My room was filled with heat and the sounds of our sighs, and groans and ragged breathing, as our hands slid along each other’s slick bodies. I was consumed with a sweet ache every time he pulled back, and dizzy with pleasure every time he pushed into me deeply. Finally, as we moved together in a sensual rhythm to the edge, he broke our kiss to look at me again, and I knew what he wanted me to say.

“I love you,” I panted, getting closer, climbing … “So much. Only you.”

“I love you too,” he answered, breathing heavily and looking like he couldn’t hold on much longer. “Only you, Lily. Always you.”

We began moving even faster, thrusting harder, pleading and moaning, until, moments later, lights burst before my eyes, and I felt my inner muscles contract hard, and keep contracting, in waves of white hot pleasure and intense relief. Feeling me go over the edge, Adam stopped holding back, and went still, his muscles tensing, a tremor passing through his body, as we cried out each other’s names ecstatically. We finally let go, but we held on tight.

Later as we laid together, still holding each other, we talked for hours about all kinds of things. We looked back and tried to see some of our history together through the lens of two people who had wanted to be together, but didn’t know how to do it. It explained a lot. Both of us had denied our feelings, even to ourselves, and it felt good to finally be able to talk about it.

We didn’t just talk about the past, though. We talked about the present, and even the future a bit. I think that from that point on, Adam and I both knew that we were meant to be together, and that we would be, somehow. After all, we kept winding up back together, no matter how hard we had tried to stay apart. That didn’t mean we wouldn’t still get on each other’s nerves. We were still Adam and Lily, not Gabrielle and Braden, even if we were in love too.

“You want to help me with some of my cases next week?” he asked eventually, rubbing my shoulder as he held me, snuggling against him.

“I’d like that.” I pulled myself up a little so I could look at him. “I want to feel like I’m contributing and making myself useful.”

“I know.” He smiled at me. “I figure I had better keep you occupied before you wind up arguing before the Supreme Court when I’m not looking.”

“I could probably question a witness or two,” I offered. “I think I have the confidence to pull it off.”

“You think you do?” He laughed. “From what I’ve seen so far, you’ve got plenty of swagger in the courtroom.” He kissed the top of my head.

“Your confidence is really sexy there,” I confessed. “You were turning me on.”

“Well, if you want to have a rendezvous with me, Braden and Gabrielle can tell us every hook-up spot in the courthouse.”

“You’re kidding.” I laughed.

“Nope. Arguing in court against each other used to get their motors revved. I think Braden may have a map,” he joked.

“Do you talk to your friends about us?” I asked curiously, reaching up to stroke his cheek. He leaned into my touch and nuzzled my hand affectionately.

“What, about our sex life? Only in general. Guys don’t go into detail about their wives and girlfriends. Not like women do anyway.”

“How do you know?”

“I have three sisters, who all have plenty of friends. Talk about overhearing more than you ever wanted to know about your family members. They’ve almost burned a hole in my head a few times.”

“So that’s what happened,” I teased and he tickled me, making me giggle and squirm, and thus giving him a cheap thrill. “What have you told them?” I asked curiously.

“I told them we’re very good together and, that you’re incredibly sexy and you drive me so nuts I feel like I’m seventeen again. What have you told your friends? Adam’s dick is exactly eight and a half inches long, and he can go for forty-nine minutes a pop, with seven minutes of down time …”

“I just said that you’re very talented. You’ve obviously had plenty of practice.”

“Does it bother you a lot that I had such a prolific sex life in the past?” He sounded concerned, and he pulled me against him tighter.

“Not that much. I believe you when you say that it’s different with me because I know it’s different with you.”

“I don’t have any interest in being with anyone else anymore.”

“Me neither. You’re the only one I’ve really wanted since summer.”

“I started losing interest in random hook-ups then too, and after that weekend at the cabin, you were all I thought about. I knew that I had to do something. I just didn’t really know what, but we always seem to wind up together, so I figured it would work out somehow.”

“You know we’re still going to argue, Adam,” I warned him, rubbing my hand over his chest. “We’re just both sarcastic, argumentative people. At twenty-seven, we’re already like that old couple you always see bickering in the synagogue parking lot by their Lincoln Continental.”

“That’s okay, Lily. That old couple are still together, aren’t they? Besides, that’s why God invented make-up sex.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

That week Adam and I learned a lot. During the days, we learned to work together as I became a practicing lawyer. I was kind of amazed at how quickly I took to it. According to Jess at least, Adam and I had a similar courtroom style – cocky. Who knew that was lurking inside me? I saw a look of amusement and pride on his face as I started taking on more and more. Unfortunately, it wasn’t making me very popular on defense side. It wasn’t long before Jess and Mark didn’t love me anymore. In fact, I think Mark wanted to beat me senseless after one preliminary hearing we did together.

I must admit I did give him a hard time. His client had tried to pay a restaurant bill with a stolen credit card – stolen from the waitress serving her. I dropped that little tidbit as a surprise and barely managed to contain my amusement when the waitress testified that the defendant had also handed over the waitresses’ own driver’s license as identification. I glanced up at Mark with a shadow of a smirk. Oh come on! It was funny! Who does that? He glared back at me like he wanted to commit a crime himself. Some people have no appreciation for the ridiculous. After I got all of the charges held for trial, and a couple more added, I returned to the prosecution table where Adam was giving me an entirely different kind of look. I sat down beside him as Braden and Jess got up to do a guilty plea.

“That was great,” he leaned over and whispered in my ear. “You handled it brilliantly and it was very sexy. I wanted to take you back to my office and do all kinds of dirty things to you.”

