Bad Behavior(34)

"What are we doing?" I asked.

"Sleeping together."

"Wait. Sleeping as in sleeping? No sex?"

I sank into his pillow, his clean scent washing over me in a pleasant wave.

"Not tonight." He got in beside me and palmed my ass. "But not because I don't want to."

"Then why?" I yawned.

"That's why. You're exhausted."

He snugged up to my back, spooning me. I wriggled back toward him, trying to get a feel of his dick on my ass. He growled and put a hand on my hip, holding me in place.

"Don't tempt me, angel."

"You never really answered my question. Why do you call me that?" I lay still, content in his arms.

"First, it's part of your name, so it's a legit nickname."

"Sure," I agreed, already drowsing a bit.

"Second, the moment I saw you in that bar, I knew you were a fallen angel, sent to tempt me."

I turned over and nestled into the hollow of his neck, breathing him in. He was a sweet talker, all right.

"Total bullshit," I whispered.

"No, I'm serious."

"You can't tell a girl something like that and ever expect to get rid of her."

"That's what I'm hoping for, angel."





Chapter Seven


I left Vinnie alone the next morning. He'd work faster if I was a nebulous threat, skirting around his periphery. Besides, I'd rolled into work two hours late, so I couldn't exactly jump his ass with a straight face.

I'd slept so well the night before, even with the worry of betrayal hanging over my head. Maybe Lincoln had chloroformed me with that scent of his. Like a secret weapon he used against overwrought, wobbly-kneed women who cried all over him while accusing him of first-degree douchebaggery. Whatever it was, I liked it and wanted more.

Jena greeted me with a slew of papers in one hand and copious notes about missed calls. As per her usual, she tripped on the edge of a rug on her way in and sent the sheaves of paper flying. I tapped my toe as I watched her pick it all up. Sheet by sheet, reordering everything. Tap, tap, tap. This was fun.

Finally she rose and straightened her bright summer blouse-worn in the spring, of course. She read off a litany of calls I needed to return. I enjoyed correcting her on each mispronunciation, like a primary school teacher with a chronically slow student.

But the last name on the list made me stop imagining new ways to make Jena cry. Leon DiSalvo.

I waved her out of my office.

"But I have all these filings," she protested.

"I don't give a fuck. Out. Now!"

She scampered away.

What the fuck did DiSalvo want from me?

DiSalvo had been the client who'd established my white-collar practice. His money built the walls of my firm, paid for the first couple of years of rent, and made me one of the most sought-after fixers for powerful men with dirty money.

Through his influence, I'd become the go-to attorney for white-collar criminals in this city. DiSalvo's money and influence formed the bedrock of my bank accounts. Of my original cache of clients, only Nettles and Tottorio were still in play, though they were moving toward more lawful ventures and needed me less and less. DiSalvo hadn't needed me in years. He lived in Cuba now, a guest of the state, courtesy of my efforts. He'd passed his "business" down to a son who had lawyered up with his husband. Keeping it in the family.

When I met Leon Disalvo, he'd been under indictment for racketeering, money laundering, securities fraud-you name it, he was indicted for it. But I wasn't representing him. Not yet.



       
         
       
        

Instead, I was counsel for one of his underlings, an enforcer who'd caught a murder charge for a particularly violent affair in a New York City sex dungeon. Clarence Sherman had killed a hooker and painted the walls with her blood. He was arrested like that, sitting in a pool of blood and rubbing it into his skin like lotion. I shivered just remembering the slight smile that played on his twisted lips when he told me about what he'd done to his victim during our first attorney-client meeting. Sick fuck.

DiSalvo didn't give two shits about Sherman and didn't care if he went down for the crime. I got appointed in the game of public-defender roulette that passed for justice. Back then, I was fresh out of law school. I was an optimist. I was a public defender who would defend the defenseless against the crushing wheel of the state, give indigents a proper defense, use my legal degree to help those that needed me the most-in other words, lawyer the ever-loving fuck out the deserving downtrodden.

Sherman wasn't the client I imagined when I arrived, dewy-eyed, on the New York legal scene. He wasn't down on his luck. He was a psychopath with mommy issues.