Going Too Far

Then to find out that her father had Ian and his firm on retainer…

Tick tock, tick tock.

Marie squeezed her eyes shut, trying to halt the internal countdown, afraid of what would happen when the hand counted down to one.

Her mother…well, her mother had basically played her mother throughout dinner, telling Ian that the antipasto wasn’t dinner when he reached for a second helping, sharing stories about Frankie Jr.’s exploits, and generally urging the conversation in every direction except in the one Marie wanted it to go.

Oh, sure, she’d casually tried to bring the conversation back around to Ian, his presence and his being her father’s attorney. At least every two minutes. And every time she did she got three deadpan expressions and absolutely no words. At least until her mother came up with some other strange little tidbit to derail Marie’s intentions.

Of course, it didn’t help matters that she and Ian were essentially professional rivals and that her father’s choosing to turn to him over her rankled something terrible. She felt something well beyond disappointment that her father couldn’t see her as anything more than his daughter.

Marie made a low sound of frustration, earning her the receptionist’s attention…again.

Marie stared back at her. “How long did you say Mr. Kilborn would be?”

The young woman looked down at her console then pushed a button, speaking so quietly Marie couldn’t make out her words.

Great. She was probably calling security.

“Marie.”

Ian said her name like she was a long-lost friend just dropping in for a visit. A good friend. A friend he might be interested in being a little more…friendly with.

Marie turned to where he stood behind her, then squinted at him as if he’d lost his marbles when she knew perfectly well it was her own marbles that were in question.

Ian cleared his throat, thanked the suspicious receptionist, then motioned toward the doorway behind him. “What’s say we go to my office.”

“Mmm.” Marie brushed past him, trying to ignore how good he looked, how in command, and how utterly sexy. She had no idea where his office was, but anyplace where she could speak to him in private was a good place in her book.

Well, okay, anyplace large enough so that she wouldn’t have to smell the enticing scent of his skin and the subtle aroma of his cologne that reminded her of Albuquerque during the summer.

“Here,” he said.

She entered the first office to the left that Ian indicated, then stopped in front of a wide glass-topped desk with thick iron legs. Ian rounded the table, smoothing his tie down, and looking altogether too yummy when all Marie wanted to do was scream.

“What a surprise,” Ian said.

Surprise? There was absolutely nothing surprising about her being here. “Come on, Ian, admit it. You expected this visit.” Marie pointed a finger at him. “In fact, you’re probably wondering why I’m so late.”

Ian’s black eyes held amusement and warned of the coming grin. Marie braced herself. Ian toying with her she could handle. Ian and a genuine grin made her wish she hadn’t put on panties this morning.

“I didn’t know last night was going to go down the way it did,” he said, motioning for her to sit.

She remained standing.

He sat.

As she suspected, she could see everything through the clear glass. The long bulk of his thighs. The way the fabric of his pants bunched at the crotch, hinting at what she already knew hid underneath.

Her throat grew tight.

“So why are you so late?”

Marie lifted her gaze to his grinning face, then made a face of her own that had nothing to do with a grin and everything to do with the grimace Jena accused her of wearing all the time.

But if ever there was a time to grimace…

“I had an evidentiary hearing at eight. I couldn’t get here any earlier,” she said automatically, then wondered why she’d offered the information at all.

Ian leaned back in the modern black leather and chrome chair and laced his hands together over his impossibly flat abdomen. “I figured it would take that or an act of God to keep you from showing up here first thing.”

“Yes, well, if you hadn’t run out of my parents’ house in the middle of dessert last night I might have gotten some answers then.” Or if his home address had been listed in the phone book, but she wasn’t about to tell him she had gone so far as to call 411 in hopes of finding out where he lived. What she would have done with his address was better left a mystery unsolved. More than likely she would have headed over there, not only revealing she didn’t have a life beyond work and her family, but risking running into him with someone else.

She narrowed her eyes. Was he seeing someone? The prospect made the hair on her arms stand on end. Though why, she didn’t even want to begin to guess.

Ian slowly shook his dark head. “Come on, Marie. It doesn’t matter if I had spent the night at your parents’ house. I wouldn’t have broken attorney–client privilege. And I think you know that.”

She leaned forward and rested her palms against the cool glass. “Attorney–client privilege my rear end, Ian. He’s my father. Family doesn’t count when it comes to something like this.”

He casually shrugged. “Then ask your father.”

She had. A dozen times. With no results.

