4

Chapter 4

An angry violence coursed through Roman’s veins after he’d seen the vid footage from the hallway outside the courtroom. He’d fixated on the look of panic flashing over Abigail’s features and then nausea rose as he’d watched her panic fade into blankness.

Saul Kerrigan was a thug, and if, after the dressing down he’d received for nearly a standard hour, he did not change his behavior and stay the hells away from Ms. Haws, Roman would punish House Kerrigan severely, no matter what connection existed between them.

A man did not use his size and power to harm a woman. It simply wasn’t done. Roman’s wife had been such a sweet and fragile woman. He couldn’t imagine having touched her in anger even if she’d been as tough as the petite Abigail Haws was.

He shoved that line of thought far away. Lindy had been gone twelve years, and it wouldn’t do to think on that just before he was due to meet with Ms. Haws.

Once Marcus announced her arrival, Roman terminated his comm immediately and told his assistant to send her in.

He stood and met her at the door. “Ms. Haws, are you well?”

She sighed and the tension vibrated from her, concerning him deeply.

“Marcus, will you please bring us some refreshments? And hold all comm traffic please.” He looked back to her. “Please, sit down.” When he touched her arm she jumped. He slowly moved away, taking a seat after she did.

“I’m fine. I take it this is about the scene Saul Kerrigan made today in the hall?”

He nodded. Her voice was so flat, the spark in her dimmed. There was something wrong with her just then. She wasn’t her usual combative self. “I saw the footage, Ms. Haws. Is your arm all right?”

She winced, holding it close to her body. He had to know.

“Did he mark you?”

“That’s none of your business.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Indeed it is. This is my damned ’Verse and I take care of my people. You’ll show me your arm because I asked.”

She jerked back, brown eyes flashing, face flushed, and satisfaction roared through him that she showed signs of her spark.

“I’m not one of your peasants as if you are a fief lord in the oldest sense. If you saw the vid, you saw an Associate House leader act inappropriately. Security came and he left. I went to the rest of my hearings and came back to the office. By the way, thank you for speaking to Administrator Cushing. Gretel Mortan is now home with her family. She’ll still have to endure trial but at least the credits won’t be an issue. Her case has been taken up by my office and paid for by an anonymous donor. Now, would you like to speak about the Movement for Representative Democracy?”

Marcus chose that moment to glide in and place a tray heavy with food and tea on the table between Roman’s and Abigail’s chairs.

While Abigail’s attention was on Marcus leaving the room, Roman leaned forward and pushed her sleeve up. The creamy pale skin was marred by an ugly thumbprint bruise.

All he heard was a gasp before he found himself flat on the carpet. Abigail scrambled atop his chest, teeth bared.

Her hair had come unmoored from the nest at the back of her neck and her spectacles sat askew on her face. The uptight barrister had been replaced by a wild woman with a river of dark hair and big, flashing eyes. Her lips, why hadn’t he noticed them before? Plump and juicy. He certainly didn’t miss the heaving breasts. He’d pretended not to notice she hadn’t been wearing a bra the evening before, but with them only inches away from his face, he couldn’t pretend they weren’t there. Large, fleshy and mouthwatering. The upper curve of her right breast was exposed at the neck of her blouse as she leaned over him.

The moment stretched between them. He knew Marcus must have heard but the door had not opened. Madness took hold in him chasing all rational thought away.

His control slipped, replaced by fascination at what she’d feel like. His hands found her thighs as she straddled his body, slid up until the edge of her stockings alerted him to bare flesh. Her breath hitched and then she froze.

“I . . .” She blinked as if awakened from a dream.

“You have very soft skin,” he murmured, his thumbs sliding back and forth along the band separating bare, velvet thigh and the stocking.

She scrambled back, legs akimbo, giving him a perfect view of the slice of her body he’d started to yearn for. Red. Bright red panties and stockings underneath the sensible suit. Abigail Haws had a bit of insensible and a lot of sexy.

“I’m so sorry.”

He moved, slowly on his hands and knees, until he reached her. “I shouldn’t have startled you. I’m the one who’s sorry.” Clearly something had happened to her to make her respond that way. He wanted to know, wanted her to trust him to tell him but it wasn’t the time.

“You make me feel . . . this shouldn’t be happening,” she whispered and the shadow of fear slid from her eyes, replaced by something else.

He caught the dark shadow of her nipples against the front of her blouse, even through her bra. A deep breath as he sought control brought her scent, her arousal, into his system. It had been a very long time since he’d felt this sort of raw need.

“It is.” Reaching toward her very cautiously, he tucked some of her hair behind her shoulder. And fell. Fell into her, into her spell, into whatever delicious thing that had built between them. The soft, cool silk of the dark strands caressed his hand and arm until all he could do was lean in and kiss her.

Rather than gasp or pull away, she relaxed, sliding her arms up and around his neck, opening her mouth to him.

He tasted her, sampled the heat of her mouth, the softness of her tongue sliding against his. He hadn’t kissed anyone this way for nearly fifteen years.

His cock brushed against her thigh and all he could think about was the top of the stocking. All he wanted to do was place a kiss there and it drove him crazy. Crazy enough his hands found that spot on each thigh, on the inside. Her breath gusted out as her hips canted forward.

The tips of his fingers brushed against her cunt, open and ridiculously hot and wet against the material of her panties. She panted and he returned her breath with his own strain to breathe. He needed to stop, this should not happen, but the soft, desperate sound she made into his mouth was his undoing.

He moved closer, on his knees between her wide-open thighs. He burrowed his fingers beneath her panties and nearly passed out when they slid between the slick folds of her pussy, and her clit, already hard and swollen, met his fingertips as he moved them up.

