Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 46858 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 187(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46858 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 187(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
I won’t ask her, I’ll tell her because it feels true already.
It is true.
I watch her out of my peripheral vision while trying to make it seem like I’m not.
She’s got her back to me, giving me a view of her ass in those jeans, her cheeks round and so hot I feel my manhood stiffening. I stop looking, knowing I’ll lose control…which is a new feeling for me. It’s hard to know what to do with it.
Except hold her, kiss her, tell her she never has to be alone.
“How was the trip?” I ask in an effort to distract myself.
I am distracted…from everything that isn’t Della.
I’d have to put my head in some sort of vice to keep my gaze stubbornly aimed forward or somehow forget how beautiful she is and how captivated I was the first time I saw her.
“Fine, fine,” Mary says.
She, her husband, and her children recently went on an adventure holiday.
“Get lots of biking done?” I ask.
“Yes,” she sighs, interlocking her hands. “But you know how it is. Always thinking of work.”
Normally, I’d agree with this. But something revolts in me today.
I’m thinking of the day Della and I have children together. I’d want to be fully present when we’re doing family stuff.
Obviously, I understand the need to make money, but when we have that time together, where we are able to dedicate precious hours of the day to each other or, if we’re lucky enough weeks….
I want to be there, with her.
But I don’t say this. It would be impossible to explain this new opinion, seemingly coming out of nowhere.
Della gets her food and walks across to the other side of the cafeteria. She doesn’t look my way, which makes sense…why would she?
As far as she knows, I’m just a math teacher, a one-on-one tutor, nothing else. She might even have a boyfriend.
The thought of her with another man almost sends me across the room. It would be hypocritical of me to try and take her, since I’d go into complete animal mode if anybody ever tried to take her from me.
But the urge is there, the pounding in my mind, telling me I can’t steal her because she already belongs to me.
Later, I’m in my apartment, standing at the floor-to-ceiling windows of my lounge and looking down over the city.
I’ve just returned from the gym and dinner with one of my buddies, and now I’m staring down at the city lights, wondering which one of them is Della, wondering how she’d react if I turned up at her door and claimed her lips with mine.
I almost sprint across the room when my cell phone makes a text alert noise.
I laugh at myself as I pick up my phone, as though I’ve witnessed somebody else behave in a suddenly new, bizarre way.
But it’s me. I’m the strange one.
I wonder what my friends or dad would say if I tried to explain this to him.
It’s Della.
Hello, Mr. Strong. I hope it’s not too late for a quick math question. No worries if it is.
I type out a response, Of course not. What do you need help with?
Then I delete it, pacing around my apartment, my heart thudding unusually fast considering I’m just sending a text. It’s dangerous, the idea I’m toying with, considering what happened to Paul when he crossed the line with a student.
And it’s also true, what Jocelyn said, about Second Chance being about…well, second chances. Not my desire, need, the roaring hunger whelming inside of me.
Which means what I end up sending is inappropriate.
But I can’t stop.
Or maybe I can. Maybe I just don’t want to.
Della, you can call me Elias.
I place my phone on the counter, drop into a pushup position, and fire off twenty. It’s not smart since my chest is already aching, but what they say about old habits is true. The most intense burning comes into my mind, a release from the thought I may have just made a mistake.
She replies.
Are you sure?
Completely.
I send the text, not giving myself time to doubt. I’m making a circuit of my apartment, which suddenly feels far emptier than it did before I saw the woman on the bus, my Della.
I would say you can call me Della, she replies. But you already are, LOL.
I smirk. Would you prefer me to call you by your last name?
No, I wasn’t saying that.
I was only kidding.
Only kidding, I write… to a student?
It’s the first time I’ve been anything but completely professional with the students, and rightfully so.
But then there’s the memory of Della in the cafeteria, her curvy body pressed into the jeans and hoodie, as though begging me to peel her clothes away and kiss up and down her naked body.
Oh, okay, phew. I don’t want to make you angry, Elias. You’re pretty much my only chance not to flunk this module.