Текст книги "Playing with Trouble"
Автор книги: Chanel Cleeton
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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 19 страниц)
Chapter Twenty-two
Rumor has it there’s a controversy swirling on the Senate Intelligence Committee . . .
—Capital Confessions blog
Blair
The first Monday back to school after Christmas break was brutal. Absolutely brutal. I sat in Con Law II wishing I was anywhere but there. Most of our substantive courses—constitutional law, contracts, property, and torts—were over a full year, spilt into two courses. This semester we added criminal law to our course list. Hannover had hired a visiting professor who was handling our Torts II class and Gray was teaching two 3L seminars.
I sat sandwiched between Caitlin and Adam, a few rows away from the back. In the beginning of my 1L year, I’d been the type of student who sat in the front. Always. Thanks to the dreaded seating chart we had assigned seats, and I’d learned the hard way that there would be days when I’d need the anonymity of the back, so my seating habits had changed out of necessity.
Myers lectured from the front of the room, and I fought to stay awake. Con law was bad enough, but con law first thing in the morning was absolute torture.
In undergrad, the first day of classes usually involved going over the syllabus, maybe a short, introductory lecture from the professor. In law school, the first day of classes meant jumping immediately into questions about the two hundred pages of reading we were assigned for the first day back. No easing your way back into the academic pool; they threw you in headfirst with weights tied around your ankles.
Myers called on Adam and my entire row sat up a little straighter—he had a habit of annihilating us rows at a time. I began flipping through my casebook, looking for the sections I’d highlighted, trying to guess what he’d ask me.
Adam stumbled over the question, setting off a flurry of page flipping. Our communal terror was palpable, the entire row ready to pick up where Adam left off if he couldn’t answer the question.
And then we all looked up from our books, the freak-out spreading as Myers walked up the stairs, heading toward our row.
What the fuck?
He stopped next to our row, his gaze firmly fixed on Adam.
“Where’s your brief?” he asked, his voice booming through the auditorium-style room.
Oh, fuck.
A look of utter panic came over Adam’s face.
“Here,” he pointed at his book, his finger—and voice—shaking.
Book briefing was the perfect shortcut when you needed to brief a case and didn’t have time to actually type it all out. It involved lots of highlighting and scribbling in margins and sometimes if you were really lucky and found a used book, the brief was already laid out for you. Which was awesome.
Professor Myers’s eyes narrowed. “Was I not clear in the beginning of last semester?”
His gaze whipped to me which I was pretty sure was no accident considering he definitely thought I was the weakest link in the class.
“What did the syllabus say about your case briefs, Ms. Reynolds?”
Fuck.
My voice shook as I saw the path we were headed down and realized it led nowhere good. “You said we needed to bring our written briefs to every class.”
When you read ten cases on average for every class, and you had five of them, and some opinions could be upwards of twenty pages—especially when the dissent rambled on or multiple justices dissented (and rambled on)—handwritten briefs took fucking forever.
I understood why they wanted us to do them; written briefs helped us identify and analyze the salient points in each opinion. But after a semester of it, and never having the briefs collected, a lot of us—most of us—had stopped doing it. I’d stopped doing it.
Fuck.
Professor Myers turned away from our row, taking the steps down two at a time, until he’d reached the front of the room again.
Seventy-five students waited with bated breath to see what he’d do.
He glared at the class. “If you have a written, printed brief, you can stay for the remainder of the lecture. If you do not—if you book briefed”—he said “book brief” with a level of disdain that had me fighting a snort– “Leave now.”
Oh shit.
Murmurs went up throughout the class, one brave soul daring to utter the question, “Seriously?”
“Yes. Seriously. Show of hands, who doesn’t have a written brief?”
I watched as slowly hands started to go up in the room, mine included. When I looked around, there were hardly any students left whose hands weren’t up in the air.
Surely, he wasn’t going to kick out sixty-something students.
“Those of you with your hands in the air, leave. Don’t come back into this classroom until you have a written brief. Those of you who don’t have your hands in the air and actually did the work can stay. I’ll be lecturing about the Equal Protection Clause. I won’t go over it again.”
I had never been kicked out of a class in my life, much less with sixty other students. This was surreal.
One by one, my classmates and I closed down our laptops, gathered our bags, books, and papers, and headed down the aisle in the ultimate walk of shame.
I turned back and saw a little over a handful of students left sitting in their seats, shock evident on their faces as well.
Professor Myers glowered at all of us as we walked by.
