The Teacher

Part 9: In the Eye of the Storm

It had happened so fast, her brain was still catching up with the rest of her. Especially her body. One moment she was irritably slapping away Cam's offer of assistance as she struggled to pull off her excruciatingly painful stilettos without falling over in her darkened foyer, and the next moment?

The next moment would be right now, and right now Cam had the back of her pulled tightly again him, his hand on her throat, his—yes she could feel it, his cock pressed hard against the small of her back. It had only been the smallest of movements, pulling her towards him like that, but it had been fierce and direct.

"Miss Park," he whispered into her ear, "You need to let me help you out of those damn shoes of yours. You need to stop fighting with me Miss Park. You need to just listen and do what I need you to do. Can you do that Miss Park? Can you do that for me?"

When she said nothing, her eyes fluttering close in a paroxysm of confusion and desire, he squeezed her throat.

"Yes!" she choked. Then she remembered the front door, open behind them, leaving them naked before the judgmental stares of the entire town. "Yes but close the door Cam. Please."

"Yes ma'am," he said. She felt his hands, his body disappear from hers, and she staggered to the couch and sank down on it, flushed with heat, desire, intoxication. She heard the door click softly shut and looked up to see him come and stand before her. Most of him was hidden by shadows, her living room curtains still drawn shut from that afternoon. A single shaft of moonlight poured in from the kitchen window, illuminating the long, lean outline of his form. His scent filled her head, pushing aside language, argument, reason. Specifically the reasons not to breath him in, reasons not to order him out of her house again, reasons to stop whatever was about to happen between them. She knew there were reasons, many of them, but now they were gone.

She felt her breath catch in her throat as the word "beautiful" tumbled from her secret thoughts and into the space between them.

"What's that you said Miss Park?" he murmured. She couldn't see his face, his eyes. They were lost in darkness. She didn't need to see them though. She could feel the heat of his body, the way it enveloped her much smaller frame.

"I said you're beautiful," she repeated, louder this time. She raised a tentative hand toward his mid-section and traced her finger around the ornate brass deer head of his belt buckle. He always wore the most interesting belt buckles, she remembered that about him, from when he was her student. Animal heads, intricate woodland scenes worked in metal, a blue and green mosaic of tiny chips of glass. The other boys wore them too, but they were usually the same thing, Confederate flags, guns, the name of whatever trucking company or factory their fathers and grandfathers worked at.

Tonight he had worn a deer's head—no, a stag, a proud, defiant look on its face.

He caught her hand with his.

"Take your shoes off Miss Park," he said.

As though in a dream—perhaps it was a dream?—she leaned over and carefully unlatched the straps of her heels and slowly pulled them from her aching feet, steeling herself for the explosion of raw pain that came at the moment of freedom, the full course of her blood finally allowed to pass through her feet's veins and wake up her nerve endings from their slumber.

A stifled groan escaped her lips.

"Those shoes aren't good for you Miss Park, and you don't need them," he said.

She nodded in agreement but said nothing. He took the shoes from her and placed them neatly alongside the others at her door.

This had to be a dream.

"Come," he said, offering her his hand. She took it, stood up from the couch, and followed him into the kitchen. She no longer tried to hide her weariness and she shook as she walked. He flicked on the overhead light, led her to the kitchen table, and motioned for her to sit.

"I can't believe you went out drinking after how sick you got this afternoon Miss Park," he said, pulling a clean glass from her cabinet and filling it with tap water. He opened the freezer and shook his head disapprovingly.

"No ice," he said, closing the freezer door again. "I should have guessed."

He brought the glass of water to the table and placed it in front of her.

"Where do you keep your aspirin?" he asked.

She started to rise but he simply pushed her back down into her seat with his hand. She felt impossibly light and small around him. Every time she began to gather together her strength and her anger and her objections she caught another whiff of him, or noticed the subtle swell of muscle in his arms. She pointed to a cabinet over the sink; he took a bottle of aspirin out, shook out two pills, and placed them next to the glass of water.

"Take these and then drink it all," he said. "You are going to have one hell of a headache tomorrow."

She did what he told her, finishing off the glass in a single go.

"Damn you are a thirsty woman, Miss Park," he said appreciatively. He was still standing, hovering over her like a clucking hen now. Well, more like an extremely sexy, inappropriately young rooster. Or something.

A memory from the afternoon came to her.

"You took my clothes off," she said, meeting his light grey eyes with her own at last. She wasn't sure if it sounded accusatory or not.

He smiled at her.

"I did Miss Park, but don't worry, I didn't get off on it or anything," he replied. His response unexpectedly made her feel ashamed.

"I know," she stuttered. "I didn't mean that—"

She stared at her linoleum floor, once again studying the periwinkle flowers while Cam made her stew silently in embarrassment and confusion. He remained standing before her, unmoving, presumably gazing down at the top of her bowed head. What was he thinking? Perhaps he was making fun of her in his head, how easy it was to get her into this kind of position, her desire exposed to him like the soft underside of a turtle on its back.

"Cam," she whispered down to his boots. She cleared her throat and spoke in a louder voice. "Cam, were you and Madysen—did you date?"

He snorted, but she avoided his face so couldn't see the look on it.

"I wouldn't call it dating Miss Park, no," he said.

"But you had a thing?" she pressed. She looked up at his face now. Her heart leaped at its firm, masculine beauty, the sharp lines of his jaw contrasting with the youthfulness of his cheeks.

"Sure," he said, and shrugged.

She had always had a jealous heart, but this was more of a feeble attempt to break the spell that was binding her in this moment. If she could just grab on to the absurdity of her desire for a teenager who had been entangled romantically with someone like—

Suddenly he had yanked her to her feet, his hand buried deep in her hair at the nape of her neck; he pulled her head back and she felt her thoughts evaporate, her heart's fluttering beat grow still.

"No more of that Miss Park," he breathed.