The Intern (The Dalton Family #4)(8)

“Can I ask you something? Even if it’s slightly inappropriate?”

“Go on.”

I couldn’t believe I had blurted that out. That my thoughts were so unhinged that I no longer had control over my mouth.

“Do you make all your opposing counsel feel this way? If they’re women?”

His thumb traced around his lips. “What way is that, Hannah?”

My body hummed like he was breathing against it.

My hands squeezed the glass so hard that I was surprised it hadn’t shattered.

“Connected.” That wasn’t right. I needed to better describe this. “Like you’re on the verge of …”

“Devouring them.”

I nodded.

Because that was all I could do.

“As I’ve said, if they’re facing me in the courtroom, I want their blood. I don’t want their lips. I don’t want their body. I don’t want”—he gazed down again, stopping at my waist—“anything from them.”

“Then, what’s this?”

“This is the way I treat a woman when I find her so sexy that I can’t take my eyes off her.”

He knew I felt the same way.

Because he knew what I was thinking.

How I was feeling.

He’d told me so.

“In fact, if we had met under different circumstances, you would be coming home with me tonight.”

I couldn’t wrap my head around this news.

A night with Declan Shaw.

A man I’d studied since he’d begun making a name for himself in the industry.

A man I followed on social media.

A man I was so utterly, consumingly attracted to that I’d been wet since he had walked into our classroom.

But going home with any man wasn’t something I usually ever did.

I’d dated in the past, but my current schedule was far too packed and daunting to even consider it. I went from school to babysitting my cousin’s daughter to prepping for the bar. Even though my best friend and roommate, Oaklyn, was constantly pushing me to find a man, I wasn’t looking.

But I was definitely looking at Declan.

“And you think I’m the kind of girl who would climb right into your passenger seat and let that happen?”

He leaned into my ear, something he’d done before.

I remembered how incredible his breath had felt against my skin.

And it did again.

“Do I think you’re the girl who has one-night stands? No. But I think, eventually, you would find it impossible to resist me.”

As I turned around, he stretched his arm across the bar, moving it behind me. A slow, torturous scrape across my shoulder blades with just enough pressure that I trembled. My nipples were so hard that I swore they were on the verge of breaking through my bra.

“I take that back. I don’t think … I’m positive you would.”

“What makes you so sure of yourself?”

“I told you, Hannah, I can read you.”

“And what are you seeing?”

His face, still near my ear, moved to the front of mine. For the briefest of moments, he glanced away, and when he returned, I realized two things.

One, I missed him, even during that brief break.

And, two, he really could see right through me, his expression telling me so.

“I see a woman who’s trying to argue against her body. You don’t want me to have this effect on you, but I do. You’re shivering. I can feel it.” His hand moved around to my arm, his finger running up and down the back of my bicep. “Your pulse is hammering away; your heart’s pounding. You have to really focus on everything I’m saying because you find yourself getting lost in my words.”

When he leaned into my ear this time, I was sure I felt his lips against my lobe.

“You’re dying to know what my mouth tastes like. If my cock fits my body type—large, thick … manly.” I tried to fill my lungs as he added, “It does.”

“Declan—”

He shifted, so our eyes met. “What would tomorrow feel like, Hannah, after I spent the whole night with you? How satiated … how sore would you be?”

I wasn’t thinking.

Because he’d sucked every thought out of me.

“Isn’t that what’s on your mind?”

I couldn’t answer.

I couldn’t even force the spit filling my mouth down my throat. But I knew I needed to give myself a second of something that wasn’t Declan, so I glanced at the table of students, all deep in conversation, not a single one looking in our direction.

They hadn’t been captivated by this vulture of law, by the god of turning women on.

“Hannah …”

I looked at him again, knowing instantly it was a mistake. “Yes?”

“If I were to slip a finger up the bottom of your skirt and touch you, would your pussy be wet?”

I couldn’t lie.

He would know.

He would see right through me.

“Yes.”

He smiled, a grin so devilish that it made me wetter. “Then, the defense rests,” he said, and he returned to the table, leaving me alone at the bar.





THREE





DECLAN