they called big-boned, she’d hated her size. At twenty-five, she had accepted her body, but she was also realistic about it. Extra curves turned some men on and others off. From the first moment he laid eyes on her, Santi behaved as if she mesmerized him, which was what made it so hard to resist him. The only men who fell all over her and were not intimidated by the fact that she was in law school were the ones she didn’t want.

Santi moved around to face her and blocked her path of escape. “If you are not running, then have dinner with me.”

“I don’t think so.” She pulled her hand from his and folded her arms across her chest, refusing to meet his gaze. The mistake lay in lowering her gaze his shirtfront. He had at some point loosened his tie, and she caught a glimpse of taut bronzed skin and a dusting of dark hair.

“You’re angry.
Por qué?”

“I’m not angry.”

“You lie,
cariño
.”

“Would you stop calling me that? I don’t even know what it means.” Her irritation rose because he got under her skin, and she needed it to stop. The more he spoke to her in that damn accent, the more she longed to throw herself into his arms and have him talk dirty to her in Spanish. The ridiculous lengths her imagination kept taking her to were too much.

Santi waved a hand in dismissal. “An endearment.”

Unfortunately for him, she figured the way he dismissed his use of the word, he’d just as soon use it on anyone. “I have to get back to work. I hope you enjoy dinner with Stephanie.”

She left him standing there and hurried back to her desk. For the rest of the day, she buried herself in work and didn’t look up until four in the afternoon. Gathering the reference books she’d taken from the firm’s library, she shuffled to that room to return them.

Della loved the library room because of the ceiling to floor books on every aspect of the law. Not only that, the space was equipped with a second level, accessed by narrow stairs. Once up there, one could disappear behind a wall of heavy tomes and pretend to be cut off from the world. At least, she liked it because she wasn’t visible from the entrance and most parts of the lower level. On more than one occasion, she had stolen away just to catch her breath. The attorneys used the room after hours more often than not, and the paralegals darted in and out as they hurried about their day. That left the room to Della for good chunks of time.