Just Like That (Albin Academy)

by Cole McCade

  And get out.

  Find himself somewhere else, because Iseya didn’t want him underfoot.

  Until Iseya braced one large, long hand against the desk, fingers splayed.

  Leaned forward.

  Hooked a fingertip in the open throat of Summer’s shirt.

  Dragged him in—into his heat, into a scent like...fuck, Summer didn’t know, but it was heady and wild and strange and cool and crawling down inside him until he felt it in his blood.

  And kissed him.

  Chapter Five

  Fox had absolutely zero damned clue what he was doing.

  Clearly his capacity for balancing risk versus reward was malfunctioning.

  Because the only thing on his mind, as he had watched Summer say so many infuriating things with that soft red mouth...

  Was that he had wanted that mouth to shut up.

  There were a number of ways he could have accomplished that.

  Summer was a damned puppy in front of him, and likely would have snapped his mouth shut at one sharp word.

  Fox could have simply dismissed him, refusing to meet with him until he had properly comported himself and remembered his place. Both their places.

  Yet instead Fox had found himself fixating on that insolent mouth, and remembering how firm it had been against his own. How hot. How Summer’s lips had gone slack the moment Fox had taken control, and...

  And somehow Fox wasn’t in control anymore.

  Somehow Fox was standing, drawn in toward that irritating mouth, pulling Summer into him, his knuckles just barely brushing his throat and catching the rapid wild flutter and rush of his pulse beating against his skin.

  Somehow Fox was leaning into him, tilting his head, watching Summer’s eyes widen and dilate, darkening, cheeks flushing, lips parting on a gasp of realization that was far too gratifying, to see this impulsive, sweet young thing so responsive, so needy under Fox’s touch.

  And somehow...

  Somehow Fox was kissing him.

  Fox was kissing him, and Summer’s mouth was hot and eager and needy under his own, lips parting beneath his as if begging, pleading, desperate.

  As if Summer had never wanted anything more than he wanted Fox’s kiss.

  And Fox didn’t know how to feel about that.

  Didn’t know how to feel at all, this clumsy thing inside his chest, and yet even if his slow-beating heart was a crude and awkward thing of rough stone edges...

  He knew what to do with those soft, yielding lips.

  And he slanted his mouth against Summer’s, capturing that sweet tremor of his mouth to still its quivering and command it to meet his own, to match, to mate, until their lips were wet and slick and burning with each other, until he tasted autumn leaves and wicked heat and the vibrating, low sound of Summer’s breathless moan.

  That moan shot through Fox, tingled against his lips, drew him until he wanted to taste it, slipped into that inviting well of sweetness, flicked and teased and tangled with Summer’s tongue until the lovely boy submitted so utterly, sagging against the edge of the desk, fingers grappling at the wood as if it was the only thing holding him up.

  This shouldn’t feel so good.

  This shouldn’t feel like anything, let alone this heady, hungry compulsion that drew Fox to slip his fingers around Summer’s throat once more, capturing him fully and utterly, that rapid frantic pulse against his palm, the heat and strength of flexing, straining tendons against his encircling fingers.

  Summer whimpered.

  And Fox’s cock throbbed, a jolt so sudden it was almost painful, a thing he hadn’t felt in so long that the sudden deep pull of longing spearing up into his gut and down into his thighs felt alien and strange and wrong.

  What was he doing?

  Desire sank its teeth in deeper, and yet the pain of that bite was more than he could bear.

  He thrust back, taking in a sharp breath, letting Summer go quickly.

  Summer remained frozen, looking at him in a half-daze, his lips parted, the wet red tip of his tongue just barely visible—the collar of his shirt disarrayed, his cheeks flushed, his eyes so dark they simmered nearly black, as deep as a midnight sky.

  “I... I don’t...” Summer stammered, his voice thick, husky, burnt at the edges with a raspy, needy burr. “Professor... Iseya...?”

  Fox couldn’t look at Summer’s face.

  Not when that lost, utterly absorbed, entirely needy expression made Fox want things he had consigned himself to never wanting again.

  He turned his back, fixing his gaze instead on the glow of morning coming through the venetian blinds, even if he didn’t really see them. Didn’t really see much of anything, when he was aching inside and his chest constricted so tight, everything inside seeming to cluster around his heart to crush it beneath the weight of all the things rushing within him.

  “Earn that,” he said tightly, and hated how unsteady his own voice sounded. “Do something brave to earn that, and perhaps I’ll consider making this an everyday thing.”

  Summer would back out, he thought.

  Summer would back out, let his anxiety take control, and retreat from the challenge.

  And then this little farce would end, and Fox could return to normal.

  But Summer only made a deep, inarticulate sound in the back of his throat, bordering on a growl—before he said breathlessly, “Fine. Give me the lesson plan.”

  A pause, as Fox’s eyes widened and he glanced over his shoulder at the fierce way Summer’s brows drew together, the determination in the glint of his eyes, the set of his shoulders.

  “You want me to be brave?” Summer said. “Then I’ll lead your next class.”

  * * *

  Oh, Summer thought. Oh.

  He thought, perhaps...

  He had made a very large mistake.

