My hands tremble as I remain frozen, my eyes on her dark blonde curls.
Disbelief washes through me. This can’t be happening.
She can’t be my teacher. She just can’t.
I spent all night dreaming of being inside her, about sinking my teeth into her thigh so deep my mark will never ever leave her body.
Sh-she can’t be—
* * *
“FUCK OFF,” I bellow when the familiar beep of someone letting themselves into my flat hits my ears.
“Fuck you, prick.” The deep rumble of my best friend’s voice should probably be comforting, but the fact that he’s managed to get access again after I shut them all out… Well, all but Theo. That motherfucker is impossible to lose.
“I’m going to fucking kill Theo,” I sulk, knowing full well that he’s granted Toby access despite me revoking it.
“I’d like to see you try,” he teases as he emerges around the corner, still wearing his Knight’s Ridge uniform. He dumps his bag beside the sofa and falls down onto it. “What’s this? You got dressed then changed your mind?” he asks, his eyes taking in my matching clothes.
“Something like that,” I sulk, lifting my bottle to my lips.
“Ah, decided to spend your day with your new friend the Goose instead of us, huh?”
“Fuck off.”
“Nope.” He grins at me, and if I weren’t so attached to the oblivion the bottle in my hand can offer me, I might throw it at his head. “You remember that it was Alex, Daemon, and your little sister’s birthdays this week, right?”
“I gave them all cards,” I grunt, remembering poking them all under their front doors and running away like a pussy earlier in the week.
“Oh yes, how could I forget the monumental effort you made with those.”
I narrow my eyes at his sarcasm, seriously unimpressed by the fact he clearly only turned up to make my life worse.
Un-fucking-lucky for him, I’m pretty sure that’s impossible right now.
My father is dead, my mother is a selfish cunt, and my… my… fuck… my no one is now what… my fucking teacher?
“Did you come here for a reason, or just to piss me off?”
“We’re having a party at Theo’s later. All of us.” He pins me with a look that makes me want to curl up into the sofa and never come out again.
“No one wants me there,” I point out.
“You’re wrong,” he states, sitting forward and holding my stare with his serious eyes. “We all want you there.”
I can’t help but scoff at that.
Before all of this, I’d have believed him. I was the life of the fucking party. But it seems that fun side of me died right alongside my dad.
“Nico, we’re all worried about you. Locking yourself in here and only letting Brianna in when she offers sexual favours isn’t going to make any of this better.”
“You sure? You haven’t felt the thing she can do with her—”
“I’m sure. Her skills might be out of this world, but they’re still not good enough to fix any of this shit. To fix you.”
“No? So what will?”
His eyes soften in a way I fucking hate.