She found some dirty laundry, all right. Mixed in his luggage were photos of him with countless women and boys in compromising positions.
Psychology 101—kids either want to grow up to be exactly like their parents, or the complete opposite. I sure know where I stand.
That’s why it rubbed me the wrong fucking way when I found myself prying my student’s thighs open so I could see her slick, pink cunt glistening for me while she was climaxing on my table. In my boat. In the middle of the night.
What’s wrong with me? Shit, everything. Everything is wrong with me.
As soon as I closed the door to the bathroom behind me, I started jerking off like a sixteen-year-old on Ecstasy. I didn’t even have the half-assed dignity to get into the actual shower. No. I propped one leg over the toilet seat, one hand against the wall, and went to town with the image of her fingering herself.
The blood on her thighs.
The look in her eyes.
Her desperation. My desperation.
I needed to get her out of that mess, but I couldn’t risk her knowing my real address. We were already crossing lines and limits at a dangerous speed.
Even now, as I stare at her sleeping figure, I know that it’s wrong. I don’t look at her like a concerned teacher should look at his student. I look at her like a hunter who is about to devour his next prey.
I need to fight it. Every brain cell in my mind screams at me to put a fucking stop to it while I still can, because the doors leading out of this mess are closing one by one at an incredible speed. But then my instincts, my body, my whole being, is screaming at me to take her.
I want to mark her.
I want to fuck her.
I want to do things that I cannot justify. Not as a lawyer. Not as a teacher. Not as a man. And not as a decent human being.
Her eyes flutter open ever so gently. I sit in front of the couch she is sleeping on. I spent the night upstairs on the deck staring at the mountains and didn’t sleep a wink. I can see that she is confused. It takes her a few seconds to remember what happened last night. The party. Ryan losing his shit. Me taking her to the boat. And then…
Don’t even think about it, bastard. Erase it from your goddamn memory, as you should.
“Good morning.” She is the first to speak. The smell of the soap she uses still clings to her skin. Apples or something. Simple. Natural. So unlike the girls she goes to school with who reek of Pradas and Valentinos. And yet there is something so real about this girl precisely because of that. I rake my fingers through my hair and look away from her.
“I left you money on the table. There’s a Kmart at the end of the block and a few convenience stores around the area if you need food or toiletries. I will pick you up on Monday morning and get you to school…”
She bolts upright and stops me, raising her hand.
“Wait, you’re leaving?”
“What did you think was going to happen, Miss Stringer? I would stay here and take you on a boat trip with flowers and champagne?” Jesus Christ. Even to my own ears, I know that I sound like a first-grade douchebag. I’m trying to throw her off. To get her to stop seducing me. Because the truth of the matter is, people have power over you only if you let them. Dozens of women and girls have tried to seduce me in the past. Not one succeeded. Until her. Until Remington Stringer.
“Maybe not champagne. You made yourself clear about me drinking.” She yawns, stretching. Her nipples are erect. Her hair is a mess. I stifle a groan. I need to get out of here.
I stand up.
“I’ll see you Monday.”
“I have nothing to do here, Mr. James. No books. No laptop. No nothing. What am I supposed to do?”
“I’m sure you’ll find a way to entertain yourself.”
“You liked watching me entertain myself. Why don’t you stay, anyway?”
Goddammit.
I blink twice, a casual smirk still spread all over my face.
“Watch your mouth, Miss Stringer.”
“Watch your hands, Mr. James,” she retorts, raising her green eyes to meet mine, then licking her luscious lips. “They seem to wander to places they have no business going when you finally let your guard down.”
“I need to get out of here,” I say, this time to both her and myself, because fuck, not only is she a step above every other girl in her class—her school—it’s been years since I’ve felt like I met my match.
“Stay,” she insists, her voice sharp and bossy.
“I can’t promise decorum if I do.”
“That’s what I’m counting on.”
