“So you’re staying in the hotel?” she asked, her gaze never leaving his.
His eyes darkened ever so slightly, a reaction to the implication of her question. “I am. You?”
“No. I came for a celebration,” she said. He still held her hand and his thumb stroked her wrist, sending darts of heat up her arm. “My sister passed the bar exam.”
His brow inched upward. “Impressive. An attorney. Does it run in the family?”
“I guess you could say that. I’m an attorney. My sister is going to work at my father’s firm.”
“You don’t work there?”
“Ah, no.” Too late—she realized how sharp the answer came out.
Judging from the look of interest on Constantine’s handsome face, he hadn’t missed her tone. A couple, arms around each other, walked by and Nicole was darn glad for the diversion. This was a sexy fling, not a place for dirty laundry.
Constantine let go of her hand to reach for his drink, and Nicole felt the loss of his touch instantly. She busied herself by reaching for her drink and taking a long swallow, a bit taken aback by her reaction to this man.
Constantine took a swallow from his longneck beer. “What kind of law do you practice?” he asked.
“Criminal.”
“Which side?”
She tilted her head at the odd question. “What do you mean—which side?”
Just a hint of a smile played on his lips before he lifted his beer and took another drink, apparently not in a hurry to respond. When he set the bottle down, he scooted closer to her, molding their legs together, and resting his arm on the booth behind her.
He enclosed her with his body, in the intimate way a lover encloses his woman, framed her, hiding her from the rest of the room. “Do you get the bad guys off or put them behind bars?”
“I’m a federal prosecutor,” she said, certain the simple declaration would end the strange direction of the conversation.
His free hand settled beneath the hem of her skirt, resting on her knee. Tipping his head downward, Constantine’s lips lingered just above her ear, his warm breath caressing her neck and sending a shiver down her spine.
“Do you like making the rules…or breaking them?” he asked.
The sexual undertone of his question became quite clear. Nicole eased back enough to look into his eyes, her body heavy with desire, her nipples tightening with arousal. “I most definitely make the rules,” she whispered.
His expression held a challenge, a look that said…she was wrong. A look that said he made the rules. “Breaking the rules,” he said, in a voice so sultry, it stroked her nerve endings and further drew her under his spell, “can be quite…enjoyable.”
As if to prove his point, his hand inched up her thigh, beneath the red tablecloth, to touch her lap. He caressed and teased her sensitive flesh, so close to her core. So close…She sucked in a breath as his fingers brushed the damp silk between her thighs.
“I don’t break the rules,” Nicole managed to respond, her hand sliding beneath the table to still his, their eyes locked in a smoldering standoff. “I make people who do, pay for their bad behavior.”
“Really?” Constantine asked, with clear interest in his tone. “A real good girl, are you?” He nudged her legs a bit farther apart and then maneuvered their hands so that hers settled on top of her core. His forehead settled against hers and he said softly, “You aren’t acting like such a good girl right now, Nicole.”
The way he said her name—with a roll of the L—made her hot. She couldn’t answer him, biting her lip to hold back a moan, as their combined fingers brushed along the tiny silk barrier of her panties. His lips brushed her ear as he murmured something in Spanish that she didn’t understand. Then he said, “I like a woman who knows when to take charge,” and his fingers worked with hers to shove aside the panties and brush her swollen clit. “A woman who knows how to get results.”
Her lashes fluttered, her mind lost in her body’s demands. Her fingers worked with his, sliding along the slick folds of her core, gently caressing. Teasing. When Constantine inserted one long finger inside her body, she could barely breathe for the pleasure. He cupped her mound with both their hands, massaging even as he stroked her inner wall.
“Come for me, baby. You’re so wet. I know you want to come.”
He got that right. She was barely containing her desire to rock with the motion of his hand, or rather their hands. “I…I…oh…”
She fought a moan that would surely draw unwanted attention. But it just felt so…good. She couldn’t hold back. She needed this, needed release so badly.
As if Constantine knew what she struggled with, his mouth covered hers, swallowing the sound of gratification before it filled the room. It was a kiss that branded her with sensual heat, his tongue delivering such perfection it seemed to stroke her clit just as his thumb did.