by Aria Cole
CONTENTS
title
rights
description
one
two
three
four
five
six
seven
eight
epilogue
Under Pressure
description
one
two
three
acknowledgements
about the author
also by Aria Cole
PERFECT CHEMISTRY
ARIA COLE
Perfect Chemistry
Copyright © 2017 by Aria Cole
Cover Design: Sybil at PopKitty Design
Editing: Silently Correcting Your Grammar
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage
Devon Walsh is the chemistry teacher at the local high school, and in all his years teaching, he's never looked at a student inappropriately. Until Karoline Kingston steps through his door, with the body of a goddess and innocent eyes that beguile him. He's distracted throughout class but vows to keep his distance, despite every primal urge telling him to take her hard and mark her as his own.
Karoline and Devon count down the days until she's eighteen and Mr. Walsh can finally touch the woman that he's been waiting for his entire life. But when he finds another student assaulting her in a dark hallway, Devon loses his mind with rage. Threatening to expose the risky road Karoline and Devon had found themselves on, he vows to protect Karoline no matter the cost.
(Note:) Previously released as part of the Hot For Teacher Anthology.
ONE
Devon
"Welcome to your first day of chemistry." My voice echoed around the room as I scanned their eyes.
Overachievers, cheerleaders, gamers, and jocks as far as the eye could see. There was a time I thought I'd never get sick of this job, but imagine spending your entire day with obnoxious, hormonal teenagers. The high school stereotypes were alive and vibrant in these kids. At some point, I'd been foolish enough to think teaching was like excavating precious stones. This was the next generation, these kids had potential coursing through their veins, so why were they all so irritating?
A single hand shot up in the air.
"Yes?"
"What's the deal with bathroom passes? I gotta go." The idiot shook his ass in his chair, and half of the class erupted into laughter.
"Get it done in the five minutes you have between classes. No passes allowed."
"But that's got to violate some health code or something."
"If you've got to go, go, but you can head to the principal's office after. Now who else has a question?"
A wave of heads shook back and forth.
Damn, I loved the first day of class. These kids needed a little fear of failure if they were going to achieve anything, and sadly, the vast majority of their blank stares told me not to get my hopes too high.
I turned to the board behind me and wrote Devon Walsh in clean, block type.
“I go by Mr. Walsh. This is the start of my sixth year teaching, and I have very little patience for idiocy.” I shot the first offender a pointed glance. “Now I want to know about you. Name, age, chemistry experience, and go."
I pointed at the desk closest to me. The meek young woman's eyes widened for a moment before she started.
I nodded at her and quickly diverted my eyes to the next desk. One never knew what kind of strange and vicious rumors could start within the minds of the young, and I didn’t want to become tangled in that kind of dramatic lunacy.
My gaze finally landed on the final desk in the front row. A pair of shimmery ocean-blue eyes rimmed in dark lashes startled me out of my first-day stupor. Those eyes were soft and haunting, all in one beautiful blue color that would put the most pristine ocean to shame. I found myself flooded with a strange new desire. I was never won over by youth and its trappings, so my reaction to this girl shocked and amazed me.
"I'm Karoline;" she breathed, eyes still locked with mine. "Seventeen."
Her voice was like a bat to my gut. Her tone was low and throaty, as though she were a little older than her sweet face led me to believe. My eyes flicked down her body for a minute before I caught myself. But that body was not the body of a seventeen-year-old. It was lush and soft and my hand itched to touch her ever so gently yet possessively.
What was I doing thinking this way about a student? But she wasn’t just any student. She radiated something special, unique, and far wiser than her seventeen years. Shit, had she really said only seventeen?
"Chemistry experience?" I asked.
I saw her lips moving, but I didn't hear a damn word coming out of her mouth. She adjusted her long, curly hair as she spoke, the high neckline of her shirt doing not a thing to conceal the generous breasts stretching the thin fabric. The way the threads hugged her soft flesh made my cock pound. She was beautiful and so much more poised than any of the students I'd taught here.
Something burned deep in my stomach as I felt the urge to pull this girl into my arms and shelter her from all the ugliness this world had in store for her.
I registered her lips had stopped moving and I nodded, regretting instantly that I'd missed learning a single thing about her. I couldn't believe that the first woman to make me feel anything in years, if ever, was off-limits, both morally and legally. I saw how the other boys in the class looked at her. I had been their age once, so I knew the sexual desires that pulsed through a young man. Rage rushed through me at the idea of these boys thinking such thoughts about her. They had no right to fantasies about someone who wasn’t theirs.
The next student began to speak and I pretended to listen, crossing my arms and leaning against the desk directly in front of Karoline.
Karoline.
What a name. So elegant and classic, so much like her beauty. My eyes flicked back to the berry-stained red of her full lips, to her high cheekbones that rose even higher when she smiled.
And damn if I didn't want to make her smile today, tomorrow, and every day after that.