I start walking toward the door leading upstairs to the dock. The small boat moves to the rhythm of my feet. It smells like dust and negligence in this place, but I love it too much to let it go. This is where Gwen and I went to in the Hamptons every day during the summer to sit around, drink beers, and make plans. When she moved to Nevada, I followed suit and took it with me.
“You say you want to help me.” She raises her voice, and I still, one hand on the doorframe and the other in my hair. I close my eyes. I shouldn’t listen to her. Know better than to do it. And yet here I am, all over the place, allowing her to sway me. “You say you care, but what you do is no better than what Ryan does. You dump me in a strange place I don’t know with a few bills and expect me to fend for myself the whole weekend? I’m better off staying at home kicking stones with my neighbors, waiting for my dad to arrive.”
She has a point, and it kills me. I want her to be argumentative and cunning, and she excels in my class even when we’re not in session.
“You know the implications,” I say without turning my back to look at her.
“I’m aware, and I’m responsible enough to face them.” There’s a grin in that voice, and I’d like to wipe it. With my lips all over hers.
Finally, I spin on my heels, slow.
“No one can see us together.” My voice is steel.
“No one will.” She gives me half a shrug. “But we’re not staying on the boat today. I’m taking you on a ride.”
“Do you know how to drive?” I cock an eyebrow.
“No, but you’re going to teach me, Teach.”
I’d never been in a vehicle like Pierce’s before I met him. I was used to beat-down cars and things that looked like you dragged them out of a junkyard. The seats here smell like real leather, and the a/c seeps chill to my bones. I choke the steering wheel like it wronged me somehow, my knuckles snow white. I stare ahead, afraid to let my eyes wander left or right.
Dad is too busy to teach me how to drive, and Ryan would never entertain himself with the idea of giving me a tool to independence, so I’ve never had a chance to learn how to do it before.
“Any pointers?” I ask as the GPS fires directions at me. I knew exactly where I wanted to go after I convinced him to spend the day with me. It ticked all the boxes. No one was going to spot us, and I’ve always wanted to visit there.
“First and obvious one is to breathe,” he mutters, seemingly entertained. “You look anxious.”
“I don’t want to ruin your car. It’s really expensive.”
“It was your idea to drive it.”
“Ideas seem better in theory than in practice,” I admit.
“You should keep that in mind next time you try to seduce your educator.”
“Not the same thing.” I tsk. “I’m very much on board with being with you, Mr. James. I think we both need this distraction in our lives.”
After we agreed on the place we wanted to go to, I grabbed my backpack that Pierce had managed to grab from my room before he ushered me to his car last night. It contains my most important possession—my camera. Other than that, Pierce went to a food mart down the road before we hit the road and bought us food for the trip. Basic stuff. Plastic-wrapped sandwiches, chips, and soda. Everything is thrown in the backseat as we zip through the golden roads and dusty mountains.
An hour after we start driving, Pierce tells me to pull over.
He wants to drive the remainder of the way to St. Thomas, the ghost town that was demolished by the very Lake Mead his boat floats on. It’s an historic site I always wanted to see, but Ryan never wanted to go, and Dad was always on the road. The last thing he wanted to do on his days off was more driving.
I take a sharp right to the shoulder of the deserted road. There is something naked and intimate about sharing the desert with no one but him. No one can see or hear us here. We can get away with anything.
With everything.
With what I want to be able to do with him every. Single. Day.
I unbuckle my seatbelt, throw the door open, and hop out. He does the same, sans the jumping, because Pierce is like six two. I walk around the car and meet him halfway by the trunk. Our shoulders brush, and he clasps my arm out of nowhere. My eyes shoot up and meet his. He squeezes my bicep lightly.
“What’s your game, Remington Stringer?”
I shake my head. “Just a poor girl from the wrong part of town trying to claw her way out. What’s your secret, Pierce James?”
“I have no secrets.” His throat bobs with a swallow.
