He slowed his pace just as she started the climb to her orgasm.

No.

“Open your eyes, Victoria,” he said in a guttural voice. “Look at me.”

She did, and saw his blue eyes blazing heatedly down into hers.

He moved in slow, smooth, dominant strokes, holding her right at the edge.

“Ford.” She tightened her legs around his waist, trying to get the friction she needed.

He skimmed a hand possessively up her stomach and between her breasts. “You should see how beautiful you look right now.” He leaned forward, and shifted the angle of his hips. “Come on my cock. I want to feel it.”

She dug her nails into his shoulders, crying out as she came. His swore under his breath and grabbed her legs, pinning her against the table as his hips flexed and he pounded into her, faster and harder, until he groaned, all the muscles in his arms and shoulders straining beautifully tight as he shuddered and slowly came to a stop and finally collapsed on top of her.

Neither of them said anything for several moments as they caught their breath.

“I think I might actually be bleeding,” he finally said against her breasts.

She laughed—oops—as he pushed up and looked over his shoulder. There were indeed several red scratches from her nails, but no blood.

She smiled cheekily. “Well, you did say that you wanted to feel it.”

When he grinned down at her, looking all flushed and tousled and adorably sexy, she felt a fluttering in her stomach.

“That’s not a game you want to play right before I carry you into my bedroom for round two, Ms. Slade.”

Liquid heat spread low across her stomach. “I didn’t say there would be a round two.”

He lowered his mouth to hers, his voice husky and wicked. “You didn’t say there wouldn’t.”

* * *

TWO HOURS LATER, feeling deliciously sore and exhausted, Victoria climbed out of Ford’s bed.

Digging around in the darkness, she found her sandals on the opposite end of the room, and her skirt in the doorway where Ford had peeled it off of her. Out in the living area, she collected her bra, shirt, and torn underwear, all of which were strewn haphazardly around the table.

After getting dressed, she went back into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. Ford slept on his back, one arm thrown over his head.

She reached up and gently smoothed back the lock of hair that had fallen across his forehead. “I’m heading back to my place,” she said, when he opened his eyes.

He blinked and pushed up onto his elbows. “You don’t want to stay?”

“I have to work tomorrow. You know how it is.”

“Sure. Yeah.” He ran a hand through his hair, making it all stand on end.

A few moments later, she shut his front door and walked down the hallway to her own place. She smiled to herself, thinking that someone had indeed looked well-sexed after their evening together.

Good.

Eighteen

FORD SPENT FRIDAY morning at his desk, fueled by coffee while furiously writing a follow-up piece about Darryl Moore and the probation department. And this time, the gloves were off.

He skewered the department for their incompetence in losing track of convicts, and for repeatedly overlooking curfew violations and crimes committed by offenders while on probation. The problem, he wrote, went way beyond Darryl Moore. By cross-checking the department’s files against arrest records, he’d found several other examples of offenders who’d fallen through the cracks, including a car thief who’d skipped mandatory meetings with his probation officer before shooting and killing a fifteen-year-old, and a sexual predator who’d broken curfew seventeen times—without repercussion from the probation department—before raping a thirteen-year-old girl.

. . . records reveal a systemic failure to monitor felons under the department’s supervision. . . . County Board president Robert Samuels said that the probation department is “understaffed and in dire need of increased funding.” . . . Acting Chief Probation Officer Reece Meisner acknowledged that mistakes have been made. . . . According to one inside source, the department has lost track of “innumerable convicted felons” within the county. . . .

About twenty minutes after he e-mailed the story off, his managing editor called him into his office.

“It’s good, Dixon. Very good.” Marty looked up from his computer. “Why don’t you let the acting chief probation officer know that we’ll be running the story on Sunday’s front page. See if he’d like to be quoted in response.”

The Sunday front page—nice. It wouldn’t be the first time for Ford, but still. It never got old, seeing his name, and his words, on the front page of a newspaper with a Sunday circulation of nearly eight hundred thousand.

“I’ll do that,” he told his editor with an efficient nod.

Strutting through the newsroom back to his desk, he dialed up Brooke at her office.

A celebratory lunch definitely was in order.

* * *

THEY MET AT The Shore, their usual place, a restaurant owned by Brooke’s company that was located right on Oak Street Beach. They scored a prime table overlooking the water—one of the advantages of dining with the general counsel and part owner—and toasted over a couple of Dos Equis to his upcoming front-page feature.

Shortly after their food arrived, Brooke brought up a different subject. “Why are Charlie and Tucker sending me text messages asking if I know what ‘the real deal’ is between you and someone named Victoria the Divorce Lawyer? And more important, why don’t I know what the real deal is?”

Ford shook his head, not surprised to hear this. Charlie and Tuck had been all over him about Victoria ever since they’d met her—particularly Tucker, who kept asking for his “future wife’s” phone number so he could ask her out.

Clearly, in light of recent events, he was going have to tell Tuck that wasn’t happening.

Ever.

“I told you about her,” he said to Brooke. “She’s my new next-door neighbor.”

“Ah, right. The one who SUCKS.”

He chuckled, having forgotten about the text message he’d sent Brooke a few weeks ago. “Well . . . I may have been a little fired up when I said that.”

Brooke studied him closely, then set down her fork. “Oh my God, you’ve slept with her already?”

“A little louder, Brooke. I’m not sure the volleyball players on the other side of the beach could hear you.”