Schooled

by RaeLynn Blue

  Schooled

  RaeLynn Blue

  Published by Phaze Books

  Also by RaeLynn Blue

  Soul’s Kin

  “Undercover Lovers” from

  Coming Together, At Last: Volume 1

  (with Shara Azod)

  This is an explicit and erotic novel

  intended for the enjoyment

  of adult readers. Please keep

  out of the hands of children.

  www.Phaze.com

  Schooled

  A novel of erotic romance by

  RAELYNN BLUE

  Schooled © 2009 by RaeLynn Blue

  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  A Phaze Production

  Phaze Books

  6470A Glenway Avenue, #109

  Cincinnati, OH 45211-5222

  Phaze is an imprint of Mundania Press, LLC.

  To order additional copies of this book, contact:

  books@phaze.com

  www.Phaze.com

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-60659-175-8

  Edited by Kev Henley

  Published July, 2009

  Printed in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Chapter One

  Wednesday, James Tennison Middle School

  Harper Perry despised the annual parent-teacher conference. A ten year veteran of the open warfare between students and parents, to which the United States government had declared those in her profession Public Enemy Number One, Harper groaned at the prospect of getting into a skirmish tonight. The battle of blame had been marked on her calendar in red. She’d had plenty of warning and time to prepare. Nevertheless, she could feel the knot of tension and stress take refuge in the base of her neck and throb to a rancorous rhythm all its own. She knew with absolute certainty that by night’s end, it would emerge like a monster, tearing through her usual calm and tranquility with scary accuracy and deadly consequences.

  Like the loss of her professionalism.

  Harper fidgeted and awaited the first hurling verbal assault bomb to begin the start of a long night. Her feet ached and her back hummed in soft agony. She’d been at the school since six-thirty that morning and now, she had an additional three hours of school-related engagement to contend with.

  “You’re hoping against hope, you know,” Carlita advised. “His parents don’t ever show. Kids like him don’t have parents who get out of their beds and drive to visit the likes of us.”

  Harper sighed from behind the table. She watched the scores of students clutching their portfolios and walking to the bleachers. The sprinkling of parents slipped into the gym. Whispers and nervous twitches moved through the warm forced air, and Harper suppressed the grimace threatening to sour her face. She sipped her bottled water, washing the hunk of anticipation back into the pit of her stomach.

  “Scott Pearson’s parents show up yet?” Mark Shoemaker asked, sliding his metal folding chair over to their table with a screeching scream as a soundtrack. The special education teacher, Mark co-taught classes with Harper, the team’s language arts teacher, and Carlita, who taught math. Despite co-teaching the two content areas, Mark’s actual caseload came to a whopping twelve students.

  Dwarfed by the paper box crammed with Harper’s and Carlita’s folders, Mark’s student portfolios sat latched together by a thick rubber band.

  Harper bit back a bitter retort. She had sixty-five students to his twelve.

  “It’s only two minutes after five,” Carlita snapped, rolling her large ginger eyes. “Come on, Mark, at least pretend you think the kid’s parents are coming.”

  “Why give false hope?” he replied, stretching like a lazy cat. His blonde hair had begun to lose its sun-kissed highlights, turning instead to the dirty dishwater shade of his other strands.

  Carlita actually snorted.

  Teachers at the surrounding tables shot them warning glances and one even shushed them. Somber tones and fake laugher drifted among the pockets of three-teacher teams spread throughout the gym. Harper and Carlita also had a science/social studies teacher, but she was out on maternity to leave. The long-term substitute had opted out of attending the event, leaving their team down to two-and-a-half team members.

  Harper sighed as one of her star students, brightly scrubbed and expensively dressed, bounced over to their table with parents in tow. The daughter presented a complete copy of the father, down to the dimple in their right cheeks.

  “Come for the report card,” the father said, way too happy for Harper’s taste.

  She erased the scowl on her face and muttered some polite noises. The student’s mother joined in, and thus the game began.

  For the next hour of her life—to which she would never ever get back—Harper flashed the high-wattage, no-warmth smile and shook hands with people she’d only see once this year. Students snatched their report cards and scampered to the outlying edges of the gym, far from the teachers’ tables tucked in its center. The students hopped around with their parents tethered behind them, attempting to corner them long enough for explanations and congratulations.

  “God, I hate this,” Carlita sighed as a temporary reprieve arose from the lack of fresh parents. “Come on, seven-thirty.”

  “And to think we get to do it all again tomorrow,” Mark added, reclining in his folding chair as if at the beach. “Back here at seven-fifteen in the morning.”

  Carlita snorted again, and Harper pressed her fingertips to her temples where the ball of stress had split and crawled painfully up to these new locations. She opened her eyes, and through thin slits she could make out the doorway of the gym. More people had arrived.

  Why do all the parents seem to wear that same smile? The plastered-on-with-glue-stick farce that they believed hid their pain. Why? Show the whole world you hate this shit as much as I do. Don’t fake it. They’re not paying you to sham it up. Be real.

