“It’s that time of year, people,” I said, turning towards the board so that I could write the name of our next unit in blue marker on the white wall. “Paradise Lost.”
My intimate group of IB grade twelve English students actually gave a little cheer, a small burst of applause. I’d only been teaching at the school for a semester but I was already well liked and especially well known for my love of John Milton and his epic poem. The kids had been excited all year to discuss it. I was too. The only damper on my mood was that this was the fourth class in a row that the new student had missed and I wasn’t looking forward to catching him up on an entirely new unit when he did deign to show up.
“Tell us again why Satan is your ultimate book boyfriend,” one of my students, a scrawny but beautiful boy named Benito Bonanno, called out.
The other students snickered.
I braced my hands on my hips and fought against my smile as I faced them. “Benny, you clearly haven’t read the book yet if you have to ask me that.”
“You’re such a dork,” one of the jocks, Carson Gentry, mocked me as everyone laughed again.
It was good-natured though; like I’d said, the kids loved me, mostly because I loved every single one of them.
“I am,” I agreed with a proud wink at Benny, who blushed.
“Never seen a dork look that good in a skirt before.”
I frowned, ready to scold the unfamiliar voice, possibly a visiting parent, for demeaning me in front of the kids but when I turned to face the man who spoke, I choked on my reprimand.
As in, I literally choked. Tears welled in my eyes as I started coughing harshly into my hand but I could still make out the blurry outline of a tall, lean as a whip, blond man in front of me.
I prayed with more piety than I had ever before possessed that the man in front of me was not the blond king.
Carefully swiping under my eyes so I didn’t disturb my eyeliner and mascara, I blinked slowly and focused harder.
God, it was him.
King stood in the door frame, his long body leaning against the jam with his hands in the pockets of the black trousers, a charcoal grey sleeves hoodie pull just tightly enough across his obviously muscled chest. His hair was a riot of sexy rumpled waves, little curls pushed behind his ears that I wanted to wrap around each finger of my hand. It was his eyes, though, which held me arrested. They were a bright and pale blue, so light they seemed to glow like burnished steel. The lazy confidence in his stance did not reflect in those hazardous eyes. Instead, they were sharp with intelligence, creased at the corners in a sexy squint that was born of wicked intent.
I stood there and stared and stared and stared.
Truly, I could not fathom doing anything else, even with a class full of students baring witness, even with my scolding words cooling and forgotten on my tongue.
It could have been the impossibility of seeing him in my classroom but I knew the truth of my stupefaction.
He was just too beautiful to bear.
Fortunately, it seemed the rest of the class thought so too.
“Are you an angel?” one of my favorite students, a curly haired and pimply-faced Margaret asked earnestly.
It spoke to the class’ serious interest in the newcomer that no one laughed at Margaret’s ludicrous question.
King’s lush mouth curled on the left side of his face, cutting something like a dimple but manlier into his cheek.
There was a collective sigh from every female in the room. Shamefully, that included myself.
“I’m no angel, doll,” he said to Margaret and even though his words should have been contrived, his combination of bad boy aura and the genuine kindness that shone in his eyes as he stared at the mortified girl, made it possible for him to pull it off.
“I beg to differ,” Talia, one of the popular girls, muttered.
Her posse giggled.
“Okay,” I said, finally snapping out of it. “Angel or not, may I help you with something?”
I was teasing him. We’d gone to dinner at Pourhouse in Vancouver the night before and it had been awesome. I loved riding on the back of his bike even though it totally wrecked my hair and I just straight up loved spending the time with him. He was playful and arrogant in a boyish way that was like catnip to me, but manly in all the other ways that counted, fairly bossy, certainly thoughtful and definitely deviant. We hadn’t done anything more than make out hot and heavy on his bike in my driveway when he took me home but it had been hot in a way I’d never experienced before. As soon as we were parked, he’d turned just enough to lift me and swing me, smooth as if I weighed less than nothing, until I was perched slightly on top and in front of him. Then without hesitation, his hand found its place on the back of my neck, fingers in my hair tight enough to puppet my head to the right angle as he’d kissed me.
I’d wanted to invite him in, which was so unlike me that I’d actually laughed a little hysterically when I’d asked him. To my infinite surprise, he’d gently rejected me, kissed me again so thoroughly it had taken the sting out of it and then told me he wanted to take things slow.
