“One of them. If it helps, I felt bad for objectifying you, especially when it was clear you weren’t much of a fan.”

  “I was always a fan, Dax, I just thought you were a jerk.”

  “I can make up for that. I’ll start my penance right here.” He kisses a path along the edge of my panties from my hip to the apex of my thighs. Lifting his gaze, he parts his lips, tongue pressing against me through the fabric.

  I suck in a breath and latch on to his hair. A moment later he slips one finger under the edge, barely brushing my clit. In a smooth surge he rises, mouth suddenly on mine as he shifts my panties to the side and slides two fingers into me. I grip his shoulders, disoriented as he spins me around, and find myself laid out on the couch.

  “You know what else I need?” Dax kneels between my legs.

  “To get me naked?”

  “Definitely, but more than that I need to see you come. It really is my favorite thing in the whole world.”

  “So no pressure or anything?” I laugh, but I’m actually nervous. Last night I was focused on the feel of him inside me when I came. I don’t think that’s his plan now.

  He doesn’t answer, just drags my panties down my legs, pulls me to the edge of the couch, and drops his head. I roll my hips as his mouth moves against me, his deep groans and the sweet sting of his teeth pushing me closer to the edge.

  I press my palm to my lips, a moan caught in my throat. Dax replaces his mouth with his fingers, thumb circling my clit while he strokes the spot inside that sets my whole body on fire.

  “That’s it, right there. That’s the thing you do that drives me insane.” He rises up, hooking my leg under his arm, spreading me wider as he braces his palm on the back of the couch.

  “What thing?” I ask. Fingers still at my lips, I bite one, whimpering with his next curl inside me.

  “What you’re doing right now. When you cover your mouth or bite your knuckle. It’s just so fucking sexy, like you’re shocked you can feel this good and you’re trying to stay in control.”

  “That’s because I am,” I whisper.

  “Shocked or trying to stay in control?”

  “Both.”

  “Why shocked?”

  The next finger flutter is hard and fast. I swivel my hips and turn my face into my shoulder, my orgasm almost within reach.

  “Look at me, Kailyn. Why?”

  “Because no one’s ever made me feel out of control except for you.”

  He crushes his mouth to mine as I come, waves of pleasure making my body jerk and tremble. He gets as far as unbuckling his belt and unzipping his pants when his phone rings. I cry out as he rubs the head of his erection over my sensitive clit.

  The ringing doesn’t stop, though, so I glance at the lit-up screen. “It’s Emme.”

  “Fuck.” Dax’s head drops to my chest and he fists my bunched skirt with a shaking hand. “Fuck. I have to answer.”

  “I know. Get it before it goes to voicemail.” I scramble to right myself and grab the phone from the table, bringing it to his ear. He turns his head away and clears his throat into his shoulder before he speaks. “Hey, kiddo! How’s it going?” He sits back on his knees, and his eyes roll up as he tucks himself into his pants. “Oh yeah? You’re having a good time, then? You did what?” His eyebrows lift, and then he frowns as I push my skirt over my hips. “Oh, really? I’m glad to hear you wore a helmet. Yeah. She’s actually here with me right now. Of course you can talk to her.”

  Dax holds out the phone, exhaling a deep breath as I take it from him. “Hey, Em, are you having fun this weekend?”

  She tells me all about her zip-lining experience, and says they’re going to see a movie later and that some boy named Clark has already asked if she’ll hang out with him at the dance.

  “How about you? Are you having fun?” Emme asks.

  “It’s a pretty boring conference.” Dax rests his forehead on my knee and I run my fingers through his hair. “But at least I have Dax to keep me company.”

  “Yeah. He’s fun sometimes. Okay, well, I should probably go, we’re going out for lunch soon. Marnie’s mom wants to talk to Dax for a minute. Will I see you soon?”

  “Definitely, we’ll make a plan.”

  “Awesome.”

