“What’s for dinner? It smells good,” I ask when he eventually pulls back. I didn’t have time to eat before going to the house, and I’ve been in class or the library all day trying to keep on top of everything.
“Take a seat.” He points towards his tiny two-seater table and pulls out a chair for me just before I get there. “It’s not much,” he admits, pouring me a glass of wine.
“I don’t care. It’ll be perfect.”
I watch his ass as he bends to open the oven and burst out laughing when I see him pull a takeout pizza box from inside.
“I can’t cook for shit,” he admits, lowering the box to the table. “It was delivered two minutes before you got here. But before we go any further,” he says, stopping my hand from reaching for the box. “I need to ask you something, and no pressure but the answer could put our relationship in jeopardy.”
My eyes fly to his as panic washes through me. What’s happened? Have we been seen? A million and one questions hit me all at once.
“What’s your stance on pineapple on pizza?”
Letting out a huge sigh of relief, I laugh to myself. “I love it. I thought you were about to ask me something much more serious.”
“What’s more serious than pineapple on a pizza?” he asks with a wink. He knows just as well as I do that isn’t our biggest issue right now, but not wanting to bring down his mood, I keep my mouth shut.
A stomach full of pizza along with a glass of wine too many after the long day I’ve had means I end up falling asleep on Josh’s chest as we sit and watch old sitcoms on the TV. I feel bad that all his romance and my outfit have gone to waste, but as he carries me to his bedroom and begins stripping me out of my clothes I can’t help but let a sigh of contentment slip from my lips.
Lowering me onto the bed, he hovers over me, his palms resting either side of my head. I blink up at him, my eyelids heavy with sleep as a look of pure adoration fills his face.
“You can’t possibly imagine how much you mean to me,” he whispers, his warm palm cupping my cheek as he stares into my eyes. “Whatever happens in the coming months, I need you to know that I’m not letting you go. We’re meant to be, and no one is going to get in the way of that.”
Tears pool in my eyes at his words. I know he means every single one. I can feel it.
“I love you,” I whisper, no longer able to keep it held in.
“I know.” His forehead rests on mine and our breaths mingle. “I know and I love you, too.”
Standing, he pulls his shirt over his head before dropping his pants and boxers to the floor. Sliding in behind me, he pulls the covers over both of us before his hand sneaks between my legs as his lips kiss across my shoulder blade.
“I need to be inside you, Madison.”
The movement of his fingers wakes up my entire body, and I moan as he uses a little more pressure.
Once I’m ready for him, he pulls my back tight against his chest and slowly, painfully slowly, slides into me from behind. Sparks shoot around my body as his slow movement alights all my nerves.
He keeps his thrusts torturously slow as he makes love to me. It’s so different from all the times before, the hard and fast fucking, usually because we’re desperate not to get caught. This isn’t about sex, it’s not about the pleasure…it’s about the act, the two of us uniting. The promise that this, us, is right. That no matter what the future holds we’ll fight it together, because this is how it should be.
When I come, it’s gentler than I’m used to as wave after wave of powerful pleasure washes through me. Biting down on the delicate skin of my shoulder, Josh follows a few moments later, filling me with everything he has.
* * *
It’s become a tradition that I’ll sit out on a bench during lunch if the weather’s good, and if he can get away, Josh will come and join me. We do our best to make it look inconspicuous but I’ve no idea if we’re really pulling it off. I guess the fact that no one’s questioned us yet means we’re doing okay.
“Hey, I didn’t think you were going to make it,” I say when I sense him sit next to me. Turning to look, my mouth drops open. “King, what are you doing here?”
“Why? Expecting someone else?” His eyebrow lifts as if he knows something and my heart starts to race. Not feeling hungry all of a sudden, I put my sandwich down and try to sound convincing when I say, “No, not at all.”
“Bullshit. You want to tell me what’s going on, Mads?”
“There’s nothing going on.”
“Oh, really?”
“Really.” My eyes are pleading with him to stop. I’m so desperate to talk to someone about everything that I’m scared it’ll just fall from my lips if he presses me too much.
“So, there’s nothing going on between you and Mr. Henderson? You’re going to tell me it’s all in my head.”
“Wha…uh…wh…why would you think that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen you leaving his office not once but twice,” he holds up two fingers just to ram the point home, “looking like a hot mess. You’re never at home, Stacy is worried sick and mentioned you keep sneaking off in the middle of the night. And when I followed you, where should you end up but at Mr. Henderson’s apartment.”
“Shhhhh,” I say in panic when his accusations start getting louder. “Okay, fine. So maybe there is something.”
“For fuck’s sake, Mad. You could have just told me.”
“I couldn’t. I can’t. If people find out then…” I trail off. I don’t need to spell it out for King; he’s not stupid.
“I knew you fancied him, but fucking him, really? I thought you were better than that.”
I want the ground to swallow me up. One of my best friends is looking at me like I’m some kind of cheap whore.
