Laffaire C 16

As much as Liam liked Jack he was ready for this dinner to be over. He had wanted to get a quick bite to eat with Carly and then go back to her apartment and be alone again. Certainly being alone with her was all he could think about now, as she made her way back to the table from the bathroom. It seemed like every male eye in the room was on her, watching lean legs negotiate through the restaurant in her skinny jeans, watching the curve of her ass and the curve of her chest. Could he blame anyone? It was impossible to miss the way the fabric of her thin striped cotton t-shirt stretched across ample breasts. She was stunning. He wanted to punch everyone in the face. It didn't help having to sit through dinner pretending he didn't want to touch her, or kiss her neck right under her ear, or draw her hand into his lap and—he forced the thought from his head. Why was he torturing himself?

"We should get going," Jack said, finally rising as Carly made it back to the table.

About fucking time.

Ally, who had looked half-asleep for the last five minutes, hopped to attention and made a mad dash to grab her coat, anxious to leave. Liam had to remind himself throughout dinner not to talk too much shop, knowing Jack's new fiancée was not a fan of lawyers or lawyering despite the looks of pure devotion she bestowed on Jack.

"We should head out, too," Carly said, though Liam would have rather waited until Jack and Ally left, to minimize the chance they would get stuck in small talk outside the door. He needn't have worried. Ally, God bless her, was twenty feet down the sidewalk headed in the opposite direction of Carly's apartment while Jack rushed through his goodbyes while simultaneously running backwards and looking chagrinned.

"I was not ready for that," Carly said, sounding forlorn. "Is that okay, do you think? You don't think he'll tell anyone?"

Liam shrugged into his coat, eyeing her quizzically, "You mean like your dad?" It maybe wasn't the fairest question in the world. He no more wanted the firm's managing partner to know about his relationship with Carly than she did.

"You don't think he'll tell him?" Carly looked worried, and luckily was too worried to pick up on any negative implications of his question. He didn't want to start an argument. Sometimes he couldn't help but feel like she was keeping her black boyfriend a secret from daddy, as unfair as that perception may have been, and sometimes is just seemed like her secrecy had nothing to do with him, had more to do, instead, with her getting involved with someone so close to the time that her ex filed for divorce. Carly was the wronged party, had been cheated on, but would people think they maybe she wasn't as wronged as they thought? That she might have had her own affairs? That he himself might have played a part in breaking up her marriage? Is that what his boss would think?

He fell into step beside her, lost in thought, and allowed her to pull him down an alley that was clearly a detour from their path. They were halfway down the alley when the smell of garbage from a nearby dumpster drew him back to the present. "Where are we going?"

Carly smiled back at him from over her shoulder, holding a finger to her lips and making a shushing sound. She found them a spot between two dumpsters and pushed Liam against the wall. They were shielded from sight but it was only when she pressed herself against him and started unbuttoning his pants that he realized why.

"Carly, we can't do this here," he looked around excitedly, but though he saw some pedestrians walking along the main road they had no one's attention. While not pitch black, the alley was not well lit.

His cock was out of his pants and in her hand and Liam shuddered, letting his head fall back against the brick building, trying to gather the presence of mind required to stop her. "Carly," he whispered.

"I'm not Carly," she said, kissing him, though not tenderly. She held his bottom lip between her teeth for a moment before releasing it. "I'm just a whore sucking your cock in an alley." She stroked his dick with her hand. Suddenly he was impossibly hard. As a black man he was not particularly interested in getting caught with his dick out in public- lawyer or not he wasn't the type of guy most cops let off with a warning. But, dammit, this was hot.

"Then why aren't you sucking it?"

Carly licked her lips, kept working him with her hand. "You haven't paid me yet," she said, licking his neck. The only thing he needed in the world right now was her mouth on his cock, so he started fumbling in his coat for his wallet. She smiled as she stroked him, teasing. Liam pulled out a bill and shoved it into her free hand.

"$20? That'll only get you a couple minutes, mister. And you can't finish in my mouth for no $20, okay?"

"How much?" he almost choked on the words. At this point he might only need a few minutes, and the fears of arrest and charges of public indecency were fading fast as hard as he was trying to remember the risk.