It was bad enough her family chose to view her law degree as so much artwork on the wall, believing one day she would come to her senses and see that a woman’s place was with a husband and kids. And forget that it was downright humiliating to find out that her father had hired Ian—Ian Kilborn, for God’s sake—as his attorney. When she’d finally gotten her father alone, as he was walking her to the door last night, he had nearly patted her hair and told her not to worry her pretty little head about it.

Actually, he had done exactly that.

Ugh.

“Ian…” she said in warning.

“Marie?” he responded, looking innocent.

Only both of them knew that Ian Kilborn, either as a barracudalike defense attorney or the mouth-watering young man who had seduced her, was far from innocent.

Which made her present situation all the more trying.

She heaved a gusty sigh, walked one way and stared at the Chinese art on his wall, then the other and gazed at the black lacquer bookcase filled not with law books but crystal pieces, then stopped, tapping a finger against her lips. She wondered briefly how either of her friends would handle this situation.

Jena McCade-Brodie no doubt would round the desk, straddle his chair and seduce the information right out of him.

Dulcy Ferris-Landis would outwit every last detail from him without his being aware he’d said a word. Or, better yet, make it look like he’d offered up the information voluntarily.

Neither approach emerged appealing or likely in Marie’s case. She didn’t have Jena’s oozing sexuality. And Dulcy…well, there was only one of her.

So Marie fell back on the next best thing.

“You know, Ian,” she said, slowly turning back to face him. Oh, sure, he might have seduced her, but a girl didn’t succumb to such talents without learning a thing or two. And since she’d done her share of thinking about the seduction she’d probably learned quite a bit. “There is, um, some interesting information that I might be able to share.”

He must have caught on to the change in her demeanor because his chair snapped upright and his hands were no longer folded against his glorious abs. “I don’t see that anything you’d have to say could help your father’s case.”

“No. No. You’re right about that.”

She took a wicked kind of pleasure watching the grin vanish from his handsome face.

Interesting that when he thought he was in control he looked like the cat that still held the mouse in his mouth. But now that she was threatening to turn the tables he looked more like the mouse. A devastatingly sexy mouse.

“However,” she said, leaning her hands against his desktop again, although this time with a purposeful prowl that made him pull at his collar. She watched his gaze flick to the V in her blouse and she discreetly thrust out her breasts against the fabric. “There might be some information I could impart that my father might be interested in.” She allowed her gaze to skim over his face. “In fact, I think what I have to say would interest my entire family.”

“Your brothers?” Ian asked, seeming torn between looking down her blouse and concentrating on what she had just said.

“Uh-huh.”

“You mean…”

Marie nodded. “That’s exactly what I mean.”

The battle was won as Ian’s full attention focused on her face rather than her physical assets.

“You wouldn’t,” he said.

Marie couldn’t help herself. She had to smile at that one. “Tell me, Ian…is that a risk you’re willing to take?”

“Having your family find out about us? I mean, what happened between us?” He cleared his throat and this time when he smoothed his tie his movements were more concentrated. “No.”

“I thought not.” She stood to her full height, surprised to find her nipples tingling and her thighs very, very hot. “So tell me.”

“YOUR FATHER’S UNDER investigation for racketeering. Well, more specifically, money laundering. But you get the idea.”

Ian said the words clearly, carefully, then allowed Marie the time she needed to absorb the information.

Damn, she was beautiful. And sexy as all get out when she was upset. And she was definitely upset. Her eyes flashed. Her smooth skin flooded with color. And he could all but see the tips of her breasts pressing against the creamy silk of her shirt, even though she was no longer bending over his desk.

She might be dressed in her normal armor of crisp business suit, but if he wasn’t mistaken, the skirt of this one was a little shorter, the blouse a little tighter. He wondered if she’d dressed with him in mind that morning. Then he threw the thought out when her deep intake of breath broke the silence.

“By whom?” she asked, all power trip gone from her expression, shock taking its place.

“The U.S. Treasury Department.”

“The U.S. Treasury Department?” She finally took him up on his invitation and sat down. Well, she didn’t so much sit down as collapse into the chair behind her.

“Yes, you know, they’re going after him for tax evasion.” Ian couldn’t help it when his gaze flicked to where her knees showed below the hem of her skirt and her distracted state allowed a nice little peek at a tantalizing stretch of thigh and a flash of her white panties before she automatically crossed her legs.

“God, a scene from The Untouchables just flashed through my mind,” she whispered, her gaze focused somewhere out the window behind him.

Ian chuckled. While he was getting flashes of white panties, she was seeing old gangster films. “Marie, we’re not talking Eliot Ness here. Or Al Capone, for that matter.”

