The Morning After (Law & Order: UK)
Title: The Morning After
Author: Persiflage_1
Characters/Pairings: Alesha/James, George, Natalie
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: 4.06 - Skeletons
Summary: Alternate ending to Skeletons - James desperately wants to talk to Alesha.
Disclaimer: ITV owns Law & Order: UK
Author Notes: fourzoas said I'd love a story about what James does on the morning after his break from the CPS. Alesha is, as always, welcome to join him! ;-)
~~~~~~
The morning after his press conference in which he tendered his resignation finds James waiting outside the coffee shop where Alesha usually stops off on the way to work; she looks startled, then pleased at the sight of him, and he can’t help smiling warmly at the sight of her.
“This is an unexpected surprise,” she says.
“I want to talk to you,” he tells her.
She glances at her watch. “Now’s not really a good time,” she says, her expression sobering.
“I know that,” he answers, a trifle impatiently, then he sees a flash of irritation in her eyes, and immediately softens his tone. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap. I was hoping we could meet up for lunch to talk.”
“I’ll try,” she says, “but you know what our - my - caseload is like at the moment. I can’t promise that I’ll come.”
“Please try,” he asks, aware that he’s practically begging.
She nods. “I will try,” she says. “I’ll send you a text and let you know what time.”
He shoves his hands into his pockets to stop himself from reaching for her. “Thank you.”
“Do you want to walk with me to work?” she asks.
He hesitates, torn. Half of him wants to say yes, because he wants to spend more time with her, but half of him wants to say no, because it would be weird and disorienting to go to the office, then not go in.
“It’s okay,” Alesha says, understanding in her dark eyes. “I’ll see you at lunchtime, okay?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
She nods, then goes inside the coffee shop and after a few moments he forces himself to walk away, heading for the tube that will take him back home. He needs to get started on finding a new job - he can’t afford to stay unemployed for long with both a mortgage and maintenance payments to Ethan’s mother to cover.
* * * * * *
Alesha sends James a text at midday to say she’ll meet him for lunch at the White Horse at 1pm, and he feels a surge of relief when he gets the message. He is waiting outside the pub in good time, and he spots her familiar figure approaching with a sense of pleasure.
“Hello,” he says. “Thanks for coming.”
“I can only stay half an hour,” she tells him, and before he can do more than open his mouth to answer, she adds, “It’s not my fault, James. I had to beg George to let me come out to lunch at all - he’d far rather I’d worked through my lunch break in the office.” She fixes him with a scowl. “You really couldn’t have picked a worse moment to decide to fall so nobly upon your sword. George is storming up and down the office, demanding to know whether he’s going to find another senior prosecutor of your calibre at such short notice.”
“Can I buy you a drink?” he interjects quickly when she pauses for breath. “And some lunch?”
“You can buy me a drink,” she agrees, looking slightly ashamed of her outburst. “I’ll have to get a sandwich on my way back as I don’t have time to wait for them to cook something for me.”
“Would you rather go to the coffee shop?” he suggests, nodding along the street. “You can get a sandwich and a coffee there, and I’ll buy you cake.”
“All right.” She follows him along the street. “I probably shouldn’t be drinking alcohol at this hour of the day, anyway,” she observes. “It’ll make me sleepy.”
He cocks an eyebrow at her. “Are you sleeping badly?” he asks worriedly.
She shakes her head. “No, well, I didn’t sleep very well last night.” She bites her bottom lip, looking sideways at him.
“I’m sorry,” he says, genuinely meaning it.
“Yes, well, I suppose I do understand why you felt you had to resign,” she concedes.
“I wasn’t just being noble,” he says softly, holding open the coffee shop door for her.
“I know.”
They discover that the coffee shop is crowded and James feels his heart sink as he realises that there will be no chance of having a private personal conversation in here, and he curses silently.
“Do you want to grab a table, if you can find one, and I’ll go and get lunch?” he suggests.
“All right.”
James joins the queue, fretting at every wasted minute of Alesha’s short lunch break, and barely controlling his temper. He buys sandwiches, two coffees and a slice of Alesha’s favourite cake, pre-wrapped so she can easily take it with her if she doesn’t have time to eat it now.
He makes his way over to the table and they open their sandwiches and sip their coffees, then Alesha asks him about one of the cases on which they’d been working, and before James has noticed, it’s time for her to go back to work. He crushes his empty coffee cup with a silent snarl and Alesha gives him an alarmed look.
“What’s wrong?” she says as they make their way outside.
“Nothing.”
“Rubbish! Just then you looked like you want to kill someone.”
