May It Please The Court

Her heart was jackhammering in her chest as she made her way slowly down the hall, a brown accordion file crammed with yellow legal pads and printed out case law clutched tightly to her chest. Every step that brought her closer to the conference room only increased the sense of dread that had been building in her stomach all week.

*

When she'd gone to law school, she'd never intended to see the inside of a courtroom—she'd just wanted to find a practice area with relatively predictable hours at a large enough firm that she could pay back her student loans while still affording food and rent. The fact that she'd graduated as salutatorian of her class, was co-editor of law review, and had secured a prestigious clerkship after graduation in a federal appellate court had gone a long way toward securing her an associate position at her current firm. She couldn't honestly say that she had any particularly burning passion for zoning issues, or even land use law in general, but it was a relatively stable practice group within her firm and it kept the lights on. One thing was absolutely certain though—she certainly liked her transactional work much more than litigation.

She'd been elbow deep in preparing some draft legislative language for one of the clients whose matters she was assigned to when her boss had walked into her office. One of the Litigation partners had taken on a case for a "very important" client who was being sued by a local community group, and none of the early attempts at mediation had succeeded. The crux of the case had turned on some arcane land use statutes, so the Litigation partner had come to her boss to see if the Zoning department had an associate it could "share" with Litigation. There were four associates in her practice group, but two of them were fresh out of law school and the senior associate had just booked his first client matter and wasn't in a position to split his time with another department. Her boss had given her an apologetic shrug as she'd handed over the first batch of case files Litigation had sent over for her to get up to speed before saying, "You need to split your time with Litigation starting on Monday."

The Litigation partner she'd been assigned to work with on the case was a complete one-eighty from her normal boss. He was in his early 40s and was the youngest person to ever make partner at the firm. To say he was "intense" didn't do him justice. No matter how early she got to the office, he'd always managed to send her an e-mail about something at least an hour before she'd even gotten out of bed. If she worked eight hours on a Saturday to read through some discovery, he worked sixteen hours on both Saturday and Sunday. Whenever she couldn't find legal precedent to support the specific point he wanted to make in a brief or a motion, she would invariably get back from lunch (or even just the restroom) to find a printed out copy of his Westlaw research with the perfect language for their case highlighted and sticky-tabbed casually sitting on her chair. All in all, working with him drove her nuts. She understood that it was some perverse rite of passage that the Litigation associates went through—to see who would be the first person to either develop a substance abuse problem or a mental health issue—but she'd never wanted to be a part of that side of the law, and it chafed her no end that he was treating her as if she'd voluntarily asked to be reassigned.

Despite her belief that he was an unrelenting slave driver, whenever she was on the verge of rage-quitting her firm she found herself grudgingly admitting that he was turning her into a better lawyer. As she read over his comments on her draft motions, she appreciated the nuances to his legal arguments like how he managed to make even the most adverse facts of their case work in their client's favor. The thing she found herself most impressed by though was his chameleon-like personality.

Over the nearly ten months they'd worked together, she'd heard multiple horror stories from other associates at the firm about getting chewed out in his office, and it was practically a firm legend about how he'd once made the name partner's personal secretary cry while he was a first year associate. And yet...She'd read through deposition transcripts of his where he'd been so pleasant and unassuming that he'd pied-pipered damning testimony out of opposing counsel's key witnesses. She found it difficult to tell which version of him was real because other than the notes he periodically sent back on her drafts, he had almost actively avoided her since the first day she'd reported to his office to discuss the background on the case.

Then, with their bench trial only days away, she'd gotten an email informing her that she'd no longer be second-chairing at the trial. Instead, she'd been relegated to prepping exhibits and making sure the "real" litigators preserved any potentially necessary grounds for appeal. After working like a dog for months on end, she'd finally snapped.

