Summer recoiled a step, one heel edging out into the hall. “Professor Iseya...?”
Iseya braced his hand to the doorframe above Summer’s head, leaned down...and captured his mouth, stealing him for a kiss unlike any other Summer had ever tasted.
Where every other kiss had been hard, dominating, passionate, deep...
This one touched his lips gently, wonderingly, as if asking for the smallest taste of him; as if asking to know him through the softest of touches, to learn what could make him tremble with the slightest brush and what could make him sigh. As if this moment wasn’t about the kiss, the act of it, the stimulation, the pleasure...
But about him.
Iseya was kissing him, as if he was worth kissing slowly just to savor it.
And God, did he savor it—the way Iseya stroked his mouth gently against Summer’s, the way each touch made his mouth pulse so sweetly and coaxed his lips to part further and further until he breathed Iseya in and shivered as he felt every light tracery of friction, of taunting softness, ripple over his entire body as if he’d been swathed in silk and covered in its caress. Summer closed his eyes, leaning into it, unable to stop his moan, his wordless begging.
Begging for more.
Just the lightest tease of Iseya’s tongue-tip, following the line of Summer’s lips, delving inside...
And then it was over, as quietly as it began.
A soft graze of Iseya’s teeth against his lower lip, before their mouths parted, the last touch Summer felt Iseya’s whisper, breaths cooling the dampness on his lips and proximity turning every word into the ghosts of other kisses.
“You’re now forfeit for any kisses for the next forty-eight hours,” Iseya breathed, sultry and deep-rumbling. “Goodnight.”
Summer snapped his eyes open, heart nearly pounding out of his chest.
And only got half a glimpse of Iseya’s slow, almost cunning smile—
Right before the door closed in his face.
Chapter Eight
Fox was beginning to think he might have been wrong about Summer.
Perhaps he’d made a snap judgment, based on his recollection of the boy Summer had been. Perhaps he had formed his first impression of the man Summer had become based not on who Summer actually was, but on Fox’s own resentment that he had to train someone to take his place; had to take some vulnerable, wide-eyed young thing under his wing and let this other human into his world for longer than a single class period.
When if he was honest with himself...
Summer had been showing Fox who he was from the start.
From the way he had thrown himself in to help contain another of Dr. Liu’s conflagrations without even thinking of his own safety, wanting to help...
...to the way he swallowed his own terror to kiss Fox, kiss his former teacher, after not seeing him for seven years and knowing full well he would be immediately rejected.
The way he challenged himself at every turn despite the anxiety wrapped around him like black, choking tendrils.
The way he challenged Fox, too, and yet did so with the softest of touches that seemed to ask, Show me.
Show me where all the tender places are, so I won’t bruise what hurts.
And the way he had continued to put himself forward for the last few days, even without the promised reward of a kiss to motivate him.
Technically, denying Summer his next kiss wasn’t fair, considering that Fox had been the one to kiss him.
But Summer hadn’t protested in the slightest, only showing up day after day to put the work in and give his all to trying to help Fox in the classroom.
Fox still didn’t think he was ready to lead the class.
But as he watched Summer move through the rows of desks, bending to answer a question or give a little encouraging nudge to a struggling student, smiling and making the tense, nervous boys relax while they worked through their test prep worksheets...
Fox thought maybe, one day, he could be—when at first he’d thought it was a lost cause.
So why did that make him feel so empty?
As if something precious was slipping through his fingers, water pouring out of his hands no matter how he tried to stop it.
He leaned back in his desk chair, toying a pen between his fingers and watching as Summer paused at Eli Schumaker’s desk, offering a warm smile that Eli answered a bit uncertainly, before stretching up to murmur something in Summer’s ear. Summer listened with grave attention, his expression utterly focused, before nodding and murmuring something in return, cocking his head, messy hair falling in a dark shag across his eyes—eyes that, Fox noted, still subtly avoided direct eye contact, focusing somewhere else on Eli’s face. Then he tapped something on Eli’s worksheet, before stealing his pencil and scribbling something down. Then, at a nod from Eli, he grinned and straightened, moving away.
And pausing, lifting his head, catching Fox’s eye.
Before smiling brilliantly, his eyes creasing and glittering with warmth, before turning away.
Fox huffed under his breath, scowling, looking away, pitching his pen onto the desk.
Summer really needed to stop being so obvious.
They didn’t speak again, though, until the third period let out, and Fox settled to lean his hip against the edge of his deck, propping the papers he’d just collected against his thigh and stacking them neatly into place.
Summer settled down next to him, resting almost thigh to thigh, his strong, square hands gripping the desk to either side of his hips.
“You,” he said sunnily, “have been watching me all day.”
Fox tossed him a glower. “I’m your supervisor. It’s my job to monitor your progress and your performance.”
With a playful smile, Summer rolled his head toward Fox, resting his cheek against his upthrust shoulder, the taut muscle straining against the linen of his crisply ironed off-white button-down. “So that’s the only reason?”
“Why are you so annoyingly confident around me?” Fox threw back. “I can make any other teacher in this school quiver in his
