moment I saw him, standing like this at the front of the classroom, speaking to all one hundred of us, but reaching into my body and stirring everything up, swishing me around in a way that was instantly new and addictive.
Frankly, I’m glad I don’t like him. I’m glad I don’t like the work he does. I’m probably the only person in here who doesn’t admire his meteoric trajectory to the top of the field. Sure, he started his own firm at twenty-six and grew it into one of the UK’s largest within five years. Sure, he’s worked on some of the most high-profile cases. But what good is being smart if you don’t use those powers for good?
My derision of his professional accomplishments is so important to remember, because it’s the only thing standing between me and a crazed impulse to act on the desire that has taken over my body. Desire that makes my thighs tremble and my breasts ache. Desire that has turned Connor Hughes into the star of all my dirtiest dreams—dreams that I have no control over, because they fill my mind when I’m asleep and I can’t control that, can I?
‘Who wants to tell me why the chain of evidence is so important?’ He runs his eyes over the class and I wonder if he’s forgotten we’re in our final year, not first.
It’s his ‘thing’, though. On the first day in class, he spelled it out for us. I’m going to act like you know nothing, because in the real world you don’t. I’m going to teach you how to follow the law and win cases.
And he is very good at winning cases—cases that should have been open and shut.
‘Miss Amorelli?’
Holy hell.
It’s the first time he’s called on me directly. His tongue rolls over my name as though he’s kissing it down my body. My shiver is involuntary.
Our eyes lock and the atmosphere charges with the force of a hurricane. Lightning dances between us, thunder rolls. His expression is a challenge and, despite the simplicity of the question, my mouth is dryer than desert sand. I feel like I’ve chewed on a box of chalk. I can’t find my tongue.
‘The chain of evidence,’ he prompts, lifting one brow with a hint of sarcastic mockery that makes me want to reach for his shirt and bunch it in my fist.
‘Obviously,’ I say, quietly, so that he leans forward a little, to catch my softly spoken word, ‘to ensure the authenticity of the evidence.’
‘Wrong.’
My eyes flare wide and I feel heat in my cheeks. I don’t like being told I’m wrong. I’m not wrong. ‘Why?’
His eyes lock onto mine. It’s just the two of us here now. Us and our major electrical storm, humming and buzzing through the room. ‘It doesn’t matter if the evidence has been tampered with.’
‘Of course it does,’ I say with a shake of my head.
‘No.’ His smile is the last word in sexual heat. My insides flip around, bubbling and aching, distracting me momentarily from what we’re discussing. ‘It matters what you can suggest. Facts are less important than the doubt you can cast.’
My eyes narrow. He’s hit upon my biggest problem with his application of the law. Connor Hughes, while undoubtedly a genius, earned his name and his fortune wielding that mega-watt intelligence to get bad guys out of prison sentences that they definitely deserve. ‘Facts don’t matter?’
He comes around to the front of the desk and props his ass on its edge, his long legs stretched out in front of him. He’s wearing a suit, but he’s taken off the jacket and pushed his sleeves halfway up his forearms. God, they’re nice arms. Tanned and leanly muscled. There’s a small tattoo on his inner wrist. A cross, but a Celtic-looking one. It is incongruous for a man like this, who must surely be Godless. He also doesn’t suit a suit.
I mean, he wears it like it was made for him, but there’s such a savagery to him. I could see him in a loincloth, beating his chest... The thought heats my cheeks and almost makes me smile.
‘Facts don’t matter,’ he says with a nod. The class laughs. I don’t.
‘Why not?’ I’m challenging him. I’m pissed off and my voice shows it by quivering a little.
‘Facts are subjective, in law.’ His response is really deep and husky. Airy, and full of weight.
‘Facts can’t be subjective.’ I glare at him as though he’s lost the plot. ‘That’s oxymoronic.’
‘Why?’
‘Because facts just are!’
‘Says who?’ His eyes are locked onto mine and the intensity of his scrutiny is doing funny things to my pulse. I suspect I’d find it easier to concentrate on what he’s saying if I wasn’t imagining him as a modern-day Tarzan, lifting me up and carrying me to his treetop den of debauchery. ‘Says who?’ he pushes insistently.
‘Says everyone.’
He looks around the class. ‘There are forty-eight students in here. True or false.’
I narrow my eyes then spin in my chair, with every intention of counting.
‘No,’ he says firmly, and his commanding tone sends a shiver down my spine. I imagine him being commanding in other ways, other places, and my gut churns with delicious desire. ‘Without looking.’
I turn back slowly in my chair, crossing my legs beneath the small wooden desk. Holy shit. Did I just imagine the way his eyes dropped down to my bare legs? I uncross them to test the theory but his gaze remains steady, and now there’s just the hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth. My heart throbs.
‘I don’t know.’
‘There are forty-eight students enrolled. Is anyone absent?’
‘I don’t know.’ I sound frustrated because I am.
‘That’s reasonable doubt.’
I roll my eyes. ‘It’s not my job to keep an attendance record. If it were, I’d know how many of us are here.’
‘What about the witness who swears he saw two men entering a bakery at two in the morning? It’s not his job to notice who goes where. How do you know he remembers accurately?’
I expel a soft breath. ‘I guess you have to trust him.’
‘You have to trust him?’ His smile is curt. ‘I don’t. I don’t trust anyone’s recollection beyond reasonable doubt.’
His eyes lock onto mine once more and then shift slightly lower, to the front of my dress, where a pretty row of white buttons dots downwards. He stares at them for a good three seconds. Long enough for my insides to begin quivering and heat to slick between my legs.
Then he moves on, as though he hasn’t almost brought me to orgasm simply by flicking a glance at my dress.
‘We’re looking at how facts are represented in court.’ The class has his attention now and I try to level out my breathing. ‘How you can pull apart a prosecutor’s case, piece by piece. Nothing is too small for your attention. You check every detail. Why was
