Playing With Trouble Read online

Fuckity fuck, fuck, fuck.

  Okay, so I might have had a sexual fantasy, or two, or twelve about the man. And he was on the list of my top five least favorite people thanks to the weekly interrogations he subjected me to. But I could do this. I’d give him two or three moments of polite small talk and then I’d flee. Preferably to the bar. He already had me during class time, during my dreams; it didn’t seem fair that he’d invade my social life as well. What was left of it, at least.

  I pasted a smile on my face, the one perfected from years of helping my mother hostess.

  “Professor Canter, it’s lovely to see you.”

  Lie, lie, lie.

  His smile deepened as though he knew I was full of shit and found it amusing.

  I waited for him to say something, but he didn’t. He just stared at me. He’d been staring ever since he’d turned around, hadn’t taken his gaze off of me once. It was unnerving as hell. And then he finally did speak, and I slid past unnerved into mind blown.

  His lips curved, his voice like whiskey-soaked sin. “Call me Gray.”

  Gray.

  The name was just another intimacy in a long line of intimacies he’d already taken, and yet it felt like the lynchpin. Once you stripped “Professor” and “Ms.” from our names, we were just two people a few years apart in age. Two people who held a match to a flame.

  I couldn’t call him Gray.

  “No.”

  An eyebrow rose, curiosity sparking in his eyes. “No?” The word was silk falling from his lips. “Why?”

  Even though he didn’t wear his wealth like he’d been born to it, as though it was effortless for him, it was clear that he was a man used to having his way.

  This was not good.

  “You’re my professor,” I protested, barely resisting the urge to take a step back and put some space between us. He’d been standing apart from the rest of the party when I’d joined him, but now I realized he’d maneuvered me even farther away, fencing me into a corner, one step away from the wall at my back, his big, hard body pressing me in.

  “I’m seven years older than you,” he answered, his voice dry.

  “You probably shouldn’t know that either,” I muttered, fighting for composure when all I wanted to do was have the rest of the distance between us disappear until I felt the strength his clothes hinted at.

  Push and pull.

  “Do you think I care about playing by the rules?”

  He delivered the words in a tone that was sensuously smooth with a knife’s edge, both seduction and warning. He beckoned me closer at the same time he pushed me away.

  I’d never been rebellious. I didn’t go looking for trouble, didn’t put myself in situations that screamed, bad idea, and this one definitely screamed, bad idea. From the top of its lungs, with a megaphone, broadcasting over Times Square.

  I could have made up some bullshit excuse, could have left the trouble brewing between us for the safety of hostessing and mingling with the other guests.

  But I stayed.

  I hadn’t been looking for trouble, but it seemed that now that I’d found it, I wasn’t running from it, either.

  Yet.

  There had been times in class when I’d caught him looking at me, when I’d seen a flicker of something I didn’t see when he looked at anyone else. But now, with the veil of our titles lifted, that flicker was a full-blown flame and the second it ignited, I took one step forward into his body when I should have seen that step for what it was—

  The beginning of my fall.

  He started with my eyes, his gaze holding mine as if we both felt the same nearly imperceptible shift—was it my dress, his first name, the way his body anchored mine in place without having to touch me? Or was it the inevitability that had always been there since that first day—the recognition that we would never be just student and teacher.

  There was something wild in him, something barely restrained that called to the part of me that had never been anything but safe. I’d never felt temptation, true temptation, until now, until he looked at me like he wanted to devour me in a room filled with D.C. society, with my parents, until I had to curl my fingers into a ball to keep from reaching out and taking what he offered, no matter how reckless or dangerous.

  Gray’s gaze shifted, drifting lower, the power of it a caress against my skin. There was heat coming off of him in waves now—heat and a frustrated emotion I couldn’t quite name. It was as though he didn’t want to look at me, but he looked anyway, and I didn’t doubt he was the kind of man who knew the effect he had on me.

  And it fed him.

