are a huge part of what draws me to her. She is everything I need and I can’t say why.
Her fingers shook as she unbuttoned my shirt.
And I tied her up and tortured her with desires that must have been overwhelming for her. She enjoyed it. I frown. God, she enjoyed it, didn’t she? She couldn’t have been faking that kind of pleasure?
Her absence makes me doubt everything.
I reach for my phone and swear aloud: I don’t have her number. We didn’t need to swap numbers because we have a guaranteed way of seeing one another each week.
There’s the app, I remember with a growing sense of unease. Is it creepy to use a university enrolment form to get her number?
Any creepier than luring her back to her professor’s place and fucking her senseless?
Jesus Christ.
I go to the study and reach for the iPad and groan when it’s not there. I must have left it at my office on campus.
Suddenly, not contacting her isn’t an option. I need to at least know that she’s okay. That I didn’t hurt or terrify her. I am aware of the darkness that runs through me and I wish now I had concealed it better from the sweetness of Olivia Amorelli.
I’ll shower, as though that can cleanse me of this sin, and then I’ll go to my office. I can fix her if I’ve hurt her. I can fix this.
* * *
The doorbell rings, a little after five in the afternoon. Hands that were trailing over Connor’s tattooed chest earlier that same day are now covered in flour and gnocchi dough. Professor Wainwright’s latest lecture is playing from my Bluetooth speaker and the glass of Pinot Grigio I poured a few minutes ago sits before me, ice-cold and tantalising.
It’s hardly a convenient time for a guest.
The doorbell rings again and I make a sound of exasperation.
‘Just a second.’ I use my elbow to negotiate the mixer tap up and run my hands beneath the water, wiping away the gnocchi before drying them on the front of my apron as I walk towards the door.
I look through the little peephole and a small sound of surprise, mingled with delight, escapes.
Connor is on the other side of my front door. Connor Hughes in jeans and a T-shirt, looking handsome even when distorted by the fish-eye glass. I can see the whisper of a tattoo on one arm, dark ink sighing from beneath the sleeve.
‘Open the door, Olivia.’
I hadn’t even considered not doing so, but hell, do I need a minute to catch my breath! And get changed.
‘Um...’ I toss a harried look towards the mirror and wince. I am wearing no make-up, and exhaustion from the night before is something I carry on my face like a mask. I showered when I came home in the early hours of the morning and changed into stretchy black yoga pants and an oversized singlet top that shows serious side boob when I move my arms. ‘Wait a second.’
‘Open the damned door,’ he responds.
The commanding tone that was so erotic last night pisses me off now. I push the chain lock into place—a necessary security feature for a ground-floor flat like this—and open the door a fraction. ‘I’m not decent. If you want to come in, you’re going to have to wait a minute for me to get changed.’ His eyes drop to what he can see through the inch-wide opening.
‘I don’t know. You naked beneath an apron is pretty decent to me.’
‘I’m not naked!’ I retort with a blush spreading to my cheeks.
‘Then let me in.’
I grit my teeth. ‘Two minutes.’
He wants to argue with me. I can see it in every line of his body, and the tight way he’s holding his jaw. But he doesn’t. His eyes meet mine and he nods.
I walk down the hallway and into my bedroom—which is a complete tip. I squawk, and make a mental note that we cannot end up in here, no matter what happens. I am not the neatest person in the world. I make an effort to maintain the lounge area of the flat in case my family pop in uninvited, but the bedroom and bathroom are always kind of disgraceful.
I pull a sweater on over my singlet and squeeze my cheeks between my fingers until they’ve got some colour back in them, then move quickly downstairs. I unhook the chain and pull the door inwards without stepping aside.
‘What are you doing here?’ A smile tickles the side of my lips even though I’m surprised by his appearance at my home. ‘And how do you know where I live?’
He narrows his gaze. ‘You said I could come in if I let you get changed.’
I roll my eyes. ‘So I did, sir.’ I step back and he moves into my home, casting his eyes over it with undisguised interest.
‘You’re cooking?’ His eyes land on the little lines of gnocchi and the bowl beside them. ‘And listening to a lecture?’ He grins when he looks at me.
I shrug. ‘So?’
‘Nothing. Just...you surprise me.’ He pushes the door shut behind him and it closes with a resounding thud, as if to underscore that we are alone.
I force myself to remain unaffected, but the butterflies in my tummy are fluttering wildly. ‘Would you like something to drink?’
‘Whatever you’re having,’ he says as though it’s not important.
What is Connor Hughes doing in my kitchen? In my tiny flat in Putney, being all huge and overpowering, strong and distractingly masculine? I pause the lecture and turn my back on him in the hope that I can catch my breath, reaching into the fridge and pulling out the bottle of wine, pouring him a glass which I slide over the bench without meeting his eyes.
‘Thank you.’ The murmured gratitude is unexpected and it slicks my insides with awareness. I lift my eyes to him then and almost wish I hadn’t when my knees, already so weakened, threaten to buckle.
‘What are you making?’ He asks the question softly, and I wonder—absurdly—if he’s nervous. Connor Hughes doesn’t get nervous. And not because of me.
‘Gnocchi.’ I lift my wine to my lips and sip it, then wish I hadn’t when I am instantly reminded of the way he dribbled champagne into my mouth last night.
‘For dinner?’
‘No.’ I lift the bowl and show him the quantity of dough. ‘For lunch tomorrow.’
He doesn’t say anything and now I’m the nervous one, so I explain. ‘We always have family lunch at my parents’ place on a Sunday. It’s a lot of people for my mum to cater for so I like to bring a dish.’
He nods, and I have the strangest sense that he’s filing this information away.
‘What are you doing here?’ I ask after a moment, pressing my hands into the flour and then reaching into the bowl and lifting a walnut-sized piece out and forming a small circle in my hands.
