“Yes. More,” I begged and he pulled back and then slammed into me again as I moaned and pushed against him.

“Tell me how much you love it,” he bit out.

I watched him in the mirror too, and the look of ecstasy on his face every time he thrust into me was making me crazy. We were being rougher and wilder than we had been so far, but I realized that it was a response to all the tension and emotion of the night. He needed to feel some control and I was happy to give it to him.

“I love it so much,” I whimpered. “Please, don’t stop.” He reached around and added his fingers to mine, rubbing along the other side of my cl*twith one hand and still holding my hip with the other. He was really pounding me hard now. “Yes, like that!” I moaned.

“This is mine, Lily. Say it.”

“Yours, Adam.” I gasped at the molten feeling in my lower belly, the pressure building. It was so intense I was lightheaded and my legs almost buckled. He clutched my hip even more tightly.

“You’re going to come, Lily. Look. Do you see how beautiful you are?” he urged, thrusting into me hard and fast. The woman in the mirror’s head was back; she was breathing harshly through her mouth and her eyes were starting to look unfocused. She was flushed, covered in a sheen of sweat, and damp wavy hair stuck to her skin.

“So close,” I whimpered. “Please. Please don’t stop. Oh, God, I need to come.”

“Let go, Lily.” His slick fingers on my cl*tbegan moving faster and I felt myself start to climb, my muscles tensing, my cries increasing in volume.

“Oh God, I’m going to come. Don’t stop. Oh please, Adam, yes. Adam! Adam!” I screamed as my inner muscles grabbed onto him and began contracting in powerful waves of blindingly intense pleasure. I came so hard that I shook and my legs finally gave out, but he held me up, still thrusting into me.

“I’m going to come too, baby. Oh, Lily. Oh fuck. Lily.”

He slammed into me one last time, groaned loudly and swore some more as he held himself tightly against me. Then the only sound was the two of us trying to catch our breath. He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me up into his arms with my back against his rapidly rising and falling chest. I felt boneless and he practically carried me over to the bed where we collapsed together, completely exhausted, in a sweaty, panting heap. He pulled me into his arms tightly, holding on like he expected somebody to try to take me away from him. I stroked his hair, and let him protect me, and that’s how we fell asleep.

Chapter Twenty-One

The next morning, bright and early, the odyssey that was my career as a prosecutor began. Looking very lawyerly in Gab’s navy Ann Klein suit, my hair pulled back into a bun at the nape of my neck, I followed Adam into Judge Channing’s courtroom. I would be watching him and Braden in the mornings, and while they prepared their cases for the next day in the afternoons, I would be meeting with the attorneys who handled training. Luckily, since both of my parents had been career litigators, courtrooms didn’t intimidate me.

“Is there anything I can do?” I asked, glancing down at his behemoth pile of case files.

“Not yet, Lily,” he said with a smile.

“All rise! The Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia is now in session, the Honorable Louis Channing presiding.”

I just sat back and watched as Adam and Braden handled their cases methodically. They made a good team. Adam looked really sexy by the way. He always looked sexy, but he looked particularly sexy here, where he was obviously in his element. He was also dressed in a navy suit, with a gray tie, and he looked all prosecutorial. He also smelled fabulous.

For a second the image of him na**d behind me, thrusting into me over and over, popped into my head and a jolt of heat hit my lady bits head on. Okay, not a good time to think about that. I glanced around the courtroom to distract myself. Over on the defense side sat Mark and Jess, who were also busily and methodically handling their caseload. Everyone was doing something but me.

I have to admit that as I watched Adam cross examine witnesses and make legal arguments I started getting turned on. His cockiness was actually hot here. I started remembering how I had enjoyed being in clinic when I was in law school. The adrenaline rush of battling in court felt a lot like, well, let’s face it, sexual arousal.