  He stood up in front of the classroom that had been the focal point of his life for his entire senior year. Still the same dark, peeling walls, still the same row of windows lined with potted plants and psychology textbooks along the back wall, still the same rows and rows of wooden desks that were the only ones in the school not scratched up and marked with pencil and pen graffiti.

  Because everyone was too afraid of Professor Iseya to risk it.

  But Summer wasn’t Professor Iseya.

  Summer was just Summer, and as he looked out over the sea of bored, disinterested faces, a few boys looking back at him with smirks as though sizing him up and wondering just how long it would take to break him...

  He thought maybe he’d jumped in a little too fast, feet-first, and gotten in over his head.

  Maybe he could blame hormones.

  Because even over the hours he’d spent reviewing the lesson plan in Iseya’s office while the professor quite pointedly ignored him without a single word or even a look...

  He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about that kiss.

  That hand on his throat again—he would never stop thinking about that hand on his throat, the way Iseya seemed to need to naturally assert dominance and make Summer go weak with the inherent control in that touch. Such a light thing, a subtle thing...

  But it had left him turned to an utter helpless doll, in Iseya’s hands.

  While Iseya had kissed him.

  Iseya had kissed him.

  Deep, slow, a thing of languid strokes and hot, firm lips that completely melted Summer, the teasing exploration of a tongue that knew exactly what it was doing as it slipped against every sensitive point in Summer’s mouth.

  If he had ever thought Iseya was cold...

  That idea had been completely shattered, this morning.

  He’d been completely shattered.

  And willing to do anything to convince Iseya to do that again.

  But he couldn’t feel that heat, right n
ow.

  Not when he’d been trying to speak for the last thirty seconds, but all he could manage was an odd, thick sound as his tongue dried and gummed and stuck to the roof of his mouth.

  Not when he could feel Iseya at his back, watching him with those cool, inscrutable eyes, not saying a single solitary word.

  And not when every last one of these boys was the mirror of the ones who’d made him feel so small, so invisible, so unimportant and shriveled and worthless every day he’d spent surrounded by people his age who came from a different world—one where he didn’t matter a single bit if he wasn’t a trust fund baby, if he couldn’t pay his tuition with his weekend allowance.

  He’d known what he was to them.

  The legacy, free tuition, sad thing who only got into such an elite academy—hell, passing Iseya’s psych classes had been his first AP college credit—because his father had worked here, instead of because his father had had money.

  He wasn’t that boy anymore, he told himself.

  But his silent tongue and locked legs and shaking knees couldn’t seem to remember that.

  “I... I...” He cleared his throat, but it didn’t really help; just made him feel like he was swallowing his fear in little spiky balls. His pulse jumped, his heart racketing up into an awful twitching rapid beat, fluttering like a cornered rabbit’s breaths. “My...my name is Summer Hemlock—”

  “For real?” came from the back of the class, followed by a chorus of sniggers. “That’s not a real name.”

  “Maybe it’s an anime name,” someone else said. “Maybe he’s a weeb. You a weeb, new guy?”

  Laughter erupted. Summer darted his gaze left to right, searching for the speakers, but all he saw was grinning faces, glittering eyes, contempt.

  He threw a helpless glance over his shoulder at Iseya, but Iseya was impassive, unmoving, just watching him with one brow slightly arched.

  Waiting.

  He was on his own.

  He was supposed to control the class, and he was on his own if he was going to do this thing he’d said he was going to do.

  He swung his gaze back to the class. “Y-yes. Yes, th-that’s...that’s my name, and I-I’m... I’m your new TA, and t-today we’ll...we’ll be going...over...”

  His voice didn’t want to work.

  His voice didn’t want to work, trailing off into a faintness that wasn’t even a whisper, just this thready thing crawling out of his mouth and falling limply off his lips.

  He couldn’t feel his body, but he felt everything at the same time, every hair standing up in a fine prickle and panic running through him like water, this spike of awfulness bolting right down the center of his chest and screaming at him to run.

  It didn’t make sense.

  It never made sense.

  Rationally he knew there was nothing threatening him, right now.

  Just a bunch of kids being little assholes, because that’s what kids did.

  But when his brain latched on to that little panic-rabbit breathing fast and swift and terrified in the center of his heart, nothing he knew could make its thumping stop.

  “What was that?” one of the students jeered. “C’mon, Winter Crabapple or whatever. Rain. Storm. Hey, maybe I’ll call you Stormy like Stormy Daniels. You wanna talk a little louder?”

  Summer barely heard it.

  Everything was receding away, falling down this long dark tunnel that made him feel like he was rising up into the sky, and the world was somewhere below, the noises distant and growing farther and farther away. Even his own body, far down below, like he was having an out-of-body experience and staring down at his own petrified face, the frozen grimace that was trying to be a smile, the way his fingers clutched the syllabus in his hands until the pages crumpled into deep creases.

  And then the moment when he broke, and gave in to the voice in his head screaming that he was in danger and he needed to run.

  He twisted on his heel, and suddenly the squeak of his dress shoes on the floor was too real, too loud, shrieking up that wind tunnel separating him from the world. Everything was blurry, his vision wavering and strange, but the door was close enough—close enough that it only took three steps before he was flinging it open, bursting out into the hall, skittering several clumsy steps before he just leaned over and grasped his knees and breathed.

