Just Like That - Cole McCade Page 0,63

supposed to work on simultaneous tasks like this?”

He lifted his hips, rocking them rather pointedly into Summer, letting him feel exactly the damnable effect he had on Fox—and Summer caught a quiet breath, before exhaling in a soft moan.

“Ah... F-Fox, I...” He took a deep breath. “Maybe I didn’t...quite think this through...”

“That seems to be a hallmark of many of your life decisions, yes.”

“Ouch.” But Summer was still smiling, still flushed, even as he leaned away from Fox with ginger, careful movements that still couldn’t stop how their bodies slid together, nestled as they were. He dragged over the open course gradebook he’d been reviewing, before snuggling back into Fox. “But I actually needed your help with this...so we can look at it together?”

The soft note of entreaty in Summer’s voice made Fox sigh.

Because he already knew damned well that he would do whatever Summer asked, even if it meant working in this highly compromising position.

“What were you looking at?” he asked, ignoring the tight, pulling sensation in his cock and instead settling his arms around Summer’s waist, resting his chin to his shoulder. “Show me.”

He couldn’t miss the pleased tinge to Summer’s smile, as Summer turned his head and kissed Fox’s cheek, before bowing his head to look down at the gradebook.

“I’ve been talking to some of the students,” he said. “The ones who get bullied the most. Asking when it started... I’m not clueless enough to ask who, or they’d clam up. No one wants to be the snitch. But based on the conversations...” He sighed, his body going a bit heavier in Fox’s arms. “The slow decline in their grades almost exactly matches up with when their bullying started.”

Fox kept his smile to himself, if only because the urge to smile unbidden was so strange he naturally suppressed it.

Of course Summer cared about that, to the point of going far beyond his duties.

Of course.

He pressed his mouth against the back of Summer’s shoulder, watching one tanned fingertip skim down the lines, stopping on specific names. As expected, Jay Corey and Eli Schumaker were on the list...but several others, as well.

“You know the Assistant Principal won’t like this,” he murmured. “He’s still worried about risk of liability, when you’re only a TA.”

“I know,” Summer said. “There’s not much I can do, but...” He bit his lip. “A teacher, an actual tenured teacher, could call parent-teacher conferences, couldn’t they?”

With a groan, Fox rested his brow against Summer’s back, tightening his hold around his waist. “Did you seduce me simply so you could use your wiles to convince me to call their parents in so you might intervene?”

Summer made a strangled noise. “I... I didn’t seduce you at all! I...i-it...it just happened, you were there and I was there and then you kissed me and...and...”

“Breathe, Summer.” Fox smoothed his hand against the tight planes of Summer’s stomach, feeling the shallowness of his inhalations. “I suppose my utter lack of tone makes attempts at humor fall short.”

“Dick,” Summer said, but laughed, reaching back to lightly thump Fox’s thigh. “Will...will you help, then?”

Fox wrinkled his nose. “I suppose they cannot fire me if I already intend to quit. But are you certain you know what you’re getting into? You do recall who the parents of these students are, don’t you? It will likely take two weeks simply to wrangle them into showing their faces.”

“And they’ll probably be assholes, I know.” Summer sighed. “But I have to try, Fox. What’s the worst that could happen if I try? That those boys know someone cares about them, even if their parents threw them away like trash?”

Fox just...looked at Summer.

He didn’t know how anyone could be so very terrified of the world at large, and yet still open his heart so freely and invite the very world that frightened him into its inner chambers.

Summer was a strange beast, indeed.

And, with a deep exhalation, Fox offered a smile. “You did not have to convince me,” he said. “I already knew I would say yes the moment you asked.”

In a flurry, he had his arms full of Summer—as the gradebook landed messily on the desk, and Summer landed messily across Fox’s lap again, that soft sweet mouth finding his with a quiet urgency, a need that was almost clumsy in its eagerness, only making it that much more alluring for its guilelessness.

“Thank you,” Summer breathed against his lips. “You won’t regret it.”

Fox had his doubts about that.

But he had other things on his mind, right now, as