He feels his face flush. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly, then swallows because Alesha’s watching him worriedly and he doesn’t want to lose his temper with her, this situation isn’t her fault.
“I was really hoping to talk to you,” he tells her, “but it’s not a conversation we can have in a few minutes snatched from work.” He takes a deep breath. “Will you have dinner with me, tonight?”
She blinks. “I don’t know what time I’ll be finishing.”
“What about if I brought take away to your place?” he suggests, desperately willing her to say yes. Something of that desperation must show in his face because she gives him a concerned look, then agrees.
“I’ll text you when I’m about to leave,” she says.
“Text me a bit before, and I’ll pick you up in a cab,” he says, more tentatively.
She raises her eyebrows. “This must be a very important conversation you want to have,” she observes.
He nods, not trusting himself to speak.
”All right,” she agrees, “if it’s that important to you, I’ll text you about twenty minutes before I leave.”
”Thank you,” he says fervently, placing a hand on her wrist for a moment. “Shall I get Chinese?”
She nods. “Okay. Look, I’ll have to go.”
“Yes, I know, and thank you, Alesha.”
She nods again, the concerned look back in her eyes, then she turns and walks away at a brisk pace. James watches her until her diminutive figure disappears into the crowd thronging the pavement, then turns and heads back home again.
* * * * * *
Around five o’clock his mobile rings, startling him from his abstracted state; he’s supposed to be looking at vacancies listed on the law employment websites. To his surprise the caller is DI Natalie Chandler.
“Hello, Natalie, did you misdial?” he asks.
She chuckles. “No, James, I didn’t dial your number instead of Alesha’s, it’s you I want to talk to.”
“Oh?” He feels puzzlement, wondering why she would want to talk to him now he’s no longer at the CPS.
“How are you doing?”
He sighs heavily. “Driving myself mad,” he says honestly.
“Worrying about Alesha?” she asks.
His eyebrows go up. “Why would I be worrying about Alesha?”
She snorts down the line. “Come off it, James, I’ve worked with the two of you long enough to know you’re devoted to her.”
He swallows, feeling cornered. “I - “ he begins, then falters, uncertain what to say. He hadn’t realised he’d failed so badly to hide his feelings.
Natalie chuckles again. “Don’t worry,” she says. “If I’m any judge, Alesha feels the same way about you. And now you’re in a position to do something about it.”
He grunts. “If only.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I met up with her before work this morning in order to ask her to have lunch with me, so that I could talk to her about the possibility of us getting together, but when we met for lunch she only had half an hour to spare, the coffee shop was too crowded to talk properly, and she spent most of the time quizzing me about the cases we’re working - we were working on.”
“So take her out for dinner instead,” Natalie suggests.
“I invited her, but she said she didn’t know what time she’d be finishing tonight - George is running her ragged because I’m not there.” He wonders if the guilt in his voice is as obvious to Natalie as it is to him. “I persuaded her to agree that I could meet her from work and we’d go back to her place with a takeaway.”
“Did she need much persuading?”
“Well, no - but I think she could tell how desperately I wanted to talk to her.”
“I’m sure she could,” Natalie says. “Alesha’s a very perceptive young woman, very in tune with others’ feelings, and especially with yours.”
“I know.” James sighs.
“Well, I’m sure she’ll listen to whatever you have to say, tonight. In the meantime, I’ve a suggestion for you regarding employment.”
“Oh?” Again he feels puzzlement.
“Why don’t you come and work for us?”
He frowns. “Become a police lawyer?” he asks doubtfully.
She laughs. “No, become a police officer. You’d make a good detective, I think.”
“Really?” His eyebrows have shot up and he can hear the scepticism in his own voice.
“Yes, really.” She sounds entirely serious, he notices.
“I can’t say it’s a career I’ve ever considered.”
“Why would you?” she asks. “You’ve always been a lawyer. Anyway, we’ve having a recruitment open day in a couple of days, so why don’t you come along?”
“All right,” he agrees, a little cautiously.
“I’ll email you the details,” she says. “And good luck for tonight.”
“Thanks. Thank you, Natalie, I appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome.”
She hangs up and James stares unseeingly at the screen of his laptop, feeling rather confounded by her suggestion, but also slightly heartened by her comments about Alesha’s feelings for him. They’ve had dinner a few times, and gone out for drinks a good many more times, but nothing has come of that; there was their memorable ice-skating ‘date’, but with Ethan in tow, that hadn’t really been a proper date either. He’s fairly sure Alesha likes him, but he’s not sure how much - perhaps tonight he’ll find out.
