The Law And Lady Justice

Her gaze was drawn to his face. Eyes closed, jaw clenched, he looked softer somehow than she’d ever seen him. Must be the candlelight, she thought. Without meaning to she loosed one hand from behind his neck and cupped the sharp plane of his cheek.

She expected him to jerk away, or at least open those smoldering eyes. Instead he sighed, his face relaxed, and he rubbed his cheek against her palm, as he’d rubbed his face in her hair. Her heart did a funny little jig and she swallowed, hard.

Opening his eyes, he pulled her tighter against his hardened, muscled torso and moved forward. Under an exquisite shiver of anticipation she threw her head back, and his lips closed over the peak of one breast, taking silk and nipple within his fevered mouth. Shifting restlessly against him, she gasped when the hair on his stomach rasped across her throbbing center.

Then she was falling and although the sensation should have been frightening, instead it was the most exciting thing she’d ever experienced. He might be stronger than her, and bigger than her, and more dangerous than he looked, but he would never hurt her—and no one else would, either, while he was around.

Her back hit the couch, and he towered over her, staring down with dark and secretive eyes. Her breasts throbbed as his gaze wandered over them, then continued along her body. What must she look like with her hair tumbled all about her shoulders, laying there in the candlelight with her nightgown bunched at the small of her back, the skirt rucked to her waist, and the bodice wet and clinging against the nipple that his mouth had taken. She did the only thing her instincts allowed—she reached out for him.

His eyes met hers and slowly his fingers went to his belt. For a moment she considered helping him, hurrying him. But the way his gaze seared into hers, she knew he wanted her to watch. So she lowered her seeking hands and bunched them into fists to make them behave.

The belt gaped open, followed by the button at the top of his trousers. Mesmerized, she watched the shadows that danced upon the two fingers that grasped the zipper. Strained by the bulge beneath, the teeth resisted the movement, and slowed the zipper’s descent as he pulled it down until his erection was freed.

Her fingers clenched again wanting to reach inside those pants and press an itching palm to the heat and fullness. He would be smooth and hard and perfect. Fingernails dug into her palms.

Looping his thumbs in the waistband he drew his pants down, leaving his boxers in place.

Annoyance rumbled deep in her throat and his lips turned up. Kicking off his shoes and pants, he straightened and she started to rise, determined to rid him of those damned blue shorts, which kept her from seeing what she wanted to see—and touching what she wanted to touch.

“Uh-uh,” he warned. “Lay back, Jess.”

And because she knew that the longer she waited, the better this would be, she did, even though her body screamed to touch him, taste him, take him now.

He knelt at her side and his hand skimmed her thigh. A finger traced the surface, teasing, promising, then his thumb rubbed her center, and she arched into the sensation. The movement made her breasts strain against the revealing bodice of her nightgown, and all he needed to do was hook a free finger between them and tug. They sprang free, the slide of the silk along the sensitive peaks making her body hum onto a higher plane so that when his mouth touched them, flesh to flesh, for the first time she nearly climaxed right then.

She was on the edge—had been since that kiss in the weight room yesterday—and his control was beginning to annoy her. Reaching between them, she cupped him in her palm, sliding her finger up his length as he’d slid his thumb along hers. When he cursed and jerked away, she smiled. Not so in control after all.

He caught her smile and raised a brow, then with deliberate movements, put his hand on her nightgown where it pooled beneath her breasts. His fingers curled against her stomach and the shriek of rending cloth split the air as he tore it down the front.

“One hundred twenty dollars and ninety-nine cents,” she muttered.

“And worth every penny.” The flames of the candles seemed dim when compared to the heat that lit his eyes as his gaze wandered over her body.

She had never lain naked and allowed a man to just look at her. She’d never realized how arousing a mere look could be. When he gently shoved the remnants of the torn gown off her shoulders the contrast of his violence, followed by such incredible gentleness, the hardness of those hands and the softness of that mouth made her mind go fuzzy again.

“Touch me,” he said against her lips.

At last she removed the staid blue cotton and ran her fingers, then her mouth, all over him. Time lost meaning and, needing more room to explore each other, somehow along the way they left the couch and tumbled across the carpet. They each came nearly to the peak, and then came down, only to come nearer and nearer each time as they touched and kissed, murmured and gasped, tasted and suckled.

