Next he drew Eleanor Stannard to her feet. “Eleanor, I hope you’ll continue with the team speaking and debates with the boys’ school. Don Shaw and you make a good team.” She blushed at the mention of his name. She hadn’t told anyone that she was planning to resign at the end of the year, and so was Don Shaw. When Adam kissed her she had a sudden overwhelming desire to kiss him back and hug him. If it hadn’t been for Adam she and Don would have remained like ships in the night.
When Dee Taylor sprang to her feet Adam said, “Kyle Rudd tells me that you’re planning joint sporting fixtures with the boys, beginning with mixed tennis doubles.”
“Yes,” she replied. “And I’m teaching him yoga.” When he kissed her she whispered into his ear, “Thank you for everything.”
He hesitated before holding out his hand to Annette Woolf, but she took it and impulsively kissed him on the cheek. He smiled. “Not afraid of me anymore?” he said, raising a quizzical eyebrow.
“It was never you I was afraid of,” she quietly admitted.
He hugged her. “I hope it’s the beginning of a new life for you,” he said as he placed the lei round her neck.
“It is – and thank you,” she said.
Lauren Mathews accepted the lei a little tearfully. She’d got used to having him around.
“Thank you for giving me an insight into how women think. I hope it will make me more understanding,” he said. “I trust I haven’t done anything that might worsen your impression of men, and that you’ll find someone worthy of you.”
“On the contrary, I think you might have changed my mind about men in general,” she confessed.
Kate O’Brien found it difficult to meet his eyes, wondering what he was going to say. After his frank sex talk with the girls they’d become more open with her instead of sniggering behind their hands. Some were even brave enough to admit they intended to remain virgins for as long as possible, instead of feeling as if it were a shameful secret. But when he put his hands on her shoulders she was forced to look up. “You won’t get through to all the girls,” he said. “Just concentrate on the ones that you can help. Make sure their self-esteem stays intact, that should give them the confidence to say, No.”
“I will. Your talk really helped and I’ll keep reminding them about what you said about how boys feel about sex.”
Hayley Price was entranced with her lei. She’d learned about lei’s in her student days and knew that lei’s from Ni'ihau were the purest and most expensive. “Thank you,” she whispered, fingering them lovingly. “These are from the ‘Forbidden Island’ are they not?”
“Yes. How do you know about the Forbidden Island?”
“Shells were one of my projects when I was a student. I really value this gift. I know it takes a picker many hours lying in the sand just to find enough shells for one short strand.”
“I’m glad you appreciate it.”
“I’ve got something for you,” she said. She went to the cupboard and drew out a cardboard tube and handed it to him. He carefully took out a roll of drawing paper and unrolled it to reveal a head and shoulders pencil sketch of him wearing his naval cap. But instead of the naval crest it had the school crest with ‘Head’ above it. It was a remarkable likeness that captured his air of authority tempered by his mischievous eyes. It was so unexpected that for a while no one spoke.
“I don’t know what to say,” he said.
Then everyone gathered round to say it for him. “It’s really very good.” “You’ve captured his personality.” “You must have it framed.” “Won’t you do one of me?”
He took her in his arms and hugged her. “I’m really honoured that you went to all that trouble.”
“I put it in the tube so it would travel without any problem,” she said.
“I’m pleased that you’re going to continue with the name tags,” he said. “It will help with the new intake of pupils – and also help the teachers understand a little about the personality of the pupils.”
“Yes. A lot can be learned through art and design,” she said, with her enigmatic smile.
Barbara Cook was next. Her catering service had grown and she was contemplating giving up teaching at the end of the school year. She had also been contacted by a publisher who had heard about her baking prowess. Adam didn’t need to take her hand as she was already standing before him, her top cut so low that Lisa didn’t know how Adam could avoid looking at her breasts when he placed the lei round her neck. But when he bent to kiss her on the cheek she turned her head and planted her mouth firmly on his. He was too much of a gentleman to recoil and he returned the kiss, lingering, sensual, but passionless.
Lisa saw Jenna Murray pick up her bag and slip out of the room.
When he finally managed to extricate himself she said unashamedly, her arms still snaked around his neck, “I’ve been waiting all year to do that.”
“In that case, I hope I didn’t disappoint you.”
She turned to the others. “Ladies, he’s a great kisser.”
“Thank you for the endorsement, Babs,” he said, grinning. “And congratulations on your cookery book - and your catering career. What’s the book going to be titled?”
“It’s just a working title – Babs Book of Better Baking.”