  I pass the phone back to Dax, and he okays whatever plans they have before he ends the call and tosses the phone on the coffee table. “Is it bad that I’m enjoying not being a parent this weekend?”

  I give him a sympathetic, reassuring smile. “It makes you human. You’re allowed to miss your freedom, especially when it was taken from you so unexpectedly.”

  “That’s exactly it, isn’t it? It’s a lot of responsibility, and the people who would normally help me through it are gone.”

  “You’re handling it well.”

  “I don’t want to talk about this right now. I only have another twenty-four hours with no responsibilities to get in the way.” He picks me up and carries me to the bed, his mouth on mine, hard and demanding this time. The sex is the same.

  Half an hour later I’m stretched out along Dax’s side, one leg thrown over his, while his fingers trail gently up and down my arm. His phone rings from across the room and he sighs heavily.

  “I can check to see who it is, if you want.” I push up and roll off the bed, not waiting for his reply. We can’t ignore phone calls when someone else is in charge of Emme’s care.

  The caller ID comes up as his work. “It’s someone from your firm. Do you want to take it?”

  “Yeah. I probably should.”

  I rush the phone over and he answers before it goes to voicemail. It’s already four in the afternoon, we’ve missed the panel we were planning to attend, and I’m sure the opportunity for drinks with former classmates has passed. Dinner is in a couple of hours, and it might be good to go down to the hotel bar and be social for a while, even if the idea isn’t all that appealing. And I don’t want that gorgeous dress to go to waste.

  Before I have a chance to make a move, Dax sits up and grabs my wrist. At my questioning look he shakes his head and presses the phone to his chest. “Don’t get dressed yet,” he whispers.

  I climb back up on the bed, still naked just like he is. The conversation lasts about ten minutes, during which time I grab his laptop so he can make notes about a case he needs to follow up on when he’s in the office on Monday.

  “Sorry about that,” he says after he ends the call, tossing his phone on the nightstand. He closes the laptop and moves it as well. “I don’t know what the point of that was. It could’ve waited until Monday.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah. Freeman is still getting used to the fact that I can’t work ninety hours a week. He forgets that people have lives on the weekend and we don’t all work twenty-four hours a day seven days a week.”

  I swallow down the lump in my throat. “Have you given any more thought to the possibility of switching firms?”

  “It’s starting to look a lot more desirable. I can’t keep these hours up, and my priorities have changed. As much as I want partner, I think you’re right about waiting on that, at least until Emme’s more settled and so am I. And money isn’t a driving force like it used to be.”

  “Well, I’m sure the salary would be comparable at Whitman. I think you have to do whatever is going to make life easier.”

  “It’s obviously an excellent firm, since Beverly was smart enough to snatch you up right out of law school.” He grabs me by the waist and rolls on top of me, fitting himself between my thighs. “I’d get to see you every day if I switched to your firm, wouldn’t I?”

  “You would.”

  “I think I’d like that, a lot. But the pencil skirt uniform might create some embarrassing problems.”

  Dax drops me off at my place in the early afternoon on Sunday. He invites me for dinner but I blew off Holly this morning for our standing brunch date, so I’m making up for it with an early dinner. I also need an Epsom salt bath and a little space after such an intense weekend.

  I squeeze in a short bath before I pick Holly up and drive us to the market. My thighs are tight, my calves ache, and even the arches of my feet are sore, possibly from all the toe curling.

  “How was the conference?” Holly asks as we grab coffees and stroll along the promenade. The funky little shops remind me of my mom. When I was young we’d come to the market, or hit all the garage sales on the weekend in search of hidden treasures. My house is an eclectic mix of art pieces scavenged from various sales over the years. None of my plates and cups match, because they’re more of the same, items purchased during adventures with Holly or my parents. My house is where I let my nostalgia hang out. Although I do keep useful memorabilia at work in the form of mugs.

  “It was good. I ran into a few old classmates, caught up a bit.”

