Forbidden: A Student Teacher Romance

by Amanda Heartley

  At least, that’s what I told myself as I twisted the cap, took a quite unladylike gulp and clicked the damn link. Might as well drive the stake in all the way, I reasoned, and kill whatever feelings I had left for Kellan. And of course I had them all. Of course I did.

  What we’d shared went well beyond sex, or even his jaw dropping physical beauty. He’d been nothing but kind to me from day one, gentle and loving, affectionate and thoughtful, wining me, dining me, sexing me into a state of bliss and I supposed, denial.

  I should have known it was too good to be true, right from the start. Why did he think I’d never dated models in the past? This very reason, I mused, the video finally buffering to reveal a chaotic scene at a makeshift stage set up a mere few blocks away.

  The beach had been transformed into a red carpet affair, a slightly elevated catwalk branching from a modernistic stage filled with blinking lights and throbbing house music. The video was clear and tight, like everything Platinum Pullovers did, and in the front row of VIPs I saw two supermodels, a movie star, a famous chef and, of course, every local designer worth mentioning.

  I fumed with jealousy and rage, hate-watching as I chugged my beer and wondered why he was doing this to me. My Kellan, my sweet Kellan, why was he torturing me so? It wasn’t bad enough he’d lied to me, but to hook up with Selena? Knowing what she’d done to me? It was like shoving two daggers into my heart, then twisting them until there was nothing left.

  “Trust me,” I murmured in my empty office, to my glowing 24-inch computer monitor. “After this, Kellan Montclair, we are officially through.”

  As if he could hear me, the show began and Kellan burst through glittery silver curtains, his body oiled and glistening in the late afternoon sunlight. His chest was bare beneath a metallic black and white striped pullover, hood up, sunglasses on, looking fierce and fabulous and making my heart pound even more just viewing him on a computer screen.

  I was about to turn the feed off, to shut my laptop altogether, finish my beer, leave the office, maybe go sit in a nice, cold movie theater somewhere, big bag of popcorn on my lap—screw the carbs!—and cry myself silly through a double feature of cheesy chick flicks.

  But then Kellan did something no model, no matter how beautiful, is supposed to do. He paused at the end of the catwalk and bowed. The crowd murmured as other models paused behind him. Then Kellan whipped off his pullover, turned it inside out to the white, billow lining and held it up between two fists like a banner.

  It was hard to concentrate on the words scrawled across it—Kellan’s bare chest could be quite distracting, even if he was a monumental cad—but then he straightened it out and, apparently, seemed to point it right at the camera covering the live feed.

  I snorted, setting my beer down to clap my hands over my mouth and willing the soft, damp tears to stop flowing down my face. “Florida Faces Sucks!” it said. He held it high overhead, grinning beneath it as if just for me. And then, as if finished with his victory lap, he tossed it into the audience, turned around, flicked off the rest of the models before turning once more, leaping off the cat walk into the sand below.

  I chuckled, leaving the office immediately and racing back to my apartment, quick as my little feet could carry me. After all, I only had a few blocks head start on him. I’d better hurry if I was to welcome him home good and proper!

  Chapter 19

  Kellan

  She was waiting for me, with an expensive bottle of champagne chilling on the rooftop patio, and the late afternoon sun bathing her face in a radiant glow. She was wearing a beach cover up, gauzy and billowy in the cool ocean breeze, and nothing underneath.

  I was still glittery and greased from the catwalk, my heart pumping and my skin aglow from the brisk walk across Ocean Beach Drive and down, past Miami Models where a quick yank on the door told me Carla wasn’t in. Smirking, still bare-chested—not an uncommon sight for a gorgeous sunny day in South Beach, fortunately—I’d hoped she’d gotten my messages and watched the live feed.

  Apparently, considering her wide open door and the fact that she had champagne chilling and was standing practically naked—and beaming—by the massage table, she had.

  I paused in the threshold between her living room and back patio all the same. “Is… is it safe?” I asked, still vaguely breathless from my mad spring from the beach.

  She nodded, taking one hand from behind her back and patting the massage table. “Come here, Mr. Romantic.”

