“How are you getting home today?” I ask, my voice deep and rough.
But I can’t stop.
It’s becoming impossible.
“The bus,” she says. “It’s how I get most places.”
She tilts her head at me, her eyes glimmering.
Her kissable lips purse and it sends violent possessive urges teeming throughout me.
“Why?”
“Let me give you a ride,” I growl, and then walk past her to rejoin the class, not giving her a chance to answer, not giving myself a chance to second guess myself.Chapter SevenTessI sit with Gizmo in my lap, moving my hands through his fur as though that can ground me and tether me to reality.
I’m sitting in Tanner Telford’s car.
The thought barrels into me over and over with the violence of unreality, as if any moment now I’m going to snap awake and realize that all of this – the class, Gizmo’s mad dash for the road, everything – has been a crazy hallucination.
Tanner exudes dominance as he casually turns the wheel of the car, guiding us through the city like a man who’s never doubted himself his whole life.
I have to focus on not gripping onto Gizzie too hard, because the tension is coursing through me like a form of madness.
And if I don’t hold onto Gizmo, I might give into the deranged urge to reach across and smooth my hand through the iron of his hair, and then down his neck, over his broad back to feel the muscles beneath.
And then what?
And then, of course, he’d recoil from me and a picture of disgust would shatter across his expression. He’s already grossed out enough from me playing the Peeping Tomballina, so actually physically touching him might cause a traffic collision.
No, I need to keep my hands to myself, or at the very least submerged in Gizmo’s plush white fur.
I try and summon some words on my lips as we sit in the silence, the tension evident in the tightness of Tanner’s jaw. He’s not wearing his suit jacket, just his shirt, and his rolled-up sleeves proclaim the absolute power of his body.
Sinews of muscle pluck like guitar strings as he handles the wheel, going all the way up to his arm and sending writhing want all through me. I imagine what it’d be like to have those hands stroke so easily over my body, pausing at my breasts, stroking and rubbing my nipples as his forearms pulse powerfully.
“Are you okay?” Tanner murmurs.
“Um, what?” I ask.
The corners of his lips tic as he stops at an intersection. He glances over at me and his azures seem to be laughing
“You made a noise,” he says quietly.
“Did I?” I murmur, feeling my cheeks and my neck turn crimson.
Suddenly the urge to leap from the car comes crashing down on me. In my mind I see myself sprinting down the street, into the middle of the intersection, struggling to get away, panic making me disoriented.
Of all the ways I’ve envisioned meeting this man – primal, passionate, professional – none of them has involved me making weird noises in his car.
“Yes,” he says, with those same smirking lips, so subtle I wonder if I’m projecting.
He wouldn’t give me a ride home just to make fun of me … would he?
But then, how do I know that? Tanner Telford’s writing might be beautiful and humane in places, but in others, it’s savage and cruel. Some of his characters delve deep into the dark places that make up humanity, and maybe that’s the part of his character that he’s letting out today.
“A sort of whimpering noise,” he says, as the lights change and he turns back to the road. “But as long as you’re okay.”
“Yes,” I murmur, wondering if it’s possible for a face to catch fire from blushing so much. “Sorry.”
His smile quirks again. “There’s no need to be sorry, Tess.”
“Maybe I thought the world was ending,” I say, and then immediately wish I could pull the comment back.
“What?” he laughs gruffly.
“I mean—you know—not with a bang, with a whimper. I don’t know.”
He laughs again, perhaps a little less gruffly. It’s hard to tell with the voice screaming in my head to shut the heck up pronto, that the last thing Tanner Telford needs is a loser making bad jokes in his car.
And, on top of that, he’s my creative writing teacher. This isn’t exactly the best demonstration of my creativity.
“You’re one in a million, Tess, aren’t you? Goddamn.”
I turn to the window so he can’t see just how much redder that makes my cheeks. I grit my teeth and fight the urge to send some sarcastic barb his way.
All I want is for this car journey to end so that I can run into the apartment and …
Yes, fuck it.
The truth is I want to retreat into my apartment and devour half a tub of ice cream and watch Netflix and not have to think about Tanner Telford’s mocking eyes for a few hours.