Page 56 of Tempest

“Tempest? Mind handing out the papers?”

Tempest breaks our stare. I can breathe. I can breathe.

He strolls around the rectangular table, starting on the other side and slowly, painfully, fanning through the papers in his hands before laying them in front of the right person. Rossi begins today’s lecture, but between the sorting out my brain has to do with Rossi and watching Tempest take a lap slower than the elderly patient who paused in my hallway at regular intervals to clip his toenails with his teeth, I’m having a tough time paying attention.

The girl across from me sees her grade laid out before her, then crooks her finger at Tempest. He bends down, bringing his head close to hers, and they murmur together.

A swell rises in my throat. It burns. Makes me feel sick. And it’s completely foreign to me. It’s only when Tempest looks up, catches my expression, and smirks that the swell boils down to a piece of coal in my stomach.

After fifteen minutes, or maybe the entire ninety, Tempest stops behind me. His scent is the first to catch my attention. Heady, cinnamon-like, and cut with rain. He steps close to my chair. I don’t have to turn around to sense his proximity. A heat sizzles between my shoulders, the small hairs at the back of my neck and down my arm standing with unseen electricity in the air. It’s like Tempest bottled the lightning from the bloated clouds outside and uncapped it behind me, striking me stiff. Overstimulating my senses.

The rustle of papers at my back is louder than it should be as well as the slide of my essay onto the table. His arm brushes the top of my shoulder. I have to close my eyes at the rush of feeling, a mixture of awareness and fight-or-flight. I did neither the last time we saw each other.

I submitted.

Cold air hits the side of my face. Tempest’s moved on. I slump in my seat and exhale any electricity Tempest might have left behind.

Then I see it.

Honestly, I shouldn’t have missed the glaring, fat red D-minus on the corner of my pain-staking essay that I worked hours on. I blink once, twice, hoping I’m hallucinating.

“That ends our class. I expect you to be prepared next week when we begin our analysis.”

I stare at my paper, unmoving. Students pack up around me, and I register laughs and groans of disappointment. No one says a word about their grade until Rossi leaves.

I don’t have anyone to talk to about my grade, so I just keep staring at it. Even as the last student leaves. Even when Rossi supplies a curt, “I expected better from you, Miss Kaine” before leaving.

“Problem?”

I’m able to peel my gaze from my essay and to the head of the table where Tempest sits in Rossi’s seat, his legs crossed at the ankle on the table and his arms folded behind his head, exposing the hard lines of muscle under his biceps. That piece of hair has flopped onto his forehead again.

Not even his unnerving good looks can distract me from my horror.

“This is a D.”

One corner of his lips curves. “A D-minus, actually.”

“Why?” I carefully place my palms flat on the table on either side of my essay. As if I can defend it better by protecting it.

“It’s obvious, isn’t it? Your paper sucked.”

“My paper is above-average and contained every point necessary to prove my argument.”

Tempest tongues his cheek, bored. “Correction: your essay was bland, uninspired, and as I somberly informed Professor Rossi, contained direct quotes from Wikipedia.”

I fly to my feet. “That is not true!”

Tempest grins. “There she is.”

This is exactly what he wants. My meltdown. My useless frustration over his misplaced power move. And I’m falling right into it. “Why do you feel the need to screw me over at every turn?”

“Why do you feel the need to stay here despite my fucking you over at every turn?” Tempest leans forward, folding his arms on the desk, peering up at me like I’m a curious bird watching him from a tree branch. “I fuck you on the inside,” he continues quietly.

Heat builds up under my skin. Humiliation clashes with sweet remembrance.

“I fuck you on the outside. I’ll keep fucking you in all the ways that count, princess, until you fucking leave this school.”

“I won’t do it.” I hold my arms rigid at my sides.

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