Discipline (2 page)

Em’s eyes widened as she recalled the party.
“Oh my God,
that
party. How do
you
two remember any
of it, honestly?”

“How could I forget? That was the night I
discovered Nina’s secret talent.”

“What? Double fisting like a champ?” Em
asked.

“No. Giving lapdances,” Adriana answered,
nibbling her strawberry. “She’s almost as good a dancer as she is a
kisser,” she added, winking at me. Once again, I felt my hands
cover my face.

“Damn,” came the reaction from the guys to
my left. Linh cooed.

“I remember that night.” She prodded me with
a giggle. “Be nice to Ade. She had to be like your boyfriend that
night because of all those guys harassing you. It was that costume
you were wearing, with the little plaid skirt and the garters…”

No, no, no. Of all details right now.

“What were you again?”

Please don’t say it.

Adriana smirked. “A naughty schoolgirl.”

God.

And right on cue, the server sprinkled some
cilantro and moved out of the way to confirm whom I’d seen. Him.
The impossibly gorgeous man I had crushed on since the age of
fourteen, who had just spent the past three minutes listening to
the filthy details of my sex life.

“Hi,” he said quickly, interrupting the
words he saw forming on my lips –
Mr. Cole
. It was still
instinct. After all, he had been my high school English teacher.
Though judging from the flicker in his eye, he didn’t want that
fact revealed tonight. Despite a suddenly pounding heartbeat, my
drunk lips twisted into a knowing smile.

“Hi,” I said slowly.
Got it…
we’ll
just pretend we don’t know each other.
I didn’t mind keeping
the secret with him, Adriana being my top motivating factor. She
and Linh were already flirting with Mr. Cole’s friend and
describing the lingerie party to him, throwing in the detail of how
I’d brought my actual assignment pad from high school to complete
the outfit. Mr. Cole and I stared at each other in silence, trying
to speak but too busy listening to Adriana despite trying
desperately not to. Especially as she moved onto the topic of the
guys who kept knocking that assignment pad from my hands, trying to
get me to bend over in my skirt.

“Um.” Mr. Cole winced at himself as a sexy,
almost
dirty
little grin curved the ends of his lips. He
tried to bite it away, shaking his head as if attempting to clear
his thoughts.
Holy shit. Was he…?
The idea of Mr. Cole
imagining me in any sort of raunchy way made me want to writhe with
both horror and excitement. Did that count as finally making him do
something scandalous? If it didn’t, then the fact that I was seeing
him out and decently drunk had to count for something.
My God,
Woodhill should give me a medal.

He was that teacher at the high school – the
one everyone was completely fixated with, whom my cousin Kelsey
called “inappropriately hot, even for the token hot teacher.”
Because he wasn’t just charming and funny in class with nice eyes
and a perfect jawline – he was also
six foot three
with the
muscled build of an Olympic athlete and the most torturously strict
sense of professionalism, despite the legions of lusty girls who
made it their mission to get anything remotely personal or
scandalous out of him. Every period, students hunted for rumor
material as he dodged it at every turn, never once answering the
questions about his relationship status or weekend plans. He
famously loved his job. Teaching was a legacy in his family and he
was serious enough about it that he guarded the details of his
personal life as if they were CIA intel.

Which was why this moment felt surreal.

“I… sorry about my friends,” I murmured with
a short laugh. “They get pretty loud with or without drinks.”

He eyed me for a second, probably because I
sounded flirtatious. I didn’t mean to but I was drunk and equipped
with the knowledge that he might’ve imagined me in lingerie, so I
couldn’t help it. And he looked so damned good. Back in high
school, he titillated girls in a blue button-up and slacks. Now, in
dark jeans and a V-neck sweater with the sleeves pushed up, I was
about ready to pass out with lust.

“
Your
friends?” He glanced at his
plaid-shirted buddy, who was thunderously refusing to believe that
Linh was single. “I think we both know they’re not the problem
here,” he said with a quiet laugh. It was low and inadvertently
sexy. The sound alone made me grip my chair to keep from falling
off. I opened my mouth to respond but I was suddenly pulled into
Plaid Guy’s conversation.

