Roxie

The phone on my desk buzzes with an internal call just as I'm about to sit down at my desk and start my day.

"There is a Mr. Whittaker here to see you," the secretary says in a low-pitched, strangled voice.

"What? He's not due until three," I murmur, quite unnecessarily checking my watch, since I already know it's only a couple of minutes past eight.

"Please come and get him," the secretary says. "He says he can't find his own way to your office."

He grumbles something in the background, and I can't make out his words, but it makes the secretary inhale sharply like she’s afraid.

"I'll be right there," I say and hang up, then take a few deep breaths to steady myself before going to collect him.

I'm nervous like I get before a first date, and no amount of deep breathing or walking fast is helping. Which is absolutely ridiculous, since we're just gonna have a professional discussion about his child, and nothing else. But I've wanted to see him again, since that first morning over a week ago, and pretending that's not a fact just isn't cutting it anymore now that I'm about to meet him for real.

As soon as I step through the door of the secretary's office, his eyes grip me with that same unwavering gaze as Lily has, only the hard, adult, male version of it. He's even hotter than I remember him from the parking lot, and his look is even more suggestive, makes desire burn right through my belly like a laser. I want him to act on that look, grab me and kiss me, pin me to the wall and—What the hell am I thinking?

"Hello, Mr. Whitaker," I say. "You're early."

"You're the new guidance counselor," he says and his tone suggests our first glimpse of each other left a lasting impression on him too.

"In that case, you should've called sooner," he adds quite unnecessarily, since I already understood that from his tone too. The secretary is listening to him with her mouth open, her gaze passing between us slowly.

"My office is just this way," I say in a hoarse voice and leave the room.

I turn and walk down the hallway without looking back to see if he's following. I don't need to, I can feel his gaze all along my back, mostly on my ass, since I'm wearing a pair of very tight jeans today.

"Cross," he says as I open the door to my office and motion for him to enter.

"What?" I ask, completely baffled.

"No one calls me Whittaker," he elaborates and grins at me, the left side of his very nicely shaped lips curling up higher than the right.

I have to clear my throat to get the image of him leaning down and kissing me out of my brain. And it doesn't work, because the raw, animal sexual tension he's giving off just got five times worse now that we're alone. His voice isn't helping, it's rich and deep, with just a hint of melody, and I want to hear him say my name.

"Alright, Mr. Cross," I say. "I'm Roxanne Connor."

"Just Cross," he says, extending his hand, which I shake automatically, and only realize it was a total mistake, as the surge of warmth that passes through me from his touch pools into a lake of fire over my clit. I don't know what's happening to me. It's like he has me under some sort of spell, because I'm reacting to him more hormonally than I ever did to any guy, even back when I was a teenager.

"Nice to meet you, Roxanne." The way he says my name breaks right through the last of my sane, adult resistance, making my insides melt into a liquid mess of desire.

But it has to stop.

"I feel like we've met before," he says, grinning at me again.

"Impossible," I say, and finally manage to let go of his hand.

"Please take a seat." I point at the chair facing my desk. "I invited you here to discuss your daughter's future at this school."

"Her future?" he says and takes a seat. "Sounds bad. You know, this is the first time I've been inside a school in over twenty years. It brings back all sorts of not so great memories."

He's giving me that lopsided grin again and I almost reply with, "I'll bet", but manage to stop myself from doing it.

"As you're probably aware, Lily has been having some trouble adjusting to her new school and classmates. And yesterday she got into yet another fight with a fellow student. So that's why—"

"What I was actually getting at was…” he says, interrupting me, but then pausing dramatically mid-sentence. "I'd feel a whole lot better discussing this over drinks instead of in this stuffy office. Wanna go?"

He half rises in his seat like it's a done deal.

"Sit back down, Cross," I say, using the same tone I'd sometimes use with my brother when he was getting on my last nerve.

"Fiery too," he mutters, but does sit back down. "I'm sure we'd have a lot to discuss over drinks."

"This is a serious matter, and I expect you to take it seriously," I say, a little less harshly, since, yeah, I think we'd have a lot to discuss too. Metaphorically speaking, because talking's not what he means and not what I'm picturing.

