Prologue
RIVER
I am so FUCKED.
I close the door of my office that I share with the two other biology teachers that thankfully are both in class with more force than I intend. I feel myself brimming with anger, fear, and anxiety, my hands shaking as I make my way to my desk.
Is this a panic attack?
An anxiety attack?
Are those the same things?
I get up from my desk and begin to pace the length of the office in an attempt to calm my racing heart. I try to take deep breaths between steps, but with every step comes feelings of dread that I’m either about to lose my job or end up in jail.
Or both.
No, I can’t go to jail. I didn’t know she’d be a student.
We met before she was a student.
My. Fucking. Student.
And she’s of age— I pause, and my eyes widen.
Wait, how old is she?
She was twenty- one! I’ve seen her ID. We had a drink at multiple bars over the past week.
Yeah, because high school seniors have no way of obtaining fake IDs.
And wait… a few of those nights she didn’t drink.
Fuck. Fuck. FUCK.
I’d had a hard enough time coming to terms with the fact that she was twenty-one, and now she’s probably what, a few days over eighteen?
What if she’s not?
My heart begins pounding even faster, and I drop to the chair at my desk and immediately log in to the school’s portal and pull up the records of all my students. After going through a few not to draw attention to the fact that I’m about to pore over one particular student’s file, I see her name.
Sloane Hunter.
I click her name, and for the first time in the past five minutes, I feel the first very tiny bit of relief to see that she’s nineteen. She’s actually closer to twenty than nineteen, not that it matters, but it makes it marginally better.
At least I’m not going to jail for sleeping with a minor, and I am never touching her again, so I can safely say that I have never had any inappropriate contact with a student.
I immediately go to my phone, block her number, and consider deleting our messages, which include some spicy texts and a few pictures showing both of our faces.
But in case things blow up, I’ll have proof that she’d spent a little over a week lying to me about everything and that I’d have no way of knowing that she’d be my student, given that I thought she was preparing to be a freshman at a fucking university an hour away.
I didn’t know. I had no way of knowing.
I briefly remember the night I filmed and took pictures of us messing around, and while I deleted them, would there be a way to retrieve them?
Fuck.
If I could somehow convince people that our texts didn’t necessarily mean that we’d slept together, those videos and photos of my tongue in her cunt and her mouth wrapped around my dick surely would.
Anger comes to the forefront of my senses, and I feel some of the panic calming within me because she put me in the most impossible situation without my knowledge.
Does it matter, though?
She can’t be serious. How did she think she’d get away with this?
Even if she didn’t go to this school, she thought she could get away with being in fucking HIGH SCHOOL, and I’d never find out?
She thought she could get away with being a cheerleader in the county in which I coach football, and I’d NEVER FIND OUT?!
My mind is practically screaming, and I could jump out of my skin with the raging anxiety coursing through me.
After a brief scan of her file, I see that most of what she told me is true regarding her background and family.
Not that it matters.
None of this matters because I fucked a student.
I fucked a student multiple times.
In multiple positions.
I squeeze my eyes shut, wishing I could rid my brain of the visuals of my head between her legs, her tight body on top of mine, her soft lips wrapped around me while she was on her knees— STOP.
I slam my hand down on the desk hard and grit my teeth and grab my phone to text the one person I hope can talk me off the ledge.
Yeah right, he’ll probably throw me off of it when he finds out.
At least I’ll get some legal advice.
I pull up my texts with my older brother, Rowan, who, thankfully, is a lawyer I may actually fucking need in the very near future.
Me:
I fucked up. I’ll be over later. I need to talk, and as much as I love Ellie, I’d prefer if she were not present for this conversation.
His response is instant because, despite having three kids and a very demanding job, he’s never been anywhere when I needed him.
Rowan:
What’s wrong?
I have the strong urge to tell him, but to avoid putting anything else in writing, I respond.
Me:
Tell you later.
A knock on my office door pulls my eyes from my texts reluctantly because I’m in no mood to talk to anyone who would knock on my door.
It means it’s a student, and one I don’t know very well, because all my guys on the football team use a specific knock to alert their presence, and I’m pretty strict about acceptable office hours, which is not now.
And what the actual fuck could anyone want on the first day other than to try my patience.
I suppose it could be a new teacher, but probably not.
Either way, I’m not in the mood for chitchat or to give advice, directions, or anything else, for that matter.
My eyes widen at whoever’s audacity to just walk into my office as I watch the doorknob turning and slowly being pushed open. When I see who’s peeking through the door, I almost lose it.