"What do you want?" she kissed him, nibbled him.

"I want to come in your mouth." He couldn't believe how hot this was getting him.

"Spit or swallow?"

Fuck!

"Swallow it."

Carly smiled, let go of his cock and held out her hand. "Another forty."

He handed it over, hoping no one in any of the buildings around them were watching, or recording, or calling the police. Carly sank to her knees and took him into her mouth.

"Oh God," he moaned, watching her cheeks sink in as she sucked on him. He put a hand on her head, buried it in her hair, but she brushed it off, pausing long enough to glance up at him reproachfully.

"No rough stuff," she said. "Not for what you're paying."

He bit back a smile in an effort to remain in character. He wondered if she was as turned on as he was. He wondered how long he could hold on before exploding. She pulled her face back from his crotch and he looked down at her, trying to see her expression, but it was too dark to see the look on her face, to read her expression. He stopped trying and focused instead on the sensations she was creating. She wrapped her small hand around the base of his cock and stroked him a few times, the motions smooth, his shaft slick from her saliva. She looked up at him as she slid her mouth over the first four inches, then slowly, slowly, inching down. She went down slow, and when he felt her throat tight on the tip of his cock he thought she'd pull back and tease him more. But she didn't. Like a woman on a mission, she just kept going, her throat getting tighter, and Liam's cock jumped involuntary at the sudden sexy constriction, though it was clamped by her lips and mouth and throat and didn't move.

Slowly, tentatively, he started thrusting his hips, half expecting her to pull back and chastise him. But she didn't. Instead she took it, and she moaned- the vibration in her throat that accompanied the sound nearly made him lose it. He shifted his feet, widening his stance, and kept thrusting, and there was a word for it. Fucking. He fucked her face as she kneeled on the dirty concrete in front of him, massaging his balls with both thumbs as they tightened. He wondered how wet she was, imagined how damp her panties were, imagined the smell of her sex. He had a thousand feelings on the tip of his tongue, and he suddenly wanted to divulge all of them, to let her know how much he thought about her, how much he wanted her, how hard he was falling for her, but the words stuck in his throat. He didn't want to interrupt their role-play with romance; she clearly was not after romance at the moment. And he was so close he was losing the ability to form coherent thoughts, anyway.

"I don't want to finish so quick," he hissed as her effort intensified, sliding back off of him, applying delicious suction, sliding back onto him again. She didn't back off, kept up stroking the base as she worked him. He could feel his orgasm building, worked to hold it at bay as he felt his balls tighten and twitch. Was he imagining that? It was hard to tell, but he was sure he felt a pressure building, throbbing, pushing. Liam tried to think about something—

anything

—else, but couldn't. Too soon the thrust of his hips became involuntary and suddenly it was upon him and his cum burst out in thick, ropey, satisfying spurts.

Carly rocked back onto her heels, and he watched as she swallowed then wiped her mouth with her sleeve, smiling slyly at him as she stood up from her squat in one effortless motion. She made a circle in the air with her index finger, pointing in the general direction of his aching genitals, and said, "You should put that away."

Liam pulled up his boxers and pants, wondering whether they had picked up any life-threatening bacteria from the truly filthy alley, when he realized she was on the move. He jogged to catch up with her, reached for her elbow and gave it a squeeze as he fell in step beside her. She looked pensive, if not exactly upset.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

She gave him a smile that told him she was still in character, "Your time is up. I'm headed home for the night."

"Want some company?"

"No. You know, you're being very clingy," she said this teasingly, "most men don't pay a prostitute for sex, they pay them to leave when sex is over."

Liam could see he wouldn't be spending the night in her bed. "Okay," he said, "but at least let me walk you home."

Carly nodded and they walked side-by-side back to her apartment building, into the elevator in the lobby, and down the hallway to her apartment all in complete silence. She was thinking, he could practically see the wheels turning in her head, but she did not look inclined to share her thoughts with him. Their relationship was so new that he wasn't sure how far he could push to find out what she was thinking, and he worried that her thoughts were on him, and that they weren't positive.