  “At least it doesn’t smell like wet socks or feet in here like last year,” Mark was saying as Harper tuned back in to the conversation around her. His fingers drummed in absolute boredom.

  “What?” Harper coughed out.

  Mark rolled his eyes. “Never mind.”

  “Oh, did you hear about Scott’s latest attack against education today?” asked Carlita with all the suspense of one who enjoyed gossiping immensely. “Down in art class?”

  Harper screwed up her face and said, “Not really, Car. The boy is always in trouble. No home training, respect for authority figures, or any responsibility. His homework is nonexistent, and contacting his parents…” She shrugged unable to finish. Talking about Scott only managed to make her blood pressure high and the cadence of the headache at her temples pound.

  “It’s like trying to find a virgin on prom night,” Mark concluded for her. “I know. Social worker has been trying to pin down the mother for weeks. No luck.”

  “Anyway, Ms. Turner told me that in art today, Scott—”

  “I need a break,” Harper confessed and scooted her chair back w
ith a loud scrape on the gym’s once-polished wood floor. Finding her water bottle empty, she seized the opportunity to flee. She didn’t wait to hear the story or even want to engage in any more conversation about Scott Pearson’s deviant behavior. The boy should be locked in a group home if his parents were so damn inconsiderate as to allow him to rear himself.

  Waving politely to the other teachers, Harper took out a small pill container from her pocket. Not normally a medicine taker, this pill case came out only once a year—for conferences. The bottle contained the sweet nectar of surviving the next hour and a half, pain reliever.

  She had stopped at the water fountain, tossed in the two ivory capsules, and sucked in a bunch of water to send them on their way, when she spied a man emerging through the front doorway.

  Wow.

  The word smacked her psyche like it owned it. A male with tousled honey-brown hair, a body rippling—literally—beneath a tight, slightly dusty white tee-shirt, and hardened thighs that threatened the seams of faded, well worn jeans. The baseball hat cast a disturbing shadow over his face, hiding his eyes. Harper swallowed hard, so noisily she thought the little sixth grade student who scuttled by heard her. As the hunk passed her, reeking of sweat and musk and raw masculinity, Harper eyes attached to his ass so quickly, her neck complained. Her heart, hell, her clit didn’t. She suppressed a squeal as his ass, snugly clad in those tight, terrific jeans came into view. That perfect ass would feel hard in her greedy hands.

  Hmmm, damn, that’s a photographic ass right there. What is a man like him doing at a thing like this?

  She shook her head and sighed. If only she could latch onto something perfect like the delicious man in the tight jeans and dusty tee-shirt. He didn’t seem old enough to have a child in middle school, but stranger things had happened. Moreover, he probably was either married to one of those Teach for America wannabe teachers.

  Yeah, her luck ran like that, from bad to horrid to atrocious.

  With that cheery thought front and center between her dual drumming pangs, Harper walked down the brightly lit hallway and into the growing humidity inside the gym. As she cleared the small foyer and the artificial visual attack of the soda machines, Carlita’s waving hands caught her attention. A fat grin, full of hollow professionalism, lingered around her mouth and her eyes were wide with something that looked a little like shock.

  Harper increased her pace. Her ebony heels clicking against the wood floor seemed to send a Morse code signal to the butterflies in her stomach. She’d worked alongside Carlita for five years, and that expression of fear mixed with surprise meant something unplanned had occurred.

  “Hurry up!” Carlita nearly screamed as she adjusted her skirt, yanking down the hem. She licked her lips, wetting the scarlet lipstick and met Harper’s eyes. “You aren’t going to believe this, but I just saw Scott Pearson’s skinny butt running around the gym!”

  “What?” Harper asked. “Here? He’s here?”

  “Well, this is a school,” Mark replied, still seated in his chair, but sitting up. He leaned forward and had his elbows on each knee. His hands were clasped together in the V his opened legs made.

  “Ha, ha,” Harper replied before turning her attention to Carlita. “Why the fire alarm stare? He could be here for soccer practice.”

  Carlita’s brunette curls shimmered as she shook her head. “All extracurriculars were canceled due to the conference, remember?”

  “Right. That’s right.”

  Mark squinted as he used his head to gesture to Scott Pearson’s wiry body clad in jeans and a sweatshirt doing cartwheels between the two bleachers. “There goes the sixth grade’s most-likely-to-do-time candidate.”

  “Shush,” Carlita hissed. “Stop that Mark. His parents are here if he’s here.”

  Harper nodded in numb agreement. If…no, no. Not if, when Scott’s parents arrived at their table, she had to remain focused. Best to have something to show them when they ask. She hastily rummaged through the box of student portfolios. Horribly thin compared to most of the other students, Scott’s portfolio highlighted the boy’s complete lack of interest in school.

  “Remember,” Carlita said, scorn making her voice hard like a paddle, “two good comments for every negative one.”

  “Why do they make it so hard?” Mark asked dully.