A sob erupts and I lift my hands to cover my face as it all gets too much. The last few weeks have been intense to say the least, and having to keep it all a secret has been weighing down on me more than I think I realized.
“I’m so sorry,” I wail.
I feel King’s arms wrap around my shoulder and he pulls me into him. “Hey, it’s okay. We all make mistakes.”
“Mistakes?” I ask, dropping my hands and staring at him, my eyes wide in shock. “This isn’t a mistake.” My voice has thankfully lost its quiver from moments ago. “This isn’t just some quick fuck to help me get the grade, King. I’m in love with him.”
“Oh, fuck off. Now you’re just being stupid.” His eyes roam around my face, I guess looking for signs that I’m lying. I couldn’t be speaking truer words.
“King, I’m serious. I’m in love with him and—” My words are cut off when someone else speaks.
“What’s going on?”
Turning at the same time, we take in the angry eyes of our teacher. King immediately pulls his arm away from me and scoots to the other end of the bench.
“It’s nothing, Sir.”
“Madison’s crying. That isn’t nothing.” I can see he’s trying his hardest not to walk over and pull me into his arms. His fists are clenching and unclenching at his sides as the muscle in his neck pulsates.
“Josh, it’s okay,” I say soothingly when he starts to step towards King, his intentions clear in his eyes. “He knows,” I whisper.
His mouth drops before he turns to look at me. “How?”
“Because he’s my friend and he’s worried about me.”
“It wasn’t all that hard to figure out.”
I watch as Josh’s eyes widen as his panic sets in.
“He won’t say anything. Will you, King?”
He looks between the two of us before stepping up to Josh, their noses almost touching. They’re both as wide as each other so I wouldn’t want to put money on either of them if they were to start fighting. “If you hurt her, I’ll come for you,” he warns before reaching down to grab his bag and walking off.
I watch as Josh’s chest drops when he lets out a huge breath. “Fuck,” he spits,
shoving his hands into his hair and looking up at the sky. “Fuck.”
Josh
I knew it was inevitable, but hearing Madison say the words I’d convinced myself I’d never hear, never had to worry about, I feel like the world has been pulled out from under me.
He knows.
He knows.
He knows.
If he knows, who else knows, or thinks they know something? I see everything I’ve worked towards flash before my eyes as I fall down on to the bench I was walking to not so long ago. I’ve been telling myself that as long as I have her, consequences be damned. That was easy to say when I was living in our perfect little bubble.
The feeling of her hand running up and down my back eventually brings me from my nightmare.
“It’ll be okay. He won’t say anything,” she reassures once again, but it does little to calm me down. “Tell me what to do. How can I make this better?”
“You can’t. I was foolish to believe I could have everything.”
“You can, Josh. You can have all this and me. I’m yours, I’ll do whatever you need.”
“I can’t. We can’t. This, all of this…it was just a dream. I’m sorry, Madison. I can’t do this.”
Getting up and walking away from her is the hardest thing I think I’ve ever done in my life. The pain is physical and only gets worse the farther away from her I get.
I hear her calls, her pleas for me to come back, but I can’t. I can’t ruin our futures because of a stupid fantasy I had over five years ago.
Walking back into the office, I sweep the papers I was grading up off the desk, grab my bag and march out again. Freeman is going to have to go it alone this afternoon. I can’t be here.
Madison
My stomach turns over as I watch him walk away from me. This can’t be happening. He told me that no matter what, that this was it; that we were it, but, at the first sign of trouble, he’s gone. I believed every single word that fell from his lips. Not once have I even considered he’d walk away from this, what we have.
Feeling a sob climbing up my throat, I grab my stuff, throw what’s left of my lunch in the trash and head for home.
I pack as much as I can into my small case before throwing it into the trunk of my car and getting the hell away from this place. It’s only two days until fall break. I can’t imagine I’ll miss all that much. Not that there’s any chance I could sit in a classroom with him looking like everything is right in his world while mine is crumbling beneath my feet.
“Madison, what are you—” Shelly’s words falter as I storm through the entrance hall of my parents’ home and rush towards my bedroom. I drop my stuff to the floor before pulling my curtains closed, knowing that if I look out, all I’ll be able to picture is him in his window looking back at me like he told me he’d done so many times before. It’s not until I collapse onto my bed that I allow myself to break.
I scream my pain into the pillow as my tears soak the fabric and my heart shatters into a million pieces. I should have known this was all going to end in disaster. Who in their right mind has a fling with their teacher and comes out of it in one piece?
When I hear a light knock on my door, I pull my face from the pillow and look at the clock. Shit, two hours have gone by.
“Madison, can I come in?” Shelly asks softly.
Wiping my cheeks dry, I call out and the door opens immediately. Glancing up through my wet eyelashes, I see she has a tray in her hands.
“I thought you might need some sugar. It always helps a broken heart.”
I sob once again but no tears fall. I think I’ve run out.
Placing the tray down on the sideboard, she sits next to me and wraps an arm around my shoulder. “Your parents are out of town for a few days, sweetheart.”