He felt exposed, standing at her door in silence with his hands in his pockets as she unlocked her deadbolt and pushed the door open. He didn't know what to say, didn't know what, if anything, would help, what might ease the tension in the situation, what might lift the weight pressing down on his chest. He had intended to follow her inside the apartment, make a joke of it while making it clear that role-play was over and he was ready for bed now, but, because of his distraction Carly was on the other side of the door, smiling slyly as she started to close it.

"Goodnight," she said, her voice low and sexy, but he feared this moment was less about the role-play and more about something coming between them. Was this because they'd run into Jack? Or had it been building before then? Liam couldn't quite pin down where the night started to feel wrong. They had started their flirtation with fire, sarcasm and innuendo, but she hadn't insulted him in some time.

He opened his mouth to say something, her name maybe?, but the door closed with a gentle click. He heard the deadbolt slide again, and he listened but he didn't hear footsteps. Neither of them moved. He would have bet money she was standing on the other side of the door, still and silent. Was she waiting for him? Would she open the door any second now, smiling and laughing, role-play over and his girlfriend back? The word was like a glass of cold water in his mind.

Girlfriend?

Is that what she was? Or was she a lover? A friend with benefits? Was he a dalliance for her?

Liam stepped closer to the door, rested his forehead on it, and sighed. His hand came up to knock, but instead he just pressed his palm against the door like it was prison glass between them.

_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

It wasn't the first time Nicki had been in Matt's house, but it was all still so new that she felt awkward, like she might inadvertently break something just by being somewhere she shouldn't have been. She couldn't point out what was making her so uncomfortable, besides the whole hellish day. Karsa had sent his goon to follow her around the mall, she'd had to drive that ridiculous truck and make a fifteen point turn just to get out of the parking garage, she hadn't felt comfortable buying the clothes she liked and ended up hate-shopping and she hadn't even been able to pick up a vibrator because of her audience so unless Matt was in the mood she was going to have another terrible night after Matt dropped her back off at Karsa's house. She didn't get the feeling Matt was in the mood.

He had picked her up at Kovac's house, she was not a practiced driver and didn't want to drive at night, and taken her back to his house where they were going to order take-out and watch a movie. She watched Matt pawing through take-out menus with a sinking feeling. Sure enough, he said, "I can't find anything appetizing. Why don't we just go out to eat?" Her chances of getting any tonight dipped below 50%.

Nicki forced a smile, "Sure. I'm starving." She wasn't hungry at all.

They went to a bar that served beer and fresh baked pretzels. She drank too much beer and ate too little pretzel. Matt ate enough for three people. Slowly, her fear and her bad mood drained. It was hard not to connect the good feelings to the drink, and she drank more than Matt.

It was a bar near his house, and she found she was glad when they were joined by people he knew, one of them another teacher at the high school. They sat at the booth, Matt's arm casually draped across her shoulders, and laughed with her new friends and she smiled so much that her cheeks started to hurt. She found herself stealing glances at Matt when he was telling stories, mostly football stories, watched his freckles dance when he scrunched up his nose. An hour passed before she realized that everyone had been talking but her, that it had been quite some time since anyone had required her opinion on anything at all. Another burst of laughter came from Matt and he played with her hair as he listened to a cute brunette, a psychiatric nurse and the wife of the other teacher, describe an incident with a particularly disturbed patient.

Nicki suddenly felt very drunk and afraid of talking, afraid she would say the wrong thing or embarrass Matt and ruin what was otherwise a pleasant evening. Sensing nothing, Matt squeezed her shoulders, mouthed "you okay?" when she glanced at him, which only made her more certain her inebriation was obvious. She wanted to go home, and not to Kovac's house, she wanted to go home to her apartment where she could process the events of the last couple days—and not just the days before the fire. She could feel things changing between herself and Matt, even now as they were sitting in a loud bar, the music and the crowd crushing down on them, and her body was so present and so aware of him at the same time that her mind wandered away from this table where they sat and instead landed on a man she neither needed nor wanted and certainly didn't like. A man that brought her to his house, that gave her access to an automobile and his credit cards... a man whose housekeeper came by this afternoon. The woman obviously loved him, was protective of him, and as much as she didn't want to admit it Nicki was starting to see why someone might develop fond feelings for him.

