Kimbra studied her hands for a moment. “When I told that bastard what happened, he grinned and said too bad he didn’t do it before the trial and saved the state some money.”
“Fucker,” Ed said.
“Yeah. He is. I’ve tried to compile evidence against him over the years, but it’s like fighting a cockroach infestation in a messy house. You have to clean the house before you can get rid of the roaches, otherwise it’s a lost cause. I couldn’t spend my life on pro bono cases trying to get this guy out. I have to work and make money and earn a living.”
Walter patted her on the shoulder. “One of the reasons we divorced is because she’s a workaholic and self-admittedly obsessed over her job.”
Kimbra squeezed his hand. “We’re better friends than we are lovers or spouses. He wanted to be married to a woman, not to a stack of case files.”
“Papercuts on your dick are a bitch,” Walt joked.
“True story,” Kimbra said, earning a laugh from Lynn.
“Can I use that line in a book?” Lynn asked.
“Sure. I have plenty more where that came from,” Kimbra said.
* * * *
Ed had already done research on Kimbra before they arrived. As Lynn wrote out the check, she said as much. “I trust Ed, too,” Lynn said. “He looked into the work you’ve done and said you’re a good person.”
“I don’t know if I’m a good person, but I’m a damn good attorney.”
It was Ed’s turn to laugh. “That you are. I wouldn’t want to sit across the table from you on a case.”
“You’re right—you wouldn’t.”
Lynn carefully ripped the check out but before she handed it over, she looked Kimbra in the eyes. “Promise me something.”
“Anything.”
“I want to be there every step of the way. I want to be sitting in the courtroom so I can see the look on that guy’s face when you smack him with this. And I want to be there when Louis is released so I can hug him second after Holly gets to hug him.”
“That’s a deal I’m happy to agree to without any modifications, and I’m sure my clients will be happy to agree to as well.”
“Once we tell them,” Walter said.
Lynn handed Kimbra the check. After glancing at it, Kimbra tucked it into her briefcase. “I meant it about free help with research for a book. I’d love to see more writers besides Grisham going after this topic.”
“Let’s get through this first.” Lynn focused on Walter. “Now tell me why didn’t Holly come to me herself and ask?”
“Because she refused to. She’d heard Marcia talking about how people had swamped you when you first won the lottery, and she didn’t want to be like that. Plus she saw Marcia throw a guy out of the club for wanting to talk to you. She didn’t want to lose one of the few places she has left in her life. Holly’s been struggling to raise money to get Louis a new trial ever since she got out of the hospital. She inherited the house and life insurance policies. The house was paid for. She immediately dumped nearly all of that money into legal fees. But she’s not a lawyer, and she has to work for a living. Unfortunately, the first lawyer she hired was honest, but dumb. She then got taken for about ten grand by an asshole who fortunately doesn’t practice in Florida any longer. She also had medical bills to pay on top of all of that, and had to take out a mortgage on the house.”
Terrie poked Lynn in the shoulder. “In other words, she’s as stubborn as you.”
“This is something worthwhile, though,” Lynn said.
Terrie snorted. “I’m sure the other people thought their shit was worthwhile, too. That’s why we’re here, because I looked into it after I heard about her brother. Holly’s never struck me as the dishonest type, and when I realized what was going on and talked to Walt, I knew we needed to hear them out.”
“So how pissed off at you is Holly going to be for you going behind her back?” Lynn teased Walter.
He scratched at the back of his head. “Hopefully not enough to cut me out of her life. I’m in love with her, if I can just convince her that I’d be happy to spend the rest of my life with her.”
Ed looked confused. “Why wouldn’t she believe that?”
“Because I’m a heavy sadist and she’s a light player.” He realized the others looked a little concerned and were all staring at Kimbra. “It’s okay. She knows all about me and that.”
The others relaxed.
“Holly’s worried that I would be ‘denying’ myself,” he continued.
Terrie wagged a finger at him. “So you’re not even going to tell her about this yet, are you?”
He felt his face heat. “Not until we get the results back, no. I don’t want to get her hopes up just to crush them again. This is really the last shot Louis has to not spend the rest of his life in jail.”
Kimbra interjected. “As Ed can tell you, there are no sure-fire slam dunks, no matter what it might look like. However, my gut tells me I’m going to verbally eviscerate the prosecutor and leave him staring at his own entrails while my client finally either goes free or gets a new trial. If I can get him a new trial, I can likely either get the case thrown out before we even get that far, or get him found innocent. But until any of that happens, I won’t count on it.”
“I like that one,” Ed said. “I’ll have to remember to use that. ‘Staring at his own entrails.’ Has a certain style. Kaden would have loved it.” He pointed at Walt. “I’m a little ticked at you for not coming to me sooner, by the way.”
“Why?”
“I’m an attorney.”
“Yeah, but you practice family law. I knew that. Why would I think you’d be able to help?”
He pointed at Lynn. “You knew I was her attorney.”
“Ed, you’re practically everyone’s attorney at Venture.”
