Legally Addicted

chapter Seven



‘What made you change your mind?’ Brad asked, even though he didn’t give one of her flying vernaculars as to the reason.

Her thin white cotton nightdress was almost translucent, concealing nothing. The sight of the perfect curve of her breasts and an inviting landing strip of soft blonde hair shimmering through the sheer fabric sent him rock hard, and while he might consider it later, right now he couldn’t have given a monkey’s as to why she had changed her mind and come to him.

‘Heat and lust, I guess.’

As she stepped towards the bed, her body provided the corroborating evidence of her words. Her face flushed a beguiling shade of pink, and her nipples pushed erect against her nightdress.

Georgia was as turned on as he was.

She slipped into bed beside him, and the touch of her skin was a blast of white heat, searing through his body. He swivelled around to grasp her neck, along with a handful of her glossy hair, and pressed his lips to hers, roving her mouth until she met his rhythm. Hesitant at first, she soon matched him with a fervour that challenged him to take control. He pushed her down on to the bed and the softness of her breasts cushioned him as he pinned her with his weight. She tasted delicious, a mixture of scotch and strawberries. A part of him wanted to take his time, but a far stronger instinct urged him on. He pushed his knee between hers, nudging her legs apart.

Then, out of nowhere, he was hit by a lightning bolt of guilt.

He was the one who had set this up and put Georgia in a position where she had come begging for it, but the stakes were much higher for her than they were for him.

He pulled back from her, releasing his weight.

‘Are you sure about this?’

What was he doing, she wondered?

It was blindingly obvious that Brad had staged this weekend to get her into bed, and now he was messing about instead of getting down to it.

In answer, she slid her hand down beneath the elastic of his boxers.

His breath whistled inwards as she caressed him, circling him, running her fingers downwards, stroking with her fingertips the sensitive skin at the spot where his legs joined.

He reared back.

‘Christ, Georgia.’

So he was getting a little hot and bothered too now.

Well good.

He could feel some of what she felt; horny as hell, unquenched, and nearly driven to distraction.

She reached up to go for the band of his boxers again, and together with her other hand she pushed down on the elastic. He rolled off her, and pulling herself onto her knees, she peeled his underwear down his powerful legs and off his feet. He stretched back out on the bed and she took him in her mouth, sucking him until his eyelids half closed and his stomach contracted in short violent jerks. Sensing she couldn’t afford to push it any further, she positioned herself over him and pulled her nightdress over her head, throwing it on to the floor. He hoisted himself up against the pillows and drew her to him, taking a nipple in his mouth, sucking one to a peak, and then the other. Finding the heat and wetness converging at her core he slipped a finger inside her, and drawing it out, traced it across her skin before returning deep, again and again. She stifled a moan with the back of her hand and lowered herself down, desperate to meet him. But as soon as he brushed against her, two strong hands grabbed her by the hips in a firm hold, pinching roughly at her skin, pushing her up and off of him.

‘Wait.’

He pivoted away from her, reaching for the bedside cabinet then turned back with a small foil packet.

‘Put this on.’

She broke the seal and pulled the condom from the packet, examining it to ensure she had it the right way around, and then, with trembling hands, massaged it downwards until, obstructed by his impressive size, it stalled halfway. Unable to push it any further, he reached out to help her manage the rest.

She lifted one knee and placed herself above him again, lowering herself down, taking him in a little, releasing, and returning to take him in a little more, until he filled her. Catching her unawares, he held her up by the hips again, withdrawing sharply, and rolling her over on to her back, only to return deep and hard. With her head knocking against the slats of the headboard, he released her enough that she could wriggle down the bed.

‘Tell me what it was you wanted again,’ he said, between ragged breaths.

Swept away by the feeling radiating out from her core, she was silent; her mind displaced as her body became front and centre of everything.

‘Tell me.’

This time his voice came harsh and demanding.

She whispered in his ear, hoisting her legs up at the same time, curling her toes against his butt. In response he plunged urgently. She gasped, intense sensations hovering between pleasure and pain, ramming into her core. Then, just when she thought she couldn’t take any more, he shifted position, grinding downwards, his warm skin raking over her *oris, waves of excruciating pleasure pushing out to play on the surface of her skin. She clung to him, and he plunged with deep rhythmic thrusts, carrying her away until she cut loose with what she needed to say.

Hearing the obscene torrent of encouragement from Georgia’s sweet mouth was a hurricane gust, winding his passion up to cyclonic proportions. As Georgia moaned, flying to bits beneath him, Brad plunged deeper into the exquisite embrace of her body, pursuing his own pleasure until he exploded along with her.

‘That was lovely, thanks,’ Georgia said, after a decent recovery period, the obligatory requirement for post-coital sleep threatening to envelop him as he held her.

Lovely? That shook him out of his slumber.

‘I’d better go back to my own room.’

And she was leaving. Straight away?

‘You don’t have to go. I can check that the coast is clear in the morning, if you’re worried about one of the fogies catching you out.’

‘It’s hot. We’ll both get a better night’s sleep in separate beds.’

He ran a finger down her arm.

