“Right.” I turn back around and resume monitoring the thinning after-school traffic. Bringing my walkie-talkie up, I press the button on the side. “Erin,” I call to the teacher in charge of watching over the car-riders in the gym, “could you send someone to get Rose Hunt from the in-school suspension classroom? Her uncle’s here to pick her up.” Glancing over my shoulder, I throw Asa a bland smile. “She should be out shortly.”
“Okay, thanks. Now answer my question.” He shifts forward, and his broad shoulders fill my view along with the ever-present frown. “Rose told us she spoke with you yesterday about cancer, her father and mother. You don’t think that’s something you should’ve called me about? I’m her uncle and guardian. You’re her assistant principal, not her family. It wasn’t your place to have that conversation with her.”
Anger, and yes, dammit, hurt swirls in my stomach, then surges up my chest and throat in a scalding flood. Just before the caustic stream can pour off my tongue, I clamp my teeth together. And breathe. Breathe past the fury, the solid punch to my feelings.
Rose. This is about Rose.
The mantra marches through my mind on a desperate campaign to keep my control tightly leashed.
Turning, I wave at the teacher assisting me this afternoon. “Would you mind taking over for a couple of minutes?”
“Of course.” She pops up her thumb. “I got this.”
I smile at her, but it disappears from my mouth like Houdini when I face Asa again. “Please follow me.”
Not waiting for his agreement, I pivot and stride toward the other end of the platform where no students or parents linger. He’s right behind me, and when I face him again, the air damn near vibrates with the tension arcing between us.
“One, you’re correct and I’m sorry,” I grind out.
Surprise flashes through his eyes at my apology, but that only pricks my anger more. As if he’s shocked that I would or could admit to being wrong. I always suspected Asa didn’t think very highly of me. Even when I was with Jessie, he seemed stand-offish. Reticent. Several times it occurred to me that he only put up with being around me because I was with his best friend. Which was why that kiss shook me to my core. Left me reeling with confusion and aching with hunger. I felt humiliated, played. Used. He turned me into a fucking cliché, the “good girl” panting after the bad boy.
I’ve never forgiven him or myself for that night.
Though Jessie had betrayed me, I nearly mauled his friend hours later without officially breaking up with him. And I enjoyed it. God, I lost myself in his mouth, his hands, his body. Maybe I wouldn’t have stopped at a kiss if Asa hadn’t shoved me off of him.
And that not-knowing haunts me.
That I can still feel the beautiful, dirty pressure of his cock rolling over my pussy torments me.
That I crave it again tortures me.
Inhaling a deep breath, I focus on getting through this confrontation. “You’re right. I should’ve called you after speaking with Rose yesterday, especially given the content of the conversation. That was my responsibility to you as her guardian.”
He stared at me, his gaze roaming over my face. “Thank you for that. I appreciate it.”
“Yes, well, don’t thank me just yet,” I snap, edging forward into his space, fury dancing just under my skin. “I was wrong, but you are, too. I was with Jessie for four years, which means you and your family were also in my life for four years. I might not have been close with Mona, but I knew her. I talked with her. Laughed with her. Broke bread with her. The same with Rose. So maybe I’m not family, but I’m more than just her assistant principal. I’m her friend.”
“India…” he murmurs.
“No,” I interrupt him, emotion bubbling fast and furious inside me. A part of me whispers that my reaction is a little disproportionate to his accusation. But I call bullshit on that part. It’s been two years of pent-up frustration, anger, and hurt, and like a bubbling pot left unattended, I’m boiling over. “Rose has questions about her mother—ones she didn’t feel comfortable going to you and your mom about, because she didn’t want to cause you any more pain by talking about Mona. Since I lost my mother, too, I answered those I could, but told her she shouldn’t be afraid to speak with you and her grandmother. Especially since she’s taken up eavesdropping as her way of getting those answers. So her coming to you yesterday was her way of showing she trusted you. Which you should be delighted with, not jumping on my ass about. Maybe I overstepped a little for an assistant principal, but not a friend. It would’ve been cruel to leave her hurting, and I wasn’t about to do that.”
Silence plummets between us. Only our harsh breaths score the air.
The anger shifts, still containing that serrated, fiery edge, but… different.
Hotter. More feral.
Everything else—the high-pitched voices of children, the lower tones of teachers and parents, the rumbles of cars and honks of their horns—fades, swallowed up by the thickness surrounding us.
At over six feet, he towers over me, his broad shoulders blocking out the school behind him, his chest seeming as wide and hard as the brick walls comprising the building. Maybe some women, given the disparity in our sizes, would feel intimidated, overpowered. Not me. I feel surrounded. Covered… protected. Because I have intimate knowledge of how gentle those large hands can be. How his big frame offers shelter, comfort.
How it’s built for a woman’s pleasure.
I don’t dare tempt fate and glance down his torso to the flat, muscular abdomen, the narrow waist, and thick, powerful thighs. With his sandalwood-and-earth scent teasing me, wrapping around me in a musk-filled embrace, taking in the rest of him might be my undoing. So far, I’ve managed to conceal my rebellious and totally inconvenient desire for him. He rejected me once. No way in hell am I giving him another opportunity to tell me I’m a mistake.
Though my mother loved me enough for two parents, I was still a mistake for her and my absentee father. Then, the man I loved obviously hadn’t been emotionally ready to balance a sports career and a committed relationship. I’d ended up being the casualty, his mistake. And when Asa looked at me, all he saw was his betrayal of Jessie.
No, I’m done. The next relationship I enter will be one where I’m valued, loved, and accepted.