He felt her breasts press into his back as she spooned up against him. He sighed with pleasure, and more than a little relief.
She reached around and pressed her hands against his chest.
“Ahhh,” she said. She nipped his shoulder, purring in a delighted murmur.
Slowly, she began to slide her palms up and down, from collarbone to hips. For a moment, he shut his eyes and let the bliss wash over him.
“Kitty,” he said softly. He stilled her hands just below his rib cage, but he felt his control slipping.
“No,” a strange voice said, breaking the moment as brutally as a hammer shattering a mirror. “But obviously Kitty wasn’t exaggerating about you.”
He turned sharply, and faced a voluptuous brunette, dressed in the same bartender’s uniform that Kitty had worn. But different, so different…such dark, almond-shaped eyes over full, hungry lips.
“Kitty said you were a carnival ride like no other.” The woman licked the skin on his shoulder. “And now I see it’s true.”
It was the other bartender. Jill. He’d seen her a dozen times, pulling drafts and raking in big tips. She’d flirted with him, night after night, as she did with every male customer she encountered.
But what the hell was she doing here, on this sofa? And what did she mean, “Kitty said…”?
He sat up, grabbing her shoulders and moving her out of the way as he might have moved a child who had become a pest.
She chuckled softly, clearly undaunted, and reached out to smooth his tousled hair.
“Don’t you remember me, sweetheart? I’m Jill. Kitty said to say she’s sorry. She had to go, but she sent me to see if you needed anything…” Her eyes slid down. “Anything else.”
CHAPTER TWO
Eight weeks later
BY THE TIME the Brantley deposition was over, David Gerard couldn’t see anything but January’s darkness outside his law office window, and he was tired. Not just go-to-bed-early tired. The kind of disgusted bone-weariness that made people burn their houses, move to Costa Rica and spend the rest of their lives drinking piña coladas out of conch shells.
Unfortunately, he’d promised to take Marta Digiorno, a friend who also happened to be an attorney, out to dinner. They’d been circling the idea of dating for the past few weeks, though he wasn’t crazy about mixing the courthouse with pleasure. Tonight would be a trial balloon. Not quite a date, but not completely business, either.
“Do you think Barker and King will settle?” Marta stuffed file folders into the pocket of her briefcase, then sat on the edge of his desk and smiled. Amazingly, she didn’t look an iota less crisp and professional than she had at eight this morning, when they’d passed in the hall, each heading into the courthouse to take separate depositions.
She had a good legal mind, and David answered the question honestly. The chauvinistic weasels at Barker and King, Inc., had clearly discriminated against his client, a former employee who had been let go because she got pregnant.
“They should settle,” he said. “But they might not. They know the case is pro bono. They might think they can stonewall until we get tired of paying out of our own pockets.”
“Watch your pronouns,” she said, cocking one graceful eyebrow. “I’m not representing anyone for free. You’re the bleeding heart around here. So, any chance your heart feels sorry enough for a fellow lawyer to rub her tired feet?”
She kicked off her high heels and rested her left foot on his thigh.
Okay, that certainly shifted the evening squarely into the personal column. He hesitated, then decided he was being a fool. It had been two months since he’d had a date. Longer, really, because that Bahamas madness didn’t really qualify as a date.
Still…eight weeks since his vacation, when for the first time in his boring, Mr. Nice Guy life, he’d been propositioned by two women in one night. Not his usual style, not by a long shot. And sadly, not as exciting as people might think. Kind of foolish, actually, and, in the end, oddly depressing. Another prepubescent dream busted.
Anyhow, the green-haired bartender and her trashy friend, whom he’d tossed out of the cottage in about ten seconds without wasting much time on tact, were history. Belle Carson, who had been happily married eight weeks now, too, was also history.
Marta was smart, classy, witty and obviously interested. And she was here. So what was he waiting for?
Nothing. He nestled her heel in one hand and began flexing her long, slim toes with the other.
She leaned back, palms down on his desk, and let her eyes drift shut. “Mmm,” she said in a low purr. “Nice.”
A sudden commotion in the outer office stilled his hands. He glanced toward the closed door, not alarmed but curious. It was at least eight o’clock. He didn’t have any appointments tonight.
That is what his paralegal, Amanda, was clearly trying to tell someone. A woman, from the sound of it. A woman who was refusing to take no for an answer.
Within two seconds, his door flung open. A young female with crazy green curls stormed in, her eyes fiery and her head pushed forward, like a determined goose. Behind her, Amanda stood helplessly, hands up in defeat. “Miss—Miss, I told you Mr. Gerard is unavailable and—”
The young woman scowled over her shoulder at the paralegal. “And I told you I don’t care. What is it with you people? He’s not the president, for God’s sake!” Then she turned toward David, and he saw her face harden as she took in Marta lounging on the desk, her jacket on the chair, her foot cradled in David’s hands.
“Oh,” the newcomer said. “That kind of unavailable.”
David’s mind wasn’t working fast enough. He knew what he saw, or what he thought he saw, but it was so impossible his brain wouldn’t accept it. The hair was green, just like before. And the eyes…
He knew those eyes. And yet, how could it be? It couldn’t. It couldn’t be—
He’d called her “the green-haired bartender” in his mind so long he couldn’t, for a minute, remember her name.
Marta had already moved her foot and let her legs slide down, so he stood.
“Miss…” He took a breath. “Katie?”
But the instant he said it, he knew it was wrong. Not Katie. Kitty. Of course it was Kitty. In his mind, he could still see the white rectangle of her name tag, moving up and down as she panted…
What on earth was she doing here?
Her eyes narrowed. “Close,” she said icily. “Partial credit. It’s Kitty. Kitty Hemmings. You look surprised to see me. I guess this means none of your bodyguards called to give you a heads-up.”
“My what?”
“Your bodyguards. I’ve been trying to get in touch with you all afternoon. But your receptionist, she’s not that friendly,