‘Don’t you want to talk about what this means, Georgia?’

‘Means?’ Georgia pushed herself up onto her elbow, her face contorted in horror. ‘It doesn’t mean anything. We had sex. No need to come over all melodramatic about it.’

Had he just said that out loud?

Holy hell.

He cringed.

‘Just checking this won’t have a negative impact on our working relationship, that’s all, but you’re right, it’s nothing we haven’t done before. I’m glad we’re on the same page,’ he said, recovering his manly pride.

Usually, if he took a woman into his bed, when the time came, it was a crowbar job to jemmy her back out again, but Georgia was already rolling out of it. He managed to grasp her arm with his fingertips, but she shook herself free, and then she was gone.

The next morning, after stuffing the few things she had brought with her back into her overnight bag, and before the sun had even come up, Georgia had escaped the Spencer beach house. She left so early that she managed to make the drive back to her apartment in Sydney’s Northern Suburbs on almost deserted roads.

Now, sitting alone in her kitchen going over what had happened, Georgia drummed her fingers on the counter beside the phone. Ever since she arrived home she had been pacing the apartment, her nerves strung out like wire under tension. This thing with Brad had gotten way out of hand. She needed to talk to someone, but who? Miriam was the closest thing to a real girlfriend that she had, but they rarely rang each other; mainly chatting at work, or during their lunch hour shopping trips, or sometimes after work if they went to a chick flick together. She hesitated a moment more and then dialled Miriam’s mobile.

‘Hi, it’s Georgia,’ she said, screwing up her face. What the hell did she think she was doing reaching out to anyone for help, let alone her secretary?

‘God, Georgia, this better be good, what time is it?’

She looked at the digital clock that glowed on her microwave. Seven o’clock on a Sunday morning. She had forgotten how early she had to get up to avoid running into Brad, and what good time she had made with the road clear of the usual weekday commuter traffic.

‘Sorry, I had an early start.’

‘Is everything okay, Georgia? Are you still at the beach house?’

Miriam’s tone was accusatory, as if she already suspected she had bailed.

‘Everything’s fine but I came home early.’

‘Because?’

‘We’d done the formal stuff and the partner’s meeting, and things got weird with Brad.’

‘You slept together again, didn’t you?’

‘I think he might have feelings for me,’ Georgia said, hoping the revelation would head off Miriam’s questions.

‘How long did it take you to work that one out, super-sleuth?’

‘You know? Did he say something?’

‘It’s not anything he’s said. It’s what he does — the looks he gives you, and the amount of times he seems to have found a reason to pass by your desk to shoot the breeze. Now back to my original question, you slept with him again, didn’t you? And let me guess, then you took off?’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Because that’s what you do, Georgia. ‘Love ‘em and leave ‘em’ is your signature and I’m the one who has to block your calls, make up the excuses, and generally try to put off any man who starts to show too much interest afterwards,’ Miriam said quietly.

‘So what if I did bail?’

‘Uh huh. Thought so. So how was it? The sex, I mean.’

‘Okay, the sex was great. Amazing, actually.’

Not that she had been prepared to admit that to Brad.

Georgia tried and failed to repress the memory of it. She would rather not remember how good it had been, and particularly not the gutter talk. Cutting loose and talking like that during sex worried her, like she had regressed back to her roots and somehow reverted to her poor-druggie-trash upbringing. She usually supressed any urge to talk dirty, but for some reason she felt comfortable enough with Brad to let herself go, and he had really gotten off on it as well. It was like they had some raw honesty between them that they hadn’t had before. Not that she had been prepared to say that when he went way too far and probed her about what their sleeping together meant. He had tried to cover it up, like he didn’t have any feelings for her, but she knew from the way that he had said it, that he had been serious.

‘So what’s the problem then?’

‘You know what the problem is. I can’t risk everything now to get into anything with him.’

Even though seeing a completely new side of Brad at the beach house had turned her view of him upside down, at least partly assuaging her concerns about the huge disparity between their incomes, there was still the issue of her career to think about.

‘You even paused for enough time to consider getting serious with Brad?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘When did you last give even a nanosecond of thought to getting involved with anyone?’

As usual, Miriam was right. Georgia couldn’t remember ever having deliberated on moving further than the ‘friends with benefits’ arrangements that a few of her flings had morphed into.

‘It’s irrelevant anyway, because getting into anything with Brad is impossible.’

‘It doesn’t have to be. Tell him to leave the partnership. The ink is barely dry on the agreement. He could probably get Dayton and Llewellyn to release him if he crossed their palms with the requisite amount of gold.’

‘And have Dayton and Llewellyn blame me for losing Brad’s celebrity client list? I don’t think so.’

‘They’re big boys. They’d get over it. It’s time you put yourself first, Georgia.’

‘I’ll give it some consideration,’ she said, and she meant it, because whether she liked it or not, ever since she had left the beach house, Brad Spencer was the only thing she could think about.

Back at the office on Monday morning, Brad opened the office calendar on the firm’s computer network and searched through Georgia’s diary.

At the strategy weekend, things had gone well with Georgia to begin with. The sex had been as good as, if not better than, the first time, but then once again she had done a disappearing act.