For a moment he left her, searching for his trousers, fumbling around a bit with an urgency that endeared him, even though the clinical rasp of the foil packet made her wince. But when he returned, slipping inside her, making her feel and not think, she only wanted to complete what they had begun in the way they had begun it—fast, hard, now.

Heat and lust and incomprehensible need overtook her and she convulsed with a suddenness that shocked her. Feeling him pulse deep inside made her own release lengthen and when the storm was over, a strange tenderness overtook her that she did not understand. The hand she smoothed over the nape of his neck shook, and she bit her lip, hoping he would not notice.

She tensed when he stirred, half-afraid he would make some sarcastic comment and ruin what for her had been a wonderful, terrifying experience.

He raised his head and stared at her for a long moment. The candles flickered in his eyes, making her wonder if she saw confusion there, too, or nothing but the dancing flames. Then he bent foreward and kissed her temple in a tender gesture that did not seem like McGuire at all.

“Hi,” he said. She smiled. “You want to adjourn to the bedroom?”

Silly and schoolgirlish as it was, she blushed. She was lying naked on the floor of her apartment, having just had mad passionate sex all over the room with the man who she could still feel against her; yet she blushed when he asked if she’d like to go another round on the bed.

“Uh…sure,” she said, then gritted her teeth at her lack of social grace. Was there an etiquette to this? She hadn’t a clue. Her experiences in the land of slap and tickle did not include how to get from the floor to the bed with grace and class. Probably because once you’d done it on the floor you’d pretty much killed any hope of being classy again.

McGuire didn’t seem embarrassed though. He probably did this all the time. That thought made Jessica narrow her eyes at his back as he stood. Then he turned and reached for her, lifting her to her feet with ease, and pulling her against him for a long, mind-numbing kiss. After that, when he led her down the hall, she went, and she didn’t think anymore.

At least not until she drifted toward sleep in his arms, the scent of him—of them—all around her and wondered just what in the name of common sense she had done.

The sound of a cell phone going off in the distance dragged her from a deep and satisfying sleep. Blinking she looked around the bedroom. The grayish cast revealed they’d slept the rest of the night, which hadn’t been much after they’d played a repeat performance—make that a double feature—on Jessica’s bed.

Doug got up cursing and walked down the hall toward the living room. She heard him thrashing around, bumping into furniture and continuing to curse, presumably trying to find his pants—and his phone. Then the ringing stopped and a few seconds later she heard the low, somehow comforting murmur of him talking on the phone.

She drifted in a pleasant half awake, half asleep state until he touched her shoulder. Jessica opened her eyes to find him fully dressed, gun and all, staring down at her with a bemused smile as the light of the rising sun tinted the window behind him an orange, yellow and pink.

“Hi.” Jessica shoved her hair out of her face, grimacing as she felt the tangles a night rolling around had caused.

Doug sat down on the bed and she rolled against him, the bump of their hips making her body kick into lust overdrive. She put her hand on his thigh to steady herself, and his leg clenched.

“I have to go.”

She frowned at the distance in his voice and his eyes. “I understand.”

“Call you later?”

Jessica nodded. Every woman’s nightmare—I’ll call. Yeah right!

“Sure,” she answered and took her hand from his leg. He kissed her, but she could tell his mind was already somewhere else. The next time she saw Doug McGuire, it would be in a courtroom.

A night spent on the couch, and the floor, and the bed—and hadn’t there been a wall in there somewhere—made Jessica fall back asleep, even when she should have gotten up as soon as the door closed behind Doug McGuire.

Instead, the phone shrilling in her ear brought her awake with a gasp to bright sunlight across the bed. Her pounding heart leaped at the sight of her clock reading 8:15 a.m.

Using some of the colorful curses she’d heard McGuire use that morning, she found the phone amidst a tower of law books on her nightstand.

“So how was your night with the real man?” Her father’s voice boomed in her ear.

“What?”

For a moment she thought her father knew everything, and even though he was her best friend, and she was an adult, well, everything that had happened here last night was for no one’s ears but her own. Not even Liz’s this time.

“What happened with that cop who dragged you away the other night?”

“Nothing, Dad,” she lied as her gaze took in the state of her room. She was certain her living room looked even worse than her bedroom. Thank God her father hadn’t come over, as she had wished last night.

“Nothing! I’m disappointed. A man like that…a woman like you? In my day—”

“Dad! I’m sorry but I’m late. Where have you been anyway? All I get is your machine these days.”