We trickled through the door, spilling out into the halls, a buzz of conversation spreading with each step we took.
“Can you believe he kicked everyone out?”
“Did that really just happen?”
“He didn’t tell us we had to do written briefs this semester as well.”
I walked with Adam and Caitlin as we made our way down to the law school lobby. Adam was uncharacteristically quiet, clearly shell shocked over his role in getting sixty-something 1Ls thrown out of their first Con Law II class. I had a feeling this story would evolve into its own law school urban legend.
We all sat down into our usual couches in the lobby.
Caitlin grinned at us, seemingly unfazed. “Well, I guess that means we have an extra break before contracts. Do you guys want to grab breakfast? I need more coffee, stat.”
I figured Caitlin could afford to be blasé about getting kicked out since she was easily one of the smartest students in our 1L class. She had a natural grasp of the subject I sort of envied. I needed every lecture I could get.
Adam nodded. “I could use it after that.” He turned toward me. “You in?”
I shook my head. “I think I’m going to hang here. I ate this morning before class. I’ll see you guys later, okay?”
I took out my contracts book and a highlighter, determined to go over the cases again to make sure I hadn’t missed anything.
“I thought you had con law this morning?”
My head jerked and I stared up at Gray standing over me, a smile on his face.
Gah.
He wore a gray suit, light blue button-down dress shirt, blue and gray tie. I could tell he’d just shaved, and even though I loved the sexy stubble I’d gotten to enjoy over Christmas break, there was something about the sight of him like this—like he’d just stepped off of the cover of GQ—that had a familiar ping of arousal firing through me.
“Hi.”
I’d spent enough time last semester trying to cover up my attraction to him that it came almost as naturally as breathing, but the past month of having him all to myself had seemingly undone all of my hard work. It was so much harder now to pretend like he was just another professor.
He gave me a private smile. “Hi.”
I figured he’d leave, but instead he sat down in the seat Caitlin had recently occupied.
“So you never answered my question. Why aren’t you in con law?”
I laughed. “Funny story about that.”
“What happened?”
“He kicked us out.”
Gray blinked. “What do you mean he kicked you out?”
“He told everyone that if they didn’t have a written case brief they needed to leave. So we left. Like sixty-five of us.”
“John kicked sixty-five students out of class on the first day of class for book briefing?”
John? The fire-breathing monster who had banished us from his hallowed classroom definitely wasn’t someone I could think of in such ordinary terms.
“Yeah.”
Gray shook his head, a smile playing at his beautiful lips. “You gotta admit, that takes balls.”
“It takes something,” I answered, my voice tart. Professor Myers was slowly moving up my list of least-favorite professors. Since Gray had made up for the frequent calling on me with skills that Professor Myers would never have, the top spot was vacant. Kicking me out of class more than qualified him to take it over.
“Bet you’ll never show up to con law without a written brief again.”
“Do you know how long it takes to write those stupid briefs out?” I grumbled.
He grinned. “Sure do. And you’re right, it totally sucks. But it’s all part of paying your dues.”
At this point I was ready to give my dues the middle finger.
Gray’s eyes gleamed as he leaned in a little closer, his voice dropping.
“How long do you have before contracts?”
My stomach did a little flutter over the fact that he knew my whole schedule and the invitation lingering in his voice.
“An hour.”
“I think we have some pro bono business we need to discuss.” He paused meaningfully and my nipples tightened as I definitely got his point. “Should we go talk in my office?”
We definitely needed to go talk in his office. Maybe twice.
I grinned. “Absolutely.”
Gray
It took skill walking through the law school, Blair behind me, my body already turned on, my mind full of all of the things I wanted to do with her once I got her to my office.
Along the way, a few students with questions about the first-day reading stopped me, and then two professors who made small talk that I struggled to respond to.
Each time someone stopped me, I swore I heard Blair snort. She definitely knew how impatient I was.
I held the door open while she walked over the threshold to my office, her body brushing against mine in a move that was designed to look accidental, and knowing her, was anything but.
I followed Blair into the room and closed the door behind us with a click, turning the lock with a flick of my wrist.
We’d agreed to keep things professional between us at school, and just like everything else with Blair, clearly my resolve had lasted all of a minute.
Fuck it.
I pulled her into my arms, kissing her slowly, my tongue thrusting into her mouth, my hands cupping her ass, pulling her against me, my hips rocking forward. I walked us back, our bodies still entwined, stopping when Blair hit the back of my desk. I lifted her up, setting her on the edge. My hands moved down to her legs, spreading her open, stepping forward until I was pressed up against her, her legs around my hips.