Her gaze settled on him, making him wish she were there for any other reason than what she was.

“Yes, but you know what they say about my family.”

“What? That because your father emigrated from Sicily when he was a teenager that he must be a member of the Cosa Nostra?”

She winced, reminding him of how hurt she used to be when the kids in the neighborhood teased her about her Italian heritage. Frank Sr. was secretly called Don Bertelli. Of course, not a one would dare say anything in front of her brothers, but there were plenty of times when Frankie Jr., Anthony and Mario weren’t around. Many times, Ian had stepped in to take care of the situation without Marie or her family ever knowing about it.

She took a deep breath. “My father owns a chain of dry cleaners, for God’s sake. What could the Treasury Department possibly want from him?”

Ian rested his forearms against the desk he’d inherited from the guy who’d inhabited the office before him. The guy who had inherited the same office from the guy before him eight months before that. With that kind of track record, ever since his first day on the job, he’d considered his career to be on ice as thin as the glass of his table.

“That’s what he hired me to find out.” He pushed some papers out of his way. “A treasury agent pulled him in the day before yesterday for some preliminary questioning.”

Marie’s gaze finally seemed to focus on him. “And he called you.”

Ian nodded. “And he called me.”

She looked so sweetly and sexily confused that he had to force himself to remember this was the same woman who had just blackmailed him for the information he’d just shared.

He gave a frown. Of course, he never would have caved if he didn’t have such a long history with Marie’s family.

That had certainly been a factor in his accepting her father’s case.

While he’d been blown away when his secretary had told him Frank Bertelli Sr. was on the phone for him two days ago, he’d been more than a little intrigued about why he was calling. And even more intrigued when Frank had asked him to come down and act as his attorney.

Why him? There had to be at least a hundred other attorneys he could have called. Why seek out the Irish kid that used to live in his neighborhood? Especially since he had a daughter who could handle his case just as easily.

Of course he hadn’t asked either question, although he did still want to know the answers to them. No, instead he’d snatched up the case like he was still the little Irish kid down the block looking for a pat on the head when he’d done something right, like delivered the Bertelli Sunday morning paper on time.

Ian stretched his neck and discovered he’d been staring at the sexy curve of Marie’s neck for a full minute, and that she had tuned into his interest and was looking at him with a mixture of curiosity and heat.

She licked her lips then quickly averted her gaze. “What evidence do they have?”

Ian shrugged. “I don’t know yet. We’re set up for a meeting with the agent in charge tomorrow afternoon.”

She got to her feet, flashing him another view of her panties. Ian resisted the urge to pull at his too-tight collar again, suddenly thankful that Marie usually wore more concealing clothing. If he saw her panties again, he doubted he’d be able to stop himself from taking them off.

“I’m going to be there,” Marie said.

“Be where?” Ian asked, distracted by his own thoughts.

“At the questioning, of course.”

Ian got to his feet too, but the last thing on his mind was going anywhere near those panties. “Oh no, you’re not.”

Marie arched a brow at him.

“Come on, Marie. It’s bad enough I told you what’s going on. If you show up at that questioning, your father will know I told you.”

“So?”

“So what’s to say he isn’t a bit upset by the news?”

She crossed her arms.

“Who’s to say he won’t fire my sorry ass and contact another attorney? You know, one that won’t cave under the questionable tactics you just used to get me to talk. Then where will you be?”

And where would he be without this excuse to have Marie back in his life, even if for a little bit?

“Don’t you mean where would you be?”

He squinted at her, wondering if she had been thinking the same thing he just had.

“Never mind. Forget I said that,” she said.

Oh, how he wished he could. Because he had the sinking sensation that she hadn’t been talking about his prospects for having sex with her again, but had instead been referring to her disapproval of his tendency to represent clients no one else would touch with a ten-foot pole.

And then there was her father…not exactly an ideal client either.

“Okay, okay,” Marie derailed his train of thought. “So I don’t go tomorrow.” She rifled through her bag, then sighed when she apparently didn’t find what she was looking for. “But I want you to tape the discussion for me.”

“You want me to tape the questioning?” he enunciated.

She blinked at him. “Yes. Why?”

He slowly rounded the desk until he was standing directly in front of her. “Well, because I don’t know how your father will react to my doing that.”

Marie looked suddenly ill at ease. He watched her elegant throat work around a swallow. “My father…um, will do what you say because you’re his attorney.”

“And you?” he asked, halting mere inches away from her.