“Just busy, sweet cheeks. You know how it is.”

The teasing lilt to his voice disappeared, and Jessica frowned. Was he working too hard? Should she push him about selling Water Street Bistro and moving on to something new? It wasn’t like him to keep a place so long, to be late for dinner, or to—

“That’s why I called this morning. I can’t go with you to the Bar Association Ball.”

—not take your loving daughter to important dates like the Bar Association Ball, Jessica thought, but said, instead, “What? Dad, you can’t back out on me now. The blasted thing is tonight.”

“I know. And I’m really, really sorry, honey, but this is unavoidable.”

“What is?”

Jessica frowned when her question was followed by a long silence. Finally, she asked, “Dad?”

“Why don’t you ask Detective McGuire?”

“To the ball? Oh, that would really work. I can see McGuire at a formal event for lawyers. He hates lawyers.”

“I don’t think so. I read a lot into his body language the other night.”

“I think you need glasses.”

“What’s the harm in asking him? It would be worth it just to see Wolcott’s face when you show up with a real man.”

“Dad!”

Her father started laughing, sounding more like himself at least, and Jessica smiled. “See you Thursday,” he said and hung up.

As she lowered the phone to her lap, she realized he had never explained what was so unavoidable.

Doug hung up the phone and leaned back in his chair. Another dead end. Ninety percent of murder investigations were spent on the telephone following up worthless leads.

Earlier that morning, he and Vic had checked Gilbert’s old rooming house and the landlord had told them Gilbert hadn’t even shown up to claim his belongings. They got the same story at his favorite bar. Nothing. No one. So they’d returned to the station to start making calls. He glanced over at Vic, who’d been working the phone, too, in time to see him slam it down and shake his head.

“No luck,” he said.

“So what else is new?” Doug grumbled.

In most cases, the murdered victims are killed by someone they know—a family member or a friend. It appeared that LeRoy Gilbert had neither.

As if Vic had read his mind, he said, “Guess when Gilbert killed his girlfriend he knocked off the only friend he had. You have any luck?”

“Nothing. Nobody claimed they saw him.”

“I’m having the same luck finding anyone connected to Cindy Fires. The girls she worked with all claim she never spoke of any family—but they’re threatening to start a defense fund for whoever did whack Gilbert. What about the autopsy report?”

“Couple days, but the M.E. said there’s no sign of a head contusion or any skin abrasions. And no neck bruises to indicate he was strangled.”

“Well, it’s for sure Gilbert didn’t tie that plastic bag around his head himself.”

“Maybe he wanted to keep his hair dry when he went swimming.”

“This job’s making you jaded, partner,” Vic said.

Yawning, Doug shoved back his chair. After the last few hours spent on the phone, he had begun to feel the effects of last night’s missed sleep. He walked over and refilled his cup. He sipped the hot brew as he stared out the window and thought about Jess.

Lord, what a night! In the twenty years he’d been having sex, he’d never gotten into it like he had with her. The two of them couldn’t get enough of each other.

Jess. His body responded to just the thought of her name. He’d never known a woman like her. She gave as much as she took. The thought of her flooded every one of his senses: the image of that long hair of hers fanned against the pillow as she reached for him, her eyes full with passion. He could still taste her, hear her throaty groans of pleasure and feel the satin and heat of her. And he could smell that hundred-dollar perfume she wore.

Sweat tickled his palms. He wanted more of her. God, he was screwing himself up royally. He had no business messing with a woman like her—she was no one-nighter. What had he gotten himself into?

Spinning on his heel, he tossed the paper cup into the waste can. “Let’s get out of here, Vic.”

“You forget we’re due in Judge Kirkland’s court in a couple of hours?”

Doug stifled a groan. He had forgotten. Just what he needed—to face her in court after last night. The way things were going, he’d get hard on the witness stand. He had to stop thinking about her.

“We’ve got time to go back to that dive where Gilbert hung out. Someone had to have seen him the day he died.”

“Yeah,” Vic said, slipping on his jacket. “The killer.”

Jessica saw Doug the moment he and Peterson entered the courtroom and sat down. She had to concentrate hard to keep her mind on what the assistant D.A. was saying, and fight the temptation to glance Doug’s way. He was watching her; she could feel the intensity of his blue-eyed stare. She had always felt it, from the first time he’d ever entered her court, and after last night, she wondered what was going through his mind.

