Summer Fire
Page 90
She and my dad had been coming here for years. After he’d died, she’d skipped a couple of seasons. But last summer she’d made the trip and claimed to enjoy it. She’d said it so wistfully, though, that I knew she’d be glad of my company this summer. It wasn’t much fun to go on vacation alone.
I’d be staying in the same building as hers, but not sharing her unit. I think she’d set it up that way so I would have some privacy. Or maybe because she thought she might need some.
It was possible to meet guys on the island. Singles did occasionally vacation there. Singles like Harry, I thought longingly.
But now that he knew who I was, I didn’t expect to hear from Harry again.
My happy mood and excitement about being on a gorgeous island had popped like a balloon. I tried not to let it show. That wouldn’t be fair to Mom.
She had apparently forgotten all about the strange way my seatmate had behaved at the airport, because she didn’t mention it. I guess she didn’t remember him. I knew her job as administrator had been difficult and stressful. She’d probably had to fire several teachers over the years. Not to mention all the students she’d had to discipline and fret about. There had been a school shooting a few years ago a couple of towns away from ours, and I knew that had kept her up nights, wondering if it would ever be possible to make the schools safe from random events like that.
I couldn’t blame her for firing Harry. He’d been the one at fault. He and Ms. Jenkins. Should Mom have given them a second chance? Probably not.
If the same thing happened in the school where I was about to be a teacher, I’d expect the same outcome. Whatever mischief you got up to in your private life was your own business, but having sex on school property during classroom hours showed really poor judgment.
But I was the woman who had just had an orgasm on a plane.
I was in no position to condemn other people’s poor judgment.
Grand Cayman was a beautiful island. Our resort was right on the beach, so we could step out of our units onto a private patio with a table, chairs and a chaise lounge. Beyond that was the white sand leading down to the water. The sea was turquoise, warm, and crystal clear.
There was a pier where tour boats could dock to pick up guests who wanted to go for snorkeling or dive trips. Cayman was a diver’s paradise. Mom and I had signed up for several dives during the week. Neither of us was an expert diver. We were going to do some easy dives, not too deep.
On that first day, I spent hours in the water snorkeling. There was a reef a few yards off our beach, so we could see hundreds of varieties of fish. There was even a school of tarpon—large gamefish, who lived under our dock—dozens of them. Some would come right up to us as we swam among them. Every time I tried to reach out and touch one, he would arc away, leaving my fingers empty. It was amazing how close all the fishes would come and yet remain just out of reach.
After we’d spent our first evening hanging out around the bar, Mom said, “Why don’t you take the rental car and head over to the livelier side of the island? Go to a club or something? You don’t have to spend your entire vacation babysitting me.”
“Maybe I will, later in the week. You could come with me, Mom. You might even meet a hot guy.”
“Don’t be silly. No hot guys for me, thank you very much. I enjoy my independent life.”
I wondered if that was true. Of course, I knew she missed my Dad. But he’d been gone for four years now, and Mom was still good-looking. Maybe she should put herself out there?
But when I suggested it, she smiled and patted my hand. “I doubt there’s going to be anything of that kind in store for me, at my age. And that’s fine. I had a wonderful life with your father.”
I thought it was sweet that she still felt that way. But wasn’t it all kinda random, who you ended up with? Almost as random as meeting my old teacher on an airplane.
After a day in what almost had to be termed paradise, so lovely was the beach, so refreshing the sea, and so fantastic the swimming in front of our resort, I was feeling pretty chill. My mom and I had always gotten along well, despite the usual stress and strain of my teenage years. Ever since Dad had died, we’d been even closer. I missed him terribly, but I was glad she was still around for me and that we were there for each other.
But I still wished she hadn’t come to pick me up at the airport.
Chapter Thirteen
Harry
I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Why had I raged out when I’d realized who she was? I don’t usually lose my temper. Really. I’m an easygoing guy.