  He took in every inch of my body with those dark eyes, while I stood there letting him, the party a distant memory. I’d been so nervous about tonight, so worried about seeing Thom and his parents, about what people would think. With one stare, Gray had erased all of that until there was only him.

  Dangerous man.

  Warmth spread throughout my body everywhere he looked, settling between my legs, putting me on notice that I’d have some interesting dreams tonight.

  My nipples were tight beneath the silky fabric, my body tense with need. And he looked at me like he knew. Like he had some kind of x-ray vision that could see through my dress, through the layers, to the arousal that flooded me. As though he could cut through the pretense of proper Blair, good Blair, boring Blair, and find someone else entirely. Someone I hadn’t even known existed.

  That alone thrilled me almost as much as it terrified me.

  I wasn’t sure what I wanted, what I needed. I knew nothing about him; he knew nothing about me. I hadn’t even liked him an hour ago. Hell, I wasn’t even sure I liked him now.

  My body didn’t care.

  Gray

  “Dance with me.”

  I hadn’t planned on asking her, but the words just spilled out. I had no business dancing with her, but the bastard in me craved more. More time, more contact, more.

  She was silent for a moment, her gaze narrowed, as though she were trying to figure me out in the span of a heartbeat. Considering I had no fucking clue what I wanted, I figured her odds of success were nonexistent. I’d been reduced from rational thought to impulses—see, touch, taste.

  Blair’s lips parted. Her head tilted as she stared at me, considering, searching with those big brown eyes. I couldn’t measure up to whatever she was looking for, but I’d try just the same.

  I took a step closer, close enough that the skirt of her dress brushed against me, inches away from feeling her body against mine. Her perfume teased me, its own brand of heroin.

  “One dance,” I added, feeling like the devil tempting a saint. Or was it the other way around?

  One dance so I can touch you, hold you, look at you. One dance to give me a taste of what I crave.

  “Why?”

  She didn’t say the rest, didn’t need to. I knew what she was really asking. This wasn’t about the dance; it was about the energy that pulsed between us, the way her body leaned in toward mine, the way our gazes seemed to find each other every fucking time. It was about the fact that I was already hard and I hadn’t even touched her.

  Yet.

  “You know why.”

  I held out my hand, feeling like I was standing on the edge of a cliff, wondering what the fuck I was doing. From the beginning, I’d tried to convince myself that everything was just one-sided, that she was an infatuation I’d never act on. I’d told myself this was just casual, that I was curious, that nothing would happen between us. She was an indulgence, a dangerous one, but weren’t those the best kind?

  And here I was, putting myself out there, a knot in my gut, wondering if I’d been wrong all along, if she wanted me as much as I wanted her.

  She gave me her hand.

  The second her tiny hand slid into mine, relief slammed into my chest. I stared down into her eyes, trying to read the emotions I saw there. I wanted her. More than a dance. More than a fuck.

  I was drunk on her, and in this case, sobriety was j
ust out of my reach.

  Blair

  I didn’t know why I was doing this, why I’d even agreed to dance with him, but here I was. He was hard to say no to. And more than that, I didn’t want to say no.

  I held Gray’s hand, letting him pull me into his embrace as the music started up.

  I didn’t know what I’d find on the dance floor, all I knew was that his touch was the best thing I’d ever felt and he’d barely touched me at all. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have his mouth on me.

  I could hear the whispers around us, knew people were watching us, wondering who I was dancing with, but I didn’t care. I figured Thom and his parents were out there, but I didn’t look for them.

  I had my hands full with the man who held me in his arms like I was meant to be there. Surprisingly, he had a natural rhythm that was easy to follow. He led with confidence and an elegance I never would have predicted.

  “You’re a good dancer,” I murmured.

  He gifted me with a lazy smile. “I boxed in college. It makes you light on your feet.”

