Page 52 of Taming His Teacher

I’ve already started compiling a list of my favorite scenes in my head, so while some of me is shouting to play coy, I don’t want to. I want to share this with someone; someone who wants to know, someone who might want the same things I think I do. The thought makes me stumble. IthinkI want this. “What if we talk and what if we try, but then…what if I don’t actually like it?”

His features that have been so relaxed tighten like I’ve pulled a rubber band. His chest expands with an inhale and the line I want to soothe away with my thumb forms between his brows. “Honestly?”

I nod even though I’m not sure if I want the answer. Maybe I should plug my ears with my fingers and sing at the top of my lungs with my eyes scrunched closed, pretend that’s not a possibility.

“I don’t know. But you know I’m in the same boat, right? I’ve never done any of this with a partner, for real.”

His uncertainty should make me panic and there’s an unmistakable flutter in my stomach, but of course he doesn’t know. I’ve always liked his rock solidness but the fact that he’s human, not perfect, soapstone instead of granite, somehow makes this more real, more possible instead of less. He’s told me the truth. If there’s anything Will taught me, it’s that I don’t want lies. Even when the truth isn’t pretty.

“Okay. I’ll be right back.”

* * *

Shep

As I watch Erin walk away, her round hips swaying in a pair of pajama pants with goddamn rainbows on them, blood starts to pool where it shouldn’t.You cannot think with your dick, Shepherd.I need to pay attention to her, listen to her, what she wants. Cross my fingers and ask the universe to do me another fucking favor and let the Venn diagram of what she wants and what I want overlap enough to make this work. Please. I won’t survive breaking her heart again.

What I told her wasn’t a lie. I’m a total pervert. Even Mordecai’s said so, and he would know, but he’s in his own stratosphere. I can live without some of the kinkier shit, and who knows? She could surprise me. Some of the things she’s read…they’re not for the faint of heart. But I have some particular tastes I don’t know if she’ll be in for. I clear our places and while I wait for her, my mind wanders over various scenarios.

She comes back with a few books as I’m putting the last bowl back in the cabinet. She’s clutching at them and her face is pink, I hope a mix of excitement and embarrassment. I sit on her couch and she snuggles her way under my arm, not shy with her affection. I love that it comes so easily to her. It makes me feel adored and protective at the same time.

Settled with some well-thumbed volumes on her lap, she looks up.

“What do you want me to call you?”

“I like it when you call me Shep. I remember the couple of times you slipped like it was yesterday.” It still gives my heart a kick whenever she says it.

“I like calling you that, too. It’s like we’re finally in the same place. You get to be Shep and I get to be Erin. But, I thought it might be easier, when we…”

Her face crumples up. She’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen. Mordecai liked the heavy hitters, people who knew what was up, but I had a soft spot for the new kids. Guiding them through all this newness that was confusing, and awesome, and scary as shit all at once. I had been young—really young—for the average age of our members, but I’d never felt brand new even though I had a shit ton to learn. So I fill in the blank. “Play, Erin. You can say play. Or ‘scene’ if you like it better.”

She purses her lips, and it’s all I can do to keep from grabbing a fistful of her hair and wrestling her onto her back to kiss her.

“Play,” she declares. “That sounds fun.”

She’s going to kill me. Her cuteness is going to stab me through the heart and I’m going to bleed out on her couch. Jesus fucking Christ. “It is fun. It can get intense, too, but if it’s never fun, or funny, you’re doing it wrong.”

She smiles without showing her teeth and her eyes light up. “So when we’re having fun, what should I call you?”

The possibilities race through my mind, every option urging my blood south. What I wouldn’t give to hear her call me Master when she’s on her knees about to suck me off. But if she got in the habit and she slipped in public, in front of the guys? How humiliated she would be tugs on the reins of my runaway craving. I’d like to push her, embarrass her, make her cheeks bloom pink, but her being ashamed and in a situation I can’t turn around quickly? Hell no.

“Why don’t you call me Zach?” Her eyebrows pinch in a pout. Before she can argue, I lay a finger on her lips. “What if we were in the dining hall and you called me sir?”

Her face flames so hot I feel it and she claps her hands over my finger, still resting on her mouth. She shakes her head, a flick of panic.

“That’s the only reason why. No one here calls me Zach. They’d think it was special, because we’re together. It wouldn’t mean anything to them, but it would mean something to us.”

She loosens the hands clamped over her mouth and lays them on my thigh, close enough to my cock my breath catches and she looks up at me through her lashes. “So we’re together?”

“I think so. What do you think?”

She nuzzles my chest with her cheek and the hot dampness of her breath through the fabric of my shirt is testing my self-control. “I think I’d like that.”

“How do you feel about calling me Zach when we play?”

“It’s like a code, right? A secret code.”

I’ve never thought the word “darling” before, but there’s no other word for her. At least no other word I haven’t used a hundred thousand times before. This girl. Goddamn. “Yeah, lamb. Our secret code.”

---