by Blaire Drake
Partly because each argument had been interspersed with kisses and leg strokes until I finally hadn’t been able to take the heat of his skin against mine any longer and fucked him.
It had been the sweetest torture.
Just like his class was. Sitting there at the back of the room as he talked at the front of the room was becoming the hardest part of his day. The fleeting glances we shared were the worst, because in that split-second, I saw so much in his eyes, more than I normally did.
More than anything, I saw his smile.
And that was so...dangerous.
My mother had once told me that the day you saw someone’s emotions in their eyes was the day you signed a piece of your heart over to them, but the day you saw their smile, you signed your soul away.
I’d never believed her. I’d thought it had been the ramblings of a romantic heart, desperate for her daughter to see the world the rose-tinted way she did, but now, I see I’d been wrong.
She was right. Emotions were strong, but there was something about a smile that made it so very real when it was as vibrant and infectious in someone’s eyes as it was on their lips.
And, God help me, every time our eyes met and his lips twitched, I saw his smile. I saw his fucking smile reflecting back in those goddamn gorgeous eyes.
I was one day away from slipping my soul into an envelope and signing, sealing, and delivering it right to his front door.
I was afraid he owned more than my body. I was afraid that, with every one of those smiles he had, he was taking a piece of me I’d kept locked away.
Nothing had ever been so scary, especially not this week.
The date had glared at me from the calendar. I’d been able to ignore it up until now. In four days, it’d be three years since Griffin died. It didn’t matter how many days had passed or how I’d changed. That day would forever be etched in my mind as the most pain I had ever felt and would ever feel.
And that day… It was my own personal hell. Anguish and heartache, the ultimate recipe for emotional destruction, all wrapped into twenty-four neat, little hours.
The class ended, so I silently packed my things away. Jake glanced at me several times, each time with concern in his gaze. I tried to ignore him, but when he grabbed my arm, I couldn’t.
“Darce,” he said softly. “What’s up?”
“I’m fine,” I lied, tugging my purse zipper shut. “I’m just tired.”
“I know you, and you’re not tired,” he persisted. “Come get coffee. Let’s talk.”
I could feel Jordan’s eyes on me as I averted my own. “It’s the week,” I said quietly. “I just want to be alone, Jake.”
He took a step toward me and cupped my chin. “Coffee? You don’t have to talk. Just know I’m there.”
“Okay. I guess.”
Jake wrapped his arm around my shoulders and squeezed as he led me out of the room. Jordan’s eyes got hotter and hotter, but today, the dull ache was prevalent in my heart. It was always the same—four days before the day. It’s like I finally accepted that it was coming.
Jake led me toward the cafeteria. While he heaped his tray with food, I grabbed a chocolate muffin and a bottle of water. He barely gave me a second glance as I swiped my card and took it to a spare table.
“Dinner tonight?” he said as soon as he sat down.
I shook my head.
“Come on, Darce. He wouldn’t want this.”
“I know that, but I spend the rest of my year doing that. I’m allowed this week, okay?” I picked at the chocolatey richness of my muffin. “Seven days a year won’t kill me.”
“Hmmm.” He dipped a fry into his ketchup and held it out to me. “Wanna fry?”
“No,” I replied. I fought my smile, but it didn’t work. Jake’s infectious grin was just too much.
“Boo, you whore.”
“Who made you watch Mean Girls?”
“My sister,” he grumbled. “She came over this weekend.”
My laugh was quiet. I knew his sister—she was crazy. She also had an unhealthy inspiration to be Regina George. I thought she already was, although I’d never tell Jake that.
“Ouch. I can feel that. How many times?” I asked.
“You don’t want that answered.”
“Bitch, please. I grew up aspiring to be a Mean Girl. I know every word by heart. You can’t scare me.”
“Six times.”
“Ouch. That’s heavy. Do you have a pink shirt yet?”
“Why? Because it’s Wednesday?” He drawled.
Our eyes met for a moment before I burst into giggles.
“No,” I said. “You can’t sit with… Ah, shit. That doesn’t work when I’m alone.”
Jake dropped his burger and planted his face in his hand. “No,” he said through his laughter. “Nah, Darce, it doesn’t.”
“Shit!” I buried my face in my arms on the table and laughed.
“Miss Hamilton, Mr. Haas.”
The sound of his voice had me sitting upright like a rocket. My spine froze into a ninety-degree position, and Jake looked as though he were scoping the room for his closest and-or easiest exit.
“Yes, sir?” I met Professor Keaton’s eyes.
“You left class before I could ask you to see me at four p.m.”
“I’ll be in class then, Professor.”
“I know.” His eyes searched my face. “I’d appreciate you stopping by when you’re done. I’ll be in my office. Grading papers.” His eyes cut to Jake for a moment, who wisely looked at his lunch.
“Of course. I’ll be there.”
“Thank you.” He held my gaze for a moment, his stare intense and unbreakable, before turning his attention to Jake. “Mr. Haas, I do hope this assignment was better than the last.”
