No one ever said being a teacher was glamorous.
A day of getting my classroom ready for the new school year wasn’t exciting, but it needed to be done. I’d slacked a bit in June on my cleaning, knowing I’d step it up in the fall, and lo and behold, the fall was almost here.
Hadn’t it just been July a minute ago? Now it was verging on September. The time was flying by at a truly scary rate.
Soon, my lazy afternoons spent with a certain someone would come to an end. I wouldn’t be stopping by Kinleigh’s anymore under the guise of shopping for eclectic furniture pieces no one truly believed I wanted.
What I really wanted was to see Luna.
As lame as it was, I kept up the pretense anyway. We were exalting in this whole “no labels” business.
All the flirting, all the fucking, none of the drama.
And she had a hell of a way with a staple gun.
“Is this good enough?” She inched up on her toes to hang the “Welcome Back, Students” banner over the top of the whiteboard. Except Luna was a little thing, so she couldn’t reach very high.
Which meant I could crowd into her from behind to help her…stretch.
“How about this?” I asked against her ear, gripping her hips to hoist her up to hang one end of the banner. I’d already done the other side.
She laughed breathlessly as she stapled it into place. “Where are your hands, teach?” Her laughter turned husky. “Should you be touching me like this in a place of learning?”
“Absolutely. Fuck, are you wearing a string bikini under here?” Her denim mini skirt was very brief and showed a hell of a lot of curvy leg, ending in wedge heels with straps that wound up her calves.
I did not mind in the slightest.
“Maybe. I didn’t know what you had in mind for my afternoon off.”
“Oh, you can guess what I have in mind.” Nuzzling her loose, beachy hair, I let her slide slowly down my body, dragging her right over the definite stirring in my khakis. “But I figured we could work before we play.” I slipped my hand under the hem of her peach tank top on my way up to cupping her breast. “Why’d you have to wear a bra?”
“Because I don’t want to be arrested, maybe?”
I nibbled down the side of her neck to her shoulder. “I’d save you. But if you want to play cops and bad, bad girls we can do that too.”
A throat was cleared from the doorway. I knew that throat clearer. I heard that particular sound in my nightmares.
I went still. Were my lungs still functional? It felt as if I had a sudden, unexpected blockage. One that resulted from knowing I might be unemployed and unemployable once the principal of St. Agnes Academy put out the word to the administrators at nearby schools that Caleb Beck was a big ol’ perv.
Fondling a very willing woman in a parochial school classroom while readying the space for innocent seven and eight-year-olds. Why, I never.
Luna peeked up at me from underneath her wavy hair. “Oh, thank you, Caleb. If you hadn’t rescued my contact, I’d just be flailing around here like a blind person.” She pretended to smack at her eye. “There, that’s better. I can see now. I can’t thank you enough.” She turned and flung herself at me, hugging me around my arms currently glued to my sides.
Sheer panic at potential public shame did that to a man.
“Hi there,” she added brightly, moving toward Sister Tobias and extending a hand. “I’m—”
Sister Tobias did not shake. She seemed ri
veted by the sparkling daisy charm dangling from Luna’s belly button, nicely revealed due to the wandering hand that had pulled up her tank top.
Thanks, hand.
“Mr. Beck?” she asked in an exceptionally unfriendly tone rather than addressing Luna.
“Sister, you look lovely today.”
She looked down her nose at me, which was a feat considering I was about a foot taller than she was. But she won on the menacing score. “You’re one of the last ones to prepare your classroom. The ice cream social and picnic are coming up.”