Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 63733 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63733 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
He saw her right away. She was dancing alone to some mix with a hard, tribal beat. Her eyes were closed and her hands were in her hair as she lost herself to the music. Declan felt his heart stop, then all the blood rush below his belt. Jesus, she was a beauty, with her red-gold hair tumbling wild around her shoulders—some people would call her a strawberry blonde, but those people didn’t know the real color of fire.
Her eyes, he remembered, were an otherworldly light blue. The Irishman in him would call her fae. Watching her dance, she looked like something out of a dream. A wild fairy sent to tempt him to sin.
Her breasts were covered in a white halter with golden straps that left her stomach bare and a white skirt of paneled veils. He could see her thighs through the panels and his mouth watered. Her mouth was tilted in a siren smile, bee-stung and shiny with gloss. Begging to be kissed. Fucked.
Slow down, he warned himself firmly. It’s begging to be fucked by someone who isn’t you. A guy her own age who isn’t her professor.
Something in the way she moves… His late mother’s favorite James Taylor song ran through his head. There was something about her. Something that drew him in and warned him in bright, flashing neon to stay away at the same time. To not approach her to talk about class or her essays so he wouldn’t end up dragging her by her fiery hair to the nearest cave instead.
Three strikes, he repeated silently. One? She’s your student. Two? She’s your twelve-years-younger student. Three? Trick is messing with both of you.
There was a fourth strike too—the issue with the Kelley and Finn family history. He didn’t care about it, so it wasn’t so much a strike as a strange coincidence that could bite him in the ass if she was the kind of woman who held a genetic grudge. The Irish were proud of their ability to hold a grudge. Just because she was taking his class didn’t mean she wasn’t silently seething.
She hasn’t been seething. She’s been seducing.
Jennifer Finn laughed and wiped a few of the bubbles off her top, not seething at all as she swayed her hips to the primal rhythm that reminded him of rough, raw sex. His dick turned to hot, hard stone and his mind went completely blank. The foaming solution had made her top wet and her nipples hard.
He stepped closer. He could see them from here. Perky buds he wanted to suck more than he wanted his next meal. The bubbles seemed to be aimed directly at her, soaking her entire outfit until it might as well have been…
Declan tore his gaze from her and focused on the three men in varsity jackets directing the machine at Jennifer and holding up their cell phones.
His hands clenched so tightly his cup collapsed in on itself and the drink poured over his white knuckles. Where the hell was campus security? “Trick…”
“Damn it,” Trick growled beside him. “I see them. I’ll be right back.”
“Hell with that.” Declan tossed his cup, following a short distance behind him. Trick strode over to the cretins with an easy smile, but his posture was clearly a warning. It said, “If you want to keep all your limbs, you’ll walk away now.”
The sight of them turning in unison and practically running into the nearest frat house made Declan unaccountably hot. He would have kissed Trick if they weren’t on school grounds. He still might. Trick was indescribably sexy when he got tough.
Declan wiped the smile off his face as he approached her. Miss Finn. “Miss Finn?”
Blue eyes popped open in recognition. “Professor Kelley? Is that you under there?”
His mask. Shit. He’d forgotten. “How did you know?”
Her smile nearly felled him. “Your voice. It’s very distinctive.”
It was? It wasn’t anything like Trick’s easily recognizable rasp. But she knew who he was and she was still smiling at him, still moving closer with the dress that might have been made out of Saran Wrap for all it hid from him.
Focus. “I… I just wanted you to know that—” He broke off abruptly, having no idea what to say. That I can see your nipples and they look delicious? That men were filming your wet, naked body and I wanted to beat them bloody so I could watch you instead?
She laughed and his knees actually felt weak. “That what?”
“Jen,” Trick said in a low voice, appearing beside her. He leaned down to whisper something in her ear and Declan watched in fascination as her ivory skin turned a brilliant shade of red.
She looked away from Trick and up at Declan, her hands lifting swiftly to cover her breasts. “Well, damn. I’m sorry, Professor. I guess there’s nothing mysterious about my costume now, is there?”