  Tempted, I paused just the same. “Carla, I… nothing happened that night. With Selena, I mean. I promise.”

  “You don’t have to,” she said, nodding toward the table. “I don’t own you. You’re free to do as you wish.”

  “But I didn’t,” I sputtered. “I wouldn’t. I’m with you because I want to be. I was with Selena that night because she told me you were coming out to meet us.”

  Carla smiled. “She told me to meet her for a nightcap,” she confessed. “Like a dummy, I kept buying her excuses for why she never showed. I’m not stupid, Kellan. I can put two and two together. She wanted to hurt me and get you for Florida Faces. Like a good little hustler, she killed two birds with one stone.”

  I inched closer, hand atop the headrest of the massage table. “I’m just sorry you got hurt, Carla.”

  “I’m sorry they roped you into this,” she said, bare skin slick beneath the gauzy fabric of her loosely tied cover up. “And I’m sorry I didn’t believe you when you told me the truth, Kellan.”

  I nodded. “I know how it must have looked, Carla. I… I wouldn’t have believed me either!”

  We laughed then, her ripe breasts pressed against the fabric, her nipples taut, eager to be touched, flicked and teased. But, apparently, Carla had something else in mind for her rooftop pleasure that day. Or should I say… mine?

  “Come on now,” she urged, voice just above a purr as she caressed the surface of the table provocatively with one hand. “Let me show you how good forgiveness can feel.”

  “You don’t have anything to be forgiven for,” I assured her, as eager as either of us to get up on the table, but wanting to be there for all the right reasons.

  “Neither do you,” she said.

  “So we’re even then, right?” I asked hopefully, tired and anxious after the last three days of worrying over our fate before my sudden inspiration before the afternoon fashion show.

  She nodded, her long red hair around her shoulders, her lips full but unadorned, her eyes soft and dewy. “Let’s start over in your favorite place,” she teased, patting the long massage table for emphasis. I shrugged, and crawled atop the table on my back.

  “If you insist…” I teased, gripping the sides of the table as I waited for what might happen next. Only then did she draw the second hand from her back to reveal a series of scarves. They were colorful but, more than that, they were exciting.

  I had thought our reunion might be full of words and accusations, forgiveness and apologies, but instead there were barely any words at all. Silently, and somehow all the more sexily, Carla set about tying each wrist to either side of the table at waist level and each ankle to the table’s end.

  Thus, I found myself, bound to a massage table in the midday sun, glistening from glitter spray and leaking with anticipation. “Have you ever been serviced before?” she asked in a rare snatch of conversation. I merely shook my head. This seemed to please her. “Good,” she said, brightening. “I’ve never serviced anyone before, either, so it will be a first for both of us.”

  She leaned down to kiss me then, but only briefly, before sliding her fingertips teasingly along my bare torso. There was less teasing around the waistband of my shimmering track shorts, which she yanked down to my ankles, leaving me bare in the warm Florida sun. It was an exotic feeling, the sun’s rays beaming where they rarely explored, warming my thick balls and stiffening cock, as I grew damp and sweaty on top of the padded table.

  She wrestled through the lubes and lotions leftover from the
beginning of our long, eventful week and mined them for a suitable flavor. In short order she returned to my side, spraying my throbbing prick with a soft scented lotion that smelled of melons and apricots. The liquid danced along my shimmering skin, slippery and sliding as she gripped it and began to gently stroke my glossy shaft.

  It was a steady rhythm, unvarying and purposeful and mechanic, so unlike Carla and her spontaneous, bubbly nature. But I soon found the method behind her madness as my heat and passion swelled to match the flesh between her sticky wet fingers.

  When I wanted her to go slower, she kept up the steady pace. If I yearned for her to go faster, she remained in second gear, slow and steady, smooth and gentle, until I began to gasp and struggle and thrust for release. Whether by accident or an unseen hand, her gauzy cover-up gradually loosened, revealing full breasts and a murmuring stomach before sliding from her shoulders completely.

  I admired her shimmering body bathed in golden sunlight, her nipples stiff and perky, her stomach flat and soft as I grew closer and closer to release. And then, just as I began to pant and thrust in earnest, just as my balls throbbed and danced along the tabletop, desperate for release, she unhanded me and kicked off the heels she’d been wearing.

