She tries to step back, but the desk stops her. She drops her clutch on it before she grips the edge with her hands. “What do you mean? I see a lawyer.”
I move forward, pinning both my hands next to hers. She doesn’t flinch when I lean close and whisper, “You see more than that.”
“Anger. Disappointment. Pain.”
My eyes squeeze shut. “Everyone feels those things.”
Her breath sweeps over my lips as my eyes open and lock on her hers. “At others. You feel it within. It’s directed at yourself.”
I suck in a heavy breath. She’s either insightful beyond her years or a mind reader.
“You’re not denying, counselor.” She looks at my lips.
I inch forward almost brushing my mouth against hers. I need to change the fucking subject before more of my soul is bared to this woman. “Has anyone ever drawn you nude, Piper?”
Her left brow pops up in surprise. “That’s none of your business.”
“Answer the question.” My shoulders tighten.
She sucks in a breath. “Yes.”
“Who?”
Her eyes lock on mine before she looks toward the floor. “One of my professors.”
She’s not as difficult to read as I thought. The dilated pupils, the slight increase in breathing, the break in our gaze. They’re all indicative of guilt. I’ve seen it enough times in my work. A cheating husband, an unfaithful wife, a Swiss bank account funded by a business one spouse didn’t realize existed. “You slept with him.”
Her lips part and a breathy gasp escapes. “I’m not talking about this.”
My cock swells even more with the mental image of her being fucked from behind in a studio much like the one she teaches in now. “Was it before or after he drew you?”
Her hands leap from the desk and land on my chest. She doesn’t push back. She’s not anxious to escape the cage I’ve trapped her in. “You can’t ask me that.”
“I can and I have.” I lean even closer until I can taste her breath when she exhales. “It was before, wasn’t it? He fucked you and then he took to his easel and captured his conquest.”
“It wasn’t like that,” she protests with a weak bump of her fist to the middle of my chest. “I wasn’t his conquest.”
“What was it like, Piper?” My grip on the desk tightens as I fight back the urge to claim her mouth with mine. “Tell me what it was like.”
Her voice is unsteady as her gaze falls to my lips. “He was my conquest. I’m the one who seduced him.”
Chapter 15
Piper
It’s a confession I’ve never made to anyone. I haven’t told a soul that I slept with Professor Mitchell during my senior year of college. He was in his mid-thirties at the time, sexy and the most talented man I’d ever met.
“You seduced him?” Griffin’s voice is thick and raw.
He’s aroused. I felt it when I turned around to face him. He’s hard beneath the fabric of his pants. The desire to kiss me, to take me, is there in his eyes. He hasn’t touched me though.
I nod. I’m not ashamed of what I did. I wanted Haywood Mitchell from the first moment I saw him. The draw toward him was intense and as each week passed in his class, my courage grew.
It wasn’t until we were alone in his studio one night after his students’ mid-semester show that I made my move. I kissed him. He didn’t resist and within the hour, he was inside of me.
“How many times?” His gaze searches my face. “How many times did he have you?”
My pulse thrums in my neck at the jagged, rough timbre in his voice.