Once and Again
Page 3

She straightened and took a deep breath. The buttons at her cle**age did their work—barely—as her br**sts thrust forward, stretching the material. His c**k must have felt sympathy and that was why it stretched the material at his lap.
He searched for his words as he took her in. “Lily?”
She stepped into his classroom, and he couldn’t seem to think of anything else to say as he watched the woman he’d once loved walk toward his desk. She still moved as if music played in her head.
His sister Beth was close to Lily so he knew she had been around more to deal with her little brother. But it hadn’t prepared him for the punch to the gut at the sight of her.
“Mr. Murphy.” She nodded once, all business. “I’m here about Chris. Do you have a few moments?”
“Chris?” He wondered if she wore stockings with garter belts and corsets. And then of course he had to imagine her dressed like that, because…well why not?
She sighed. “Chris Travis? Tenth grader? Hair too long? Surly? Problems with authority in all forms? He’s failing your English class.” She put the academic warning letter on his desk.
Oh, yes, that. “I can’t really talk with you about this. I’m sorry. Your mother needs to do it. Or your father.”
She pulled out yet another piece of paper to hand his way. “This is the paper that establishes my guardianship of my brother. My parents have signed the appropriate paperwork. It’s all in order.”
Reading through the paperwork to be sure everything was correct, he looked back to Lily. “All right then. I have about twenty minutes before my next class. Sit down and we can talk.”
She did and he tried to pretend she was just another parent. And failed.
Her scent teased the air between them. Sultry and sexy. Like her voice. Full-on velvet, a throaty sort of purr that had always sent his brain, and other parts of his body, into overdrive. Still did.
Focus. “He’s got a twenty percent in my class. He’s here, at best, two days a week. Hasn’t turned in an assignment in about six weeks. Even before that his work was sloppy and erratic.”
Her shoulders slumped just a little, but he had to hand it to her, she straightened quickly enough. She took some notes, her little black glasses perched on her nose. Her nails were glossy red. The same red he’d be willing to bet she had on her toes.
She broke into his musings with a sigh. “So give me your honest opinion. Is this salvageable? Can he make this up or not?”
“He has to come to class, Lily. His absenteeism is the biggest problem. If he’s not here when I cover the material, how can he learn it? He’s just not here. The assignments he does finish tell me he gets what he’s here for, though it’s nearly impossible to give him full credit because I can’t read the work. His writing is atrocious. He can do better.”
“He’ll be here. Every. Day.”
Nathan didn’t express his doubt in the statement. She seemed pretty driven to make it true, but trying to get a fifteen-year-old boy to do what he didn’t want to do was a lot harder than she probably thought.
“Gonna take more than a phone call from another city to get that done.” Why he poked at her he didn’t know. But the flash in her gaze thrilled him.
She narrowed her eyes at him and sniffed as if he wasn’t worth slapping. “Really? Oh gee, my plan has been foiled already.” She sent him a raised brow and he barely held back a laugh. “I moved back to Petal. I’m living with my mother and Chris. I’m bringing him to school in the morning and picking him up in the afternoons. I’m here for the long haul. I want Chris to succeed, and I’m here to see how I can do that with the help of his teachers.”
Oh. Well then. This was something he’d have to do very carefully, but if she was back, he’d have the chance to make things up to her. Maybe they could see what dating would be like as adults instead of kids in college. Not if she had someone though. Her ring finger was bare, which was a good sign.
“Must have sucked to move away from your life in Macon.” The moment he finished speaking he wished he could have sounded a little more natural and a little less forced casual.
Lily tapped her pen and neatly avoided his statement. Did he think she would just pretend nothing had ever happened between them? She was prepared to do that, but only if she never actually had contact with him. Which given her current circumstance would prove difficult.
This was the first time she’d spoken to him since that night. Nausea roiled through her belly as she remembered walking into the living room at a party he’d been at and found him kissing another woman.
Remembering that and the way she’d felt afterward was enough to get rid of that damned tingle he gave her and a reminder that he was a tool.
While she gave him her best look of total disdain, she noted he’d grown even more handsome than he’d been before. Not just handsome, but that sort of gorgeous a southern girl like herself was absolutely helpless against. Hell, any woman anywhere.
Nathan Murphy was all southern honey. He had that slow, sexy delivery. His voice had the right amount of smoke, always the hint of a smile. That sound that’d been, and most likely still was, a magnet to underpants all across Georgia. He moved that way too, took his time to look around. Always late but he was so charming he got away with it.
A cruel twist of fate that he’d turned out so well. It was small of her, but she’d wished him a potbelly and male pattern baldness a few times. And here he was looking mighty fine. She hadn’t had sex or even a boyfriend in about a year. He caught her at an already weak moment, and no matter how many lectures she’d given herself in the hallway outside, it did matter that she’d loved him once. It mattered that he’d walked away from it and never appeared to even care.