LOVING THE HEAD MAN (8 page)

       “Yes, sir,” she replied with a smile.

       As they sat side-by-side on the sofa, Bree noticed that Robert was in shirt sleeves, and his arms were strong and muscle-tight beneath his white dress shirt.  “Think you’re getting the swing of things all right?”  He crossed his legs, turned his body toward her.  They were so close that their legs were within an inch of touching.

       “It’s coming along,” she said, deciding to take advantage of what she feared could be her only opportunity.  “I just don’t think I know what Alan wants.”

       “He wants excellence,” Robert replied, “or as close to it as anyone can come.”

       “We’re shadowing senior associates now.  All I’ve been doing all day is to take documents from one floor to the next.”

      
“For?”

       “Mr. Drysdale.”

       Robert nodded.  “Has Bret impressed you yet?”

       “Mr. Drysdale?  No, sir,” Bree said bluntly.

       Robert laughed, pleased that she wasn’t trying to flatter him.  “Good,” he said.  “If you would have said yes you would have disappointed me.”

       “Why is he here?” Bree asked with all sincerity. 
“If you don’t mind my asking.
  He seems so . . .”

      
“So incompetent?”

       “Well, yes, sir.”

       “He is, of course.  Has no practical sense whatsoever.  Until you get him in a courtroom.  He’s a master in the courtroom.  Jurors love him.  He rarely loses a case.”

       This astonished Bree.  “Why would jurors love him?  I mean, he’s nice and all, but I don’t see what’s so loveable about him.”

       Robert looked at her face, at her soft, dark skin, his voice growing faint.  “He has what I think you have.  And you can’t teach that.”

       Bree’s heart began to pound.  “What is it?” she asked him, unsure if she really wanted the answer.

       “Pity,” Robert said.

       Bree frowned. 
“Pity?
  They pity him?”  Was he saying that jurors would pity
her
?

       “Yes.  They sympathize with him, understand him,
see
him as the little David against the mammoth Goliath.  They will almost always side with the Davids of the world.”

       Bree didn’t know if she wanted to go there, but she felt she must if she ever was to understand his interest in her.  “And you see a David in me?”

       “Yes,” Robert said.  “Royally.”

       “So you didn’t see my skills or my abilities or even my potential.  You just saw that I was pitiful and that did it for you?”  Bree knew she sounded bitter, but she couldn’t help it.  She felt bitter.  All of her life she was always pushed to the
back,
told that she wasn’t good enough, never, as Alan DeFrame said, the winner.

       Robert didn’t respond to her bitterness.  He simply continued to stare at her.   He saw a lot more in her than he could perhaps even explain to himself, so it was for certain he wasn’t going to try and explain it to her.  Besides, his manhood was throbbing just by being this close to her, rendering his concentration a little off. 

       Although he was warring with himself inside, his outer calmness helped to calm Bree back down.  “I thank you for the opportunity anyway,” she felt a need to say.

       Robert smiled.  “Keep that fire, Brianna.   It’ll serve you well.” 

       His eyes kept moving down to her luscious lips.  And he wanted to kiss her.  He wanted to do far more than that, but he had to kiss her. 
Just one kiss.
 

       When she returned his gaze, and hers was as fiery as his, he knew he had to do it.  He’d never done this before, he’d never in all the years of their training program allowed himself to so much as have one moment of private time with one of the trainees.  But he’d never felt the way he felt when he saw Bree’s video, either.  He leaned forward.  If she didn’t resist him, he had to do it.

       He did it. 
Because she didn’t resist.
 
Because their lips met and a fire shot through his entire body.
  It was a chaste, sweet
kiss,
he didn’t want to scare her.  But when their lips parted again, and he realized the feeling was even better than he had imagined, he had to kiss her once more. 
Just one more.
  And he did it. 
Another chaste kiss.
 
Then another.
  By now he was so hot and had moved so close to her that he was almost on top of her curvaceous body.  But with his final kiss, a kiss that was supposed to be as chaste as the others, his control broke.

       His lips seared into hers, his tongue prodded and poked and intertwined into hers.  He pulled her into his arms as he kissed her.  And when she wrapped her arms around him, a guttural sound came from his throat and he bore into her.  She was turned completely sideways by now, and his hand reached down beneath her skirt, into her panties, and squeezed her soft, tight ass.  He rubbed and squeezed as he kissed her, as this young woman who did the craziest things to his heart, allowed him to feel as if he had been accorded the honor of occupying a special place.

