Page 15 of Student Seduction
I’d slept with him, ghosted him, cussed him on his first day, and he’d defended me. Lied for me. Protected me.
He wanted to bend me over and spank me. Make me sit on his lap.
And so help me, I wanted him to so badly it was hard to see straight in his presence.
Every time our eyes met, I was back in that Airstream. In his bed, being devoured by his intensity.
Every morning, I spent fifty solid minutes practically writhing in my seat in the back of the room before bolting out of there the second the bell rang. When our gazes did accidentally happen to collide, it was painfully apparent that we both had the same memories in mind.
Drew stopped flipping through blouses and gaped at me. “So it’s not the hot for teacher syndrome inducing your behavior then. Hmmm. Emersyn Elizabeth Tyler, are you doing drugs and not sharing with me?”
I laughed. “I’m not on anything.” I chewed the side of my thumb and laid a pink silk tank over a black pencil skirt. “I just feel a little unsettled around him after everything. He’s too young to be a history teacher. I feel like history teachers should be old and gray-headed with a belly hanging over their belt. He makes me so…”
“Horny?” Drew offered.
“Gross. I hate that word.”
He shot me a pointed look. “You’re not denying it.”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s confusing.” I lowered my voice to a hissing whisper. “We’ve slept together. I can’t just forget. There’s this arrogance about him that grates on me. Like he knows my every thought.”
“Yeah, it turns you and all the other females in the class way on.”
That was accurate. Kelsey Atwell and her trio of dance team minions were always strutting back and forth in front of Aiden’s desk. Asking him to clarify ridiculously simplistic parts of his lecture—like yesterday, when she asked if it was called the Cold War because of the weather. One of them was usually leaning way, way too far over trying to shove her cleavage in his face. He not only ignored it, he appeared annoyed by it. So much so that Kelsey, and her minions, Annika and Meghan, had begun circulating rumors that he was gay.
He wasn’t. But only I knew that for sure.
From what I and everyone else could see, he appeared to be completely immune to their advances. Watching him ignore them and their excruciatingly obvious attempts at getting his attention every day only made me respect him more.
Which made me want him more.
Which made me wish he wasn’t so respectable and would cross the lines I needed him to in order to give me the relief I craved.
It was fucked up. I realize this.
Occasionally he’d meet my gaze when I stared too long and he’d wink. Or smirk. Or both.
A reminder that we had a secret. One that was burning me alive from the inside out.
“I’ve seen him wink at you,” Drew said casually when we’d laid out all the viable outfit options on the bed. “And if I’ve noticed, it won’t be long before Kelsey or one of her bobble head twins does. If that happens, I can only imagine the shit they’ll spread around.”
There was a bitter edge to his tone. I wasn’t sure if it was directed at me or them.
Apparently we weren’t as discreet as I thought.
I’d never had a secret from Drew before. And now, whatever it was that was happening between Aiden and me, I wasn’t telling him. Mostly because I didn’t know what it was. It was such a new, foreign feeling. The longing, the deep ache, the anticipation of wondering what would happen if we were ever alone again.
“Drew, I promise, nothing is going on. I sit in the back so I don’t get riled up by him. I tease him in passing about his groupies and when they start moving in for the kill I give him this look and sometimes, yeah, he winks at me because he knows they’re shallow, transparent, attention whores.”
Drew snorted. “You’re riled up just talking about it, Em. Maybe you can keep lying to yourself, but I’ve never heard you get that worked up over Kelsey and she’s been doing this kind of shit since middle school. So whatever. Maybe you’re in denial. You can lie to yourself if you need to. But please, stop lying to me.”
“I’m not lying to anyone,” I protested.
“Yeah, okay.” His tone worried me. “We’ll see.”
“What do you mean, ‘we’ll see’?”
Drew narrowed his eyes. “Exactly what I said. You keep a keg full of gunpowder close enough to an open flame and sooner or later, shit’s bound to blow up. My money is on sooner.”
“You don’t have any money,” I retorted, unable to come up with a better argument.
Drew didn’t respond and even though we came up with half a dozen decent outfits for me to wear, I had trouble sleeping that evening, tossing and turning all night.
He was planning something.
Something that would tell him if he was right or not.
Something I probably wasn’t going to like.
