Free Lawyers In Love: In His Own Defense by Ann Jacobs Page A

rushed to his already aching cock.
    “Me too.”
    He was. Scared stiff. He wanted her desperately, yet feared not only her obsession, but insecurities he’d thought success had long ago swept from his mind.
    Nagging doubt ate at Tony’s gut. Suddenly he wondered if he’d come far enough from the rickety pickup trucks and even more rickety migrant worker shacks where he’d passed his earliest years. He worried that some elusive vestige of the ragged son of a hot-tempered straw boss who’d done life for murder still remained, hidden beneath the veneer he’d so carefully applied to his soul.
    “Let’s see where this goes,” he whispered just before his lips met hers.
    She tasted good. So good. Hot and sweet like the Cuban coffee he sometimes drank at Bennie’s Place. He couldn’t help it, he had to coax her lips to part, slide his tongue between them to sample the nectar inside. When he knew he’d have to stop or drag her below and take this lovemaking to its logical conclusion he tore his mouth away, met her hot, longing gaze.
    No, Kristine’s kiss wasn’t like Cuban coffee at all, because a thimble-sized cup of the strong, sweet brew was quite enough to satisfy him. He had the feeling he’d never get enough of her.

* * * * *
    The following morning Tony told himself he was a fool. He could have taken Kristine to bed and fucked her until they both passed out from the ecstasy of it. If he had, he’d have eased the hard-on that still plagued him now, hours after he’d started the boat’s engine and taken her back to the party. Hours after leaving her at her front door with a quick hug, a gentle kiss, and an invitation for dinner next weekend.
    Why had he stopped before they both reached the point of no return, not once but three times?
    Tony mulled that question over in his mind, discarding every possible answer he came up with.
    Fear? No way. He might have had a moment’s twinge of anxiety, but certainly no all-consuming terror. Not of a woman. Any woman. It wasn’t as though he were a snot-nosed kid. He might not have fucked all the women the Miami press had credited to him, but he’d had his share.
    Pacing the length of Miss Trial ’s mist-slicked deck, Tony took a bite from a jelly doughnut.
    He was Tony Landry, the best damn criminal defense lawyer money could buy. And no matter how wet Krissy’s pussy got for him, bottom line was that defending accused criminals made him as good as poison. And poison he was likely to stay in her mind, as long as she blamed every dope dealer and junkie in Tampa for having killed off her family.
    Tony stepped into the head and washed the residue of the doughnut off his hands. They’d tasted better years ago, when his old man had taken him to a run-down convenience store out on the highway beyond the last strawberry field they’d worked and bought him one of the sticky confections. He remembered lifting the cracked plastic cover that had kept some of the flies at bay, selecting his treat from the assortment on a beat-up metal tray. The choosing had been almost as much fun as the eating.
    The boat’s engine roared to life when he turned the key in the ignition. He’d moved worlds away from those farm fields, come a long way from being that dirt-poor kid with a hot-tempered old man.
    He’d moved far enough from his beginnings that he’d go up against anybody, go after any woman who struck his fancy. Right now that meant Kristine.
    He pulled into the ship channel that he’d follow to the dock outside his condo, but his gaze followed the boat’s foamy white wake until the yacht club disappeared over the horizon. He hadn’t joined yet, but he had no doubt his application, if he decided to fill it out, would be accepted. When it came down to realities, pedigrees didn’t matter. Money and power did, and he had plenty of both.
    Pity his wealth and position didn’t impress Krissy one damn bit. Fortunately the chemistry sizzled between them like lightning in a storm. He