His eyes open wide and a smile lights up his sleepy face. “What … ?”
Lee looks at me, but I push off the counter. I head to the living room to give Sherm some space with his new puppies.
“These guys need someone to take care of them,” she says, cutting me a look. “Rob brought them home for you because he thought you were up for the job. What do you think?”
I hang my head in defeat, but when I lift my eyes, Sherm is looking at me … and there might be something other than fear in his gaze.
He kneels down, scoops the puppy into his arms. It squirms away and runs back to the box, crashing into its sibling. The nervous pup yelps and the other barks and runs out of the box, skidding full speed into the cabinets.
Sherm giggles, then moves to the box and kneels low to peer inside. “Why won’t it come out?”
“He’s scared,” Lee answers. “You know how it is, moving to a new place and not really knowing what’s what yet.”
“We’re keeping them?” Sherm asks.
Lee shoots me an annoyed glance. “As long as you understand that they’re your responsibility. I’m not going to be feeding them and walking them and scooping their poop, Sherm. That’s all on you.”
He slowly reaches into the box, runs a finger over one of the timid puppy’s legs. “It’s okay,” he tells him. “I’ll show you around.”
He keeps petting the puppy’s leg. After a minute the puppy uncoils from the corner of the box and shifts into Sherm’s hand. After a little more coaxing he comes out of the box and rubs up against Sherm’s body.
Lee looks at me with a hopeful smile.
A lump rises in my throat as I realize what I want most for Sherm. A normal life. Until now—exactly this second, watching Sherm—my perception of normal was being Chicago royalty and everything that entailed. But everything about that life is so fucking abnormal. Sitting on the kitchen floor with puppies in your lap is what normal nine-year-olds should be doing. Laughing when they lick your face. Not watching your pop shoot your dog or worrying when the next attempt on your life is coming.
But how the fuck can I give him that when my path has been set since I was born? I can’t just change course.
Can I?
“Rob thought you might want to name them,” Lee says to Sherm.
He scoops the shy puppy up with his good arm. It settles into his chest as he thinks. I turn and climb the stairs two at a time, needing that shower. “Crash and Burn,” I hear him say as I disappear into the bathroom at the top.
Chapter 12
Adri
Sherm’s sister called Friday to say he wouldn’t be in school. I was hoping he’d feel good enough over the weekend to come to school today, but it’s almost morning recess and he’s not here yet. I still haven’t gotten a message that he’s not coming, so I keep watching the parking lot for a blue Chevy Lumina. I’ve just finished the new math unit and am handing out the worksheet when I see it roll into an empty parking space.
“Take one and pass it down,” I say to the class. “We’ll spend the twenty minutes before recess working on these, then go over them when …” But then Rob steps out of the car and I lose my train of thought. He slings Sherm’s backpack over his shoulder, then moves to the passenger side and opens the door for him.
Snickers from the class pull me back to the room.
“Um … we’ll go over the answers when you come back in,” I finish, handing out papers to the front row.
When Rob ushers Sherm into the room a minute later, I can’t take my eyes off the cast on Sherm’s left arm. The blue sling tugs at his neck, causing him to hunch over a little.
A lead weight sinks in my stomach. I can’t believe I did this to him. As Sherm starts toward his seat in the back, I notice the bruise under Rob’s left eye has faded since Thursday, now more blue than purple.
“Sherm,” I say, lowering my lashes, avoiding Big Brother’s eyes at all costs … for a number of reasons, guilt being the primary one at the moment.
Sherm stops and looks at me, and I wave him toward my desk.
“Do you want to sit here?” I ask, gesturing to Jason’s desk. “He won’t be back this year.”
My gaze shifts to Rob of its own accord and he rakes his teeth over his lower lip. The gesture is so damn sexy I have to fight for my next breath.
I tear my eyes away from him. “So, what do you think?” I ask Sherm.
“Okay,” he says and clambers into the seat, one leg tucked under him and his left arm cradled to his stomach.