* * * * * *
James has given up all pretence of trying to do anything by 7pm, he’s simply pacing up and down, waiting for his text alert to go off; finally at 7.30pm his mobile buzzes in his hand and he quickly checks the text message - to his relief it’s from Alesha, and he sends her a quick ‘On my way’, then rushes out.
The taxi pulls up outside the CPS building fifteen minutes later and Alesha emerges almost immediately, to James’ relief. She climbs into the cab and gives the driver her address, then she looks at James.
“Hello.”
“Hi,” he says, as casually as he can, but he can see a flicker of amusement in her eyes and he suspects he didn’t sound as casual as he’d hoped.
“What did you get?” she asks, nodding at the carrier bag at his feet.
“All your favourites,” he tells her, smiling.
“Thanks.”
He nods, then tells her about Natalie’s job suggestion, but not about their conversation about his desire for a relationship with Alesha - that will come later. Alesha seems intrigued by Natalie’s suggestion, and he feels absurdly pleased that she doesn’t just dismiss the idea out of hand.
“I should think George might have a thing or two to say on the subject,” she teases.
“No doubt,” agrees James easily.
The cab pulls up outside Alesha’s block of flats, and they get out, James paying the driver while Alesha goes to unlock the door.
“Come in,” she says, gesturing inside.
“Thanks.” James steps over the threshold, the carrier bag of food cartons wafting pleasant scents along the hallway as she leads him to a flat on the ground floor at the back.
“Shoes off?” he asks as Alesha lets them into her flat.
“If you don’t mind,” she says.
“Of course not.”
She takes the carrier bag from him and puts it on the small hall table and he quickly sheds shoes, coat and scarf, putting them where Alesha indicates.
“Come through.”
He follows her down the pale green hallway and into a more brightly painted kitchen that looks cosy and comfortable, with a small oak dining table and chairs by the window, which overlooks a well-kept garden.
“Do you want a drink?” she asks, setting the carrier bag on the kitchen table and moving towards the cupboards along the wall opposite the window.
“Please.”
“Red or white wine?”
“Red, please.”
She smiles. “You brought the beef then?”
He smiles back, amused that she knows his tastes well enough to work that out. “Yeah.”
She nods and gets out wine glasses and plates, which James takes from her and sets on the table. She smirks slightly at this evidence of domesticity, and gets out chopsticks and napkins from a drawer, then takes the bottle of wine from the fridge.
They’re soon settled at the table with their plates piled high, and James asks how she got on that afternoon with the case she’d discussed with him at lunchtime. Alesha talks readily while they’re eating, only falling silent when they have finished.
“Do you want some coffee?” she asks as James helps her to clear the table.
“Yes please.”
“Why don’t you go through to the sitting room, first door on your left as you go back towards the front door, and I’ll bring it through, and then you can tell me what’s so important?”
He nods, and makes his way through to the sitting room which he discovers also overlooks the garden at the back of the block. The room itself is a bit bigger than the kitchen, and papered in cream and green patterned wallpaper; there are also two flags on the wall behind the door and after a moment he identifies them as the Iranian and Ghanaian national flags. He raises his eyebrows a little at the sight of them, then crosses the room to look at Alesha’s bookshelves, which hold CDs and DVDs as well as books. The bottom shelf holds her Law books, and he smiles in reminiscence of his own student days at the sight of many of them; the next two shelves hold a mixture of fiction and non-fiction books; the top shelf is half full of DVDs, with the other half holding stacks of music CDs.
Alesha comes in with a tray that holds two large mugs of coffee, and two plates with large slices of blackberry cheesecake on them; James raises his eyebrows at the dessert and she bites her bottom lip momentarily.
“I fancied it,” she says, sounding slightly defensive, “and I thought you might like some too.”
“I’d love some,” he assures her, moving over to sit on the sofa as she sets down the tray on the coffee table.
“Good.” She passes him a plate and a fork with which to eat the cheesecake. “So, James Steel, what’s on your mind?”
He takes a mouthful of the dessert while he decides how to broach the subject. “We’ve known each other for three years,” he says, “and we’ve become very good friends, I hope.” He glances sideways at her and she nods. “I wondered - “ He falters, swallows hard, then continues. “I wondered if you had considered the possibility of us being more than friends, particularly now that I am no longer your nominal boss?”
Alesha lifts an eyebrow, then swallows her forkful of cheesecake. “Actually, I had,” she says, looking almost embarrassed by her admission. “But I didn’t think you saw me that way.”
He puts his hand on her knee. “I’ve fancied you since your first came for an interview at the CPS,” he tells her, aware that his cheeks are hot.
