Total pages in book: 45
Estimated words: 44127 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 221(@200wpm)___ 177(@250wpm)___ 147(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 44127 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 221(@200wpm)___ 177(@250wpm)___ 147(@300wpm)
“C’mon,” I help her stand and follow suit, towering above her small frame and looking down into her eyes. “I’ll grab some fresh sheets for the guest room and get you set up.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that. I mean I just slept in them last night.”
“Nah, it’s no problem.”
Upstairs, she starts to help, but I just grin and shrug her off, nodding at the big chair by the window. “Sit. Relax. I got this.”
I strip the sheets, very aware of her eyes on me, and her lip catching between her teeth as she does.
I just kissed her.
Well, maybe she technically just kissed me, but I sure as shit wasn’t an unwilling participant. We’re not saying anything, and we’re not talking about it, and it’s definitely this giant elephant in the room, but I just let it hang there. Because as fucked up as it is, and as fucking wrong as it was?
Kissing Brynn Henley felt fucking good.
Kissing her felt like a breath of air—the first one I’ve had in years. Kissing her sparked something inside of me I was pretty sure was cold and dead forever after the shit I saw in war. After the people I lost and the hell I fought my way through. Teaching brought me back to humanity a little, but that kiss?
…That kiss is the first taste of a real life I’ve had since I went to war. And now, God help me, I want more.
I finish making the guest room bed, and when I turn, I grin as I bust her quickly looking away from staring at me.
“Okay,” I growl. “You’re good.”
She swallows as she stands, smiling quietly at me as her eyes dart over my face.
“Thank you,” she says softly. “I don’t know how to repay—”
“You don’t. Now stop saying that,” I shake my head, flashing a small smile. “Look, I’m going to go downstairs and start some dinner. Feel free to stay in here, come down and join me… whatever you want. You’re gonna be safe here though, okay?”
She wets her lips as she nods.
“Okay.”
I smile, and I go to move past her for the door to the room when I brush against her. And suddenly, her hand darts out and catches mine, and when our fingers lace together, I freeze, my pulse racing.
“Brynn,” I growl lowly, not trusting myself to turn back to look at her as my pulse thunders and my muscles clench tight.
“Colton…” she breathes, and my name on her lips crumbles my defenses as I turn to let my eyes blaze into hers.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
“Brynn,” I growl quietly, shaking my head. “You don’t owe me for—”
“Is that what you…” She frowns, dropping my hand. “Do you think downstairs I was, like, paying you back?”
No. I don’t for a second, but I also know some very, very cold, hard facts. She’s eighteen. I’m thirty-fucking-eight. She’s a fucking student, and I’m her principal. And that is all this can be. It doesn’t matter what the hunger inside of me demands or wants. It doesn’t matter that all I want to do is pull her into me again and crush my lips to hers and kiss her until we can’t breathe anymore.
It doesn’t matter because there is no fucking away this can be a thing, and there’s no goddamn way I can kiss her again.
“Weren’t you?”
And there I go, torpedoing this whole thing before it blows up in our faces. Before she temps me into doing something she’ll regret. Before I do something to ruin my career.
Her face darkens when I say it, her eyes narrowing and her sweet, soft, candy lips pursing together.
“No, actually,” she hisses out, her cheeks reddening. “I wasn’t.” She shakes her head, her mouth twisting.
“Jesus, who do you think I am?”
My jaw tightens.
“My student,” I growl. “That’s who I think you are, Brynn.”
She glares at me, her eyes still wild and her cheeks still red before she looks away.
“I’m making scallops and—”
“I’m not hungry.”
This isn’t the road I want to walk down, but I know damn well it’s the only path we have. It’s the only road that isn’t littered with landmines and bear traps.
“Well, if you’re hungry—”
“I’m not.”
I turn, pissed at myself and hating that I’m not scooping her into my arms again and kissing her with every fucking fiber of my being.
…But that can’t happen. It just can’t.
“Goodnight, Brynn.”
She says nothing as I close the door and head downstairs to pour myself a heavy drink.
* * *
Hours later, after my drink, and dinner, and then another drink or two, I’m back in my room trying to sleep. And it is not happening. I growl, tossing and turning, my mind whirling and my every damn thought dwelling on the gorgeous, scared, tempting little tease sleeping right down the hall. I groan, and before I can stop myself, I start to wonder things I should not be wondering about.