Schooled (Taboo 101 #1)

by Havana Scott

  “You’ll make an amazing therapist, Sabine. I can totally see it. It’s a lot of cognitive-behavioral study, but you’re suited for it. You get it. And I’ll do whatever it takes to help you,” he says, but I’m not sure what that means.

  That he wants to keep seeing me?

  I don’t know if I can get together with him again.

  What if, one day in the future, I once again become the victim of Liam’s doubt? I don’t know that I can handle heartbreak again, and to think we were only together six weeks. What if he leaves me like my dad left my mom? What if I’m not sexy enough for him, and he runs off to find someone else like my dad did?

  What if, what if, what if…

  Ugh, I can’t live off what ifs. I have to keep taking risks. How will I ever know what’s waiting for me if I don’t?

  “Come here…” He holds out his arms, and I’m so reticent to fall into them, but I want to so badly. I miss his strong arms, miss being held, miss feeling like everything’s going to be okay just because he says so. “You know I love you, right?”

  “I hope so. You said it in the meeting. Or was that covering for me, too?”

  “I do love you. And I’m sorry I was a fucking idiot. It took me a while to realize there was nothing scarier than losing you.” He takes a step forward and slowly pulls me into his arms.

  These arms. His scent, his heartbeat, his blood rushing through his veins. I love Dr. Liam MacKenzie, and I don’t care if Dean Albert and his clan decide that’s a sin. Yes, most teacher-student hookups don’t last, but every so often, one comes along that does. I pray to God that’s us.

  “What about your plans?” I breathe in the smell of his shirt, his shoulder, and the warmth rising off his neck. “What if you lose everything? I would feel so terrible.”

  “Listen, when I was growing up, every time my parents would discuss money and whether there was enough to pay the bills, Mom would say, ‘We’ll figure it out. It’s just money.’ That’s how I feel about this. If one door closes, another will open. We’ll figure it out. As long as I have you, that’s the most important part. Everything will be okay.”

  “But you might not be able to work at Harvard.”

  “I’ll find something else. I can find a job as a social worker. I can move to another school, another state. The choices are infinite, Sabine, and guess what? I have my whole life ahead of me, too. I might be twelve years older than you, but I’m not that old.” He pulls me back to peer into my eyes with a big Liam smile.

  Happy. He looks happy.

  Most people would be dying right now after a meeting like that. “How did he find out?” I ask. “Dean Albert.”

  He presses his lips against mine, and I feel the earth and sun and gravitational force of every living thing converge at this very moment. Warmth, softness, the perfect kiss, an imperfect man who’s perfect for me. I can’t imagine having to share my life with anyone else but him. Not after everything we’ve been through.

  “I told him.” He swipes his thumb across my eyes. “I went into his office and made it known.”

  “And?”

  “That’s when I knew it was real.”

  22

  LIAM

  June marches in on fire, and most of the student body heads home. Some stick around for summer classes, but overall, Crofton Cliffs’ campus is quieter. People lay strewn across the grass, soaking in the sun while donning shorts, ball caps, and flip-flops. I was stripped of my Professor of the Year nomination. Does it hurt? Hell, yeah. According to the administrators, I was most likely to win it. But it would’ve hurt more had I remained alone with my awards and accolades and no one to share it with.

  Instead, I sit under a wide umbrella on the green, the woman of my dreams by my side.

  Sabine reviews her books before her summer classes begin. That’s my girl. Always prepared ahead of time. She received a letter from the Elementary Ed. Department letting her know she was not accepted into the program, but by then, she’d already changed her mind about her career.

  Her last two courses here will be Psychology and Sociology, and then we’re moving to Silicon Valley so she can transfer to Stanford’s Psych Program in the Spring. Yes, she lost a whole semester due to starting over and taking new requirements, but at least she’s on the right track now. When working with students considering their future, the main thing is to ensure they don’t waste years of their lives in a field for which they have no interest. I’ve seen it time and time again. Sabine has definitely made a switch for the better, and she’ll make a wonderful therapist.