Both her eyebrows rise at this admission. “Really?” He nods. “Well, that is a surprise.”
“A nice surprise?” he asks nervously.
She chuckles. “Yes, of course, silly man.” She puts her hand over his and squeezes his fingers. “I fancied you right from the start too.”
“Well, I’ll be damned.” He laughs. “Though Natalie did say, this afternoon, that she reckoned you felt the same way about me.”
“You’ve been discussing me with Natalie?” she asks, frowning slightly.
“Not much,” he says quickly. “She rang me up about the recruitment open day, but you came up in the conversation - Natalie said something about having worked with us both long enough to know I was devoted to you, then she said she thought you felt the same way about me.”
“Perceptive woman,” Alesha comments, smirking.
“That’s what she called you,” James tells her, then leans towards her, wondering if she’ll let him kiss her.
She does, and they spend several minutes exploring each other’s mouths until Alesha makes a needy sort of noise, and James pulls back to rest his forehead against hers. Before he can speak, her right hand is unfastening his shirt buttons, then slipping inside his shirt.
“Two can play at that game,” he mutters, and she giggles breathlessly as he unbuttons her dark red blouse and slides his long fingers across her bare skin. “Why, you minx!” He pulls his head back to stare at her in astonishment as he discovers she’s not wearing a bra.
She smirks again, then moves off the sofa to sit on his lap and James finds himself being kissed very thoroughly, her hands raking through his dark blond hair.
“Jesus Alesha,” he gasps when she pulls away to allow them to catch their breath.
“You ain’t seen nothing yet, Mister Steel,” she mutters, then shifts on his lap and he feels his already half-hard cock stiffening further. She begins kissing him again, and he’s vaguely aware that her hands are at his waist, then gulps in shock when she eases his erection free of his trousers.
“I want you,” she says, looking him directly in the eye.
“I want you too,” he assures her, and she nods, then pushes herself upwards, and he reaches up under her skirt to find her underwear. He’s not surprised that she’s wearing a thong (red, to match her blouse, apparently), and he grows even more excited when he discovers the silk is damp with her arousal.
“I’ve got a condom in my jacket pocket,” he tells her.
“Someone must have been feeling very confident,” she says, tilting her head and grinning mischievously at him as her hand delves into his inside pocket and pulls out a little foil wrapped object.
“No,” he assures her. “Not that confident, but I didn’t want to be unprepared. I thought it would be more rude not to have a condom than to have one.”
She kisses him quick and hard. “Relax, James, I was just teasing.” She gets the condom out of its wrapper and puts it on him, stroking her fingers up and down his shaft once its on. She lifts herself up, then guides his sheathed cock into her slick heat, and he moans as he slides inside her.
“I might not last long, this first time,” he tells her, breathing more raggedly now his cock is engulfed by her tight channel.
“That’s okay,” she assures him, pushing upwards, then sliding back down his hard length.
“Oh fuck!” He’s a lot closer to orgasm than he’d initially realised, and it only takes a few more minutes of Alesha moving up and down on him before he climaxes.
“I’m sorry,” he says sheepishly.
She leans in and kisses him firmly. “It’s okay,” she assures him.
“Did you - ?” he begins.
She chuckles softly. “Yeah, I came too.”
“Oh, good.”
She twists around on his lap, his softening cock still inside her, and reaches down to grab the plate of cheesecake he hadn’t finished eating. To his secret delight Alesha feeds him the rest, one forkful at a time, still without moving off his lap.
“You know,” he says, “I brought the condom, but I wasn’t really convinced I’d get to use it.” He nuzzles the side of her neck, below her ear. “And I certainly didn’t expect you to start shagging me on the sofa.”
She laughs delightedly. “I bet you thought I was a bit proper.”
“Well, yes,” he agrees, smirking at her.
“Then you’re in for a wild ride,” she says, returning the smirk.
James’ eyebrows go up in response to this. “Is that right, Ms Phillips?”
“It certainly is, Mr Steel,” she answers.
“So I was right to call you a minx, earlier.”
She nods, clearly amused. “Do you want to come and have a shower?”
“With you?” he asks, surprised.
“Yeah. Haven’t you ever showered with a lover before?” He shakes his head, somewhat bemused. “Then you’ve been missing out,” she tells him. She lifts herself off his lap, bending down to pick up her discarded thong, and James sighs softly: if it wasn’t for the evidence of his senses, he’d be inclined to think he’d dreamt what had just happened.
Alesha turns to look at him, holding out her hand, and he gets up and lets her lead him to the bathroom. Tonight is going to be an interesting night, he decides.
