As the students opened their books, I pulled my chair out and sat. I grabbed my own textbook and studied the photograph of Anne Boleyn.
King Henry may have initially wanted her, but it was her own ambition that had gotten her everything she desired. Her seduction of him, now made legendary, was one that was forbidden and eventually deadly.
Looking up, our eyes collided.
Addison wasn’t unlike Anne.
She was young, beautiful, and ambitious, and ever since I’d met her, she’d gone after exactly what she wanted.
It just so happened to be me.
Present…
“You know, you use to talk to me, Addison. When did that change?”
I look at the man sitting beside me on the stone bench. He asked me to meet him outside by the fountain today.
The sun is shining through the trees surrounding the facility, and I can hear birds in the distance. Angling my face toward the sun, I bask in the rays as it warms me. It feels like years instead of days since I’ve been outside.
Subconsciously, I reach down to the watch strapped to my left wrist. I can’t hear it, but I know it’s—tick, tick, ticking—its way around the face.
“When you stopped listening.” My voice is steady. It’s emotionless.
“Is that what I did?”
Opening my eyes, I face Doc. I can tell he’s waiting for me to say more, and for the first time—I want to tell him.
I want to tell him that everyone stopped listening.
Instead, I feel a tear, the first in weeks, as it escapes my eye and trails down over my cheek.
“Addison?”
I wipe it away and look back to the trees.
“Addison, tell me.”
Tell him what?
That there is no one to care how I feel now that he is gone?
No one cares that my dreams will never come true, not the way I want them to.
He’d calmed me when no one else could.
He’d saved me from myself.
If only they knew the truth…
But no one is listening, and his time is already up.
Tick, tick, tock.
Past…
My first three classes passed by, and as soon as the lunch bell rang, I was making my way back through the halls hoping to catch Mr—Grayson—before he left for lunch. I practically jogged toward the door at the very end. It was closed.
I stood in front of it and took a deep breath before reaching out to turn the handle.
Pushing it open, I stepped inside the room I’d been seated in earlier and saw him. He was standing at the back of the class pushing one of the chairs under its table when his eyes found mine, and he straightened.
“Addison, you shouldn’t be in here.”
He moved to the next chair and corrected it.
“I needed to see you.”
“No, you didn’t.”
I looked at the clock on the wall and noticed the second hand was moving, but instead of following it, I found I could turn away. “Yes, I did.”
“Was there something you needed to discuss?” he asked, stopping where he was.
I dropped my bag on the floor and locked the door behind me.
“Unlock the door, Addison.”
“I want to talk to you.”
“And I want you to unlock the door.”
He strode up the aisle and was in front of me before I knew it. He grabbed my arm and led me to the far corner of the room before releasing me.
“This is not the place.”
“Then where is?”
“Not here.” His agitation was evident as he paced the floor.
“I want to see you again,” I told him. “I want you to see me.”
“Trust me, I do see you,” he stressed. “You’re all I fucking see, Addison. When I close my eyes, when I open them, when I’m teaching. You’re. There. All. The. Fucking. Time.” He rubbed his face. “Sometimes I wish I’d never seen you.”
My pulse began to hammer, and I whispered, “But you did, didn’t you?”
Grayson placed a hand on the bookshelf I was backed up against and shifted until his foot was between both of mine. I said nothing when his fingers stroked over my naked thigh, and when he flirted with the edge of my skirt, I barely managed to breathe.
He raised his leg slightly, and his hand slipped under the fabric to cup my bare ass. As his fingers dug into my flesh, he growled low in his throat, and I had to bite my lip to keep my moan inside.
“I see you,” he answered, his words strained. “I see you, and I want to lift your skirt just like this. That’s why you wore it, isn’t it? To drive me fucking crazy.”
My eyes closed as he pulled my hips forward.
“Open your eyes,” he demanded.
Obeying, I watched him shift and felt the denim of his jeans abrade the inside of my bare legs. I could feel every pulsing throb of my body, and all I wanted to do was rub against his strong thigh. He leaned in close and licked his top lip, and I was immediately reminded of his mouth on mine.
“Tell me where I can meet you,” I pleaded.
“What for?”
I rolled my hips against the ridged muscle under me. He tightened his fingers on my ass, the tips brushing the satin strip of my thong, and yanked my hips closer.
“Oh, God,” I moaned.
“What for, Addison?” he asked again. “Why do you want to meet me?”
I grabbed ahold of his wrist and ground down on his thigh. The only sounds in the classroom were his and my heavy breathing as I continued to use his leg to get myself off. I wanted to come, and I knew I was close.
“I want to see you naked.”
My words couldn’t have been a shock to him, but when Grayson lowered his head and admitted, “I want to see you too,” I almost lost my mind.
I attempted to kiss him, but he pulled his mouth away from me.
“No, not here. Use me.”
I pushed my breasts out and pressed myself against his thigh.
Fine, no kissing. I could do that. The arm around me tensed, holding me in place, and I used him—just as he had told me to.
The friction and heat between Addison’s legs was penetrating my jeans. I could feel her fingers squeezing my wrist as her thighs tightened around my own. Her tight, round ass in my hand clenched every time she rocked her hips up my leg. The noises leaving her throat had me so fucking hard, I was positive my cock would be damaged if I didn’t do something soon.
She was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen, and as she greedily took her pleasure, I couldn’t find it in me to regret what we were doing. I knew it was wrong, but with each blissful sigh from her lips, my control slipped that much further from my grasp.
“You’re hard,” she whispered, and I couldn’t help my smirk.
“Yes. I’m very fucking hard.”
“I want to see,” she boldly stated.
No one could accuse Addison Lancaster of not going after what she wanted.
“Well, we don’t always get what we want.”
She licked her juicy lips, and the look on her face would have brought a saint to his knees.
I was only human.
“I’m going to have you,” she promised, and the words sent a thrill down my spine.
Promise or threat? Either way, the words made me want to lift her up against the wall and shove my cock inside her. But not here, not now.