by Kendall Day
This is just lust. Pure and simple. Like middle school hormones.
I press my lips together and dig out a pen from my backpack pocket. “So, I have an idea about the project. I’d really like to get the kids involved and excited, and I think the best way to do that is to—”
He reaches across the table and catches my hand. His grip is firm. “We gonna pretend it didn’t happen? Is that what you want?”
His skin is warm. He’s pissed. Sparked by a rush of hunger for closeness, I flip my palm up to kiss his, lacing our fingers with a soft squeeze.
“It’s not what I want,” I breathe.
“Then tell me what you do want,” he says, his demanding green gaze tracing the lines of my face down to my mouth. A swipe of his tongue across his lips sends desire tunneling between my clamped thighs.
You and me on a deserted island with nothing but the waves and wind to see us, naked and fucking like rutting little animals 24/7.
“We really should talk about these lessons,” I blurt, my voice trembling. “My unit starts soon, and I don’t have the first thing written.”
He scowls at the scattered papers between us. “Fine. Do the video project. Teach them how to make voodoo dolls, for all I care.” He flings his body back into his chair, taking his hand with him.
I look down at my empty palm and sigh. “Clearly, it’s not what you want me to do. It’s your class. You have the final say.”
He drops his head and shakes it. “Can we put the school crap on hold for a couple minutes?”
I open the timer app on my phone and set it between us. Somebody has to be the adult here, and the irony that it’s me, as thirsty as I am for him, is not lost on me. “You have three.”
He crashes his lips together. A muscle in his cheek twitches. “You got me all wound up, Roxie. The shit that happened last night … It can’t happen again.”
Okay, good. This is very good. As much as I wish he was wrong, he’s absolutely right. We have some damage control to do.
“It was a spontaneous … thing, Mr. Slater. We gave in to some impulses. I can’t let Elliott find out about this. Let’s just forget it happened.” Even as I say the words, the simmer low in my belly threatens to erupt into a full boil at the memory of his furious lips and teeth grazing my neck, the rain streaming over and between us on the court, the jerk of his hips when he came.
He’s gotta turn down the hotness. I’m getting third-degree burns over here.
“Jack,” he mumbles, raking a hand through his hair.
“What?” I say, not sure I heard him right.
“Call me Jack,” he says testily. “If you keep looking at me like that and call me Mr. Slater again, I’ll—” He shakes his head and turns away, working his jaw into a tizzy. “Never mind.”
I inhale a big breath and let it out slowly. Calling him Jack would take this—whatever it is—to a much more personal level, and I’m not sure I can do that. “I think it’s best we keep this professional, Mr. Slater. Maybe we can come to a compromise on the unit. Could we give the kids some choices for a book project? A menu of options?”
A day’s worth of stubble darkens his cheeks and chin. His mussed hair flops to the side. I want to be the reason his hair is fucked up like that. And his eyes … they’re twin emeralds drilling holes into my soul, probing for vulnerabilities. I’m riddled with them, so he shouldn’t have far to go.
“No more choices, Roxie,” he says. “No more freedom. I told you, I know what’s best.”
Is he talking about what’s best for our students or me? Because I get the distinct impression this is about me.
Here we go, back to eighth grade when Dictator McSlutbag ruled with an iron fist—flunking me in language arts because it was “best for me.” He wanted to teach me a lesson for daring to be square in a sea of round pegs. He wanted to demonstrate how much power he held over my life by robbing me of my one chance of success. No pass, no play. Poor little Roxie. Try again next time.
Nothing’s changed, has it? He still thinks he can bulldoze his way over everything I try to accomplish because I’m too stupid and naïve to know better.
I hate him for how he makes me doubt myself. I hate him for the guilt I feel about Elliott, even though we’re taking a break. I hate him for being so goddamn tempting and making me want to sin with him again and again and again.
“Asshole,” I murmur.
His penetrating eyes narrow to slits. “Bitch.”
My timer goes off. When I slap it silent, he dives across the table and destroys my resolve with a bomb of a kiss that’s been ticking quietly on the fringes, counting down to this moment when it knocks me senseless.
