Legal Desire. Lisa Childs

as he stood outside the door of the penthouse apartment in a building on Central Park West, he truly hoped he had found her now. He pressed the bell for the second time and finally, the door opened. Allison McCann leaned wearily against the jamb as if she’d spent the day running from him.

      Had she known he’d been trying to track her down? Had she been purposely eluding him? He wouldn’t have put it past her, especially if she had any inclination that he suspected she was the mole.

      She didn’t look scared, though. She looked...

      Incredibly sexy. So sexy that she struck Trev dumb once again. He couldn’t talk. He could only stare at her.

      She’d looked beautiful earlier that day in a navy blue dress. But then she’d also looked uptight and professional. Now she appeared soft and approachable. Her hair had begun to curl around her face, softening her sharp cheekbones and pointy chin. And while she wore another dress, this one was short, revealing her long, bare legs. Was it a dress or a nightgown? The silky white material was thin, nearly transparent, and clung to her every curve. And she had more curves than he’d originally thought. As he stared, her nipples tightened into points that pushed against that thin material.

      A groan slipped out of his lips as desire coursed through him, heating his blood and hardening his body. She was incredibly sexy.

      But even though she didn’t look like the ice goddess anymore, she sounded like it when she asked, “What the hell do you want?” and her voice reached new icy levels of coldness.

      If not for that kiss, Trev might have bought the ice queen act she played so well. But he couldn’t forget the heat and passion of that kiss.

      So he grinned and replied, “You.”

      “Fuck you,” she replied.

      He laughed and stepped forward, crowding her in the doorway. “That’s why I’m here.”

      Her pale eyes narrowed in a frosty glare. And he wouldn’t have put it past her to slap him. But instead, she laughed and stepped back, letting him inside the penthouse. A wineglass dangled from her fingertips, a deep red sloshing around inside the glass as she walked barefoot down the hall to the living room with its big windows looking out onto Central Park.

      “I really need to fire Edward,” she murmured as she dropped onto the sectional couch in front of those windows.

      Trev’s mind had gone blank again as he stared at her long legs. She’d curled them beneath her on the cushions, like a cat curling up in the sun. “Edward?”

      “My assistant,” she said. “The one who must have told you where I live.”

      That was all Edward had told him for the moment. But Trev had a feeling he could eventually get even more information from her assistant, so he shook his head. “It was easy enough to track down your address through a deed search.”

      Despite how elegant she usually looked, she could swear like a sailor. She could even snort, which she did now. “That’s bullshit.”

      She obviously wasn’t buying his explanation. Edward wasn’t getting easily off the hook with her. But that was his problem.

      Not Trev’s. She was Trev’s problem.

      “Don’t lie to me,” she warned him. “I don’t appreciate being lied to.”

      “How do you know I’m lying?” he asked. Even the guys who’d known him since his teens couldn’t tell when he was lying. He was that good.

      “Because the deed for the penthouse isn’t in my name,” she told him.

      Busted. He hadn’t handled that well. But now he had even more questions, especially since Edward had made it clear it was her place. She wasn’t leasing it. “Is it in your husband’s name?” he asked.

      And he wasn’t entirely joking now. Edward had also made it clear that Trev had no shot with her. He’d had to convince her assistant that all he’d wanted from Allison was her professional services. Fortunately, Edward hadn’t been able to tell that he’d been lying.

      She snorted again. “I’m never getting married.”

      “Again?” Maybe she’d been before and that was why her name was different.

      She shook her head. “Never been. Never will.”

      “What turned you off marriage?” he asked.

      “Maybe I’ve worked too many cases with your partner, Ronan Hall.”

      Ronan was the divorce lawyer. “Ronan became a divorce lawyer because of his parents’ lousy marriage.”

      Her face was like a beautiful mask, hiding all her emotions and reactions but for a slight flinch. He must have hit a nerve. Usually when he did that, he pushed even more to break whomever he had on the stand.

      But Allison wasn’t on the stand. She was on the couch. And she was so damn sexy. He didn’t want her to get mad and toss him out of her place before he’d had a chance to kiss her again. To touch her.

      He pointed at the open bottle on the glass coffee table. “Are you willing to share?” he asked.

      She glanced at it, as if assessing if there was enough left. “Glasses are in the kitchen,” she said, gesturing toward the breakfast bar at the other end of the living room.

      But he dropped onto the couch next to her and reached for her glass. She wouldn’t release the stem, so he just slid his fingers over hers. Her skin was so silky and warm beneath his. His mouth suddenly very dry, he directed the glass to his lips and took a sip from the rim.

      It wasn’t the dry red he would have expected her to drink. This one was full of nuances: berries, chocolate, coffee. It was bold like she’d proven to be. He flicked his tongue across his lower lip, where a drop had fallen, to savor the rich flavor. And her pale eyes darkened, her pupils dilating.

      “Why are you here?” she asked. Her voice wasn’t quite as icy now as it had been when she’d opened the door.

      “I told you,” he said. “I want you.”

      “To manage your campaign,” she said and snorted again.

      He shook his head. “That wasn’t what I was proposing,” he said. “I wanted you to revamp my image, so that I can run for office.” Not that he actually wanted to but he needed a reason to spend time with her—a lot of time.

      “Wanted?” she asked. “Did you change your mind?”

      “Nope,” he said. “But after that kiss today, that’s not all I want from you.”

      He reached out again but not for the glass. Instead, he skimmed his fingertips over those long, bare legs of hers. Her skin was so damn silky, her legs so toned. She must have been a runner. He wanted those legs wrapped around his waist or arched over his shoulders or...

      “You said you weren’t propositioning me for sex,” she reminded him.

      “That was stupid,” he admitted. “I should have been.”

      “Too late now.”

      “You said I had a chance of convincing you to accept that proposition.” A better chance than getting her to work with him on a political campaign. Now he had some idea why.

      If only he’d done a little more research on her before coming up with his plan...

      But after that kiss and the comment she’d made before leaving his office, he’d changed his plan. He was much more excited about this new one than he’d been about pretending to run in an election.

      He trailed his fingers from her calf to her thigh and toyed with the edge of her silk gown. Or was it just a long, loose pajama shirt? Did she wear anything underneath it?

      He wanted to find out, so he moved his fingers up a little higher. And he held his breath,