by Mariano, Sam
Mistletoe Kisses
A teacher/student romance
Sam Mariano
Isabella Starling
Contents
Untitled
1. Callan
2. Noelle
3. Noelle
4. Callan
5. Noelle
6. Noelle
7. Callan
8. Noelle
9. Noelle
10. Callan
11. Callan
12. Noelle
13. Noelle
14. Noelle
15. Callan
Epilogue
Also by SAM MARIANO
About the Author
About the Author
* * *
A Teacher Student Romance
By: Sam Mariano and Isabella Starling
* * *
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination, or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Mistletoe Kisses Copyright © 2019 Sam Mariano
All rights reserved.
___
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is available exclusively on Amazon and enrolled in KindleUnlimited. Thank you for supporting hard-working authors and not being a pirate!
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Chapter One
Callan
I love Noelle in white.
I particularly like her in this white sweater. The way the soft fabric hugs her gentle curves, the way she bites down on her plump lower lip and tugs anxiously at the too-long sleeves as she waits for the bell to ring and free her from my clutches.
Not literally, of course. Noelle Harper is stunning, and I won’t deny I’ve woken up hard as a rock many a night after dreaming about having her in my clutches in the most literal sense, but she is also my student. A senior in high school, barely even legal—not worth my time or attention, but there’s something about her. Something magnetic and lovely, something beyond the way her tits look in that sweater.
My gaze shifts back to the paper on my desk. Noelle’s paper.
Until I reached hers, my bored gaze moved across bland, forgettable line after bland, forgettable line as I worked my way through the stack of papers that needed grading.
An untalented lot, my students. If their parents weren’t flush with enough cash to pay their admission to this godforsaken school, each one of them would peak as a key-holder at one of the various local fast food joints. Doesn’t require much thought or attention to wade through their always uninspiring efforts.
Then—as usual—once I got to Noelle’s work, I became distracted. I read her analysis of Dickens' Great Expectations and found myself enthralled and disgusted and in fucking awe of the way she spun her web of words, somehow sucking me into it even though I couldn’t agree with her less if I actively tried. It’s as if she sees the whole world through a rosy lens, even the dirtiest, darkest parts of it, and she wants to shine a light on it for everyone else to see, too.
Caught up in her point of view, I thought I’d steal just a glance at her. I should have known better. Rarely am I satisfied with a mere glance.
While my other students are annotating a page of text I handed out to keep them busy after the test they took earlier, Noelle has already finished both. She’s bright and her mind must work quickly. I can’t always tell from her in-class presence, but I think that’s because I make her so uncomfortable. I know there’s an intensity about me some find off-putting, and seeing from the peek I get into her mind that it’s full of rainbows and love, I’ve no doubt she’s one of them.
It probably doesn’t help that half the time when I look at her, I get distracted by every part of her and try to burn her into my memory so I can think about her later, when she’s not there to blush and notice like she might when I do it in person.
When I read her papers, though, that’s when I can see who she really is. Her prose is confident and well thought out, her style charming, and it all flows so seamlessly.
She’s talented, I only wish she realized it. I’m not easy to impress, and despite my difference in opinion, I’ve never been able to put down one of her papers. When they’re finished, even adequately so, I always wish she’d have written more so I could keep strolling through her mind.
My gaze rises so I can look at her again, but this time, I catch her looking at me. Her eyes widen ever so slightly at having been caught, then her gaze darts away. She goes back to tugging on the sleeves of her sweater, as if trying to hide even more of herself from my gaze—like even her exposed palms are showing too much.
She’s not wrong. I think even her fucking palms could get me going.
I shake my head at myself and let out a small sigh, dragging my gaze away from the girl. I don’t think about what time it is as I pick up my red pen and start to read through her paper a second time. Now that I’ve read the whole thing already, I’ll be able to pay more careful attention and leave helpful feedback.
Only, I got so distracted by Noelle, somehow class is over. The shrill ringing of the bell drags my attention to the clock—that can’t be right, can it?—and then my students immediately begin shuffling around, eager to put their things away and get out of here.
They all know better than to leave without my permission, though, so a dozen sets of eyes settle on me.
Not Noelle’s, though. She’s still avoiding my gaze like she knows better than to lock eyes with me for more than a split second. Smart girl.
“You’re free to go,” I tell them, signaling a little more shuffling. “Bring your annotations with you to class on Monday, and we’ll go over them then.”
Now chairs scrape cheap linoleum as they stand and begin to chatter. Mine is the last class of the day for them, the final circle of hell they must survive before returning to their expensive sports cars and cushy homes. Consequently, there’s a hum of excitement like there always seems to be, as if surviving to the end of my class warrants a badge of honor they can proudly display to those who might question their grit.
