I took Kara all over her parents’ house. Against that wall. At the top of the stairs. In her pretty bedroom. Then we slept for a while. Not long after dozing off in her bed, I wake up to the sound of her calling my name, her voice in a mild panic.

“Are you okay if we go to your place?” she asks, her eyes glued to her phone screen.

Sitting up, I lean against the backboard to clear my sleepy haze. “Sure. Yes. Everything all right?”

Kara kicks her legs off the edge of the bed and jumps to her feet.

“Yes,” she answers, picking up each piece of clothing that we stripped off of each other’s body just a couple of hours ago. She piles them up on one arm and scans the room. “But my parents will be here within the hour. My mom just sent me a text from the airport.”

“Definitely.” I’m fully awake and clear-headed in no time. I don’t know if Kara’s parents are easy going or conservative, but I don’t want to meet them like this for the first time. Not with my pants down, so to speak. “Let’s move.”

We’re dressed and out the door within ten minutes, and shortly after that, I’m showing her into my new home, into my bedroom.

Her clothes are the first thing to come off. I watch her remove her clothes as though she’s more comfortable without them. She smiles when she notices that I’m staring, my hand over my zipper, ready for my dick to spring free.

“You realize how risky this is, your coming here?” I ask her, standing at the foot of my bed, fully clothed as she crawls into my bed, her body completely bare.

“Risky? What do you mean?” she purrs out the question, seeming more playful.

“I may not let you leave,” I explain, and hear the seriousness in my voice. I’m not kidding. I’m dead serious.

Kara turns on the bed, still on her hands and knees, and crawls over to me. “I may not want to go either.”

She cranes her neck up at me and slowly licks across her top lip. With the way her face isn’t far from my groin, I take the movement for what it is. An invitation. One where my dick is the guest of honor. Well, I love a woman who’s as eager to suck my cock as I am to eat her out.

I look down into her face, aroused and mesmerized as she runs her palm over my bulge through my pants. She takes her time dragging the zipper down, her eyes locked on mine, seeming to take pleasure from my reaction. She might be inexperienced but she sure as fuck knows what she’s doing to me. Her tiny hand slides past the open zipper, and she pushes my boxers out of the way to wrap her little fist around my shaft. As she pulls my cock free and sees my big, thick hard flesh up close, I hear her release a moan from deep in her throat. Her pouty lips part slightly, then some more, and she leans closer, circling her pink tongue around the head of my cock. Fuck, I’m harder than ever.

The urge to keep watching her is strong, but fuck, I want to let my eyes shut and just enjoy her handiwork. Soon enough I do the latter, letting the feel of her lips sliding up and down my shaft overtake everything else. She uses her mouth and her hands to work my full length, alternating her rhythm to bring me closer as I start to pump in and out of her gorgeous fucking mouth, hitting the back of her throat each time. She’s so fucking good. My hips buck, and she puts both hands on my hips to let me make my own pace. I run a hand through her hair, gripping her scalp to anchor her to me as I fuck her sweet mouth. And soon, the image drives me to come hard. And she swallows every drop as though it’s the best thing she’s ever tasted.

Coming for her is the biggest fucking turn on for the both of us. I’m still rock hard, and from the juices dripping down between her thighs, she’s ready for me.

“I want you on top,” I manage to groan out as I find and put on a condom from my bedside drawer.

I push my pants and boxers down my legs, take off my shirt, and leave the bundle of material on the floor. I’m on the bed right away, enjoying the view of her tits as she straddles me. Holding on to my shoulders, Kara kisses me hard. Her tongue passes along the seam of my mouth, and I get a taste of my come. I fucking love that she tastes like me. As our tongues connect, she lowers onto my thick, condom-wrapped cock. Inch by inch, her tight, wet heat takes in more of me. Her hips sway and roll, grinding down on me, and I can’t stop myself from wrapping one arm around her waist and dragging her pussy down and up along my cock.

Looking up into her face, I see the pleasure build, the same way each thrust takes me closer. When her head falls back and her body tenses and bucks, I know she’s hit her peak. I keep pounding into her long after she comes, long after her body goes limp, and after a while, I come again. Lying back into bed, I lower her with me. Her head rests on my chest, and I hold on to her while our breathing comes back under control.

As I start to drift off, it’s clear to me that there’s a lot we haven’t said. A lot that I should tell her about me, my family, everything I’ve been through. I want to know everything about her too. But for the first time, I know there’ll be time for all of that. There’s time because neither of us is going anywhere.

Because she’s already mine.

The closer I get to Kara, the more confident I am that we have something special.

Something more than chemistry in the bedroom.

I spend the morning in bed with her. We fuck, talk, and laugh. Then she tells me about losing her younger brother, Aiden to a tragic fall at the midway. I understand why she’s so protective of children there, and why Nathan and Sofia have taken such a liking to her. Before I know what I’m doing, I tell her about losing my sister, their mother, to a brain disorder that went unchecked. We open up to each other in ways I didn’t think two people could in such a short time. There’s no logic as to why, or how, but we just… fit.

