Love Proof (Laws of Attraction)

Twenty-two

“What do you mean, no?” Joe asked.

He stood beside the booth dressed in button-down Levi’s and a faded UCLA hoodie. It had to be the same one from six years ago, Sarah thought, since it was tighter across the chest and shoulders now, and the cuffs looked tattered. Which meant that there was the pocket where he first warmed her hands. There was where he first touched any part of her.

She tried to cover her reaction with sarcasm. “Come on, Burke, you’re not that sentimental.”

“You don’t know that,” he said, handing her one of the glasses of wine and sliding across from her into the horseshoe-shaped booth. He lifted his own glass in a toast. “Happy Birthday, Sarah.”

She studied his face, searching for some hint of how he expected her to answer. He had to know that showing up there like that—wearing what he was wearing—would catch her off guard. And then remembering her birthday—what did he think she was going to say?

But before she could come up with the right line, whatever it was, Burke leaned forward and said in a low voice, “Come on, Red. Take the night off. It’s your birthday—you’re entitled.”

“Fraternizing with the enemy, huh?” Chapman’s booming voice interrupted as he shambled toward their table. “Or is it cavorting?”

Keeping his gaze on Sarah, Joe slowly leaned back. “Both. Want to join us?”

Sarah widened her eyes at him, but Joe ignored her.

“Sure,” Chapman said. He made a move for Sarah’s side of the booth, but Joe stopped him.

“No, why don’t you sit over here, Paul.”

Joe made room for Chapman by scooting closer to Sarah’s side. She pressed her foot down hard against the top of Joe’s. He pretended not to feel it.

But he reached beneath the table for her hand, and gave it one quick squeeze before letting go.

“I’m celebrating,” Chapman announced.

“Why’s that?” Joe asked.

“You two are going to have to start getting along without me. I made a deal yesterday. Thanks to Sarah here, I’m going home.”

Sarah didn’t feel like asking any follow up questions, mainly because she knew she didn’t need to. Paul Chapman was one of those people who viewed any conversation as an opportunity to monologue.

“I told them, ‘If you expect me to start spending even more time out of the office and traveling to even more cities just because that psychopath Sarah Henley’—no offense,” he added, which Sarah thought was uncharacteristically sensitive of him, “—‘thinks she’s going to show everybody up and act like some hot shot just so she can bill every last dime out of this case before it settles . . . ’” He paused to take a sip of his drink. “‘…then you’re either going to have to pay me a bigger bonus this year or let me farm it out to one of the associates. Because I am done here. Finito,’” he said, in what Sarah thought might be an attempt at Italian.

Joe’s hand was on hers again under the table. He gave it another quick squeeze, perhaps signaling something, Sarah thought, but instead of letting go this time, he held on.

“So they’re sending out one of the underlings, starting next week,” Chapman continued. “Good luck with that. Those new kids don’t know what the hell they’re doing.”

The server showed up then, and took their orders. Joe still held Sarah’s hand.

“That’s all you’re eating?” Chapman said after Sarah asked for several sides of vegetables. “No wonder you’re skin and bones.”

While Chapman instructed the server in the proper preparation of his meat, Joe pretended to study his menu so he could whisper to Sarah behind it. “I like the way you look. Always have. But especially now.”

“What happened to keeping your distance?” Sarah whispered back.

“I decided to take tonight off, too.”

Sarah allowed herself to hold his hand a moment longer, then drew it away. Joe let her go. But he widened his legs just enough to make contact with hers. And she let him.

This wasn’t the dinner she had dreamed of for her 30th birthday. Exhibit A: Paul Chapman, back to droning endlessly about himself. Exhibit B: Joe Burke, sitting close enough to her now she could feel the heat radiating off his body and that familiar pull of gravity that made her want to slide over one more inch, two, until she could drape her leg over his, let him run his hand up her thigh, up to where there was already evidence that she wasn’t as immune to him as she pretended, and her body had its own ideas about what kind of special birthday treat it might like—

Sarah deliberately moved away from Joe again. He might be taking the night off, but she couldn’t. Couldn’t afford to. Not now, not ever.

Not without losing too much in the bargain.

***

Sarah yawned. She made a point of never drinking on these trips because she knew she’d feel too fuzzy-headed in the morning. But she didn’t mind feeling that way now, thanks to the wine, especially since it helped turn Chapman’s monologue into white noise in the background while she concentrated on what was happening underneath the table.

She wasn’t sure which of them moved first—it could have been either—but it wasn’t long before they sat leg to leg again, Joe’s hand resting comfortably on top of her thigh.

“Right,” he’d say to Chapman, or “Yep,” while at the same time letting his hand roam upward on Sarah’s slick pajama pants, the heat inside her building with each centimeter he climbed higher, until finally she had to capture his fingers and push them back to safe territory. They sat there that way for a while, fingers intertwined while they ate and drank with their outside hands—Sarah trying to maneuver her fork left-handed, which was a challenge—and then Joe’s hand began drifting upward again and Sarah had to guard the gates.