Rob sets Sherm’s backpack down next to his desk, then leans in and asks in a low voice, “He’s expelled?”
I nod. “He and his two friends.”
“I got new puppies,” Sherm says. “Can I bring them for show-and-tell?”
“Wow!” I say. “More than one?”
He nods vigorously. “Crash and Burn.”
I can’t stop the laugh. “Okay, then. I’m sure we can work out a day for you to bring them.”
“Just let me know when,” Rob says, then turns for the door.
“Mr. Davidson?” I call on a desperate urge just as he’s opening it.
He turns slowly and levels me in his heated gaze.
“If you could wait for about ten minutes until recess, I’d like to have a word.”
He holds me hypnotized by those intense eyes for what feels like forever. “I’ll be outside,” he finally says.
I let out the breath I was holding as he slips through the door.
I spend the next ten minutes until the recess bell catching Sherm up on the math unit while the other students work on their handout. “I’ll give you everything you missed Friday to take home. You have all the time you need to make it up, and if anything is confusing, bring it in and we’ll talk about it, okay?”
He nods and slides out of his seat. Macie comes to his side and leads him out to recess.
I smooth my skirt and follow them. When I look toward the parking lot, Rob is leaning against the fender of his car, one fist deep in his jeans pocket and the other holding his phone to his ear. He pushes off the car and starts sauntering my way when he sees me.
“Yeah, just getting him settled,” he says into the phone as he reaches me. “Tell Danni I’ll be there as soon as I can.” He disconnects, shoving his phone in his pocket, then stands there staring at me.
I clear my throat and push the door wider. “What happened to your eye?”
“Ran into the door.”
He says it with no expression whatsoever, and I have no idea if it’s the truth. Usually I’m pretty good at telling if people are lying. I’m dying to ask who Danni is and what that call was about, but I force myself to focus on the issue at hand. “I wanted to talk about Sherm.”
His gaze drills into mine for a second longer before he takes my invitation and steps into the room. I close the door behind us before moving to my desk, but he stays near the exit.
“Again, I’m so sorry about what happened with those other boys. I can’t help but feel responsible, and I wanted you to know how truly awful I feel.”
He digs his fists deeper into his pockets, as if trying to restrain himself. “He told Lee he thinks he broke one boy’s nose.”
I tip my head at him. “He did.”
He nods slowly, his expression some odd combination of pride and condemnation.
“Why didn’t he tell you that?”
“What do you mean?” he says, visibly stiffening.
“I mean, you said he told Lee. Does he talk to you? Because, honestly, I’ve never seen him utter a single word to you.” I do a pretty good job of keeping the nerves out of my voice.
Anger flares in his eyes, but he can’t hide the pain that’s obviously the fuel for that anger. “He’s still adjusting.”
“It’s been a month and a half. He’s opening up here at school, making friends, talking to people. He talks to your sister. So why is he struggling to open up to you, specifically?”
“What happen
s in our family is none of your business,” he growls through a tight jaw.
I wrangle up every ounce of courage I have. “Why is your father in jail?”
“Did Sherm tell you that?”
“He did. He said he went away to jail, but he didn’t know why. You told me he was dead.”
Rob steps closer, his fists tight at his sides. “I want you to leave him alone. You have no right to grill him about things that don’t concern you.”
“I didn’t grill him,” I say, trying to keep the defensiveness out of my tone, because I did, a little.
His expression turns cynical. “So he just told you that, out of the blue.”
“He talks to me, Rob. I sit and listen and he talks. He trusts me.”
His face pales slightly. “What else has he told you?”
“That he misses his house and his old friends. That he wishes he could have brought his Legos when you left home.”
“And … ?” he says, taking a step closer, holding me in his paralyzing gaze.
It takes me a second to find my train of thought. “He says the part he likes most about Port St. Mary is the sharks and that he can swim in the ocean, but he wishes the road near your house was paved so he could skateboard.”
He tips his head at me. “Nothing else about … me?”
