Playing By The Rules

“I was thinking more along the lines of tonight,” Sam said while I was picking at the problem.

Tonight? That was…soon.

I looked at him. He grinned that crooked, bad-boy grin, and I knew—suddenly I just knew—that he realized how flustered I was by all this. And he liked it. I decided I was damned if I was going to let him keep yanking my chain.

That was the only reason I did what I did next in full view of a lobby bustling with lawyers, litigants and various law enforcement personnel. Okay, maybe Mill had a little to do with it, too. I knew it would get back to him. I caught Sam’s tie with my left hand and gave it a tug until he stepped closer to me.

“Hey,” he said, startled.

I kissed him hard on the mouth. That had been my intention anyway—one strong smack to reestablish my upper hand. But then something happened. A rolling kind of jolt went through me. Because while I’d meant to smack, his mouth turned out to be as soft as a wish, and I stayed a little too long. At some point while I lingered, he obviously recovered from his surprise…and I forgot all about Mill.

His tongue slipped fast, neatly, past my lips, tangling with mine. It teased a moment. Then it was gone. I reeled back.

“Sneak preview,” he said, and winked at me. “Good idea.” Then he left me standing there like a dumbstruck idiot and headed for his courtroom.

Chapter Four

I have no recollection of being in court that afternoon, though I know I must have been because I billed Robert Awney for my time. The man was grinning when he left the courthouse. His wife had left him and he’d never gotten over it, so he took her back to court once a year, trying to change his child support or his visitation, just to harass her. Celia Awney Neulander’s expression was predictably murderous as she stalked off.

I stood on the cold, aged tile of the lobby floor watching them go, then I looked around for Sam. He was nowhere to be found. I found myself thinking about our arrangement again, and I was suddenly swept by the conviction that it would never work. Nothing between us would ever be as simple as he was making this whole thing out to sound. We both had our egos. We were both strong-willed. Each of us had a decided preference for being in charge. This was going to be a tug-of-war, I thought.

I decided that what I really needed to do about the situation was talk to Grace. I whipped around, swinging my briefcase like a deadly weapon, and headed for the elevator bank instead of the lobby doors.

I found her at her desk outside Judge Castello’s chambers on the sixth floor. She was snarling into the phone at someone who apparently mistook her for a woman who cared about the terms of his parole. I waited for six minutes and during that time, Grace told the caller no less than eight times that he ought to get a lawyer who would then tell it to the judge.

She hung up the phone a little too hard and looked surprised to see me. “If it’s five o’clock already, then this must be my afterlife.”

I hated to disappoint her. “I need to talk to you,” I said. “About Sam.”

Her brows did a slow slide up her forehead. “Have you decided to claw with him?”

I think I gave a jerky little nod before I shook my head.

“Which is it?” she asked. “Yes or no?”

“Yes. But I’m having doubts now.”

“That would make you an idiot.”

I glowered at her. “I should have gone to Jenny with this.”

“Jenny would already be out buying floral arrangements for your wedding.” Grace stood from her desk. “This requires coffee,” she decided.

I followed her out of the chambers area to the balcony that overlooked a lot of empty air all the way down to the ground floor. I generally avoided standing near the railing because it made me dizzy. Grace went right over to it and leaned against it, folding her arms over her chest, utterly unperturbed by the fact that if the wood suddenly gave way, her life would be over.

“What happened to the coffee?” I asked, surprised.

“This can’t wait for the elevator.” The cafeteria was on the third floor. “I want to hear what you two have been up to.”

I cleared my throat. “Well, it’s an arrangement,” I said. “It’s…uh, sex. Only.” But that wasn’t entirely true. “Also companionship,” I added.

“Conversation?” she asked.

“Of course.” I scowled. “We’re hardly going to claw with our lips sealed.”

“Comfort?”

Suddenly I saw where she was headed with this. I threw my hands up in surrender.

“Am I to take it that you two talked about this,” Grace asked, “set some guidelines and decided to get naked together?”

“We…” I trailed off. “That’s about the size of it.”

“It’s about time.”

“You don’t think it’s odd that we discussed it first?”

“You’re both lawyers. This is what lawyers do.”

“We made bylaws, too.”

She nodded as though this made all the sense in the world. “Less chance of chaos and misunderstanding that way. So what’s the problem?”

“My motives aren’t the purest.” There—I said it aloud. After all, confession is supposed to be good for the soul. “I’m not doing it to dodge the dating pool,” I admitted. “I haven’t been in the dating pool for a while.”

“So dodging the dating pool is the motivation behind all this?”

“It’s Sam’s.” We finally set off toward the elevators.

“What’s yours?”

“It’s entirely possible that I just want to rip his clothes off,” I admitted.

I said this just as the elevator doors slid open. There were three people inside. An elderly woman gasped mildly. An overweight man in red suspenders grinned at me. The child with him seemed to have no reaction to my comment whatsoever.

Grace sailed into the elevator car without a qualm. I followed, feeling ridiculous.

“How long is this arrangement supposed to last?” she asked me.

“Can we finish discussing this when we get to the cafeteria?” I looked left and right to find that we still had the rapt attention of both the other passengers over the age of ten.

The elevator doors slid open again, and I fled through them, refusing to look back. “Until one or both of us decide we want to move on,” I explained finally.

“This will get him out of your system so you can finally start dating again. You know, you’ve been hung up on him for a very long time now,” Grace observed.

I frowned. Teenagers got “hung up,” I thought. Cinderella had pined for Prince Charming, and Snow White had been prepared to sleep forever without that kiss. I, on the other hand, was a thirty-five-year-old professional just stuffed to the brim with common sense and independence. I did not get “hung up” on anyone.

“So when does this deal start?” Grace asked when we reached the cafeteria.