Leave Me Breathless (6 page)

It had to be now.

He pinned her hands to the floor and threaded his fingers through hers. Closeness, not control, was the issue. He wanted to feel every part of her as his body ratcheted up even further. When she dug her heels into the back of his thighs, the last of his control snapped. Speed and intensity overtook finesse. From her knees to her breasts, every part of her touched a part of him as their bodies bucked and their moans filled the quiet room.

Her head fell back and an orgasm ripped through her. He followed right after. Flexing his hips, he lodged his cock deep inside her one last time. Jerking and pressing, his body clamped down hard. Everything inside him stiffened as his breath caught on a gasp. A second later, the vise-grip hold on his lower body loosened and he emptied into her.

It took another ten minutes for his breathing to return to normal.

Five minutes after that, she led him to her bedroom to start again.

B
y eight that evening, the courthouse had quieted down. Except for a few law enforcement officials stationed at the entrance to the building and others signing off shifts down in the sheriff’s area, no one was around. Emma welcomed the calm. Knowing Keith sat just outside her office helped soothe the queasy unease that had filled her ever since the bomb went off.

Her anxiety had only heightened earlier when Mark dragged Scott to the hidden elevator at the side of her courtroom. The same elevator that led straight to the sheriff’s office holding cells downstairs. As Mark led him out, Scott lost his control and promised to sue, a threat that just damned him further in Mark’s eyes. It all happened hours ago, but no matter how many times she shut her eyes, Emma couldn’t block that image from her mind.

She heard shuffling and glanced up to see Mark filling her doorway. Dark with shocking green eyes and a brooding air, he commanded every room he entered. The lines of his face were sharper than Ben’s. Where Ben smiled and his face lit up, Mark usually wore a stern frown. They were both handsome, Ben more classically so, and athletic in a could-lift-a-car kind of way.

A whiff of danger followed Mark. He worked in secret and thrived on the adrenaline of walking on the edge. Compared to her and Ben, who lived in the open, constantly subject to public scrutiny, Mark moved only in shadows and refused to let anyone share that gloomy space with him.

The women in the courthouse and managers of the newspaper’s society section developed a crush on Ben the minute he stepped on the scene. He put on that robe and otherwise sensible females went wild. Emma loved Ben, but like a brother.

There was nothing brotherly about her feelings for Mark. Never had been.

“Hey.” Mark stood with his hands resting on either side of the threshold. He called to Keith in the outer office. “Go ahead and take a break. Get some fresh air. I’ll watch over Judge Blanton for the next half hour. Check back at exactly eight thirty.”

A shiver ran through her at Mark’s remark. She held a position of power, made decisions about freedom and forgiveness every day, and still this man could shake her to the core.

“How’s Scott?” she asked, trying to keep their communication as routine as Mark did.

“He finally stopped whining. I had one of my men take him home.”

Leave it to Mark to find a young man’s protests of innocence to be nothing more than a nuisance. “I guess that means his story checked out?”

“A delivery kid met Scott by the elevator, and then Scott walked the envelope back and slid it under Ben’s door. Tracked down the delivery service and it was a cash job. Kid has no connection with Scott. Insists Scott just happened to be there and wouldn’t let the kid go back to the restricted chambers area.”

Emma exhaled for the first time in hours. “So, Scott was telling the truth.”

“About this, but I’m still checking on his background.”

“It’s clean. Just be relieved Scott isn’t the problem.” She knew she was.

“It would have been easier if Scott was behind all of this.”

“Why?”

“It’d be over.”

The edge to Mark’s voice worried her. “But you let him go, right?”

“Scared the hell out of him first.”

She’d be lucky if Scott even showed up for work tomorrow. As if the office wasn’t enough of a mess without losing her clerk. “Was that really necessary?”

“Thought so at the time.” Mark pushed off from the door and walked toward her. More like stalked. His sleek body moved with a rhythm that mesmerized her.

“Either way, thank you for assigning Keith to me.”

“He’s good at his job.”

As usual, Mark jumped right to work and avoided anything personal. Their relationship had moved in and out of the bedroom for years, yet he still talked to her like they just met. Except for a short period of time in her life, Mark came to her after every difficult job. Didn’t talk. Just used his key to get in her house, climbed onto the mattress, and released his frustration and anxiety through rounds of high-energy sex.

“How did you know I’d be here tonight?” she asked.

“You’re a workaholic. Ever since…” Mark coughed. “You’re here a lot now.”