“Are
you
single?” he asked me. “Miss
Ass-To-Waist Ratio?”

“
Mike
.” Mr. Cole grimaced. He shot me
an apologetic look before squeezing his eyes shut for a second and
massaging between them. I guessed that this was his nightmare.
There were younger teachers who were still willing to curse or
allude to sexual matter in class, but Mr. Cole never mentioned
anything remotely inappropriate. His professionalism was
unbreakable. Or supposed to be.

“Oh, like you don’t want to know if she’s
single, you little shit.” Mike grinned. “You were staring at her
through the window before,” he said before turning to me. “He was
staring at you through the window before.”

My laugh was awkward as Mr. Cole covered his
handsome face and shook his head. “I’m… sure he wasn’t,” I said,
though I hoped the opposite. It was just my way of saying,
Don’t
worry, I get that you simply recognized me and weren’t checking me
out.

“No, but he was,” Mike insisted. “You
should’ve heard the shit he was saying to go with it.”

My eyebrows shot up, my curiosity more than
piqued. What? Mr. Cole groaned into his palm before shooting Mike a
sexier-than-it-should-be death look, which went ignored.

“And this was
before
he found out
that you give your hot friends lap dances while wearing schoolgirl
outfits.”

Adriana’s eyes twinkled devilishly. “Well,
shoot. Tell us what he said.”

Finally, Mike hesitated. “Uh… okay, I
would
but this guy looks like he’s about to murder me now
and I’ve seen him beat the shit out of dudes three times his size,
so…”

Again, what?
Another surprise. I
looked at Mr. Cole, who was already looking at me for my reaction.
That made my heart jump. I managed a nod as he shook his head
again, trying to brush off Mike’s words.

“Of course he’s beaten the shit out of
people, it would be a sin to let those muscles go to waste, right?”
Adriana asked, directing her question to me. She delighted when I
blushed and turned back to Mike with a shimmer in her eyes.
“Anyway, to answer your question, Nina is single.” She wet her lips
in a way that made me warier than usual. “Yeah, she just ditched
the world’s most possessive asshole with the biggest ego and
tiniest
little baby dick, so if you friend is up for giving
her a much needed O – ”

“
Adriana
!” Even Linh gasped with
me.

“ – that doesn’t require her to do all the
damned work for once – ”

Em clamped her hand over Adriana’s mouth but
not before she got out a few more words about my preferred
positions in bed. By the time she’d suggested the “seated scissor,”
I was already up and zipping towards the bathroom, unsure of what
else to do with myself as every inch of my body seared with
embarrassment.

I only had time to turn on the cold water
before a knock came at the door. I groaned. “Ade, I
know
you’re pissed at me for being MIA for so long, but – ” I stopped my
sentence once I swung open the door.

I stared in surprise at Mr. Cole, who seemed
just as surprised that he’d gotten up to follow me.

“Nina,” he started, though his gaze suddenly
dipped to the full view of my dress. He quickly tore it away but I
blinked with surprise, a nervous but excited tickle climbing up my
back. It was my first time actually seeing him check me out, and it
was as wildly flattering as it was hard to process. It made me wish
that we were in Woodhill, so I could better feel the context of
this moment.
Mr. Cole just checked me out. Yes, that Mr.
Cole.
My junior year at the library, he’d circled and stood
next to me before helping me gather a stack of papers I’d dropped
in the library — his expert way of avoiding eye contact with my
cleavage as I bent down. He was impossibly and frustratingly
professional, so it was hard to process that he’d just stared at my
chest for longer than a second.

But in all fairness, my boobs were
stretching the little holes below the bust of my crochet dress.
They were certainly calling for more than their fair share of
attention. Not that he wasn’t doing something similar to me. I
couldn’t help staring as he reached back to rub the stress from his
neck, his bicep flexing under his sleeve and pulling it tight.

“Nina,” he finally said again, his voice
back to the one he used to use in class.
Damn it.
He slid
his hands into his pockets and gathered himself. “I’m sorry for…
putting you in such an awkward situation. You shouldn’t have had to
hear all that.”