Which is a fucking problem.

My trip to her house last night was supposed to be a wake-up call for both of us. Instead, we’ve dug ourselves deeper. So deep that neither of us can seem to stop. So deep, we may not be able to crawl out.

Sometime before noon, we make it out of bed. I put the coffee on. Kara explores my house and settles in on the front porch with her phone. She seems at home here, and I watch her for a while, imagining what we could be, if this dark cloud weren’t lurking, waiting to unleash on us.

A familiar minivan rolls onto the last empty space on my driveway, and I’m instantly tense. How the fuck am I going to explain Kara to Sam? Pouring coffee into three mugs, I wait for the first cloud of the hurricane to hit us.

Sam hops out of the driver seat while the back passenger door slides open automatically. He does a double-take when he notices Kara relaxing on my porch, wearing one of my button-down work shirts and nothing else. The look of surprise on his face is almost entertaining. Almost.

I look back and forth between them, examining their reaction to each other. Shock. Confusion. Fear.

Sam leans into the back of the minivan, undoes the kids’ seatbelts, and lift them out onto the driveway, and all that hesitation disappears when Nathan, then Sofia run up the porch steps into Kara’s arms.

Or maybe it doesn’t. Sam’s floored.

He tells her a brief hello, then I hear the front door open and his heavy footsteps as they make their way to me. He stops at the kitchen entryway.

“I just want to know three things,” he says, a baffled look on his face.

“Good morning, bro,” I answer. “Go ahead. Ask away.”

He points in the direction of Kara and his kids through the window “Why the fuck is a student out on your porch, when did you fit in the time to introduce her to my kids, and how did she manage to get through to Nathan?”

“Long story,” I answer him. Setting a mug in front of him, I take the one I made for Kara with me, and grab a couple of the juice boxes I keep stashed in the fridge for the kids. “Give me a second to give them these.”

I’m out there and back in a few minutes. Sam has the same look on his face.

“What the hell, Jackson?” he demands. “Did you just make me an unwitting party to your… affair with a student?”

“That's not the way it went down,” say, my eyes narrowing. “Have a seat. You might not believe it, but this is how it happened.”

We sit across from each other at the kitchen table, and I tell him everything. Start to finish. In order. When I’m done, he shrugs and drags the chair back from the table. “You need to pull your head out of your ass and put a stop to that. Right fucking now.”

“Were you listening to a word I just said?”

He levels his gaze at me but doesn’t answer my question. “Get me a pen, will you?”

Leaning back toward the counter, I pull open one of the drawers and lift out a pen and notepad. “What’s this for?”

“This shit’s too big to hide.” He pulls out his phone from his pocket and scrolls through the app, then jots a number down on the notepad. “You do realize you’re just a week into this job, right?”

“Dude, I just told you, we didn’t plan this.” I say, losing some of my patience. “And you’re supposed to have my back. You know I wouldn’t look for this kind of trouble.”

“Yeah. I know. Tell me something. How many people know about… this… her?

“You, me, Kara, Kara’s friend from school,” I tell him honestly.

He leans his weight against the table, looking exhausted already. “Jesus. Someone else knows?”

“Just one person, I think.”

“You think? Listen, you have to go to Edlund,” he says, referring to the school principal.

“Fine,” I answer, my voice tight. “I’ll talk to him on Monday.”

“No.” He slides the notepad across the table. “You’ll call him on his home phone right now, and you’ll meet with him. Today. Tell him it’s urgent and involves a student. Tell him it can’t wait.”

I run a frustrated hand through my hair. “You’re blowing this out of proportion.”

“No.” He pounds a fist onto the tabletop and I snap to attention. “Don’t be an idiot. You’re being naïve. He can fix this for everyone. It’s not too late. But if you wait another day to tell him, you might as well consider your career over. She’s not a minor is she?”

I shake my head. “No.”

“Good. Still, let’s get him on the horn. And I’m telling you. You have to. Right now.” He reaches forward and taps the notepad a few times with his index finger. “Right fucking now.”

As he gets to his feet, I put Edlund’s number into my phone contact list and fold the page with his number in two. “Fuck, all right. But give me a second to tell her. She deserves the headsup. This’ll affect her too.”

“Fine.” He turns and heads back to the front door. “I’ll take the kids back home. Fill me in later on how it goes.”

Less than an hour and a half later, I’m sitting across from Edlund in his office. Kara’s out in the hall, waiting for me to wrap up so her meeting can start. Edlund knows everything now. He’s not happy to be faced with a situation like this so early on in the school year, but I can tell he’s serious about figuring out the best course of action for all parties. For the school. And for himself.