But you could like a person without liking what they did, and it was a superficial kind of liking, wasn't it? A person could treat their friends and family, their household employees and their clients well, and still they could be despicable. And wasn't he despicable? She was too drunk to know right now. But she wasn't sitting here thinking about what a good man she had, she was thinking about someone else. And it was all so predictable, because didn't she always find herself drawn to the bad boy? Weren't they always more interesting than the decent boys? Weren't their stories more interesting to tell? Isn't that all she wanted in her career? Interesting stories to tell? Was it possible that her attraction to Kovac was an intellectual curiosity, an extension of her career as a reporter? Wasn't it possible she was very, very drunk?

She lost track of time and missed the last thirty minutes of the evening entirely, but Matt was still chatting to her as they left the bar, his arm supporting hers because she was having trouble walking. Surely he knew she was drunk? How had she gotten so drunk? Was he drunk? Not as drunk as she was.

He had to help her into his SUV, and once in, she relaxed back into the seat. She no longer wanted sex from him, she couldn't have managed the effort to make it worth his while, she was on the verge of passing out. Sighing, she leaned her head back against the seat, tried to will the world to stop spinning. She would apologize to him tomorrow, apologize if she embarrassed herself, or was otherwise rude. His head bumped hers and he said, "Sorry," and she opened her eyes to figure out why in the hell his head was so close to hers and she realized that he had leaned over to grab her seatbelt, was in the process of buckling her in, like a child.

Nicki groaned, "Oh no."

Matt smiled, smile lines appearing around his eyes. He looked boyish and upbeat. "What's wrong?"

Nicki pouted, "I drank way too much. Why did I drink so much?"

Matt kissed her, a soft peck on the lips that did little to comfort her. "It's okay; you don't have to work tomorrow. It's okay to have a little fun."

She wanted to point out that maybe he forgot she didn't have work tomorrow because maybe she had been suspended without pay and that maybe he wasn't taking her situation all that seriously. The car smelled faintly of gym socks, and she started to feel a little ill. Was it too soon in the relationship to start a fight? Certainly it was bad form. Especially drunk fighting, drunk fighting was really bad form.

"Do you want to go back to your place?" she asked. If she went to his place she could pass out and not have to face her attorney. Why was she living with her attorney?

"I don't think that's a good idea, Nicki," Matt said. It was clear it was not up for discussion. It didn't seem to bother him all that much that she would be going home tonight to another man. If he found it off he certainly hadn't said so, but then she imagined he must have known unless he was going to offer her a place to stay there wasn't much point in arguing about someone else's offer. She wanted to accuse him of not caring—what if something happened between herself and Karsa? Would he even care? But maybe that wasn't fair, when everyone knew she loathed Karsa Kovac—didn't she?

"No, you're right," she said, seeing he was uncomfortable and trying to smooth out the air between them before she ruined the rest of the evening. "I get it, you're right. I should get back, though."

He kissed her, softly, tenderly, bringing a hand up to cup her cheek. He was close. Cute. Sexy. He kissed her again, his mouth moving over hers with confidence and skill. Some parts of him were so boyish and cute, and other parts were nothing but man. She was sad when the kisses ended and he started the car, pulled out into the street and made his way back toward Kovac's house on the hill.

*****

Karsa had worked late into the day. He worked late enough that he thought surely Nikki would be asleep by the time he made it back to the house. But she wasn't asleep. She wasn't anywhere in the house.

At some point, before she left, she had been sitting in front of his TV and drinking his 30 year single malt Scotch. She wasn't paying him, so with the loss of the Scotch and her trip to the mall he was now in the red on her case. His constant preoccupation with her was not helping matters.

In any event it was probably for the best. Karsa wasn't sure that he was ready to face her again. It had been a long day filled with victories that didn't feel like victories. Her ex had developed an unwillingness to cooperate. The DA was considering dropping all charges related to the stabbing but the detectives had no leads on her apartment fire. Her criminal case was inching closer to a resolution but he worried if he let her know she no longer needed a defense attorney that she would flee. And while she may not need a lawyer, she was in need of protection. And dammit if he wasn't feeling protective.