As she'd barged down to his office, she knew her indignant bravado was more than a little fueled by the fact that the office was a ghost town as it usually was by 8 pm on warm summer Friday nights. Sweeping into his meticulously organized office, she'd swung the door forcefully shut behind her—the plush pile carpeting in his office successfully muting much of the door frame's loud clattering reverberation. When he didn't so much as look up from his computer, she stalked closer to his desk before she hissed, "What the fuck did you mean by that email?"

His ice blue eyes had slowly lifted from his monitor up to her face, his mouth set in a grim line. "I send a lot of emails. You'll have to be more specific if you expect me to know what you're talking about," he'd said, the rich tones of his voice firm and unyielding.

Her nostrils flared as she'd let out an exasperated huff of air before she'd replied, "The McDonough case going to trial on Wednesday."

A spark of challenge flared in his eyes so quickly that she swore she imagined it as he casually ran a hand through his lightly salted, dark brown hair. As his fingers raked through his hair, she found her eyes drawn to a flash of tawny skin, and she vaguely realized that he rolled the sleeves of his immaculate white dress shirt to his elbows. Her mouth started to go dry.

"You're not in Litigation," he'd said flatly before returning his attention to his computer screen.

While she knew his explanation was perfectly logical, the dismissive way he'd said it kindled a deep-rooted fury within her. "You knew that back in September, but it didn't seem to stop you from treating me like I was a Litigation associate," she fumed, her anger causing her to unconsciously get closer to his desk as she loomed by the side of the sturdy mahogany piece of furniture.

His head swiveled slowly to the side to get a better look at her before he eased himself out of his high-backed desk chair with a lithe, predatory gracefulness. As he stood up, she felt herself shrink back the tiniest bit as the lizard part of her brain realized she'd lost her height advantage now that all 6'3" of him was towering over the 5'10" she was only able to claim because of her 4" heels. Their new height difference brought her eye-level with his shoulders and her attention was drawn to the slightly loosened knot of his tie and the one unbuttoned button of his collar that gave her a fleeting glimpse of his neck. Her fingers started itching with the urge to yank on the royal blue strip of silk—whether to choke him or simply bring him back down to her level, she wasn't entirely sure. A feral growl escaped her clenched teeth in frustration as she forced herself not to act on the impulse to assault him. While she was borderline sure she probably wouldn't get fired for telling him off (especially since she made sure not to do it around witnesses), she was very confident he'd make sure she got fired if she laid her hands on him.

Her attention was dragged back to his face when she heard him say, "That's funny that you think I've been treating you like a Litigation associate."

There was nothing inherently threatening about the words themselves, but there was something dark in his tone, the way his voice seemed to get a half octave deeper, that made her breathing shallow as her heart started to race. She felt her eyes widen when he added, "No, if you were mine, I would've had you in my office every day—ridden you hard. A little girl like you probably would've cried, begged me to take it easier because you simply couldn't handle my expectations."

Her breasts began to feel fuller under her black semi-sheer sleeveless chiffon shirt, and she unconsciously licked her lips. His eyes flickered to her mouth for a brief second, and she forced herself to swallow past the lump in her throat as she realized how much bigger his pupils seemed to be when he locked eyes with her again.

"There's no place for weakness in litigation," he said with a quiet rumble that made her skin feel like he'd suddenly cranked up the heat in his office. She batted her eyes slowly at him, completely mesmerized by his voice, and it took her a moment to realize he'd ended their "discussion" with a brusque "Now, get the fuck out of my office."

*

As he watched her slowly walk out of his office, he could feel his body positively vibrating from his desire to go after her, but he knew he couldn't.

