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“I’m your teacher,” I breathe out. Dueling emotions weigh heavily on my mind. I’ve never wanted something so bad as I do Jackson, yet I’ve never feared anything as much either.
Jackson has the power to destroy me, my career, and my family.
“Let me go,” I whisper.
“Let me kiss you,” he pleads, moving in closer so that his body is pressed against mine, allowing me to feel his heat.
“I’m your teacher,” I choke out again, all other words escaping me.
“I’m nineteen, Savannah. Three years stand between us. That’s nothing,” he says so close to my face that I can feel his warm breath on my skin. “I don’t know what it is about you, but I’ve thought about you night and day for eight months now. I want you so bad that it’s physically painful. I need you.” He rocks his hips into me, and I have to stop the moan from escaping my throat. “I know you want me, too.”
He leans in and presses his lips to my neck. My knees go weak, and if it weren’t for his hands in mine holding me up, I’d surely crumple.
“No,” I whisper weakly as his lips move up to my ear.
“I’ll make you feel so good,” he says in a hushed voice, causing all of my remaining breath to whoosh out of me.
Realization dawns, casting light over the heavy fog of lust that surrounds me. “No!” I yell firmly, ripping my hands from his grip and pushing him away from me.
I’m his teacher. We’re in a public place. What am I doing?
“I’ll graduate in a month, Savannah. You’re only three years older. What’s it matter?”
“God, Jackson. It matters!” My hands clench into fists, and I jump at the sound of the nearby bathroom door closing. I glare at Jackson. “It matters,” I say once more before walking away.
“Are you okay?” Maddie asks when I get back to the table.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I attempt to say with the cheeriest voice I can muster.
“You’re all red.” She tilts her head to the side as if to take me in.
I wave a hand nonchalantly through the air. “Oh, the wine,” I say as if that explains everything.
I’m dying to tell Maddie about Jackson. I tell Maddie everything. She knows every little insignificant detail about my life, yet I can’t even tell my closest friend this secret. No one can ever know about my attraction to Jackson because it’s wrong on so many levels.
Jackson and I have had months of stolen glances and cautious flirting. He finds a way to touch me almost every class, whether his thumb brushes over my hand as he turns in an assignment or his arm rubs against mine as he casually walks by. Anyone watching wouldn’t expect a thing, but I know, and Jackson knows—that these small moments are intentional and, more than that, desired.
I live for them.
I count down—or at least I used to—to the last period of the day where that one second of skin contact from Jackson shoots an energy and warmth through my body, sustaining me until I can feel it again the next day.
I’m pathetic. I don’t know how I got here, but it doesn’t change the fact that I almost let Jackson, one of my students, kiss me in the hallway of the only bar in town.
Lately, though, Jackson has become more brazen. I’m terrified that someone is going to catch on and notice or even report me. I’ve come to dread my last class of the day. Jackson’s like a ticking time bomb of lust, and I know that I’m at fault for his impending explosion. I should have shut him down on day one, but honestly, I thought it was all in my head for the first few months. When I finally stopped denying our mutual attraction, it was too late. We were both too far gone.
“Do you remember that kid, Jackson Hunt?” I ask Maggie because the desire to give voice to his name overpowers me.
“You mean the Jackson that lives in the trailer park just outside of town? Of course. Remember when we were swimming in the lake behind James Dewitt’s farm, and he threw that handful of mud in my face? I think we were like twelve. Ugh, I’ve hated him ever since. Why do you ask?”
“Oh, he’s in one of my classes. I couldn’t remember if I told you,” I shrug.
“He’s still in school?” Maggie tilts her head as if trying to figure out something. “I thought…”
I finish her thought. “Yeah, he’s nineteen…a senior. I guess he didn’t show for his third-grade year, so he had to take it again.” I leave out the fact that I obtained that information by sneaking his file and reading it.
“Not surprising. Is he like a total ass in class? Wait. Is he the reason that you hate this year so much? Is he being mean to you?” Maggie squints her eyes, pressing her mouth in a line.
“No, he’s actually one of the nice kids.”
