to investigate and prosecute, just like victims’ families can’t decide penalties. We hold the police to a standard that we all expect.’
I lift a finger to her lips, stalling the argument she’s about to make. ‘If you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, would you rather have a legal system that enables the police officer who walks in and finds you standing over a dead body to decide summarily against you? Or would you prefer to know that you would have a chance to explain? That the police officer would have to follow rules and procedures. And that if he didn’t you would be exonerated. Mistakes happen. But this, what we have, has been refined over centuries to give most people a chance at fairness. There are safeguards in place to make the system as fair as possible.’
‘It isn’t fair, though.’
‘No.’ I nod grimly. ‘Until mankind rises above its very nature, there’s nothing fair in life or law.’
Her eyes lift to mine and there’s speculation in them that runs through me, turning over all the pieces of my being I have long-ago learned to keep locked away from others.
‘Who was that lady with you tonight?’
The question isn’t what I expect and I welcome it. There is a heaviness in the air resulting from our conversation.
‘In the red dress,’ she prompts thoughtfully.
‘Cynthia Payne.’
‘A friend of yours?’
I close the distance between us and she draws in a shallow breath, then expels it; warmth and sweetness brush against my jaw so that I am reminded of the first time we crossed this line—after class. ‘I knew you were going to be trouble, the first time I saw you.’
A blush spreads in her cheeks. I’m fascinated by it—as I am by everything to do with this woman. ‘I think that’s the first time I’ve ever been called trouble,’ she says with a small self-deprecating smile that hits me right in the chest.
‘That makes it no less true.’
Her eyes are huge. I could get lost in them. She blinks up at me, and my whole body is attuned to her and what she wants, because it’s what I want, too. Her teeth press down on her lower lip and then, despite the fact she’s standing there like some kind of modern-day Madonna, she lifts her hands to my bow tie and begins to undo it. There is concentration on her features, and her fingers aren’t quite steady. Her breath is rushed. But I don’t make a move to help her. In fact, I hold my own breath, wondering if she’s caught in a trance and I will wake her if I speak.
‘The first time I saw you,’ she says, succeeding with the bow tie, removing it and dropping it softly to the ground, ‘I imagined you naked.’
She lifts her eyes to mine and smiles, but I don’t. Her words have a strange effect on me, locking something inside me.
‘Really?’ I manage to drag out, the word gruff.
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Do you make a habit of imagining your professors in the buff?’
I’m rewarded with another smile. ‘Just the hot ones.’
She’s joking but a flare of something worryingly like jealousy bursts inside me.
‘Just you,’ she clarifies after a minute, and her trembling fingers find the top button of my shirt. She works it loose.
‘Professor Winterbourne has nice hair,’ I say, and she laughs then, and it’s like music and sunshine in this cold, exquisitely elegant penthouse of mine.
‘It wasn’t your hair I liked.’
‘What was it?’
Her expression is teasing. She frees another button. ‘You don’t strike me as a man who’s hungry for praise.’
Something jerks in my chest. Because she’s right and yet I’m filled with a desperate need to hear Olivia’s praise—all of it. It’s absurd. A stupid instinct. I ignore it.
She frees another button and then another, and her fingertips graze my chest when, at last, she separates the shirt completely. Her eyes devour my chest, trailing heat with the intensity of her gaze as she reads each and every ink I have scored there.
Eyes aren’t enough, though. Her fingers follow, chasing the dark swirls of writing, as though she can interpret their mysteries with her touch. ‘So many tattoos,’ she murmurs after a moment and then, with her enormous eyes holding mine, and a look of sweet uncertainty on her face—despite all that we’ve shared—she brings her mouth to my collarbone and kisses one of the markings there, dragging her lips along it until I can barely handle the innocence of her investigation.
‘Turn around.’ The words are dark and hoarse, jarring. She pulls away, a look of confusion on her features. As though she’s done something wrong. I shake my head, then smile; it’s tight on my face. My needs are impatient to find satiation. I am impatient. ‘This dress...’ I say, and then my smile feels more natural, as I remember the corridor at the Tate, the frustration I’d felt towards such a beautiful piece of fabric.
She lifts a single brow, but does as I say, turning away from me. The back is cut out, so it’s all her beautiful flesh, right to the curve of her arse. I find the zip there and pull it downwards. Gently. Slowly, testing myself and the limits of my patience.
The zip parts and when the cool night air connects with her flesh I feel her breathe in. My hands curve around the cheeks of her buttocks, my fingers splayed wide, and my body tense, expectant. Waiting.
I lift my fingers to her sides, then higher still, inside the dress and around the front, curving them over her breasts.
She moans softly at the contact. Her nipples are hard and tight against my palms. I bring my mouth to her neck, kissing the flesh I find there, nipping it softly with my teeth. She quivers, and I smile.
‘I liked your accent,’ she says, the words drugged and thickened by desire. It takes me a moment to realise she’s responding to our earlier line of conversation.
‘Got a thing for Irish men?’
‘Not that I know of.’
There it is again—jealousy, and then the sharp relief from it. She’s not playing with me. She has no idea that I feel this possessive desire for her.
‘I liked hearing you talk,’ she says, turning around, dislodging my hands so she can face me. She lifts her own hands to my flesh, her fingers hooking over my shoulders. ‘I like your voice, even when I don’t agree with most of what you say.’
She smiles; I smile back.
Time seems to stand still. There is just the thundering beating of passion, surrounding us, drawing us in.
She drops her hands lower on my chest, then around my back; she pushes to the tips of her toes and her lips find the hollow at my throat, and then she groans, and I understand. Her desperation, her need.
I understand because the same desires are slicing through me.
‘Not like this.’ The feelings are so good, but I need more. We’ve already come together in a corridor, and now I’m about ready to take her here, in my lounge. But I don’t want to rush this. I want to luxuriate in the certainty that she’s mine. I step away from her and pace through the apartment, turning into my palatial bedroom, hoping she’ll be right behind me.
She is and, better, she’s discarded her dress along the way. I flick the lights on. They’re bright overhead and I can see every detail of her body. I stare at her long and hard, my cock like stone in my pants. She wears only a lacy little thong.
‘Like this?’ she asks, and her asking me for permission is fucking hot. I position myself in front of the full-length mirrors and nod.
‘Yeah.’ She comes back to my body and her touch is curious as she brings her mouth to my chest and nips at me with her teeth.