Reading Online Novel

Living in Shadow(2)



The electric shock of the impact hit him like a plunge into an icy lake on a blistering-hot day. Echoing through him, all the way down to the soles of his feet.

He stared at her and she stared back and he saw it—he fucking saw it—a flare of reaction in her eyes. So fast and fleeting that if he hadn’t already been aware of her with every inch of his being, he may have missed it. But it was there nonetheless.

She looked away quickly, but by that time it was too late. He heard the falter in her voice. He saw the slight flush to her cheeks.

He knew.

She’d seen him. And not the student. She’d seen the man.

A surge of heat went through him, vicious and wild. Winding the ache inside him even tighter than it was already. Fuck, he so did not need this. He didn’t get obsessed with women. They came to him if they wanted him, and, shit, he was happy to oblige. No harm, no foul. No one got hurt and that was how he liked it.

But being attracted to his professor? Christ. This was against the rules and he was a great believer in rules. Pity his body didn’t seem to give a shit.

She was finishing up now, the people around him starting to put their stuff away in preparation for leaving. But he didn’t want to go. He wanted those cool eyes on him again. Wanted to see that flash of reaction again. Because he was sure it had been a reaction. To him.

As the people around him began to get to their feet, he watched her stand by the lecturn, fiddling around with her laptop. Not looking at him.

Fuck. He needed to know. He needed to see if he was right. And he wasn’t going to be able to concentrate on anything else until he did.

Eleanor shuffled her notes and ended the lecture, keeping her eyes down as she heard the rumble of feet and the noise of people standing up and gathering their stuff, the hum of conversation filling the lecture theatre.

She didn’t want to look up, in case she met the piercing, disconcerting black gaze of that guy again. The guy who’d been in the front row of the lecture theatre, leaning back in his chair, legs splayed apart, all chiseled cheekbones, hard jawline and wide, powerful shoulders. Staring at her. Like he was committing everything she did, everything she said, to memory.

He’d been there every single week, ever since she’d taken over Hugh’s class while he was on sabbatical. And every time she saw that guy, her brain would busy itself with inane questions like where was he from? He wasn’t pakeha, though it looked like he had European blood somewhere in his heritage. He wasn’t Maori or a Pacific Islander either. More like African. Unusual. Bloody unusual. And bloody incredible looking too.

She didn’t get very many outrageously handsome, young black men in her classes.

She didn’t get very many outrageously handsome men in her classes at all.

Especially not ones who sat in the very front and stared at her. Almost as if he’d been…angry with her. Except, when she’d looked at him…it hadn’t been the thrill of a teacher lighting the spark of learning in a student. Oh no, the thrill that went down her spine was a bolt of undeniable sexual attraction.

Weird. Not to mention disturbing. Maybe she’d imagined the sensation. Christ, she hoped she’d imagined it. She’d never been sexually attracted to a student before, thank God, and didn’t really want to be now. Or, in fact, ever.

Eleanor forced that particular thought back into the box it came from, gathering up her notes and going over to the side of the room where she’d left her briefcase. There were a few students already gathered, wanting to talk to her. She smiled, greeting them, answering the questions they’d come to her with. Some were about the lecture she’d just given, some were about assignments that were due. The usual stuff. She dealt with them then finished sliding her notes back into her briefcase before turning to collect her laptop from where it was plugged into the lectern.

And although she didn’t look, she knew he was there. The pressure of his gaze made heat prickle over the back of her neck in reaction.

Ah, fuck it. She was too old to play these games.

Eleanor lifted her head.

He was sitting in exactly the same place, right in the center of the front row, leaning back in his seat. Watching her.

A shiver went down her spine. Because she knew that look. The look of a predator. The one that said “I want you and I will have you, whether you like it or not”. The same kind of look that had drawn her into Piers’s orbit.

And destroyed you.

Yeah, well, once she had been destroyed. But not anymore. She was stronger than that these days. And it was time this fiercely gorgeous young man knew it.

She leaned against the lectern. “I’m sorry. Did you want to speak to me?”