  Me, I won’t be going to Harvard, not without that award under my belt. However, I know I can make a new life at Stanford. Silicon Valley is a beautiful area, and with Sabine by my side, living with me, anything is possible.

  “So, what did Brian tell you?” Sabine asks, referencing my buddy Brian’s call last night. It came out of the blue and rather late, so I answered, thinking it would be an emergency. Sabine was falling asleep at the time, and I told her I’d fill her in this morning.

  “He made me swear not to bring it up to her, but basically, my ex, Mariana, was the one who called Dean Albert to tell him I was seeing a student.”

  Her eyes shift away from her textbook. She looks up, mid-highlighting.

  “Yeah. Can you believe it?” I shake my head. “She didn’t give any names, because knowing Mariana, she probably thought she was doing me a favor just by calling in a complaint, by not exacerbating it with identification of any kind. In her mind, she probably thought she was stopping me from jeopardizing my career.”

  “Meanwhile, she came across as unable to handle you finally being in love with someone else.” Sabine’s honey eyes chide me underneath snarky eyebrows.

  I nod. “Nailed it.”

  “Wow, so mature of your forty-something ex-girlfriend,” Sabine chuckles, going back to her book. “Even I wouldn’t do that.”

  “I know.” Leaning over, I plant a kiss in her soft hair.

  It’s been a hard lesson, but I get it now. Age is just a number. Sabine with her tight, young body, baby doll face, and scant years as an adult under her belt is light-years more responsible than half the adults I know. Sabine’s right—Mariana is probably upset that I’ve moved on. In her own warped mind, she thought she’d always have a hold on my heart, even with her living in NYC and me in Hendersonville.

  It was time for me to shake her off. In retrospect, maybe engaging with Sabine was my way of replacing Mariana. Maybe I didn’t have any intention to stay with her at first, only to use her as an eraser to clear my mind. It could’ve turned out so wrong, but thank God it didn’t. What happened was I discovered she was the one for me.

  I’ll always have Crofton Cliffs to thank for that.

  In the evening, Sabine rummages through her boxes she moved from her apartment into my home. She hasn’t bothered to unpack some of them, because we’re not sure when we’ll be moving to California. It could be in the fall, could be late summer. We’re living out of suitcases and boxes, and there’s something comforting about the chaos. It means our options are limitless. We have our whole lives ahead of us. Could go either way.

  I watch her from my desk while searching online for jobs at Stanford.

  She’s bent over in little shorts, hamstrings shiny and taut. Her long hair is swept into a messy bun, T-shirt dirty from moving. She has no idea I’m watching her. That’s when she’s most beautiful. If Sabine knows I’m observing, her gaze softens, her eyelashes bat, and her whole aura takes on a flirty demeanor. It’s sexy, but it’s almost like she’s focused on capturing my attention.

  Little does she know she already has it.

  I’m convinced her inability to orgasm in the past had everything to do with trying too hard to please. Her father left her mother when she was old enough to remember it, which would devastate any daddy’s girl. And if memory serves me right, research I did years ago shows that young daughters often blame their mothers for not doing what it took to keep
dad around. I believe Sabine has been hyper-focused on pleasing her boyfriends in the past, and God knows a woman can’t experience her first orgasm unless she’s focused on herself.

  In any case, she doesn’t know I’m watching. And so she’s in her purest form—a little girly, a little frustrated, completely unaware of how incredibly sexy she is right now. She stands and blows out a breath. “I can’t find my freakin’ DSM book. I know I put it in this box.”

  Right next to me is her DSM book. I was reading through it earlier, intrigued to see how they’d updated it. “You mean this DSM book?” I hold it up and smile, beckoning her to come get it.

  This time, she doesn’t turn into sex kitten Sabine. She just smiles, relieved her book has been located, walks over and plops herself into my lap to kiss me. Her waist fits perfectly into my hands. She’s as natural as ever, and I can’t help but drink her in, loving the woman that literally fell into my lap.

