Hot and Bothered(25)

                “I don’t think so.” She tilted her head. “I want you to start again.”

                “What?”

                “The lessons. Some of the kids want to work with you again. I told them—” She hesitated, but only for a beat. “I told them you’d be available to teach again for the next six months.”

                Her words swirled in his head and his gut. His instant joy collided with all the messages saying No, not you, it’ll never work, you’re a shitty role model. He’d loved those kids, and he’d hated himself for not being the man who deserved to teach them. He never wanted to disappoint them like that again.

                “No,” he said.

                She crossed her arms, which was probably supposed to make her look stubborn and tough but mainly made it harder for him not to covet her breasts.

                “You can mess with my hair and my clothes, and you can make me go to parties, but this is over the line. That’s not my image. That’s my life.”

                A few of the musicians had gone back up front and were messing around, so he couldn’t hear what she said next, just watched her lush lips and thought about kissing off all her lipstick. “What?”

                She leaned in. He guessed at some level he’d wanted her to. He could smell her perfume, assaulting his senses and traveling every synapse in his brain, right down his spinal cord.

                “Not for your image. For you. Because you loved it.” Her lips were closer to his ear than they had to be, surely. If he could feel warm breath, if he could sense the movement of her mouth, if he could imagine her tongue curling into the crevices of his ear and her teeth nipping his lobe—she was too close.

                “Let me make this happen.”

                Her breath feathered against his skin, a sensation that wound its way through his whole body.

                Neither of them said anything and she didn’t move. He breathed her, the soft scent of lust under all the perfume, the strongest and best.

                She stepped away, taking her warmth and scent with her. Disappointment curled in him. He hadn’t really thought that she’d—that anything could happen between them—

                He hadn’t thought it, but he’d wanted it.

                “Okay,” he said. Somehow, it felt as if he was agreeing to more than music lessons.

                She was straightening her clothes, stiffening her back, putting her whole Haven costume on again. “I’ll let you get to it. I didn’t mean to take up your whole break.”

                “No—it was— I’m glad. And thanks.”

                Don’t go.

                He didn’t just mean physically. He wanted her close to him again, taking him in. She’d seen him. She’d said—

                This is you, right?

                Because you loved it.

                “So, yeah—I’d better go. I’ll be in touch about the lessons. And regardless, Wednesday, my office, meeting with Pete.”

                “Yeah,” he said.

                She turned away slowly, as though she, too, felt the tension between them and was unwilling to let go.