He always forgot about how petite she was until he was standing close to her this way. Marie’s energy projected a much taller height than the five foot three that she was in her short heels. She was an intriguing mix of little girl and provocative woman. And right now he found himself wanting to get a glimpse again of those panties she had on.

“Ian?” she said half in question, half in warning.

“Hmm?”

He purposely allowed his gaze to travel leisurely over her tiny package. Oh, yeah, the ball had definitely just landed firmly in his court and he was going to hold on to it. Having Marie afraid of his next move, yet eager to see what it might be, was exactly the way he liked things between them. And while the last thing he should be thinking about was bedding his client’s daughter, just then Marie wasn’t Frank Sr.’s little girl, she was one-hundred-percent woman. More specifically, the woman he had seduced without really understanding why he’d done it beyond feeling the uncontrollable urge to do so.

And he was feeling that urge return to him tenfold.

“Ian?” Marie said more insistently.

Without even realizing he was doing so, Ian had backed her up until her bottom leaned against his glass desk. She held on to the blunted edge tightly with both hands and her small breasts moved with the sudden shortness of breath.

Ian realized he was having a little problem finding air himself. He eyed her mouth, but didn’t kiss her. Instead he skimmed his hand down over her slender hip then slowly inched the material of her skirt up. She caught his hand, her eyes searching his, but her hand neither stopping nor helping him. He smiled at her then continued moving his hand until those white undies were revealed.

Oh, there was no thong for Marie Bertelli. Instead her underwear was cotton and white and sexier than any scrap of silk and lace known to man. It clung to her womanhood like only cotton could. And made his mouth water with the urge to lower himself to his knees and press his lips against the swollen flesh just underneath.

And one look into her eyes told him she wanted it just as much as he did.

A buzzing sound filled the room. While inwardly Ian jumped, outwardly he stood still as a statue, his hand burning from the feel of her upper thigh on his palm, and her fingers on the back of his hand.

“Don’t you, um, think you should get that?” Marie asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

He could tell she was trying to play down her reaction, make him believe that his taking a peek at her underwear hadn’t affected her one way or another. But Ian knew Marie sexually better than anyone else on Earth. And even if she had been able to control her voice, he would have known she wanted him.

“It’s not mine,” he said quietly.

Marie blinked once, then again. “My wireless,” she said. Then her eyes widened. “My wireless! I’m waiting for a call telling me when the judge has reached his decision on my motion.”

Ian hated to remove his hand. Really hated to have to let her go. But Marie gave him little choice as she wriggled away from him and his desk and reached for her purse and the cell phone inside. She turned away to take the call, leaving Ian staring after her like a dumbstruck teen who had just gotten his first look at a naked woman.

Only he hadn’t seen naked. Not this time. He absently rubbed his chin as he listened to her speak. Actually, he’d never really gotten to see her naked. Not entirely. He’d seen her breasts. Caught glimpses of her tight bottom. But while he’d felt every inch of her, he’d never actually fully seen her.

And, in that one moment, he found he wanted that more than anything.

And knew that he wasn’t going to get it.

Marie clapped her phone closed and backed toward the door. “The, um, judge has made her decision. I’m due back in court in fifteen.”

Ian crossed his arms, doing what she had done minutes before—namely, trying to pretend he wasn’t affected one way or another by the news.

And he knew he was as successful as she’d been at hiding his true state. “You’d better get running then.”

Doubt and curiosity filled her eyes. “Yeah. I’d better get running.”

Ian cleared his throat. “So…I’ll see you tomorrow after the meeting?”

“The meeting? Oh, yes, the meeting.” She glanced at her watch. “Why don’t you give me a call when you’re done? Maybe we can meet somewhere afterward.”

“You don’t want to come here?”

He realized how loaded that question was when she glanced at him, then his desk and back again. “Um, I don’t think it’s a good idea.” She smiled at him. “Who knows what people might think?”

“Mmm,” he agreed.

She turned toward the door, then appeared to change her mind at the last minute as she paused.

Then she rushed him.

Ian was rendered completely speechless as she pressed him against the desk, then molded her mouth against his. She made a small sound in her throat as her tongue darted out, first outlining his lips as if it was something she’d been wanting to do all day, then dipping it between his lips. He groaned and reached for her, but she quickly stepped away.

He stared at her as she straightened her skirt and exited his office, closing the door with a soft click behind her.

For long moments he stood there, the edge of his desk against the back of his legs, wondering just what in the hell had happened. And wondering just how he could go about making it happen again. Then telling himself he shouldn’t let it happen at any point in the future, either near or far, if he had half a brain in his head.

He absently rubbed his chin.

Wow…

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