He'd just made partner six years earlier when she'd joined the firm as an associate, and he'd spent much of the past few years actively avoiding her. When the firm's Executive Committee had called him in to extend his partnership offer there were really only two things he was told were verboten: stealing from the firm and fucking associates. While the first had been self-explanatory, he'd raised an eyebrow at the second given that he'd known for a fact that three-fifths of the Executive Committee had fucked multiple associates over the years, and not always when they were single. While he hadn't gotten a straight answer at the time, he'd learned later on that the last associate the head of the committee had been seeing on the side had not been content to go quietly when the senior partner was done with her. Instead, she had shown him her copious, meticulously detailed notes that she'd amassed over their months' long affair, and had not only threatened to go to his wife, but also to the state disciplinary committee since he had billed a number of their encounters to clients as "strategy sessions." To suitably buy the associate's silence, half of the partners had been forced to turn over clients to her from their books of business to help facilitate her landing a lateral, partnership-track position at another firm.

Initially, he'd scoffed at the idea that staying away from an associate would be difficult.

Then, he'd seen her at the new associate mixer.

Every year the firm organized an open bar event a few weeks after the new crop of associates started to help them meet other attorneys and personnel at the firm. As in years' past, he'd had no trouble figuring out who the "baby" attorneys were as nearly all of them wore white cotton button down shirts tucked into black, off-the-rack suit skirts and pants that fit "ish" with some of the more rebellious ones deciding to leave their jackets back at their desks. They normally clustered together like scared lemmings either drinking what they thought was the cheapest booze on the firm's dime, or (for the more ambitious) trying to acquire a taste for whatever drinks they saw the name partners drinking.

He'd been talking with the head of Accounting when she'd walked past them, a mostly full glass of white wine spritzer in her hand. Unlike the lemmings, she was in a form-fitting navy and khaki-colored sheave dress that stopped just above her knees along with 4" tan pumps that accented how tight her ass looked. When he'd commented to the accountant about not hearing a new lateral hire joined the firm, his shock at hearing she was really one of the new first year associates had been palpable. After the accountant left to locate his husband, he'd found himself unconsciously tracking her with his eyes as she moved around the party. His cock began to stir the longer he watched her, the urge to wrap her long auburn hair around his fist as he kneaded her ample breasts and bit the milky white column of her neck while he fucked her from behind eventually becoming too much for him. Throwing back the last of his bourbon, he'd taken a minute to will his erect dick into submission before slipping out of the party.

For weeks after the party, he'd somehow avoided encountering her around the office despite Litigation and Land Use occupying the same floor, and he'd just about convinced himself that he'd completely overblown how attractive he'd found her. Then he'd run into her on the elevator on his way to court for a motion hearing. She'd been in a bespoke charcoal grey suit with a royal blue dress shirt that made her eyes pop. The single button holding her suit jacket together accented the swell of her breasts as the lapels of her jacket pulled her breasts closer together. Thankfully, there had been a cold snap, so he was wearing his long woolen overcoat, which had concealed his burgeoning hard-on as they'd ridden the twenty-three floors to the building's lobby. He'd gripped the handle on his briefcase a little tighter to give him something to focus on other than imagining tearing off her shirt and jacket. The leather had squealed from the friction created by his palm, drawing her attention to him. She'd batted her eyes for a second as she'd glanced at his "evidence box" briefcase before she'd said, "Good luck at court today." There was a richness to her voice that he wasn't expecting, and it took him a minute before he bobbed his head to acknowledge her.

His motion hearing had been a fiasco. Although he'd successfully gotten limited relief for his client, the hearing hadn't gone as smoothly as it should've. Rather than running through all of his arguments as he'd walked over to court, he'd found his mind wandering to how tempting her ass had looked in her perfectly tailored dress pants as well as wondering how much huskier her voice would sound in the throes of passion. His distraction had shown: he'd stumbled through his request for relief and had been uncharacteristically caught off-guard by some of his opposing counsel's counterarguments.

The lapse in his focus was completely unacceptable.

As he'd stalked back to the office after his hearing, he'd sworn that he would do everything in his power to avoid her in the future. He had worked far too hard and sacrificed far too much to risk losing it all over some piece of ass.