“This is harder than I thought it would be,” she whispered. “It was hard before when I wanted what I couldn’t have, but now that I’ve had you—”
“It’s impossible,” I finished for her.
“Yes.”
“Let me guess, you’re having a hard time concentrating?”
She nodded.
I swallowed. “I keep telling myself I can’t look at you. I know I shouldn’t, and yet I can’t stop. Can’t help it.”
“Me, too,” she whispered, her eyes wide. “I used to fantasize about you while you taught.”
Jesus.
“Now it’s worse,” she continued. “When I see you, I think about having you again. I should be able to make it through the day and I can’t. What is that?”
“Insanity,” I answered, releasing her mouth, my lips traveling down to the soft skin at the base of her neck, nipping there.
“I’ve had some serious fantasies about you and this desk,” I whispered against her bare flesh. I moved back, wrapping her legs around my waist, staring down at her.
Blair’s cheeks turned a pretty shade of pink, at odds with the way her mouth curved into a naughty smile.
“Oh really?” she murmured.
I nodded. “So many fantasies.”
My voice was hoarse, lust and need fueling me now.
I reached down, my fingers playing with the hem of her pink sweater. I stroked the bare skin beneath the fabric, and then I lifted the sweater over her head, inch by inch, until she sat propped on the edge of my desk clad in a lacy pink bra.
I groaned. Beautiful. Absolutely stunning.
I still couldn’t believe I had her; couldn’t believe she wanted me. I’d spent so much time convinced that I’d fucked up my life beyond repair, that I’d never find more than casual hookups and the kind of loneliness that ate you from the inside out like a corrosive acid, that the idea that this girl who seemed like more dream than reality could be mine, was too much good fortune for me to comprehend.
The last time something had seemed too good to be true, the last time I’d found myself wanting more for my life, I’d nearly lost everything. The fear that it would happen again, that a girl like Blair could destroy me, had me terrified.
But I loved her.
No matter how scared I was, the love I felt for her made it difficult to play it safe.
Blair’s hands came up, resting on either side of my face, her fingers threading through my hair, a smile on her lips.
“Are you going to stare at me or are you going to give me an orgasm before contracts?”
I grinned. “I can definitely do that.” I glanced down at my watch. “Let’s try for two.”
She shivered.
I knelt down in front of her, sliding her boots and socks off of her feet, another tremor going through her body as I touched her. I stood up and my fingers found the snap of her pants, opening them, dragging the zipper down, my hand finding lace beneath her jeans.
I lifted her hips off of the desk, and she wriggled a bit beneath my touch as I dragged the denim down her legs until it hit the carpet. She slid back on the desk, her body spread open, desire blazing in her beautiful eyes.
My hands shook as I took off my jacket, as I fought with the knot on my tie, my fingers flying through my shirt buttons. And then my chest was bare, and my hands came down to the button on my pants, pulling them down, my boxers following, kicking my shoes off, each movement a mad dash to get naked and inside this girl as quickly as possible.
Blair
It didn’t matter how many times I got to see Gray strip, each time felt like the first time in the sense that my lady parts spasmed and rejoiced at all those ripples and all that bare skin.
The urge to lick each muscle was one that had yet to abate.
And then hands slid up my inner thighs, spreading me even further, and his naked body settled against mine, rocking against my core, and it got even better.
His thumbs dipped under the top of my lace underwear—underwear I’d definitely purchased with the intent of him taking them off me—and he dragged the lace down my electrified skin. When they hit the floor, I wrapped my legs around his waist, pulling him even closer toward me, my body drenched, the need to have him inside me swelling with each moment that passed.
His hands came between my breasts, fingers trailing down the curves with agonizing sweetness that felt more like torture than a caress. He unhooked the front snap, peeling the lace off of my body as I arched my back, offering myself, desperately needing to feel his hands and mouth on me.
I’d figured that at some point this edge between us would disappear—or lessen, at least—but if anything, it only seemed to grow each time we were together. I craved him now in a way I never had before, because I knew how good things were between us; knew without a doubt in my mind that I would never find someone I wanted as much as I wanted him.
His mouth closed down around my nipple, his hand stroking my other breast, and a moan escaped, my head rolling back as he stoked the fire inside me, working his own particular brand of magic.
