little presumptuous, too. Unless you wear that to all your client dinners?”
With a slight kick of her leg, Payton nudged the dress out of her way. She wrapped her arms around J.D., one hand at the back of his head, and threaded her fingers through his hair. She looked up at him and repeated his earlier words.
“It’s for you,” she said softly.
J.D. looked deep into those dark blue eyes.
This girl drove him absolutely crazy.
With a grin, he scooped her up and tossed her onto the bed.
Because tonight, she was his.
FOR NEARLY AN hour they teased one another, until Payton finally caved and grabbed a condom off the nightstand.
J.D. hooked one of her legs around his waist and grabbed her hand. “Put it on me,” he whispered, nearly a groan.
So she did. Then she told him she needed to quickly check for polo ponies.
When J.D. threw her other leg around his waist and pinned her arms over her head, Payton decided to reschedule the pony-check for another time.
As he moved over her, J.D. told her to open her eyes and look at him, and she thought the moment couldn’t get any better.
Then he held her face between his hands and whispered her name, and she knew it just did.
AFTERWARD, J.D. COLLAPSED on top of Payton, still tangled between her legs, his face buried in her neck as he tried to catch his breath.
His thoughts.
Deep, too.
Just.
Had.
Sex.
Sleepy.
He felt Payton suddenly stir beneath him and he perked up his head, instantly alert.
Ooh—again?
SOMETIME AFTER ROUND Two, they decided to open the drapes and the sliding glass doors so that they could hear the waves. They lay facing each other in the moonlight. As J.D.’s fingers traced lazy arcs along her hip, Payton couldn’t help but grin.
“What?” He peered down at her while propped up on one elbow.
“Nothing,” Payton said. “Just that . . . it’s you.”
J.D. bent his head to kiss her shoulder, seeming to understand exactly what she meant. “I know. We’ve said a lot of things to each other over these past eight years.”
“I think we should’ve been doing this a long time ago.”
J.D. laughed. “You hated me up until about a week ago, remember?”
Payton ran her hand along J.D.’s forearm, his shoulder, across the firm muscles of his chest. Had she really ever hated him? Funny, because now she couldn’t keep her hands off him. She’d guessed that J.D. was in good shape because anyone who looked that great in a suit had to be in good shape, but . . . wow. There’d been a moment during Round Two when he’d lifted her off him and flipped her over onto her stomach like it was nothing. Et cetera.
A nagging question in the back of Payton’s mind was whether J.D. was this incredible with the other women he’d slept with. She hated to think that what was undoubtedly the best sex of her life was just an average run-of-the-mill romp in the sack for him.
Payton decided she had better push her feelings aside. Since she didn’t know what J.D. was thinking, it was best to keep things light and flirty.
“ ‘Hate’ is such a strong word,” she teased J.D. “And actually, when we first met, I didn’t dislike you at all. Quite the opposite, in fact.”
Payton pushed herself up on one arm. “Do you even remember the day we met? It was our first day of work, at the firm’s welcome orientation.”
J.D. toyed with a lock of her hair between two of his fingers. “Of course I remember. I saw you sitting at the table with the other litigation associates, and I walked over and introduced myself. You said—quote—‘So you’re the infamous J. D. Jameson.’ ”
Payton grinned. Before starting with the firm, she had heard things about J.D. from the associates and partners who had recruited him. “And you said, ‘I’ve heard stories about you, too, Payton Kendall.’ ”
She still vividly recalled what had happened next. “Then they told us to take our seats, and you sat next to me, and just as they began welcoming us to the firm, you leaned over and asked if I was really as good as people said I was.”
J.D. smiled as he remembered. “And in response, you gave me this sly little look over your shoulder and said, ‘I guess you’ll have to find out for yourself, J. D. Jameson.’ ”
Payton laughed. “It sounds so much more scandalous when you say it.”
“I was intrigued. To say the least.” J.D. paused. “But then you turned on