Author: Persiflage_1
Characters/Pairings: Alesha/James, George, Natalie
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: 4.06 - Skeletons
Summary: Alternate ending to Skeletons - James desperately wants to talk to Alesha.
Disclaimer: ITV owns Law & Order: UK
Author Notes: fourzoas said I'd love a story about what James does on the morning after his break from the CPS. Alesha is, as always, welcome to join him! ;-)
~~~~~~
The morning after his press conference in which he tendered his resignation finds James waiting outside the coffee shop where Alesha usually stops off on the way to work; she looks startled, then pleased at the sight of him, and he can’t help smiling warmly at the sight of her.
“This is an unexpected surprise,” she says.
“I want to talk to you,” he tells her.
She glances at her watch. “Now’s not really a good time,” she says, her expression sobering.
“I know that,” he answers, a trifle impatiently, then he sees a flash of irritation in her eyes, and immediately softens his tone. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap. I was hoping we could meet up for lunch to talk.”
“I’ll try,” she says, “but you know what our - my - caseload is like at the moment. I can’t promise that I’ll come.”
“Please try,” he asks, aware that he’s practically begging.
She nods. “I will try,” she says. “I’ll send you a text and let you know what time.”
He shoves his hands into his pockets to stop himself from reaching for her. “Thank you.”
“Do you want to walk with me to work?” she asks.
He hesitates, torn. Half of him wants to say yes, because he wants to spend more time with her, but half of him wants to say no, because it would be weird and disorienting to go to the office, then not go in.
“It’s okay,” Alesha says, understanding in her dark eyes. “I’ll see you at lunchtime, okay?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
She nods, then goes inside the coffee shop and after a few moments he forces himself to walk away, heading for the tube that will take him back home. He needs to get started on finding a new job - he can’t afford to stay unemployed for long with both a mortgage and maintenance payments to Ethan’s mother to cover.
* * * * * *
Alesha sends James a text at midday to say she’ll meet him for lunch at the White Horse at 1pm, and he feels a surge of relief when he gets the message. He is waiting outside the pub in good time, and he spots her familiar figure approaching with a sense of pleasure.
“Hello,” he says. “Thanks for coming.”
“I can only stay half an hour,” she tells him, and before he can do more than open his mouth to answer, she adds, “It’s not my fault, James. I had to beg George to let me come out to lunch at all - he’d far rather I’d worked through my lunch break in the office.” She fixes him with a scowl. “You really couldn’t have picked a worse moment to decide to fall so nobly upon your sword. George is storming up and down the office, demanding to know whether he’s going to find another senior prosecutor of your calibre at such short notice.”
“Can I buy you a drink?” he interjects quickly when she pauses for breath. “And some lunch?”
“You can buy me a drink,” she agrees, looking slightly ashamed of her outburst. “I’ll have to get a sandwich on my way back as I don’t have time to wait for them to cook something for me.”
“Would you rather go to the coffee shop?” he suggests, nodding along the street. “You can get a sandwich and a coffee there, and I’ll buy you cake.”
“All right.” She follows him along the street. “I probably shouldn’t be drinking alcohol at this hour of the day, anyway,” she observes. “It’ll make me sleepy.”
He cocks an eyebrow at her. “Are you sleeping badly?” he asks worriedly.
She shakes her head. “No, well, I didn’t sleep very well last night.” She bites her bottom lip, looking sideways at him.
“I’m sorry,” he says, genuinely meaning it.
“Yes, well, I suppose I do understand why you felt you had to resign,” she concedes.
“I wasn’t just being noble,” he says softly, holding open the coffee shop door for her.
“I know.”
They discover that the coffee shop is crowded and James feels his heart sink as he realises that there will be no chance of having a private personal conversation in here, and he curses silently.
“Do you want to grab a table, if you can find one, and I’ll go and get lunch?” he suggests.
“All right.”
James joins the queue, fretting at every wasted minute of Alesha’s short lunch break, and barely controlling his temper. He buys sandwiches, two coffees and a slice of Alesha’s favourite cake, pre-wrapped so she can easily take it with her if she doesn’t have time to eat it now.
He makes his way over to the table and they open their sandwiches and sip their coffees, then Alesha asks him about one of the cases on which they’d been working, and before James has noticed, it’s time for her to go back to work. He crushes his empty coffee cup with a silent snarl and Alesha gives him an alarmed look.
“What’s wrong?” she says as they make their way outside.
“Nothing.”
“Rubbish! Just then you looked like you want to kill someone.”
