by Cari Quinn
“According to my ex, I left because I couldn’t be with just one woman.”
He braced a hand next to her knee on the chair, his knuckles millimeters away from brushing her skin. The backs of his hands were lightly dusted with hair, much like the bare chest he insisted on flaunting whenever she was within view. Unlike the very straight hair on his head, his chest hair was almost curly, the kind that would be perfect for a woman to tug on.
If a woman were inclined to do such things.
“Well, gotta admit, a three-week marriage does seem pretty bad.”
“It was almost six weeks actually,” he said, his voice lacking any inflection. But his easy grin faded.
“You still did better than me,” she said, making her own tone brighter in denial of the flatness of his. Funny, she’d used his quickie marriage and divorce to dismiss him, but the tense expression he wore while discussing his ex almost made her jealous.
Maybe he wasn’t such a player after all.
“I didn’t even make it to the altar,” she added, registering his silence.
“Neither did Darla and me. We went to the JP. Justice of the Peace,” he said at her curious expression.
“Oh. I thought you’d gone to Vegas.” She didn’t really think that, but she wanted him to smile again. He didn’t seem like Brad without the semi-permanent grin.
“You have lots of thoughts about me, apparently. Most of them wrong.”
“Maybe I’m a presumptuous bitch.” Again she scratched her calf with her toes. Except this time she knew exactly where his gaze would go, and the idea didn’t disturb her as much as it had a few minutes ago.
Sunstroke maybe? It was awfully hot out here. Or could they have actually forged some sort of bond over broken relationships?
Some sort of platonic bond. Because, seriously, she wasn’t going there. Not with Kim’s little…err, younger brother.
Normally she didn’t have a problem with making a decision and sticking to it. But lately ping-pong matches had nothing on the wishy-washy flip-flopping she was doing in her own damn mind.
“Or maybe you want me to think you are so I lose interest.”
“Are you admitting you have interest?” she tossed back, wondering where Kim had disappeared to. Her friend had run to the store around the block. What could possibly be taking so long?
He leaned forward and snagged her free hand, dragging it to…what? He wasn’t really going to put her hand on his—
Yep, he was. Oh my God. She had her hand on her best friend’s brother’s sizable erection, and her fingers were all but twitching with the urge to wrap around him.
No. Absolutely not. Heat radiated through thin cotton, an undeniable temptation. If anything, he grew even harder.
“Take a breath,” he advised, his lopsided grin again overtaking his face. “For such a woman of the world, a man’s hard cock shouldn’t be all that big of a deal.”
Finding his way out of the darkness could be the biggest fight of his life.
Living in Shadow
© 2014 Jackie Ashenden
Living In…, Book 1
Law professor Eleanor May is fine with taking over a class for a colleague on sabbatical. She’s not so fine with the hot student who’s always seated front and center. Once upon a time she was that student…and the scars remain eight years after it ended.
Yet this guy seems different from the others. Despite the alarm bells in her head warning her about history repeating itself, she is drawn toward the forbidden once again—even though this time it could consume her.
Lucien North’s past is darker than the ink on his skin, a reminder of a time when survival was a fight to the death. Seducing his beautiful professor wasn’t supposed to be part of his plan to put it behind him, but there’s something about Eleanor that’s gotten hold of him and won’t let go.
Together they light up the night, but will their powerful desire lead them to love—or drag them both to the brink of disaster?
Warning: This book contains a younger man so hot he might scorch your fingertips, and forbidden lust so tempting, there’s no point in trying to resist. Check your inhibitions at the door—it’s WTFery 101 and class is in session.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Living in Shadow:
English legal history. Fuck, Luc was starting to hate this class. It was his own special brand of hell: a lecture theatre full of people and him in the middle row with a slowly intensifying hard-on. And all because Professor Eleanor May was writing something on the whiteboard and her little pencil skirt was pulling tight around her extremely delectable ass.
Luc glanced down at the laptop open on his desk. Anything so he didn’t have to look at her. The screen was completely blank. He hadn’t taken any notes whatsoever and they were almost done with the class.
Jesus. This was the third time in as many weeks he’d sat there, hard and aching, thinking things he shouldn’t be thinking instead of taking notes. At this rate he wouldn’t be passing the paper if he didn’t get his head back into study mode, and since he had only a couple of semesters left before getting his law degree, failing a paper would be very bad indeed.