“Absolutely not, get out,” I snap aggressively, and it’s a tone I’ve never used with a student. Hell, it’s one I’ve barely used with anyone.
She shivers slightly, and I think she’s going to turn around before she slips into the room and closes the door behind her, leaving me in a way too small of a space with the girl I’ve spent the past two weeks defiling in every position known to man and all the new emotions arising in light of new information.
“River.” She tucks a hair behind her ear nervously and blinks those baby blue eyes at me. God, she is so fucking gorgeous. I’m pissed as hell, but my body still reacts to her, and I hate myself even more for it.
“I will fail you if you do not remove yourself from my sight in the next ten seconds.” I stand but stay behind my desk to keep as much space between us as possible.
“I am so sorry.”
“Nine.” I glower at her, and I can practically feel the fury coursing through me.
She puts up her hands as if she’s surrendering. “Just let me explain.”
“Seven,” I grit out.
“Please,” she whispers as tears flood her eyes, and one slowly slides down her cheek.
“Your tears don’t move me at all,” I lie because seeing a woman cry feels like someone is carving a knife through me. But I am trying to focus on my anger. “This could cost me my job. My life. Everything.”
“I know, and I am so sorry. I didn’t expect to see you here. You weren’t supposed to be here.” She presses her teeth into her bottom lip and wipes under her eyes. I’ve never seen her cry, so the brightness in her blue orbs stuns me slightly, making them even more striking than usual.
The chance that Sloane and I were on that same flight two weeks ago, hit it off, and slept together just before she transferred to my school and into my class seems so fucking unlikely, and I mentally give the universe the finger for this ridiculous, very inconvenient coincidence.
“But you did know that you aren’t twenty-one like you told me, and you know I’m a high school teacher.
You had to know I wouldn’t be okay with sleeping with someone who is in high school.
And if you can’t see why that is, then on top of everything else, you are also not as mature as you profess to be.
” My voice is low and sounds cold even in my own ears.
I can’t remember the last time I’ve been this angry, and I doubt it was toward a woman.
She gasps, and I can see my words hit her when she looks down, scrunching her nose and wiping at her eyes again.
Am I being too tough?
No. She needs to hear this.
Do not back down.
“I’m thirty-eight years old. If you can’t handle the truth, then you should stick to boys your own age, because I’m not sugarcoating anything with you.
You lied, and you got caught. You got caught in the worst possible way, and now I have to deal with a situation I didn’t even know I was in to begin with.
You are far past ten seconds, so again I ask you to remove yourself from my office. ”
“You have every right to be upset, but I won’t tell anyone…” She purses her lips. “Else,” she whispers, and my heart that had just gotten back to a normal rhythm begins to beat wildly in my chest.
“What the fuck, Sloane? Who did you tell?”
“My cousin, Delaney. She knows I slept with an older man who’s a high school football coach, and she goes here also. I’ve only told her your first name, so she probably hasn’t put it together, but there’s a chance she might. If she does, she won’t say anything, I promise.”
“Your word isn’t exactly credible right now, is it?” I sigh, praying this Delaney isn’t in one of my classes. Visions of her having the realization while I’m in the middle of teaching unfold in front of me, followed by a very dramatic:
“OH MY GOD ARE YOU THE OLDER MAN FUCKING MY COUSIN?” In front of the entire class.
Cut to the next vision of me being walked out in handcuffs.
I let out a sigh. “I want you out of my class. Tell them you want a transfer. I don’t want to see you. I want to pretend you don’t exist.”
She takes in a deep breath, and a shaky one comes out. “That’s… fair. I’ll talk to my counselor.”
“Today, Sloane,” I grit out harsher than I intended, but I don’t care.
“Okay.” She nods. “I really am sorry. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. It was supposed to be just a fun fling and then somewhere along the way, things shifted, and I didn’t know how to tell you, and then it was too late.”
“So you were going to just let this go on forever? What was going to happen when you had high school things to do that you couldn’t explain?”
“No, I planned to tell you this past weekend, but everything was just so perfect, and I didn’t want to ruin it. I just kept putting it off because I was scared of your reaction. I panicked.”
“And this was better?”
“No.” She shakes her head. “Hell no.” She takes a step back toward the door and reaches for the knob and turns it slowly.
“I didn’t mean for things to get this far.
I’m sorry we’re here, and I take full responsibility.
” The tears are back in her eyes, and a sad smile finds her face.
“I had a lot of fun the past two weeks, and I’m sorry it had to end this way. ”
And then she’s gone without another word.