I understood why they wanted us to do them; written briefs helped us identify and analyze the salient points in each opinion. But after a semester of it, and never having the briefs collected, a lot of us—most of us—had stopped doing it. I’d stopped doing it.

Fuck.

Professor Myers turned away from our row, taking the steps down two at a time, until he’d reached the front of the room again.

Seventy-five students waited with bated breath to see what he’d do.

He glared at the class. “If you have a written, printed brief, you can stay for the remainder of the lecture. If you do not—if you book briefed”—he said “book brief” with a level of disdain that had me fighting a snort— “Leave now.”

Oh shit.

Murmurs went up throughout the class, one brave soul daring to utter the question, “Seriously?”

“Yes. Seriously. Show of hands, who doesn’t have a written brief?”

I watched as slowly hands started to go up in the room, mine included. When I looked around, there were hardly any students left whose hands weren’t up in the air.

Surely, he wasn’t going to kick out sixty-something students.

“Those of you with your hands in the air, leave. Don’t come back into this classroom until you have a written brief. Those of you who don’t have your hands in the air and actually did the work can stay. I’ll be lecturing about the Equal Protection Clause. I won’t go over it again.”

I had never been kicked out of a class in my life, much less with sixty other students. This was surreal.

One by one, my classmates and I closed down our laptops, gathered our bags, books, and papers, and headed down the aisle in the ultimate walk of shame.

I turned back and saw a little over a handful of students left sitting in their seats, shock evident on their faces as well.

Professor Myers glowered at all of us as we walked by.

We trickled through the door, spilling out into the halls, a buzz of conversation spreading with each step we took.

“Can you believe he kicked everyone out?”

“Did that really just happen?”

“He didn’t tell us we had to do written briefs this semester as well.”

I walked with Adam and Caitlin as we made our way down to the law school lobby. Adam was uncharacteristically quiet, clearly shell shocked over his role in getting sixty-something 1Ls thrown out of their first Con Law II class. I had a feeling this story would evolve into its own law school urban legend.

We all sat down into our usual couches in the lobby.

Caitlin grinned at us, seemingly unfazed. “Well, I guess that means we have an extra break before contracts. Do you guys want to grab breakfast? I need more coffee, stat.”

I figured Caitlin could afford to be blasé about getting kicked out since she was easily one of the smartest students in our 1L class. She had a natural grasp of the subject I sort of envied. I needed every lecture I could get.

Adam nodded. “I could use it after that.” He turned toward me. “You in?”

I shook my head. “I think I’m going to hang here. I ate this morning before class. I’ll see you guys later, okay?”

I took out my contracts book and a highlighter, determined to go over the cases again to make sure I hadn’t missed anything.

“I thought you had con law this morning?”

My head jerked and I stared up at Gray standing over me, a smile on his face.

Gah.

He wore a gray suit, light blue button-down dress shirt, blue and gray tie. I could tell he’d just shaved, and even though I loved the sexy stubble I’d gotten to enjoy over Christmas break, there was something about the sight of him like this—like he’d just stepped off of the cover of GQ—that had a familiar ping of arousal firing through me.

“Hi.”

I’d spent enough time last semester trying to cover up my attraction to him that it came almost as naturally as breathing, but the past month of having him all to myself had seemingly undone all of my hard work. It was so much harder now to pretend like he was just another professor.

He gave me a private smile. “Hi.”

I figured he’d leave, but instead he sat down in the seat Caitlin had recently occupied.

“So you never answered my question. Why aren’t you in con law?”

I laughed. “Funny story about that.”

“What happened?”

“He kicked us out.”

Gray blinked. “What do you mean he kicked you out?”

“He told everyone that if they didn’t have a written case brief they needed to leave. So we left. Like sixty-five of us.”

“John kicked sixty-five students out of class on the first day of class for book briefing?”

John? The fire-breathing monster who had banished us from his hallowed classroom definitely wasn’t someone I could think of in such ordinary terms.

“Yeah.”

Gray shook his head, a smile playing at his beautiful lips. “You gotta admit, that takes balls.”

“It takes something,” I answered, my voice tart. Professor Myers was slowly moving up my list of least-favorite professors. Since Gray had made up for the frequent calling on me with skills that Professor Myers would never have, the top spot was vacant. Kicking me out of class more than qualified him to take it over.

“Bet you’ll never show up to con law without a written brief again.”

“Do you know how long it takes to write those stupid briefs out?” I grumbled.

He grinned. “Sure do. And you’re right, it totally sucks. But it’s all part of paying your dues.”

At this point I was ready to give my dues the middle finger.

Gray’s eyes gleamed as he leaned in a little closer, his voice dropping.

“How long do you have before contracts?”

My stomach did a little flutter over the fact that he knew my whole schedule and the invitation lingering in his voice.

“An hour.”

“I think we have some pro bono business we need to discuss.” He paused meaningfully and my nipples tightened as I definitely got his point. “Should we go talk in my office?”

We definitely needed to go talk in his office. Maybe twice.

I grinned. “Absolutely.”

Gray

It took skill walking through the law school, Blair behind me, my body already turned on, my mind full of all of the things I wanted to do with her once I got her to my office.

Along the way, a few students with questions about the first-day reading stopped me, and then two professors who made small talk that I struggled to respond to.

Each time someone stopped me, I swore I heard Blair snort. She definitely knew how impatient I was.

I held the door open while she walked over the threshold to my office, her body brushing against mine in a move that was designed to look accidental, and knowing her, was anything but.

I followed Blair into the room and closed the door behind us with a click, turning the lock with a flick of my wrist.

We’d agreed to keep things professional between us at school, and just like everything else with Blair, clearly my resolve had lasted all of a minute.

Fuck it.

I pulled her into my arms, kissing her slowly, my tongue thrusting into her mouth, my hands cupping her ass, pulling her against me, my hips rocking forward. I walked us back, our bodies still entwined, stopping when Blair hit the back of my desk. I lifted her up, setting her on the edge. My hands moved down to her legs, spreading her open, stepping forward until I was pressed up against her, her legs around my hips.

“This is harder than I thought it would be,” she whispered. “It was hard before when I wanted what I couldn’t have, but now that I’ve had you—”

“It’s impossible,” I finished for her.

“Yes.”

“Let me guess, you’re having a hard time concentrating?”

She nodded.

I swallowed. “I keep telling myself I can’t look at you. I know I shouldn’t, and yet I can’t stop. Can’t help it.”