“You mean since I left Jeff.” It had happened a year ago. The rumor mill buzzed about the circumstances surrounding her breakup with her former fiancé. Her ex fed the frenzy by suggesting Ben had played a role. The headlines painted her as a woman out of control in her private life, sleeping with both a prominent partner in a prestigious law firm and the handsome judge across the hall.

The real reason for leaving before walking down the aisle turned out to be much more mundane. She backed out because she refused to settle. She loved Mark. Ben helped her to see that truth, and then he got dragged into her nasty all-too-public breakup as a thank-you.

“You’ve been busy pissing off the public, making speeches,” Mark said, broaching a subject she knew picked at him but which he hadn’t mentioned. Until now.

“Someone is always going to be upset with my decisions. That’s the nature of the job.”

Mark slid into the seat across from her and balanced an ankle over his other knee.

“I heard someone filed a complaint against you challenging your fitness as a judge.”

That part ate away at her. She gave up so much for the job and in return had grievances filed against her. There was a public movement to remove her from the bench, a plan that left her empty and restless.

“The new theory is that I skew the cases against defendants and bias juries. Funny how no one ever questioned my professional integrity until a year ago, and now everyone watches every move I make,” she said.

“A bomb did go off in front of you. Some folks are watching and talking because of that and not because of anything else.”

“Admittedly, the timing was not great.”

“Is there ever a good time for attempted murder?”

“Not that I can see.”

Mark tapped on the bottom of his shoe. “What did you think would happen when you said those things to Steve Jenner at his sentencing hearing? Reporters were in the courtroom. His attorneys were looking for grounds for appeal.”

“I am aware of that.”

“Hell, his wife continues to deny the reality of being married to a rapist and murderer. She wants someone to blame for the crapper of a life she’s been handed, and you gave her a prime target. All but painted a bull’s-eye on your back.”

“You think she’s behind the threats?”

“If so, not on her own, and I doubt she’s paying anyone. She ran through almost every dime on her husband’s legal fees. There’s just nothing left. Besides, I’ve had someone on her ever since she started screaming at you in the courtroom. There’s no evidence she’s physically gunning for you. She’s spending too much time going on talk shows and complaining about renegade judges. It looks as if she’s found her calling.”

The realization of just how much Mark knew about this other woman and her whereabouts stunned Emma. “Is digging into her life part of your official job?”

“It’s one that helps me sleep at night.”

Emma knew that was as close as he would ever get to admitting he cared about her. She knew how he operated. They had grown up together. Slept together as recently as a week ago when he showed up on her doorstep and without a word led her upstairs. Otherwise, he stayed disconnected, passing messages through Ben and keeping a safe distance.

But they shared a violent past. Because of that he should understand how hearing the parade of lies about victims would chip away at her reserve. “You don’t know what it’s like.”

“Enlighten me.”

“I sit up there day after day and listen to victims get bashed and maligned. I hear fantastical stories about how rape victims asked to be hurt. How being out at night means a woman deserves to be tortured and killed. About how husbands snap and kill the ones they supposedly love and should be forgiven because it was a one-time thing, as if that even makes sense.”

“You’ve been on the bench for seven years. None of this was new.”

“But it builds up. You watch the juries and see the defense attorney connect with someone. Feel that one person start to believe that a respectable businessman like Steve Jenner couldn’t possibly beat and rape women in the basement of his house. That his wife would know, because any reasonable human would, even though the evidence of his guilt is clear.”

“You’re too close to this situation.”

Emma relived every minute of the damning trial information every time she closed her eyes. “You can’t hear that kind of testimony and not feel something.”

Mark’s eyes clouded with an emotion she couldn’t name. “You know what I mean.”

“I don’t.”

“You have to separate Jenner from your mom.”

Emma knew the suggestion was coming. Still, Mark’s words jabbed at her midsection. “This isn’t about her.”

“Of course it is.” His voice grew softer the longer he talked.

If he had yelled or ordered, she would have had a defense. But he sat there, listening and the words spilled out of her. “I just want to feel clean again.”

“Emma—”

“Ben enjoys the job, gets a rush out of the vibe in his courtroom. Not me. Not anymore. I get swamped with a coldness I can’t shake.”

“Take a leave of absence.”

Quit and run. Mark had been pushing that agenda for years. She used to think his words were about protecting her. Now she knew it was another means of pushing her away.

Resolve built back up inside her. “No. Absolutely not.”

