Her Guilty Secret

by Clare Connelly

  His words thrill me because I have felt exactly the same. His admission is an acceleration of power; it thrills in my veins.

  ‘I have imagined having you, like this.’ And then he thrusts into me, immediately commanding my body, and he’s so hard, so big. He moves a hand to my breasts and cups one through the fabric of my dress, his touch possessive and dark in every single way.

  He thrusts again, my muscles tight around him, and I explode, crying out as a fierce orgasm that has been building for four weeks rips me apart. There is passion in his darkness, and his utter, devastating need for me. I don’t know how I know it, but I understand intrinsically that this is just about him and me. The way he’s owning my body is because of what he feels for me. He’s not just made this way.

  He doesn’t stop despite the fact I’m crying out in ecstasy. He doesn’t give me a moment to breathe. He continues to thrust into me until another orgasm builds like a wave on top of the first, pleasure unrecognisable for its blinding strength. It is unlike anything I’ve ever known.

  I moan loudly as I break apart and this time he pauses, holding me while I get my breath, his hands moving back to my arse as he moves slowly inside me now, almost as if his hard cock is whispering sweet nothings directly inside me. His fingers run along the curves of my arse and then a single finger traces the circle of my butt.

  Fuck.

  I move a little closer and he laughs, a thick, hoarse sound.

  ‘If I touch you there I’m going to fucking come, and we don’t want that.’

  ‘I do,’ I whimper, needing everything he can give me.

  ‘No.’ He pulls out and I can barely breathe at the ache his absence has left me with. ‘No protection.’

  The words come to me from a long way away. I stand up straighter, my dress falling lower, and I spin around. My knees are weak. I press myself back against the wall, needing its strength; stars sparkle in my eyes. I can’t get adequate breath into my lungs; they simply won’t inflate.

  I can’t believe we just fucked without a condom.

  And that my biggest care isn’t that I could have got pregnant or something sinister—but that he didn’t come when I did. That he didn’t come at all.

  His cheeks are slashed a dark red.

  ‘Do you have one?’ I demand, my eyes narrowing.

  He shifts his head in a tight nod, almost a resentful nod, as though he’s still fighting this. As though he’s holding back from giving himself over to me completely, even when we’ve already begun. Even when it’s inevitable.

  ‘So?’ It’s a challenge and he throws his head back on a hoarse laugh.

  ‘Where?’ I push, knowing I need to keep this moving. I want more. I would prefer not to be fucking him in a maintenance corridor, but beggars can’t be choosers. After almost a month of getting to this point, this is where it happened.

  I see now that it was always going to happen. From that first day when our eyes met and our bodies pulled, there has been no point fighting this. We delayed for a noble amount of time, but delay was all we could hope for.

  He reaches into his wallet and pulls out a condom, handing it to me.

  I hold his eyes as I rip the top off and then I drop to my knees in front of him. I keep looking at him as I slide the condom out of its foil. And then, before I force it over his throbbing dick, I open my mouth and take him in deep. I taste us both and it is a heady mix of our pleasures.

  He swears and his hands rip into my hair once more, pulling at its length as I move my head up and down his shaft, rolling my tongue over his tip and tasting the beads of his precum; power swells in my chest.

  ‘Jesus fucking Christ, Olivia. Stop.’

  I don’t want to stop but, selfishly, I need to feel him inside me once more. I pull away from him but his hands remain in my hair. I stare at his eyes as I slide the condom on and then his hands are under my arms, pulling me to standing.

  ‘This fucking dress,’ he says again, and his anger at the dress is as unreasonable as it is amusing.

  I grab it at the sides, hoisting it up around my hips as he lifts me, positioning me at his waist and pushing me down on his cock. He steps forward so my back hits the wall and every thrust he makes slides me up and down the cold white plasterboard.

  ‘I want to fuck you properly,’ he grunts.

  ‘Aren’t you doing that?’