Kimbra swatted Walt’s shoulder. “He means approaching him about talking to Lynn for help, dumbass.”
Walt felt his face heat even more. “I guess for the same reason Holly didn’t want to approach Lynn. If I hadn’t been an idiot and accidentally mentioned something about visiting Louis in front of Terrie, she wouldn’t have interrogated me about him.”
Terrie slowly shook her head and stared at Lynn. “Dumbasses,” she said. “We’re surrounded by dumbasses. The people we want to help won’t ask us, while the people we’re trying to avoid won’t go the freak away.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Walt drove Kimbra back to her office. When he pulled in, he sat there for a moment.
“You all right?” she asked. “I know that look.”
“I hate keeping this from her.”
“Then let’s tell her.”
“I can’t.”
Kimbra rolled her eyes at him. “You’re still a stubborn damn man, you know that?”
“Yeah.”
“If we tell Holly, then you—”
“We tell her, get her hopes up—again—and she gets them crushed, it’ll be worse. Or she’ll stress herself into a really bad flare worrying about it. She’s finally at a place where she’s not physically in misery all the time.”
“Well, the cost of the testing is handled. I’ll be filing the paperwork in the morning, since it’s too late today, requesting the evidence gets turned over to the lab. So that’s a done deal.”
“It’s not done until the results come back proving Louis innocent. And we don’t know that yet.”
“Don’t you think she’s adult enough to handle the truth?”
“It’s not the truth I’m worried about. It’s the risk of another defeat. She was just about crushed when I first met her and really got to know her. You didn’t see her then.”
“Uh, yeah, I did.”
“Not the way I saw her. You met her, yeah, but you haven’t spent the time with her that I have. It’s like she’s finally emerging from a shell. She smiles more now than I’ve ever seen her, and people who’ve known her a lot longer than I have even say it.”
“It’s your call. Sh
e’s your subby, but Louis is my client. I’m obligated to tell him.”
“Before, or after?”
She glared at Walt. “You’re gonna fight me tooth and nail on this, ain’tcha?
“What do you think?”
She shook her head, her dark curls bobbing. “If this was anyone else, I wouldn’t withhold info. Regardless of how the test results come back, I have to tell him at some point. You realize that, right?”
“Yeah. And I appreciate you waiting.”
Once Kimbra had collected her briefcase and purse and got out, Walt headed home. Holly was supposed to spend the night at his place tonight. Tomorrow they’d spend it at hers, and he was going to replace the guts in the toilet in her master bathroom. It stuck every so often and he wanted to change it out before it ran her water bill through the roof.
At war within him, the guilt of the ultimate deal-breaker of lying in a relationship, battling with knowing that he needed to hold this back from Holly and Louis for now. Anything like this, it was compounded in Holly’s heart, because she not only felt her own reaction but worried about how Louis would deal with it.
This time, Walt would take the hit. He would sit and worry and bite his nails and hope it turned out in Louis’ favor.
Considering the circumstances, if it worked out the way he hoped it would, there was a pretty good chance she’d forgive him for the secrecy.
He hoped.
If it didn’t destroy her trust in him for going against everything he’d told her was a deal-breaker.
* * * *
Walt had dinner ready for Holly by the time she arrived at his place a little before seven. He’d waffled back and forth about telling her dozens of times since returning home.
Then he spotted the smile she gave him when she walked through the door.
The easy, sweet, loving smile.
The smile that meant her pain was low, and she felt relatively good. As good as she could feel on any given day.
Nope.
That settled it. He wouldn’t burden her with this. He couldn’t. In the past two months, he’d seen the positive changes in her and wanted to do whatever it took to keep her feeling good.
She only carried her purse and set it on the couch as she walked over to hug him where he stood in the kitchen. “Hello, Sir.” She said it with her face pressed against his bare chest, her body warm against his.
He gently closed his arms around her and nuzzled the top of her head. “Hello, sweetheart. Your stuff in the car?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Good girl. You remembered not to carry it in.”
She tipped her head back. “I had to carry it out to the car myself this morning. That didn’t kill me.”
He arched an eyebrow at her. “My rules. Unless you’re safewording. When I’m around, you do not carry anything other than your purse unless I okay it.”
A soft sigh escaped her. “Yes, Sir.”
“That’s my good girl.” He kissed her. “I’ll go get your stuff.” He carefully disengaged from her, holding his hand out for her keys, which she passed over.
Maybe it was a stupid rule to anyone else, but it meant something to him. It was one of the bricks in the foundation of their particular power exchange dynamic structure. Sure, he’d love to have her strip and kneel on the floor before him in greeting. Maybe one day she’d feel good enough to do that.
But he’d rather have her there with him, and doing what she could, things that wouldn’t stress her out or hurt her in bad ways.
Being in control of the rest of her life, having to consciously hand over what might appear to others to be such a tiny aspect actually carried a large impact with her. It reinforced to her the lesson he was trying to gently drive home—that she needed to rely on him instead of attempting to shoulder every burden alone.
