“Once you start to see yourself a certain way, it’s easy to continue to define yourself that way. I was raised with a clear path to follow and there was never a question that I wouldn’t follow it. Maybe that makes me a pushover. It’s who I am, though.”
Her lips pursed.
“I thought I was supposed to follow this path, and that it would take me where I was supposed to end up, and that was it. And then I started down the path, and when I got to the end, I realized it wasn’t what I wanted. And somewhere along the way, the person I am on the inside, that little voice in my head that I couldn’t shut off, became completely different from the person I am on the outside. And I don’t know how or why, just that I feel like I’m trapped in my own body. Trapped as this person I don’t want to be.”
I knew exactly what she meant.
“The Blair you give me—this girl that’s black lace and baking cookies and a mouth that’s either putting me in my place or giving me the best fucking kisses I’ve ever had—is that you?”
Her lips curved, and she nodded, her eyes soft.
“You should let everyone else see that Blair. Not the kissing part,” I amended. “I’m fine with you just keeping that to me. But the rest of it. She’s pretty amazing.”
“I jumped my professor in his living room at two a.m. I’m pretty sure that kind of behavior wouldn’t go over so well.”
My hands drifted down to her ass, pulling her tightly toward me. “It went over pretty well with me.”
She grinned. “Yeah, I guess it did.”
“Do you regret this?” I asked, my chest tightening.
She held my gaze. “Not for a second. You?”
God, I loved this girl.
“Never. You don’t have to be perfect, Blair. You just have to be you. The people who count will love you for you, not because you’re some freakishly perfect version of you that isn’t real. Don’t be scared to give that to other people.”
She cocked her head to the side, studying me, a smile playing on her lips.
“Since when did you become so good at reading people?” she teased.
“Since you knocked some sense into me and taught me that I didn’t need to be someone I wasn’t to get a girl like you.”
“A girl like me?”
“No matter how you see yourself, no matter what you think your faults may be, you have to know that even the most flawed, imperfect version of you is a million times better than anything I’ll ever deserve. Period.”
She shook her head. “You’re crazy.”
“About you, yeah. I’m not the hero, Blair. And somehow I still got the princess.”
She grinned. “Honey, I’m pretty sure you’re the beast. And I am definitely not a princess. I thought we just established that.”
“You’re my princess. Dirty mouth, naughty lingerie, wicked tongue, formidable temper, and all.”
A gleam entered her eyes. “Speaking of naughty lingerie. The cookies might not be your only surprise.”
She slayed me. “Really?”
“Did you know they make Christmas themed lingerie?”
A choking sound escaped me. “Like naughty Mrs. Claus?”
Blair gave me a flirty wink. “Something like that.”
She grabbed a bag from the counter, pulling out something small, red, and edged in fluffy white.
My blood pressure shot up as I backed her into the countertop. I buried my head in the curve of her neck, her perfume sending another spike of lust through me.
“Am I getting a show later?”
Her hands came down between us, stroking me through my jeans, and a groan escaped my lips as I jerked against her touch, my body already hard and ready.
“If you can handle waiting for cookies, I might be able to give you a preview now,” she teased, her mouth hot on my ear. Her teeth nipped down on my lobe, sucking it into her mouth and I rocked forward another inch, pinning her to the countertop.
I could definitely wait for cookies.
I wrapped my arms around her waist, lifting her in the air while she squealed, draping her over my shoulder, my hand on her ass, her breasts smashed against my back. I grabbed the bag with the magic lingerie and carted her upstairs, where we celebrated Christmas in our own inimitable way.
Three times.
Hours later, we stumbled downstairs, and Blair baked Christmas cookies, wearing only an apron and a mischievous smile that had me utterly and completely wrapped around her finger.
The snickerdoodles were every bit as amazing as she’d said they would be. Dessert was even better.
Chapter Twenty-two
Rumor has it there’s a controversy swirling on the Senate Intelligence Committee . . .
—Capital Confessions blog
Blair
The first Monday back to school after Christmas break was brutal. Absolutely brutal. I sat in Con Law II wishing I was anywhere but there. Most of our substantive courses—constitutional law, contracts, property, and torts—were over a full year, spilt into two courses. This semester we added criminal law to our course list. Hannover had hired a visiting professor who was handling our Torts II class and Gray was teaching two 3L seminars.
I sat sandwiched between Caitlin and Adam, a few rows away from the back. In the beginning of my 1L year, I’d been the type of student who sat in the front. Always. Thanks to the dreaded seating chart we had assigned seats, and I’d learned the hard way that there would be days when I’d need the anonymity of the back, so my seating habits had changed out of necessity.
Myers lectured from the front of the room, and I fought to stay awake. Con law was bad enough, but con law first thing in the morning was absolute torture.
In undergrad, the first day of classes usually involved going over the syllabus, maybe a short, introductory lecture from the professor. In law school, the first day of classes meant jumping immediately into questions about the two hundred pages of reading we were assigned for the first day back. No easing your way back into the academic pool; they threw you in headfirst with weights tied around your ankles.
Myers called on Adam and my entire row sat up a little straighter—he had a habit of annihilating us rows at a time. I began flipping through my casebook, looking for the sections I’d highlighted, trying to guess what he’d ask me.
Adam stumbled over the question, setting off a flurry of page flipping. Our communal terror was palpable, the entire row ready to pick up where Adam left off if he couldn’t answer the question.
And then we all looked up from our books, the freak-out spreading as Myers walked up the stairs, heading toward our row.
What the fuck?
He stopped next to our row, his gaze firmly fixed on Adam.
“Where’s your brief?” he asked, his voice booming through the auditorium-style room.
Oh, fuck.
A look of utter panic came over Adam’s face.
“Here,” he pointed at his book, his finger—and voice—shaking.
Book briefing was the perfect shortcut when you needed to brief a case and didn’t have time to actually type it all out. It involved lots of highlighting and scribbling in margins and sometimes if you were really lucky and found a used book, the brief was already laid out for you. Which was awesome.
Professor Myers’s eyes narrowed. “Was I not clear in the beginning of last semester?”
His gaze whipped to me which I was pretty sure was no accident considering he definitely thought I was the weakest link in the class.
“What did the syllabus say about your case briefs, Ms. Reynolds?”
Fuck.
My voice shook as I saw the path we were headed down and realized it led nowhere good. “You said we needed to bring our written briefs to every class.”
When you read ten cases on average for every class, and you had five of them, and some opinions could be upwards of twenty pages—especially when the dissent rambled on or multiple justices dissented (and rambled on)—handwritten briefs took fucking forever.