LITMIR.BIZ

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hot guy exited the seven-story brand-spanking-new courthouse as she neared. Marie smiled at him but he seemed to see right through her. He passed and she slowed her step. Was she really that desperate that she had to rely on her family to fix her up to land a man? She glanced at her plain navy-blue suit. Okay, so maybe she wasn’t Nicole Kidman, and she was on the short side, but she’d never thought she was unattractive.

      Was she?

      A man opened the courthouse door in front of her. She moved to step around him only he entered before her, nearly causing her to slam into his back. She frowned then caught the door before it could slam against her back.

      Okay…

      So maybe she was having a bad day. Everyone had them every now and again, didn’t they?

      If only it didn’t look like she was having a bad decade.

      She hurried down the hall, trying to forget the state of her personal life and concentrate on her professional—something she usually did very well.

      “Marie!”

      She was halfway down the hall before she realized someone was calling her name. She turned to find her friend and partner Jena McCade rushing after her.

      “God, woman, where is your head? I must have called you three times before you heard me.”

      Marie made a face. Jena looked great. As usual. With her shiny straight black hair, her sexy figure, her confident posture, Marie was sure no one ever let a door close on Jena.

      Of course, now that Jena was married to ex-hockey hunk Tommy “Wild Man” Brodie, her attractiveness seemed to have merely increased. Her skin always seemed flushed and her eyes always had a faraway dreamy look in them. Jena had told Marie and Dulcy that it was the properly laid look. Marie preferred to think it was love.

      Jena twisted her lips. “I’d ask if it was a man messing with your head, but I’m guessing it’s probably your mother.”

      “Right.” Marie made a face. “She wants me to come to dinner again tonight.” She looked down at the hall. “What are you doing down here so early?”

      “Judge Bullock wanted to talk to me in chambers. Seems there have been some problems with the district attorney’s office and all cases are being put on hold.”

      “Oh?”

      Jena waved her hand and continued walking down the hall, forcing Marie to turn to face her. “Shouldn’t impact your big corporate case. Something to do with new DNA procedures.”

      “Good. I’d just as soon have this case over with as not.”

      “Difficult run?”

      “No. Just boring.”

      Jena laughed. “That’s the first time I’ve heard you say that.”

      “This is the first time I’ve ever felt this way.”

      “You know, your mother wouldn’t get to you so much if you weren’t so picky about men yourself,” Jena said.

      Marie made a strangled sound.

      “What?”

      “I can’t believe you just said that.” Marie glanced around the hall. Another attorney she was vaguely familiar with grinned as he moved past them. “And in front of so many other people.”

      Jena crossed to stand in front of her. “I can’t believe you haven’t gotten laid in over a year.” She poked her perfectly manicured finger against Marie’s blue suit jacket. “And you pay entirely too much attention to what other people think.”

      “I’m not picky.”

      Jena smiled. “Yes, you are. Why else aren’t you dating anyone?”

      “Because I’ve been busy helping get a law practice going.”

      “So have Dulcy and I, but that hasn’t stopped us.”

      If Marie thought her day was bad before, it had very definitely just taken a deep nosedive.

      Jena started walking backward toward the door. “Take my advice, Marie. The next guy you see? Grab him and don’t let him go until he wipes that ever-present grimace from your face.”

      “I don’t grimace.”

      Jena began to turn around, the distance between them lengthening. “I’ll see you back at the office later then?”

      “Office. Yeah.”

      Marie stood for long a moment staring after her friend’s retreating back. Oh, sure, to be Jena’s friend was to be in a perpetual state of mortification. If Jena wasn’t sharing details on her orgasms and the frequency of them, she was commenting in a very open way about others’ sex lives.

      Marie just wished Jena hadn’t picked that moment to aim a very sharp arrow at Marie’s sex life.

      She absently raised her fingers to her lips. Did she grimace? She suddenly realized that, yes, she did. Quite frequently. In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d smiled. Really smiled. Was it a week ago? A month?

      What was she thinking? Of course she smiled. She smiled all the time. Just this morning she’d smiled at the guy at the coffee shop. Hadn’t she?

      She directed a frustrated wave down the hall to dismiss her friend and her unwelcome advice. Of course, Jena was right in that it had been awhile since she’d dated. Heck, she’d even caught herself eyeing Play-Doh nose’s powerful thighs last week for a brief second. The moment of insanity had, of course, been followed quickly by the overpowering urge to vomit.

      Grab the next man she met, indeed…

      She turned the corner and ran smack dab into the last man she should grab. But she’d be damned if she didn’t want to grab him anyway.

      ONE MINUTE, IAN KILBORN had been thinking about the perfectly good proposition the pretty court reporter had just thrown his way. The next, he was running into the woman he’d spent a good portion of his adult life thinking about having sex with again without a chance in hell of its coming to pass.

      Ian caught Marie Bertelli by the arms and stared down into her flushed face. At one time a quirky eye-catching little girl down the street, now she was a sexy-as-all-get-out full-grown woman. It didn’t seem to matter that years had passed since anything intimate had passed between them, or that they were both attorneys now, or that he’d had countless women since Marie. No matter what else was going on in his life, he’d inevitably find his thoughts beginning and ending with the good girl/wild child that had crawled under his skin a long time ago and he had never been able to rid himself of.

      Ian’s gaze skimmed her features. Damn, but she was stunning as hell up this close and personal. And that she had no idea just how sexy she was only lent to her appeal. But what got to him was that no matter how much time passed, the thundering desire that ignited in him for the fiery redhead was still immediate, complete, and more than a tad uncomfortable. Red-hot memories of cramped spaces and soft moans and great sex made him one very horny adult for this woman he’d always had the hots for, and probably always would.

      “You can let go now.”

      While he watched the words exit Marie’s provocative little mouth, it took a moment for them to register in Ian’s brain.

      He cocked a grin at her. “Are you sure? Looks to me like you still need a little propping up.”

      The color in her cheeks deepened as she batted at his hands, nearly dropping her briefcase in the process. She glanced around, only there was no one around to witness their collision. While the main corridor was always busy, the side halls were usually pretty quiet, allowing for a privacy Ian hadn’t had with Marie for nearly eight years. And his body was letting him know that it had been much too long.

      He chuckled quietly as he let her go, mildly amused by her fussing with her suit.

      She

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