It wasn’t an attempt to make her dependent on him. On the contrary, she was independent. Had been for years.
What she had to learn was how to let go in all the good ways.
It was a small but important lesson she seemed to be learning.
After dinner they retreated to his bedroom, where he hooked her up to the TENS unit. Then he rolled her onto her back and got her into one of his favorite positions. She wore soft, padded leather cuffs on her wrists, clipped together over her head. That was a position she could comfortably maintain for a while, lying on her back like that.
He grinned as he held the TENS controller in one hand and slid two fingers between her legs, where her pussy was already wet. “That’s my good girl. I don’t even have to turn it on any more for you to get wet.”
The adorable pink blush he loved filled her cheeks. “Yes, Sir.”
He turned the unit on, keeping it low for now, a soft tingling that would only serve to amp up her need. It’d taken him less than three weeks to condition her body to look forward to him hooking the TENS unit up for her.
Tonight, he was going to take it up another notch.
“It was Christmas today,” he said. “Your newest toy arrived.”
Her lower lip caught under her teeth as her eyes widened a little. He held up the butt plug and danced it around in the air. “What do you say?”
“Thank you, Sir.”
One of the things he’d worked on with her was getting her more comfortable admitting her fantasies to him. She loved the idea of being double-stuffed, his cock in either her pussy or her ass, and a toy in the other hole, while he forced her to orgasm.
So that had been added to the ever-growing list of things they were going to do.
Step one, however, was anal training. He’d played with her several times with his fingers, the combination of going down on her—or using a vibrator on her—while cranking up the TENS unit always guaranteed to make her explode while tickling his sadistic fancy.
He slid a towel under her ass and made a big show of lubing up the butt plug. He’d actually received several of them today, and this one was the smallest of the lot.
A good starting point.
The largest was a little larger around than his cock at its thickest point.
He slowly started pressing the end of the plug against her rim, her moans hardening his cock. He bumped up the TENS setting before lowering his mouth to her clit and flicking it with his tongue.
Her back arched, a louder moan escaping her. “Please, Sir,” she breathlessly begged.
“Oh, no, sweetheart. You’re on my timeframe tonight. Lie there and get comfy, because I’m not going to let you come until this toy is buried in your ass.”
Actually, he’d wait until after he had his cock buried in her pussy at the same time.
She didn’t need to know that…yet. He was enjoying her begging too much.
It took nearly twenty minutes for him to finish fucking the butt plug into her rim and get it seated there. Meanwhile, he’d cranked up the TENS unit and had nearly driven her out of her head with need by teasing her clit, flicking and sucking it, drawing slow circles around it with his tongue.
Now with the butt plug in her, he rose up onto his knees. “I think I know someone who wanted to be filled, hmm?”
She nodded, her eyes wide and glazed with need.
He held up the vibrator he’d also received in the mail just that day and turned it on, then off again.
She moaned.
It took every ounce of self-control he had not to explode as he slid his cock into her. She felt tight, hot, slick, the toy in her ass filling her.
“Oh, sweetheart.” He grinned at her. “I think you’ve created a monster.”
* * * *
At that moment, Holly would have done or said or agreed to anything to get relief. Her nervous system approached overload, Walt never letting either pleasure or pain get the upper hand and tip her body one way or the other off the razor-thin edge she rode.
“Please fuck your pussy, Sir!” He liked it raunchy and real and the more begging she did, the more he liked it.
It felt sooo good, the full
ness in her ass and then his cock filling her pussy. Her clit throbbed from the teasing he’d done, not giving her any relief.
“Oh, I’m gonna fuck that sweet pussy of mine, all right.” He pressed the vibrator against her clit, the cool plastic making her jump. “But first, I’m gonna make you come, baby.”
He started turning up the TENS unit.
Then, he switched the vibrator on.
Electric white light seemed to flash behind her eyes as the orgasm ripped through her body. Her back arched, eyes falling closed as her toes curled and she tried to rock her hips against Walt and drive his cock as deep inside her pussy as she could.
“Enjoy, sweetheart,” he said. “Because you aren’t going to stop coming until I’m ready to let you.”
Forcing her eyes open, she moaned her way through the next orgasm as she stared at his smile.
I love this.
I love him.
Each release rolled into the next one, a long series of pleasure that bordered on pain. She was barely aware of him cranking the TENS unit up again, tempering the pleasure just enough so that she had a little more of a build-up before she dropped off the cliff once more. It was like her pleasure circuits had been hooked into a crazy bungee cord and kicked off the top of the Skyway Bridge.
She was eventually aware she was begging, more from the look on his face, the way he tipped his head and grinned. “What was that, sweetheart? You’d like me to start fucking you now?”
“Yes, Sir! Please fuck me!”
He switched off the TENS unit, then the vibrator, and leaned forward to kiss her. He braced himself on his elbows, his fingers laced through hers. “Who owns this sweet ass?”
“You do, Sir.”
He took a long, slow stroke, finishing that with his cock buried deep inside her. “And who owns this sweet pussy?”