Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 79892 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79892 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
He let go, leaning back against the desk, letting his hands fall to brace himself as he turned his face away, staring off to the side at one of the hanging honeysuckle plants without really seeing it.
“That’s all you’ve earned for today,” he managed to say. His voice felt like a thick strange thing in his throat, sticking to its inner walls. “Enough.”
Summer didn’t move.
Not at first...until a hint of color intruded on Fox’s peripheral vision. Just the lightest touch, a ticklish skim, tracing his temple, tucking a loose strand of his hair back past the frame of his glasses, and Summer let out a deep, contented sigh.
“Well,” he said softly, warmth rolling into the throaty edge of his voice. “I think that answers the question of whether or not you like men.”
Fox’s heart skipped oddly.
Everything felt odd to him, as if he were an ancient and rusted machine whose circuits and pathways had gone dormant for so long that the first surge of sizzling lightning pouring through them was just a painful rush, electricity searing and burning and singeing fine and fragile things to ash because they just couldn’t handle it anymore.
Fox just couldn’t handle it anymore.
He didn’t know how to feel these things, and more than his body...
His mind, his heart didn’t know what to do.
“Don’t be impertinent,” he bit off, refusing to look back at Summer.
“I think you like me impertinent.” A smile in that voice, gentle, deepening it. “I think I’m the only person in this school who isn’t afraid of you.”
Fox arched a brow, leaning farther away from Summer—his body heat, his allure, that firm pressure still caught between Fox’s spread thighs. “Don’t lie. You are still absolutely petrified of me.”
“That’s one way of putting it.” Summer coiled that captured strand of hair around his finger, then let go, stepping back. Air rushed into the space where he’d been, cooling Fox’s body, leaving him...annoyingly bereft. “Maybe I like that little thrill.”
Sliding off the desk and rising to his feet, Fox did everything he could to comport himself with some semblance of dignity, smoothing his clothing and tucking that loose strand of hair back into the knot bound against the back of his head.
Lifting his head, he looked somewhere over Summer’s head—because if he looked at Summer, those dark, hungry, longing eyes would draw him in, asking a question Fox just...
Couldn’t answer.
So he only shrugged, turning away, stepping around the desk again. “There’s a diagnosis for that.”
“I don’t need a diagnosis,” Summer murmured. “Though I wouldn’t mind another kiss.”
Fox froze, shooting a look over his shoulder. “One, Mr. Hemlock. One per day, and that one is more than enough.”
“Summer,” he pleaded softly, his voice catching, that little hitch of his breath strangely arresting, erotic. “Call me Summer again.”
“...finish reviewing the syllabus... Summer.”
He shouldn’t have said it.
Not when that small thing, that intimacy that was intimate only to him and yet that joined the quaking in the pit of his stomach, left him feeling more unsteady than he had in over a decade.
Squaring his shoulders, adjusting his suspenders, Fox continued, forcing his voice to remain stern. “And save your boldness for tomorrow. It’s not even noon, and I’ve had quite enough of your impertinence for one day.”
Summer didn’t say anything for several moments—though Fox caught a faint hint of movement.
Movement, and then warmth...as Summer drew closer, almost pressing against his back.
Leaning in.
And whispering against his ear, as curls of warm breath shivered over Fox’s skin and threaded like caressing fingers into his hair.
“Have you?” Summer rumbled.
Before his fingers grazed Fox’s hair, touching, pressing...tucking something in between the strands. Fox tensed, a little shimmer of sensation rushing through him—but Summer was already pulling back, retreating.
“I need some air,” Summer said. “But I’ll be back in time for class.”
Before he was gone, and Fox turned just in time to watch the door close.
And reached up to touch the delicate, cool honeysuckle blossom Summer had tucked into his hair, plucked from one of the trailing vines and left with its petals, its nectar-damp stamen, just barely touching against Fox’s temple like a kiss.
Chapter Seven
If Professor Iseya was trying to kill Summer...
He might just get his wish before long.
Summer lay stretched on his stomach in bed and replayed this morning. That kiss. Iseya’s long, strong thighs wrapped against his hips, the way he could feel Iseya’s hardened cock pulsing against his own, arousal thick on the air between them and its scent dripping as heavily, as headily as the honeysuckles. The way Iseya had tasted, as their mouths had mated together until they were practically drinking each other dry. The quiet control in Iseya’s every touch, making sure Summer knew his place—and that place was submitting to him with needy gasps, pliant and wanting.
And how Iseya had refused to even look at him or acknowledge him unless it involved classwork for the rest of the day, once Summer had come back from calming himself down and clearing his head.