Just Like That

by Cole McCade

  How long had it been since he’d made an appointment? Years. Maybe even a decade. At some point grief counseling had seemed pointless, when every day was unchanging, unending, and he had nothing more to report but another day of fulfilling his job, keeping himself closed away so that the children couldn’t sense a moment of weakness and prey on it like the strange little things they were.

  That was the odd thing about children.

  So vulnerable. So sensitive. So easily broken.

  So very carnivorous, with their underdeveloped brains and still growing sense of empathy.

  They needed gentle handling, nurturing.

  With iron gloves so they couldn’t bite with their ferocious little teeth.

  Fox had the iron part down.

  But Summer...

  Summer seemed to be the one who understood the nurturing in ways that Fox couldn’t.

  And it was quite curious to watch both how Summer smiled and bloomed with easy warmth as he explained concepts in simple terms, and how Craig’s face cleared with comprehension and almost pride as he grasped onto them.

  “Oh,” Craig said. “Oh—that, I get it, so it’s about measuring functional capacity. I think I can use that to answer the question. Thanks, Mr....what was your name again?”

  “Su—” Summer caught himself, flicked Fox an almost sheepish look, then half-smiled, eyes creasing, brightening. “Hemlock. It’s Mr. Hemlock.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Hemlock.” Craig gathered his things up, standing with the awkward, jerky motions of effusive youth; a quick look toward Fox, a nervous dip of his head, and he scurried out of the office, the door slamming closed behind him with an absolute lack of manners.

  And leaving them alone.

  Summer looked over his shoulder at the door, then back to Fox, before offering a rueful smile, hunching down into his shoulders a bit. “Sorry, I just... I kind of jumped in there a bit.”

  “I was actually quite surprised you did,” Fox said. “You seem much less anxious in singular interactions.”

  Shrugging one shoulder, Summer said, “I mean...he’s just one kid. It’s a lot easier to talk one-on-one than it is to stand up in front of a bunch of them, all of them staring at me, while I’m actually trying to make them listen. I’m... I’m not someone who captures people’s attention. I’m not someone who can impress people. So I just feel like they’re staring at me and wondering what I’m doing up there, because I don’t belong.”

  I’m not someone who captures people’s attention.

  And yet...

  Somehow he seemed to have captured Fox’s.

  “What you’re describing,” Fox said, “is impostor syndrome. You’re well aware of your technical qualifications to do the job, and yet you doubt them nonetheless because you fear others can see your personal failings and insecurities.”

  A ghost of a smile flitted across Summer’s lips. “I know the textbook definition of impostor syndrome, Professor Iseya. But knowing it doesn’t make it any easier to get past it.”

  “I am far too familiar with that unfortunate dichotomy.”

  “I guess you would be, huh.” But before he could explain that cryptic statement, Summer looked away, clearing his throat softly and rubbing his hand to the back of his neck, a pink tinge seeping into tanned cheeks. “So...was that brave enough to earn my kiss for the day?”

  Fox nearly choked on his next breath.

  He didn’t know why he thought, after a night’s sleep and by the light of the next day, Summer might well have forgotten this little gambit.

  Or realized, at least, that Fox was quite old, quite dull, and quite impossible to deal with in any sort of...romantic context.

  Yet here he was, with that tiny smile still playing about his lips, nearly quivering with a sort of shy, sweet hope that seemed to radiate off him in a cloud of warmth.

  Fox sighed, setting his pen down on the desk.

  He had made an agreement.

  And he did honor his agreements.

  With an irritated sound in the back of his throat, he stood, crooking his finger. “Well, come here. I’m not kissing you across the damned desk again,” he muttered.

  Summer’s head came up so sharply his hair actually flopped back from those wide, brightening blue eyes, before he tumbled out of the chair and stood as if coming to attention.

  “Where—I—should I—”

  Fox closed his eyes.

  “Hellfire,” he growled, stepped around the desk, hooked his arm around Summer’s waist, and jerked him in to kiss him.