He feels his face flush. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly, then swallows because Alesha’s watching him worriedly and he doesn’t want to lose his temper with her, this situation isn’t her fault.
“I was really hoping to talk to you,” he tells her, “but it’s not a conversation we can have in a few minutes snatched from work.” He takes a deep breath. “Will you have dinner with me, tonight?”
She blinks. “I don’t know what time I’ll be finishing.”
“What about if I brought take away to your place?” he suggests, desperately willing her to say yes. Something of that desperation must show in his face because she gives him a concerned look, then agrees.
“I’ll text you when I’m about to leave,” she says.
“Text me a bit before, and I’ll pick you up in a cab,” he says, more tentatively.
She raises her eyebrows. “This must be a very important conversation you want to have,” she observes.
He nods, not trusting himself to speak.
”All right,” she agrees, “if it’s that important to you, I’ll text you about twenty minutes before I leave.”
”Thank you,” he says fervently, placing a hand on her wrist for a moment. “Shall I get Chinese?”
She nods. “Okay. Look, I’ll have to go.”
“Yes, I know, and thank you, Alesha.”
She nods again, the concerned look back in her eyes, then she turns and walks away at a brisk pace. James watches her until her diminutive figure disappears into the crowd thronging the pavement, then turns and heads back home again.
* * * * * *
Around five o’clock his mobile rings, startling him from his abstracted state; he’s supposed to be looking at vacancies listed on the law employment websites. To his surprise the caller is DI Natalie Chandler.
“Hello, Natalie, did you misdial?” he asks.
She chuckles. “No, James, I didn’t dial your number instead of Alesha’s, it’s you I want to talk to.”
“Oh?” He feels puzzlement, wondering why she would want to talk to him now he’s no longer at the CPS.
“How are you doing?”
He sighs heavily. “Driving myself mad,” he says honestly.
“Worrying about Alesha?” she asks.
His eyebrows go up. “Why would I be worrying about Alesha?”
She snorts down the line. “Come off it, James, I’ve worked with the two of you long enough to know you’re devoted to her.”
He swallows, feeling cornered. “I - “ he begins, then falters, uncertain what to say. He hadn’t realised he’d failed so badly to hide his feelings.
Natalie chuckles again. “Don’t worry,” she says. “If I’m any judge, Alesha feels the same way about you. And now you’re in a position to do something about it.”
He grunts. “If only.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I met up with her before work this morning in order to ask her to have lunch with me, so that I could talk to her about the possibility of us getting together, but when we met for lunch she only had half an hour to spare, the coffee shop was too crowded to talk properly, and she spent most of the time quizzing me about the cases we’re working - we were working on.”
“So take her out for dinner instead,” Natalie suggests.
“I invited her, but she said she didn’t know what time she’d be finishing tonight - George is running her ragged because I’m not there.” He wonders if the guilt in his voice is as obvious to Natalie as it is to him. “I persuaded her to agree that I could meet her from work and we’d go back to her place with a takeaway.”
“Did she need much persuading?”
“Well, no - but I think she could tell how desperately I wanted to talk to her.”
“I’m sure she could,” Natalie says. “Alesha’s a very perceptive young woman, very in tune with others’ feelings, and especially with yours.”
“I know.” James sighs.
“Well, I’m sure she’ll listen to whatever you have to say, tonight. In the meantime, I’ve a suggestion for you regarding employment.”
“Oh?” Again he feels puzzlement.
“Why don’t you come and work for us?”
He frowns. “Become a police lawyer?” he asks doubtfully.
She laughs. “No, become a police officer. You’d make a good detective, I think.”
“Really?” His eyebrows have shot up and he can hear the scepticism in his own voice.
“Yes, really.” She sounds entirely serious, he notices.
“I can’t say it’s a career I’ve ever considered.”
“Why would you?” she asks. “You’ve always been a lawyer. Anyway, we’ve having a recruitment open day in a couple of days, so why don’t you come along?”
“All right,” he agrees, a little cautiously.
“I’ll email you the details,” she says. “And good luck for tonight.”
“Thanks. Thank you, Natalie, I appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome.”
She hangs up and James stares unseeingly at the screen of his laptop, feeling rather confounded by her suggestion, but also slightly heartened by her comments about Alesha’s feelings for him. They’ve had dinner a few times, and gone out for drinks a good many more times, but nothing has come of that; there was their memorable ice-skating ‘date’, but with Ethan in tow, that hadn’t really been a proper date either. He’s fairly sure Alesha likes him, but he’s not sure how much - perhaps tonight he’ll find out.