He played with me until a flush spread over my body, until my breasts were sofuckingsensitive, my nipples tight, my legs quivering. It was like that moment when a cold chill hit, and that tingling, shivering feeling took over, making the hair stand up on your body, a trail of goose bumps spreading over your skin. Except my moment had lasted for like ten minutes, and really, there was only so much a girl could take.
Gray released me, his mouth trailing down my chest, down my stomach, until his lips hovered over my clit and my entire world became suspended as I waited, waited . . .
His tongue hit my clit at the exact moment the orgasm started to build inside me, the combination of anticipation, cold chill nipple torment, and the feeling of, oh god—his mouth sucking on the throbbing point between my legs—sent out a series of spasms my body couldn’t contain, and then I was coming, biting down on my lip to keep from shouting out, my head thrashing as I rode the wave of the Dom Perignon of orgasms.
The man had a gift.
And then his hands dipped between my legs, spreading me open, his cock sliding inside me in one rough stroke until he was buried in my wetness, and the last tremors of my orgasm went from dying embers to flickering sparks.
Fuck me.
He was definitely going to give me a two-for-one special.
Gray’s mouth found mine, swallowing the whimpers and moans, complete and utter gibberish that escaped my lips as he pounded into me, his hands gripping my hips, his fingers digging into my skin as he brought me down onto his cock, forcing me to take him deeper.
I’d never thought I’d be the kind of girl who liked rough sex—and I didn’t always—but this? My back against the top of his desk, what might have been a pen digging into my ass, papers spread all around me, as he rode me hard? Fuck, this was amazing. Double orgasm amazing.
He released my mouth, his face buried in my neck, his hands pulling at my hair, yanking my head back as he increased his pace, his hips pumping deeper. I gripped his back, his shoulders, stroking the muscle there, loving the image of this big, strong man on top of me. Of Gray. Mine.
And then it started again, that pulling feeling low in my belly, my skin heating, my body clenching down on his as he fulfilled his promise and gave me my second orgasm of the day, all before noon.
I walked into contracts with a smile on my face.
Chapter Twenty-three
Blair Reynolds has moved on from her broken engagement to Thomas Wyatt III . . .
You won’t believe her new love . . .
—Capital Confessions blog
Blair
I stared at my computer screen. I blinked. The same letters stared back at me. I blinked again. Still there.
It was nearly the end of the first week of classes and the moment had snuck up on me. Last semester’s grades had arrived.
Panic filled me, settling in my gut, spreading through my limbs, my entire body choking with it, a black, sticky tar that momentarily rendered me immobile.
Fuck.
Straight C-pluses stared back at me. In every single class. If it weren’t so horrible, I’d laugh. Maybe. How was it even possible to get straight C-pluses in every single fucking one of my classes? What were the odds?
Oh my god, I couldn’t breathe. Was this a panic attack? Was I having a panic attack?
I’d studied for fucking hours. Hours. There was a week where I didn’t wash my hair. I’d stopped shaving my legs. I’d basically subsisted on a diet of junk food and caffeine for a fucking week. I’d studied. I’d read over my notes, made outlines, never missed a class. I’d done everything you were supposed to do in order to get good grades.
I’d never gotten below a B in my life. And now this.
Straight C-pluses. A two-point-five GPA.
My chest clenched and I wondered if twenty-three was too young to have a heart attack.
Oh god, I couldn’t feel my arm.
It was so embarrassing. I’d even gotten a C-plus in torts. So freaking embarrassing. I wanted to crawl in a hole and disappear.
“Checking your grades?” Caitlin asked, sitting down in the seat across from me.
Word had spread like wildfire that 1L grades were posted on the school’s online system and the lobby was full of students checking their computers, tablets, cells. It was as though the entire law school had descended into a grade-induced coma.
By the relaxed look on Caitlin’s face, I could only assume she had not received straight C-pluses.
“Yeah,” I croaked.
“Are they okay?”
No, they were definitely not “okay.”
I shook my head, tears bubbling up to the surface. God, I absolutely couldn’t cry. Not in front of everyone. Not like this.
“Which class was your lowest?”
All of them.
I was seriously going to lose it.
I beat the tears back, reaching for whatever composure I had left. “I have to go. I’ll see you in property later.”
I grabbed my bag, and headed for the door, my heart pounding in my chest. Caitlin called out something behind me, but I was too far gone to hear anything over the sound of blood rushing through my head.
For the millionth time since I’d started law school, I thought about withdrawing. This wasn’t working. No matter how hard I tried, how much I attempted to force it, this wasn’t where I belonged. This wasn’t a case of just needing to work harder or stick it out. This was me making myself miserable, trying to shove a square peg into a round hole. This wasn’t me, and maybe it was time I realized it.
