‘Miss Amorelli,’ I say, the words coming out throaty and commanding. ‘Do you have a moment?’ I move to stand beside her and one of the waiters approaches us immediately.
‘What’ll it be, sir?’ the waiter asks.
I look at Olivia, waiting for her answer. ‘Coke.’
‘And a Scotch.’ My voice is thick. Can you blame me?
Neither of us speaks. We are close enough to touch yet we don’t. Almost as if we know that we just need to be patient for a moment longer.
Our drinks are pushed towards us and I can barely contain the impatience moving through me. There are a billion reasons to be strong here. I don’t listen to any of them.
‘You wanted to speak to me, sir?’ There’s defiance in her eyes and I am lost. All good intentions are destroyed by the hint of rebellion she’s pushing back at me.
I look around the room. It’s packed with people and there’s nowhere private.
‘Follow me.’ It’s a challenge, a gauntlet. We both know what will happen if we leave.
I turn away from her yet I see her in my mind’s eye, as clearly as if I were looking at her face. I weave through the crowd, confident she’s behind me. I slip away from the main group, out of the entrance to the ballroom, but I don’t stop.
The corridor is deserted except for a couple of members of staff milling about. I don’t look at them. With each step I take, the sound of the party gets softer, the pianist’s music just a distant warble.
Finally, I pass a service corridor. I stop abruptly, throwing one look over my shoulder to be sure she’s following. She is.
Like I knew she would.
Because, whatever this is between us, we are as beholden to it as one another.
The corridor stretches straight ahead and then turns a corner. There’s nothing here save for a few high chairs and a mop in a bucket. I stand with one hand on my hip, the other holding my Scotch, waiting for her.
Waiting.
Waiting.
Until she turns the corner and almost bumps into me.
She freezes, so close I can smell the intoxicating mix of her shampoo and perfume, her eyes holding mine. Anticipation kicks in my gut.
‘Well, sir,’ she says, her eyes sparking. ‘What did you want to talk about?’ She sips her drink, still watching me.
I marshal my thoughts—with difficulty.
‘Your academic results are impressive. You’ll no doubt have your choice of training contracts after you graduate.’
‘I’m aware of that.’
Sweet fuck, I love how confident she is.
‘Unless you go and mess it all up.’
She narrows her eyes, moving closer perhaps without even realising that’s what she’s doing. ‘Is that meant to be a threat?’
‘No.’ I match her step, moving nearer, my body acting independently of my mind. ‘It’s a warning.’
‘Yeah?’
‘If we do this...if I do what I want to do, and what I think you want me to do, it has the potential to torpedo everything you’ve worked for.’
She tilts her head to the side, assessing me as though I’m an object in a store she’s deciding if she wants to buy or not. ‘I see. And what exactly do you want to do to me?’
My laugh is completely flattened of humour. ‘What do you think?’
‘Show me.’ It’s a husky, heaven-sent invitation.
God.
She’s killing me. Haven’t I just told her why I can’t show her? Why we can’t do this?
‘Olivia...’
‘Miss Amorelli,’ she murmurs. ‘If you’re too scared, sir, then why did you bring me back here?’ She arches a single, perfectly shaped brow, the challenge delivered perfectly.
I want, so badly, to take it, but every shred of decency—something I have feared I no longer possess—reminds me why I can’t.
This lectureship position might be temporary but I am still her lecturer.
She’s my student.
She’s ten years younger than me.
I know ruining her life just because I want to screw her is a short course to hating myself more than I think I already do.
She’s worked her perfect arse off for years to get to where she’s at. Fucking me could ruin all of that.
I sip my Scotch, weighing things up, buying time. But apparently I’m out of time. She shakes her head slowly and spins around. She walks away from me, her beautiful back making my gut ache, her swishing bottom a beacon I don’t think I can ignore.
HIS HAND AROUND my wrist is sexy and insistent. He grabs and jerks me, and when I spin back to him I see that he’s been treating me with kid gloves, giving me an opportunity to escape this fierce swirling lava of desire before it completely incinerates us both. Our glasses are on the floor, hastily discarded before he reached for me, and I nearly knock one over with the toe of my shoe.
‘You want to know what I want from you?’ he demands, a different beast altogether to the way he was minutes ago.
‘Yes.’ It’s a simple agreement, and it’s all I can say because words are clogged in my thick, dry throat.
Something has overtaken him, a darkness, a need, a passion, and it demands that we both answer to it. It controls us both. He is as powerless as I to manage this, to ignore it.
‘This is fucking madness,’ he grunts, almost like a plea, pulling on my wrist again before dropping his hands to my hips and spinning me around to face the wall. I curse the dress I’m wearing then. The length of it, the weight of it. But it’s no barrier to Connor Hughes. He wedges a knee between my legs and grabs the skirt at my hips, pushing it up, lifting it all the way up my legs, exposing the delicate lace thong I’m wearing.
‘Hold your dress,’ he commands, and I drop my hands instantly, doing exactly that. ‘Fucking dress,’ he grunts into my ear, his breath warm against my flesh.
I hear him unbuckle his belt, then his button and zip, followed by the soft rustle of fabric as he pushes his pants down. He runs the head of his cock along my arse and I make a noise that is barely human.
He’s harder than a rock and he’s hard for me.
I want him so badly I whimper.
I need him.
This is madness. I know it. But I don’t care. He reaches for my thong and I hold my breath as he pushes it down my thighs. I have to wriggle to step out of it but the second I’m free of its elastic constraint he’s arranging me against the wall, spreading my legs and pushing me forward so that my naked butt is in the air, one of my hands fisted around my dress, the other braced against the white wall of Tate Modern.
His hands are both on my arse then, cupping me, his fingers digging into my flesh as he spreads me apart and then his finger runs along my seam, finding my wet, pulsing heart.
‘You’re so goddamned wet,’ he murmurs and I nod, though there’s no need. He feels me. I feel me. And I know it’s all for him.
‘This is going to get us both in trouble,’ he grunts,