“No—”

“You can do anything. You’ve proved that.”

“I’m not ready.”

“I’ll go with you,” he said, and he stepped on and pulled me into the narrow cylinder with him.

The door closed, and when the cage descended, I lurched and stumbled against him, and as he reached to steady me, I flung my arms around his neck and kissed him.

He wasn’t surprised. He’d been expecting it, waiting for it, taking it as his due. He didn’t accelerate; neither did he resist. When the elevator landed on the basement level, I had to use my keycard to unlock the door, and I had to lead him by the hand into the bedroom.

No one could ever accuse him of making unwelcome workplace advances. “You’re sure?” he said before he undressed me, and I could tell it was a practiced bit of his foreplay, a rhetorical question he was certain would be answered in a breathless affirmative. Which was exactly how I answered.

He lay back on the bed and waited for me to straddle him. But it didn’t take long for him to give up the charade that I was the one in charge. He flipped me onto my back, and I stared at the ceiling as he rose and thrust above me. He was hinged at the hips, levering up on straight arms and down on bent elbows. The image of a lever rooted in my mind. He was a lever, trying to pry information out of me. When his pace quickened, the image changed, and I thought of an oil pumpjack out on a windswept Texas prairie, drilling deep to tap into my well of knowledge about CDMI and how he might bring it down. Sex was a tool, his greatest one, or so he thought.

What metaphor described my own sexual behavior? That was easy, I thought, as I wrapped my spider arms and legs around him and drew him deeper into my clichéd web.

Afterward, cheek to chest, I murmured, “Stay the night?”

He kissed the top of my head. “I wish. But we have to be discreet. You understand that, don’t you?”

He assumed I was smitten. That my ardor would have to be controlled. I gave him the sigh he was waiting for. “Of course. I understand.”

He got dressed in his white-tie ensemble, and I clung to him as he padded barefoot to the elevator. His waistcoat and shirt hung open—the mother-of-pearl studs were in his pocket—and I slipped my hands inside, against his skin. “I’m so grateful we had this time, Mark.” I lifted my face to his. “I’m so grateful for everything.”

He smiled and kissed me again.

“I mean it,” I said, breathing against his lips. “I wish I could repay you. I wish I could give you what you want.”

He leaned back in the circle of our arms, watching me, waiting for the next part.

“I can’t betray an attorney-client confidence or violate my NDA. You know that.”