I take a deep breath and hold it for a second, trying to decide how hard to push. “I know something scared him badly, and I think it might have something to do with you.”
“You think I hurt my brother?” he asks, circling closer, like a panther stalking his prey.
I stand my ground. “No. I don’t think you hurt him. But I think something you did scared him.”
“Why would you think that? What, exactly, did he say?”
“It’s more what he doesn’t say. He tells me what Lee made for breakfast, or that Grant and Ulie fought over what to watch on TV, but anytime I mention your name, he stops talking. I think, whatever happened, you told him not to speak of it. He’s scared to say anything either to you or about you.”
He stalks closer and stops just a foot away. He looks like he’s holding on to control by a thread, and it occurs to me I probably should have done this outside in the open, with witnesses. “So, Sherlock, what do you deduce this terrible thing is?”
I shake my head, refusing to be intimidated. “I don’t know, but whatever it is, I think it scared the crap out of both of you.”
He goes still, his eyes narrowing just a trace. “There isn’t much that scares me anymore.” His voice is deadly calm.
I hold his gaze. “Which means it must have been truly horrible. You’re traumatized, just like Sherm. It just manifests differently with you. Whereas Sherm withdraws into himself and internalizes his fear, you’re always on the attack. You never let your guard down and you see a threat in everyone. You barely talk, and when you do, you manage to give nothing away. No one can break through the armor you’ve constructed around yourself. Even Sherm. It’s classic post-traumatic stress disorder.”
“Not Sherlock,” he says, arching an eyebrow at me and rubbing his chin. “Freud.”
“I minored in psychology … and … I think you and Sherm both need to get some help.”
He leans in, his jaw flexing, his intense gaze less angry now and more hungry. “So, you think there’s a cure for what ails me, doc?”
I want to have this conversation. I want to figure out how to help Sherm. But I can’t deny the tingle in my belly at the sudden change in his demeanor.
“If you could find a therapist you’re comfortable talking to … maybe a family therapist who could work with you and Sherm … I think it would really help him.”
He steps closer, toe-to-toe with me now, and all of a sudden the gates are down. The depth I saw in his eyes the day Sherm got hurt is back, and everything he’s feeling is swirling to the surface. “So, you don’t want to know all my darkest secrets? You don’t want me to open up and spill my guts so you can save me?”
It almost sounds like a plea rather than a question, as if he wants to tell me everything.
And the answer is yes. I want to know in the worst way what this beautiful man’s demons are. “I’d be happy to listen if you’d be comfortable talking to me.”
It comes out breathier than I’d hoped and he notices. His eyes spark and some expression that I would say is desire if I didn’t know better flashes over his face. He makes me feel like he’d eat me whole if he could. I don’t remember anyone ever looking at me quite like that before.
“What is it, exactly, that you think you can do?” he asks, low and calm, which is nothing like what I see happening in his eyes.
“I want to help you and Sherm both. I want you to stop feeling like you’re all alone. I want to find a way to—”
He’s on me so fast I don’t even realize what’s happening until he has me pinned against my desk. There’s the initial jolt of fear, charging my bloodstream with raw adrenaline, but it’s replaced an instant later by an explosion of heat in my core when his mouth closes over mine.
Chapter 13
Rob
My dick, apparently, is impervious to both danger and common sense. Despite the fact that I’m very late for my first day at my new job, I couldn’t say no when Adri asked me to wait. I’d hoped my impromptu rendezvous with the brunette at the bar last week would curb my libido when it came to the sexy schoolmarm I can’t stop thinking about. My thickening cock says otherwise. With every flash of frustration in those baby blues, every lick of her lips, which is her tell when she’s nervous, it’s grown stiffer.
She thinks she has me all figured out. She thinks she’s in control. The image of throwing her on her desk, taking her right here, proving to her just how wrong she is, makes my dick throb so hard I’m sure I’m going to explode.
I press myself harder against her. Those blue eyes, usually as cool as the ocean, blaze back into mine.