I didn’t know bikers had a slow function but I was curious enough about him and nervous enough about satisfying him, to agree.
Now, he stood before me, clearly trying to surprise me at work like some kind of superstar boyfriend. So, of course, I was teasing him.
“I’m Kyle Garro,” he said, which seemed bizarre because I very obviously already knew him.
Something about his abbreviated name sparked in the back of my mind but I was too distracted by the slightly defeated angle of his smile to figure it out.
I watched as he reached into an open backpack at his feet and retrieved papers. My pulse fluttered manically in my throat as he crossed to me, stopping close enough to touch. The scent of laundry and clean, male sweat made me woozy so it took a moment for me to realize he was holding out the papers to me.
“King?” I asked dumbly as I took the papers and realized what they were. “Are you kidding me?”
His smile tightened. He shoved his hands into the wrinkled pockets of his uniform trousers and shrugged somewhat sheepishly. “Nah. I’m King Kyle Garro, your new student.”
“No,” I bit out.
“Yeup,” he said, rocking back on his heels.
Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.
I’d sucked face with a student.
I’d let a child make love to my mouth the way most women never let any man take them, ever.
Oh my God. Oh my God.
“Oh my God,” I whispered.
The class laughed and Benito, my class aide, rushed forward to give King his new textbooks and show him to his seat. I watched dumbly as he chose between one of two empty seats but I knew before he was offered which one he would choose, front row, dead center in front of my desk.
A whimper rose in the back of my throat but I swallowed it.
“Are you okay, Mrs. Irons?” Aimee asked sweetly.
I was still reeling from the shock of having King as a student in my class but I’d had years of practicing my façade and I was more than capable of containing my freak out until later.
“Yes, thank you, Aimee. Well, I’m sorry about that disruption, class. What were we talking about?” I prompted them.
“How hot Satan is!” A few of the girls shouted.
I laughed with my students but I could feel the blush stain the exposed skin at my throat and collarbones. Though I didn’t look at him, I could feel King’s gaze like a hot brand on my face.
How could he have forgotten to tell me he was only eighteen bloody years old? Had he known he was my student? Was this all some horrible joke that he and his teenage friends had decided to play on the older teacher?
Mortification poured over me like hot lead, burning my eyes, choking me as it spilled down my throat.
“Satan is the villain of Paradise Lost,” Benito explained helpfully to our new student.
His voice was higher than normal, which led me to believe that Benny liked King just as much as I did. He wasn’t out of the closet yet but he’d given me the privilege of being ‘in’ on his secret and nothing, not even William’s marriage proposal, had ever made me feel more honored.
“Is he, though?” I asked, shaking off my thoughts to indulge in a teaching moment. “Or is he the anti-hero? Can anyone tell me what I mean by that?”
“A character that assumes the guise and most of the characteristics typical of villainy but throughout the narrative, the reader develops empathy for him or her,” King drawled.
I forced myself to look at him. He sat sprawled in his chair exactly like a typical indolent teenager, but the sharp edge in his diamond bright eyes undercut his youth, gave it a weight and somberness that made me feel less skeevy about previously believing he was an actual adult.
“Correct,” I said, after clearing my throat. “Characters like that have been attractive to readers for generations. Nothing is so black and white, just as Hester in The Scarlet Letter, Mr. Darcy in Pride & Prejudice and Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby. These are deeply flawed characters that we still found ourselves aspiring to be. Why is that?”
“We’re complicated,” King said again without raising his hand. “People judge everyone based on shallow crap: how hot they are, how rich and academically accomplished. It’s bullshit, because at the end of the day, the one thing everyone can relate to is the grind to get to that place. We all suffer, we all fucking grieve and sin every damn day. It’s that dark stuff that makes those characters real to us.”
“Wow,” Benny breathed, his huge brown eyes locked in wonder on the new student.
“Ohmigawd, he is so hot,” Maya Person whispered loudly to her best friend, Talia.
I hated that I agreed with her.
“Watch your language in this class, Mr. Garro. And we raise our hands here, if you wish to be called on,” I reprimanded him.
“Satan didn’t believe in obeying The Man and you think he’s a babe. Didn’t think you’d mind,” he had the audacity to say.