“You need a break.”

“If I walk away, then guys like Jenner win.”

Mark let out an exhale full of frustration. “Use your head. Someone is trying to do more than scare you here.”

She waved her hand in dismissal. “I’ll be fine.”

Mark leaned in with a voice rubbed harsh from need. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

A short shocked silence filled the room.

“Ever,” he added in a whisper.

She wanted to go to him, to curl up on his lap and let him wash away all the confusion and fear with a rain of kisses. But he’d bolt. He was in superagent mode, all serious and bossy. He could handle being shot at and testifying before Congress. Female weakness, now that scared the hell out of him.

What she needed and what he could give had never matched. Time hadn’t changed that obvious fact. So, she settled for letting him know she felt secure. “I have Keith. Nothing is going to happen with him here, or you stopping by, or Ben across the hall.”

Mark glanced at his watch. “Where is Keith?”

“Probably walking around the floor.” She smiled at the thought of her oversized, no-neck bodyguard pacing the hallway. “I’m sure he just lost track of time.”

Mark was already up and out of his chair. “Keith doesn’t make mistakes.”

T
he call came around midnight. Callie fought through a fog of sexual satisfaction and rabid hunger to concentrate on the rumbling sound. Being pinned to the mattress with an arm wrapped around her waist and Ben’s firm thigh pressed against hers, she couldn’t move. Wasn’t even sure she wanted to.

“What the hell is that?” Ben grumbled against her bare shoulder without opening his eyes.

“Phone.” That was the only explanation she could muster in her wiped-out state.

“We’re busy.”

The noise stopped. She had just closed her eyes when it began again. She glanced over and watched her cell phone vibrate against the nightstand. The blue light flashed, but still she didn’t reach for it. Not after the past few hours with Ben. The man sucked the energy right out of her.

But he still had some. Lips brushed against her skin as his fingers traveled to the bottom curve of her breast.

Then the vibrating started for a third round.

Ben’s forehead fell against her cheek. “Please tell me you don’t have a boyfriend.”

“Little late for that talk, isn’t it?”

His head shot up and his eyes glowed with an angry intensity. “I’m serious.”

“I can see that.” With the lights on she could see everything. Him naked…furious. That last part caught her by surprise. “Care to tell me what’s behind the change in mood?”

“Poaching another man’s woman is not an option. Not ever.”

She remembered he had started his tenure as a judge by hearing family law cases. Callie figured those early years of contested custody cases and people fighting over forks had taken a toll. “I wouldn’t be with you in the middle of my bed if I’d been keeping someone else here.”

“So, that’s a no?”

Clearly the man’s big brain misfired when his dick saw some action, because he sure wasn’t catching on very quick. “It’s a no. You’re not the only one who draws that line.” She rubbed her thumb over his frowning eyebrows.

“Okay.” He nodded. “Good.”

She didn’t have a law degree or wear a big black nightgown to work every day, but she knew anxiety when she saw it. Knew when she felt it shoot through the guy laying all over her. “Is there anything you want to tell me?”

The words barely left her lips when her home phone rang. Ben leaned up on an elbow and glared at the thing as if it were a foreign invader. “Who is this jackass?”

Unease washed through her. Someone this insistent planned on delivering bad news. “Maybe something’s wrong.”

He leaned across her and grabbed the receiver.

Mark.
With sudden clarity, she knew who sat at the other end of the line dialing like a madman. Which meant she was in a shitload of trouble.

“Ben, wait—”

“What?” Ben asked the question into the phone, not to her.

When his eyebrows snapped together, she knew the flipping around in her stomach was there for a reason. “Give it to me.”

Ben shifted away from her, blocking her hand with his shoulder before she could reach the receiver. “When?”

When what?
Yeah, this was bad. “Let me—” She tried another grab, but he used his body as a shield.

“How is he?” Ben asked.

So, not Emma. Callie wondered what “he” other than the “he” next to her was in trouble now. “He who?”

Ben shushed her. Actually sat naked on her bed and made an annoying hissing sound to get her to be quiet. She had no intention of obeying his command. It was her damn house, after all. “Who is it?”

“We’ll be right there,” Ben said to the person on the other end of the line.

When he handed the phone to her a second later, all she got was a dial tone. “Unless you plan on paying the mortgage, I answer the phone from now on.”

“Is this really the time to argue about something so dumb?”