I'd never been so consumed by a woman in my life. For years I'd focused solely on my career, avoiding so much as a date. Even my lack of sexual encounters, compared to other men my age, was ridiculous. I tended to find women callous and undesirable, and I’d always longed for something more, something unique. I had never met a woman who captured my attention, so while I could have been like my friends and just satisfied an urge, I found emotional and sexual desire interconnected. That emotional connection was too much of a draw for me to just randomly give my body away.
I crossed my legs at the ankles as students prattled on, my eyes drawn to the white sneakers laced at her feet, then up the curve of her golden calves. Fuck, she was so beautiful. I wanted to lay her out on my desk and bite every inch of her succulent flesh, leaving my mark on her. I wanted everyone to know that she was spoken for. That their desires were wasted and unwanted.
My thoughts halted. I needed to maintain my composure.
I swallowed the lump of excitement in my throat, averting my eyes before she could catch me looking at her. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen her walking the halls before now, but I guessed that just proved how deeply in a hole I tended to bury myself. Head down, eyes in a book, focus, focus, focus. The life I’d been leading the last few years suddenly felt pathetic and hollow.
But it was probably for the best that I hadn’t noticed her before. The last thing I needed was a record of inappropriate behavior; I'd worked too hard to avoid that. I'd have to find a way to get along the rest of the semester somehow, but God knew it wouldn't be easy.
I didn’t know if I would be strong enough.
For the first time in my life, I was obsessed with a woman.
TWO
Karoline
I shifted in my seat, every hair on the back of my neck tingling as I felt eyes eating up my body.
I'd developed over the past few months. I was still the same Karoline Kingston, too smart, too tall, too everything to be a part of the “in” crowd. I'd shot up early in my school years, towering over all the boys, but my curves had taken until now to fill out. Seemingly overnight, I went from being invisible to being too visible.
I scratched at the high neck of my shirt, feeling choked and claustrophobic from the too-high neckline. I’d never had to wear a high neckline before, but the possibility of showing cleavage at school turned my stomach. I felt caged. I had become an animal that needed to adapt to survive. I was scared of all the teenage hormones lurking in the hallways and desperate for any sort of camouflage that would save me. I’d never really had any interest in boys, their immature humor and unkind personalities always a turn-off. I also lacked friends, as most girls mocked me or attempted to embarrass me publicly.
"Can you pass these around, please?"
Mr. Walsh. My heart somersaulted before I took the stack of syllabi from his hands. My fingertips brushed against his golden knuckles, and I felt that touch in places I'd never felt before.
"Of course."
His eyes flared with my reply. Oh my god, had I pissed him off already? He was so abrasive and intimidating, the intense depth of his gaze rattling me to my bones.
I stood, cowering inwardly when I realized I'd have to walk through all the rows of desks and see every single one of my classmates. And they would see me. The boys would have a perfect view of everything I so desperately tried to hide.
I swallowed and pulled my cardigan tighter around my shoulders to better hide my new curves, my hands shaking as I hurried to button it.
"Lookin' good, Kari." One of the boys I'd grown up with winked at me.
I nodded with a grimace.
I hated this attention, hated being viewed sexually. What about what was inside my head and my heart? Where were the boys who were turned on by brains over beauty? Was I foolish to hope for that in high school?
"Hey, Kari, busy Friday night?" Shawn, one of the class troublemakers, made an hourglass shape with his palms, then pretended to thrust his hips as I passed.
I nearly threw up. I tossed the remaining papers on his desk, then stomped back to my seat, surprised to find Mr. Walsh still standing where I'd left him. His eyes assessed me with a worried frown.
He bent his head, his frown deepening as I reached him, making shame and guilt and fear mix in my stomach in a dizzying blend.
I dropped my gaze to the floor as I sat and twisted my feet at my ankles, shame burning my cheeks and my shoulders strung tight with anxiety. That clock couldn't tick by fast enough. I wanted to run away so fast that the wind couldn’t even catch me.
"I'm letting you out ten minutes early, but read over the syllabus so we can go over any questions you have tomorrow, and read the first three chapters tonight."
"Three?" A chorus of kids booed behind me.
"I'm giving you a jump-start." Mr. Walsh's eyes darted to the clock with a shrug.
Metal screaming across linoleum shredded my ears as I stood, gathering my notebook and syllabus.
"Can I have a word?" Mr. Walsh crooned next to me.
My heart fell in an anxious splatter at my feet. What could he possibly want with me? Was this about what Shawn had said? Or had I pissed him off in some other way?
My eyes caught his gaze. "Sure."
He really was a beautiful man. Dark bronze skin with a smattering of stubble covering the sharp line of his jaw. For the first time ever, I was drawn to someone, and to my horror, he was my teacher. Even though Mr. Walsh couldn’t have been more than thirty, being attracted to him was still risky, but shockingly, I didn’t seem to care.
He was beautiful, but there was something more behind his dark eyes, rimmed with lashes so thick it almost looked as if he drew on kohl in the morning. My muscles tensed with aroused excitement. He was mysterious, moody, a little rough around the edges, and all man.