But now I felt like a fool. And I hate feeling that way.
It all happened long ago, and I’d deserved the punishment I’d received. I’d been a cocky bastard in my early 20s. Hell, I was still a bit on the cocky side. I’d cultivated that bad boy image in those days because it was a fucking effective way to get laid.
I guess I’ve always been something of a rebel. I don’t knuckle under too well when there’s someone in authority on my ass. That’s why I’m much better off working alone.
As a first-year teacher, I did something really stupid and I’d lost my job. Fair enough. Given that I’d been canned in the middle of the school year, leaving me with nothing better to do than stare at my computer screen until I’d figured out another way to earn a living, it had probably been the best thing that had ever happened to me.
I made a lot more money now than I ever did teaching. I loved my work, I was good at what I did, and there was no one with the power to fire me. It was the perfect job, except for the minor detail that I couldn’t admit to anybody exactly what I did for a living. But that was my problem, not the job’s.
Charlotte. Charley.
I don’t know why I’d been so into an 18-year-old high school girl. I knew she had a crush on me. It was one of those things that happened. We’d all been warned about it. We knew the rules. And I wasn’t typically drawn to students. Charley was in one of my classes, so it was unthinkable. Not to mention that her mother was the principal.
Trouble was, I’ve always had a great imagination. I think all sorts of things that I shouldn’t. And that semester, I was thinking far too often about how much I wanted to fuck Charley Pendleton, the principal’s daughter.
It must have been one of those weird chemistry things. Well, obviously that was what it had been. Because that amazing sexual chemistry was still there, all these years later.
At 23, practically all I ever thought about was sex. Okay, it was most of what I still thought about at 29. I was some kind of pervert that way, I guess. I fucking thought about sex most of the time.
It was Charley I’d gone looking for in the music room that day. I knew she sometimes hung out there.
The music room was down at the far end of the school, where the racket from the enthusiastic but mostly incompetent musicians wouldn’t ruin everyone else’s day. A nice, quiet, often-deserted spot in the school.
So against my better judgment, I prowled around there that afternoon. I didn’t really plan to do anything. I mean, my dick may have been hard with the thrill of flirting with the forbidden. It tends to be unruly at times. I wanted a little taste of what it would be like to enjoy the fantasy of fucking a student. Without actually touching said student.
But Charley wasn’t there. I figured she’d gone somewhere else for her free period. Maybe she’d left the campus to go to the local coffee shop, as seniors were permitted to do. So when I arrived, all primed and excited and acting like a reckless idiot, who did I find in the room but the actual music teacher, Joanne, who had every reason to be there. She was working out a new arrangement or something.
Joanne and I had already hooked up a couple of times. It was nothing serious, but she was fun and I liked her. She wanted to know what I was doing so far from my own classroom, so I claimed I’d come looking for her. And one thing had led to another.
Then it turned out that Charley was nearby, after all. That she saw us. And since hell hath
no fury like a schoolgirl with a crush, she’d gone running to her mother.
Not only had I gotten the axe, but Joanne had been fired, too.
Anyway, all long ago—and I’d deserved what I’d gotten for being such a horn-dog fool.
But there was still a part of me that held Charley responsible for telling. Even though I knew it was irrational.
That same part of me wanted to shake her and say, “It was you I wanted. Didn’t you know that? Sense it? Why did you betray me?”
Absurd.
But now that she was here, beautiful, sexy and plenty old enough, on the same island where I’d be spending the next ten days, my head was in a spin. I wanted to kiss her and fuck her and punish her all at the same time.
So I did what a man usually does when his emotions are all over the place and he’s confused as fuck: Nothing. I didn’t call. I didn’t text. I suppose the only redeeming thing about me is that I didn’t call the flight attendant at her hotel, either.
I spent the first day swimming, snorkeling and sunbathing. I deliberately walked the other way along the beach, in the direction that did not lead toward Charley’s resort. The irony was that she was staying so close to where I was staying. It would be easy to pop in and look for her luscious body on the beach or in the surf.