  He doesn’t answer and it makes me wonder what a proper Connor Hughes fucking would feel like... Help me... I can’t even—

  I tilt my head back and he dips his forward, his teeth pressing into the flesh at the side of my neck, biting me, tasting me, and I whimper as he thrusts harder and deeper. I see stars once more—I am one of them, a celestial being high up in the heavens.

  It is me and the galaxy.

  ‘I want to rip this dress off you,’ he grunts and I shake my head.

  ‘Don’t you dare.’ I can’t deny that the idea of his bare hands shredding it from my skin holds appeal. I told you. His animal savagery is stunning.

  He thrusts hard and I say his name again and again and again as pleasure breaks over me like a hurricane. This time he explodes with me, his urgent movements bringing us both home, satiating us simultaneously.

  We might be mop-adjacent, but that was the best sex of my life.

  I’m already wondering when I can be with him again.

  * * *

  We cannot do that again. I stare across the room at her, seeing the way she smiles as that idiot from Scott Manning Grey says something he thinks is funny and Olivia laughs. She is immaculate. There is barely a sign that I’ve just fucked her hard against the walls of Tate Modern. Only I would be able to perceive the way her hair is a little like a bird’s nest at the back, from where my fingers tangled in the curls and pulled them hard.

  Her lips are fresh once more, lined with bright red lipstick—the same lipstick that is smeared over my cock.

  Jesus. The way she was as crazed by what we are as I am. The way she wanted everything. Demanded it.

  We can’t do it again and yet I know we will. As sure as day follows night I know that wasn’t enough for either of us. Not by a long shot.

  ‘Connor.’ I tilt my head towards the voice, a tight smile on my lips when I see someone I know approaching.

  ‘Aston. How are you?’ I extend a hand and he shakes it. Life hasn’t been kind to Aston in the eight or so years since I saw him last. He’s gained a tyre around his middle and lost all the hair on his head. His cheeks have the ruddy glow of one who’s been imbibing all evening. And he probably has been.

  Our glasses, Olivia’s and mine, are still in the corridor, beside the mop bucket. I flick my gaze to her like a nervous tic, tracking her progress through the room, watching as she speaks to lecturers, students and professionals.

  That dress. It is a beautiful dress but I can’t look at her now without seeing it bunched around her waist, without knowing exactly how it feels to have it thick in my hands, exposing her to me.

  ‘Not as good as you. Bloody oath. That Donovan verdict was a bit of a win, eh?’

  Donovan is the last thing I want to talk about. It threatens to drag me back to earth, and I am so far above it, floating high above all of this.

  ‘Yeah.’ I offer a curt dismissal. ‘What are you working on now?’

  ‘Contracts,’ he says with a grimace, like he’s ashamed. ‘Mainly military.’

  I nod. Olivia looks up—is she looking for me? Her eyes connect with mine for the briefest moment and then move on. My body surges with adrenalin and need. It is after ten. When will this thing end? And will she come home with me?

  * * *

  ‘Well, Miss Amorelli...’ His voice is like honey, sliding over my body. Images of what we did flash through my mind. His hands at my hips, pushing me forward, his cock at my arse, him driving into me. God, we haven’t even kissed.
>
  ‘Yes, sir?’ I bat my lashes up at him, aware that we are surrounded by people but that the crowd offers a unique kind of cover.

  ‘You seem to be the only student not planning to apply to my firm.’

  I lift my brows. ‘Does that bother you?’

  ‘It interests me,’ he corrects, shifting a little, moving his body closer to me. His masculine fragrance grips me and makes me tremble a little.

  ‘I don’t want to work for you.’

  His laugh is sharp. ‘You wouldn’t work for me. You’d work for someone who works for someone who works for someone who works for me.’

  His arrogance should be off-putting but it isn’t. His power is mind-blowingly sexy, particularly because it’s a power he’s created all on his own. At least, I think he has. I feel my face crinkle into a frown as I realise how little I know about him.

  ‘You’d be really far below me,’ he adds huskily and my heart trips in my chest.

  ‘Heavy-handed double entendres aside, I’m not interested in criminal defence.’

