Living in Shadow (Living In…)

  Finding his way out of the darkness could be the biggest fight of his life.

  Living In…, Book 1

  Law professor Eleanor May is fine with taking over a class for a colleague on sabbatical. She’s not so fine with the hot student who’s always seated front and center. Once upon a time she was that student…and the scars remain eight years after it ended.

  Yet this guy seems different from the others. Despite the alarm bells in her head warning her about history repeating itself, she is drawn toward the forbidden once again—even though this time it could consume her.

  Lucien North’s past is darker than the ink on his skin, a reminder of a time when survival was a fight to the death. Seducing his beautiful professor wasn’t supposed to be part of his plan to put it behind him, but there’s something about Eleanor that’s gotten hold of him and won’t let go.

  Together they light up the night, but will their powerful desire lead them to love—or drag them both to the brink of disaster?

  Warning: Contains a younger man so hot he might scorch your fingertips, and forbidden lust so tempting, there’s no point in trying to resist. Check your inhibitions at the door—it’s WTFery 101 and class is in session.

  Living in Shadow

  Jackie Ashenden

  Dedication

  To Maisey, for listening to me whine, handing me the hard truths when I need them, and for the occasional supplies of American chocolate. Speaking of which, I’m probably due some more…

  Chapter One

  English legal history. Fuck, Luc was starting to hate this class. It was his own special brand of hell: a lecture theatre full of people and him in the middle row with a slowly intensifying hard-on. And all because Professor Eleanor May was writing something on the whiteboard and her little pencil skirt was pulling tight around her extremely delectable ass.

  Luc glanced down at the laptop open on his desk. Anything so he didn’t have to look at her. The screen was completely blank. He hadn’t taken any notes whatsoever and they were almost done with the class.

  Jesus. This was the third time in as many weeks he’d sat there, hard and aching, thinking things he shouldn’t be thinking instead of taking notes. At this rate he wouldn’t be passing the paper if he didn’t get his head back into study mode, and since he had only a couple of semesters left before getting his law degree, failing a paper would be very bad indeed.

  She was talking again, her husky voice filling the room, and he didn’t want to look because he knew what he would see: a petite, fine-boned woman with golden-blonde hair in an elegant chignon. All feminine sophistication in a beautifully tailored pencil skirt of pale blue and a crisp white shirt, a small silver necklace around her neck. It made her seem fragile, yet the impression she gave off was anything but. Her gray eyes were as sharp as a steel blade and she walked as if she were ten feet tall and bulletproof. Like she was keeping everyone at a distance.

  But not when she spoke. When she gave a lecture, her delicate face would light up and the impression of ice and steel and distance would vanish. She would look at everyone in the room as if they were all having a conversation together and she was interested in what they had to say. Becoming warm and approachable. And if questions were asked, she’d smile and it would be like the sun had come into the room.

  Christ, he wanted some of that sun.

  He’d been at Auckland University for four years, only spotting Eleanor May a couple of years after he’d started since she mainly taught postgraduate students. Even back then, he’d registered her but had dismissed the attraction. She was a professor. Polished and sophisticated and way too much like hard work for him. He preferred his pleasure easy to come by and undemanding, with women who didn’t want anything more from him than a couple of orgasms. Definitely not complicated, and seducing Professor May had complicated written all over it.

  And then she’d taken over his English legal history class from Professor Holmes who’d gone off on sabbatical. And every Thursday he’d found himself sitting in the same place, right down in the front of the class, in the middle of the row, so he could look at her.

  So he could figure out what the hell he found so fucking fascinating about her.

  Because it wasn’t only her beauty, though she had plenty of that. He could find beauty anywhere these days and though he’d once glutted himself on it, it hadn’t ultimately satisfied him.

  No, she had more than that. Perhaps it was the sharp intelligence he saw in her eyes whenever she spoke. Or maybe it was the distance she projected, as if she were holding the world at bay. The kind of distance that made him want to close it. Touch her.

  Or perhaps it was merely the contrast to all the other women he’d had up till this point. Women his own age or a couple of years younger. Who had no distance, no walls. Children, in many ways. Children who didn’t even know they were alive. Which was fine because that was the way children should be. Yet, at the same time, they offered no secrets. No challenges.

  Strange to find that was suddenly an issue, when challenges and secrets and complications were the last thing he wanted.

  Whatever it was that fascinated him about Eleanor May, it made every lecture pure fucking torture.

  Luc sat back in his seat, folding his arms. Watching her. Irritated with himself and his stupid fucking cock with its insistence on wanting a woman he wasn’t allowed to have anyway.

  She was reaching the part where she looked at each person in turn as she reiterated her main points, a tactic that worked well in drawing people in to what she was saying. Except that, for some reason, she never looked at him.

  God, he was sick of that too.

  He shifted on his seat, spreading himself out a little, pinning his gaze on her. She looked at his neighbor, then, like it always did, her gaze skipped him and went on down the row. As if he didn’t even exist.

  Oh fuck no. Not today. Today she was going to damn well look.

  Perhaps she’s not looking at you for a reason?

  Well, whatever the hell that reason was, it was not happening today.

  Luc raised his hand to his mouth and coughed.

  And she looked; cool, gray eyes seeking the source of the sound. Meeting his head on.

  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.<
br />
  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?”

  For a moment he didn’t say anything, only stared at her. Then he rose to his feet in a graceful, liquid movement, beginning to pack away the small notebook computer he’d had on the desk in front of him. “Yes,” he said at length, “I do.” His voice was deep, the sound as liquid as his movements had been. And lightly accented. French, from the slight lilt.