“Would you prefer we make time later?” Instead of answering, Ben flipped back the covers and crawled out of bed. Not being a fan of the sex-and-run type, she grabbed his arm. “Where are you going off to without your pants, Your Honor?”

“There’s been an accident.”

His serious tone wiped the snootiness right out of her. “What?”

“We have to go.”

An hour later, Callie stood in an elevator and adjusted her gun for the third time. During the ride to the fourth floor of the hospital, Ben stood next to her with his fingers wrapped around the handrail behind him. They wore the same clothes from the day before and waited for the bell to ding and doors to open. Neither of them talked. But there wasn’t all that much to say. Not until they knew the particulars of what happened.

One thing was clear, someone had attacked Keith. Since the man weighed two-forty, and that was only when he forgot to eat, the danger level for all of them shot up. Even Ben had stopped whining about his protection detail. She would have celebrated his newfound brilliance, but she was too busy trying to figure out how hard Mark would kick her ass when he saw her.

She had spent hours on her back instead of on the job, or at least that’s the way Mark would see it. Not answering her phone had been a mistake. Making Mark track her down could spell the end of her freelance career.

“Ignore whatever my brother says when he sees you,” Ben said without bothering to look at her. He was too busy staring at the floor buttons as if they held the secret to life’s most intriguing questions.

“I can handle Mark.” And by that she meant she would stand there quietly while Mark yelled his head off.

“He’s not stupid.”

“I never said he was.”

“He’s going to know we slept together. He’ll have an opinion, and it won’t be good.” Ben exhaled loud enough to drown out the soft rock version of some dance song playing in the background. “So, like I said, let me deal with him.”

She carried a gun and proved her stamina during the naked slap-and-tickle games of the past few hours, yet Ben refused to concede that she could take care of herself. His Captain Save a ’Ho complex just never stopped. If a female walked in front of him, he felt the need to rescue her.

Fuck that.

“I’ve been shot at and lived through three days of your bossiness. Mark’s yelling doesn’t scare me.” It did a little, but admitting that would only give Ben an “in” and then she’d never get him out again.

“You’re not as smart as I thought.”

But she was. She knew Mark would crawl right up her ass about this. When he hired her, he had made a point of mentioning her past. Seemed Mark admired her for turning down her old boss’s advances and sticking up for other women who had dealt with the same by reporting him rather than ignoring it like so many other FBI females had been forced to do. Mark understood the chain of command and supervisors with friends in high places. He knew she had been set up and decided to walk away rather than get buried in paperwork at a desk job in Des Moines or someplace cold enough to freeze her fingers together.

Basically, Mark knew she didn’t sleep around on the job. Until now.

“If this is your idea of charming post-sex chatter, your bedroom skills need some work. Here’s a piece of advice: women don’t like being called names as soon as they get their underwear back on.” She tightened her ponytail. It was either that or strangle Ben. “Actually, name-calling is always bad, in case you weren’t clear.”

Ben’s mouth fell into a huge smile.

She saw it in the reflection on the back of the doors. “What’s so funny?”

“It’s about time.”

“For?”

He faced her as his hand slid across the railing to touch hers. “You ignored me during the drive over here. I thought that meant you planned to pretend nothing happened tonight. Since you’re all feisty, I’m thinking we’re back on track.”

As if she could push Ben from her mind. Despite the lapse of judgment and the huge mistake of going “no contact” when Mark needed to talk with her, she didn’t regret the sex. Her body craved Ben as much as she craved air. She didn’t know how the hell she’d break that addiction, but she would. Probably not on Mark’s timetable, but eventually.

“Would you like a grade for your performance?” she asked, hoping to get him all flustered and sputtering.

Ben threw her off. If anything, he grew even calmer. With his head balanced against the back wall of the elevator he shot her a sexy smile. “Only if it’s a high one.”

The highest, actually. Callie might need a new scale to measure his ability, and that was after only a few hours with him. She wondered how much greater he would be with prolonged contact. “Are you always this needy after sex?”

“Are you always this bitchy?”

She couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “Touché.”

A chime sounded and then the doors opened, and she was saved from hearing whatever gem he might have come up with next. In a way she almost regretted that because the sparring functioned as a form of foreplay with them. Not that now was the time for that, because it sure as hell wasn’t. A good man had been injured. That fact trumped sexy talk no matter how much she enjoyed it.

They took a few steps down the hallway. Despite the early hour, nurses rushed around and several people stood by the station in the middle of the open area. Callie guessed this was calm compared to what the place looked like during peak hours.