"Lily's mother abandoned her on my doorstep just over a year ago. I didn't even know she existed until that happened, and she knew nothing about me," he says coolly, the light of desire and fun just a bare flicker in his eyes now. "Yes, she's having some trouble adjusting. But that's why I entrusted her to your professional care, and I expect you to do your job without calling me in for every damn little fight she gets into. I thought I made that clear to that old bitch who worked here as a counselor before you. And I certainly explained it to the principal."

"They were on the verge of expelling your daughter yesterday, until I stepped in and said I'd talk to you," I say, the sheer force with which he delivered his speech leaving me more than a little breathless. "They feel they've done all they can for her."

He chuckles in a very cold way. "Ah, the hypocrisy of small town America rearing its ugly head again. As long as everything's in neat little rows behind white picket fences then it's all good, but stick out just a bit, and you get cut down."

He sounds bitter, as though he knows exactly what that's like.

"Do what you have to," he says and gets up to leave.

"I'm trying to prevent her getting kicked out of school," I say exasperatedly.

"And what do you want me to do? I've told her to behave and follow the rules, but she's my daughter, she'll do what she wants, and no one can do a damn thing about that. Least of all me."

He sounds proud and worried rolled into one. But it's also the only truth he'll accept, I can hear that clearly in his voice.

"Your daughter needs you to try harder."

He fixes me with that unwavering look again, only it's less part desire now, and a larger part hardness.

"If you kick her out, then I'll move her to another school," he says then turns to leave.

"Will you?"

He stops and looks back at me over his shoulder. "What?"

"Will you make sure she gets an education, that she doesn't just get lost in your world of partying and drugs and lawlessness?" I ask.

He squints at me, his expression stuck somewhere between incredulity and shock. "What do you know about my world?"

I shake my head. "Nothing. Please answer my question."

"I'll try to keep her in school, but if fake do-gooders keep kicking her out, because she's a handful, there's not much more I can do, now can I?"

A lot of replies are rushing through my head, so many that I can't decide which one to voice.

"I'll do what I can to keep her enrolled here," I finally say, holding his gaze, even though the butterflies that's causing are fluttering in my stomach so hard I'm struggling to draw breath.

"Good," he says and opens the door, sounding like he doesn't believe me. "I have to go now. Don't call me again unless it's a real emergency. Of the life and death kind."

He leaves, and I can finally breathe right again. We covered almost none of the things I meant to discuss with him at this meeting. Like Lily's nightmares. Or the fact that she started the fight yesterday, so he'd come and get her. And it's not right that out of all that, the thing that upsets me the most is that he didn't ask me out again before he left. Not right at all. But I'd say no anyway, since I also don't want to get swallowed up in his world.

Death and sadness is just around the corner there, always, and I think that maybe I should try to save Lily from it, before it's too late for her like it was for me.

* * *

Cross

If Roxanne was anyone other than my daughter's guidance counselor, I'd be taking her out to dinner tonight, then sleeping over at her place. Though there wouldn't be much sleeping. And judging by her panting breaths as we locked gazes, and the way she couldn’t rip her eyes off mine, she'd like that too. That round ass of hers was made for fucking, and I'm sure that between those shapely, thick thighs of hers and her fiery, no-nonsense way of talking, she can take a pounding and then some. Even her breasts are just the perfect size, not too big and not too small.

Half the time while she was talking, I was imagining those pouty lips of hers wrapped around my cock, her golden brown eyes watering as I made her gag on it. So at first, I didn't get much of what she was trying to tell me, but eventually the gist came through.

She's the only one willing to fight to keep Lily in this school. And I'm sure me fucking her brains out then leaving right after, and staying away until the next time I feel like getting some, will change that willingness fast.

I'm not looking for a relationship, never have. All I'm looking for from a woman is a good time. Lily's not getting a step-mom.

But she needs to stay in this school, because the next suitable one is twenty miles away and a whole town over. She won't do any better in that one, and this one's already quite a commute from Sanctuary. Which means I'll have to behave too.

Despite knowing all that, my dick stayed painfully hard for Roxanne all the way back to HQ and there are precious few women who have had that kind of staying power with me before. It's even more perplexing that I can't get her out of my head, since this is the morning of the day I go head-to-head with one of the most powerful MCs on the West Coast and attempt to assert my equality with them.