I stared at him in muted anger. My tummy filled with static electricity that I feared would show in my eyes.
“You will respect me in my classroom,” I finally declared with a chin tilt that I felt underlined my point very well.
His eyes freaking twinkled in response. I watched him lift his hand in a two finger salute before he said, “Wouldn’t dream of disrespecting you in that way, Miss Irons.”
I couldn’t tell if I was imagining it or not but I could have sworn he put the emphasis on that way, as if he could think of other, much more pleasurable ways to disrespect me in my classroom.
A flush sluiced down my front from my cheeks to my chest where my nipples furled into hard points behind my flimsy bra.
“It’s Mrs. Irons,” Aimee corrected.
King frowned, his countenance changing so quickly from carefree, cockier than Satan before the fall, to something darker, broody and infinitely more Byronic. “Married?”
There was no reason for me to feel guilty. If anything, he should feel guilty! He was the one who had seduced a grown woman while he was underage.
“I don’t discuss my private life in class,” I said, turning back to the whiteboard to write some preliminary notes.
“She does,” Talia murmured. “She’s separated from her husband and she just bought this little cabin over on Back Bay road. She commuted from Vancouver last year but now she offers extra help every day after school. Trust me, you’ll need it. She’s cool but she’s a total hard ass.”
“Talia,” I scolded, but there wasn’t much bite to it.
I did talk to my students about my personal life to a certain extent because I wanted them to know that they could talk to me about anything going on in their lives. It was the same reason that I offered extra help every Monday through Thursday after school, because I wanted them to have a safe place to go.
Entrance was a rich community but the underbelly was poor and unfortunately, riddled with drug use and violence. Some of my kids hung out in my office after hours just to forestall going home.
“Mmm,” King hummed, and I didn’t have to look at him to know that he was pleased with Talia’s intel.
I’d never wanted to run out of my classroom before but the look in King’s eyes, the predatory hunger there, and the fact that apparently, I had hooked up with one of my freaking students, had me ready to hightail it out of there.
“Okay, I’d like you all to open read Canto IV, when Satan meets Adam and Eve. Take notes. There may or may not be a pop quiz about it tomorrow morning.”
Everyone groaned but I knew they didn’t mind too much. I’d successfully infected them with my enthusiasm for Paradise Lost and most of them, even the boys, were already quietly reading by the time I closed the door on them.
I kept my head down as I quickly made my way to the staff restroom at the end of the hall, somehow managing to keep my breakdown at bay until I shut the door and turned on the lights.
A student.
I’d broken the cardinal rule of teaching and hooked up with a student.
It wouldn’t matter to anyone that I hadn’t known at the time that he was my pupil. People didn’t look too hard at the details when they were presented with a scandal, and this was a scandal. The married (no matter that I was legally separated) teacher with The Fallen MC’s prodigal son?
Yeah, no. I was fucked.
I was groaning into my hands when the door opened into my back and sent me reeling forward.
“What the—”
King ignored my indignation, stepped into the room and locked the door with an audible snick that sounded to my ears like a bomb going off.
“Get out,” I ordered.
“No, you’re gonna listen to me.”
“I am not. Get out,” I said as I righted myself and spun to face him with my hands planted on my hips.
King had the audacity to cross his arms and lean, freaking lean like he had no worries, against the door. “No. You’re gonna calm down for two fuckin’ minutes and listen to me.”
“I am not. And, news flash, you are my student! I am the one who lays down the rules here, buddy. So, get out of my way or I’ll send you to the Headmaster’s office.”
His lips slid to the left in a lazy smile that reached through my rage and confusion to spark the lust that lay like kindling at the pit of my stomach whenever he was near.
“You won’t do that.”
“Are you trying to blackmail me?” I asked.
I didn’t think King would do something like that but he was from a criminal family and he’d been lying to me since the moment I’d met him, so what did I know?
“Shut your mouth before you say something you can’t take back and really piss me off.”
I emitted a strangled cry of rage. “Are you freaking kidding me right now? You lied to me, you led me on and you’ve humiliated me. I could lose my job for this, King. I have no money to my name. I need this job.”
Hysterical sobs bubbled up and rose into my lungs so that I had to pant to breathe through the pain. Spots danced in front of my eyes and I could feel my body sway but could do nothing to stop it. Rough, warm hands caught me, one at its spot on the back of my neck and the other over my hip.