The harsh smell of antiseptic filled her nose the second they turned the corner and started toward Keith’s room. Her lips scrunched up in a frown as she fought off the smell from invading her senses…and then she saw Mark. Tall, dark, and furious. He paced around a small waiting room with hunched shoulders, wearing a suit as black as his mood. He hadn’t noticed her yet, but she knew she was on his mind. That would explain the tic in his cheek.

The only other person in the area other than the security guard standing next to Keith’s room was Emma. Of course. Heaven forbid a Walker brother be somewhere and her not be there, too. For a woman who played the role of non-girlfriend, she sure did show up at girlfriend-like times.

Not that Emma looked any better than the rest of them. Her serene demeanor had vanished. That angelic round face had paled to ghostly proportions. Her mouth pulled tight in a frown as she wrung her hands on her lap.

Emma’s gaze followed Mark’s long gait, sweeping over him and holding briefly on his face. Until she saw Ben coming toward her. Then she switched focus. She stood up, causing Mark to hit hyper-lawman mode and spin around to see what was coming.

His glare hit Callie with the force of a gunshot. Combined with Emma’s stiffness, that was one impressive wall of human anger. Callie wondered if the two practiced that joint disappointed look or if it just came naturally.

Ben spoke first. “How’s Keith?”

“In the hospital,” Mark said in a voice as rough as the scar that marred the side of his cheek.

Talk about a “no kidding” moment
. “Do we know what happened?” Callie asked, hoping to keep the conversation as professional as possible.

Mark shrugged. “As far as we can tell, he was outside the courthouse and got hit in the head. Lost a lot of blood. The doctors stitched him up and gave him something for pain, so I can’t talk to him yet, but I’m thinking from the angle of the wound he didn’t see his attacker.”

“So, he’s fine?” she asked, since Mark hadn’t volunteered the ending to the story.

Mark just nodded. No words. Just a swift sure movement of his head. Callie knew that couldn’t be good for her.

Ben shifted his weight from side to side, as if he were the one on the firing line. Callie didn’t know if the situation caused the anxiety or if standing in their small group where everyone knew he just had sex was a bit “too much information” for his taste. If it was the latter, he could get over it. They were adults. Adults had sex. Maybe not on the job and when danger lurked, but still.

“The police?” Callie asked.

Mark smacked his lips together. “Called. They’re investigating. I’ve worked with the chief before. He understands what’s happening and is talking about a joint operation.”

She doubted that was the case. “Is it?”

“No, but I let him think that to make things easier.”

A question finally popped out of Ben’s mouth over all of his uncharacteristic squirming. “Any chance we caught the incident on one of the security cameras?”

Emma shook her head as she tucked in closer to Mark’s side. “No. This guy’s good.”

“I’m not convinced that’s true. More likely he has inside information and knows enough to stay out of the way of video,” Mark added.

“Damn it.” Ben switched to pacing. “Why didn’t Keith know about the camera locations and stay within them?”

“Because no one thought Keith was in danger. The tactical plans involved you and Emma.” Mark didn’t say “dumbass,” but Callie was pretty sure she heard it in his tone.

Ben came to a sudden stop. “And where were you during all of this?”

Callie bit her tongue because she had been about to ask that very same question. Since Ben did it for her, Mark could rage at Ben instead of her. She refused to think of that as letting Ben rescue her. It was more like smart strategic thinking.

“Talking security with Emma.” Mark’s voice grew even chillier as he glanced at the security guard as if to make sure the other man wasn’t listening in, though how that was possible when he stood only a few feet away wasn’t all that clear.

Emma must have noticed, because she glanced between the brothers and then rushed to fill the conversational void caused by Mark’s shot of anger. “Keith was only away from me for about a half hour. Mark stayed with me the whole time. About business, of course.” The woman got more flustered and a bit breathless as she spoke.

Now there was an interesting extra sentence. All business? Mark and Emma together at night in a dark courthouse? Callie knew what would happen if she were in that situation with Ben. On her back, legs in the air, and lots of moaning. Hell, it did happen. Three times.

There was some weird non-sibling energy zapping around Mark and Emma. Callie could feel it, thought about ducking to keep from getting hit by it as it bounced around the room. The way they tried not to look at or touch each other was a dead giveaway as well. It was a sign of pent-up sexual frustration if ever Callie saw one. Showed that, maybe, Mark was human after all, though she doubted that could be proven with any sort of scientific certainty.