  “And can you tell me something?” I ask, stooping to bring forward the box hiding under my desk. With one hand, I open it while balancing Sabine on my lap with the other. “What is this?”

  Her eyes fall on the silicon purple object, and she blushes hard. “Where did you get that?”

  “This lovely box of tricks right here. Want to use some of them?”

  She takes the heavily-veined Superman’s dildo out of my hand and smacks me over the head with it. “Don’t need this when I have you.”

  “Hmm...” I kiss her long and deeply. Maybe not now, maybe in the future when she’s learned more about herself, but I wouldn’t mind using some of these suckers on her, especially that bunny rabbit thing or those vibrating panties.

  We make love slowly, naturally, right in that office chair. A little dirty talk, a little sweetness, but full trust and present mind. She climaxes so easily, I think I’ll make her go another round to see if she can do it again.

  “I love you, Sabine, my blossoming flower.” Gripping her bottom in my hands, I push her back and forth over my still-hard cock.

  “I love you, too, Liam. For helping me grow.”

  When summer ends, we’re all packed up and ready to move to Stanford. It’s been an unbelievable ride figuring out where we want our lives to go, but we’re determined to start the fall in a new place. Silicon Valley will be beautiful this time of year. Maybe we can begin our new life visiting a winery now that Sabine has officially turned twenty-one. Something about that one extra year makes me feel a little less guilty about her age.

  She’s completely mine now, nothing holding her back.

  And I intend to make it official.

  We visit my old office just to take the last items, box them, and go home. But just before we leave, I take her hand and lead her down the hallway. At Room 17B, we stop and try the door to the auditorium. It’s open as usual, though the A/C is off, so it’s muggy inside.

  “Want to see the room where we met one last time?” I squeeze her hand.

  Tears are already slipping out of her eyes before we can walk through the door. “I don’t know if I can.”

  “Of course you can. Come on.” I lead her inside, and we stand there, holding each other. She shakes against my chest, sobbing. Yeah, I’m going to miss this room, too. I remember seeing her for the first time holding that banana, thinking how young and gorgeous she was. I remember the naughty things we did in that room, how she wrote lines on the board and engaged in some wicked role-play.

  “God, this room brings back memories. Both good and bad. Let’s go, Liam. The last time I was here was too sad for me.”

  “Well, let’s change that, shall we? Go get the marker. Write some more lines for me.” I smile. Love being a smart-ass.

  “Not that again. I don’t want to do it in here anymore.”

  “Just do it, hon. Write: I will not feel sad in this class ever again.”

  “What? Liam, come on, can we just go?” She tugs on my hand, but I point to the board.

  “Trust me, Sabine.” That’s all I ever wanted was her trust, for her to feel comfortable knowing I won’t lead her astray. I got her back. I got her front. I got everything, and that’s made me the happiest man alive.

  Sighing, she walks over to the whiteboard and uncaps a blue marker. She writes and repeats at the same time, “I will not….feel…”

  “Sad…” I tell her.

  “Sad…in this class…and…my teacher is a dork….”

  “Ever again,” I correct her, taking the small velvety box out of my pocket and kneeling in front of her. Popping it open, I show her my latest acquisition, a promise to love and cherish in high-pressured carbon form. “And yes, even though your teacher is a dork,” I say looking up at her, “he adores you and wants to spend the rest of his life with you.”

  When the realization hits her of what’s happening, she lowers the marker and stares at me like I’m crazy. And maybe I am. Crazy for her. Her delicate hands rise to her mouth, and her eyes redden even more.

  “Sabine LaFleur, will you marry me?” Because Dean Albert was right about something—the most unexpected things in life are the best.

  EPILOGUE

  A lot can happen in a year.