  “And how was Daxton?” Holly isn’t much of one for beating around the bush, and I already told her he was going to be there. Until now I haven’t mentioned the progression from enemies to friends to lovers, but I can’t keep this to myself anymore.

  “Kailyn?” she prompts when I don’t answer right away. “What’s going on between you two?”

  “We slept together.”

  She comes to a halt in the middle of the street. “I’m sorry, can you repeat that? I swear you said you slept with him, but I must’ve heard that incorrectly.”

  A few people glance our way. “Keep it down!”

  “None of these people know you, and I’m sure most of them would applaud you for sleeping with a hot former actor.” Holly threads her arm through mine and leads me away from the thick crowd, down a side street. “I don’t know what to say. Is this like a cathartic hate fuck, or what?”

  “Uhh…I think it falls more into the ‘or what’ category.”

  Holly gives me a pensive look before she asks, “Is he any good?”

  “Are sloths slow?”

  “Want to rate him for me? Like on a scale of Jason Momoa to Ryan Reynolds, where would he be?”

  “I had multiple orgasms.”

  She stops and grabs me by the shoulders, eyes wide. “No.”

  “Multiple orgasms, multiple times.”

  Holly hugs me. “My God. You need to keep him forever.”

  I laugh, but my stomach drops, because I have no idea where this thing is going with us, not just with Dax, but with everything surrounding him.

  Holly steps back. “I need to know more, and I think we need alcohol.”

  Dax and I were like college kids with the sex and the drinking this weekend, but I might need a little something to calm my nerves. Confiding in Holly is necessary, but it also means I have to face the truth, and I’m not sure I’ll like it.

  We find a little pub and hole ourselves up in the back corner.

  “So multiple multiples, huh?” Holly asks after we’ve ordered drinks and appetizers.

  “Yup.” I fiddle with my napkin, the flush in my cheeks echoed in other parts of my body.

  “Is he like—” She makes some hand motions and I realize she’s asking about size.

  “Everything is very proportional.”

  “Nice.”

  The server drops off our drinks, and Holly waits until she’s gone before she raises her glass. “To multiple multiples and being proportional.”

  I clink my glass against hers and chuckle. My phone buzzes on the table. It’s Emme. “I need to check this.”

  It’s a few pictures from the weekend. The last one is a selfie of Emme making a ridiculous face, thumbing over her shoulder. In the background is Dax, head tipped back, mouth hanging open, fast asleep on the couch. I message back that I’m out with a friend and that she should probably let her brother sleep.

  “Sorry about that.” I slip my phone into my purse.

  Holly regards me with wary curiosity. “So apart from sleeping together this weekend, what’s going on with you and Dax? Is this just a casual thing?”

  I focus on my drink. “I don’t know.”

  “Aren’t you trying to get him to come over to your firm? How are you going to sleep with him and work with him?”

  I bite my thumbnail. The nagging worries I’ve been hiding from since this entire thing started with Dax envelop me like a cold fog. “I haven’t really figured that out yet.”

  “Well, don’t you think you should?” Her voice is laced with concern. “What’re you doing?”

  “It just happened.” I can’t believe I just said those words to my childhood best friend.

  She leans back in her chair and crosses her arms over her chest. “Oh no. Things don’t just happen with you. You can’t tell me you haven’t thought about all of the potential repercussions before you fell into bed with him. Is it unethical for you to be sleeping with him?”

  “Technically, no, since Dax isn’t my client. I’m sleeping with my client’s brother, so maybe it’s morally ambiguous, but it’s not unethical.”

  “Is there a but in there somewhere that I missed?”

  “There’s no but. I just didn’t expect to feel this way about him,” I admit.

  “And how do you feel about him?”

  “I like him.”

  I get another raised eyebrow from her. “You like him?”

  “A lot.”

  Holly sighs. “Do you mean you like the nostalgia of your teen crush?”

