Summer Heat (Cruel Summer #1)(15)

Of all the bad ideas I’d had in my life.

This took the cake.

The music stopped.

And the entire class erupted in applause. Applause I wasn’t expecting. We both bowed. Hoots and hollers brought my students alive, their faces were all excitement and smiles as they continued to clap, completely relaxing me and making me realize that it wasn’t about me — and as long as I could get that through my brain I would be okay. I was there for them, to put that smile on their face.

“Good job, Ray.” Marlon’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Guys, looks like you’re in good hands, so I’m off to check in on the rest of the classes.”

I didn’t miss the funny way he was walking.

Or the way his entire body tensed when he bent over to pick up his hat and iPad. When the screen door slammed behind him, I let out a rough exhale.

“Miss Ray?” One of the shy girls raised her hand.

“Yeah?”

“Is that why my mom says dancing gets you pregnant?”

The entire room fell into fits of laughter.

My face felt red and hot. Great. I rolled my eyes. “Dancing doesn’t get you pregnant. Though it used to be believed it leads to sex.” Sex, sex, sex, my body cheered. With Marlo!

No!

I gulped and shoved the thought out of my brain. “At any rate, this dance — in fact this entire musical — was believed to promote sexuality but it’s realistic of the time, and I think that just adds to the magical effect of the entire musical. Now, let me teach you how to snap and twist your wrists.”

I was a snapping and twisting zombie for the next twenty minutes.

My body was present.

My brain and heart were still stuck in that dance, twirling around, and around that room in my enemy’s arms.





I PUT MY hat on my head then jerked it off, then threw it on the ground and kicked it a few times before picking it up and dusting it off and clenching it between my fingertips.

The same fingertips that had just been all over her body, touching her curves, caressing her skin.

“Damn it,” I muttered under my breath. I should never have touched her, it unleashed all those repressed memories the way alcohol loosens someone’s tongue and inhibitions.

Suddenly I couldn’t escape her scent.

Memories of her tongue tangled with mine.

Her ass had pressed so firm against me — my dick had developed other ideas during that dance. Ideas with no clothes, grinding bodies, skin on skin.

“I’ve never looked at a hat like that before. And I like hats.” Jackson’s voice interrupted my fantasy like getting doused with cold water.

“Shut up.” Yeah that’s all I had. Shut up? Really?

He grinned. “You’re sweating.”

“I was dancing.” I started walking toward the next class. “Aren’t you supposed to be teaching?”

“Next hour. I was going to go see how Ray was handling the shy kids and choreography, but considering the way you’re looking at that hat, and the way you’re walking like you got a beanpole stuck in the front of your pants and don’t know how to shove it back where it belongs…” He fell into a fit of laughter again.

“Was there a point to this visit?” I wondered out loud.

“I just told you my point, I was going to check in on her. Someone should. Choreography duty sucks, and it was in her file that she doesn’t do public speaking and that her only C was in dance.”

“You read her employee file? Unbelievable! That’s against policy, Jackson, not to mention it’s an invasion of privacy.” I put my hat back on and pulled the brim hard enough to give myself a headache.

“First off, I helped Jen with all the placements this year and knew it would be tough for the new girl since she had a C in that class, but she came on so last-minute Jen didn’t know where else to place her.” He shrugged.

While I fixated on the fact that she got a C. In dance? That girl? She’d basically seduced me without speaking, and she’d gotten a C? God help us all if she had gotten an A.

“She did fine.” I didn’t mean for it to come out defensive or like I was snapping at him, but my nerves were already shot. I shouldn’t have had that much coffee.

Shouldn’t have touched her.

Shouldn’t have liked it.

She’d challenged me.

And I took her up on it, hoping she was horrible at dance so I had one more thing hanging over her head.

Instead, it had been… I shook my head.

“Well fine.” Jackson smirked. “I’m going to go grab some more coffee before my class on the smolder.”

I almost threw my hat at him. “It’s not the smolder, stop calling it that. It’s a class on facial expression.”

“Quick what’s my facial expression now?” He tried his smolder and then lifted a middle finger.

“Real nice, Jackson, and your smolder’s broken — you look more pissed than sexy, hate to break it to you.”

“Crusher of souls and dreams,” he yelled at me and then ran in the other direction, only to stop and turn around. “Does this conversation constitute as sexual harassment? Should I go to HR and tell them you don’t think I’m sexy?”

“Go.” I pointed to the mess hall. “Now.”