Lovely, my arse.

She had been as in to it as he was.

He had no idea why, but when a woman talked dirty, he really worked up a head of steam. Assuming she didn’t routinely dredge the basement of the English language in normal speech, something about it was a turn-on, and with Georgia it was incredible — as if she had shown him a glimpse of something no-one else got to see. Pushing past her sexual defences had left him hopeful that he might break down some of her emotional barriers as well — like why, yet again, she had taken off, leaving the beach house before they even sat down to breakfast.

After an agonising twenty-four hours trying to figure out how to approach the situation, no neat answers had presented themselves, and he had come to the conclusion that he needed to get a better handle on how to approach Georgia.

In his experience, no-one knew a lawyer better than their secretary, but with Georgia and Miriam almost sitting on top of each other in the open-plan, he needed to catch Miriam when her boss was out of the office.

He scanned Georgia’s appointments.

Good. She would be in court most of the day.

Keeping his office door open and one eye on the thoroughfare outside it, he hailed Georgia’s secretary the moment she strolled past.

‘Miriam, can I speak to you for a moment?’

‘Is this about Georgia?’

Miriam had doubled back from where she was headed and was standing in the doorway.

‘How did you know?’

‘Let’s just say you’re not the first potential suitor who has tried to use me to solve the puzzle that is Georgia Murray — not that anyone has succeeded, yet.’

Miriam walked over to his desk and took a seat, in the chair opposite, crossing her legs at the knee so that her short skirt hiked up to her thigh.

That much skin exposure by an attractive young woman would usually send his mind wandering, but today nothing could divert his attention.

‘No-one’s ever gotten through to her?’

‘Nope. Not so far.’

‘Got any advice, Miriam? From what I’ve seen, you seem to have a pretty good working relationship with her.’

He closed the file he had been working on and leaned back in his chair, giving her his full concentration.

‘It’s taken me three years to break through that tough exterior of hers.’

‘Three years.’ He whistled. ‘Could it be achieved sooner?’

‘Possibly, but it depends on your stamina, and how much emotional torture you think you can take.’

‘That tough?’

Miriam nodded.

‘It was twelve months before I could get Georgia to talk about anything other than work. She had almost bitten my head down to a stub by the time I got her to so much as grab a coffee with me.’

‘So what do I need to do?’

‘Look, I’ve been down this road before, and so far no man has had what it takes. I’m not wasting my breath again unless you really mean it.’

‘I mean it.’

‘And?’

‘Georgia is worth it.’

‘And?’

He was trying to work out what more he could say to emphasise the strength of his conviction when Miriam ran a thumb across her adjacent fingertips, several times in quick succession. He frowned, but the plucky secretary stared him down.

‘If you’re going to be like that, then forget it. I don’t respond well to extortion attempts — never have.’

He wasn’t about to be played, not even to get the information he needed about Georgia. Any request for money gave him a sick feeling inside. Even though it went with the territory, he would never be able to get used to it. A request for money was usually the first signal that a friendship or relationship wasn’t genuine, and he was about to get used for something.

‘Okay. It was worth a try.’ Miriam laughed, as if she had never expected to get away with her clumsy attempt to shake him down anyway. ‘First you need to get her to let you in, to open up to you about her past and what it is that frightens her so much about getting into something serious.’

‘So how do I do that?’

‘If I knew that, one of the multitudes would already be dating her. That’s for you to figure out. I only know how I got through to her, but I’m guessing you aren’t into chick flicks, women’s fashion, or girl talk.’

She was right about that.

‘Any other pointers?’

‘You have to find a way to make her feel like the battle is over and she’s made it, preferably in a public way that gets acknowledged. Georgia is very driven, and until she feels she’s got where she’s going, I don’t know where a man would fit into her life.’

‘And?’

‘You have to support her, especially against anyone who runs her down, or who casts aspersions on her unfortunate background.’

‘From what I’ve seen she seems strong enough to stand up for herself.’

Miriam rolled her eyes.

‘She is, but that’s not the point. Even the most capable woman appreciates it when Sir Galahad shows up occasionally.’

‘Anything else I need to know?’

‘No, that about covers it.’

‘That’s all?’

Miriam inclined her head towards him with an expression that seemed to be querying the level of his IQ.

‘Yeah, okay, that’s probably enough of a tall order,’ he said, after reflecting on the enormity of the task.

‘Good luck. You’ll need it.’

Left with that rather demoralising vote of precious little confidence, Brad returned to skimming Georgia’s entry in the office calendar on his computer. She had the usual array of client appointments and court appearances. The only non-work related entries were the nights she was rostered on at the women’s shelter. He pulled up his own diary. Every other shift coincided with the shelter board meetings.

Maybe, in that environment near where she had grown up, he could get her to relax and talk about herself.

After Georgia had almost opened up to him outside at the beach house, before Dayton and Llewellyn arrived and ruined the moment, it had dawned on him that although he might have seen every inch of her body, he hardly knew anything about her. Engineering a meeting on her own turf might be a good way to get her to let her guard down.