There was a passion that shone through his eyes that he didn’t share in class. I was pretty sure if he did, the girls would be whipped into a frenzy. Graydon Canter passionate about something was sexy as hell.
If he ever gave that to a woman, she’d be the luckiest woman in the world.
“You should be like this in class. I understand if you have to keep your intimidating persona to hold on to your professor street rep”—his lips twitched—“but it would be cool if you shared your experiences practicing law with the class. Just now you talked about the law like it was a living, breathing entity, something you loved. You should do that in class.
“I know we’re supposed to be constantly on our guard and ready to be ripped to shreds”—he let out a shout of laughter—“but it would be nice to see the light at the end of the tunnel. There’s not a whole lot of inspiration to be found briefing cases. It would help to see that we have something to look forward to. That we have a chance to make a difference.”
He put the car in park and turned to face me, slipping his sunglasses off, a small smile playing at his mouth. “You’re probably right. One of my favorite professors in law school had clerked for a prominent federal judge and he loved to share war stories. It definitely made class more entertaining.”
“So you’re going to be less intimidating?” I teased.
His smile deepened. God, that smile. I’d been pathetically attracted to him before, but this side of him was just too much. I wasn’t sure what to make of him. He was intense in class, more relaxed when it was just the two of us.
That was the weird thing about this. Officially, he was my professor, and yet he didn’t act like my professor. And he wasn’t even that much older than me. It was hard to feel like we weren’t equals despite our status at school. Then again, it was hard to know where I stood with Gray.
Especially, after we’d kissed. Especially, when he looked at me the way he did now.
The car felt too small, the air around us oppressive.
The corner of his mouth quirked up. “You don’t really find me intimidating, do you?”
Yes and no.
I met him halfway. “Sometimes.”
“Now?”
God.
I swallowed, my voice strained. “No.”
Something shifted in Gray’s gaze. Something dark and hungry.
“At your parents’ party?”
The rest, when you kissed me, lingered between us unspoken.
God.
My voice shook, but I said the word anyway.
“No.”
He leaned forward over the armrest, his hands inches from mine. He hovered there. He smelled like winter, which was utterly ridiculous and the absolute truth at the same time.
His hand left the console and I froze. A beat passed, and another one, and then his hand brushed through my hair, his fingertips stroking my scalp. My head rolled back, my neck arching, giving myself over to the feel of his fingers caressing me. It was the lightest touch, but it set off a spark within my body that had a shiver sliding down my spine. My eyes shut, my lips parting, wanting more.
“Blair.”
I loved his voice; there was nothing better than hearing my name spill from his lips.
His free hand came up to my face, the pad of his thumb tracing my cheekbone. Once, twice.
My eyes opened and our gazes locked. His thumb swept across my cheek, leaving a trail of fire in its wake. I had no idea where my head was, didn’t even care.
Amazing. Absolutely amazing.
Gray released his hold on my cheek, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear. I sucked in a deep breath as his fingers grazed my skin, lingering on my earlobe. He paused, flicking the skin back and forth with his fingers, tearing another shudder from me, pausing as if he knew my breasts were begging for his mouth and his hands, that I was drenched, desperate to feel him inside me. His eyes flared, two dark pools that held me in place under the force of his gaze. He released my lobe, his fingertips moving down, tracing my jaw with a casual gentleness that sent another tremor through my body and had me arching instinctively toward him.
And then it was gone.
The ache inside me made me bold, whereas before I might have shied away.
My hand reached out, coming to rest next to his on the armrest. Inches separated us. We both looked down at the spot where we nearly touched, silence throbbing around us, and then some part of me I didn’t even know existed took over as my fingers reached out and linked with his.
His whole body stiffened, his gaze jerking to meet mine.
He didn’t let go.
“I’m trying to be good,” he whispered. “So fucking hard.”
Chapter Eight
With just a couple weeks until the election, all eyes are on the Reynolds family. Will Senator Reynolds keep his seat or is another scandal poised to take him down?
—Capital Confessions blog
Blair
His voice broke the spell in the car, pulling me back to reality, reminding me that this was the man who tormented me weekly, the man who’d basically admitted he was a disaster. This was not me. This was touching the stove and then acting surprised when I got burned.
I tried to jerk my hand back, wishing I could jump over to the other side of the line, but Gray held me in place, his fingers gripping mine. He didn’t hold me like he was trying to keep me there; he held me like I was a life preserver he needed to keep from drowning. I knew because I held him the same way.
You are in so much trouble.
“Why?”
I asked the question because I had to know, needed him to give me the rest of the pieces of the puzzle. Needed him to explain why he kissed me back and then fled.
“Because I want you. I’ve wanted you since the beginning. Since you walked into my class that day.”
The revelation that he’d wanted me since the beginning, that I wasn’t crazy or alone in feeling this way, lit me up inside, even as it terrified me. I wanted the rest of it; some part of me demanded it.
“Why?”
“Because I ruin everything I touch. Every time.”