  He didn’t mean to be rough—but there was something annoying about Summer, something that got under his skin and frustrated Fox until he felt like he was punishing Summer with that kiss, abusing his mouth in hard, hot caresses that only barely waited to ask permission, waited for the low moan and the slack softness of Summer’s mouth to invite him in before he invaded, searching deep as if he could find whatever it was that made Summer so persistent, so irritating, so...so...

  Intoxicating.

  There was something intoxicating about the way Summer’s body molded to his; about the taut, lithe strength hidden beneath the crispness of his shirt, his slacks, those shoulders firm and tapering down to a narrow waist, slim hips. About the way Summer had to just barely rise up on his toes to reach, leaving him leaning harder still against Fox; about the way his hands caught at Fox’s arms just above the elbows, snared in the sleeves of his shirt, held on tight.

  He was so warm.

  And so completely, sweetly submissive, as Fox caught Summer’s lower lip between his teeth and pulled it into his mouth to taste him, to tease him, to suckle and bite and nibble until the flesh turned warmer still in his mouth, tender and giving to every bite while Summer let out soft, helpless, hungry sounds that did absolutely terrible things to Fox’s constitution. His control.

  His restraint, as he let his fingers fall to dig into Summer’s hips, and pulled the aggravating young thing into him.

  No room between them. No space for breath, for hesitation, for doubt when Summer gave himself over so willingly with a deep, husky moan—but suddenly he was shoving Fox back, pushing him with his body, challenging him with the pressure of flesh to flesh as he nudged Fox until his hips hit the desk and he slid back, settling atop the cherrywood, and Summer angled his hips between his knees—ah.

  Ah.

  Fox let his thighs spread, flanking Summer’s hips.

  And as Summer leaned into him, pressed flush...

  Ah, God.

  The heavy, hard ridge of arousal was unmistakable, and the answering heat in Iseya was undeniable, a raw hot burst of throbbing pressure rising against his slacks, sliding against Summer until they were chest to chest, hip to hip, cock to cock, and their tongues twined in slow, deep mimicry of the subtle rhythmic movements between them, suggestive and hot and oh-so-slick, oh-so-enticing.

  And Summer’s hands were on his waist, fingers strong and warm through his shirt, teasing against his skin in sensitive shudders as Summer’s soft luscious mouth begged with its wetness, with its warmth, with the delicious low sounds that slid between them each time their lips came together, locked, parted again before twined tongues drew them back in to taste deeper and deeper still, breaths lost between them and everything in Fox burning.

  This was hell.

  This was hell, and he was combusting in this damnable flame, and he wanted to hate every minute of it—the betrayal of it, the riot of his body and this quiet buried starved need for contact, for affection, for heat, the guilt of his traitor heart that wanted so much it almost didn’t care who even if the who wasn’t her.

  No—no, that was the even deeper curse of it.

  He did care who.

  He just didn’t want to care that who was this young man who brought the same brightness as his name, this heat that illuminated everything ben
eath a wild and singing summer sun.

  Gasping, Fox tore his mouth away from Summer’s, threading his fingers into Summer’s hair just to stop that needy, seeking mouth from following his; he didn’t remember closing his eyes, didn’t remember losing himself in the dark, but now he opened them, looking at Summer and that mouth turned into a bruise and a bloodstain and a bursting ripe fruit, glistening with Fox’s own touch.

  Summer looked...

  He looked like everything Fox had forgotten how to feel, captured in the graceful line of his jaw and the flutter of his pulse making his throat move in quick-sharp tremors and the way he looked at Iseya with eyes that were midnight in the brightness of his day, full of all the secrets and promises and intimacies that midnight could bring.

  Too much.

  Summer was too much, and even if Fox’s body hurt with how electrified he was, how hard, how hungry...

  He let go, leaning back against the desk, letting his hands fall to brace himself as he turned his face away, staring off to the side at one of the hanging honeysuckle plants without really seeing it.

