Page 42 of Dial L for Lawyer (Curves & Capital #2)

Caleb

T he apartment door opens and the first thing Serena does is toe off her heels in the entryway and sigh like she's just let out all her ambition.

I want to pick her up and spin her around, but instead I take her purse off her shoulder and put it carefully on the kitchen counter, then hand her a glass of water.

She's quiet, but it isn't the shell-shocked silence of the last few weeks.

This is something else—something more like relief.

Or maybe the tiredness that only comes after a marathon win.

I lean against the counter, just looking at her, memorizing the way her suit jacket sits slightly uneven over her shoulders, her lipstick faded almost completely away but the line of it still ghosting her mouth.

She turns to meet my eyes and the exhaustion in her face is beautiful.

Honest. The kind of honest that breaks hearts wide open.

"If I don’t take the VP job, what would I do instead?" she asks softly.

"Whatever you want," I tell her, and mean it.

If she wants to quit and never work another day, I'd bankroll her pottery habit or drag her to my summer house or strip her out of that suit and spend the next two years convincing her she's already whole.

If she wants to take the job at Luminous and become the youngest VP in company history, I'd pop the champagne and host the biggest party in the city.

Hell, I'd black out Michigan Avenue for a parade if it would make her smile.

Instead of answering, she drinks down half the glass, then leans her forehead against my chest, arms loosely around my waist. I rest my chin on top of her head and let her settle, feeling her tension melt away, letting everything drain out onto the stone floor.

"Can we do nothing tonight?" she asks, voice small. "Like, nothing at all?"

I grin into her hair. "We're overachievers. Our nothing is still better than most people's everything."

She snorts. "Is that a challenge?"

"Absolutely."

I steer her to the couch and drop her into it, then collapse beside her.

We don't touch for a while. It's enough just to be here, just the press of her thigh against mine and the slow pattern of her breath on my sleeve.

At some point I must shift to accommodate her weight, or maybe she just slumps closer on her own, but we end up sprawled and tangled, two work refugees in search of a safe harbor, listening to the low hum of afternoon traffic through the windows.

She lets out a long, shaky sigh. Not the type that signals more words, but the kind that means she's trying to let go of things grown under her skin. I resist the impulse to smooth her hair or kiss her temple. Sometimes it's better to let a person just be.

Eventually, she says, "I feel like I should do something productive. But I can't even move. I'm just... pancakes. I'm a human pancake."

"You want me to roll you off the couch so you can be a true pancake on the floor?"

"I want you to roll me off the couch, then get on the floor with me and stay there forever," she says, voice muffled into my sleeve.

"That can be arranged." I nudge her, and she flops bonelessly onto her back, eyes closed.

"What happens to Radiance?" she asks, eyes on the ceiling. "They instigated and bankrolled all of this. What happens to them?"

"They’ll get their comeuppance. I promise we won’t be letting this go."

"Good. I just..." She trails off, then covers her face with both hands. “I can’t stop thinking about Maya. I mentored her. I vouched for her.”

“You did your job,” I say. “She did hers—without the integrity you have.”

She's quiet for a long moment. Then she lets out a sigh. "I need to wash this day off me."

"Can I run you a bath?"

"Please."

Dropping a kiss on her head, I extract myself from the couch and head to the main bathroom, turning on the taps and adjusting the temperature. I grab the bottle of the bath oil she loves and pour a generous amount under the stream. Lavender and something else—bergamot maybe—fills the room.

When I return to the living room, she hasn't moved.

"Your bath awaits, pancake."

"Carry me?"

I scoop her up bridal style, which is only slightly awkward because she's taller than most women and the suit jacket refuses to hang like anything but an accidental straitjacket. She laughs all the way to the bathroom.

"You're really strong," she says when I lower her gently to the fluffy bathmat. "Is that from carrying your entire law firm on your back?"

"That, and the weight of my own ego. Excellent resistance training."