“Bullshit. You already have me, and I’m a secret. What’s your other one? The one that’s eating you alive? You’re not the first privileged person I’ve met. But you are the first who’s tried to save me.”
He doesn’t answer. I shake my arm away from him.
“If you want to touch me, make it good for me.”
“I don’t want to touch you.”
“Is that why you jerked off after I fingered myself yesterday?”
“How the fuck would you know that?”
“You let out a groan I heard from across the room. You’re lucky I didn’t open the door to help you finish the job. I’m patient, Mr. James. But I have my limits, too.”
“We should make a U-turn,” he snaps.
“We’ve already gone way too far to go back now,” I say, and I’m not just talking about St. Thomas.
The rest of the drive is silent. I clutch my camera to my chest and look at my surroundings, snapping pictures all the while. I’ve never come face-to-face with nature before. It’s always been concrete and dirt for me, from day one. And I decide here and there that I want more of what life with Pierce James would offer, even if he isn’t offering.
When we get to St. Thomas, he parks the car, and we both step out. It used to be populated by Mormon settlers in the mid to late 1800s before the waters of Lake Mead submerged it. The lake lowered back in the early 2000s, and the town resurfaced from its watery grave. We walk around for a while, taking in the crumbled beige remains of the town’s buildings. It’s crazy to think they were under water and stayed somewhat intact until just fifteen years ago. The desert wind is hot, and it moans against my skin. I peel off my top, but I’m in my sports bra, so it’s no big deal. It looks more like a cropped shirt than anything else. We don’t speak much. But it’s a comfortable silence. We don’t need words. I think we are both reveling in the feeling of being with each other like this.
“The Chamber of Commerce looks like a hand giving you the finger,” I comment dryly, and Pierce chuckles beside me. I shrug. “It’s true.”
Click, click. I take some pictures of what’s left of the building. Nature has a way of destroying beautiful things. I wonder if that’s what happened to Ryan. If he was ruined or if he himself corrupts others. Or maybe both.
“You let your imagination run wild,” Pierce comments, tucking his hands inside his pockets. He is athletic. I can see it now. Bulging biceps and a broad back. He’s wearing khaki pants and a black V-neck shirt I would love to rip off of him. That means that he has some clothes on the boat, I realize, since he was wearing something else last night. My mind does run wild.
What if he stays the night again?
What if this time we sleep together?
“Where I come from, dreaming is what saves you.” I kick a little rock. We’re not really going anywhere, but we keep walking.
“And where I come from, too many dreams destroy you,” he says bitterly. I perk up. He’s never said anything about his past, present, or future to me before. “How so?”
“Well, you know the term helicopter parents? In Orange County, they are pretty much F-16 parents. They will push you to be better than the neighbor’s kid, no matter the price. Even if the price is the sanity of your child.”
“Am I supposed to feel bad for you?” I snort and immediately regret it. I don’t know his story. All I know is that something went wrong along the way. Pierce James is not a happy man. He is gorgeous, feared, and well-liked, and smiles so rarely.
“Giving you the pros and cons of every situation,” he says, undeterred by my attitude.
“Forever the debate teacher,” I say, which is again, dumb. I shouldn’t be reminding him that he is my teacher. I should be making him forget.
“Bad things happen in neighborhoods like mine,” I tell him, changing the subject.
“Bad things happen in families like mine,” he retorts, sighing.
We stop in the middle of nowhere, nothing but dust and dirt for miles. His stare makes me feel uncomfortable, and I shrug it off by smiling, but that just makes his brooding expression grow even madder.
“Are you having sex with your stepbrother?” he asks.
“What the fuck!” I push him away, my palms slapping against his chest. I spin on my heels and power-walk toward the car. What a prick. Who asks that kind of question, anyway? I race back to where we came from, but Pierce is taller and faster than me. He grabs my shoulder and spins me around. I lose it. Every ounce of self-control that’s left in me.
“Get the hell away from me!” I growl. His eyes are blank. He doesn’t give a damn about my little hissy fit.