“That was amusing,” I replied. “I can’t believe anyone would be that thick.”

“Believe it and get used to it. I think I’m really going to enjoy being in court with you every day. You’ve got some pretty hot swagger, counselor.”

To my surprise, I was actually enjoying this job quite a lot myself so far. I seemed to be able to channel a ton of confidence in a courtroom that I didn’t always have elsewhere. Maybe I really had inherited something from my parents after all. Besides, Adam had some pretty hot swagger too and we seemed to work well together.

In the evenings that week, Adam and I also learned to cohabitate. That process went a little less smoothly. For example, we bought groceries and decided to make dinner together in the evenings after work, but his culinary skills were a bit better developed than mine were.

“Why are you staring at a garlic press?” he asked, startling me.

“I was wondering what it did.”

“It presses garlic, hence the name,” he answered dryly.

“Do you see the words ‘garlic press’ written on here, Mr. Smartass? How in the hell was I supposed to know what it was called”

“Who usually feeds you, Ronald McDonald?”

“Very funny. Why would you pack a garlic press when you came here?”

“I didn’t; that’s yours.”

“It is?” I stared at it with amazement and confusion.

“You’re an interesting woman, Adler.”

Sharing space was a little tricky at first, as I found the first night that I wanted to go through my little beauty regimen.

“What are doing in there, retiling?” he called out, banging on the bathroom door.

“Why, you like hanging out in bathrooms? I’ve heard there are guys like that.” I finished smearing a mud mask on my face and wrapped the towel around my hair a little tighter.

“No, I don’t actually. I use bathrooms for other things, like relieving myself, which is what I’ve needed to do for the past twenty minutes while you’ve taken up residence in there.”

“Well, why didn’t you tell me you had to go before?” I shouted.

“Because I wasn’t aware that this was going to become a test of my willpower,” he shouted back.

“Can you wait another ten minutes?”

“Not without sustaining permanent injury.”

“Fine! Close your eyes.”

“What?!”

“Close your eyes God damn it! You can open them when you get in here.” I heard grumbling outside the door. “Are they closed?”

“Yes! Hurry up already before my bladder bursts!”

I walked over and carefully opened the door. True to his word, Adam stood there with eyes closed and a pained look on his face, fidgeting around. I walked out and gently shoved him inside, closing the door behind him. A couple of minutes later, after he accomplished what he had set out to do, he came barreling out of the bathroom and stopped dead in his tracks when he saw me. The look on his face went from shock to amusement very quickly.

“What are you doing with your eyes open?!” I demanded.

“You’ve got some mud, right about here,” he teased, pointing to the corner of his mouth.

“You said you would close your eyes!”

“That was going in! I didn’t make any promises coming out.”

“It was understood! Why would I ask you to close them going in if I didn’t want you to close them coming out? What, you think I’m playing hide and seek?”

“No, I think you’re nuts! What are you worried about?”

“I didn’t want you to see me like this. I look horrible.”

“No, you don’t. Well, okay, I’ve seen you look better, but I don’t care. I know that you’re beautiful under all that gook.” He walked over to me, looking like he was trying not to laugh. Putting his arms around me he pulled me to him. “Lily, I love you, even like that.” He leaned down and kissed me lightly on the lips.

“You have some mud, right about …” I wiped it off the corner of his mouth, still pouting a little, but much less hostile.

There were other adjustments … Adam and I had decided to share my desk, which was fairly large, and so after dinner we began cleaning up and taking our work over to my writing nook, where he sat on one side and I sat on the other. I was just trying to figure out a complicated plot point one evening, when I was distracted by a clicking coming from his side of the desk. I peered around my laptop screen in the direction of the sound. There, I saw Adam messing around with a container of tic tacs. I had found the source of the cinnamon taste of his kisses. He looked up.

“Want one?” he offered.

“Sure, thanks,” I replied. He proceeded to knock exactly one tic tac into his palm and hand it to me. “Are you sure you can spare this?’ I asked solemnly.

“How many did you want?”

“Well, more than one. Who gives somebody one tic tac? Would it kill to be a little more generous? Some psychologist somewhere probably has some theory about one tic tac givers and fear of commitment.”

“Fear of commitment, my ass. You should be committed, you loon. If you were intended to have more than one tic tac, they would have just made tic tacs bigger. This is a regulation sized tic tac, and it should be more than enough to satisfy your breath freshening needs,” he said, sounding affronted.

“A tic tac is not merely a breath freshener, it is a candy,” I pointed out, voice rising in anger. Who was he calling a loon? “And they make them small on purpose, so you’ll think you’re getting more, and so you’ll run out faster when someone asks for one, and you give them a few!”

“Why would someone ask for A tic tac when they really wanted several tic tacs? What does that say about their psychology?! Why not be honest from the get-go about what you want?!” he shouted back at me.

“I didn’t ask for one! You offered me one, God damn it!”

“And as for your other points, it is primarily a breath freshener, and maybe you should alert the media about your great tic tac size conspiracy!”

“I can’t believe we’re fighting about motherfucking tic tacs!” I screamed and the two of us glowered at each other across my desk for several seconds before smiles slowly appeared on both of our faces.

“Want to have make-up sex?” he asked.

“Yeah, let’s go,” I said, getting up and heading for the bedroom.

That was one thing that we adjusted to quite happily. Not only did we now have regular access to hot sex, we had developed enough intimacy and trust to play around and be a little adventurous. In other words, I really did have a research assistant.

One night when I came out from the bathroom, I found him reading on his iPad in bed. We had gotten into the habit of reading to each other, which I absolutely loved. He seemed totally engrossed and I was curious.