  Eighteen months ago, I was an undergrad at Crofton Cliffs University thinking I wanted to be a schoolteacher. Today I enter my second and last year in Psychology at Stanford with an emphasis on sex and gender therapy. I’ve been Skyping with Leo a lot lately, and it turns out he wants to begin gender therapy in order to discover whether or not he truly wants to become a trans woman. I hope I can learn enough to help him in that process, but if I can’t, I can recommend a great place for him not too far from Hendersonville.

  I just want him to be happy.

  This is my goal with all friends and clients.

  Liam was right, therapy was the right direction for me. And guess what? I still get to be a teacher because I talk to young women down at the Stanford Community Health Center about their bodies and how to harness their own power, both sexual and emotional. It’s an intern position, but I love it. It’s giving me the experience I need to apply for the School of Medicine’s Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.

  Yep, this girl is eventually taking it one more level—going for her doctorate to become a psychiatrist. Who knew?

  In the meantime, since my cash flow is nonexistent, my husband works his ass off at the Community Health and Prevention Program at Stanford. On weekends, Liam and I visit wineries, go hiking, and who the hell knew I was such an outdoorsy type? Other days, we sit around the fire of our two-bedroom home outside San Jose reading, studying, and being complete nerds.

  What Liam doesn’t know is that the book I’m devouring on my iPad tonight is completely different from every other book I’ve read in this house. True to my nature, I read to absorb, to learn as much as I can to prepare for the future, to be informed, and just because I crave learning. Or because—maybe I’m just nervous.

  I’ve been hiding a secret for a few days now, but I can’t anymore. At first I was shocked, but now it’s beginning to settle in. I set down the tablet displaying p. 39 of What to Expect When You’re Expecting and take a deep breath before telling Liam the news. Yes, I’ll be due right around graduation, but that will give me time to be a stay-at-home mom a while before beginning my master’s. And Liam will be turning thirty-four soon, so I don’t want to wait anymore.

  He’s going to make the most amazing dad.

  I can’t wait to see him playing with our little one, being supportive and sweet and funny, as he’s been with me. We’re about to become three, and our life will change yet again. “Babe?” I stand and move to his chair by the fire, settling into his lap. He puts his book aside and looks up at me. Steely, blue, sexy eyes. “I have something to tell you.”

  Acknowledgements

  I have no one to thank—you all suck.

  I’m kidding. Don’t leave.

  I feel immense gratitude for a great number of people and would like to thank each of them. They selflessly donated
valuable time to read, critique, offer suggestions, and provide computer assistance, cover ideas, proofreading, and graphics help. These early readers included: Marla Bowie, Anaregina Frias, Erin McGuirk Ryan, Jodi Turchin, Kristie Lowry, Tracye Eades, and Andrea Perrin. Thank you, ladies! To my proofreader, Bette Bourgeois, who did an amazing job catching all the little shit I thought I caught but obviously didn’t—thank you. A special thanks to Virna DePaul, Michelle St. James, and our super secret group for their guidance and support in this new venture called “Indie Contemporary Romance Publishing.” As a writer classically trained in the traditional world of YA, I had so much to learn and I’m still learning!

  To my children for being patient while I work my ass off day and night. I hope they know I do this for them. Everything I do, I do for them. Because of love. Astronomical love and devotion. To my cover artist, tech support, shoulder to cry on, best friend, best man, best everything, Curtis Sponsler—I could spend my whole life trying to thank you for everything you have done for me and my boys. Thank you, not just from the bottom, but every freakin’ part of my heart, body, and soul. Finally, to my readers: I realize you have a lot of choices out there when it comes to choosing a good book. I hope I have given you a fun story with great characters that entertains you for a few hours. If I can make you smile and sigh and dream, then I’ve done my job. Thank you and hope you’ll stick with me on this journey.

  Author Links

  Facebook | HavanaScottBooks.com | Twitter

  Monthly Newsletter | Instagram

  Coming May 25th!

  PSYCHED

  A Taboo 101 Novel

  More by Havana Scott…