  His smile makes my heart race. ‘You’ve put crim down as your focus,’ he reminds me, and just the fact he has that tiny piece of biographical knowledge does something funny to my gut.

  ‘So I have,’ I agree with a nod, adding for good measure, ‘Sir.’

  ‘You were a paralegal last year at Lancashire’s. You were in the criminal department. They spoke very highly of you.’

  My heart trembles. ‘How do you know that?’

  He shrugs, like it’s no big deal. ‘I’ve made enquiries about all of the students I’m interested in.’

  My heart thumps. ‘Interested in?’

  His smile is mocking and he lowers his voice to a whisper. ‘Professionally.’

  My eyes flick around us. No one hears. We are alone in the swirling vortex of humanity.

  ‘Interested in having them apply to my firm,’ he clarifies.

  That he’s hand-picked me as one of his students stirs the pride that sits in my chest. I want to do well with my degree and my career. I owe it to my parents, who have supported me in every endeavour, and put up with my wanderlust when I know they wished I’d stay put and settle down. I owe it to myself, too, and to the comparisons I’ve endured to my two surgeon sisters and my pilot brother.

  Being personally picked by Connor Hughes of Hughes Brophy is the definition of prestige.

  But it would destroy me to do the work he does. ‘That’s very flattering,’ I say with a tight dismissive smile. ‘But I’m not looking to join a criminal defence firm.’

  ‘Oh, don’t tell me,’ he murmurs, moving a little closer...closer in a way that is inherently dangerous because we are surrounded by people who really can’t find out that we’ve just had sex in a corridor around the corner.

  ‘Don’t tell you what?’

  His hand brushes my hip. It’s barely anything. But a moan fills my throat. I slice him with angry eyes. This is not the place and yet, if he touches me again, I think I’ll forget that and beg him to kiss me.

  ‘I’ve applied for a training contract with the Crown Prosecution Service.’ I square my shoulders almost unknowingly, as if preparing for the barrage of criticism a man like him will level at me.

  His eyes stare into mine for a long moment and then he nods thoughtfully. ‘I have a good friend over there. I can put in a good word.’

  ‘No.’ Surprise is quickly overturned by rejection. My denial is swift and emphatic, even as a small part of me is surprised by how quickly he’s taken my rejection of his firm. I look around to make sure no one has heard. ‘Definitely not.’

  He tilts his head a little, studying me, analysing me, scrutinising me so that I feel naked in a whole new way. ‘Not only is the CPS somewhat of an old boys’ network, it’s incredibly competitive to get a placement there.’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ I say crisply. ‘Besides, don’t you think, friend or not, that your name might be persona non grata at the moment?’

  Something dark moves in his expression. An emotional response I hadn’t expected to my meaningless jibe. ‘Why do you say that, Miss Amorelli?’

  I swallow. The sense that I’m touching on something he would prefer not to discuss hovers on the periphery of my mind. So too does adrenalin. It surges through me. I’ve never been one to shy away from a challenge—my parents always said I inherited more than my fair share of the Latin temperament. And having seen what I can do to him has emboldened me.

  Sparring with him, it seems, is our foreplay.

  ‘You rewrote long-established law with that verdict.’

  I don’t need to mention the name. We both know what I’m talking about. The flash of darkness I thought I saw moments earlier is back, unmistakable this time, as it narrows his eyes and draws his lips downwards for a brief second.

  ‘The fact the law was long-established doesn’t make it impervious to change. Laws change as society does.’

  ‘If you have your way, we’ll live in a lawless society,’ I point out, wishing I had a drink to sip, just to stop my fingers—which are itching to wrap around his hips and pull him close—from doing anything so stupid.

  ‘You might not agree with the verdict,’ he says, his Irish accent delicious as his insistence grows, ‘but you can’t question my commitment to the law.’

  It’s on the tip of my tongue to do just that, but I sense we’ve moved into an area that is more than just feisty flirtation. There are emotions at play I don’t understand. I deviate slightly from his comment.

