Page 375 of Summer Heat
CHAPTER EIGHT
“SO TELL ME, this bad boy reputation of yours—did it start in your personal life and bleed over into the courtroom or vice versa?”
Connor frowned as he helped Abby carry the last of her luggage up to his biggest guestroom, the only one that could accommodate the huge desk he’d relocated from his study.
At first, when she’d arrived at his house with three gigantic suitcases, he’d been shocked and a bit disillusioned. She hadn’t seemed the type.
But now that he saw them each flipped open and filled to the brim with books and folders, and stacks of Xeroxed sheets and scribbled notes, he realized the small duffle bag on her shoulder was the only thing not carrying her research.
Now that seemed much more Abby.
He belatedly considered the question she’d asked. “That depends on who’s doing the commenting about my reputation, I guess. Why?”
“I just wanted to see how accurate I was. Seems you have an unofficial coalition who thinks your licentious ways are going to be your downfall at the firm. I argued it couldn’t possibly be, not with those very qualities being the ones that turned you into the kickass lawyer that’s probably bringing in more money than over half the other lawyers there.” She smirked at the memory. “I don’t think those women like me very much now.”
He leaned against the dresser and scowled, upset not on his behalf but hers. “Who were they? Was this on the night of the cocktail party?”
“Yup. A small group of corporate wives, one of whom I think might be an actual vampire, all rushed over to warn me away from you almost immediately after they saw you talking to me.”
He discharged an irritated breath.
Cassandra and her minions. She was more a shewolf than a vampire but it was still an apt description.
She certainly had a reputation for sucking men dry.
Why his colleague Edward had thought it prudent to become husband number three for her was a complete mystery. “I don’t get why those women gossip about me. I’m not really all that interesting.”
“They seem to disagree. They went on and on about pool hall brawls and sex clubs.”
He rolled his eyes. “The first is only partly true and the second not at all.”
“Aw. Brian will be so disappointed,” she teased. “He’s been making cracks about all your sexual conquests for at least the last decade or so.”
Oh, he has, has he?
He made a mental note to kick Brian’s ass later. “Yeah, well my brother tends to have a flair for the dramatic.”
“Really?” Another impish grin. “So no plundering or pillaging to speak
of?”
Trust a future English professor to get him all hot and horny with choice vocabulary words. “Nope, sorry,” he downplayed.
“I don’t think I believe you,” she sang out, hopping onto the bed and propping herself up on a pillow, heels kicking in the air as if they were about to exchange sleepover stories. “In fact, I think you’re going to have to let me be the judge of that. Tell me the most supremely wicked thing you’ve ever done.”
“I am not having this discussion with you.”
“Why not?” She lowered her gaze down to his zipper, which seemed to be moving telekinetically. “Uncomfortable?”
He crouched over a bit more.
“C’mon. I’m curious about your hedonistic ways,” she kept on, clearly amused by his discomfort. “Are we talking secret society orgies with whips and chains?”
“What?! God, no.”
“Backdoor action? Threesomes?”
He averted his gaze to study a missed stitching in the rug he never noticed before.