She lets me peel off her jacket, then unbuttons the blouse herself. The effect is less striptease, more autopsy. She undoes her skirt, then freezes halfway.

"Do you have any idea how much shapewear hurts after a day like this?" she asks, the edge in her voice half joke, half leftover pain.

"Show me," I say. It comes out hungry and soft.

She holds my gaze, then wiggles the black compression monstrosity down her hips and legs, nearly falling over in the process. She makes a face that splits the difference between indignation and relief. "I swear, the person who invented this must've been a torture expert. Or a man."

I step closer, unable to help myself, and run my thumbs along the raw indentations left behind on her waist. "You're beautiful."

"This should be a controlled substance," she grumbles, straightening, and lets the rest of her clothes fall away. She stands there, just her and the bruised marks of a long day, and she's never looked more like herself. "If Maya could see me now, she'd just die laughing."

I shake my head, biting back a grin, and kneel down to press a soft kiss to one of the angry red lines along her hip. She shivers. "You're the bravest person I know." I pull her gently until she's standing naked in front of me. "You don't have to be anything but exactly this, with me."

Her hands slide through my hair, until she's guiding my face up so I'm looking at her. "Get up here and kiss me, Kingsley."

I stand and she barely lets me get upright before she's kissing me hard, desperate, her hands still tangled in my hair.

I let her lead, let her press all the exhausted gratitude and leftover fear and I-am-still-alive into my mouth.

When she pulls back, her eyes are rimmed red but sharp.

Not the watery blur of panic, but the clarity of someone who's finally stopped running from her own ghosts.

"Are you getting in with me or just staring?" she asks, running her fingers along my jaw, her thumb brushing the soft spot under my cheekbone.

I smile, playing along. "I was going to let you have it to yourself, but?—"

She laughs. "Like hell you were."

Her confidence is new and a little raw, but it's real, and it moves me more than any romantic confession ever could.

She steps into the steaming bath, sinking down so fast that the lavender clouds rise instantly around her and fog up the mirror.

I strip quickly, tossing my shirt and slacks into a heap, then slide in behind her, my knees bracketing her body.

She leans back so her shoulder blades fit perfectly to my chest, the curve of her ass a bright, tempting presence.

For a while there's only the sound of water and heartbeats.

Beneath the surface, her calves rest heavy against mine, like even her legs trust me to hold them up.

She drifts, chin tipped back to the ceiling, and I just keep my arms around her, my hands splayed over her belly as the traumas of the day steep out of her bones, one lavender-scented minute at a time.

"In a way, I think being put on leave was good for me," she murmurs, voice echoing off the tile.

"How so?"

"Well, this is the longest I've ever gone without picking up my phone." She turns slightly and lifts her hands out of the water. "I think the muscles in my thumbs are dying."

"That's tragic," I say, catching her hands and kissing both of them. "We could work you up from zero if you need PT." I don't let go of her wrists. "Could start with basic thumb exercises. Or dare I say, a little thumb war?"

She snorts, then sighs, fully relaxing against me. "I feel like I finally stopped running all the time. From everything. To everything. It was exhausting."

"A win for both of us, then." I nuzzle the wet curve of her shoulder.

"You sure you're OK with being the boyfriend of an unemployed corporate disaster?"

"Are you kidding? That's my kink." She laughs again, louder this time, and I feel it vibrate all the way down into her chest, through the water, and back up into my arms holding her afloat.

"It won't be forever." She turns in my arms, water splashing, until she's facing me, her body flush against mine. "Just until I figure out my next move."

"Or until you get sick of me," I say, and she catches that little edge of fear in my voice and just smiles, serene and knowing, like she knows exactly how far she can stretch out in my orbit before she snaps back and collides with me again.

"I don't think that's even possible," she says, fingertips brushing my cheek. "If one of us is running from this, it'll have to be you."

"Bold claim," I say, and she kisses me, wet and lingering, the slide of her tongue deliberate and slow.