LITMIR.BIZ

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noted the tension in her shoulders. He hadn’t thought about it, really. He’d assumed he’d probably stay at her place, but hadn’t considered her not being in it at the time. In fact, he hadn’t given much thought one way or another regarding his trip to Albuquerque time wise, except that he’d eventually leave again. He’d merely hopped on a plane and was there an hour and a half later.

      “Depends.”

      She turned toward him. “On what?”

      “On whether or not you want me to be.”

      A shadow passed through her violet eyes. He grinned. Ah, a woman who liked to wield her power in bed but didn’t want to call the shots outside of it.

      That was okay with him.

      She cleared her throat. “I don’t know what bothers me more. The thought of leaving you alone in my place, or your not being here when I get back.”

      “Is that a yes or a no?”

      She tilted her head slightly. “You know, you never did say why you were in town. Is there, um, a game or something?”

      “Or something.”

      Her gaze drifted to his knee. “There isn’t, is there?”

      “Are you asking me whether or not I came here to see you?”

      She considered the question for a long moment. “Yes, I am.”

      “Then yes, I did.”

      Her expression of surprise was the last thing he expected.

      “When do you leave?”

      “Depends.”

      She twisted her lips, but didn’t ask the question she had the last time he said the word. “I’ve got to go. A girl will be stopping by every two hours to take Caramel out for a walk. She has her own key, but you may want to let her know you’re here or she’s liable to call 911.”

      “Whoa,” he said, catching her around the waist. “At least have some breakfast.”

      “I don’t do breakfast.”

      “Most important meal of the day, you know.”

      She smiled. “No, I didn’t.”

      Tom kissed her. Hard. Not releasing her until the question she hadn’t asked vanished from her eyes and her body melded to his.

      “You better get going,” he said. “Someone’s freedom hangs in the balance.”

      “Umm, freedom.” Realization seeped back into her sexy eyes. “Oh, God, I am so late.”

      She started to pass him. He reached out and swatted her soundly on the bottom. She gasped then laughed, half turning as she made her way toward the door, Caramel nipping at her ankles. “I, um, guess I’ll see you later then.”

      “Later.”

      She practically ran out the door, stopping before she closed it to grab her coat from a rack in the foyer. She shot him one last smile then disappeared, this time closing the door quickly to stop Caramel from getting out after her.

      Tommy stood staring at the empty air for long moments, then shook his head. An enigma. Pure and simple.

      Caramel’s nails clicked on the floor as she gave up on Jena and the door and instead plopped down to consider Tom.

      “Well, fleabag, looks like it’s a table for two for breakfast.”

      3

      JENA SLID HER CASE FILE into her briefcase and snapped the flap closed. In four short hours she’d accomplished more at work than she had in the past four weeks. She leaned back in her office chair and stretched her hands behind her neck, noting how good she felt. No, good was far too tame a word. Fantastic. Terrific. Well sexed. And even hungry for more of what Tommy “Wild Man” Brodie had to give.

      She smiled and absently reached for the receiver. Would he answer if she called? She always left the volume up on her answering machine to screen out telemarketers. She could always ask him to pick up.

      “How are you feeling?”

      “Hmm?” Jena looked up to find her partner and one of her two best friends, Marie Bertelli, standing in the doorway.

      “Feeling,” Marie repeated, leaning against the jamb. “As in, how are you?”

      “Fine, I’m fine.” Why wouldn’t she be?

      Well, maybe because she’d called in sick the past two days, that’s why.

      She snapped upright, kicking herself for having forgotten that important little detail.

      Marie had been the only one not in that morning to feed the cock-and-bull story about having come down with some sort of bug. Oh, she had come down with a bug all right, and his name was Tommy.

      “Fine now, I mean,” Jena clarified, taking her hand from the phone and squelching the desire to hear Tommy’s deep, rumbling voice.

      “Good.” Marie tucked her red, curly hair behind her right ear, apparently buying the lie hook, line and sinker. And why wouldn’t she?

      Sometimes her friend could be so naive. Cute, a hell of an attorney, but incredibly naive. She supposed that’s what happened when you were the youngest of a large family with three older brothers and old-fashioned Italian beliefs. The concept of deception between friends had yet to even register with her. Aside from Marie’s two-year stint in the L.A. district attorney’s office, she had lived at home all her life.

      Jena prided herself on not envying anyone—except when it came to Marie. As much as her friend moaned and complained about her overprotective family, she never once noticed the way Jena sometimes sighed wistfully, wishing she’d had such a restrictive, loving upbringing. Well, she supposed she had known a bit of that. Until she irreversibly lost both her parents in one fell swoop of fate when she was ten.

      “Jena?”

      “Hmm?”

      “Are you sure you’re feeling okay? I mean, maybe you should take a half day.”

      Jena smiled at her friend’s clueless comment and refused to think about how good the suggestion sounded. “I wish I could.” Well, at least that much was true. She did wish she were at her apartment with Tommy exploring the rest of the Kama Sutra positions from the book she kept on her bedside table. “But I have to head out to the detention center this morning to visit Patsy Glendale.”

      “Ah. The make-you-or-break-you case.”

      Jena made a face. “No, no, no. It’s the make-me case.” She set her briefcase upright and got to her feet. “I’m going to get her off.”

      Marie gave an exaggerated shudder. “Please tell me you believe it was self-defense.”

      “Of course it was.”

      Marie shrugged. “It’s just the way you said it. You know, ‘Get her off.’ Made it sound like it didn’t matter one way or the other to you.”

      “In all honesty, it doesn’t. Everyone is entitled to fair representation, Marie.” She shrugged into her coat. “What would you have us do? Walk Patsy straight to the electric chair for accidentally killing her husband in self-defense?”

      “Lethal injection room in New Mexico. And not if it wasn’t premeditated.”

      “But if it was…”

      “You said it wasn’t.”

      “And you’re not catching my point.” Jena came to stand in front of her younger friend. If the memory of her own parents surfaced a little bit more every time she worked on the Glendale case, that was only natural, wasn’t it? And if that same memory made her want to change the system, there was nothing wrong with that either.

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