I didn’t know how bad his baggage was, but if he thought I’d lived some charmed, easy life, he was off the mark.
“And you think what, exactly? That you’re protecting me from the Big Bad Wolf?”
His jaw clenched.
No fucking way.
“I take it you don’t read the gossip columns?”
He made a face. “Yeah, right before I get my fucking nails done.”
“Cute.”
He shrugged.
“I was engaged.”
That got a reaction.
“You were engaged.”
“I was.”
“What happened?”
“It didn’t work out.”
“Why?”
I shook my head, not quite ready to spill all of my secrets. “You first.”
A look of surprise crossed his face and the corner of his mouth quirked up. “Are you negotiating with me now?”
I nodded. “I read your bio.” It was a small concession to make when I was curious for more, and after my mouth had basically assaulted his, I couldn’t be bothered to care.
“How did you go from a successful private practice in Chicago to teaching at Hannover?”
His mouth tightened, and suddenly, seven years between us seemed like so much more. He looked hard and jaded, and I knew my question had pissed him off.
“I had a problem.” Dark humor filled his voice. “Several, actually.”
His gaze shuttered, the heat that had been flickering at me, teasing me, completely evaporated.
Caitlin’s words came back to me, and I knew whatever his story was, it was bad.
Maybe I’d pushed him too far. Maybe I was stupid to think that there was a tame side to him, that there was more than the professor who barked at me from the front of the room three days a week.
“Aren’t you going to ask what
it was? What they were?”
There was a dare in his question. I ignored it.
I turned away, staring out the window, out of range of those dark eyes that only seemed to lure me deeper.
I felt him around me even though we weren’t touching. His anger was palpable, pushing at me. This was the man I saw in the classroom. The man who infuriated me and made me want. This was the dangerous man who pulled me into a game I didn’t know how to play.
Gray’s hand touched my elbow and I froze. He’d moved closer to me—too close. I could feel his big body at my back, could smell the scent of his cologne surrounding me. If I rocked back, if I moved an inch in my seat, I’d feel him against me. My brain told me to move forward. To jerk my body out of his grasp. To take my hand back.
I stayed still, somewhere between where I should be and where I wanted to be.
He turned me to face him, his hand on my elbow warm against my bare skin. His gaze was solemn as it met mine, and for a moment, I stared into the dark depths, wondering what I’d find there.
“Strippers, booze, and blow.”
Holy shit.
What the fuck was I doing?
I felt my jaw drop open, knew I probably looked horribly appalled, and yet, I couldn’t get that expression off of my face.
“I’ve shocked you.” His jaw was tight, his emotions locked behind what might as well have been an iron wall. He was the one with the poker face now.
I’d grown up around politics. I wasn’t naive; maybe a bit sheltered, but not naive. There was nothing about his tale I hadn’t heard before. I still wasn’t prepared.
“No. Yes. I—”
“What?” He fired the question at me in a tone made for the courtroom and I flinched under his scrutiny.
“I don’t know.”
I was vehemently antidrug. Like, wouldn’t even consider smoking pot. It wasn’t even something my father had drilled into me, it was just my own personal dislike for it. I’d had friends in high school who did drugs and I hated being around them when they were high, never understood the risks they took for the pleasure they got from it. Everything for me was carefully weighed in terms of risk and reward. If I was going to utterly fuck up my future, then you’d better believe the payout would be amazing.
Nothing had ever come close.
“You could have been disbarred for the drugs.”
His mouth turned grim. “Yes.”
“What happened?”
It wasn’t any of my business, but because I’d liked kissing him, because some part of me wanted to do it more, I demanded the rest. Thanks to that kiss, we were no longer at the beginning of this. The second our bodies had found each other, we’d fast-forwarded somewhere to the middle, and now I was trying to catch up.
We’d had a panel of attorneys come and talk to us about mental health and substance abuse issues in one of our first-year seminars and the numbers they’d given us were staggering.
Lawyers were almost four times more likely to suffer from depression than non-lawyers. State bar associations were concerned with the growing number of suicides within their ranks. Around 20 percent of lawyers suffered from alcoholism and substance abuse. I knew it was one of the dark sides of the profession, hell, I’d seen it more times than I could count among my father’s political allies.
It was still difficult to understand.
He didn’t speak; I wondered if he wasn’t going to answer me, if I’d asked for more than he was willing to give. And then he spoke, and gave me more than I’d ever expected.
“I was hired by a small but prestigious firm right out of law school. It was the kind of place where you could make a killing if you were willing to work your ass off. I was. I caught a couple of big cases, had a few large settlements go my way, and suddenly I was making more money in a year than my parents had made in their entire lives.”
His gaze clouded. “I was young, and I was stupid, and everything happened so quickly, and I made some shitty decisions. I worked hard, but on the weekends I partied hard. I don’t even remember the first time I did a line, just that it soon became more of a habit and less of a weekend thing.
“In the beginning, I told myself it was no big deal. Just me blowing off steam. Work hard, play harder, and all of that bullshit. And then little by little, inch by inch, it began seeping over into all aspects of my life, and what I thought I’d had under control began to control me.”