The restaurant melts into oblivion, and there’s only him, me, and our mouths jockeying for control over each other.
You don’t know what’s best for me, I project with a playful bite to his lower lip.
I know better than anyone, he seems to reply with a swipe of tongue across mine.
The conversation gets lost in translation after that.
“Number 69,” a guy behind the counter shouts and dings a bell, destroying my concentration. The world shimmers back into focus, and I open my eyes. In my peripheral vision, a couple people nearby watch us. I quickly break the kiss, but Slater holds my elbows in place on the table, keeping our mouths inches apart.
His panty-melting stare reflects insatiable, roaring hunger, identical to mine.
The gravity between us grows stronger with each second. I feel myself being pulled deeper into his orbit. I’m paralyzed, unable to stop him from coming at me, even though he hasn’t moved an inch.
I want him coming at me.
In me.
All over me.
His pupils flare. He breaks the trance, whips out his phone, and furiously texts something.
“What are you doing?” I stammer.
“You’re coming home with me. Now.”
He doesn’t ask. He tells.
Torn between wanting to do exactly what he ordered and wanting to graduate, I gesture to the papers. “I can’t just drop everything. My diploma’s on the line.”
“I appreciate that, Roxie.” He nods, annoyed, and lowers his voice to a distant, gravelly thunder I can’t ignore. “But if you don’t get your ass in my car right now, I won’t be at school on Monday due to a harrowing case of blue balls brought on by unrequited student teacher lust.”
I melt into my chair like a wet noodle.
Sploosh.
His phone chimes with a text. He reads it, then stands up, gathering my stuff and sweeping it furiously in my backpack.
Flustered and turned on all at once, I find the strength to put my foot down. Sort of. “Okay, I’ll go. But on one condition: we have to spend at least two hours on my unit. And you have to promise to be open to my ideas. What happens after that is up for discussion.”
He huffs. “Fine. Two hours. Get your ass in the car, Roxie.” Towering over me, he wears intensity like designer cologne. Like a man who always gets what he wants. Like a man who’s gonna take what he wants.
Holy fuckballs, I want to give it to him too. Because right now, my loins are quivering with the ferocity of a woman mad with need and denied her due too long.
“Fine. Jack.” I spit his name out with a husky tone I hope makes his nads do jumping jacks.
He stiffens.
I glance to the bulge using his zipper as a punching bag. I grin. Good. I’m having an impact. Maybe he’ll actually listen to my ideas. Then I’ll decimate him in the bedroom.
“Goddamn it, woman,” he says, all husky and shit. He grabs my hand, winding our fingers into a knot, and gives it an urgent squeeze.
He stomps to the door, practically dragging me behind him as I try to keep up with his long strides.
I’m blazing with carnal hunger. Alight with desire. Fueled by passion.
Am I falling for Slater? Surely not. This is just a rebound thing after the whiplash Elliott gave me.
But can you call
it rebounding if you never really loved the guy to begin with? I was only with Elliott because he was kind and treated me well. I don’t think he knows what he wants, other than to throw his parents’ domineering bullshit back in their faces.
I’m starting to wonder if our relationship and subsequent engagement was his payback for enduring a couple decades’ worth of mommy and daddy issues. Maybe Elliott isn’t as ditzy as I thought.
“Yo, what’s up, pretty lady?” a squeaky voice on the verge of changing hollers.
I freeze.
Slater freezes.
Our hands drop, and our eyes swivel in sync to the small redheaded human sitting atop a grungy bike, his arms draped loosely over the handlebars. He grins up at us.
“So, Mr. Slater, you gettin’ some today?” Attila says, blatantly scraping his gaze down me from head to toe. I can practically hear the sound of nails on a chalkboard.
I fold my arms over my chest and narrow my eyes on him. With a quick, casual chin lift, I say, “What’s up, Attila?”
Slater steps in front of me, using his body to hide me from view. It’s not like the kid’s gonna do anything, but I appreciate the gesture. My own personal caveman throwing off those protective vibes stirs the honey pot down below.