And then I’m devouring her gasping mouth. I don’t close my eyes as my tongue invades the soft heat inside, but she does. When she moans and twists her fingers into the hair at the sides of my head, I know she’s going to be my total undoing.
I’ve had every variety of woman in my bed, from hookers to Hollywood stars. Never have any of them turned me inside out the way this sweet, simple teacher does. Maybe it’s because she somehow sees past all my defenses. Maybe it’s because she’s the most honest and open person I’ve ever known. Maybe it’s because she doesn’t play any games and she’s not scared to call me out. Whatever it is, I only know I need more.
I lift her by the waist, set her on her desk. She parts her knees as I press between them, hiking her skirt and exposing a swath of delicate white lace between her legs. When I grind my hard length against all the wet heat there, she gasps and hooks her knees over my hips, letting me have even more of her. I grab the back of her head with one hand, deepening our kiss, and her ass with my other, yanking her closer.
She sucks my lower lip into her mouth, flicks it with her wet tongue. A groan rolls up from the deepest part of me. One of her hands glides over my shirt along my shoulders and chest, lighting me on fire. Her legs pull my straining hard-on tighter against her molten core.
There’s only the thin lace of her panties and the denim of my jeans separating us. I curse them both. At this moment, the one thing my mind, body, and soul all agree on is that I need to be inside this woman. In my entire pathetic life, I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want to bury myself to the root inside all this wet heat.
Finally, I let down my guard, close my eyes, kiss her with reckless abandon, and lose myself in all of her. With my eyes closed, my other senses heighten. Every inch of her soft pressed against all my hard sets my blood boiling. The scent of Ivory soap that always lingers around her is now laced with a hint of sweat and sex that sends my libido into a tailspin. Her hungry mouth tastes sweeter than anything I’ve ever had as it licks and bites and sucks my tongue. The fingers of the hand that’s not tugging my mouth
greedily against hers by the fistful of hair she refuses to let go, have slipped under the tails of my button-down and are dancing ever so lightly over the taut skin of my abdomen at the waistband of my jeans, urging my cock to lengthen toward them. I want those delicate fingers wrapped around me, squeezing and stroking. I need to feel her skin on mine.
Our mouths grind greedily against each other as my right hand slips from her ass, over the fabric of her skirt to the silky skin of her thigh. I trace the lace edge of her panties with my index finger over the curve of leg toward my target—all that blazing heat at the apex of her thighs. But just as I’m slipping my finger underneath, there’s a sound. I barely register it, but she gasps and that honey mouth is gone from mine. Her hands push against my chest, but it’s not until she pants, “Rob, the bell.” that I gain my senses and open my eyes.
Her eyes are wide, but they don’t leave mine as she drags the back of her knuckles under her mouth, wiping away our kiss.
I back away as she tugs the ponytail holder out of her hair. I’ve pulled it most of the way loose in all my pawing and groping. She looks totally ravaged. Her hair falls loose, those silky blond waves spilling over one side of her face and cascading around her shoulders. At the fleeting image of her in my bed, that hair strewn loose over my pillow, I feel my dick threaten to burst through the zipper of my jeans.
Christ, she’s sexy. And what makes her even sexier is that she has no fucking clue.
She combs her fingers through her mane, sweeps it back from her face, tames it into the holder again. When she slips off the desk and smooths her skirt back into place, I can’t help wishing it were my hands gliding over those hips. A second later, other than swollen lips, there’s nothing about her that says she was within a hairsbreadth of being fucked on the edge of her desk not one minute ago. But as she reaches for the doorknob, reality intrudes on my fantasy. A spike of unexpected fear stabs through my gut.
What I just did was so far over any reasonable line. She’s already digging into places she has no business. In my mindless lust-fog, have I just given her leverage? An advantage? But shock reverberates through me like the crash of cymbals when I realize the knot in my gut has nothing to do with my family’s safety and everything to do with whether I’ve just blown any chance with her.
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