He took a sip of wine and picked up the remaining jewellery box from the coffee table. “Where’s Jenna?” he asked Lisa.
“I don’t know. I saw her slip out when you were kissing Barbara,” she said.
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
Jenna sat in Lisa’s office with her emotions in turmoil. She’d intended to go home, but something had stopped her – a sense of unfinished business. She sighed and picked up the brochure for St Mary’s that lay on Lisa’s desk. She opened it and turned to the photograph that Andy had taken of Adam sitting on the corner of his desk. He had the same mischievous grin she remembered from the first day he had walked into her life. She ran her fingers over the picture and smiled. The relationship that had begun in such a hostile manner had mellowed, but the simmering spark of what Jenna now recognised as sexual tension had prevented it from blossoming into a normal friendship. But now that he was leaving he was no longer a threat to her emotional well-being. Perhaps they could part as friends.
She heard his footsteps in the passage and glanced up as he walked in and quietly closed the door behind him. He looked at her for a long moment before asking, “Why did you run away?”
“I don’t know. I just didn’t want to say goodbye in front of everyone else.”
He held out the lei and she rose and went to him. He slipped it round her neck, “Aloha,” he said and kissed her on both cheeks. “Another time. Another place, Jenna.”
“Perhaps it wasn’t meant to be,” she whispered.
He gathered her in his arms and nestled her head on his shoulder. It felt so natural, as if she were wrapped in a blanket of protection, a feeling so comforting and yet so unfamiliar that it startled her. Her cold and distant father had taught her from an early age to be independent, to be the master of her own survival never having to rely on anyone, especially a man, for anything. She’d followed that teaching and never allowed anyone to expose her vulnerability. Her relationships with men had been more to do with her sexual power over them. But this time it was different.
He was watching the changing emotions on her face. “It would never have worked out between us, would it?” he said. “We’re like magnets, both attracting and repelling each other. A relationship between us would be like a wildfire, once ignited it could destroy anything in its path, until it finally died down and left only ashes. True love is like a fire in a warm hearth. It’s always ready to be stoked into flames.”
“Are we doomed to forever wonder what it would have been like?” she asked.
“There could never be a life for us together. You don’t belong on a cattle ranch in a school for troubled teens, even if it is in Hawaii. You’re too ambitious to follow me – and too competitive. Andrea can follow
you anywhere, and I know she loves you.”
“And I’m beginning to realise how much I love her. I hope you find someone Adam. I thought - we all thought - that Nicole might be the one.”
She saw a flash of pain in his eyes. “Nicole has her own demons to conquer. If she leaves Africa and Ruan of her own accord I’ll welcome her, but I don’t want to influence her decision.”
He touched her cheek softly. “Will you let me to do one thing?”
“What?”
“Allow me to let your hair down.” He slid the comb out of her hair and slipped it into his pocket. She tossed her head and her hair fell about her face and shoulders. “You should wear it down more often,” he said, running his hands through the silky tresses. His touch was electric; a spark ready to ignite with the slightest encouragement.
He looked longingly into her eyes. “Dare I kiss you?”
“What if you’re disappointed? What if what we think we have turns out to be a damp squib?”
“Then we won’t have lost anything.”
“And what if we start a wild fire?”
“I’m willing to risk it. What about you?” he said.
She trembled as his mouth moved towards hers, and when she didn’t reply he took it as assent. The soft sensual touch of his lips was the match that ignited the flame and she opened her mouth to receive his searching tongue. He tasted of wine and she wanted to drink more of it.
She slipped her arms inside his jacket, running her hands over the hard muscles of his back, feeling the sensual satiny lining of his jacket warm against her hands. He smelled of soap and aftershave, a man smell that was intoxicating for its unfamiliarity.
His hands moved down over her hips clasping her tightly against him. She felt his arousal and her own body responded, moving against him in a slow tantalizing rhythm.
He gasped brokenly, “Oh, God, Jenna, this was a mistake.”
She’d never felt such an urgent aching need, as if the months of sparring had all been foreplay and she’d been in a constant state of arousal, the forbidden attraction an unbearable sexual tension waiting for culmination. She pressed eagerly against him, her sexual senses so heightened that even the slightest friction was taking her closer to orgasm.
“Anyone could come in,” he whispered. “We’ve got to stop.” But even as he said it his hands were moving caressingly over her body, massaging, kneading; exciting her unendurably, knowing they might be discovered only serving to heighten her ardour.