He was trying hard to be proper for me and
fight through his drunkenness, but I could tell that it was
difficult. It made me want to giggle but I held it in. “Don’t
apologize,” I said softly, stepping out into the little, dark
corridor, lit with a single vintage lamp on the wall. “It was my
friend, really.”

“Well. Mine wasn’t exactly innocent either,
so I apologize on his behalf. We were just at a few bars before we
came here, we’re not usually this… disorderly.”

Disorderly. He glanced at me when I almost
snorted at the word. He was using teacher speak with me and it just
sounded odd considering where we were. His smile was sheepish as my
narrowed eyes teased him for it.

“Mr. Cole, you’re allowed to be out. And you
didn’t do anything remotely disorderly.” I couldn’t help giggling
at his need to stay so professional on a Friday night, forty miles
from home. Nor could I help being excited by the fact that he was
as drunk as I’d suspected he was. “You should, though,” I dared to
say.

A wary grin touched the corners of his lips.
“Should what?”

“Do something disorderly.” As I leaned
against the wall, I could see his eyes getting heavy from the
bourbon I smelled on his breath, once again struggling to stay on
my face as I arched my back just slightly. I bit back my
satisfaction, guilty but delighted by the fact that his
self-control was clearly surrendering to the combination of alcohol
and stretching crochet. With fascination, I watched him watch me.
“We’re not in Woodhill. You’re allowed to be out and drinking with
friends. It’s not a crime.” I’d been repeating the same line to
myself all night. “And even if it were, I wouldn’t tell on
you.”

He broke into a low, sexy laugh. “Yeah.” He
nodded, somewhat squinting at me for a second with what looked like
curiosity. “Guess it’s hard to shake Woodhill sometimes. Feels like
they’re always watching.”

I nodded as I exhaled, resting my own
languid eyelids for a moment as I thought about why I’d even stayed
with Ben for so long. I’d wanted out after the first eight months
but stupidly, I stayed, and for all the wrong reasons. “Yeah. Can’t
do anything scandalous or they’ll come after you,” I murmured. I
heard him give a little laugh.

“So, have they come after you yet?”

Surprise lifted my brows and I peered up to
see Mr. Cole biting a guilty and damned sexy grin back. “No,” I
answered slowly. I hadn’t expected him to acknowledge the things
he’d heard, and now it was my turn to chew on my lip, especially as
I gazed at the adorably conflicted look on his face — like he was
fighting against the things he really wanted to say.

“Uh… yeah. I’ll admit that surprised me,” he
said with a little grin. I had been an exceedingly well-behaved
student in high school. Probably not someone my teachers would peg
to make out with other girls at lingerie parties. Though I didn’t
really consider myself that person either, despite having been her
for a little while.

“I know. I, um, guess I made up for lost
time once I left Woodhill.”

Mr. Cole considered it. “It’s not a bad
thing.”

“Yeah, they’re still secrets though. From
everyone in Woodhill,” I said, relieving my nervous energy by
playing with the string below the bust of my dress. “Or rather,
they were,” I laughed, “until a few minutes ago.”

I looked up to see his eyes lingering just
above my hands. “I won’t tell on you,” he said. The grin he kept
trying to hide tugged at the ends of his mouth, finally sliding
across his lips when I was forced to hastily retie the bow on my
dress. I’d pulled it loose in my nervous excitement.

“Thank you. And please forget all of the
things you heard today.”

“If you’ll forget the things you heard,
too.”

I couldn’t help the smirk wriggling my lips
as I remembered Mike’s claims — that Mr. Cole had checked me out
from the sidewalk and that he’d said a thing or two about me. It
was hard for me to even fathom. “I can’t help but wonder about the
things your friend said,” I dared to admit.

He gave a short laugh, his mouth opening and
closing as if he were hesitating to utter his next sentence. But he
finally caved. “Same here. About the things your friend said.”

Oh
. Heat rushed to my cheeks. “I
guess we’re even then. We’ll both forget everything.”

He creased his brow. “Sure,” he replied with
a one-shoulder shrug that said something more along the lines of
maybe
. I narrowed my eyes at him with mock suspicion and my
heart fluttered as I did so. Were we officially…
flirting
?
It was unreal. He was watching me with a playful, slightly
mischievous smile that I’d never seen on him before.