Speaking of grit, my gaze catches on Percy Bennett, the least literate of my students, but the most promising athlete. Ordinarily I don’t pay him much attention, but right now he’s stopped beside Noelle’s desk. She’s still seated, so she has to look up at him, her big emerald eyes attentive as he speaks to her.
“Brutal test, huh?” he says, to make conversation.
Noelle offers a polite smile. “Oh, yeah,” she lies. “Really rough.”
Percy nods, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his jeans. The school has uniforms, but every other Friday the students get a dress-down day, and today’s one of them. For Noelle, it means snug jeans and a tight sweater. For Percy, it means a pair of overpriced jeans and a pastel polo that makes him look even douchier than he actually is.
Well, I assume. Maybe he is that big of a douche in actuality.
Turning my attention away from them, I grab my briefcase from beneath my desk and begin to shove papers into it.
My movements stop suddenly when I overhear what he says to her next.
“So, I was thinking. If you’re not doing anything this weekend, maybe we could hang out.”
I look up in time to see the shock on her face. I’m instantly relieved that she didn’t see this coming, and I wait for
her to politely tell him to fuck off.
A flush creeps up her neck and blooms on her cheeks. She looks down and thinks quickly, but when she looks back up at him, there’s a confounding twinkle in her eyes.
Is she going to say yes?
My muscles tense in anticipation. It’s like watching a car about to crash, and wanting to stop it, but being powerless to. An image flashes to mind of Noelle spread out naked on the jock’s bed with him hovering over her. It’s no more than a figment of my own imagination, and still it’s all I can do not to leap across my desk and rip his head clean off his shoulders.
Her mouth curves up in a smile. Her eyes twinkle a little more.
Oh my fucking God, she’s going to say yes.
“Miss Harper,” I bark.
Noelle’s gaze jumps away from the jock and she looks at me, wide-eyed. “Yes, Mr. McLaren?”
Blood and adrenaline twist together as they course through my veins. My whole body feels hot now, too, like the flush that crept up on her has spread to me. “I need to see you at my desk. Now.”
She couldn’t look more shocked, but she quickly nods and starts gathering her things. She does it awkwardly, since she isn’t the sort of student who ever gets called to the desk for disciplinary reasons, but my tone was so sharp, it must have sounded like that’s why I was summoning her.
She’s forgotten the jock completely, that’s the important thing. He stands there looking at her dimly while she stands and starts in my direction. When she doesn’t offer an apology or even glance back at him, he finally turns around and makes his way out of my classroom.
It’s only me and Noelle now. I’ve never been in a room alone with her. It’s strangely exciting, even with this desk between us, even knowing it means nothing and she’ll go about the rest of her day, never thinking about it again.
Noelle hugs her notebook against her tits as she approaches me. Her red hair is a little longer than shoulder-length, so just the edges brush the top and tempt my gaze back to her breasts.
It’s probably good she has the notebook there to block my gaze.
“Is something wrong?” Noelle asks. She only meets my gaze for a moment, then it drifts to my desk as if searching for some clue as to why I’ve called her up.
Our gazes land on her Dickens paper at the exact same time.
“Yes,” I say slowly, pulling an excuse together quickly. “This paper is…”
Noelle’s gaze jumps back to mine again, looking almost hopeful.
“Ungradable,” I finish.
A scowl transforms her face. “Ungradable?”
“It’s painfully inadequate.”
Her scowl deepens. “What? How? I thought I was very thorough…”
“You were,” I say, picking the paper up and handing it back to her. Meeting her gaze, I add, “And also excruciatingly naïve.”
Her jaw drops open, her eyes widening, and this time when her cheeks pinken, it’s with rage. “Excuse me?”
“Unbearable,” I say again, doubling down on my lie.
She finally takes the paper, looking a little like the breath has been knocked out of her. “I don’t understand.”
“The assignment was a critical analysis of Great Expectations, was it not?” I ask, cocking a dark eyebrow at her.
Noelle swallows and nods her head.
“That’s a lovefest,” I state simply, indicating the paper now clutched in her hand.
“Well, I liked the book,” she says, still at a loss. “Critical analyses are subjective, they express the opinion of the writer. So my opinion was favorable—what’s wrong with that?”
Nothing. Not a damn thing. I don’t have a leg to stand on. Her paper probably would’ve been an easy A, but I’ve started digging myself a hole here and I can’t turn back now.
“I’ll give you the weekend to fix it,” I tell her.
Frowning down at the paper, then back at me, she says, “But I don’t even know what I’ve done wrong. I thought this was a good paper. I was really proud of it.”