       The buzz of his desk intercom caused the kissing to stop.  Otherwise, he wasn’t sure if he could have stopped.  He was breathing so heavily when their lips parted, that he thought he was going to have a heart attack.  And his hand still rested on her bare ass, as if it had melded onto her supple, pliable skin.

       He looked at her.  Although he saw some fear and alarm in her eyes, he saw happiness there, too.  And when she smiled, his heart relaxed.  “I’m usually not this aggressive,” he said, and she smiled even greater. 

       “Somebody’s trying to get in touch with you,” Bree said.  One of her hands had landed in his mop of brown hair while he had been kissing her, and was still there.

       Robert rubbed her hair as well.  “I guess I’d better see what they want.”  He slowly slid his hand from out of her panties, still massaging her butt as he did, and then he stood to his feet.  “And you’d better get back to Bret, before he starts wondering what’s become of you,” Robert said. 

       Bree immediately blushed with embarrassment as she hurried to her feet.  She hadn’t meant to linger, or to give him the impression that she wanted him to check his intercom and then come back and fondle her.  She wanted to tell him she didn’t mean that, but knew it would sound ridiculous. 

       “Goodbye, sir,” she said, about to leave. 

       But Robert grabbed her by the hand and held it.  “Have dinner with me tonight,” he said to her.

       Bree looked at his hand, and then into his eyes. 
“Dinner, sir?”

       Robert nodded.  “Yes. 
At my place.”
  He studied her.  “I want to spend some time alone with you,” he admitted.

      
To finish what I started here
, Bree knew was what he really meant.  “I don’t think that’s a good idea, sir,” she said.

       Robert smiled.  “It’s a lousy idea, are you kidding?”  Then he turned serious, rubbed her narrow shoulder.  “But it doesn’t negate the fact that I want to spend some time alone with you.”

       Bree knew this was crazy, she knew she’d live to regret this decision, but she couldn’t see herself turning him down.  She liked Robert, liked him from the moment she met him.  And she was no fool, she knew this could backfire on her and was more likely to hurt rather than help her career. 
Especially if it goes too far, and they end up in bed.

       “Come on, Brianna,” Robert said, “I promise you’ll enjoy yourself.”

       Every ounce of her brain was telling her to turn down his offer, that she’d live to regret it if she didn’t.  But her heart told an entirely different tale. 
You’d be a fool
, her heart was saying, to
turn this down
.         

       “Okay,” she said, listening to her heart entirely.

       Robert smiled, very pleased.  “I’ll send a car for you.  They have you guys staying at the Omni, right?” 

       “That’s right,” she said as his desk intercom buzzed again.   He kissed her lightly on her forehead, stared deep into what he could now see were troubled eyes.  He knew this decision came with a price for her.  “It’ll be okay, Brianna,” he said to reassure you.  “You aren’t doing anything wrong.  Okay?”

       Bree nodded, although that wasn’t the reassurance she needed.  She needed him to say, come to dinner, enjoy a fine meal with me, and I promise not to touch you.  Of course she could always refuse his advances herself, although she knew what that could do for her career.  But the way she felt when he was kissing her just now, the way he made her feel, kind of squashed any notions that she could ever refuse this man. 

       “Okay,” she said, smiled weakly, allowed him to kiss her on the forehead again, and then she left his office.  She was embarrassed and elated, confused and overjoyed, all at the same time.

       Robert was concerned himself, after she left, as he walked toward his desk.  How in the world was he going to manage this?  He couldn’t have an affair with one of his
trainees, that
kind of practice was something he’d never dreamed of doing before. 
And to mess with somebody as sweet and innocent as Bree.
Was he corrupting her?  He’d be stunned if she was all that experienced.  She’d had a few encounters, a few rolls in the hay with some of her hometown boys, he could tell by the way she kissed him.  But nothing on the order of what he would want from her.  Which he knew he couldn’t, shouldn’t have.  Not with one of his young trainees!

       His trump card, he also knew, was that he’d be in LA this weekend preparing for the Patrick trial, and would be tied up for quite a few weeks to come.  If he didn’t see her, he couldn’t fuck her.  So why was he seeing her tonight?  Why had he insisted on it to a point that almost sounded like he was begging her?  When he knew, if he so much as feasted his eyes on that young lady again, on that particular young lady, there would be no reprieves, no intercoms to
interrupt,
there would be no turning back.