It was a tease and a seduction and a game they both knew, but Sarah had little desire to stop it. Maybe it was the wine, maybe it was the birthday, or maybe it was just the fact that she had let him get this far, and she didn’t care anymore where it went. Not tonight. Just this once.

He stroked his thumb across the top of her hand now, the movement slow and rhythmic, and Sarah had to clamp her lips together to keep the moan from escaping. His touch felt as arousing as if he turned to her in the booth, spread her kimono top open, and took her breasts with his hands and his mouth.

Joe must have noticed her yawn. She had tried to be as obvious about it as possible.

“Listen, Paul,” he said, “I’m going to have to call it a night. I don’t have your kind of stamina.”

Chapman obviously liked that. He chest almost visibly puffed out.

“How about you, Sarah—had enough?” Joe asked.

“Plenty,” she said.

Joe signaled for the check. As soon as it arrived, Sarah reached for it.

“Not on your life,” Joe said, snatching it up. He released Sarah’s hand so he could pull his wallet out of his jeans.

Chapman sat there, making no such move.

But Joe wasn’t shy. “Come on, Paul, let’s have your credit card.” He held out his hand and waited.

Chapman dug out his wallet and took his time pulling out the card. He looked over at Sarah. “What about you, Henley? Or are you pulling the female thing?”

“She’s pulling the female thing,” Joe confirmed. “Dinner’s on you and me tonight.”

“Unbelievable,” Chapman muttered.

Joe ignored him and handed the bill and both credit cards to the server.

“So, you’re one of those?” Chapman asked Sarah. His words had grown more slurred throughout dinner, and his eyes seemed to lose their focus.

“One of what?” Sarah asked coldly.

“A ‘feminist,’” he said, putting finger quotes around it, “when it suits you, and a ‘female’ when it comes to paying for anything?”

“That’s right, Paul,” she said. “You have me all figured out.” She started to exit the booth.

“Is that why you went to law school?” Chapman asked.

Sarah paused for the inevitable follow-up insult.

“To get yourself a husband?” he continued. “Only it didn’t work out, huh? Too much of a ball-buster.”

“Yep, that’s right, Paul,” she said. “Balls spontaneously exploding everywhere I go. You got it.”

Sarah turned to Joe. “Thanks for dinner. It was . . . unusual.”

“I’ll walk you out,” he said.

“Aren’t you afraid for your balls?” she asked for Chapman’s benefit.

“I’m a risk-taker,” Joe answered.

He signed the receipt, then escorted her out of the restaurant.

“What an a*shole,” Sarah muttered.

“He never disappoints,” Joe agreed.

“Why did you invite him?” She’d been dying to ask him that for the last hour they had been trapped.

“To shut him up,” Joe said. “A guy like that would love to tell anyone who’d listen that he saw us having dinner together. I thought I’d spare us the gossip.”

Sarah couldn’t deny the logic. Even though having dinner with that cretin any night, let alone on her birthday, was the last thing she wanted to do.

They walked as far as the lobby, then the two of them paused. They stood close to each other, but not nearly as close as they’d been in the booth. The elevators were behind them, and it would have been easy for Sarah simply to say goodnight and return to her room.

But instead she looked up at Joe. And waited. She wanted to know exactly what he would say next, and exactly what she would say in response. How this game would play out.

“Feel like taking a drive?” he asked.

“Where to?”

“Not far,” he said.

Sarah nodded, as if considering. But there was nothing left to decide. She already crossed that boundary, she realized, by even coming downstairs to dinner. Everything after that felt inevitable.

Still, she kept her eyes locked on his for a moment more, and let the negotiation continue in silence.

The lobby door opened, and a gust of winter wind swept in. Sarah clutched her arms around her chest.

“Here. You’re not dressed for it,” Joe said, removing his hoodie and handing it to her.

She tugged it over her head. And breathed in. It smelled of laundry soap and Joe—unmistakably Joe. His familiar, masculine scent. Just one more reminder of all of the pleasure she once took in his body. And could take again.

She pulled the hoodie all the way down until the hem of it hung to her thighs.

“Ready?” Joe asked.

Sarah nodded.

The two of them walked together to his car, two colleagues out on a short errand, if Chapman happened to notice, two attorneys giving no indication they knew each other beyond a professional acquaintance. There was no touching, no stolen glance, nothing except a smooth entry into the car, the ignition turning right away, Joe pulling out of the parking lot without a moment’s hesitation.

He was right, it wasn’t far. Maybe five minutes away.

“You always have to stay somewhere else, don’t you?” Sarah asked. But she was quickly reaching the point where she didn’t want to talk at all.

They walked into the second lobby together, still not touching or looking at each other, and headed for the elevator. Sarah waited for the doors to close them in before turning to Joe.

“You know it’s just for tonight.”

“I know,” he said.

“It doesn’t change anything.”

“All right.”

Then she told her mind to take the rest of the night off while she let her body take it from there.