  I could picture him as a boxer. He had an air about him that suggested he was ready to take on the whole world, and a ruthlessness that had no doubt served him well in the courtroom, as though he wasn’t content to merely defeat his opponent, but had to annihilate them.

  “I bet you were a terrifying attorney.”

  He gave me a wolfish smile without a hint of modesty. “I was.”

  “Do you miss it?”

  “Parts of it, yeah.”

  “Do you ever think you’ll go back to private practice?”

  He hesitated, and for the first time since we’d started dancing, his feet fumbled a bit. “Maybe.”

  If we were going to dance, then I needed more from him, something to focus on other than how good it felt to have his arms around me. He held me closer than was probably appropriate for our acquaintance or maybe that was just the way my body fit itself into the curve of his. He was so tall, his shoulders so broad, that it was impossible to not feel the full force of his masculinity.

  My chest tightened, a knot forming low in my stomach. My palms dampened, my hands itching to stray. They hovered around his neck, just below the place where his white collared shirt hit his neck. If they drifted up, just an inch, if my hand slipped . . .

  He’s your professor. He’s your professor.

  I pushed past the lump in my throat, the words coming out of my mouth strangled. “How did you end up at Hannover? And why teaching?”

  He shrugged, the muscles in his shoulders bunching beneath my hands. “The dean at Hannover is an old law school professor of mine who I’d kept in touch with. They were desperate to find a replacement for a professor who’d dropped out at the last minute and I needed a fresh start.”

  I figured his “fresh start” was in reaction to the trouble Caitlin had alluded to.

  “Do you like it?”

  “Parts of it. I love the law, but I was meant for the courtroom, not the classroom.”

  “So what’s stopping you?”

  The arm around my waist tightened, pulling me even closer. His jaw clenched, that fierce look entering his eyes.

  “I didn’t handle the lifestyle very well the first time around. I was at a small firm, but still, I worked insane hours. The pressure to bill was constant, the need to push myself harder, inescapable. It was like law school on speed and in the end I fell apart and it wrecked my life.”

  I missed most of his answer because his arm tightened again, yanking me even closer, and the second he brushed against my stomach I forgot my fucking name.

  Holy shit. He was hard.

  My mouth went dry while arousal flooded the rest of my body. My hand that had been desperate to touch him reached up and stroked the back of his neck, a tremor rippling through me. He stiffened, his gaze slamming into me, his eyes wide.

  Fuck.

  I was breathless. Lost. Found. My chest rose and fell as I tried to catch my breath, as his gaze slid down to run over my breasts.

  I wanted to pull back, wanted to put my mouth on his. I’d thought a dance in public would be safe, thought I could handle him, but now I realized how wrong I’d been. He wasn’t the problem. I was.

  I wanted what his body offered in a way I hadn’t wanted anything before.

  All around us, people broke apart, the song ending, and suddenly I needed air.

  Chapter Six

  We couldn’t help but notice that Blair Reynolds disappeared for an indecently long time during her parents’ party last night. Was she trying to avoid a run-in with her former fiancé or was she more pleasantly engaged?

  —Capital Confessions blog

  Gray

  I didn’t know what I was doing.

  I wanted to fuck her. I wanted her in my bed, that pale, flawless skin on my sheets. I wanted her glistening with sweat, moans tumbling from those lips. I wanted to thrust inside her, surrounding myself in her warm, wet heat. I was drawn to the dichotomy of her—the untouchable girl who looked like something out of an oil painting and the girl she’d been just a second ago, whose body had spoken to me with a raw hunger that had shocked the shit out of me and impossibly, somehow matched my own.

  So when Blair walked away, her body sliding past mine as our clothes brushed against each other with a whisper, there wasn’t a moment when I considered doing anything other than following her.

  I blamed the red dress for the fact that she was leading me around by my dick tonight.

  I blamed myself for how much I liked it.