A tickle of guilt niggles at me, but I ignore it. I hate putting down good work just because my impulsiveness overtook me, but on the bright side, now she’ll spend all of her free time this weekend agonizing over how to improve her paper and not going out with that meathead.
It’s very good work, but even very good work could benefit from improvement.
After all, Noelle could be better than good—she has it in her to be great.
As I sit here looking up at her, an idea begins to form. “How serious are you about improving as a writer?”
Noelle straightens, giving up her momentary defensiveness and focusing her attention on her academic career. “Very serious. My mother says strong writing is the single most important skill you can bring with you to college.”
I agree with her mother, so I nod my head. “How would you feel about private tutoring?”
Her eyes go wide again and she looks completely humiliated. “You think I need a tutor?”
“No,” I say quickly, shaking my head. “Not a tutor. Me.”
The humiliation fades, shock taking its place. “You?”
“Yes,” I say, liking the sound of it far more than I should. “I think you need me.”
Our gazes lock and this time she doesn’t try to flee my intensity. She regards me with a curious sort of skepticism, like some part of her can see right through my bullshit. Like somewhere in that mind I just accused of naiveté, she knows I’m lying my ass off.
I should probably be more concerned. It’s not exactly on the up-and-up, trying to manipulate one of my students into spending time alone with me. If she took this paper and went over my head to anyone in the department, they would agree with her that I’m completely full of shit and that she wrote an excellent paper.
Noelle’s gaze finally drifts away from mine, but not because she’s trying to avoid me this time. Quite the opposite. Her eyes drop quickly to my lips, then the dark stubble along my strong jaw. They sweep across my broad shoulders, skate across my strong chest and arms.
Finally, her gaze meets mine again.
Her green eyes are as warm as a sunny meadow. My blue ones are glacier-cool. As if entirely unaffected by the cold, Noelle smiles like a self-contained sun and warms me right up.
“All right.”
Somehow, I didn’t expect her to agree so easily, so I try to contain my surprise quickly. Her lips quirk slightly, letting me know she caught it, but she doesn’t remark upon it.
“All right. Yeah,” I say, trying to gather my bearings. “Are you free this weekend?”
Her eyes sparkle with a hint of amused delight, but this time it’s at me instead of that stupid asshole Percy Bennett, and it fills me with a foreign sense of excitement. “I am. Sorta. I have a shift at the mall tomorrow, but aside from that, I’m free.”
“You work at the mall?”
“Seasonal, just for Christmas,” she tells me. After the briefest hesitation, she adds with a touch of self-deprecation, “I’m an elf.”
I blink at her. “You’re… an elf?”
Noelle nods. “You know, at the Christmas set-up in the mall. Parents bring their kids to the North Pole to meet Santa, and Santa’s helpers pass out candy canes or take pictures…” Lifting her hand, she says, “Santa’s helper.”
I don’t make it to the mall much, but I know immediately that I’m going to require a visual of Noelle dressed up in an elf costume.
“I’m free tomorrow,” I tell her. “Perhaps we could meet up when you get off work. If you’ll be hungry, we could even get food.”
She must be aware of the growing irregularity of this ‘tutoring session’, but she doesn’t remark upon it. “I’m sure I’ll be hungry.”
“What time do you work until?”
“Four.”
“Then I’ll meet you there at four,” I tell her.
Her eyebrows rise in surprise. “You’ll meet me there? At my work? In the mall?”
“Why not?�
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The first flicker of uncertainty crosses her face. “I don’t know. It’s a public place. Won’t people see—? I mean, are you allowed to…?”
She waits for me to save her the awkwardness of having to finish her question.
I don’t.
Finally, her mouth snaps shut and she shrugs. “Fine. You can meet me there. I’ll bring my paper in my bag along with a change of clothes. Do I need to bring anything else?”
My lips curve up faintly and I lean back in my chair, looking her over briefly before meeting her gaze. “How ’bout a candy cane?”
Noelle rolls her eyes at me. “I need Christmas shopping money, okay?”
I spread my hands in a gesture of innocence. “I said nothing.”
“Your eyes said plenty,” she counters. “You never look joyful unless you’re skewering someone, so I know you’re making fun of me.”
Her words make me grin. “I would never.”
“Liar,” she tosses back, but there’s no heat behind it.
“Sometimes,” I admit.
A beat passes, almost pleasantly, then Noelle glances over her shoulder toward the door before regarding me once more with a thin barrier of professionalism. “Well, I should probably head home.”
Crossing my arms over my chest, I nod my head. “Probably.”
Noelle holds my gaze for a few seconds, then abruptly drops it. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Mr. McLaren.”
“That you will, Miss Harper. That you will.”
Chapter Two
Noelle