  “Not yet baby,” she cooed, gently climbing atop the table to join me. “Let me take you the rest of the way deep inside of me.”

  She did just that, kneeling on either side of my hip and taking my red, throbbing prick in hand once more to drag along the lips of her shimmering wet pussy. Her auburn pubic hair danced in the sunlight as I heard the slick, damp wriggle of my tip sliding just inside and then, as she wriggled down my straining staff, deeper, ever deeper, until she wedged her pelvis against mine and, just as she had with her hand, began to grind and wriggle on top of me with steady, purposeful precision.

  My ankles yearned to spread apart, but couldn’t from the combination of track pants and binding scarves. My hands yearned to reach and touch her, to grab her curvy hips and thrust ever deeper, faster, harder, or merely to pinch and tweak her swinging, breasts as they writhed and rolled just out of reach—but they, too, were bound tight to the massage table.

  I was at her mercy and she knew it, enjoying the long, languid ride as at last, I began to thrust my hips, faster, harder, hearing the slick wet sounds of our bodies meeting, before each sticky thrust and grind. I came brilliantly, deeply, wet and flush inside her, but she clung tightly, riding the hard flesh beneath her swollen pussy until she, too, had climaxed. Sinking on top of me, I felt her pussy clench and her body tremble as I continued to throb and drizzle deep inside her.

  “Let me up,” I murmured when at last I softened and slid from within. “Let me hug and squeeze you and roll you over and suck your sweet twat until you come on my face.”

  She chuckled and kissed me instead. “All in due time, lover. You’re being serviced, remember. You’ve got hours and hours to go before I let you up…”

  I chuckled, the sun was in my eyes, which made shadows stretch across our naked skin. There were worse ways to spend a sunny Florida afternoon.

  Chapter 20

  Carla

  The warm night air was sultry as I slipped from my condo lobby and began the quick walk back to my office at Miami Models HQ. Despite the late hour, it might as well have been noon along the slick humid pavement of South Beach.

  Between the moonlight, the overhead streetlights and the neon glow from the tattoo parlors, cafés and bistros that lined my hip, funky neighborhood, one barely knew it was midnight at all.

  I hadn’t planned to leave Kellan’s side for days if I could help it. But in my haste to race home and surprise him with a mind blowing rooftop servicing, I’d left my precious cell phone behind on my office desk, to say nothing of a half empty beer and a half-dozen programs still running on my laptop.

  I figured if I was going to slack off for the next few days anyway, I should at least tidy up my office beforehand, and God knows no self-respecting modeling agent could last a few hours—let alone a few days—without her precious cell phone.

  Still, the thought of a sexy Kellan lying naked and still damp in my bed motivated me to make the trip to my office in record time. Entering my key code outside the front lobby door, I waited until the reassuring “click” sound to step inside and turn right down the hallway from the empty reception area.

  Another key code let me into my own smaller reception area before I drifted past toward my inner sanctum. Finding my cell phone aglow, I wondered if perhaps I’d left something on in my absence. A salsa playlist I’d been listening to, perhaps, or maybe an open browser tab.

  Reaching for it, I saw an endless stream of recent texts and missed calls. My heart fluttered, wondering who could be texting me at this late hour—and why. Too soon, I realized who, why—and even how many.

  Apparently, Kellan’s little stunt at the Platinum Pullover show hadn’t gone unnoticed—or unpunished. Whatever Deacon Manchester from Florida Faces had offered my top models, had clearly been enough to lure them away. Forget our cozy working relationship, forget my regular bonuses, forget my forgiving nature, 90% of my talent pool had abandoned me—and via text no less.

  Xavier Sanchez, one of Miami’s top fitness models. Harlequin Alabaster, a high-profile, high-earning hand model. Even Sylvia Salvador, a premier swimsuit model, had left me high and dry. Each had gone to “the Dark Side,” i.e. Florida Faces, claiming lame excuses and making halfhearted apologies as I slumped down into my chair and saw my business crash and burn before my very eyes.

