Unattainable (Undeniable, #3)(79)

Ellie smiled and nodded. Whenever a student clicked with a literary work, she felt a surge of pride.

“Do you want to elaborate further?” Ellie asked.

The girl opened her mouth just as the buzzer went off, signaling the end of class as well as the end of the day.

The entire class simultaneously looked to her for confirmation that it was okay to leave.

“Yes,” she said, waving her hands in the direction of the door. “Go, go, go. Have a great weekend.”

The mad rush to the door always amused her. Reminded her of her own high school days when she was the lone person loath to leave. She loved school, always had; that had never changed.

Sitting down at her desk, she began shuffling through papers in an attempt to organize the mess.

“Ms. Tate?”

Glancing toward the doorway, she found the principal, Adele, standing there looking uncomfortable, and she fought the urge to giggle.

“Yes?”

“Just wanted to check in and see how your first week went.”

Ellie gave her a genuine smile. “Amazing,” she answered honestly. “I really love it here.”

The woman shifted uncomfortably. “I, uh, er…will your boyfriend be picking you up every day?”

Now Ellie was really holding in her laughter. Whatever Dirty had said to her that had convinced her to offer Ellie the open position, it obviously hadn’t been very pleasant. The woman was downright terrified of him.

It wasn’t that Ellie had approved of his methods, but she was sure grateful for them. Her mother had taken another turn for the worse and Ellie wanted to stay by her side, rather than leave and miss out on much-needed time, as well as help her father out with the hospital bills that were quickly piling up.

It hadn’t been easy, adjusting to living in the same town as the man who’d tried to rape her. But whatever Deuce had said to him, whatever deal had been worked out, Daniel hadn’t come near her. At first, on the rare occasion that she’d gone anywhere without Dirty by her side and would spot Daniel somewhere in town, she immediately retreated, rushed home and straight into the shower where she would turn up the hot water until her skin was scalded.

But sometimes it wasn’t enough to erase the feeling of his hands on her. It was those days that Dirty would take her out on his bike and they would just ride, no destination, until Ellie felt clean again, in charge of her own body and free of the filth Daniel had brought to her life.

As for Dirty, in the past year he’d come so far from where he’d been emotionally.

Seated on the back of his bike, she could wrap her arms around his waist now, lean her head against his back and hold tightly to him, he allowed her that much. He still needed a few moments to adjust to her touch, would flinch every time, but it was progress.

There had even been a few instances while watching a movie together that Ellie would scoot closer to him on the couch and rest her head on his shoulder. Once, he’d even held her hand.

For the most part, life was very good. Better than she’d ever expected it to be after what had happened. She hadn’t realized how much she missed having friends until she had Danny back in her life, or how much better it was to surround yourself with people instead of books.

There was only one problem. And it was growing increasingly unbearable as more time passed.

She was desperately horny.

Lately, she spent her nights alone in her bedroom, thinking of Dirty, knowing she couldn’t do anything about it. Still, her resolve grew weaker and weaker.

They’d grown so close. He refused to let her out of his sight; he took her to work every morning and picked her up every afternoon. Some days they would eat dinner at his place, other times at her parents’ house, and on the rare occasion, they would go out.

Every day she was faced with his beautiful face, his long, lean, sculpted body, and his personality, so damaged, so fragile, she couldn’t help but want to fix him. He was a woman’s worst nightmare—beautiful on the outside, ravaged on the inside. A deadly combination.

Yet she wanted him. Fiercely.

She had never thought of herself as a typical woman, attracted to bad boys, but it was different with Dirty. She couldn’t pinpoint what it was, and if she were being completely honest with herself, she didn’t really care. She hadn’t felt this way about a man…

Ever.

Whatever he’d done, his life at the club, it didn’t matter. He was so good to her; he protected her, took care of her, and not once since the morning he’d inadvertently attacked her had he ever given her a reason to think she couldn’t trust him implicitly.

And now, oh dear God, her hormones went into overdrive every time she was close to him. Especially when he smiled. Those rare smiles were so few and far between that when they appeared, my God, she melted.

She didn’t have the first clue how to go about acting on it. She was terrified that if she did, she would drive him away.

“Yes,” Ellie told Adele. “Is that going to be a problem?”

The two women stared at each other until the older woman finally caved. “Not at all,” Adele said shortly and abruptly left.

Shaking her head, Ellie went back to her papers and before she knew it, an hour had passed. She had just started to clean up when she heard heavy footsteps in the hallway. Knowing Dirty was here, she quickly pushed everything into a neat pile and bent down to grab her purse. Grabbing her cell phone off her desk, she headed for the door, scrolling through her messages as she walked.