  “The crush died at the end of law school. This isn’t based on the past, Holls. I like him, who he is as a person, the things that make him who he is, the guy who calls me up on a Friday night for Aisle of Red advice and then walks around with a box of incontinence products because he doesn’t know any better. The guy who sends me flowers and funky pens because he knows I like them. He’s different.”

  Our appetizers arrive and we once again wait for the server to leave before we resume the conversation.

  “I know it’s a complicated situation,” I admit.

  “Does his sister know there’s something going on between you two?”

  I shake my head. “Of course not.”

  “So she thinks you’re friends? Kailyn, this isn’t just about liking some guy who’s good in the sack. He comes with baggage, the heavy kind.”

  “I know that.”

  “He’s suffered a huge trauma. You can’t walk into this without weighing all of the consequences.”

  “I know that, too.”

  “Do you? Because it doesn’t seem like you’re considering very carefully what the fallout of this could be. Are you prepared to be a mother to a thirteen-year-old? Because that’s exactly what you’re signing on for with this.”

  Each point she makes feels like a stab of reality I don’t want to acknowledge. “I can’t replace Emme’s mother.”

  “No, you can’t, but she’s going to be looking for someone to fill that role, and that’s exactly what you’ll be to her by getting involved with Dax. You’re not even thirty, and you’ll be taking on an orphaned teenager. It’s not an easy road. You know this, Kay.”

  “Believe me, I get it better than anyone else. It’s why we’re keeping it just between me and Dax for now.”

  “Come on, Kay. It goes way beyond that, doesn’t it? How long is the secrecy going to last? I get that you like this guy, but he’s grieving, too. I’m worried about who’s going to end up hurt in all of this. Does he even know why you’re pushing to get him to come to your firm? How’s he going to feel if he makes the switch and all of a sudden you make partner?”

  I press my fingers to my lips, my panic turning into real fear. “I don’t know if that’s what I want anymore.”

  “I think you need to figure that out. More than one person’s heart could end up broken here. Dax needs support, and I’m concerned you’re caught up in being his savoir. And if you end up working together, too, it adds another layer of complication.”

  I know all of this. I knew it before I spent the weekend with him, but hearing it from someone else makes it so much more real. And it’s the reason I haven’t said anything until now.

  “It’s the first time I’ve really connected with another person in a long time. It feels good to be needed by someone, to take care of someone else emotionally and feel like I’m being taken care of, too. Does that make any sense at all?”

  “Of course it does. You took care of your mom when she was sick, you took care of your dad after she passed, and then he died, too, and you’ve put everything into being the best trust lawyer in the state. Maybe you want to save other families from struggling financially like you have when there’s already emotional turmoil. And now you’re taking on these pro bono custody cases for me. The security thing makes sense, and Dax…he’s suffering and you’re familiar with what that looks and feels like. He also represents so many good things from your childhood that you want to hold on to.”

  I rub my temples. “Are you going to charge me a hundred and fifty dollars for this session?”

  “You can just get lunch.” Holly laughs but reaches across the table and covers my hand with hers. “Am I wrong?”

  I consider all the connections she’s made and how I’ve started to put them together recently, too. Making partner has been the goal since my dad passed, a place to focus all my energy, but in doing that I’ve neglected forming new attachments and relationships, at least the kind that can end up hurting me, until now. “You’re not wrong. But it’s not just being a savior, or holding on to good things from my childhood. I care about Dax. And Emme.”

  Holly takes a different approach. “Okay, so what if things were different. What if making partner wasn’t this thing you felt you needed to do? Would you still be working on trusts? What about family law? Would that be something you’d want to do beyond personal favors for me?”

  “I consult for you because I want to, it’s not just personal favors.”

  “But would you want to do it as a job?”

  Five years ago I would’ve said no, definitely not. The grief of losing my mother lingered, and then after my dad passed, the idea of working on pro bono cases was untenable because I couldn’t afford to. But now it’s different. I have other things in my life to help ease those losses, and two of them are a very recent addition.