Hot For Teacher(152)

“That’s not the woman I knew.”

“Then clearly you don’t know my family as well as you thought,” she grumbled. “I learned to shut my emotions off a long time ago. It hurt less than feeling ignored and unloved all the time.”

“The family I remember loved you very much.”

“Yeah, well, shit happens. You of all people know that.”

Jake’s breath hitched, failing to release as he sat in stunned silence. He jerked away from her, as though slapped. He sat there in pained silence for what seemed like forever, when at last he spoke. “You’re right. I do.”

He cleared his throat, his words coming slow and steady, as gentle as a lover’s caress. “Imagine this then… the man you love more than life itself goes off to war, armed with a picture of you and a promise that you’ll wait for him. But the months and eventually years drag by with no word of him. Life falls apart around you. The world falls apart around you. Yet still he does not return. You believe him dead and yet still wait faithfully for his return…”

“I don’t believe in love, Jake,” Savannah admitted quietly, cutting him off. “So, there’s nothing you can say that I can relate to.”

“I don’t believe that for a second,” he whispered. “You believe in love. You’ve just forgotten what it feels like.”

“I… I… I don’t know how to feel anymore,” Savannah stammered. “Honestly, I’m not sure I want to.”

The rough skin of his knuckle gently grazed the line of her throat, slowly caressing her from ear to collarbone. “I think I could change your mind.” She could hear the smile in his voice. “I’m an excellent teacher.”

Savannah swallowed with an audible gulp. “Prove it.”

Jake moved from her side and her body mourned the warmth of his closeness. Savannah eyed him warily as he scribbled on a post-it note and ripped it from the stack. He held it out to her with dogged determination gleaming in his eyes. “My place. Seven o’clock. I’d offer to pick you up, but I don’t want to give the other students more cause to talk about you than I already have.”

Savannah wanted to protest that she didn’t care what the other students thought. But the man had a point. Instead, she nodded and accepted the yellow sticky note without argument. An address was scrawled in his bold, masculine print. Savannah knew the neighborhood, not far from the library across town.

“You’ll come?” Jake asked, hope and need trespassing into his voice.

That sliver of vulnerability cracked the icy shell Savannah had built around her heart. True, going to a teacher’s private residence was a recipe for educational disaster. If discovered, she’d risk investigation into her academic performance. The last thing she needed was to be accused of trading sex for grades. Not that she couldn’t prove herself, but a scandal of that magnitude wouldn’t exactly pad her medical school applications. All that aside, he wasn’t just her teacher. He was Jake. And she would do anything for that man, no matter how taboo.

Stuffing the note into her pocket, Savannah gave a sharp nod.

“Good.”

Before she could change her mind and tell him where he could shove his ‘lessons,’ she gathered her books and bags and made a beeline for the closed door.

“See you tonight, Savannah,” Jake called to her retreating back. The delicious, unspoken promise in his words rocked her to her core. For the first time in forever, Savannah looked forward to something that wasn’t a far off goal in the distant future. She would live in ‘the now’ and have no regrets.

***

Jake knew inviting Savannah to his house was asking for trouble. He knew better. Student-teacher relationships were forbidden, even at the university level. If he was caught having anything other than a professional relationship with Savannah, he would not only lose his shot at the coveted tenured position, he’d lose his job altogether.

Even knowing that, he hadn’t a doubt in his mind that Savannah was worth the risk. The kid he’d known and loved like a sister had grown to be the most beautiful, intriguing, and infuriating woman he’d ever met. Intelligent and fiery, Savannah had the world at her feet. She could do anything, be anything. Jake couldn’t understand how such a vibrant person had walled herself off so effectively from human emotion. But she had. The girl was missing life, letting it fly by without a thought for anything but her future. A real friend couldn’t stand by and let her throw her young life away without intervention. Or so he’d justified to himself over and over.