Sweetest in the Gale - Olivia Dade Page 0,46
apparent thought, she set her classroom in order.
When the room was relatively pristine, he approached her desk. She was shutting down her laptop and gathering papers in preparation to work at home. Because, as she’d told him yesterday, her wing of the school sometimes seemed a bit too empty and quiet for her in the late afternoon. After admitting that, she’d turned her face away and fallen uncharacteristically silent.
She hadn’t used the word lonely, but he’d heard it anyway.
Her situation was easy enough to understand, even without further explanation. Most of her fellow teachers didn’t know her well, not yet. She’d only moved to the area several months ago, leaving her former colleagues and friends behind. Her parents required her support, from what she’d indicated on Monday.
Did she have support of her own? Anyone to help her unpack or offer comfort or—
“I’m ready, Mr. Burnham.” The words were a near-sigh, and she slumped in her office chair. “What are today’s observations?”
Those dark smudges beneath her eyes weren’t paint, and her mouth was pale and pinched at the corners. Her hazel eyes had dulled.
Her wispy little buns were drooping. Not in a fun way.
Right now, as her mentor, he should be offering his thoughts about the lesson, giving guidance wherever necessary. Not that she really required any, from what he could tell.
Instead, he found himself asking, “Did it blister?”
She blinked up at him, confused.
“Your burn.” He nodded down at her bandage. “Did it blister?”
“Oh.” Her brow furrowed even more. “Uh, no. No blister. It barely even hurts anymore.”
Which meant it was still hurting. He scowled at the cabinet containing her glue guns.
When he didn’t say more, she added, “Thank you for bringing me a new package of bandages, by the way. It’s good to have extras.”
In the awkward silence that followed, the growl of her stomach was clearly audible.
No wonder she’d collapsed into her chair. She was hungry and hurting and tired and almost as alone as—
“Would you like to have dinner? With me?” He cleared his dry, dry throat. “We can go over my observations while we eat. Make it a working meal.”
When she wrinkled her nose in an apologetic wince, he kept his expression blank.
A colleague refusing an invitation to a last-minute meeting did not and could not cause a pinch in his chest, and that twist in his gut indicated nothing but his own hunger.
“I’m sorry.” Her round cheeks had pinkened, and she was smiling up at him now, eyes alight once more. “I’d love to, but I have dinner with my parents every Wednesday night. They like to eat early, so we wouldn’t even have time to grab coffee before I’d need to go.”
The painful tension in his shoulders eased. “I understand.”
“How about tomorrow night?” Her brows arched in question.
His lungs filled with air, so much air he was suddenly buoyant, and the tips of his ears flushed with heat. The HVAC system in this wing of the building must be malfunctioning.
“Certainly.” Working dinners needn’t be confined to Wednesdays alone. “I’ll make a note of the appointment in my calendar.”
Her lips twitched. “Please do.”
Another long pause as his entire body seemed to vibrate with every heartbeat.
“I should probably head out.” She pushed up the sleeves of her cardigan. “Will you walk me to the parking lot?”
He inclined his head. “Of course.”
Earlier, as he’d calmed himself in his classroom, he’d packed everything he needed in his briefcase. After locking her room, then, they said goodbye to Mrs. Denham and walked to Poppy’s car without any detours.
In the half-empty lot, instead of immediately easing herself inside her bright red car—an electric vehicle, he noted—she turned to him. “Where would you have taken me?”
Where would he have taken her?
If he didn’t know better? If he weren’t a rational man and a professional?
Anywhere. God, anywhere. Anywhere and everywhere.
Last night, he’d dreamed about it. Woken in sweat-soaked sheets, so hard he’d ached and throbbed. Stroked himself in the shower until he’d shuddered and gasped out an obscenity, eyes closed beneath the stinging spray, breath stuttering.
He’d take her in a soft bed, her round thighs spread wide, wide enough for his shoulders, her agile hands clutching his headboard as she moaned and squirmed and came against his tongue. He’d take her over the desk in his home office, her eyes hot and heavy-lidded as she watched him over her pale shoulder, his fingertips firm on her hips while he—
“Simon?” She was squinting at him, head tilted.
He shook his head. Hard. “Excuse me?”
“If I’d