  “That’s all you’ve earned for today,” he managed to say. His voice felt like a thick strange thing in his throat, sticking to its inner walls. “Enough.”

  Summer didn’t move.

  Not at first...until a hint of color intruded on Fox’s peripheral vision. Just the lightest touch, a ticklish skim, tracing his temple, tucking a loose strand of his hair back past the frame of his glasses, and Summer let out a deep, contented sigh.

  “Well,” he said softly, warmth rolling into the throaty edge of his voice. “I think that answers the question of whether or not you like men.”

  Fox’s heart skipped oddly.

  Everything felt odd to him, as if he were an ancient and rusted machine whose circuits and pathways had gone dormant for so long that the first surge of sizzling lightning pouring through them was just a painful rush, electricity searing and burning and singeing fine and fragile things to ash because they just couldn’t handle it anymore.

  Fox just couldn’t handle it anymore.

  He didn’t know how to feel these things, and more than his body...

  His mind, his heart didn’t know what to do.

  “Don’t be impertinent,” he bit off, refusing to look back at Summer.

  “I think you like me impertinent.” A smile in that voice, gentle, deepening it. “I think I’m the only person in this school who isn’t afraid of you.”

  Fox arched a brow, leaning farther away from Summer—his body heat, his allure, that firm pressure still caught between Fox’s spread thighs. “Don’t lie. You are still absolutely petrified of me.”

  “That’s one way of putting it.” Summer coiled that captured strand of hair around his finger, then let go, stepping back. Air rushed into the space where he’d been, cooling Fox’s body, leaving him...annoyingly bereft. “Maybe I like that little thrill.”

  Sliding off the desk and rising to his feet, Fox did everything he could to comport himself with some semblance of dignity, smoothing his clothing and tucking that loose strand of hair back into the knot bound against the back of his head.

  Lifting his head, he looked somewhere over Summer’s head—because if he looked at Summer, those dark, hungry, longing eyes would draw him in, asking a question Fox just...

  Couldn’t answer.

  So he only shrugged, turning away, stepping around the desk again. “There’s a diagnosis for that.”

  “I don’t need a diagnosis,” Summer murmured. “Though I wouldn’t mind another kiss.”

  Fox froze, shooting a look over his shoulder. “One, Mr. Hemlock. One per day, and that one is more than enough.”

  “Summer,” he pleaded softly, his voice catching, that little hitch of his breath strangely arresting, erotic. “Call me Summer again.”

  “...finish reviewing the syllabus... Summer.”

  He shouldn’t have said it.

  Not when that small thing, that intimacy that was intimate only to him and yet that joined the quaking in the pit of his stomach, left him feeling more unsteady than he had in over a decade.

  Squaring his shoulders, adjusting his suspenders, Fox continued, forcing his voice to remain stern. “And save your boldness for tomorrow. It’s not even noon, and I’ve had quite enough of your impertinence for one day.”

  Summer didn’t say anything for several moments—though Fox caught a faint hint of movement.

  Movement, and then warmth...as Summer drew closer, almost pressing against his back.

  Leaning in.

  And whispering against his ear, as curls of warm breath shivered over Fox’s skin and threaded like caressing fingers into his hair.

  “Have you?” Summer rumbled.

  Before his fingers grazed Fox’s hair, touching, pressing...tucking something in between the strands. Fox tensed, a little shimmer of sensation rushing through him—but Summer was already pulling back, retreating.

  “I need some air,” Summer said. “But I’ll be back in time for class.”

  Before he was gone, and Fox turned just in time to watch the door close.

  And reached up to touch the delicate, cool honeysuckle blossom Summer had tucked into his hair, plucked from one of the trailing vines and left with its petals, its nectar-damp stamen, just barely touching against Fox’s temple like a kiss.

  Chapter Seven

  If Professor Iseya was trying to kill Summer...

  He might just get his wish before long.