I woke up on the second day deciding I was wasting a great opportunity. Before eating breakfast, I called her resort and asked to be connected to Charlotte Pendleton’s room. She picked up the phone, sounding sleepy.
“I hope you’re not in bed with some other guy,” was my brilliant opening line.
I was lucky she didn’t hang up on me.
“Harry?”
“Or, maybe even worse, are you and your mother sharing a room?”
“No. No, she has a timeshare and she was able to get me a cheap room as part of a special promotion. She’s in a different unit.” Then there was a pause. “I don’t know why I just told you that.”
I knew why. She wanted me. “I’m coming over.”
“What?”
“What’s your room number?” I said it in my best commanding teacher’s voice. And it worked.
“132. But what do you mean? I’m not even up yet. And I thought you were mad at me?”
“I am,” I told her. “But not that mad.”
“Harry—” but I was hanging up. I was already on my way.
I jogged down to her resort and easily found her room, which was first floor with a patio right on the beach. Nice. The drapes were closed, but I rapped on the glass door, and after a couple of moments’ delay, it slid open.
There was Charley, simply clad in a tank top and shorts that she had probably just pulled on. Her hair was wet from the shower and she wasn’t wearing any makeup. “What are you doing here?” she said as I shouldered into the room and pushed the glass door closed behind me. The room was cool, with the air conditioning running. Outside it was already warm and humid.
Her unit must have been a small suite, since we were in the living room area. There was a sofa, a coffee table and a couple of chairs. A small kitchen lay behind that and a short hallway led to the bedroom and bath. I took Charley by the wrist and began pulling her down that hall.
“Are you crazy?” she asked. But she wasn’t resisting.
“Nope. Not crazy.”
“Don’t talk so loudly. My mom is right next door in the next unit, and I don’t think the place is very well soundproofed.”
“Tough. What’s she gonna do? Fire me?”
“Harry, this is not a good time. We booked a dive. We have to leave soon.”
I was in no mood. “You owe me.”
“Owe you what?”
“You know what.”
Her face turned pink. She blinked those lovely green eyes at me. We had reached the bedroom now, so I pushed her down on the unmade bed. I sat beside her, taking both her hands in mine. I wasn’t sure what the hell I was doing, to tell the truth. All I knew was that from the moment I saw her, touched her, felt her skin brushing against mine, I was just as much of a goner as I’d been when she was barely eighteen and driving me batshit crazy.
“You should have told me who you were, Charley.”
She blinked at me. “I didn’t know you ever knew my nickname.”
“I knew a lot about you. I read your essays. Listened to what you had to say in class, which was almost always insightful. I even wrote a college recommendation for you. I’m sure I would have recognized you, too, if I’d had some context. You look different, but not that different. When I saw you with your mother, it all rushed back.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I was afraid you’d get angry, and then I’d have to deal both with being scared of flying and with a mightily pissed-off dude sitting next to me for several hours.”
A lock of her hair had fallen against her cheek, and I couldn’t resist touching it, stroking it. Her eyes went soft and her lips parted. She felt the pull, too. She couldn’t hide it. “You had a crush on me, didn’t you?”
“What are you talking about? That was six years ago.”
I cupped her chin and rubbed the ball of my thumb over her bottom lip. “What you didn’t know, at least, I don’t think you did because I tried to hide it, was that I had a thing for you, too. You were the only student I ever wanted to fuck. But of course I couldn’t.” I laughed in a way that came out sounding bitter. “I’d have been fired for that, wouldn’t I?”
“You were fucking the orchestra teacher, Harry.”
“Why do you think I went to the music room that day? It wasn’t to see her. I went there for you.”
She laughed. Actually laughed at me. “That’s preposterous! You barely even knew I existed.”