  Interesting…

  Eleanor shifted, easing back from the lectern. “About the lecture?”

  “It was…fascinating.” He put the notebook into a black backpack and slung the backpack over one shoulder. She found herself staring at his hand where it gripped the strap, the smooth mocha skin inked with tattoos. Black bars and dots ran down each digit, the dots where his knuckles were, drawing attention to the length of his fingers. On the back of his hand the bars and dots seemed to imitate the bones beneath. How odd. Did they mean anything? She’d never seen anything like them before. Around his wrist he wore a bracelet that she thought at first looked like one of those friendship bracelets she’d seen some people wear. But it wasn’t. It seemed to be in fact a lot of different fabric strips all bound together like a cuff. Even odder.

  “And?” She couldn’t seem to tear her gaze away from him.

  He straightened, skirting around the desk and coming toward her.

  It took her a moment to realize that her muscles had tensed up. Kind of understandable since they were alone in the lecture theatre, and though he was lean, he was tall, with an air of latent power about him. As if he had a purpose and was going to achieve it, no matter what.

  It wasn’t threatening, but it wasn’t entirely comfortable either.

  Eleanor took a silent breath. Calm down. He’s a fucking student. Yes, an attractive student but a student nonetheless.

  Before he came too close, he stopped all of a sudden, studying her. Then his eyes narrowed. “You’re afraid of me?”

  She blinked at the abruptness of the question. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

  “You tensed up as I approached.”

  How strange that he’d noticed. Not to mention discomforting. “No, of course I’m not afraid.” Folding her arms, she met his gaze. “You said you wanted to talk to me. About what exactly?”

  “You never look at me.”

  She blinked again, taken aback. “Pardon?”

  “At the end of every lecture, you look at everyone else. But not me. Why?”

  There was an odd glitter in his eyes. The one she’d seen before, as if he were angry with her.

  Which was weird. Because she was sure she hadn’t done anything to him. Shit, she didn’t even know him.

  “Do I?” she said carefully. “I’m sorry, I hadn’t noticed.”

  “Bullshit. You’re doing it on purpose.”

  Eleanor stared at him. God, he was intense. She found it vaguely threatening in some way and yet, at the same time, thrilling as well. “Why would I do that?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you.”

  Well, shit, she didn’t know why either.

  Yes, you do.

  She shifted on her feet, not wanting to acknowledge the thought. “I could ask you the same kind of question,” she said instead. “You’ve been in this class for the past four weeks and you always sit in the same place. And you always stare at me.”

  “I’m looking at you because you’re the lecturer, of course.” He paused. “Would you like me to look somewhere else?”

  It wasn’t quite the answer she wanted, though she wasn’t sure exactly what answer she did want. “No, that’s where you’re supposed to be looking.” She picked up her laptop from the lectern and shut it. Now that he was closer, she’d noticed he seemed to be a little older than most of her fresh-out-of-school students, though not by much. Which didn’t make her feelings any less wrong, of course.

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “Why don’t I look at you? I look at the people I think aren’t paying attention. And you seem to always be paying attention.” It was a lie and not a very good one, but, hell, she wasn’t going to admit the truth. She couldn’t even admit the truth to herself. “You’re wrong anyway,” she added. “I looked at you today.”

  He didn’t reply, studying her silently for a long minute, his gaze measuring. Assessing. And so sharp she felt like she was under some kind of microscope.

  It wasn’t a good feeling.

  She smiled—the cool professor smile, the one she normally used with students. “And is there anything else I can help you with? Or is that it?”

  “Seeing as you answered my question, no, not so far.”

  “Good. Glad we cleared that up then.”

  A silence fell, the full weight of his intense, focused gaze falling on her, zeroing in on her in a way that forced the air from her lungs.
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br />   Say something, fool.

  “See you next Thursday, Professor May,” he said abruptly.

  Thursday. What was Thursday again? Day after Wednesday usually…

  Thursday was the next legal history lecture. Shit, this guy was seriously messing with her head. “Yes, indeed,” she said coolly, irritated with herself. “Thursday.”

  He took a step toward her and put out his hand. “I’m Lucien, by the way. Lucien North.”

  She was holding her laptop but that wasn’t the only reason she didn’t want to take that lean, brown, tattooed hand in her manicured white one. An instinct she hadn’t known was still alive inside her told her that to touch him would be A. Very. Bad. Idea. But how could she refuse? She had no reason to and it would be rude to ignore him. Keeping on her professor smile, Eleanor put the laptop down and took his hand. Shit, it was just a handshake. What could possibly happen with a handshake?

  Heat stole up her arm. Flickering like a fire and just as hungry. Stealing through the cracks in the armor she wore. Armor she wore for very specific reasons. To avoid situations like this. “Pleased to meet you, Lucien,” she said. No, she wouldn’t pull away. Perhaps if she ignored it, the heat would vanish and she’d feel nothing.

  The corner of his long mouth suddenly lifted in a hint of a smile, as if he’d seen her response somehow. As if he knew. And liked it. “Call me Luc.” His grip remained, holding her prisoner for a second longer, then it loosened and she was free.

  Instinctively her fingers tried to curl into a fist, but she forced them straight, not wanting to give herself away any further. “Thank you, I will. And you can call me Professor May.”

  He didn’t say anything to that, but that almost smile deepened a fraction, making something warm and liquid coil way down low in her abdomen.

  “I’ll catch you Thursday, Professor.” Then he turned on his heel and walked out of the lecture theatre.

  Goddamn.

  Eleanor shook her head and went back to putting her laptop away.

  And tried to put Lucien North from her mind.