* * * * * *
James has given up all pretence of trying to do anything by 7pm, he’s simply pacing up and down, waiting for his text alert to go off; finally at 7.30pm his mobile buzzes in his hand and he quickly checks the text message - to his relief it’s from Alesha, and he sends her a quick ‘On my way’, then rushes out.
The taxi pulls up outside the CPS building fifteen minutes later and Alesha emerges almost immediately, to James’ relief. She climbs into the cab and gives the driver her address, then she looks at James.
“Hello.”
“Hi,” he says, as casually as he can, but he can see a flicker of amusement in her eyes and he suspects he didn’t sound as casual as he’d hoped.
“What did you get?” she asks, nodding at the carrier bag at his feet.
“All your favourites,” he tells her, smiling.
“Thanks.”
He nods, then tells her about Natalie’s job suggestion, but not about their conversation about his desire for a relationship with Alesha - that will come later. Alesha seems intrigued by Natalie’s suggestion, and he feels absurdly pleased that she doesn’t just dismiss the idea out of hand.
“I should think George might have a thing or two to say on the subject,” she teases.
“No doubt,” agrees James easily.
The cab pulls up outside Alesha’s block of flats, and they get out, James paying the driver while Alesha goes to unlock the door.
“Come in,” she says, gesturing inside.
“Thanks.” James steps over the threshold, the carrier bag of food cartons wafting pleasant scents along the hallway as she leads him to a flat on the ground floor at the back.
“Shoes off?” he asks as Alesha lets them into her flat.
“If you don’t mind,” she says.
“Of course not.”
She takes the carrier bag from him and puts it on the small hall table and he quickly sheds shoes, coat and scarf, putting them where Alesha indicates.
“Come through.”
He follows her down the pale green hallway and into a more brightly painted kitchen that looks cosy and comfortable, with a small oak dining table and chairs by the window, which overlooks a well-kept garden.
“Do you want a drink?” she asks, setting the carrier bag on the kitchen table and moving towards the cupboards along the wall opposite the window.
“Please.”
“Red or white wine?”
“Red, please.”
She smiles. “You brought the beef then?”
He smiles back, amused that she knows his tastes well enough to work that out. “Yeah.”
She nods and gets out wine glasses and plates, which James takes from her and sets on the table. She smirks slightly at this evidence of domesticity, and gets out chopsticks and napkins from a drawer, then takes the bottle of wine from the fridge.
They’re soon settled at the table with their plates piled high, and James asks how she got on that afternoon with the case she’d discussed with him at lunchtime. Alesha talks readily while they’re eating, only falling silent when they have finished.
“Do you want some coffee?” she asks as James helps her to clear the table.
“Yes please.”
“Why don’t you go through to the sitting room, first door on your left as you go back towards the front door, and I’ll bring it through, and then you can tell me what’s so important?”
He nods, and makes his way through to the sitting room which he discovers also overlooks the garden at the back of the block. The room itself is a bit bigger than the kitchen, and papered in cream and green patterned wallpaper; there are also two flags on the wall behind the door and after a moment he identifies them as the Iranian and Ghanaian national flags. He raises his eyebrows a little at the sight of them, then crosses the room to look at Alesha’s bookshelves, which hold CDs and DVDs as well as books. The bottom shelf holds her Law books, and he smiles in reminiscence of his own student days at the sight of many of them; the next two shelves hold a mixture of fiction and non-fiction books; the top shelf is half full of DVDs, with the other half holding stacks of music CDs.
Alesha comes in with a tray that holds two large mugs of coffee, and two plates with large slices of blackberry cheesecake on them; James raises his eyebrows at the dessert and she bites her bottom lip momentarily.
“I fancied it,” she says, sounding slightly defensive, “and I thought you might like some too.”
“I’d love some,” he assures her, moving over to sit on the sofa as she sets down the tray on the coffee table.
“Good.” She passes him a plate and a fork with which to eat the cheesecake. “So, James Steel, what’s on your mind?”
He takes a mouthful of the dessert while he decides how to broach the subject. “We’ve known each other for three years,” he says, “and we’ve become very good friends, I hope.” He glances sideways at her and she nods. “I wondered - “ He falters, swallows hard, then continues. “I wondered if you had considered the possibility of us being more than friends, particularly now that I am no longer your nominal boss?”
Alesha lifts an eyebrow, then swallows her forkful of cheesecake. “Actually, I had,” she says, looking almost embarrassed by her admission. “But I didn’t think you saw me that way.”
He puts his hand on her knee. “I’ve fancied you since your first came for an interview at the CPS,” he tells her, aware that his cheeks are hot.
