“I’m counting on it.”
“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.