  Summer lay stretched on his stomach in bed and replayed this morning. That kiss. Iseya’s long, strong thighs wrapped against his hips, the way he could feel Iseya’s hardened cock pulsing against his own, arousal thick on the air between them and its scent dripping as heavily, as headily as the honeysuckles. The way Iseya had tasted, as their mouths had mated together until they were practically drinking each other dry. The quiet control in Iseya’s every touch, making sure Summer knew his place—and that place was submitting to him with needy gasps, pliant and wanting.

  And how Iseya had refused to even look at him or acknowledge him unless it involved classwork for the rest of the day, once Summer had come back from calming himself down and clearing his head.

  With a groan, he dragged a pillow up, buried his face in the sheets, and then flumped the pillow right back down on top of his head.

  Wanting Professor Fox Iseya was murder.

  Lifting his head, blowing his hair from his eyes, Summer buried his arms under the pillow, settled his chin against the case, and stared at his headboard, the worn dark-stained wood nearly black in the deep evening darkness, the barest hint of moonlight through the windows gilding and outlining the edges.

  How long would Iseya let this keep going on?

  Two days, two kisses, and Summer was already a tangled-up wreck.

  While Iseya, no matter how hotly he kissed Summer each time...

  Fell back on cold detachment and distance the second it was over, as if it had never happened.

  As if he really felt nothing, and no matter how his body might respond when he touched Summer, kissed him...

  He’d never let Summer in beyond that, to scale those cold walls to find the warmth inside.

  Maybe this really was just an experiment to Iseya, and in a few months he’d get tired of it once Summer proved he could be conditioned by Pavlovian methods far too easily, and it stopped being even remotely interesting.

  Iseya was just...

  Was just doing this to give him incentive to take those necessary small steps with his anxiety, anyway.

  That...

  That shouldn’t hurt so much.

  The pain was a small thing in the center of his chest, but it had the weight and gravitational mass of planets.

  Sighing, Summer mooshed his face into the pillowcase again.


  He was a mess.

  And he needed to get some sleep. He’d spent half the evening cleaning up a disaster zone of potentially hazardous chemicals Dr. Liu had left in the kitchen sink like it didn’t even matter, and the other half dozing off over reviewing student homework assignments on why Freudian principles no longer applied in modern psychology. In the morning he was supposed to try drafting his first lesson plan on his own, submitted for Iseya’s approval, and—

  —and he lifted his head sharply, heart giving an erratic thump, at the sounds of shouting echoing from down the hall.

  He tumbled out of bed, not even bothering with shoes or a shirt over his pajama pants, and bolted out into the living room. He caught a glimpse of Liu’s door creaking open and sleepy, confused eyes peeking out before Summer spilled out into the hall.

  Just in time to catch two boys come tumbling out of their room, tangled up in a smashing, punching, slapping brawl with limbs flying everywhere and clothing ripping, just a flash of grit-toothed faces and angry eyes before they crashed to the floor, while all up and down the hall more doors opened, lights flicked on.

  “Hey!” Summer threw himself at the mess of thrashing arms and legs, thrusting himself between one boy and the other just in time for the knee that had been smashing toward one boy’s face to hit Summer right in the ribs.

  He grunted, flinching back as a dull burst of pain hit him, but managed not to fall.

  While the boy who’d just kneed him froze, his snarling grimace turning into a look of abject terror as he took in exactly who he was looking at.

  Summer guessed he did have some clout as a teacher, after all.

  Straightening, sucking in a few wheezing breaths and pressing his hand over his aching side, he looked between the two boys; the other lay on the ground with his cheek purpling and swelling, one eye forced nearly shut, while the boy in front of Summer had a busted nose, blood trickling down onto his upper lip. Jay Corey and Eli Schumaker, if Summer remembered them right from second and third block class rosters.

  “Don’t move,” he told Eli firmly; Eli didn’t budge an inch save for to drop his leg, staring at Summer with his eyes so wide the whites showed all around, face petrified in a mask of fear and his half-clenched fists still upraised.