Both her eyebrows rise at this admission. “Really?” He nods. “Well, that is a surprise.”
“A nice surprise?” he asks nervously.
She chuckles. “Yes, of course, silly man.” She puts her hand over his and squeezes his fingers. “I fancied you right from the start too.”
“Well, I’ll be damned.” He laughs. “Though Natalie did say, this afternoon, that she reckoned you felt the same way about me.”
“You’ve been discussing me with Natalie?” she asks, frowning slightly.
“Not much,” he says quickly. “She rang me up about the recruitment open day, but you came up in the conversation - Natalie said something about having worked with us both long enough to know I was devoted to you, then she said she thought you felt the same way about me.”
“Perceptive woman,” Alesha comments, smirking.
“That’s what she called you,” James tells her, then leans towards her, wondering if she’ll let him kiss her.
She does, and they spend several minutes exploring each other’s mouths until Alesha makes a needy sort of noise, and James pulls back to rest his forehead against hers. Before he can speak, her right hand is unfastening his shirt buttons, then slipping inside his shirt.
“Two can play at that game,” he mutters, and she giggles breathlessly as he unbuttons her dark red blouse and slides his long fingers across her bare skin. “Why, you minx!” He pulls his head back to stare at her in astonishment as he discovers she’s not wearing a bra.
She smirks again, then moves off the sofa to sit on his lap and James finds himself being kissed very thoroughly, her hands raking through his dark blond hair.
“Jesus Alesha,” he gasps when she pulls away to allow them to catch their breath.
“You ain’t seen nothing yet, Mister Steel,” she mutters, then shifts on his lap and he feels his already half-hard cock stiffening further. She begins kissing him again, and he’s vaguely aware that her hands are at his waist, then gulps in shock when she eases his erection free of his trousers.
“I want you,” she says, looking him directly in the eye.
“I want you too,” he assures her, and she nods, then pushes herself upwards, and he reaches up under her skirt to find her underwear. He’s not surprised that she’s wearing a thong (red, to match her blouse, apparently), and he grows even more excited when he discovers the silk is damp with her arousal.
“I’ve got a condom in my jacket pocket,” he tells her.
“Someone must have been feeling very confident,” she says, tilting her head and grinning mischievously at him as her hand delves into his inside pocket and pulls out a little foil wrapped object.
“No,” he assures her. “Not that confident, but I didn’t want to be unprepared. I thought it would be more rude not to have a condom than to have one.”
She kisses him quick and hard. “Relax, James, I was just teasing.” She gets the condom out of its wrapper and puts it on him, stroking her fingers up and down his shaft once its on. She lifts herself up, then guides his sheathed cock into her slick heat, and he moans as he slides inside her.
“I might not last long, this first time,” he tells her, breathing more raggedly now his cock is engulfed by her tight channel.
“That’s okay,” she assures him, pushing upwards, then sliding back down his hard length.
“Oh fuck!” He’s a lot closer to orgasm than he’d initially realised, and it only takes a few more minutes of Alesha moving up and down on him before he climaxes.
“I’m sorry,” he says sheepishly.
She leans in and kisses him firmly. “It’s okay,” she assures him.
“Did you - ?” he begins.
She chuckles softly. “Yeah, I came too.”
“Oh, good.”
She twists around on his lap, his softening cock still inside her, and reaches down to grab the plate of cheesecake he hadn’t finished eating. To his secret delight Alesha feeds him the rest, one forkful at a time, still without moving off his lap.
“You know,” he says, “I brought the condom, but I wasn’t really convinced I’d get to use it.” He nuzzles the side of her neck, below her ear. “And I certainly didn’t expect you to start shagging me on the sofa.”
She laughs delightedly. “I bet you thought I was a bit proper.”
“Well, yes,” he agrees, smirking at her.
“Then you’re in for a wild ride,” she says, returning the smirk.
James’ eyebrows go up in response to this. “Is that right, Ms Phillips?”
“It certainly is, Mr Steel,” she answers.
“So I was right to call you a minx, earlier.”
She nods, clearly amused. “Do you want to come and have a shower?”
“With you?” he asks, surprised.
“Yeah. Haven’t you ever showered with a lover before?” He shakes his head, somewhat bemused. “Then you’ve been missing out,” she tells him. She lifts herself off his lap, bending down to pick up her discarded thong, and James sighs softly: if it wasn’t for the evidence of his senses, he’d be inclined to think he’d dreamt what had just happened.
Alesha turns to look at him, holding out her hand, and he gets up and lets her lead him to the bathroom. Tonight is going to be an interesting night, he decides.