I nod. It’s all I’m capable of. I’m not sure if I came here to see them or for the peace, but I guess it’s the latter I’ll be getting.
“Would you like to talk about it?” Looking up into her familiar blue eyes, my breath catches and my chin trembles.
“I’ve fallen in love with someone I shouldn’t have, and he left me. I’ve fallen in love with your son.”
* * *
Thankfully Shelly didn’t ask any more questions, and once she was confident I was okay, she left me to my misery—no doubt to call Josh and have a few words about what he’s been up to with his students.
I turned my phone off the moment I got here, and other than watching a bit of TV, I’ve been totally disconnected with the world for the last two days. It’s exactly what I need; it’s just a shame it can’t last forever. At some point, I’m going to have to reconnect and try to hold my head high as I walk into class. The thought sends pain shooting through me…watching him pace back and forth at the front of the room, sitting in the office where so much has happened as we talk about my progress.
That’s enough to have me pulling up a webpage and looking into the possibility of changing colleges. I don’t want to drop out and have the last two years mean nothing. Even if I have to take the rest of the year off and restart next fall, it wouldn’t be much of a hardship; I’ve no idea what I want to do after I graduate anyway, so maybe another year is exactly what I need.
I’m reading some posts on a student forum when the doorbell rings. I expect to hear Shelly’s footsteps but the house is silent. Letting out a huff and putting my laptop on the coffee table in front of me, I head towards the front door and pull it open without much thought.
The second I see him I try to shut it again, but he’s faster than me.
“Madison, please,” he begs as he pushes against the solid wood. Knowing I don’t have the strength, mentally or physically, to keep him out, I allow him to enter.
Walking back to the couch and curling my legs underneath me, I sit and wait for what he has to say, the whole time trying not to get my hopes up or allow my heart to run away with itself.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have walked away from you like that.” He sits next to me, his thigh pressing against my knee as he squeezes my hands in his. “I panicked. I know that’s not a good enough reason, but it’s all I have. You not being there the last few days, looking at your empty desk...It made me realize that I walked away from the wrong thing. That’s just a job, Madison. I can get another; I can do something else if it means we can be together. I can’t lose you.”
I look over his familiar features as he stares at me. Hope that he hasn’t ruined what we had pours from his dark and tired eyes.
“I won’t allow you to give up your dream.”
“You’re my dream. All I want is you.”
“We both know you won’t be happy without your career. I can’t ask you to give that up.”
“You’re not asking. I’m doing it willingly.”
“You’re doing it because of me. It’s the same thing. I was just looking at changing colleges, I—”
“No way. You’re not going anywhere.”
“Then we’re back to the same issue. I’ll drop out.”
“No.”
“Josh, something’s got to give here. We can’t have it all.”
“Nothing in life worth having is easy, Madison. We’ll have to figure it out as we go, but one thing I’m certain of. I’m not losing you. Not now, and not ever.”
His hand comes to the back of my neck and he pulls me towards his lips. “It’s been way too long since I touched you.” His lips brush mine as he speaks. “Promise me you’re with me.”
“If you promise not to run again.”
“The next few months are going to be hard.”
“I can handle hard.”
“I know you can, sweetheart.”
Josh
I knew where she’d gone. It wasn’t hard to work it out when her desk sat empty but the second my phone rang and I saw Mom’s name, I knew something was up.
“Hey, Mom,” I answer as happily as I can manage given the circumstances.
“What the hell have you done?”
“Yes, right now.” It’s not like Mom to be harsh, so I fall back into my chair and prepare to hear her out. “What the hell were you thinking to turn your back on Madison? You’ve been obsessed with her for years; how can you walk away now?”
“What?”
“Don’t play coy with me. You think your father and I don’t know you only come to visit so you can play peeping tom?”
“Uh…yeah.”
“Joshua, I don’t care that she’s your student, I don’t care that it’s frowned upon or whatever, you get your backside over here right this second and sort this out. She’s over there broken. Do you hear me? BROKEN. Because of you. Be a man and sort it out.”
I haven’t had a telling off from my mother in years—probably well over a decade—but as she rants at me I feel like I’m a child again.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Knowing I couldn’t just leave then and there was torture. I had classes to teach and students depending on me.
The second I finish for fall break, I’m on a bus and heading towards home.
I knew I’d made a mistake the second I got off campus that day. I should have fought for what we had. It’s what I told her I would do, and instead of standing up for what we had, I walked away like a coward.
She had every right not to want to see me, but the second she opened the door and I looked into her eyes, I knew everything was going to be okay. She was still with me. I hadn’t lost her. We had to figure shit out and make a few sacrifices, but they’d all be worth it.
* * *
“Morning,” I say, rolling over and running my hand up her smooth stomach until I find her naked breast. Once we decided our future is together, we clumsily made our way up to her bedroom. It probably would have been much smoother if we weren’t so intent on getting each other naked before we even got to the room. The only time either of us left was to get food and drinks.
His Naughty Schoolgirl Page 5