“Take a deep breath, babe.”
On auto-pilot, lost to the psychedelic chaos of my panic attack, I obeyed.
“Another.”
I took another.
“Good girl,” he murmured into my hair as he pulled me into his body.
I breathed deep, dragging his intoxicating scent in over and over again. It calmed me, being held against his hard chest, cocooned in his strong arms, but it also made me want to cry. I’d been frightened before just knowing that he was the kind of man—boy—who could change my life, who had already changed my life just by being. I’d only just come to terms with the gamble, accepted the odds even though, historically, they had never played out in my favor.
I’d accepted that fact that he was essentially a criminal.
I couldn’t accept the fact that he was my student because that would make me a criminal.
“This happen often?” he asked me.
His hand on the back of my neck pressed me firmly into his pecs, his thumb a pendulum swinging back and forth over my hairline. It was both bossy and tender, a contradiction that I’d already figured out was King’s modus operandi. I hated how much I loved it.
“Sometimes,” I answered.
I’d been having panic attacks on and off since the day my brother had left home for good. It was, without a doubt, the worst day of my life but also, depressingly, the day I’d felt most alive.
It was also ironic, given that I’d essentially helped to kill a man and now here I was, obsessing over the possibility that King was a criminal.
I pulled back from him so abruptly that he actually let go.
“You do not get to touch me or comfort me, especially when you are the one who caused the problem. Please, please, tell me you didn’t know I was your teacher?”
He finally had the decency to look mildly abashed. It was boyish and charming the way he tucked his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. I reminded myself that I wasn’t in a position to be charmed by a boy.
“Saw you the first day of school, remembered you from that fuckin’ parking lot. Hottest day in September and there you stood, plastic bags melting all around you, just fuckin’ staring at me. At first, I thought, what kind of bitch just stares at a guy like that? But that was before I actually saw you. Told you once, I’ll tell you again. Took my goddamn breath away, babe. Never coulda known I’d feel that way about someone just lookin’ at ‘em but I did.”
He paused, and the only sound in the room was the shaky rattle of my breath through my lungs. It felt like my entire nervous system was shutting down.
“Didn’t seem fair the next time I saw you, you were my goddamn teacher. I knew if I just had a chance to get to you, you’d be mine. Knew it then and know it now even more. You’re mine, Cress.”
“I am not,” I snapped but I sounded like a child denying something the adults knew she wanted.
How was it that this eighteen-year-old boy could reduce me to the youngest parts of myself? He made me yearn like a teenager that had never rebelled, the child who wanted what she could not have.
“You are and you know it. You want this,” he said, stepping closer again. His voice was forceful but there was anxiety in his normally smiling eyes, tension in the hands that flexed at his side. I knew he wanted to go to me, to put his hand on its place at my neck.
I took another step away from him and spoke before I could succumb any further to his outrageous appeal.
“I’m only going to say this once, so listen up. You lied to me, you took advantage of me,” he opened his mouth to protest but I held up my hand. “Whatever your reasons were, even if you did like me or whatever the hell you kids call a crush these days, what you did was manipulative and disgusting. Even if you refuse to show up to class, I am your teacher. From here on out, I expect you to be in that class, to participate by raising your hands and respecting my authority in that classroom and to hand in your work on time. That is all I expect from you. What I will not accept from you is any reminders about our more intimate time together, no overtures at reconciliation and no inappropriate comments. From here on out, King, I am so far from ‘yours’ that I would rather be anyone else’s. Is that understood?”
He stared at me for too long. I could feel the cool calm of those pale eyes douse my anger again and again until I felt waterlogged and fizzled out but I held out hope that he would get me, that this nightmare of a situation would just end before it turned into real drama. Job-ending drama, being forced to return to the husband who refused to divorce me kind of drama.
Finally, he sucked in a deep breath and nodded curtly. “Sure, Cress, I gotcha.”
“Mrs. Irons,” I corrected him.
His shoulders rounded and he scuffed his shoe on the linoleum floor like the child he was so that at first, I thought I had him, in his place all safe and sound. It wasn’t until I’d moved passed him to the door and was already moving through it that I realized I’d underestimated him again.
“For now, Miss Irons.”