of our natural state, and now we are back exactly where we were.
I breathe hard and fast and he moves faster and whispers in my ear, words I am too drugged by desire to catch, words that are low and soft. I feel his breath in my ear as his fingers rob me of any ability to think. I am his, for a song. I am his, for anything.
My fingertips dig into the benchtop as an orgasm explodes around me. It is fierce and all-consuming. I stand in my kitchen, the air thick with my passion, my skin pink, my breath rushed, and I wait for the world to stop racing.
I spin in his arms and stare up at him, my eyes round, my face flushed. I want him. I need him. I am lost to him. He understands, I know he does, and yet he steps back, a smile on his lips promising me things he is withdrawing right before me.
‘I can’t stay.’ The words aren’t even tinged with regret. My stomach swoops—not in a good way. He moves back towards the door and my hungry gaze chases him in confusion.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I have to go.’ He presses a hand to the doorknob. ‘I just needed to be sure.’
‘Of what?’
‘That you’re okay.’ His smile dazzles me then, almost as much as his concern.
I gape, though, so close to being with him and yet so far. ‘You don’t have to go right now, surely...’
‘Yeah, I really do.’ He laughs softly as he pulls the door inwards and then he leaves. Evaporates. Disappears.
* * *
I walk away from her to prove that I can. I walk away from her when I want to stay because it feels somehow vitally important. I don’t remember the last time I wanted someone like this. I don’t think I ever have.
In fact, I know I haven’t. This kind of desire isn’t welcome. I like my relationships to fit neatly into the space I allot them in my life. Snatched nights to suit my schedule, weekends away when I’m between cases. Always over when I say, and most definitely ‘out of sight, out of mind’. Olivia is the first woman to break into my mind and obliterate any box I might have hoped to contain her with. And it’s only been one night.
But what a night.
The law school ball. My apartment. Everything we wanted for four weeks exploded and we were powerless in the wake of that.
Sleeping together is absolute madness but I can’t see either of us stopping what we’ve started.
So finding a box and putting her—this, us—into it is crucial. Control is crucial.
Controlling this, her, what I want and need from her, remembering that this is just an infatuation—this is all important, and so I walk away from her to prove to us both that I can.
I need to be strong so I walk away when all I want to do is carry her to bed and make her my own again.
I stare at the cross on my wrist as I hail a cab. I am not a man of God, but from the age of twelve I was raised by one. Father O’Sullivan taught me many things, including the importance of an unswerving belief in my own strength.
I have conquered many things. The loss of my parents. The anger that swirled through my adolescent frame at their violent deaths. There were many torments to rise above and I have always done so.
But this, I fear, is something different altogether. I’m not so sure I can conquer this obsessive lust in a way that will save Olivia from losing everything she’s worked for. So much is at stake—I have to be strong. We must be careful.
As I slide into the back seat of a cab, I shoot one more look at her little house on the river. My gut twists with regret.
I would do almost anything to be back in her kitchen, with her in my arms...
BY TUESDAY I’M wishing I had stayed at her house. Not just for dinner but for the whole night. By Tuesday, my body is throbbing with needs only Olivia can satisfy. She’s sitting in the third row, writing notes as furiously as ever, but I feel the tension that throbs between us and I ache to dismiss the class and act on it. She avoids meeting my eyes.
Because I am attuned to every movement she makes, I see the instant she reaches into her bag and pulls her phone out. And, even though I’m not looking straight at her, I see the small frown that etches across her face. A curiosity to know what’s on her screen throws me for a moment. I look back at my notes to regroup and carry on.
She has all my attention, though.
* * *
I’m around the corner. Meet you in the foyer.
Why the hell is Pietro messaging me this? I told him I had a lecture from one to three today. The implication was reasonably clear, I would have thought—that I’d prefer not to be disturbed within that timeframe. Yet here we are, fifteen minutes before the end of class, and he’s messaging me?
I can’t ask him to hang around; that’s not fair. He’s doing me a massive favour by bringing me the laptop I left in his car on Sunday, when he dropped me home from my parents’ place. I curse my forgetfulness and I blame Connor for it.
I was thinking only of him. His body. His touch. His games. His kinky self.
And so I climbed out of Pietro’s Mercedes without most of my mind, and without the bag that has my computer, my course notes and various other can’t-live-without things.
I know you said you had a lecture, but I’ve got an appointment to get to. Sorry, bella. xxx
His follow-up message arrives as I’m dithering about what to say or do and it spurs me into action. I slip my notebook into my bag and put the cap on my pen. I try to catch Connor’s eye to mouth an apology but he is resolutely not looking in my direction. I was grateful for that up until a moment ago—grateful for the fact our eyes weren’t meeting. It didn’t change the fact that I felt as though my body was being burned alive, desire lashing at the heels of my feet, need throbbing low down in my abdomen.
I stand up and dip my head forward, moving to the side of the classroom and down towards the door. My hand is on the knob before I hear his voice.
‘Is there a problem, Miss Amorelli?’
I spin around to face him and my breath thickens in my body. Our eyes meet and the thunderstorm is back, vibrating in the room. How is it possible that everyone else doesn’t feel it?
Bloody hell.
I’ve slept with my lecturer.
Seeing him standing there in front of the class, so commanding, so confident, so hot, my insides clench with the easy recollection of how his body possessed mine. How we wrapped around each other and held on as pleasure and satiation robbed us of breath.
It’s as if this moment is the first time I’ve actually realised the enormity of what I’ve done.
‘Sorry, sir, I have to meet someone,’ I say, imbuing the words with as much clinical detachment as I can muster when my breasts are tingling for his touch.
‘I see.’ Concern flashes in his gaze—concern that makes my heart thump almost painfully.
‘Sorry,’ I mouth once more, pulling the door inward and slipping out of the classroom. I make my way quickly down the corridor to the enormous foyer that is the heart of the LLS building.
The campus was built some time in the seventies. It’s an uninspiring brick rectangle from the outside, but the inside is quite spectacular. The foyer is double height and features cream tiles the whole way across. At change of class times, it’s furiously loud, with students and teachers bustling one way or another.
Now, as I make my way to the middle and stare out of the sliding doors, it’s almost deserted.