“Objection, Your Honor!”

The sudden outburst jolted her back to the business at hand. She had lost her concentration. Flushed with embarrassment, she said, “Excuse me. Mr. Haley, will you read back the question?”

The young court reporter, Stanley Haley, looked up surprised, as did the testifying witness, and both the prosecuting and defense attorneys. Jessica never asked for a read-back.

“Mr. Haley?” she reiterated.

“Objection sustained,” she declared, after Stanley had read back the transcript. “You’re leading the witness, Counselor.”

The attorney continued, and Jessica leaned back with a silent sigh of relief that she hadn’t made a bigger mistake. She was reacting like an awestruck Doug McGuire groupie! She dared not even glance his way now. If she saw that knowing grin of his, she’d crawl beneath her bench and die.

Finally, the witness was excused and the prosecuting attorney called the first of the arresting officers—Detective Douglas McGuire—to the stand. Now free to assess him boldly, her steady gaze never wavered from his tall figure as he took the oath and sat down. He looked as good to her now as he had last night…and the day before…and the week before that.

As usual, his testimony was methodical and concise. He always came to court with every fact clear in his mind. That was one of the first things she’d noticed about him—that and those sensuous blue eyes…the broad shoulders…the tight buns. Damn! Her mind was wandering down dangerous channels again!

The evidence of the case was clear: the weapon had been found in the suspect’s house with his prints on it. The suspect had been found with powder residue on his hand and the victim’s blood on his shoes. And then there was the little matter of an eyewitness.

This time McGuire and Peterson had played by the rules and followed the proper procedure to the letter of the law. This murderer was not going to evade sentencing through a technicality. Justice would be served.

As McGuire was excused, he stepped down and paused in front of the bench. “You figure out yet how to let this perp go, Judge?” he said in a soft murmur.

The pound of her gavel reverberated throughout the courtroom. All heads turned in her direction as she bolted to her feet. “There’ll be a fifteen minute recess. My chambers, Detective McGuire,” she ordered curtly and stormed out of the room.

She was too angry to sit down. Folding her arms across her chest, she stared out the window until the door opened behind her and clicked shut. She turned and faced him. He was lounging against the door.

“I have no control over what you say outside the courtroom, Detective McGuire, but the next time you make a remark like that in my court, I’ll hold you in contempt and fine you accordingly. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Your Honor. It was intended for your ears only.”

“That’s no excuse. I won’t tolerate it—no matter what’s between us.”

“Well, are you?”

“Am I what?” she snapped.

“Going to figure out a way to let this bastard—who shot his wife in cold blood—walk?”

“Not unless the defense comes up with some illegal police misconduct by the investigating officers.”

He raised his hand in the three-fingered Boy Scout salute. “On my honor, I promise to do—”

“Don’t tell me you were a Boy Scout, McGuire?”

“God and country, ma’am.”

Anger forgotten, Jessica laughed. The man was irresistible when he wanted to be. Maybe she should reconsider her father’s advice. “Doug, do you own a tux?”

What was she thinking? She regretted the impetuous words the instant she said them. It was insanity to encourage any further relationship with him. Darn you, Dad! Why did you put such a crazy notion into my head?

He blinked at her sudden change of subject, then frowned. “God forbid! Why?”

“Oh, nothing.”

“Why’d you ask, Jess?”

She might have known that she couldn’t pass an ambiguous reply past Bulldog McGuire. He was too good a detective for that.

“It was stupid of me to ask. You wouldn’t enjoy yourself anyway.”

This time he didn’t blink. “Doing what?”

“I need an escort tonight for the Bar Association Ball at the Pfister.”

“What about the old guy?”

For a second she had to think to whom he was referring. “Oh, you mean my…ah, he’s busy.”

“I see. Well, since I filled in for him last night, I guess I could do it again.”

“What do you mean by that crack? McGuire? You’re the most irritating man I’ve ever met.”

He grinned. “What time should I pick you up?”

“Cocktails are at seven.” Lest he read too much into the invitation, she quickly added, “But I’ll meet you there.”

He put his hand on the doorknob. “Okay. See you there, then.”

“Don’t forget. Black tie.”

“Right. Ah, Judge, if I have to wear black tie, let’s keep it between us.”

“You mean literally, Detective?”

Arching a brow at the sexual innuendo, he flashed a grin that almost knocked the legs out from under her. Then winking, he departed.

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