I wasn’t sure what I wanted, what I needed. I knew nothing about him; he knew nothing about me. I hadn’t even liked him an hour ago. Hell, I wasn’t even sure I liked him now.

My body didn’t care.

Gray

“Dance with me.”

I hadn’t planned on asking her, but the words just spilled out. I had no business dancing with her, but the bastard in me craved more. More time, more contact, more.

She was silent for a moment, her gaze narrowed, as though she were trying to figure me out in the span of a heartbeat. Considering I had no fucking clue what I wanted, I figured her odds of success were nonexistent. I’d been reduced from rational thought to impulses—see, touch, taste.

Blair’s lips parted. Her head tilted as she stared at me, considering, searching with those big brown eyes. I couldn’t measure up to whatever she was looking for, but I’d try just the same.

I took a step closer, close enough that the skirt of her dress brushed against me, inches away from feeling her body against mine. Her perfume teased me, its own brand of heroin.

“One dance,” I added, feeling like the devil tempting a saint. Or was it the other way around?

One dance so I can touch you, hold you, look at you. One dance to give me a taste of what I crave.

“Why?”

She didn’t say the rest, didn’t need to. I knew what she was really asking. This wasn’t about the dance; it was about the energy that pulsed between us, the way her body leaned in toward mine, the way our gazes seemed to find each other every fucking time. It was about the fact that I was already hard and I hadn’t even touched her.

Yet.

“You know why.”

I held out my hand, feeling like I was standing on the edge of a cliff, wondering what the fuck I was doing. From the beginning, I’d tried to convince myself that everything was just one-sided, that she was an infatuation I’d never act on. I’d told myself this was just casual, that I was curious, that nothing would happen between us. She was an indulgence, a dangerous one, but weren’t those the best kind?

And here I was, putting myself out there, a knot in my gut, wondering if I’d been wrong all along, if she wanted me as much as I wanted her.

She gave me her hand.

The second her tiny hand slid into mine, relief slammed into my chest. I stared down into her eyes, trying to read the emotions I saw there. I wanted her. More than a dance. More than a fuck.

I was drunk on her, and in this case, sobriety was just out of my reach.

Blair

I didn’t know why I was doing this, why I’d even agreed to dance with him, but here I was. He was hard to say no to. And more than that, I didn’t want to say no.

I held Gray’s hand, letting him pull me into his embrace as the music started up.

I didn’t know what I’d find on the dance floor, all I knew was that his touch was the best thing I’d ever felt and he’d barely touched me at all. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have his mouth on me.

I could hear the whispers around us, knew people were watching us, wondering who I was dancing with, but I didn’t care. I figured Thom and his parents were out there, but I didn’t look for them.

I had my hands full with the man who held me in his arms like I was meant to be there. Surprisingly, he had a natural rhythm that was easy to follow. He led with confidence and an elegance I never would have predicted.

“You’re a good dancer,” I murmured.

He gifted me with a lazy smile. “I boxed in college. It makes you light on your feet.”

I could picture him as a boxer. He had an air about him that suggested he was ready to take on the whole world, and a ruthlessness that had no doubt served him well in the courtroom, as though he wasn’t content to merely defeat his opponent, but had to annihilate them.

“I bet you were a terrifying attorney.”

He gave me a wolfish smile without a hint of modesty. “I was.”

“Do you miss it?”

“Parts of it, yeah.”

“Do you ever think you’ll go back to private practice?”

He hesitated, and for the first time since we’d started dancing, his feet fumbled a bit. “Maybe.”

If we were going to dance, then I needed more from him, something to focus on other than how good it felt to have his arms around me. He held me closer than was probably appropriate for our acquaintance or maybe that was just the way my body fit itself into the curve of his. He was so tall, his shoulders so broad, that it was impossible to not feel the full force of his masculinity.

My chest tightened, a knot forming low in my stomach. My palms dampened, my hands itching to stray. They hovered around his neck, just below the place where his white collared shirt hit his neck. If they drifted up, just an inch, if my hand slipped . . .

He’s your professor. He’s your professor.

I pushed past the lump in my throat, the words coming out of my mouth strangled. “How did you end up at Hannover? And why teaching?”

He shrugged, the muscles in his shoulders bunching beneath my hands. “The dean at Hannover is an old law school professor of mine who I’d kept in touch with. They were desperate to find a replacement for a professor who’d dropped out at the last minute and I needed a fresh start.”

I figured his “fresh start” was in reaction to the trouble Caitlin had alluded to.

“Do you like it?”

“Parts of it. I love the law, but I was meant for the courtroom, not the classroom.”

“So what’s stopping you?”

The arm around my waist tightened, pulling me even closer. His jaw clenched, that fierce look entering his eyes.

“I didn’t handle the lifestyle very well the first time around. I was at a small firm, but still, I worked insane hours. The pressure to bill was constant, the need to push myself harder, inescapable. It was like law school on speed and in the end I fell apart and it wrecked my life.”

I missed most of his answer because his arm tightened again, yanking me even closer, and the second he brushed against my stomach I forgot my fucking name.

Holy shit. He was hard.

My mouth went dry while arousal flooded the rest of my body. My hand that had been desperate to touch him reached up and stroked the back of his neck, a tremor rippling through me. He stiffened, his gaze slamming into me, his eyes wide.

Fuck.

I was breathless. Lost. Found. My chest rose and fell as I tried to catch my breath, as his gaze slid down to run over my breasts.

I wanted to pull back, wanted to put my mouth on his. I’d thought a dance in public would be safe, thought I could handle him, but now I realized how wrong I’d been. He wasn’t the problem. I was.

I wanted what his body offered in a way I hadn’t wanted anything before.

All around us, people broke apart, the song ending, and suddenly I needed air.

Chapter Six

We couldn’t help but notice that Blair Reynolds disappeared for an indecently long time during her parents’ party last night. Was she trying to avoid a run-in with her former fiancé or was she more pleasantly engaged?

—Capital Confessions blog

Gray

I didn’t know what I was doing.

I wanted to fuck her. I wanted her in my bed, that pale, flawless skin on my sheets. I wanted her glistening with sweat, moans tumbling from those lips. I wanted to thrust inside her, surrounding myself in her warm, wet heat. I was drawn to the dichotomy of her—the untouchable girl who looked like something out of an oil painting and the girl she’d been just a second ago, whose body had spoken to me with a raw hunger that had shocked the shit out of me and impossibly, somehow matched my own.

So when Blair walked away, her body sliding past mine as our clothes brushed against each other with a whisper, there wasn’t a moment when I considered doing anything other than following her.