  She walked through the party, her head high. I’d never noticed how a woman walked before—not like this—pure class that glided as the crowd parted for her. She was a queen and we all knew it. She could have disappeared into the crowd, and if she had, maybe I would have let her. That’s what I told myself, at least, as I pretended I still had control over this, whatever it was. As I pretended she—Blair—hadn’t gotten under my skin.

  She headed toward a set of glass doors leading out to a back patio. I trailed behind, some part of my brain alert enough to give me that much sense, at least.

  Her back to me, I slid through the glass doors and shut them behind me, blocking out the rest of the party.

  The patio wasn’t big, but it was private, protected by enormous hedges that surrounded her like sentries meant to keep the commoners at bay. I allowed myself a moment—drunk on this night and this girl—to admire the delicate curve of her neck exposed by the mass of her hair—brown, rich, gleaming—held together with diamond clips. My gaze trailed that line down her spine, her back bare before her pale skin hit red silk.

  Contrasts. Always contrasts with her.

  The line between appropriate and inappropriate student and teacher involvement was gray. Okay, maybe not gray. Sleeping with a student would get me in deep shit. Especially when she was one of my students. It wasn’t unheard of, but given my precarious position with the faculty, it was a really stupid idea. Next semester she wouldn’t be in my class, and maybe then it would be gray.

  But even then?

  I’d fucked up enough lives with my carelessness, with my innate ability to take something good and twist it and warp it until it was something dark and mangled, to know not to put that on her. I was the kind of dirty that never got clean, and I didn’t believe in redemption.

  I knew better. Absolutely. But everything about Blair was look but don’t touch, and the pisser was, I’d never done well with boundaries.

  So I stayed, and waited for her to turn; when she did, with the soft swirl of her skirt around her, she yanked me in deeper.

  Blair

  I’d thought the fresh air would help, thought it would slap some sanity into me, and then he’d come out and I’d felt his body behind me, and I recognized the lie running through my head.

  I hadn’t come outside to escape, for clarity; I’d come outside because I wanted more of the feeling he conjured inside me. It terrified me and taunted me at the same time
, beckoning me closer, telling me that if I just turned, that if I gave myself over to this need, to the desire pummeling me, to the pings shooting through my stomach like balls in a pinball machine, I’d finally feel free.

  I listened to the whispered promise carried through the night air. I turned.

  I met Gray’s gaze, heartbeat racing, a flush of adrenaline tingling through my body. How many dreams had I had about him? How many times had I sat in class staring at him, listening to his voice, fantasizing about what it would be like to have him? Even for a moment.

  My legs trembled.

  He swallowed.

  I ached to stroke his skin, to wrap my arms around him. The night air sent a chill, goose bumps covering me. Suddenly, my dress felt too tight, my breasts achy, desire pooling between my legs.

  Fuck it.

  I erased the distance between us with one step, my arms wrapping around his neck, my breasts crushed into his chest, and then I was pulling his head down toward me, lifting my head up, and his mouth slammed down on mine.

  Finally.

  His body stiffened the second our lips touched, and then my tongue collided with his mouth, and he opened, and I stole the kiss from him.

  He was no longer my professor, no longer someone I loathed. He was hands I needed on my body, lips I wanted kissing mine.

  I couldn’t get enough of him, of the taste swirling in my mouth. I was drowning in him, so deep I feared I’d never climb my way out.

  Our tongues tangled. Our teeth grazed soft flesh. My hands threaded through his hair, pulling him closer to me. I arched my hips until I felt him hard against my stomach, his breath ragged against my lips.

  I didn’t hold anything back, gave him all of the hunger that had burned a hole inside me.

  His hands wrapped around me, holding me against his body, his chest rising and falling rapidly as if he couldn’t quite catch his breath.

  My fingers drifted down to his nape, his skin hot beneath my touch, capturing the tremor that slid through him.

  I’d imagined kissing him for so long now, fantasized about it on the days when he lectured about boring subjects like intentional infliction of emotional distress, this arousal simmering inside me for months.