His plan had been going smoothly for years. He'd tagged her status updates on Skype so he always knew when she was at her desk, and he'd given his secretary a standing list of takeout orders so he never had to risk accidentally running into her getting lunch or dinner. If anything, he almost felt like he should've thanked her because he'd been so focused on not inadvertently coming into contact with her that he'd never billed so much time at the firm as he had during the last five years. At the rate he'd been going, he was certain that being asked to become a name partner was only a matter of time.

And then he'd taken on the McDonough case. The client was something of a golden calf at the firm—it always had work it needed, never asked to write down bills, and paid on time. Whenever the client called the firm, the most senior partner in whatever department was needed was always put in charge of the matter and given free reign to use whatever firm resources were required to get a positive outcome.

When the case first came across his desk, it had seemed straightforward enough: some local environmental group was disputing construction plans the client was trying to press ahead with as part of a new development it was building. As preliminary discovery was conducted and the efforts at alternative dispute resolution failed to come to a reasonable outcome, he'd become increasingly agitated. Rather than quickly securing a discreet settlement as both he and the client had wanted, the plaintiffs' counsel had dragged its heels—and worse, had leaked news of the dispute to the press. Within weeks, social media had been awash with trending hashtags decrying how the client was hellbent on destroying the environment.

Then, the environmentalists had discovered that a beetle native to the area had recently been classified as an endangered species and the public outcry really started to get ugly. That's when he'd finally snapped and decided to make an example out of the McDonough case.

As he'd stormed across the floor from Litigation to Land Use, he'd only passingly given thought to the fact that she worked in the department that he was about to press gang an associate from. It wasn't until he was standing in the middle of her boss' office though saying he needed the best associate in the department to start working on a case for him immediately that he'd considered the possibility that all his years of fastidiously avoiding her might suddenly come to naught. A thunderous roar crashed over him as blood started rushing to his ears when her boss confirmed his worst fears, and he forced himself not to grimace. 'The client is all that matters,' he repeated on a loop in his head as he worked to keep his face neutral.

Walking slowly out of his colleague's office, his mind suddenly leapt at an idea he hadn't considered: he hadn't really seen her in years (fleeting glimpses at the firm's handful of mandatory social events didn't count); she could've changed a lot in the interim, possibly even gotten married. His thoughts began to run wild as he desperately latched on to the idea that reality would prove he'd spent all this time needlessly making a mountain out of a molehill. As he allowed the concept to take deeper root in his mind, his chest began feeling lighter and he started quietly humming as he walked back to his office.

He'd recognized his folly the minute she'd set foot in his office for the initial case briefing. Her black and red wrap dress had hugged the curves of her body perfectly, the red splashes of color appearing to be strategically placed to automatically draw his attention to her ripe breasts and the taut swell of her ass and the taunting junction of her thighs. The bow she'd tied on the red sash keeping her dress closed had been so perfectly executed that he knew without a doubt that he could unwrap her with one firm pull on the bow "leg." Before he could stop himself, his mind began wandering, imagining what type of lingerie she was wearing with a not insignificant part of him secretly hoping she was wearing crotchless panties and garters. His cock started to stir at the thought, and he quickly forced his attention back to her face.

The new focus of his attention was not much better. Her dark blue eyes had slowly drifted over his body as she sat down across from him and her pupils had blown so wide that they were beginning to crowd out the color of her irises. She'd tucked an errant strand of silky auburn hair behind her ear before leaning just a little bit closer toward his desk as she'd listened intently to the background of the case. Although the motion was quick, his traitorous eyes had not failed to notice that she wasn't wearing any rings on her left hand. His throat suddenly felt like he'd swallowed a bucket of sawdust. As he paused to take a sip from his perpetually-filled mug of black coffee, he tried to think of anything that would help distract him from his urge to fuck her on his desk. He had the mug halfway to his mouth to take another drink of his coffee when she asked, "Is there anything else you need from me?" There was a velvety seductiveness to her voice that had him internally screaming to pull her out of her chair, rip open the sash on her dress and fuck her hard and dirty until they'd each cum at least twice.