Page 49 of Sweetest in the Gale
Right now, as her mentor, he should be offering his thoughts about the lesson, giving guidance wherever necessary. Not that she really required any, from what he could tell.
Instead, he found himself asking, “Did it blister?”
She blinked up at him, confused.
“Your burn.” He nodded down at her bandage. “Did it blister?”
“Oh.” Her brow furrowed even more. “Uh, no. No blister. It barely even hurts anymore.”
Which meant itwasstill hurting. He scowled at the cabinet containing her glue guns.
When he didn’t say more, she added, “Thank you for bringing me a new package of bandages, by the way. It’s good to have extras.”
In the awkward silence that followed, the growl of her stomach was clearly audible.
No wonder she’d collapsed into her chair. She was hungry and hurting and tired and almost as alone as—
“Would you like to have dinner? With me?” He cleared his dry, dry throat. “We can go over my observations while we eat. Make it a working meal.”
When she wrinkled her nose in an apologetic wince, he kept his expression blank.
A colleague refusing an invitation to a last-minute meeting did not and could not cause a pinch in his chest, and that twist in his gut indicated nothing but his own hunger.
“I’m sorry.” Her round cheeks had pinkened, and she was smiling up at him now, eyes alight once more. “I’d love to, but I have dinner with my parents every Wednesday night. They like to eat early, so we wouldn’t even have time to grab coffee before I’d need to go.”
The painful tension in his shoulders eased. “I understand.”
“How about tomorrow night?” Her brows arched in question.
His lungs filled with air, so much air he was suddenly buoyant, and the tips of his ears flushed with heat. The HVAC system in this wing of the building must be malfunctioning.
“Certainly.” Working dinners needn’t be confined to Wednesdays alone. “I’ll make a note of the appointment in my calendar.”
Her lips twitched. “Please do.”
Another long pause as his entire body seemed to vibrate with every heartbeat.
“I should probably head out.” She pushed up the sleeves of her cardigan. “Will you walk me to the parking lot?”
He inclined his head. “Of course.”
Earlier, as he’d calmed himself in his classroom, he’d packed everything he needed in his briefcase. After locking her room, then, they said goodbye to Mrs. Denham and walked to Poppy’s car without any detours.
In the half-empty lot, instead of immediately easing herself inside her bright red car—an electric vehicle, he noted—she turned to him. “Where would you have taken me?”
Where would he havetakenher?
If he didn’t know better? If he weren’t a rational man and a professional?
Anywhere. God, anywhere. Anywhere and everywhere.
Last night, he’d dreamed about it. Woken in sweat-soaked sheets, so hard he’d ached and throbbed. Stroked himself in the shower until he’d shuddered and gasped out an obscenity, eyes closed beneath the stinging spray, breath stuttering.
He’d take her in a soft bed, her round thighs spread wide, wide enough for his shoulders, her agile hands clutching his headboard as she moaned and squirmed and came against his tongue. He’d take her over the desk in his home office, her eyes hot and heavy-lidded as she watched him over her pale shoulder, his fingertips firm on her hips while he—
“Simon?” She was squinting at him, head tilted.
He shook his head. Hard. “Excuse me?”
