Her answer is an adorable pink blush.
“Dirty, dirty mind.”
Chelsea picks up her knife and fork and gets to work on her meat. I get a depraved kind of enjoyment watching her fork slide between her lips, how she closes her eyes and moans on every other buttery mouthful. Before she’s a quarter of the way finished, I’m readjusting my cock again—trying to make room in the ever-tightening confines of my pants.
“Did you grow up in DC?” Chelsea asks between bites.
I tip the wine bottle, refilling her glass. “We moved around a lot when I was younger. After my father took off, my mom didn’t have a lot of options. She was twenty-four, with a kid, didn’t even have a high school diploma. So she joined the army.”
“Wow. It’s hard to picture her in the army.”
I shake my head, cutting my steak. “Believe me, she’s tougher than she looks. She got her GED and became a military mechanic. We lived on a few different bases when I was a kid. She was never deployed, but they shuffled us around wherever they needed an extra hand.”
“So you were an army brat?”
“Kind of.” You’d think army kids would be disciplined—well behaved—but that’s not always the case. I was forever the new kid, in places where strength was respected above all else. “Kill or be killed” was a big theme. Where the quickest way to prove your worth was to step on everyone else around you. “After she was discharged, we settled in Baltimore.”
Chelsea nods, taking another drink. “And that’s where your mom met Owen?”
“Yeah. He’s a mechanic too—has his own shop. They run it together now.” I smile. “They met when I got into a fight with a couple kids outside his place. He broke it up, called my mother, one thing led to another, they’ve been together ever since. Owen’s good people.”
Chelsea zeroes in on one detail of my explanation. “You got into a fight with a couple of kids?”
“I was a big kid. One-on-one wasn’t really a challenge.”
She grins. “Sounds like you were a troublemaker—like Rory.”
“Troublemaker is an understatement. Rory is a fucking saint compared to me.”
“Becker?”
I turn at the sound of my name and Tom Caldwell approaches our table, smiling. Caldwell’s a bright-eyed, brown-haired, young but hungry prosecutor with the US attorney’s office. A real by-the-book, straitlaced, goody-two-shoes kind of guy. He’s also the prosecutor on my upcoming assault trial against Senator Holten.
“Caldwell.” I nod, shaking his extended hand.
“I thought it was you. How’s it going?”
The interactions between prosecutors and defense attorneys are bizarre. Inside the courtroom, we do our best to eviscerate each other. Outside of it, it’s all friendly handshakes and weekend softball-league games. We’re not supposed to take anything personally—because it’s really not personal. Just business—part of the game.
“Pretty good,” I reply vaguely. “Yourself?”
“I’m good—I’m here with my parents. Showing them around DC.” His gaze turns to Chelsea—and lights up with interest. He probably thinks I don’t notice, but I really fucking do.
Etiquette says I should introduce them. And etiquette can kiss my lily-white ass—pointless set of rules as far as I’m concerned.
But like I said, Tom’s not the type to let much stand in his way. He holds out his hand to Chelsea. “Hi, I’m Tom Caldwell.”
She shakes his hand. “Chelsea.”
“Are you a client of Becker’s?”
She smiles. “No. He’s represents a few members of my family though.”
“They’re in good hands. Becker’s a fine attorney.”
“And your life would be so much easier if I sucked,” I say.
He snorts. “That’s true.” Tom glances toward the entrance. “Well, I should be going. Enjoy your dinner. It was lovely to meet you, Chelsea.” He taps my shoulder. “Jake, I’ll see you in court.”
“Have a good night, Tom.”
As he walks away, Chelsea asks, “Is he a friend of yours?”
I shake my head. “Not particularly.”
We finish our dinner and split a slice of cheesecake for dessert, but no coffee—neither one of us wants to diminish the pleasant buzz of good wine. There’s more moaning, more fruitless readjusting as Chelsea slowly swallows a mouthful of the white, creamy concoction. Fuck—and I accused her of having a dirty mind. My dick pushes against the fabric of my pants the way an inmate strains against the bars of his cell, begging to be set free.