“I’m going to come too, baby. Oh, Lily. Oh f**k. Lily.”
He slammed into me one last time, groaned loudly and swore some more as he held himself tightly against me. Then the only sound was the two of us trying to catch our breath. He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me up into his arms with my back against his rapidly rising and falling chest. I felt boneless and he practically carried me over to the bed where we collapsed together, completely exhausted, in a sweaty, panting heap. He pulled me into his arms tightly, holding on like he expected somebody to try to take me away from him. I stroked his hair, and let him protect me, and that’s how we fell asleep.
Chapter Twenty-One
The next morning, bright and early, the odyssey that was my career as a prosecutor began. Looking very lawyerly in Gab’s navy Ann Klein suit, my hair pulled back into a bun at the nape of my neck, I followed Adam into Judge Channing’s courtroom. I would be watching him and Braden in the mornings, and while they prepared their cases for the next day in the afternoons, I would be meeting with the attorneys who handled training. Luckily, since both of my parents had been career litigators, courtrooms didn’t intimidate me.
“Is there anything I can do?” I asked, glancing down at his behemoth pile of case files.
“Not yet, Lily,” he said with a smile.
“All rise! The Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia is now in session, the Honorable Louis Channing presiding.”
I just sat back and watched as Adam and Braden handled their cases methodically. They made a good team. Adam looked really sexy by the way. He always looked sexy, but he looked particularly sexy here, where he was obviously in his element. He was also dressed in a navy suit, with a gray tie, and he looked all prosecutorial. He also smelled fabulous.
For a second the image of him naked behind me, thrusting into me over and over, popped into my head and a jolt of heat hit my lady bits head on. Okay, not a good time to think about that. I glanced around the courtroom to distract myself. Over on the defense side sat Mark and Jess, who were also busily and methodically handling their caseload. Everyone was doing something but me.
I have to admit that as I watched Adam cross examine witnesses and make legal arguments I started getting turned on. His cockiness was actually hot here. I started remembering how I had enjoyed being in clinic when I was in law school. The adrenaline rush of battling in court felt a lot like, well, let’s face it, sexual arousal.
Truthfully, I could still write and practice law too, if I tried hard enough. It wasn’t that I couldn’t have been a good lawyer, or even that I didn’t like the law. I had only rejected the whole lawyer thing because my parents were so fixated on me being one. I guess I had wanted to see if they would ever respect me for doing something different. The answer to that one, incidentally, was ‘no.’ My parents were obsessed with their own legal careers, and with the idea of me going even further in legal practice than they had. After all, I had the DNA of two famous litigators in me. Hell, I think they seriously believed that I could become a Supreme Court Justice someday, if I would just grow up already.
About an hour into the session, as Braden was off talking to a witness and Adam was in the middle of a legal argument with Mark, someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around and saw a cute guy with red hair, holding a file.
“Hey, do we know each other? I’m Kevin O’Donell from the office.”
“No, I’m Lily Adler. I just transferred in.” Okay, so maybe I had failed to mention that I had transferred in from the law library. So what?
“Ah, good. I was worried you might be a brand new grad.”
“Nope, graduated two years ago.” And hadn’t practiced law a day since.
“Perfect. Hey, Lily, you want to take a case for me? It’s no big thing, but it might be kind of interesting. You’ll get to face Captain Swagger from the U.S. Attorney’s office.”
“Captain Swagger?” I asked, amused. It sounded like a nickname Adam would have. In fact, I’m pretty sure it was a nickname Adam did have, at least among defense lawyers.
“Jacob Sachs. Cocky son of a bitch. It’s a nothing case, but it’s tied into Moretti somehow, so the feds decided they might as well take it up. We actually have a better argument for keeping it here in Common Pleas. If it were any other prosecutor, they would probably concede if we objected, but Sachs doesn’t know the meaning of concede. Probably not even worth making the argument, because he’ll fight you, and it’s not worth it for this case. Besides, defense counsel is a total pain in the ass. She was supposedly retired, but I guess she missed the smell of blood. Judith Steinberg. Do you know her?” My heart slammed into my chest wall and my mouth went dry.
“Uh, yeah. I’ve heard about her,” I said casually.
“I don’t doubt it. They call her the Ice Queen. She’s super-aggressive.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’ve heard,” I said. “You’re saying that we have a good argument for keeping it here? So if I won, it would be tried here, in Common Pleas. If I take it, is it mine?” Something else that I happened to know about Judith Steinberg, was that she did federal defense. She would be out of her element here. She could be beaten.
“Uh, yeah.” He laughed. “If you want it. Why? You’re not thinking about taking on Captain Swagger and the Ice Queen, are you?”
“I don’t have much else on my plate yet, and you said it’s not an important case.”
“Okay! You’ve got some moxie. I like that. Sachs should be here soon. The argument’s all laid out in there, just in case anybody wanted to make it.”
“Okay. I’ll let you know what happens.”
“Go get ’em!” he said with a smile and left just as Adam was returning to counsel table.
I slid the file onto my lap. Obviously, he would find out shortly what I was up to, but I didn’t want him to try to stop me. I was a licensed attorney, now officially employed by the District Attorney of Philadelphia. I wasn’t doing anything unethical. I was also highly motivated.
Jacob arrived not long after, with his usual flourish, storming the castle, with all of his lackeys trailing in his wake. The bailiff informed the judge that an assistant U.S. attorney was here for the next case, and so Jacob was able to go immediately to the head of the class. The bailiff called it. “Commonwealth v. DiBono, motion for removal to federal court.” I saw Adam glance around the courtroom, looking for a fellow prosecutor. I took a deep breath and stood up … just as the courtroom door opened again and she came in, followed by her client and her lackeys. She marched to the front of the courtroom like she owned the place.