“No, I’m not ‘gettin’ some,’” Slater snipes. Is he snarling? I like it when he snarls.
I step around to Slater’s side and bend over toward Attila. “What are you doin’?”
Seething, Slater works his jaw.
Attila smiles slyly. “Oh, you know, just ridin’ around, seein’ what everyone’s up to, when lo and behol’, I come up here to find y’all walkin’ outta the bagel shop. I don’t wanna see no teachers on a Saturday, but maybe I caught somethin’ good after all.”
Shit. He saw me kiss Slater.
My blood chills.
Slater’s shoulders tense.
“We were just doin’ some planning for y’all next week. We got all sorts of fun in store.”
His grin swallows his face. “I bet you do.”
“All right, Attila,” Slater says, his voice wired and rigid, “why don’t you go on home before your dad starts wondering where you went. You shouldn’t be out here riding your bike in traffic. It’s dangerous.”
“Hell, yeah, it’s dangerous. There’s all kinds of fires startin’ at the bagel place.” Attila shakes his hand at the wrist like he’s trying to sling something off it and winks at me. “Smokin’!”
I turn to Slater, pretending to be cool while struggling to keep a telltale blush from giving me away. Attila’s a smart kid. He totally knows what’s up. “I gotta be going, Mr. Slater,” I say. “Thanks for all the help.”
Attila clears his throat loudly. “Yeah-boy. The help. Was it good for you, Mr. Slater?”
Slater’s about to blow a gasket. “See you at school on Monday, Attila,” he grits out and starts for his car. “Bye, Miss Rambling.”
I head toward the bus stop. Attila watches me like a hawk. He’s not gonna let me go with Slater. I’ll give the kid credit. He’s got stones.
He waits for Slater to drive away, waves at him while flashing a huge grin, and peddles off down the street slowly, looking back at me every few feet. “Bye, Miss Rambling,” he shouts over his shoulder mimicking the way Slater said the same words a minute ago.
And then white-boy Attila breaks into a rap.
“Miss-Miss Rambling. She be scrambling. Doin’ the jing-jing. Gamblin’ a sing-sing with Slater’s ding-a-ling. Who got the bagel? She got the bagel? ’Cause he slipped it to her sly with a flyboy finagle. Dipped his fingers into her vat. Say, how’s that pussy … cat?”
Laughter fills the space his little lyrical bomb evacuated behind him, and I curl my arms around myself.
Holy shit, if that kid keeps singin’, the death bell’s gonna be ringin’ come Monday morning when Slater and I walk into school clingin’ to our dignity while our asses be stingin’.
Something tells me Attila won’t soon forget the words to his little ditty. He’s gonna do his damnedest to make it into a platinum bestseller on Bracken Middle’s Top Forty for Shawties.
* * *
ASSESSMENT: Roxie made no headway on unit plans and may have dug a deeper grave for herself by being spotted kissing her supervising teacher. DOES NOT MEET EXPECTATIONS.
Cock-Blocked
[Rambling]
* * *
LEARNING GOAL: Roxie Rambling will use persuasion techniques to convince her supervising teacher to help her draft lesson plans for her teaching unit.
Slater pulls up to the bus stop five minutes later and waves me into the passenger seat. He’s positively fuming as I slide in next to him and slam the door.
“What the fuck is that kid’s problem?” he demands. “If he runs his mouth at school, my job’s on the line.”
Uh, hello? Graduation? Reputation? I have something to lose in this possible scandal too.
Okay, so maybe my reputation isn’t quite as at stake as his, but still …
Disregarding Slater’s selfish oversight, I say, “Attila’s looking for attention. If we ignore him, maybe he’ll leave it alone.”
I don’t believe those words any more than Slater does. We both know Attila won’t leave it alone. He’s had it in for Slater since the beginning of the year, and Slater’s antagonism hasn’t helped. Though, I gotta say, Slater kinda deserves it after the way he’s treated the kid. Makes me feel indirectly avenged for all the shit McSlutbag deprived me of in middle school—opportunities, scholarships, confidence in myself. I just wish Slater could’ve learned his lesson without me involved.
