“The woman had never felt good enough,” I say. “How about that, for a first line?”
“It’s your choice,” he says.
“Okay, then,” I murmur, and then I write it down.
I turn to him expectantly, praying that he doesn’t laugh or tell me the woman is right, she isn’t good enough.
“And today it was no different, standing with her arms wrapped around her body, trying to close out the world,” he murmurs and then shakes his head. “That’s not very fucking good.”
“Hey,” I say, surprising myself with the teasing playfulness in my voice. “No editorializing. We’re just here to write, remember? This story isn’t your love child.”
“Using my own logic against me,” he says, and his smirk fires again. His eyes glint. “Fair enough. Write it down.”
I write it down and then say, “She turned from the mirror and regarded her mother and her maid of honor, expecting them to be laughing at her.”
“But they weren’t,” Tanner snarls, “and they couldn’t be, because the truth was there was a beauty in her that transcended what she thought of herself, a beauty in her that turned men savage and fucking wild, and made them want to…”
Want to what?
Oh, God, are you talking about me?
He trails off and then bites down, as though a hundred sentences are vying for dominion over his kissable rugged mouth and none of them are winning.
He sighs and stands up slowly, cracking my heart a little when Gizmo climbs off and comes trotting back over to my lap.
“I … I think that’s enough, folks,” Tanner says loudly, turning away from me, his hands trembling. “Now let’s talk about what it all means.”
But as he gives the explanation – that authorial ownership is fluid, depending on one’s writing process – I search for a deeper meaning.
I think about his words and the sudden, flaring passion that infused his voice.
And for a few unlikely moments I wonder if he is interested in me as more than a student.
I let my mind wander and drift and then the fire alarm blares across the green.
Gizmo.
But the thought comes too late.
The siren has already startled the little Chi-Poo into making a mad dash for the exit, for the road.
I jump to my feet and let out a scream.Chapter SixTannerI went too far, I think as I strode away from Tess, my manhood flooding and my heart beating in primal tremors. She knows I fucking want her.
Now I take in the scene at a glance, the fire alarm causing her dog to run, a friendly as hell little pooch with an adorable face and cute ears, and now he’s sprinting toward the gate that leads to the road, traffic zipping by. It’s a common response in dogs, I know, when flight beats fight and suddenly they’re running and all they know is they have to keep running.
I quickly dart across the lawn, leaping over the barricade to the cycle path and then running around to cut off Gizmo. The dog turns and sees me running, and I hold out my hand, firmly telling him, “Stay, stay, boy. Stay.”
Luckily Tess must’ve already taught him this command because I’m able to stalk closer, and closer, and then smoothly lean down and scoop the little guy up.
I turn to find Tess panting a few feet from me, tears in her eyes, her mouth opening and closing slowly.
“I’m … Jesus, I just got distracted. Gizmo. I’m so sorry, boy. I’m so sorry.”
“He’s okay,” I tell her, imagining how right it’d feel to reach across and smooth the tears from her cheeks. “Aren’t you, little man?”
Tess walks over to me and holds her hands out for Gizmo. As I hand him over – settled down now, looking at us like we’re the crazy ones for not running – I feel the brush of her hands against mine.
The contact fires a savage instinct inside of me.
That hand belongs around my throbbing hot cock.
I swallow and beat that thought down.
This isn’t the time, not when her dog was just so close to getting hurt.
She talks with Gizmo in a cooing voice that stabs into me, conjuring vignettes of her talking the same way to our children, leaning over the crib with her singsong voice and the burning empathy of her soul evident in her tone.
“God, thank you so much, Tanner—Mr. Telford,” she whispers, kissing Gizmo on top of the head and then staring at me with her glistening eyes.
“Tanner,” I growl, more passionately than I intend. “You were right the first time.”
She flinches, a look of indecision warping her features.
I look past her to the class, standing there, all watching us closely, too closely, it feels, for a moment this intimate.
The alarm has stopped now and a college official is announcing over the speaker system that it was an electrical malfunction, nothing more, sorry, et cetera.