The withdrawal period lasted the first two weeks of the semester. At that point, if I dropped out, I could get most, if not all, of my semester’s tuition back. At least then I would have only thrown away a small fortune.
Fuck me.
I sat down on a bench under one of the shady trees, staring out at the grassy courtyard in front of the law school.
The only thing holding me back was the absence of a plan, the giant, gaping unknown staring me down. I’d never been without a plan. Now I was staring down the point in my life where I was supposed to know where I was going and I was utterly clueless. I wasn’t a kid anymore. I couldn’t make excuses, couldn’t blame my parents, couldn’t afford to take time to “figure myself out.”
But the truth was, I didn’t really know who I was anymore. I knew pieces, understood some of it, but not all. But maybe knowing what didn’t work for me was one of the first steps to figuring out what did work. Maybe I needed to fail in order to wake up and see that I was throwing my life away trying to be someone I wasn’t. Or maybe I was just totally and completely fucked.
My phone rang and I stared down at the display, not in the mood to talk to anyone right now. I needed the space to work through how I felt, needed some time to get my head on straight.
Jackie Calling.
I hit reject, feeling more than a little guilty. I’d call her back later after I’d fully processed the C-pluses. If I ever fully processed the C-pluses.
My phone beeped, letting me know I had a voice mail. I ignored it.
My phone rang again.
Jackie Calling.
I hit reject again.
A minute later—
Jackie Calling.
I frowned and hit accept.
“Hey. Is everything okay?”
“You’re in Capital Confessions,” Jackie answered by way of greeting, her voice sounding like she’d just run a race.
Confusion filled me.
“Yeah, I’ve been in it a lot lately. What does it say this time?”
“They know about Gray.”
My stomach dropped.
“What do you mean, they know about Gray?”
There was no way anyone could know about Gray. We’d spent winter break holed up in his home. We didn’t go out together. Not even to the freaking grocery store. Nowhere. And yeah, we’d had sex in his office, but unless there were cameras in there, I didn’t see how anyone could have found out. We’d been careful. Jackie and Kate were the only people I’d told about him, and I knew he never would have said anything.
“What do you mean, they know about Gray?” I repeated, panic clawing at my throat, ripping me open.
“They printed his name in Capital Confessions. It’s bad. Really bad. They know about his time in rehab, his divorce, all of it. It’s all in there. I’m so sorry, Blair.”
For a moment, I couldn’t speak. I closed my eyes, watching my dream die. I should have known this would happen, that it was impossible for me to keep my private life private. I should have known that eventually my notoriety would rub off on him.
“Do you still have any contacts at Capital Confessions?” I asked.
Jackie hesitated for a beat. “The editor, Sean, and I didn’t exactly end on good terms, but I can reach out to him. Do you want me to try to find out how they got the story?”
“Yes.”
“I’m on it.”
I hung up the phone after thanking her, my hands, voice, shaking.
I pulled up Capital Confessions on my phone, the tremor spreading throughout my limbs. This was the worst fucking thing that could have happened. How the hell had they found out about Gray and me?
My heart pounded as I waited for the site to load. And then it did and I died.
THE PRINCESS AND THE PROFESSOR!!
Fuck.
There were pictures of us—not together—but pictures just the same. I skimmed the article, my heart sinking with each word.
Oh my god.
Jackie hadn’t been kidding. It was bad. Really, really bad. Someone had clearly done their research, because they knew everything—his divorce, the implosion of his legal career in Chicago, rehab . . .
My heart shattered.
I escaped the whole thing pretty much scot-free. There were quite a few references to my father—my parents were going to be so fucking pissed—and the casual mention that I’d run out on my own wedding last year. But the brunt of it, the worst parts, were all about Gray.
Fuck.
My hands trembling, I called him, trying to remember what he’d said his schedule was like today. My brain lagged as white noise reigned supreme. I couldn’t think past those words on my screen.
Was he teaching? Fuck.
He didn’t answer.
I left a message begging him to call me and followed up with a text.
Just as I’d hit send, my phone erupted.
Texts. Calls. Numbers I recognized, others I didn’t.
This was the start of the media shitstorm that would descend around all of us. Students walked by, phones in hand, nudging each other as they looked at me.
Fuck.
I grabbed my bag, pulling out a pair of oversized dark sunglasses and shoving them on my face, and headed home to deal with this latest crisis.