  ‘I don’t understand how you got the forensic evidence excluded,’ I say with a shake of my head.

  ‘The evidence was bad.’ He crosses his arms over his chest.

  ‘No, it wasn’t. There were seven different types of hair and skin samples recovered. How could you have them all dismissed?’

  He arches a brow, perhaps surprised by my knowledge of the case.

  ‘I kept up,’ I explain with a shrug.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Your client—’ I can’t help the note of disgust that colours the word ‘—is a high-profile businessman who was accused of brutally murdering an eighteen-year-old. Everyone was watching.’

  He nods. ‘You seem particularly interested.’

  ‘Yeah.’ And I link my fingers behind my back now, so keen is my need to touch him. ‘It’s the kind of case that locks my career aspirations firmly into place.’ I can’t help it. I sway a little closer. ‘If I’d been prosecuting that case, you wouldn’t have won.’

  His look is one of surprise but I think I see admiration in the depths of his eyes, too. I wonder if he knows how much I mean it.

  ‘You’re on, Miss Amorelli.’

  ‘I’m...on?’

  ‘Yeah.’ The challenge in his eyes is palpable. ‘Come back to my place and prosecute me. Let me see what you’ve got.’

  My heart kerthunks. My stomach rolls. My blood boils. ‘You mean...to your place tonight?’

  He nods slowly. ‘I mean right now.’

  I’m on a precipice. It’s madness. Utter madness. Then again, we’ve already crossed that line. We’re in the danger zone. Are there shades of specificity within it? Are there degrees of risk? Or is it just a big, blaring Stop sign we should heed—but won’t?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I DON’T WANT to talk about the Donovan case. I don’t even want to think of it. I’m not grateful to it on any level.

  Except one.

  Olivia is here, in the living room of my London place, but she’s all business and I’m most definitely not. The city shimmers behind her, the view from the floor-to-ceiling windows of my Canary Wharf penthouse showcasing the modern heart of this ancient city. And Olivia framed by it is the cherry on top.

  ‘Did you know that she would have left for Australia two days later?’

  She drags me back to
earth. I nod stiffly.

  Olivia’s expression is one of hollowed-out disbelief. ‘There is such evil in the world.’

  We both know what she means. There is evil in the world and I enable it. I, and people like me. She’s not the first person to lay such an accusation at my feet, and I tell myself I’m no more bothered by her silent condemnation than usual.

  ‘What were you doing when you were that age?’ She lifts her enormous blue eyes to my face and I have the strangest sense that her reprobation is a physical force, a cold one. Defiance stirs inside me. Idealism is fine, but it doesn’t last very long in the real world. This, I know for a fact.

  ‘I was doing my Bachelor’s.’

  Olivia’s searching eyes don’t leave my face. ‘She should have had the chance to live her life.’

  ‘Yes.’ I don’t argue that point—why the hell would I? ‘I had no ability to save her.’

  ‘But the next Samara Jones? The next woman Donovan does this to?’

  Maybe this was a mistake. I used her interest in the case to get her back here but, fuck it, I don’t need to be cross-examined. ‘So you’d prefer to have a legal system relying solely on the work and accusations of the police?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘You think only the innocent deserve a fair defence?’

  ‘Yes.’ Her eyes spark with mine and she lifts a hand to silence me. ‘Hear me out.’

  Her determination throws me. I am her professional superior in every way, but she holds me utterly spellbound with that one simple gesture. I wait.

  ‘In an ideal world, I think only the innocent deserve a fair defence. Why defend someone who’s guilty? Why argue on their behalf?’ Her eyes narrow. ‘You use the law to their advantage. And you’re good at it. Really, really good.’

  My lips curl—she’s so beautifully naïve. I was never like that. Losing your parents as I did gives you a different perspective on this world and the people within it, their capabilities, their demons—their all. Learning to forgive is not the same as being blind to a person’s faults. And humanity is inherently faulty, in my experience. ‘Our legal system is predicated on this. Everyone gets to plead their case.’