She was talking again, her husky voice filling the room, and he didn’t want to look because he knew what he would see: a petite, fine-boned woman with golden-blonde hair in an elegant chignon. All feminine sophistication in a beautifully tailored pencil skirt of pale blue and a crisp white shirt, a small silver necklace around her neck. It made her seem fragile, yet the impression she gave off was anything but. Her gray eyes were as sharp as a steel blade and she walked as if she were ten feet tall and bulletproof. Like she was keeping everyone at a distance.
But not when she spoke. When she gave a lecture, her delicate face would light up and the impression of ice and steel and distance would vanish. She would look at everyone in the room as if they were all having a conversation together and she was interested in what they had to say. Becoming warm and approachable. And if questions were asked, she’d smile and it would be like the sun had come into the room.
Christ, he wanted some of that sun.
He’d been at Auckland University for four years, only spotting Eleanor May a couple of years after he’d started since she mainly taught postgraduate students. Even back then, he’d registered her but had dismissed the attraction. She was a professor. Polished and sophisticated and way too much like hard work for him. He preferred his pleasure easy to come by and undemanding, with women who didn’t want anything more from him than a couple of orgasms. Definitely not complicated, and seducing Professor May had complicated written all over it.
And then she’d taken over his English legal history class from Professor Holmes who’d gone off on sabbatical. And every Thursday he’d found himself sitting in the same place, right down in the front of the class, in the middle of the row, so he could look at her.
So he could figure out what the hell he found so fucking fascinating about her.
Because it wasn’t only her beauty, though she had plenty of that. He could find beauty anywhere these days and though he’d once glutted himself on it, it hadn’t ultimately satisfied him.
No, she had more than that. Perhaps it was the sharp intelligence he saw in her eyes whenever she spoke. Or maybe it was the distance she projected, as if she were holding the world at bay. The kind of distance that made him want to close it. Touch her.
Or perhaps it was merely the contrast to all the other women he’d had up till this point. Women his own age or a couple of years younger. Who had no distance, no walls. Children, in many ways. Children who didn’t even know they were alive. Which was fine because that was the way children should be. Yet, at the same time, they offered no secrets. No challenges.
Strange to find that was suddenly an issue, when challenges and secrets and complications were the last thing he wanted.
Whatever it was that fascinated him about Eleanor May, it made every lecture pure fucking torture.
Luc sat back in his seat,
folding his arms. Watching her. Irritated with himself and his stupid fucking cock with its insistence on wanting a woman he wasn’t allowed to have anyway.
She was reaching the part where she looked at each person in turn as she reiterated her main points, a tactic that worked well in drawing people in to what she was saying. Except that, for some reason, she never looked at him.
God, he was sick of that too.
He shifted on his seat, spreading himself out a little, pinning his gaze on her. She looked at his neighbor, then, like it always did, her gaze skipped him and went on down the row. As if he didn’t even exist.
Oh fuck no. Not today. Today she was going to damn well look.
Perhaps she’s not looking at you for a reason?
Well, whatever the hell that reason was, it was not happening today.
Luc raised his hand to his mouth and coughed.
And she looked; cool, gray eyes seeking the source of the sound. Meeting his head on.
The electric shock of the impact hit him like a plunge into an icy lake on a blistering-hot day. Echoing through him, all the way down to the soles of his feet.
He stared at her and she stared back and he saw it—he fucking saw it—a flare of reaction in her eyes. So fast and fleeting that if he hadn’t already been aware of her with every inch of his being, he may have missed it. But it was there nonetheless.
She looked away quickly, but by that time it was too late. He heard the falter in her voice. He saw the slight flush to her cheeks.
He knew.
She’d seen him. And not the student. She’d seen the man.
A surge of heat went through him, vicious and wild. Winding the ache inside him even tighter than it was already. Fuck, he so did not need this. He didn’t get obsessed with women. They came to him if they wanted him, and, shit, he was happy to oblige. No harm, no foul. No one got hurt and that was how he liked it.
But being attracted to his professor? Christ. This was against the rules and he was a great believer in rules. Pity his body didn’t seem to give a shit.
She was finishing up now, the people around him starting to put their stuff away in preparation for leaving. But he didn’t want to go. He wanted those cool eyes on him again. Wanted to see that flash of reaction again. Because he was sure it had been a reaction. To him.
As the people around him began to get to their feet, he watched her stand by the podium, fiddling around with her laptop. Not looking at him.
Fuck. He needed to know. He needed to see if he was right. And he wasn’t going to be able to concentrate on anything else until he did.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B
Cincinnati OH 45249
Drawn Deep
Copyright © 2014 by Cari Quinn
ISBN: 978-1-61921-931-1
Edited by Christa Soule
Cover by Lyn Taylor
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: December 2014
www.samhainpublishing.com
