I always did this whenever I started a new class, especially at a new school. I observed. It was interesting to see how the students interacted before they knew I was there. Before they put on a good show and behaved as they were expected to.

Talking, giggling, and flirting, the students on the first day were always excited to see one another. It was the perfect opportunity to catch them in that snapshot of their true selves. That moment of unobserved freedom.

As everyone took their seats and the second bell peeled through the halls, I pushed away from the shelves and moved to stand in front of the old wooden desk at the front of my classroom.

One by one, heads lifted, and when they found me waiting on them, and realized I’d been standing there all along, they immediately settled. The talking subsided and slipped into whispers and then finally, silence.

I remained steady and still until I had every last person’s attention. Then the door opened for the final time that morning and she stepped into my classroom. Late.

I looked at her—she looked at me.

My ending, staring right at me from the very beginning.

* * *

Hating that I was late, I rushed through the classroom door and was shocked to be faced with a man instead of Mrs. Ross.

This was a stranger. A stranger who knew nothing of Addison Lancaster, and right now he was regarding me with annoyance.

That was the moment I first saw Mr. McKendrick.

He was the teacher every girl dreamed about. The one that we all had a crush on the second we saw him. With brown hair streaked gold by the sun and pulled back into a short, messy ponytail at the nape of his neck, he was unlike any teacher I’d ever seen before—and my reaction to him was immediate and potent.

“And who might you be?”

That voice. I swear it touched me—I was that affected.

“Miss?”

Blinking once, I tried to clear my mind and realized that, for one brief moment, the ticking had stopped. My body had overpowered my mind, something that never happened with me.

“Miss? I’m talking to you.”

Laughter erupted from the class, and suddenly it was back—tick, tick, tock.

The new teacher turned on my loud classmates, and as their mouths closed, the room plunged back into tense silence.

Wow, that was some kind of authority right there. One glance from him, and my unruly peers shut down…became respectful—and we weren’t even ten minutes into the period.

Again, his eyes came back to mine and even as they conveyed his irritation, they also held something else. Something I instantly craved.

This cover that I had so carefully constructed had caught his eye.

Like a lion, his stare was fierce as he appraised me. All men did—they couldn’t seem to help it. No matter how inappropriate they knew it was, I always drew their attention.

With my wide, bowed lips, innocent blue eyes, and a figure that belonged on a twenty-something—I knew what I had and I was never afraid to use it. Unlike most men, whose expression betrayed their unwanted interest, I pictured this one stalking me from across the room and me allowing it.

“Miss? I asked you a question.”

I’d forgotten what he’d asked the minute I saw him. I was too busy imagining him touching me, tasting me. It took four long strides for him to be close enough that I could see the dark stubble dotting his jawline.

“You’re late,” he stated, his tone impenetrable as he opted for a different route. “On your first day. Not a fantastic way to start the school year, wouldn’t you agree?”

Aiming a coy look at him from beneath my lashes, I finally found my voice and assured myself a firm place on his shit list.

“Maybe you could keep me after school and teach me to tell time.”

What a joke that was, considering my obsession when it came to time management. Not that he knew that.

“Since it’s the first day, I don’t think that will be necessary. But from now on, be on time. Your name, please.”

“Addison. Addison Lancaster.”

“Thank you. Now go and take a seat.”

Shrugging my bag farther up on my shoulder, I spun on my toes and made my way down the second aisle of desks with a little more sway to my hips than usual. Glancing at Brandon, I noticed him wink, reminding me of exactly why I’d been running late. Returning the sexy gesture, I owned the sensual smile I aimed his way as it spread across my mouth.

Flirting to me was like breathing to everyone else, and I always made sure I had their attention when I put on a show.  As the school’s track champion, I strived for perfection, and I liked seeing the results of my efforts. I was their role model, their person to admire—and to hate.

Everyone, including the teachers, knew me, and everyone loved me. Except for the man standing at the front of my world history class. He definitely did not love me, but I’d always liked a challenge. It was in my nature to win.

I took my seat and let my bag slide slowly down my shoulder and onto the floor. I crossed one leg over the other and returned my attention to my new teacher whose eyes were moving methodically over each and every one of us, before finally coming back to rest on mine.

He studied me for a moment in a way that felt calculated before moving on to Jessica, who was seated in the aisle to my right. Just like that—I was dismissed.

“My name is Mr. McKendrick. I’m going to be your world history teacher this year, not Mrs. Ross. I have very few rules, but one of them is to be on time,” he stated in a perfunctory tone as he paced the front of the room. “The other is a little unorthodox. I want you to be curious…but respectful. Ask questions. Challenge one another. I want you looking outside the box, so to speak, because that is where you’ll find some of the most fascinating discoveries.”

Mr. McKendrick.

He was intriguing and definitely outside the box.

I was, without a doubt, fascinated.

* * *

She watched me from her seat—third row from the back, two aisles in—with eyes so blue I could see them from where I was standing. They locked on mine the second she settled, and she continued to scrutinize me.

As I stood at the front of the class introducing the course, I waited for my morals and drummed-in ethics to assert themselves. To remind me that I wasn’t supposed to be affected by a student’s inspection.

Thirty minutes later, and I was still waiting.

I sat at my desk and observed the students quietly working on their first assignment, but I continued to be drawn back to the young lady who had shown up late.

She was positively alluring. From her porcelain skin to the curls of chestnut hair that bounced against the curve of her high, full breasts—Addison Lancaster was more woman than girl, and she was dangerous.

The other males in the room knew it too if the way they acted around her was any indication. They seemed caught on every lick of her plump, red lips—and yes, I had caught those too.

So there I sat, trying to work out what it was that was making her impossible to ignore and then she glanced up, and I knew.

It was those eyes. They held secrets they shouldn’t have.

Dark, sad, and inviting all rolled into one, and yet, she was far too young to possibly understand any of those emotions in their absolute form.

Breaking the searing connection, I focused back on my textbook, but all I continued to feel was Addison Lancaster watching me.

* * *

The first day of school went by faster than I expected and everything was exactly how it should be. Except for Mr. McKendrick. I had not expected him.

Lying between the white sheets of my bed, I enjoyed the coolness of them as I parted my bare thighs and slipped my fingers down between to touch.

Nighttime was my time, a time where I could imagine whatever I wanted, and that night, I imagined my teacher. The man who had dismissed me in the blink of an eye. The man who was making my body weep as I lay in my bed. Why I found his rejection so appealing, I was unable to pinpoint, but it was. Almost…challenging.

Biting my top lip, I slid two fingers along the edge of my panties. I wiggled them in under the pink cotton and flexed my toned thighs. As I parted my legs farther and arched my back, I pushed my body into the weight of the sheet, enjoying the feel of it over me—imagining it was him. I teased myself, flirting my fingers over my bare mound. My mouth parted, his name on my lips as my fingertips grazed my clit and then dipped below to slide inside.

I’d been doing this from an early age, learning my body and exactly the way I needed to be touched. Brandon never got it right. He was always in a rush, and it was over before it began. Didn’t that apply to most boys?

But Mr. McKendrick…

I knew he’d be different.

He’d touch me the way I desired, and he’d take me the way I craved.

Not like a boy—but like a man.

Chapter Two

Present…

Tick, tick, tock.

“Would you say that you consciously try to push people’s boundaries, Addison?”

Tick, tick—what?

Seated again in the tiny, white office, I glance around at the bare walls, then back to the desk placed in here for my “stay” and I think—what?

My face must convey my thoughts because he starts over.