“Yes, sir,” Jake mumbled, playing with his food. “I tried.”
I covered my mouth with my hand to hide my laughter.
“We’ll see.” Professor Keaton’s attention flicked to me, and he winked so quickly that I would have sworn I’d imagined it. “Miss Hamilton.” If he were a Victorian gentleman, he’d have tipped his hat—his manners were so perfect.
He disappeared out of the hall as quickly as he’d arrived, and I looked back at my chocolate muffin.
“He’s a slave driver,” Jake muttered.
I nodded, knowing that it was both the truth and a lie… And knowing that, when Jordan had said “office,” he’d really meant “home.”
“The victim had gunpowder residue on their hands.”
I raised my eyebrows, and my papers crackled as I rearranged them. “That doesn’t mean the victim fired the killing shot. The gun could have been shot from their hand after their murder.”
“Prove that happened.”
“Prove it didn’t.”
Jordan hesitated for a moment then grabbed some sheets of paper. “The placement of the gun was synonymous with a suicide shot.”
“The victim had two gunshot wounds, and the head shot is predicted to be earlier the stomach shot. Please enlighten me as to how the victim could have possibly shot himself in the stomach after he’d blown half of his brain out.”
His pause was longer this time. His expression was stony, and I waited, tapping my foot as the thoughts visibly flitted across his face.
“Fuck,” he hissed. “I have nothing, sweet thing. How the hell do you respond to that?”
I grinned. You didn’t. “You don’t.”
“Damn. Prosecution really is the easy side, isn’t it?”
“No.” I shook my head and sat on the sofa. “It’s not—it’s the opposite. Prosecution is the hardest.”
“How? The information is given to you.”
“Ah… But that’s the thing. It isn’t. The prosecution has to work to get every bit of DNA and evidence it’ll take to get justice. The defense gets a good deal of it handed to them before they decide what to argue against. As a prosecutor, I have to deliver evidence so concretely that it can’t be disputed. Find
ing that is the hardest part.”
Jordan rubbed his thumb across his upper lip and sipped his water. “That makes sense. Okay. So… Say this… You know what? I don’t even know. I’m trying to rationalize this in my mind, but I can’t think of any situation where someone could shoot themselves in the head and still be alive to shoot themselves again.”
I laughed and hugged my knee. “That’s because you can’t. This is an easy case to fight against because it’s clearly not suicide. The hard part is proving who the murderer was, and I think it was the wife.”
“Is it a real case?”
“Based on one. All of our projects are. But that doesn’t mean the outcome is the same. Last time, someone tried to base their whole argument off what happened in the real case and ended up failing it because almost everything had been changed.”
“Wow… Was that Jake?”
I pursed my lips to hide my smile. “No, it wasn’t Jake. He’s almost better than I am in law.”
“You’re fucking with me.”
“Nope. He’s so bad at history he can’t remember what he did last week, but he’s the kind of guy who could get you out of a murder conviction even if you were found with blood on your hands at the scene.”
Jordan chuckled. “I’ll remember that.”
I raised an eyebrow. “For what? Are you planning to bump me off in the middle of sex?”
“Not in the middle, sweet thing. Maybe just after. It depends how loud you scream my name.”
“Is that a test? The louder I scream, the longer I can live?”
“Yes. Is that so wrong?” His eyes glinted with laughter.
I rested my cheek against my knee with a small smile. “The volume of my screams is directly in line with how hard you make me come. So, if you want louder, you’re gonna have to step up your game.”
“Are you challenging me, Darcy?”
“Does it sound like one?”
“Yes.”
“If a duck looks like a duck, is it a duck?”
“Yes.”
“Then you see where I’m going with this, Professor.”
He growled low in his throat and launched himself over me. I slid my knee down just as his body covered mine. He dove his hand into my hair, pulling my head back, as his lips found mine. My skin tingled at his touch, each nerve ending coming alive in a way I was getting all too addicted to.
I loved the rush he gave me.
I curled my hands around the back of his neck and fell into his kiss. It was like the fall into Wonderland, multicolored and endless, and the path that guided me was paved with all-consuming longing.
“Is it wrong that that turns me on? When you call me Professor?” he growled against my mouth.
“A little.” I gasped as he bit my lip.
“Fuck it. I don’t want to be right.” He kissed me again, this time deeper and more desperately.
I didn’t want to admit it, but his kiss was rapidly becoming the favorite part of my day. No matter how hard I tried to stop it, I couldn’t.
I should have stopped it. I should have told him that I needed to leave right there and then and gone to see how many, if any, of my questions I could answer. But I didn’t.
I lay there as his mouth explored my body. As our clothes tumbled to the floor. As foil ripped. As our bodies connected. As we moved. As we kissed and grasped and fucked, each movement rough and rushed.
I didn’t move until he disappeared upstairs to shower. Then, with the pounding of the water as my disguise, I dressed and slipped out of his house in the way I’d done the past two days.