  Deep, harsh, he sucked in breaths as fast as he could, but he never seemed to get enough air, his head spinning and his heartbeat turning erratic and hot and twisted and heavy and he just—he just—

  “If a single one of you,” Iseya said from inside the classroom, his voice drifting out the door, “moves so much as a fingertip while I am absent, everyone has detention on grounds cleanup for a week. Be still. Be silent. And open your textbooks to chapter fourteen, Jungian psychology. There will be a pop quiz when I return.”

  Not a single peep rose.

  Not even a groan.

  No one disobeyed the tyrant.

  Not even Summer.

  But still he wasn’t expecting the soft tread of footsteps behind him, the door pulling closed, latching.

  And then strong arms around him.

  Strong arms around him, coaxing him to straighten, pulling him into the heat and solidity of Iseya’s body.

  “Here,” Iseya said softly, that frigid voice defrosting into a rumbling, gentle murmur of baritone. “Here. Hold on to me. You’re all right.”

  As he spoke, Iseya drew Summer against his chest—and, numb with confusion, frozen with unreasoning paralytic terror, Summer went unresisting.

  He didn’t understand what was happening.

  Only that Iseya’s arms were firm and steady around him, wrapping him up, cradling him in quiet, steady strength. Suddenly the stone of Iseya wasn’t forbidding, but instead...stable ground. Stable ground that made Summer’s world stop spinning out of control, that held him in place and grounded him until he could stop feeling like the floor was dropping out from beneath him.

  Because Iseya was holding him up.

  And he let out a shaky sound, and buried his face in Iseya’s chest.

  He’d never been more aware of how tall Iseya was than now; Summer himself wasn’t short, five foot eleven, but Iseya had at least four or five inches on him—and the professor rested his chin lightly to the top of Summer’s head, making him feel enveloped, sheltered, wrapped up in a safe space that shut out all the senseless things that made his mind and body think he was in danger in the most mundane situations.

  He hated his anxiety.

  He hated it so, so damned much.

  But he didn’t hate this.

  The warmth and firmness of Iseya’s chest against his cheek, the breadth of his shoulders, the fresh-washed scent of his clothing and the soothing warmth of his body heat soaking into Summer. Long, strong hands against his back, fingers splayed, holding him, capturing him, gripping just enough to remind him he was solid and real and not this strange ghost disconnected from his panicking body.

  He could breathe, now.

  It still hurt, stitching his ribs strangely, every breath like ice water, but...

  He could breathe.

  There was enough air, and he no longer felt like he was about to pass out, his heart rate finally starting to slow down to normal levels and even out until its beats came in steady rhythm again.

  But it skipped once more, startled and erratic, as Iseya said, “I’m sorry.”

  Barely a whisper, more felt ghosting against Summer’s hair in warm breath, slithering down the curve of his ear, his neck, into his collar; felt rumbling in the chest beneath his clenched hands, his cheek.

  He had to swallow multiple times before he could speak; before he could even find words, past the sluggish clouds that always seeped into his brain after an anxiety attack.

  “Wh-why are you apologizing?” he managed t
o falter out weakly.

  “Because I let myself get angry enough to goad you,” Iseya said, and for a moment his arms tightened around Summer, a gentle grasp that gathered him in closer. “I know the markers of anxiety as well as I know any other condition. And I should not have agreed to let you do something so drastic that would trigger yours, when I knew you weren’t ready to lead the class.”

  Summer bit his lip, hunching his shoulders. “I... I v-volunteered.”

  “You did,” Iseya agreed. “But I am still your senior, and it was my responsibility to stop you.”

  “No...it wasn’t.” Summer had said he could do it, and he...he needed Iseya to trust that when Summer said he could do something, he meant it—and he would have to pace himself more in the future, make sure he could hold his commitments. But still... “But...thank you for caring.”

  Maybe...maybe it wasn’t Iseya’s responsibility, to know Summer’s limits.

  But...it meant something, that Iseya cared about pushing them.

  Iseya said nothing, though.

  But...

  He didn’t let Summer go.

  And Summer wondered how long this would last, wondered how long he could hold on to it, when he’d wanted for so long to know how it would feel to rest against Iseya’s chest and listen to the sound of his heart moving deep and strong inside his chest.

  He closed his eyes and sank into that sound, letting it soothe him until he timed his breaths by it, and slowly it felt as though his heart moved into line with it, taking calm, taking strength.

  And after several long minutes, Iseya asked, “Are you feeling better?”

  “Yeah.” Summer smiled wistfully. “I’m...sorry I made you angry. Guess I didn’t earn that kiss after all.”

  “We shall call that one free.” And Iseya actually chuckled—a soft-vibrating sound of sand and sugar and dark chocolate, a thing that seemed to stroke over Summer’s skin, shaking him gently with the movement of Iseya’s shoulders. “Are you really so very desperate for a kiss from me that you will step head-first into an anxiety attack?”

  “Does that really piss you off so much that you’ll actually let me make you angry?”