“But you weren’t there. Or at least, you weren’t showing yourself. What were you doing? Hiding? Lying in wait to see what I’d do? That’s why you reported us, wasn’t it? You were jealous when you saw me fucking an older rival.”
“I didn’t report you. I yelped.”
“You yelped?”
“Of course I yelped. I was shocked. And you weren’t fucking her, in case you don’t remember. You were getting one helluva blowjob.”
I started to laugh. “I guess your memory on that subject is better than mine.”
She looked a trifle embarrassed. “Well, I hadn’t seen that before. I didn’t even have a boyfriend. I backed out of the room right into the chemistry teacher. She was the one who reported you.”
“I thought you reported me to her and then later to your mother.”
“No. And what do you mean, you went there for me? I was just a silly teenager with a crush.”
“Yeah, and I was a deviant teacher with a reverse crush. I couldn’t do anything about that, except get a blowjob from some chick I didn’t even care about. Well, I liked Joanne, but I wasn’t that into her. She got fired, too, and I felt responsible.”
“You didn’t care about her?”
“No. Charley, I cared about you. Which was forbidden. I didn’t understand it, because nothing like that had ever happened to me. It started when I read the first essay you wrote for me. It was so damn well-written and powerful and emotional that I flipped out. And then you kept doing it—writing me those wonderful essays. And your poetry, too. It was as if you showed me your heart.”
Her mouth had opened slightly in amazement. Her beautiful mouth. I was talking about her poetry, which I had truly enjoyed. She’d had a lovely way with words and with imagery, very unusual and mature for the age she had been at the time. But when I focused on her lips, I forgot about poetry. Sex-obsessed male that I am, I wanted them caressing my dick.
Charley wasn’t the innocent girl she’d been in high school. Her green eyes narrowed and she grinned at me, in that delightful, mischievous way. “Is this how you got all those teachers in bed, Harry? Complimenting their poetry? You know what we used to call you? Bad Prince Harry. Because of your reddish hair and your Harley.”
I actually knew that. The other teachers use
d to tease me about it. And yeah, I’d cultivated the image. What can I say? I was young.
“The point is, I liked you then and I still like you now. Even though you got me canned. Well, I guess I did that myself. You really didn’t report me?”
“Of course not. I was madly in love with you. And yeah, I was jealous, but it wasn’t as if I thought I had a chance with you. Why do you think I wrote all that bad poetry? I could say things in my writing that I would never dare say out loud.” She paused and added, “You told me I was a prude, remember?”
Yeah, I remembered. I’d behaved badly, all around.
“I felt really awful about what happened that day. But I didn’t admit what I saw, not even to my mom. Especially not to my mom.”
“Well, I’m sorry then.” I felt like a jerk now, but I was encouraged by the warm look in her eyes and the fact that we were sitting close together on her bed and she hadn’t pushed me away. “But you still shouldn’t have lied to me on the plane.”
“I agree,” she said in a softer voice. “And for that I should probably pay a penalty. So what, would you say, is the penalty for lying?”
My dick, which had been stiff ever since I’d entered her room, began to throb. Charley didn’t wait for my answer. She dropped gracefully down to her knees beside the bed and put her hands on my pants. She found me and stroked up and down. “You said when you came in that I owe you. I presume you meant for the plane? Fair enough. Take off your clothes, Harry. I’ve been wanting to do this for six long years.”
I suddenly found it hard to talk. Or to swallow. Or even to breathe.
I was about to strip when there was a rap on her door. Charley jerked up, her face turning rosy. “Damn. It’s my mom,” she whispered.
“Don’t answer.”
She cast a pained look at the clock beside the bed. “I told you—we booked a dive. We already paid. I have to go.”
Fuck. I wanted to spend the entire day in this bed with her. Holding her. Feeling her mouth suck and her tongue tease. I wanted her tits against my naked chest. I wanted to slide in and out of her while her hot pussy clenched me tight. I knew she’d be amazing in bed. We’d be amazing together.