“It’s a yes or no question, Remington.”
“Why do you care? You’re just my teacher, right?”
“We both know that’s not true.”
“Then what are we?” I put one hand over my jutted hip, my body language seductive, but my tone betrays me. I’m annoyed and embarrassed, but most of all, ashamed.
“You don’t get to ask me questions before you answer mine.”
“Why, because you’re my teacher?”
“No, because I’m a lot more than your teacher.”
That shuts me up. The nerve he has takes me by surprise. I want to laugh in his face. To tell him that he’s tripping, but he is right. He is a lot more than my teacher, and we haven’t even touched each other yet.
I wet my lips and huff. “I’m not sleeping with my stepbrother.”
“Have you ever?”
“No.”
“Have you done anything else inappropriate with him?”
“No.”
“At all?”
“We’ve kissed,” I admit, feeling blush crawling up my neck and settling in my cheeks. Even the roots of my hair are burning with shame. Jesus Christ. Why must I be such a fuck-up?
“When?”
“A day before school started.”
“Did you like it?”
I shrug. No point lying. But that was way before I knew of his existence.
“Are you seeing anyone else?” He is asking now, his voice strained. He takes a step toward me. It’s almost invisible. Like he floated toward me. But he is close. Closer than he’s ever been.
“No,” I answer. “You?”
“No,” he says.
Silence. Our lust is thick and heavy in the air. It’s not just me, I know. It’s us. He wants to kiss me. He wants me to seduce him. Wants to pin this on me. Not this time. This time, he will own up to wanting me. To wanting this.
“What are we?” I whisper. I inch closer to him. Just a tad. Lean forward. Feel him. Smell him. I can almost taste him. This man…this man is salvation.
“I don’t know,” he admits, the tip of his nose touching mine for a brief moment.
“Me neither.”
“But whatever it is,” his hand moves in my peripheral, but I d
on’t dare disconnect my gaze from his, “it’s already happening, and I can’t make it stop.”
Just like that, his mouth comes crushing down on mine. It’s feral, and wild, and completely insane. He fists my hair in a way no one has ever done before, in a way a man would, deepening our kiss. My mouth parts for him instinctively. He walks me back, and I’m losing my balance until my back hits his scorching hot car. It burns, and I couldn’t care less. I grab his face with both hands and allow our tongues to dance together frantically. They’re swirling, teasing, chasing each other, saying so many things we aren’t able to say in class.
Pierce James is kissing me.
Pierce James wants me.
Pierce James is going to be mine.
I chant this in my head to make it more real, but it still feels like a dream. Like I could wake up at any moment—like I do any other school day—and find my hand shoved inside my panties and a confused, sleepy, disappointed expression on my face.
I decide to test reality. If this really is not a dream, he won’t let me to take it any further. I know it. I lift my legs and wrap them around his waist.
He lets me.
His raging hard-on presses against my navel, and I moan loudly when I realize that I’ve never had such a vivid dream in my entire life.
“Pinch me,” I cry out into his mouth. It’s ridiculous, but I need it to be true.
He doesn’t answer me. Just grabs me by the jaw and plunges his delicious tongue into my mouth again.
“Pinch me,” I say again. And this time, he presses his firm body against mine—he is all tight abs and manhood—captures my lower lip between his teeth and pulls it slowly to a point of delicious pain before he frees it.
I sigh.
I would wake up from something like this.
But I didn’t.
It’s really happening.
“I’m going to hell for this,” he says.
“I’ll follow you down.”
I have six missed calls, which I don’t bother checking until we get back to the boat. Remington hopped into the shower, not before offering me to join her. I drew the line there. It had to be somewhere, after all.
Two from my mother. She could wait. Two from Shelly—she probably ran out of food and cigarettes—one from Guy, a friend I see once in a blue moon for the odd beer just to prove to the world that I’m still alive, and one is from the private investigator I hired to bring Remington’s brother down.
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