He crossed his arms and leaned back against his desk , pulling my gaze to the broad expanse of his body. His biceps were outlined by the tailored cut of his shirt. The buttons trailing down to the waist of his slacks made me want to run my fingers down his body and pop each button carefully, exposing what lay underneath.
Mr. Walsh waited for the rest of the class to clear out before speaking. "I want you to know I heard what he said. If it happens again, he will be excused from my class permanently."
My eyes widened as shame flooded my cheeks. "No, I don't want that. Then the teasing will never stop."
His lips twitched before he stood to his full height and placed a hand on my forearm. "I won't have anyone bullying anyone in this class. You tell me if he so much as looks at you funny and I’ll take care of him. Got that?"
I nodded, hardly registering his words and only feeling the touch of his fingertips on my skin. What was this thing burning between us, and why did it feel as though the air was pregnant with unspoken words? "Thank you, Mr. Walsh."
His eyebrow rose when I said his name before he dropped his hand from my arm. I missed his touch instantly. His fingerprints felt branded into my flesh. What would it feel like to really have his hands on me? His lips trailing across my skin, hands in my hair as we…
"See you tomorrow, Karoline." His gravelly voice shot starbursts through my veins.
"Yes, sir," I replied, because I didn't know what else to say. I turned away from his powerful presence, feeling a little more hopeful for tomorrow's class.
At least I knew I had a teacher looking out for me, and he wasn't bad eye candy either.
THREE
Devon
I endured three days of torture before I had the chance to talk to her again.
Three days of going through the motions and trying my goddamn best not to think of her when all I wanted to do was cover Karoline with my body and kick all the inconsiderate assholes out of the room. When I’d asked her to pass out those sheets in class, I didn’t realize the rage that would burn inside me as the boys looked at her. I wanted to rip their pimple-faced heads right off their necks. She looked so sweet and brave, trying to hold her head high as they cat-called her. I’d had to dismiss the class early before the beast inside roared out to claim what was his. The animalistic feelings inside me were very new for me—new, raw, and confusing. All I knew was that Karoline was mine.
But she was bombarded by rampant hormones in all those boys, and I didn’t want her to feel threatened or scared by me. I couldn't control my thoughts, and she was too damn sexy to ignore. That wasn’t her fault, it was mine, and I was determined to master my impulses. She surely wouldn’t want me anyway. I was average-looking at best and so much older than she was.
I sighed when I stepped into class one rainy morning and found her there early, waiting patiently, her legs crossed beneath her desk and not another soul in the room to distract us.
Fuck.
"Morning," I growled, running a hand through my damp hair and doing my best to look anywhere but at her. I sounded like an asshole and it killed me to talk to her in any tone but kindness, but any inappropriate behavior could cost me everything.
"I had a few questions about last night's chapter. I thought you wouldn't mind if I came by early to ask?"
"You should have waited for class." I was angry, not at her but at myself. I couldn’t trust myself with her. Like a horny teenager, I was worried I'd push her against the wall and shove my tongue down her throat. This wouldn’t end well if I wasn’t careful.
Christ, how I wanted to taste her.
Feel the silk of her skin under my hands, caress her body with my fingertips, and hear her whimper in helpless lust. I wanted her to feel the passion in my blood. I wanted her
to taste euphoria and know that in my arms, she had found heaven. I knew in my very soul that I wanted this girl to know she was my everything and nothing ugly could ever touch her.
"I’m sorry, I can go."
I closed my eyes against the sound of her sweet voice, desperately searching for the strength to keep my desires at bay. But she was my student, and I had a professional obligation to her.
I turned and got my first real fill of Karoline this morning. She'd stood from her desk, her long creamy legs crossed at the ankles as she waited on my answer. She crossed her arms, plumping up her large tits, which already begged for my gaze thanks to the fat raindrops decorating the white fabric of her shirt.
The neckline wasn't as high as the first few days of class, and when she crossed her arms, the round flesh of her breasts spilled over the cotton. The deep V of her cleavage drove me goddamn mad with lust. She seemed to notice and quickly dropped her arms, attempting to hide the roundness of her breasts from my view. But that image had already been ingrained in my mind, wild and untamed, and the fire in my loins burned even more fervently.
Had she been sent here to torment me?
"Don't go." I turned back to my desk and sat down before adjusting my throbbing cock.
I'd have to teach from behind my desk all day if those raindrops didn't dry quickly. Like little windows into her generous chest, I couldn't keep my eyes off them. I wanted to run my hands up her waist, then lick each droplet until her nipples were so hard they'd cut fucking ice. Only then would I peel that top off and fuck her until she didn't know whose breath she was breathing.
"You don't mind?" She set her textbook on my desk, open to a page from the night’s reading.
I rubbed a palm over my face. I should have relieved myself in the bathroom this morning, but how did I know it was going to rain and she would show up early, wearing white and looking like a beautiful kitten begging for my help?