His breathing was ragged gasps and she knew he was fighting to control the urges that threatened to overwhelm him. Stilling his body he pleaded, “Jenna, don’t move like that. Please, keep still or I’ll revert to being a fourteen-year-old.” He clung to her, his face buried in her hair as he tried to quell the need that threatened to spill. “This is exquisite torture,” he groaned.
But her physical resolve and control could not match his. Her every nerve craved to release the raging fire within her, a heat that spread to her breasts and surged into her face. She was moments from climaxing with no power or sense to stop herself, utterly incapable of resisting those few movements that finally culminated in moans of bliss as the waves deep inside her body grew and enveloped her, washing to every tingling nerve in her paralysed body. “Adam, oh, Adam,” she gasped. She gave a deep shudder and her legs would have buckled had he not been holding her so tightly.
The swelling in his groin was still pressing against her, his face wreathed in a yearning that was taking a superhuman effort to control and she felt guilty for taking her own orgasmic satisfaction.
When at last her ardour had subsided she relaxed against him, for the first time rid of the tension that had festered for so long, as if a raging thirst had finally been quenched. It was lust, pure and simple, and now she was satiated.
They held each other for a small eternity and she nestled her head against him as he twisted a lock of her hair in his fingers.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“That’s the best fun I’ve had with my clothes on,” she said, grinning up at him.
He laughed, and she too, started to laugh.
“I think this is the first time I’ve seen you laugh,” he said. “It suits you. You should do it more often.”
“Am I really that uptight?”
“Not anymore,” he said, stroking her hair.
“And what are you thinking?” she asked.
“I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”
She smothered her laughter in his chest. “I’m sorry. Am I a prick teaser?”
He kissed her hair. “I wouldn’t go as far as to say that, but you do like to be in control.”
Was he right? Was she a controller? He’d pleaded with her to stop, so why hadn’t she stopped? Was it her lack of self-control, her inability to resist her bodily urges, or was it her need to take control of him, to be in charge? Or had he allowed her to be in control? She thought of her previous boyfriends. All the relationships had ended in a battle of wills. Would it have been the same with Adam? Did she take her pleasure and leave? She’d exorcised her demons. She’d satisfied her hunger and now she was ready to leave.
It had not been the same as making love with Andy, taking their time, exploring each other’s bodies, lingering and enjoying each experience for what it was, and not merely for where it would lead, making it ultimately more enjoyable and satisfying – the difference between a lovingly made home-cooked meal in which time had been invested, and a takeaway that merely satisfied a hunger.
“D’you think you should go back to the staffroom before someone comes looking for you?” she asked.
“I can’t, at least for a while,” he said, looking down and buttoning his jacket.”
She grinned, and then cupping his face in her hands she brought it down and kissed him gently on the mouth. “Goodbye Adam. I hope everything works out for you.”
“Goodbye, Jenna.”
He watched her go across the foyer with her graceful gliding walk and out through the door without turning back – and out of his life forever.
***
Lisa looked once again at Adam’s wedding photograph and smiled at the radiance in Nicole’s face. The school for troubled teens would include animal therapy and Nicole was to be in charge. Both the loves in her life had come together.
Lisa placed the photograph back on the desk when she heard Jenna calling.
“Lisa, where did Adam keep the stapler?”
“Usually in the second drawer,” she said, going through to Jenna’s office. She opened the drawer and reached in the back. “What’s this,” she said, bringing out a small box. It was labelled ‘Jenna’ in Adam’s neat handwriting. “This must be for you,” she said, handing it to Jenna, who looked at her with a puzzled frown. She took the lid off and her face first registered surprise, and then a wistful smile curled on her lips. Lisa glanced inside the box. It held one of Jenna’s combs, the ones she’d used to keep her long hair in place.
“You won’t need that anymore,” said Lisa, looking at Jenna’s hair, which had been cut to shoulder length and fell into place with a toss of her head. “I wonder where Adam found it.”
“Yes, I wonder where?” said Jenna, with shiny eyes.
Lisa saw there was a new softness about her, as if now that she’d got what she wanted the need to fight for it was over. “Did you know that Adam lobbied for you to be Acting Head? The governing body wanted to appoint another man, but Adam persuaded them that you would be the perfect choice.”
Adam had paved the way. The board could hardly see a married lesbian as more of a threat than an unmarried man.
With a smile, Jenna replaced the box in the back of the drawer and returned to the motivation report she was compiling for the governing body. This time there would be no need for the headmaster’s approval for the purchase of electronic whiteboards.
***
Headmaster's Approval
With the Headmaster's Approval Page 19