Tutoring the Delinquent
“Yes, Teddy,” I whisper, because whether it’s right or wrong, I love the way he commands me. It’s not done in the name of keeping me under his thumb. No. He commands me in ways that keep me close, keep me safe, because I think if he didn’t have those two assurances, he might lose his mind. And I’m getting to his level, too. I’ve become his identical counterpart, yearning for him when he’s at practice or even just in the shower. We reunite like long-lost lovers afterward, hands stroking and getting reacquainted, syncing our breaths once again. I miss him when he’s standing right in front of me.
He advances on me slowly now, turning me toward the bedroom, lifting up the borrowed jersey and slapping my bottom. “Wear something I can take off easily.”
* * *
I’m not the only one waiting outside of the test room.
Half the school is here in red and gold, our official colors. Some people even have their faces painted or hold signs with encouraging messages for Teddy. When it was just the two of us studying, the pressure to help him pass was more than enough, but this? So much is on the line. If Teddy doesn’t pass, he won’t play in the championship and we will lose. It’s a given.
No. He’s going to pass. Not only that, he’s going to get an A.
He worked so hard and he’s a lot smarter than he gives himself credit for.
Remembering his directions to me before we left the apartment, I close my eyes and recall him beneath me last night, the way he rode me on his bucking hips, sweat dripping off his abs, jaw clenched tight, shuddering, trying not to come. How he groaned my name so brokenly. How he threw himself off the bed and took a cold shower while I lay panting, my underwear clinging to my skin. It’s almost over. The waiting is almost—
My thoughts burst like a bubble when I hear a door creak. Slam.
My eyes fly open. The mass of students is deadly silent as Teddy walks out, backpack slung over one shoulder, a backwards hat on his head. He’s holding a paper in his hand, but I can’t read his expression. Oh God, he’s not smiling. What happened?
He’s focused on me, jaw set.
He stops in the center of the courtyard, holds up the paper. “I got an A.”
Utter pandemonium breaks out. Deafening cheers, screams of joy. Male students chest bump as they watch their hero stride toward me. Somewhere in the distance, a marching band begins to play, but my heartbeat drowns out the noise almost immediately. Because my boyfriend very clearly does not care about the fanfare whatsoever. And if I had any doubt about that fact, he rids me of it a second later when I’m thrown over his shoulder and carried out of the courtyard.
My smile is so huge that it actually hurts my face.
“Teddy.” My laughter is watery—and delivered to the muscular swells of his butt. “You did it. You did it. I’m so proud of you.”
He keeps walking. Faster. He doesn’t slow down until we’re at the parking lot.
The next time I glimpse his face, there is a fine layer of sweat on his forehead. His breath rattles in and out, the Western Civilization test crushed and forgotten in his hand. He wrenches open the passenger side of his truck and tosses the stapled papers into the footwell, then sets me down on the seat, buckling me in with shaking hands. It’s impossible to miss the growing ridge behind the fly of his jeans. Or the way his restless touch scrubs up and down my thighs, higher to my breasts, which he squeezes once with a strangled groan.
“T-Teddy? Are you okay?”
No answer.
He slams the door closed and circles around the front bumper, never taking his eyes off me. They pin me through the windshield like a hundred-mile-per-hour wind. My legs scoot together on the seat in an attempt to suppress the spreading ache there. I’m growing hotter by the second, muscles tightening like the cogs of an engine. And the wetness. It comes on so fast, it’s almost embarrassing. By the time he climbs into the driver’s side of the truck and starts the engine with a violent twist of his wrist, my nails are clawing the seat on either side of my hips.
“Don’t say another word. Your innocent voice is too much when I’m this hard,” he rasps, gunning the truck in reverse and peeling out of the parking lot. We travel down the street leading off campus and once we’re past the gates, he opts for the backroad, instead of the interstate. “Get those little fucking panties off.” His fingers flex around the steering wheel, green scenery flying by on either side of us. “I’m not going to make it home.”