Page 85 of This Baby Business
“No other reason?”
“I thought I was doing pretty good.” I thought back to that exciting time in the city I’d come to love. All that energy and excitement crackling through the very oxygen I breathed. I’d been young and alive. So many possibilities. “Actually, I was sort of the teacher’s pet. One of my instructors took me under his wing. We dated, too, a couple times.”
“Yeah? So how old was this guy?”
I lowered my head to say the rest of the hard truth into his chest, because, even after all this time, it was still a little embarrassing. “He wasn’t old. Seven years older than me. I slept with him.”
“I don’t need to hear that.”
“Only once. It was a stupid mistake and things were weird after that. But I thought we were doing okay at school. Then one day I made a mistake, just a small one, easily corrected. It wasn’t anything no one else hadn’t done before. But Alec went ballistic. He screamed at me in front of the entire class. I couldn’t show my face for days, but I did go back. It wasn’t the same, though.”
Levi’s arms tightened around me. “I don’t like where this is going.”
“I didn’t finish. My confidence was wrecked, and my mom sent me a one-way ticket home. She said I just needed some time to regroup and think about my next move. Of course, I never told her about Alec. She would have wanted to sue the school.”
“She would have sued, but all I want to do is beat him up.”
“It’s not all his fault. I shouldn’t have slept with my teacher.”
“No. I don’t want to hear that.”
“I take responsibility for my actions. I was young, and maybe I liked the attention he gave me.”
“Yeah, and he was seven years older than youanda teacher.”
Everything Levi said was true, and I’d heard it all before. Jill and Zoey had wanted me to write to the school to complain. And now I realized that I should have. I could have stopped him from making any other girl feel so small.
Levi kissed my shoulder, then lingered there while his hand skimmed down my spine. “Is that loser still there?”
“He’s not. So either he was fired, or he left on his own.”
“I could find him.”
“No.” I sat up straight and met his gaze. “You’re not going to do anything.”
“I’ve got skills you don’t know about.” He simply lay back, a wicked grin on his face, hands splayed behind his head. Nothing but the thinnest white sheet covered him, just below his abs.
“I’m sure you do.” But if he hadn’t shown me all his skills, I hated to think he’d been holding back. Any more of those skills and he’d give me a stroke. “Specialserviceskills?”
“Yep.”
“Seriously?” I straddled him, hands splayed across his abs. “You’re going to hold out on me?”
“Only until you beg. Then I won’t be able to resist.”
“You think I’m going to beg?”
“Iknowyou’re going to beg.”
“Try again. I don’t beg.”
He locked eyes with mine, his own gaze blazing hot. “I’m going to do that thing I do. Then we’ll see how you beg.”
“What thing?”
“That thing where I ruin you for any other man.”
“Oh.Thatthing.”
