into buying it.
What the hell was he going to come up with this time? She could hardly wait to find out.
She shook her head. “I’m not giving your client any mercy. No plea deals for him.” Stone had wasted his time coming to see her.
“I wouldn’t accept a plea deal for him,” Stone said. “Byron Mueller is innocent.”
She snorted. Who was living in a fantasy world now? “If you repeat the lie enough times, do you start to believe it?”
His gray eyes narrowed in a glare. Obviously, he didn’t like being called a liar. But it was what he was, what he did. And Hillary always called it like she saw it.
“No. Really. I’m curious,” she continued. “I don’t understand how defense lawyers do it.” How could they represent someone they knew was guilty?
But that apparently was not what Stone thought she was talking about, because now his gray eyes glittered with amusement. Wriggling his brows suggestively, he lowered his voice to a sexy whisper and murmured, “I could show you.”
Her heart stopped beating entirely for a moment. Was he flirting with her?
Stone Michaelsen didn’t flirt. He was too focused on winning trials—on always being the best. Was he that way in the bedroom, too?
Did he have to be the best?
It wasn’t as if she would ever find out, though. He wasn’t suggesting what she’d thought he was. No. She must have been fantasizing yet. He wasn’t even here, let alone uttering innuendos. She reached under her desk and pinched the top of her thigh. Then she tried not to flinch at the pain.
She wasn’t fantasizing. This was real. Stone Michaelsen was in her office, and he was...
Flirting.
With.
Her.
WHAT THE HELL was he doing?
Stone hadn’t come to the district attorney’s office to flirt with Hillary Bellows. He’d come to get answers from her, to find out what the hell she’d been talking about in court about documents from his office. But now he just wanted to make her come.
And he really, really wanted to come himself.
Being alone with her had been a very bad idea. But he’d been so angry about her opening argument that he hadn’t thought his attraction to her would be an issue. Then he’d found her leaning back in her desk chair, moaning...
And all he could think about was making her moan again—with his kiss, with his touch...
Her face flushed a bright pink as she stared at him, her blue eyes widened with shock, the same shock he felt that he’d said what he had. Then she stammered, “I—I don’t want to know how defense lawyers do it.”
“Why not?” Stone asked. “Because you find us all beneath you?”
Then he groaned at the image that flashed into his mind—of being beneath her as she rode him in a frenzy, trying to reach the release from the tension that had already begun to build inside him.
As if this damn trial wasn’t making him tense enough.
Now he’d lost his grip on this attraction he felt for her. That he had always felt for her.
Did she feel nothing in return?
She shivered and murmured, “I don’t know how you do it.”
“And I offered to show you,” he said, and he was just as surprised as he’d been the first time the innuendo had slipped out. Was he flirting?
The guys would have laughed if they’d heard him. They always razzed him about being incapable of smooth-talking; they claimed that he just went up to women and grunted at them.
“Mr. Michaelsen!” she exclaimed.
And he chuckled. “Look at you, Ms. Bellows. All outraged self-righteousness. I understand now why you work so hard. You obviously have your sights set on the bench someday.”
“What?” she asked, her brow puckering with confusion.
“You want to be a judge,” he said. “You’re certainly all judgy right now.” Which should have turned him off. But he could picture her wearing only one of those black robes with nothing beneath it...
But his hands.
He was losing his fucking mind. And it was all her fault. She’d unsettled him even more today than she usually did, and it wasn’t just because of her beauty.
Damn, she was beautiful, though. So beautiful.
Her eyes were so clear and blue and full of intelligence with thick black lashes fringing them. Her face was round with wide cheekbones and a pointed little chin that he saw so often tilted with pride and the self-righteousness of which he’d accused her. And her lips, which were usually pulled into a pucker of disapproval, were full and red and temptingly kissable. Especially now...with chocolate smeared at the corner of her mouth.
He wanted to kiss it away. He wanted to kiss her—so badly that his stomach muscles were tightened and his cock was hard and pulsating with desire.
But before he could close the distance between his mouth and hers, she jumped up from her chair—as if she knew what he’d intended. “I want justice,” she said, “for poor Bethany Mueller and all the other victims of your clients.”
He could understand that, but in this case, Byron was truly innocent. And Stone had thought he’d had the alibi to prove it. “If you actually want justice for Bethany, you should drop these charges against Byron. He didn’t kill his wife.”
She snorted. “I knew that’s why you came here,” she said. “Just to get the charges tossed out or reduced.” Despite her assertion, disappointment flickered through her eyes.
Had she wanted him here for another reason? Did she want him like he wanted her?
His body tensed even more than it had been, his cock throbbing behind his fly. Good thing he was still wearing his suit jacket, or she might have seen how much she affected him. And he had no doubt she would use that attraction against him in court.
Unless she felt it, too.
A thrill raced through him. But he didn’t know if it was excitement or fear. If she was attracted to him, too, he had no hope of resisting her.
It had been hard enough to fight it when he’d thought the attraction was just one-sided. But now...
He shook his head, but he couldn’t shake off the desire he felt for her. “I’m not here to get the charges thrown out or reduced,” he said, repeating what he’d already told her. Although, it would have made his case a hell of a lot easier if she would just take his word for Byron Mueller’s