Truthfully, I could still write and practice law too, if I tried hard enough. It wasn’t that I couldn’t have been a good lawyer, or even that I didn’t like the law. I had only rejected the whole lawyer thing because my parents were so fixated on me being one. I guess I had wanted to see if they would ever respect me for doing something different. The answer to that one, incidentally, was ‘no.’ My parents were obsessed with their own legal careers, and with the idea of me going even further in legal practice than they had. After all, I had the DNA of two famous litigators in me. Hell, I think they seriously believed that I could become a Supreme Court Justice someday, if I would just grow up already.

About an hour into the session, as Braden was off talking to a witness and Adam was in the middle of a legal argument with Mark, someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around and saw a cute guy with red hair, holding a file.

“Hey, do we know each other? I’m Kevin O’Donell from the office.”

“No, I’m Lily Adler. I just transferred in.” Okay, so maybe I had failed to mention that I had transferred in from the law library. So what?

“Ah, good. I was worried you might be a brand new grad.”

“Nope, graduated two years ago.” And hadn’t practiced law a day since.

“Perfect. Hey, Lily, you want to take a case for me? It’s no big thing, but it might be kind of interesting. You’ll get to face Captain Swagger from the U.S. Attorney’s office.”

“Captain Swagger?” I asked, amused. It sounded like a nickname Adam would have. In fact, I’m pretty sure it was a nickname Adam did have, at least among defense lawyers.

“Jacob Sachs. Cocky son of a bitch. It’s a nothing case, but it’s tied into Moretti somehow, so the feds decided they might as well take it up. We actually have a better argument for keeping it here in Common Pleas. If it were any other prosecutor, they would probably concede if we objected, but Sachs doesn’t know the meaning of concede. Probably not even worth making the argument, because he’ll fight you, and it’s not worth it for this case. Besides, defense counsel is a total pain in the ass. She was supposedly retired, but I guess she missed the smell of blood. Judith Steinberg. Do you know her?” My heart slammed into my chest wall and my mouth went dry.

“Uh, yeah. I’ve heard about her,” I said casually.

“I don’t doubt it. They call her the Ice Queen. She’s super-aggressive.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’ve heard,” I said. “You’re saying that we have a good argument for keeping it here? So if I won, it would be tried here, in Common Pleas. If I take it, is it mine?” Something else that I happened to know about Judith Steinberg, was that she did federal defense. She would be out of her element here. She could be beaten.

“Uh, yeah.” He laughed. “If you want it. Why? You’re not thinking about taking on Captain Swagger and the Ice Queen, are you?”

“I don’t have much else on my plate yet, and you said it’s not an important case.”

“Okay! You’ve got some moxie. I like that. Sachs should be here soon. The argument’s all laid out in there, just in case anybody wanted to make it.”

“Okay. I’ll let you know what happens.”

“Go get ’em!” he said with a smile and left just as Adam was returning to counsel table.

I slid the file onto my lap. Obviously, he would find out shortly what I was up to, but I didn’t want him to try to stop me. I was a licensed attorney, now officially employed by the District Attorney of Philadelphia. I wasn’t doing anything unethical. I was also highly motivated.

Jacob arrived not long after, with his usual flourish, storming the castle, with all of his lackeys trailing in his wake. The bailiff informed the judge that an assistant U.S. attorney was here for the next case, and so Jacob was able to go immediately to the head of the class. The bailiff called it. “Commonwealth v. DiBono, motion for removal to federal court.” I saw Adam glance around the courtroom, looking for a fellow prosecutor. I took a deep breath and stood up … just as the courtroom door opened again and she came in, followed by her client and her lackeys. She marched to the front of the courtroom like she owned the place.

“Your Honor, Jacob Sachs for the United States.”

“Judith Steinberg for Joseph DiBono”

“Lily Adler for the Commonwealth,” I added, walking to the bench with just as much confidence as the other attorneys standing there, even if it was an act. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Adam turn around so fast I was worried he might get whiplash. “Your Honor, I don’t have a copy of the motion for removal.”

“It’s an oral motion,” Jacob said, looking a bit stunned, but quickly recovering. “We didn’t brief it because we didn’t anticipate an objection.”

