Forced Alliance

The rain was pounding relentlessly against the stained-glass lancet windows of the Law Library's fourth-floor tower. At eight-fifteen on a Thursday night, the private study suite was an isolated island of shadows and towering leather-bound tomes.

Rory slammed her heavy canvas tote onto the long oak seminar table, sending a gust of air that made the green banker's lamps flicker. She pulled out five thick volumes of the Federal Reporter, three legal pads covered in dense handwriting, and a thermos of black coffee.

The heavy arched door creaked open, and Jaxson Montgomery walked in.

He had shed his suit, wearing gray fleece sweatpants that hung low on his lean hips and a fitted black Hawthorne Athletics hoodie that stretched tight across his broad chest and muscular biceps. His dark brown hair was damp from the rain, curling slightly at the nape of his neck. He held a takeaway cup from an upscale espresso bar and a sleek silver laptop under his arm.

He kicked the heavy oak door shut behind him with the heel of his sneaker, the latch clicking shut with an ominous thud that made Rory's pulse jump.

"You're fifteen minutes late," Rory snapped without looking up, vigorously highlighting a paragraph in yellow ink. "I suppose punctuality is an optional concept for trust-fund athletes."

Jaxson dropped his laptop onto the opposite side of the table, pulled out a heavy leather armchair, and turned it backward, straddling the seat and resting his forearms on the backrest. He looked across the table at her, his hazel eyes lazily tracing the line of her throat where the top button of her flannel shirt was undone.

"And I see you're still allergic to minding your own business, Red," he murmured, his voice infuriatingly smooth. "I had varsity practice until seven-thirty. Some of us actually have obligations outside of memorizing footnotes."

"Some of us have to work for our degrees," Rory countered, slamming the highlighter down and glaring at him across the stacks of books. "You can buy a building on campus with your trust fund, Montgomery. I have to earn every single credit. If you blow this moot court case, you'll still get a seven-figure partner track at your father's firm. If I blow it, I'm waiting tables in Boston."

Jaxson's lazy amusement flickered, replaced by a flash of genuine irritation in his hazel eyes. He leaned forward across the back of the chair, his jaw tightening.

"You really think you know everything about me, don't you, Callahan?" he said in a low, gravelly voice. "You think my life is just country clubs and silver spoons."

"I know you drive a ninety-thousand-dollar Porsche, wear watches that could pay off my dad's repair shop mortgage, and haven't heard the word 'no' since you learned to speak," Rory fired back, her amber eyes flashing with defiant heat. "So spare me the tragic rich boy routine and open your laptop. We have sixty-four pages of appellate briefs to outline by midnight."

Jaxson stared at her in silence for several long, suffocating seconds. The tension between them was electric, thick enough to choke on. For four years, they had traded insults across seminar tables and library corridors, but trapped alone in this secluded tower room, with the storm howling outside, the animosity took on a different, darker edge.

Jaxson stood up. He walked slowly around the table, his footsteps silent on the thick Persian rug.

Rory watched him approach, her breath catching in her throat. She refused to back away, forcing herself to sit upright in her chair even as his towering, broad-shouldered frame loomed over her desk. He stopped right beside her chair, resting one hand on the edge of the table and the other on the back of her seat, caging her in.

The scent of him flooded her senses—fresh rain, sandalwood, and the raw, masculine heat of clean sweat from football practice. It was completely intoxicating, and Rory hated herself for noticing.

"Let's get one thing straight, Callahan," Jaxson whispered, leaning down until his lips were inches from her ear, his warm breath raising goosebumps along her neck. "I don't need my father's firm. And I don't need your condescending lectures. I'm going to win this championship because I don't lose. Not to Harvard, not to Yale, and certainly not to a girl with a chip on her shoulder the size of Massachusetts."

Rory turned her face to look at him, her lips inches from his chiseled jaw. Her heart was hammering against her ribs, but her eyes were fearless.

"Then prove it, Montgomery," she whispered back, her voice husky and challenging. "Stop talking, and show me you have a brain inside that pretty skull."

Jaxson's gaze dropped to her lips, his pupils dilating so wide that his hazel eyes appeared almost black. A muscle feathered in his jaw. For a terrifying, breathless second, Rory thought he was going to kiss her. Her breath hitched, her fingers curling into the edge of her legal pad.

Then, with a low, mocking chuckle that broke the spell, Jaxson straightened up, picked up her thermos, took a long swallow of her black coffee, and grimaced.

"God, Callahan. Your coffee tastes like battery acid."

"Give that back, you barbarian!"

"Not a chance. Now pull up the constitutional precedent on privacy rights, Red. We have a brief to write."

Rory snatched her thermos back, glowering at him as she wiped the rim with a paper napkin. "First of all, black coffee is meant to stimulate neural pathways, not pamper delicate tastebuds. Second of all, sit down and open your laptop before I throw this entire volume of the Federal Reporter at your head."

Jaxson gave a quiet, low-throated laugh that vibrated with dangerous charm, but he complied, dropping into the heavy armchair on his side of the table and flipping open his sleek silver MacBook.

For the next two hours, the quiet tower room became a battlefield of intellects. What began as acidic, sarcastic barbs slowly transformed into a breathtaking, razor-sharp exchange of legal theories. Jaxson wasn't the shallow jock Rory had painted him to be; his mind was incisive, capable of anticipating opposing counsel's counter-arguments three steps in advance.

"Look at the circuit split in the Eleventh Circuit," Rory noted, sliding a heavily annotated yellow legal pad across the table to him. "Judge Henderson argued that digital surveillance without a geofence warrant violates reasonable expectations of privacy under *Carpenter*."

Jaxson picked up her pad, his fingers brushing against hers as he took it. He skimmed her neat, cursive handwriting, his hazel eyes widening with genuine, grudging respect. "Damn, Callahan. Your statutory dissection here is brutal. You completely dismantled the government's third-party doctrine exception."

Rory felt a sudden, traitorous flush warm her collarbones at his praise. She quickly cleared her throat, looking down at her screen. "Well... unlike some people, I don't rely on charming the jury with dimples and varsity jackets."

Jaxson looked up from the pad, his eyes fixed on her face, a slow, predatory warmth softening the edges of his chiseled features. "For the record, Red... the dimples work on everyone. But you're the only person in this entire school who never fell for them. And that's what drove me insane."