  Harper lightly socked him on the arm, and in her head she repeated the positive support standard: two to one, two to one…

  Like the other two teachers, Harper’s eyes remained locked on the pale, sable-haired kid bouncing around the gym as if he owned it. Her stomach tightened when he stopped playing and glumly began walking toward their table. Someone had called his attention to the teachers, and now the boy strolled in a rapid manner to their table. Harper scanned the now crowded gym, but could not locate the parent who had lashed the class clown into line with a one-word rebuke.

  “Evening, Scott,” Mark said, not getting up, not even meeting the boy’s eyes.

  Harper sighed.

  “Scott, you here for your report card, right?” she asked, hating the false ring of her voice. Students could pick up on the canned quality to her teacher voice, but most adults couldn’t. That was why administrators loved it and students hated it. “I need a parent to sign for it.”

  Scott’s right shoulder rose and fell with all the apathy he could muster.

  “You don’t want to see it?” Carlita asked, hands on her hips, face twisted in barely restrained dislike.

  Scott moved his head slightly to look at her and his face mirrored her own. Math, by far, had been his worse subject according to his progress report.

  “It sucks anyway,” Scott snapped. “Who gives a shit about a stupid piece of paper?”

  Harper opened her mouth to rebuke the boy’s language, but a shadow fell over him.

  “Apologize. Now, son!” commanded the voice attached to the shadow.

  “Sorry,” the boy muttered a breath above the hum of the overhead fans.

  Harper’s mouth dropped open and all the saliva in her throat seemed to evaporate. There, in all his hunky handsomeness, was the white tee-shirt and tight jeans model. He removed his ball cap, and she could see at last that his eyes were a faint grayish blue. Lips, a slash of pink fury, and dark stubble blanketing his lower face, he seemed ready for a cover shoot, not spending time amongst a group of tired teachers.

  “Are you his teacher?” the man asked, eyes moving from one to the other. They stopped at Harper, lingering a bit longer than they had on the other two, but then again, that might have been her wishful thinking. “I’m Nathaniel Pearson, Scott’s father.”

  Carlita shot her a fast scowl before answering, “I’m Ms. Rodriguez. I teach math.”

  Both Carlita and Mark glanced at her, for she was next in line, but her lips gave a feeble attempt at forming words. Too bad her mouth and throat were too dry to speak.

  “I’m Mr. Shoemaker,” Mark said with a nod.

  Before she knew it, Mr. Pearson’s eyes were on her again. Their intensity made her fidget and she struggled to retain some composure. How was she supposed to tell this man his son was the menace of the entire sixth grade?

  “And you are?” he asked, a soft smile now fluttering about his mouth. Did he have any idea how he unnerved her? If so, why the hell did he find it amusing?

  This burst of anger unglued her lips and she said, “I’m Ms. Perry. I teach language arts.”

  Each word Mr. Pearson spoke felt like a quick lick against Harper’s clit. Befuddled, Harper couldn’t figure it out. Mr. Pearson was simply too gorgeous to be a father and certainly too damn fine to be Scott Pearson’s father.

  Chapter Two

  It took Harper a minute to realize that everyone’s eyes had locked onto her face. Through the thick silence’s murk, she shot them a nervous grin, feeling it wiggle across her lips in an imitation of her internal struggle. Swallowing with the last bit of salvia her mouth could conjure, she met Mr. Pearson’s stare and croaked out, “Well,
here’s Scott’s report card.”

  Her fingers worked as if they had a mind of their own. She saw them raffle through the stack of carbon copies and pluck out the one labeled Pearson, Scott as if they belonged to someone else. Her eyes now on the blur of manufactured blue, she tried to cage the soaring butterflies in her belly. Sprinkled dots of sweat littered her forehead. With an anxious giggle that reminded her of always-in-love, twelve-year-old Sarah Miles in third core, Harper tucked a rogue curl behind her ear and handed the paper to Mr. Pearson.

  In turn, amusement flashed across his face, making her heart thump faster. However, the tension tightened as he read the sheet, and Harper gasped like it had all been physical—tangible. It turned into a cough and she twisted away from him to hack the horniness from her esophagus. Mercifully, Carlita swooped in to save her from complete and utter embarrassment.

  Thank you, girl. Gonna have to make that up to you.

  “You’ll notice, Mr. Pearson, Scott’s grade in math,” Carlita launched into an explanation to Mr. Pearson’s unspoken questions—attempting to head off the car crash this meeting threatened to become. “I have a folder for him too.”

  She unearthed a manila folder labeled neatly with Scott’s name in blue print capital letters as if shouting this child was dangerous.

  What the hell is the matter with me? Yes, he’s as fine as any man I’ve met. True. Can’t deny that. Come on body, stop acting like a horny teenager and perform your duties!

  With her entire being blushing and hot from Mr. Pearson’s burrowing gaze, Harper straightened and tuned into the conversation. She discovered a sulky Scott trying to explain to his father how the grades magically appeared on the report card.

  “She gave me that stupid grade,” Scott bellowed, drawing glances and scowls from spectators. “I turned in my work. She lost the shit and I’m paying for it.”