“Well, then I’m afraid that counsel was not adequately prepared, because the Commonwealth objects.” Jacob set his jaw and narrowed his eyes, but it wasn’t anger I saw there; it was anticipation. He was sizing me up like a tiger sizing up an antelope, or whatever the hell tigers eat.

“Pardon me, counselor, but if this case stays in Common Pleas, who’s going to try it, you?” He gave me the most arrogantly dismissive smirk I had ever seen, and my blood boiled. He was being rather condescending to a person who had seen him na**d. Not that he had anything to be ashamed of. He actually looked rather good na**d.

“And if it goes up to federal court, counselor, who’s going to try it there, you?” I asked, giving him exactly the same look. His mouth literally popped open and his eyes flashed with what I could swear was excitement. I had a feeling that maybe he was actually picturing me na**d at that very moment.

“Excuse me! Your Honor, may I have a word with my colleague?” Adam interrupted. Great. I turned around and found him giving me a deceptively friendly smile.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“Go ahead, Mr. Roth,” Judge Channing said, looking kind of intrigued. Adam walked off to the side of the courtroom and I reluctantly followed. When I got there, he leaned in close and whispered to me.

“Okay, first of all, you’re going to get some phenomenal sexing tonight for that comment you just made to Sachs, and secondly, what the f**k are you doing?!”

“Arguing a motion.”

“Against a federal prosecutor and your mother?!”

“Technically, she hasn’t joined in the motion yet,” I pointed out.

“Lily, are you nuts? This isn’t the place to work out your family issues.”

“I’m not working them out. I fully intend to beat her.”

“She’s a career litigator, and she’s your mother!”

“Adam, my family is not like your family. She won’t see me as her daughter. She’ll see me as her opponent. She won’t hesitate to try to take me down. I want to stand up against her in the only way that matters to her. I want to prove to myself that I can.”

“And how is that not working out your family issues?” he observed, accurately I might add. I wasn’t in the mood to be reasonable, though, and I just huffed and looked away, angrily. “Okay, look,” he relented, “you think you have an argument, go ahead and make it.”

“You don’t think I have a chance, do you?”

“It’s not because I don’t think you’re smart or capable. It’s because you’re taking on an assistant U.S. attorney and woman who has about thirty years of courtroom experience and yesterday you were a law librarian.”

“I don’t have anything to lose and the guy who gave it to me, said I could keep it.”

“Lily, it’s a felony trial, not a puppy!”

“It’s related to Moretti. If I win the motion you can try it, and I’ll be your second chair.”

“You nutty broad.” He shook his head but I could see he looked both amused, and yes, just a little impressed. With that, I returned to battle.

“I would like to ask that defense counsel declare a conflict of interest for the record,” I said as I took my place again.

“While Ms. Adler was chatting, I spoke with my client and informed him that the assistant district attorney in this case is my daughter.”

“Your what?” Jacob interrupted.

“I also informed him that she would not be prosecuting it, as it will be removed to federal court, but that even if she were, it would not interfere with my ability to represent him zealously.”

“For the record Ms. Steinberg,” Judge Channing said irritably, “I’ll decide if this case goes to federal court or not. And so, Mr. DiBono,” he addressed the defendant, “you’re willing to waive the conflict of interest and you’re satisfied that Ms. Steinberg can represent you zealously?”

“Her? Oh yeah. Hey, are you kidding? I’m surprised she didn’t eat her young. Know what I’m saying?”

“Mr. DiBono obviously knows my mother well, Your Honor, being her client I mean.” I glanced over at Adam, who looked like he wanted to laugh. I also noted that everyone else in the courtroom also seemed to be paying rapt attention to the little drama that was unfolding.

“For the record,” Jacob said with a smirk and an evil glint in his eye, “I’ll state that I am zealously able to put forward the position of the United States, despite the fact that Ms. Adler and I have been intimate in the past.” I guess he didn’t appreciate my snappy comeback as much as Adam did. Speaking of Adam, out of the corner of my eye, I saw him leap to his feet.