  Amid the flurry of betrayals and rejection, a voicemail from my mother almost went completely unnoticed. I smiled weakly, too shocked and saddened even to cry, and tapped the phone icon if only to hear a familiar voice. There was a slight pause as the message began, making me grin despite the loss of everything I’d held dear.

  Mom had never been good with technology, despite my gift of the latest cell phone every Christmas. After the pause, a sniff—making me smile anew. Her sinuses, I assumed.

  Then she spoke, and I knew it was bad.

  “Carla,” she said in a voice so hoarse I knew she’d been crying for hours. “It’s… it’s your stepfather, honey. He had… he had a massive stroke this morning. We’re in the ICU at Boca Vista Memorial. I know… I know you’re busy with your work, and I wouldn’t ask, but they’re not sure… They’re not sure how long he has. Honey, if you could just…”

  Her voice cracked then, just before the message cut off. I called her cell phone immediately, but it went straight to voicemail. I assumed that either she’d shut it off or—more likely—it had simply run out of juice.

  Dialing the hospital directly was even less helpful. After being told it was too late to forward my call to ICU, I tried to explain the situation—to no avail. I left a message and hung up, finding myself halfway across the room before I even looked up.

  Of course I would go. What choice did I have?

  Even if Selena and her precious Florida Faces hadn’t just poached nearly my entire roster of talent, I would’ve gone anyway. After my father had died of a heart attack while I was still in high school, my mother had assumed she would never love again. So did I.

  Then she met Archie, a local charter fishing boat captain on Siesta Key who stole her heart and, eventually, mine as well. He’d been just what mom needed and, over the years, had become a second father to me. Now, to think I might lose him as well filled my heart with dread as I ran home to pack for the quick trip down to Siesta Key…

  Chapter 21

  Carla

  “Cream or sugar?”

  I stood at the condiment table while mom sat a few tables away in the empty hospital cafeteria. She looked bad, her hair slept on, no makeup and an inappropriately short sundress on under a dowdy pink sweater. Her socks didn’t match. She looked back at me with a fake expression, and then somehow managed to summon a dry chuckle.

  “Has it been that long since you’ve made me coffee?”

  I chuck
led, reflecting on the six years since I’d left tiny Siesta Key to make a name for myself in South Beach. “I guess it has,” I murmured, wriggling the container of generic powdered creamer for emphasis.

  “Cream and sugar,” Mom said, turning back to stare at the silent cell phone in front of her. She’d given her number to every nurse, orderly and janitor who happened to walk by my stepfather Roy’s room six floors above us in the ICU. Now, a mere five minutes since we’d left the Intensive Care Unit, she apparently expected them to text or call with miraculous news.

  I finished making our coffee and tried to convince myself that her sudden and shocking appearance had everything to do with her husband’s massive stroke and nothing to do with the fact that I hadn’t seen her in six years—or that those years hadn’t been very good to her. Beyond the frumpy sweater and mismatched socks, Mom looked tired, nervous and flighty. She’d always been a strong woman, but now she looked beaten down in more ways than one.

  I returned to the table with our coffees, sliding hers quietly in front of her so as not to jolt her out of her cell phone vigil. She looked up anyway, and offered a week smile. “Thanks honey,” she said, patting my hand absently. “And thanks for getting down here so fast.”

  I shrugged, figuring now was not the time to tell her about my failing business, crumbling dreams and murderous thoughts of revenge. “I only wish I’d known sooner, Mom.”

  She sighed and picked up her coffee cup, only to put it back down again without tasting it. “Me too, dear. I’ve been bugging Roy to get his annual checkup for years. Apparently his blood pressure has been high for quite some time.”

  I shook my head, figuring I could teach my stubborn stepfather a thing or two about blood pressure at the moment. “How did it happen, Mom? The stroke I mean.”

  She seemed to shiver at the memory as she began to recount it. “I was in the kitchen, making him eggs over medium, the way he likes them when he sputtered and coughed. I thought maybe his coffee was too hot and had burned his tongue, and was turning around to check on him when his chair hit the ground with a terrible crash. He hit his head on the corner of the table going down and there was blood everywhere. I tried to clean it up as best I could, honey, but there still might be some mess there…”