I’d gone to an elite prep school and I was all too familiar with casual drug use. He described a world I’d been exposed to for years. Power and money had a way of making people think the rules didn’t apply to them. That they could be invincible.
It really wasn’t that different from the way I’d grown up with my father. Power was his drug of choice and his addiction obliterated his family.
“The more money I made,” Gray continued, “the more it began taking over my life. My partners intervened before it ruined my work, but it was close. Too fucking close.” He looked away from me, staring down at his hands, his body strung tight. “You don’t need to hear how ugly it was. Trust me. I wish I could forget it all. Wish I could take it back.
“I went to rehab,” he continued. “I’m clean now. Hardest fucking thing I’ve ever done. I haven’t touched coke in a year.”
I swallowed. “And the drinking?”
“I don’t drink. I’ve been sober for a year now.”
His eyes goaded me, pushing me to ask for the rest. It was like he was daring me to leave, to sever the connection between us.
I didn’t know what I wanted to do. Every single intelligent, sensible part of me screamed that this was a whole lot of baggage I didn’t need in my life. And still, something held me in place.
Gray’s hand stroked mine, his thumb tracing circles on my skin.
His gaze met mine, and I forgot where I was, and all the reasons I shouldn’t feel anything for him. He was a train wreck, and I’d never been the kind of girl who wanted to fix a man or found baggage sexy. The world was full of screwed up guys; I didn’t need to go looking for one. But even though I hadn’t gone looking for trouble, apparently trouble had found me.
And I let it hold me close when I probably should have pushed it away.
“And the rest?” I couldn’t actually say the word, strippers.
“Just wrecked my marriage.”
And just like that, my stomach clenched.
He’d been married.
Gray
The second I told her the truth about all of it, as soon as those words left my mouth, I hated myself. I shouldn’t have told her. I didn’t know why I did. Her lips had me spilling all of my secrets with more skill than a seasoned interrogator.
I’d meant to warn her off; I just hadn’t been prepared for how well it would work. Or how shitty I’d feel when she looked at me like I’d disappointed her.
“You were married?” Her voice squeaked out the words, her cheeks red.
“Divorced now. It’s been almost two years. It was bad before, but once we separated, it was like I was on a mission to self-destruct.”
Blair opened her mouth and closed it, as if she had a question she wanted to ask, but couldn’t get up the balls to do it. Maybe she was trying to be polite. Maybe I’d horrified her into silence.
I just kept talking, giving her more than she’d asked for, more than I’d intended to give. That was the dangerous thing about Blair. She didn’t even have to try and she pulled everything out, unraveling you thread by thread.
“We were only married for two years before it all fell apart. We were a bad fit from the start, but my problems didn’t help. She left me and maybe there was a chance, if I’d cleaned myself up, that we could have gotten back together. But I kept partying, more and more. There were girls. It all just became one big ride I couldn’t pull myself off of. In the end, she found another guy, a better guy with a stable job, who made her happy.
“One day my partners demanded I go into rehab. Fucking up my marriage wasn’t
enough to give me a wake-up call. But my career? My wife was my mistress and my job was my wife. So yeah, at the threat of losing all I built, I cleaned myself up. Too little, too late.
“My personal life fucked me professionally. When things started blowing up in Chicago, I needed an out. My ex-wife’s father is a well-known federal court judge. They were out for blood, and it became clear that my odds of finding a good job in the Chicago legal community were coming to an end.”
Blair didn’t speak, just kept staring at me with a searching gaze. I didn’t know if she was attempting to unearth my secrets or sketch my character, but either way, I’d just given her everything. I doubted I’d come out looking good.
Was that what I’d intended all along? I didn’t even know anymore. This girl had my head so fucked I didn’t know which way was up.
An uneasy silence settled between us, as if we’d both shared more than we’d wanted to, and we choked on the intimacy we’d created.
And then she spoke, and just when I’d thought I’d emptied myself out for her, she yanked the rest from me.
“Why me? Why’d you tell me all of this? I don’t see you going to lunch with the other professors; you don’t appear to be close to any students. No one else at school seems to know what happened with you. Why tell me?”
“Because I like you.”
I wanted to fucking disappear as soon as I said the words. I’d meant to fob her off and instead I’d put it all out there. And even worse, as soon as I said it, I realized how true it was. It wasn’t just about sex anymore. I did like her and I had no clue how the hell that had happened. I’d definitely never meant to like her.
This was so fucked-up.
Her cheeks colored at my announcement and another wave of embarrassment sucker punched me. I waited for the polite dismissal I definitely deserved, but she stayed silent, nailing inscrutable.
“What happened with your fiancé?” I asked again, returning to her earlier announcement, needing to shift the focus off of me, not ready to expound on I like you, not sure I even had more to say. I hadn’t even worked out my answer and I definitely didn’t like the way she sat there studying me. She might have been twenty-three, but she had old eyes. Scarily perceptive eyes.
Playing With Trouble Page 7
