Teaching Rowan (Claimed 2)

Sebastian

The rest of my week at Commodore passes in agonizing lurches and blissful lulls. The hours between the first bell and the last are utter hell. Richard Johnson drives me up the fucking wall, but no one comes forward to make a complaint. Despite my best efforts to engender trust, everyone remains infuriatingly silent about their tyrannical principal. It's enough to leave me in a constant state of agitation.

Until the final bell rings and Rowan is all mine again. When she's close, I feel nothing but happy. We try hard to keep our hands off one another when we're on school property. God, how we try. It's useless though, a losing battle. As soon as she slips into my office after the last of her kids are safely on their way home, we're a blur of hands and lips and desperation.

Somehow, we manage to make it home before I get inside her. We don't cross that line, simply because I know how much this job means to her and I don't want to do anything to jeopardize that. It's hard though. Because when she has her hands on me, nothing else registers, nothing else exists. It's just the two of us, rules and hierarchy and Principal Richard Johnson be damned.

I spend my lunchbreak with her every day. On Wednesday, it's just the two of us in the Teachers' Lounge. On Thursday, we're back on lunchroom duty. But on Friday, we manage to sneak off to lunch together. Rowan is quiet, distracted. She has been all day.

I think she's upset that I'll be elsewhere next week, but she's not saying it. There's a lot we're not saying. I've never been a coward, but I'm a little afraid that I'll spook her if I tell her that I'm in love with her. I don't know exactly when I fell, but I did. So hard I'm still reeling, still reveling.

I know she feels the same way about me, but I'm not sure if she knows it yet. It's in her eyes when she looks at me, in her touch when she puts her hands on me. It seeps out into the air around her. She glows with love, with happiness. Surely, everyone else sees it too. Or maybe I'm just so hyper focused on her that it's impossible for me to miss.

I'm telling her how I feel tonight. If I don't, I think I might actually lose my mind. I need her to know that this thing between us isn't over just because I won't be at Commodore every day. I want her to move in with me, marry me. God, I want it more than I've ever wanted anything before.

If I'm wrong and she doesn't love me yet, somehow, someway, I'll convince her to fall.

"Do you want to go to dinner tonight?" she asks, looking at me from beneath her lashes. She's still so shy sometimes, so damn sweet. When I'm inside her, she's as kinky as I am, as shameless and wild. But when I'm not inside her, she's still so innocent, so artless.

"I have a School Board meeting," I tell her, wishing like hell I could skip it. Unfortunately, we have some things to discuss. Richard Johnson amongst them. While no one has come forward to lodge a formal complaint, I've seen more than enough with my own eyes to warrant addressing the matter with the board. Since we can't fire him, I'm going to push—firmly—for the board to request his retirement at the end of the year.

I'm fully prepared for them to resist my efforts to remove him though. The fact that he's a condescending prick isn't going to be enough to sway them, but I owe it to the teachers here to try. Not just Rowan, but all of them. They deserve better.

"Oh." Her lips poke out into a pout, a little crinkle between her brows.

"If you'll wait for me, I'll cook for you. We can eat on the deck and then watch a movie." She can watch a movie. I'll be too busy watching her, obsessing about every expression that crosses her face, every shift of emotion in her eyes. I'm bewitched by her, completely spellbound. When she's near, my eyes are on her. When she isn't, I'm thinking about her. Endlessly. Endlessly.

It's fucking great.

"Do you…should I plan to spend the night?" she asks, nibbling on her lip like she really isn't sure of the answer to that question. Which is absurd to me. I would have had her things packed and her moved in with me the night she gave me her virginity if it were up to me.

"You think I don't want you with me?" I ask, tilting my head, studying her. Trying to figure out where I failed. Because clearly, I've done something wrong if she doesn't know how utterly obsessed I am with her. How badly I want her, all the time.

"I don't…" She shrugs and then huffs. "I don't know. Everything just feels…different today." She seems sad about that, mournful, like she's going to miss me as much as I'm going to miss her. Maybe it's wrong to be happy about that, but I am happy about it.

"Come here." I hold my hand out to her across the table.

She takes it, allowing me to pull her to her feet and draw her around to my side of the booth. I scoot over, sliding her in beside me. Not stopping until her petite body is tucked right up against mine, my arm around her shoulders and her sweet scent working like a wrecking ball on my self-control.

"What are you thinking, little owl?" I ask, grateful her hair is up in a bun so I can see her clearly. So she can't hide behind those ebony locks, keeping her worries hidden from me. I want to hear them all. That way I can obliterate them, make her happy again.

She shrugs, twisting her fingers together in her lap. "It's just different," she says after a moment, leaving teeth impressions on her bottom lip. "I like sneaking into your office for kisses after class or smiling at you in the halls. I got used to you being there, and now you won't be."

"You feel like things ae going to change between us just because we aren't in the same school every day?"

"I don't know," she whispers, eyeing me. "Do you want things to change?"

"Yes."

Hurt flashes in her eyes.