Appealed (The Legal Briefs, #3)

“If I wake up and you’re not next to me, I’ll tie you to the goddamn bed.” The needy, desperate thread in my voice diminishes the effect of my threat. “And I’ll do this for hours. I won’t leave you hanging, because I’m not that mean. But I’ll make you beg, and I’ll make you scream before I let you come. And that’s a fucking promise.”


I tongue her ear, swirling the shell, ending with a kiss. Then I untie the gag behind her head. “Now say please.”

She bites my ear. Hard.

I jerk away and laugh. “Easy there, Mike Tyson.”

I pull out just an inch and nudge my hips forward, teasing her. “Just say please, Kennedy. For both of us. It’s gonna be so fucking good.”

I feel her lips on my cheek. Against my neck. “Please, Brent. Oh . . . please.”

And that’s all it takes.

I pound into her, hurling us toward the edge and plunging straight over. We come together, groaning and grasping, like two wild, mindless things.

It’s frigging awesome.

Breathing hard, I don’t move for a few minutes—not until my heart slows back to normal. Then I stand upright and straighten her clothes. After tucking my dick away, I wag my finger at her. “I hope you’ve learned your lesson. I’m going to keep your panties for the rest of the day as a reminder.”

She doesn’t look happy with me. And after the monumentally hot experience we just shared, that’s unacceptable.

So I hold her face in both my hands and kiss her gently. My thumb strokes her cheek. “Last night was the best night of my life. I would’ve told you that this morning, if you’d bothered to wake me up before you left.”

Her anger melts away, changing into something that looks more like cautious glee.

I kiss her forehead and step back, licking my lips—still tasting her. “I’ll see you in court, Counselor.”

I give her a wink and walk out the door, a much happier camper than when I entered it.

? ? ?

In court that afternoon, Kennedy’s distracted. Off her game. Maybe it’s because she’s not used to getting laid in the workplace. Maybe it’s the fact that I took custody of her panties—and finger them in my pocket throughout the session, just for my own perverse pleasure. Whatever the reason—she has a bad day.

And she holds me responsible for it.

I know this when she shows up at my place that evening, walking right in unannounced. Harrison makes her a stiff drink, which she downs in two gulps—glaring at me the whole time.

She returns the empty glass to my butler, and with the practiced tone of a woman who was raised in a house full of servants, tells him, “Thank you, Harrison. We won’t be needing you for the rest of the night.”

Then she turns those blazing eyes on me. “Brent—I’d like a word. In private.”

I gesture with my hand. “Lead the way, firecracker. Where you go, I’ll follow.”

She leads us to my bedroom. And the second the door is shut, she slams me up against the wall. And tears my clothes off.

Which gives me all the motivation I’ll ever need to best her in court every day. ’Cause if this is how she handles it? There is no stronger incentive than that.

? ? ?

A few days later, at lunch with Jake, Stanton, and Sofia, I fill them in on Kennedy.

The three of them stare at me. Blankly.

Then Jake shakes his head a little, like he’s trying to clear his thoughts. “Let me make sure I have this right. You’re banging the prosecutor on your case?”

I swallow a mouthful of turkey club. “Yep. Well, sometimes we bang—sometimes we just hang out.”

Like yesterday—at Kennedy’s house, we curled up on her couch and watched a movie. She picked it out: Mad Max: Fury Road. And if I didn’t know she was a fuck-awesome woman before, after that choice I was completely sure of it. We cuddled and made out—she let me touch her boobs—which was hot. But that was it.

“Sometimes we talk . . .”

Like the night—after a thoroughly satisfying angry-screw—when Kennedy told me about those developments in the Moriotti case. They were big ones. The FBI caught some chatter of a threat against the prosecutor on the case. Kennedy. Moriotti put out feelers—a lucrative payment—to any lowlife scum who’ll take her out. This is pretty common in Mafia cases, to try and intimidate prosecutors from going forward. The agents don’t have any concrete evidence of a plan, but they’ve assigned her a federal marshal security detail just the same. Just in case.

“And sometimes we make sweet, sweet love.”

Stanton clarifies, “And it doesn’t affect how you’re trying the case?”

“Nope. We go at each other hard all day in court, then we go at it harder all night in bed. And nothing about it isn’t awesome.”

“And the prosecutor is your childhood friend, who you pretty much fell in love with when you were seventeen but didn’t see again for fourteen years?” Sofia asks as she runs her hand up and down her husband’s arm.