“The best we can do is make nice on Monday,” I say, downplaying the weight of the situation. “Don’t antagonize him.”
“I will not be cock-blocked by a twelve-year-old named after Attila the Hun, Roxie,” Slater says, his knuckles whitening on the steering wheel.
I make a show of craning my neck around. “Do you see a twelve-year-old in this car, right here, right now? I don’t. I see an angry man who needs to chill out.”
Slater huffs.
“Did you know his dad and stepmom are in the middle of a divorce?” I say.
He flicks a look at me as he rolls to a stop at a red light. “No. How long’s that been going on?”
“Since right before school started. He told me the other day when I was helping him with his homework. Said his dad was cheating on his stepmom, just like he did with his real mom. It was the only time I’ve ever seen him look sad about anything.”
And boy, did I feel for him. My dad did the same thing to my mom when I was little.
“I didn’t know,” Slater confesses, his tone a hair softer as he continues down the road.
“Don’t worry about Attila,” I say. “There’s nothing we can do about him now. If he starts talking at school, we deflect, deflect, deflect. Nobody will believe him anyway.” They certainly wouldn’t have believed me back in middle school. “Don’t let him ruin your weekend because of what he thinks he saw.”
The tightness in Slater’s jaw loosens a tad as he side-eyes me. “The kid’s got a good imagination. I’ll bet what he thought he saw was pretty tight.”
I smile. “Yeah. Probably so.”
“It’s really unnerving.”
“What is?”
“Your smoking-hot body.”
I glance to his lap. His cock nods at me from inside his jeans. I wither into the seat. Christ, we’re totally doing this again, aren’t we?
“How would you know? You didn’t even get to see it last night,” I tease.
He slows to a stop at the next red light and looks me square in the eyes. Fire dances behind his green irises. “Something to look forward to when I get you in my bed and rip those clothes off.”
I exhale softly, but inside, I’m screaming. “You know we’re going to hell for this, right? It’s wrong on so many levels.”
“Way I see it,” he says, returning his attention to the road and hitting the gas, “if Att
ila’s gonna take me down, I may as well score as many goals as I can off you before Monday rolls around.”
Wow. And he’s back to Slater the egotistical prick. If I weren’t so worked up downstairs, I might actually be offended.
See what a year of abstinence does to a nymphomaniac? Deadly. Like Ebola. Elliott’s parents would say I’ve completely destroyed any sense of decency or pride in myself.
Fuck it.
If forbidden sex with my former teacher is as good today as it was last night, I won’t give a rat’s ass about pride or decency. At least I own it.
“That’s what I am to you? A scorecard?”
He hesitates for a panicked second, then says faux-confidently, “Yep.”
I don’t believe him any more than I believe myself when I say, “Good. That’s all you are to me too.”
The muscles in his cheek barely clench.
“You got a roommate?” I ask.
“I texted Savage at the restaurant. Told him to get the hell out of Dodge for the day,” he says, turning right onto one of the major thoroughfares toward the hipster side of town.
“Savage is your roommate? Seriously?”
“Yep.”
“Did you tell him about last night?”
“Nope.”
“Withholding details of a booty call doesn’t seem like a very guy thing to do. Especially under the circumstances. I figured you’d want to brag about bagging me.”
“You’re different.” He keeps his eyes on the road.
All my pomp and fury and rebellion dissipate with a pop. I’m different?
Those are the words I’ve been waiting to hear all my life. No one—not even Elliott—has ever said such a thing to me. And coming from Slater, it means even more.
Now I’m really confused. I need to stay angry at him. Our banter up until now has fueled that anger. He’s proven time and time again he’s a total cocksucker who doesn’t care about his students, who only looks out for number one, and who’s too insulated by his own big, fat head to notice how much his words and actions hurt other people. I absolutely, positively will not allow myself to feel anything for him beyond lust, disgust, and revenge.