He opened his eyes, looking down into her face as he fingered her pussy. The sounds of his fingers sliding into her core and pulling out echoed against her whispered moans and the rustle of clothing.

Anyone could walk in at any time. This was fucking madness, but he could not stop until she came all over his hand. He had to have her orgasm. Her fingers dug in to his shoulders as she rocked against his fingers and he wondered how long it had been for her, but then realized he didn’t want to know what other men she’d been with. Didn’t want to know if anyone else had shared this exquisite tension with her.

She arched, breaking the kiss with a gasp as he felt her body find release in a hot rush. All through the moments he’d had his fingers buried in her, his gaze hadn’t left her face, not wanting to miss that moment, and he wasn’t sorry. The lines on her forehead smoothed as her face totally relaxed and her mouth opened on a sated sigh.

What the hells had just happened? Abbie slowly opened her eyes to find those sexy green ones looking back. Satisfaction etched his features, purely and utterly male, and she couldn’t help but smile.

“Um . . .” What could she say? Thanks for the hand job? Do you regularly finger women to climax on your carpet with your staff right outside?

“Roman, I’m sorry to bother you, but Alexander is on the comm and he’s insisting on speaking with you.” Marcus’s voice echoed through the office intercom, startling them both into action.

Wincing a bit—a glance at his crotch and Abbie saw why—Roman stood and held a hand down to her. Grateful he hadn’t simply pulled her to standing, she took the hand and got up.

She was a total mess. Emotionally, well, she couldn’t even think on what had happened that day. Physically, though, was her concern right then.

“You . . .” She nodded toward his cock, feeling bad she hadn’t given him what he’d done for her.

“I’ll be all right. A discussion with my brother will undo all your work, I’m afraid.” He paused and slid a fingertip through the notch in her chin. “My bathroom is right through that door should you want to straighten your clothes up. I have to take this comm, but I would like to continue this discussion afterward.”

Avoiding that for the time being, she simply nodded and headed into the bathroom, closing the door behind herself, leaning against it to catch her breath as she heard Roman bustle around and then his voice as he took the comm.

The woman looking back at her in the mirror started as she took herself in. “I look like a nineteen-year-old who just got fingered in her boyfriend’s parents’ house,” she mumbled as she wet her hands to get her hair back in order. Which made her laugh because she had been a nineteen-year-old girl who got fingered in her boyfriend’s parents’ house, in the dark, in their family room after an hour of kissing.

Who kissed for an hour anymore? She’d like to kiss Roman for an hour, maybe two. Languid kisses, because they had the whole day to do nothing more than that.

Her knees were still rubber from the interlude. How completely unexpected it had all been. Him touching her like that, shoving her sleeve up to see the bruise Kerrigan had left. And when she saw his hand there, something slipped its moorings inside her and she rushed at him, shoving him to the carpet, wanting to harm before she could be harmed.

But he’d been still, looking up at her through eyes that saw right to her soul. Some part of him had seen her pain and he’d responded to that. And then when he’d caressed her thighs, good great gods! It’d been enough to ram the sense back into her to jump from him and get some distance. But then he’d uncoiled himself like a great male predator and moved to her with kind eyes.

She’d attacked not just a Ranked male, but the Ranked male, and he’d gently moved the hair from her face. Not as if she were so fragile she’d break, but as if she were precious. And then he kissed her and she couldn’t resist, couldn’t even recall the reasons she’d had for staying away from him to begin with.

She’d gone up there upset and afraid, but now something else had passed between them. He’d touched her physically, yes, but emotionally, as well, and the dark edge of craving began to sliver through her.

He’d kissed her like a man was meant to kiss. Intent in every movement, in every slide of lips and tongue. Want roared through her, and when he’d touched her thighs, the tips of his fingers brushing against her cunt, she’d nearly swallowed her tongue.

Yes, those moments on his floor had undoubtedly been some of the hottest in her life, and they absolutely could not happen again. Well, maybe once she—you know—evened things out between them.

He’d gone from hypercontrolled to hypersexual, and yet she got the feeling he still held back. She wondered what he’d be like in bed completely unfettered. She shivered; it wasn’t for her to know. He was Roman Lyons. She was a woman from a professional family, yes, but an unranked one. It wasn’t like that little interlude meant anything, and all she could really hope was that he wouldn’t think less of her for it.

She waited a while but he still spoke in the other room, and the longer she waited, the more nervous she became. Eventually, she quietly exited the bathroom and inched her way toward the door to the outer office.

His eyes cut to her as he continued to speak in terse, tight sentences. He shook his head but she nodded and waved as she headed for freedom.

“Is he off the comm?” Marcus asked, acting as if she hadn’t just had his boss two knuckles deep on the floor of his office. Gods, she hoped he had no real idea of what had gone on in there.

“Um, no. He’s still on, but it’s late. I need to go home.”

A mysterious smile curved Marcus’s lips before concern replaced it.

“Are you all right, Ms. Haws? I saw the footage and if I wouldn’t be tossed into lockup, I’d be heading over to Saul Kerrigan’s home right now.”

She softened a bit. Marcus was quite charming. “Please, call me Abbie. And I’m fine. Really. And now I must go. Please tell Mr. Lyons I appreciate his concern.”

“Okay, if you call me Marcus. He had Kerrigan in here. Yelled at him. Roman does not yell.”

She blew out a breath, liking it more than she should that Roman Lyons defended her in some sense.

“Well, that sort of vid footage is bound to get out, and I’m sure he wondered if I’d go to the media about it.”

“Why didn’t you?” One eyebrow rose, taunting her.

She shrugged. “Who says I won’t? Good evening, Marcus.”