“Tempting. What assignments do you have due in before Friday?”
I paused too long. “Nothing much…”
“Helen, you have at least three of mine. What else?”
“A commentary on Blake for English, and my term journal.”
“Then you’re going to be home for six, and you’re going to eat your dinner and do your homework like the good little student you were before I stole your innocence.” He smiled. At least he smiled. “I have enough professional guilt on my shoulders already, Helen. Please study.”
“You didn’t steal my innocence.” I laughed. “I pretty much begged you to take it.”
“I don’t think many people would see it that way.”
“They’d be wrong.”
“They often are, it matters not.” He leaned into me. “Study. Please.” And then he kissed my cold cheek, and his lips were warm and felt like liquid gold. I turned to him, and he didn’t hold back, just pressed his lips to mine and met my tongue with his, and his hands were warm, and my nipples were hard from the cold. He pulled away to flick on the interior light, and we were all steamed up, a frosted booth of want that felt a million miles from anywhere.
He pulled my blazer open, and my blouse was damp.
“Helen, Helen, Helen. This is both reckless, and divine. Just look at you.”
I watched his fingers stroke me, and it felt like heaven.
But then he stopped. And turned the light off. And lit up a cigarette.
I groaned. “That was getting good.”
“Too good. I’m taking you home shortly.”
“But Mr Roberts!” I pouted and he smiled, and then he offered me his cigarette and I took a drag while he watched, and his eyes were happy. They were happy. And that felt best of all.
“I’m watching a vixen mature before my eyes.”
“A vixen who wants to eat you up.”
“That can be arranged.”
“Why not now?” I handed him back his cigarette.
“Study before playtime, Helen Palmer. Non-negotiable.”
“But I want to taste you…” I leaned into him, and snaked my cold hands inside his jacket and he didn’t even flinch. “I want to feel you… I want you to take me again…”
He stubbed his cigarette in the ashtray and took my hands in his. “You’ll have it all. Everything you want. But not to the detriment of your schoolwork.” He blew on my fingers and rubbed them with his. “Get your assignments finished, and get them finished well, we’ve got the Christmas break for everything else.”
My smile took over me. “Two whole weeks. I want to love you through all of them… every day… all day…”
“I’m not going anywhere, Helen. You’ll get your two weeks. However much you can swing of them. I’ll be there.”
I could feel my heartbeat in my tummy. “I can’t believe this is happening to me.”
“It won’t be if you continue to dance with pneumonia.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, yeah.”
His hand snaked around my neck and pulled me to him and held me there. And then he kissed me, hard, and I couldn’t have moved if I’d have wanted to. He kissed me like I was his, as though I was everything he needed to breathe, and it was rough, and deep, and perfect. My lips missed his from the moment he pulled away.
“Two whole weeks, Helen. You’d better get your schoolwork out of the way, though. I will be checking.”
I grinned. “Yes, sir.”
“That’s my girl.” He put the car in gear. “No more winter recklessness please. We’ll make arrangements and we’ll stick to them, agreed?”
I nodded. “Yes, Mr Roberts.” And then I poked my tongue out.
He pinched it between his fingers until I squeaked.
“Let’s get you home, Little Miss Horny.”
He meant it, too. Schoolwork before sex.
As frustrating as it was to look but not touch, stealing minutes in an empty classroom with no funny business allowed, listening to him teach, watching him walk the room, catching his eyes in a roomful of people and seeing the fire there, feeling the fire there, I loved him all the more for it, if that’s even possible.
I loved him for it because it made me better.
I put my all into everything I did at school that week, and threw myself into getting my assignments finished before term wrapped up, and I did it for him. I did it to see the pride in his eyes as he checked my work, for the pride I’d know would be in his eyes when he checked up on my other classes and found I was excelling. I did it so he knew this crazy thing was good for me.
He was in everything I did.
He was my everything.
And I’d have him for two whole weeks.
I just had to clear the path with Mum and Dad.
I picked a good evening, one where I’d passed my A grade English coursework mark around the dinner table, and everyone had fluffed up with pride. I let them commend me, and I let them know how much work I’d put into it, and then I dropped the bomb.
“I’m, um… I’m going to be out a lot over Christmas… I just… things are getting serious… you know…”