Something had to give.
He heard the door the second it shut. She thought he didn’t, but he did. He always did.
And he hated that fucking sound.
He hated the sound of her leaving because it meant he was alone again.
A month ago, he’d cherished the silence. It had been his best friend, the place where he could be himself and hate himself more easily.
Now, he hated it because there was rarely silence when Darcy was around. She was the noisiest person he’d ever met, but he’d come to appreciate all the little things that made her her. Like the way she’d hum so quietly whenever she concentrated; he didn’t think she had any idea that she did it, but she always did. Or the way she’d laugh softly every now and then, even if he didn’t think what he’d said was funny.
More than anything, though, it was his name on her lips that he loved the most. Every syllable was an undiscovered slice of heaven being pulled through the veil to reality. Every purr, every murmur, every cry—they were all his favorite things.
He cricked his neck and shut the water off. He stepped out of the shower and grabbed his hot towel from the heated rack before tying it around his waist. His reflection stared back at him from the mirror, and he paused in front of it.
There was a lightness in his eyes. He hadn’t seen it for a long time. Four years, to be exact.
And Darcy was the reason for it.
He hated that too.
He pushed off the sink and stormed into his room. The towel fell to the floor with one quick tug, and he dressed in his boxers and some sweats. It took him three attempts to get the tie knotted as he went downstairs and turned into his office.
Her letter was sitting on top of his desk, her name scrawled on the envelope in thick, black Sharpie. He picked it up and sat in his chair. His wet skin stuck to the leather backrest as he leaned back, focused on the letter.
The envelope was smooth as he spun it around between two fingers. Her name filtered in and out of his vision with each twist, and he sat there for what felt like the longest hour, just playing with the envelope.
Her future was there. Right there in his hands, twirling and twisting on his command.
Her future was his. His to control. His to create. His to break…
Dear Professor, it used to be so simple… Xoxo, Darcy.
The rain beat against the window. I’d finished the assignment ten minutes ago, and instead of working on the stuff I knew I’d have to do at home, I was staring out the window, watching as the raindrops raced down the glass pane.
It was the easier option. The assignment had taken it out of me—Shakespeare and his tragic idea of love always did—and my mind was still preoccupied by Christina’s e-mail.
I needed to reply. I did… I knew it. But I was scared. God, I was so scared.
A week ago, I wouldn’t have hesitated. I wouldn’t have been able to reply quickly enough.
Now though… I sighed as the class ended. I packed my things up and left the classroom without a word to anyone else. Maybe it was time for me to grow a pair. After all, I didn’t want to be in this situation. I’d lost track of my aim. I’d forgotten what I was really trying to do, and that was getting the kind of thing that would stop Jordan’s game in his tracks.
If Christina was the person who had that information…
I swallowed down the rising bile at the thought that, if she did and it worked, it’d all be over. The evenings, the secretive smiles in the middle of class, the anticipation of what would happen next—all of it. Gone. All of that would remain would be memories.
I didn’t really want those, either. I had enough.
I sat down at an empty table in the middle of the library and slumped forward. I buried my face in my arms and took a deep breath before slowly letting it out.
Pull yourself together, Darcy. It shouldn’t be this hard to send a fucking e-mail.
As always, my voice of reason was right. I could have done with her showing up a couple of weeks ago, but whatever. Better late than never.
I sat up and pulled my laptop from my purse. While it loaded, my eyes scanned the library. It was pretty quiet, and almost everyone was sitting alone, immersed in either their book or their laptop. Christina’s e-mail was still sitting in my trash folder, so when my e-mail was up, I restored it to my inbox and clicked on it.
You aren’t the only one.
A shiver trailed down my spine as I read the words again. There was something about seeing them in black and white on the screen. They were realer than the ones I’d been throwing around my mind since I’d seen it.
My hand shook as my pointer arrow hovered over the reply button. Fuck, I needed to do it. What the hell was wrong with me?
I did it. I clicked.
Just like that.
I blew out a long breath and hit the message box.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: (empty)
I don’t want to be rude, but I’m sorry. I don’t know who you are or what you meant in your e-mail.
I hit send and bit my thumbnail as I waited. It seemed like forever passed before I got a response.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: (empty)
OH I’m sorry! I’m Christina. I went to University of Chicago two years ago. I probably should have started with that, huh? : ) My bad. Your history professor is Dr. Keaton, right?
I narrowed my eyes. That information was all well and good, but how the hell had she found me? And how did she know this?
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: (empty)
Yes… I apologize, but I really don’t know where this is going. Why does it matter who my history teacher is?
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: (empty)
Sorry. This just feels totally awkward. I live just outside Chicago. Could we meet up? I’d feel better about having this conversation in person.
I stopped short of replying. Did I want to have a conversation with this strange woman in person? Not particularly. Did I want to continue this? Yes and no. I wanted to know what was so awkward about whatever she needed to tell me that she couldn’t do it over e-mail. Wouldn’t in person be even more so?
