Authors: Stella Rhys
Tags: #teacher, #jealousy, #forbidden, #billionaire, #millionaire, #teacher student sex, #forbidden affair, #studentteacher erotica, #studentteacher romance, #teacher affair
Discipline
Stella Rhys
Copyright © 2015 by Stella Rhys
Published at Smashwords
All Rights Reserved
This book is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places and incidents are either products of the
author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual events or people, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1
I always know when I’m the last to arrive to
a dinner with the Todos girls because the moment I step into the
restaurant, the hostess gives me a half-grin, half-cringe. She’s
been briefed on the penalty I face for being late – which I’m
considered even if I arrive on time, as long as everyone else got
there before me. Adriana, being hyper-punctual and a sadist,
implemented this rule after too many of our reservations went to
waste because our party was incomplete. The culprit is normally
Linh because she’s compelled to Instagram every flower or flowy
skirt on the sidewalk, but tonight, it was myself. So for the very
first time, I was the one forced to drink the foulest available
vodka at the bar – one shot for every five-minute increment that
the girls were kept waiting.
I was thirteen minutes late tonight but
Adriana rounds up, so I was promptly greeted with three shots of
Georgi, which Em informed me the place didn’t actually carry – it
was just staff party leftovers that the cute bartender had
volunteered. Like so many others, he was charmed by our ruthless
tradition.
“Bottoms up.” He winked at me, watching as I
struggled to down each shot of coconut-flavored punishment. But
underneath my heavy cringing, I felt the tingle of a thrill. It’d
been years since I’d been able to really hang out with the girls
and the shots made me feel like I was back. Out and alive again,
not trapped and alone in Ben’s miserable, echoing penthouse.
“‘Kay,” I croaked when I was finished,
taking a solid ten seconds to finish shuddering. It was only then
that the girls began greeting me with kisses on the cheek and a few
sympathetic coos – at least from Adriana and Linh, who hadn’t seen
me since the breakup.
“You lost so much
weight
!” Adriana
exclaimed as she pulled away from our hug. Cute Bartender and
several patrons looked over at me despite having no prior frame of
reference. I couldn’t blame them. No matter where we went,
Adriana’s jubilant voice always demanded attention — especially at
restaurants and bars, and mostly from the male population. If it
wasn’t that, Em’s sports banter or Linh’s compulsive pixie flirting
would do the trick. Once upon a time, I contributed to our
collective charm. I think. But then a long-term relationship
happened – more specifically one with Ben.
Tonight, to make up for three years of doing
it his way, I wore something tight, white and crocheted that he
would’ve punched a wall over.
“Girl,
how
?” Adriana held her arms
out in awe, still gaping at my body. She paused and then gasped.
“You’re depressed!” she guessed jovially.
“I’m not depressed, Ade,” I laughed, already
tipsy as we got seated. Drunk, really. I’d lost any shred of
tolerance in the last few years away from the girls. It was as if
I’d been living in a cave. It did feel that way.
Linh studied me as she wound a lock of black
hair around her finger. “But three years is forever,” she said in
her wispy voice. “It would be normal to be depressed.”
“Guys, she’s really not though. The
opposite, really,” Em spoke up for me while reading the menu. Being
the only one of them left at Todos Santos, where I’d begun
waitressing again, she’d had the most time to talk to me since the
split. Plus, she’d been the one I could safely gripe to about Ben
over the years. She was sarcastic but mellow and unlikely to round
up all her bouncer friends to go and intimidate him, which I could
actually see Adriana and Linh doing, though Linh would probably
make them swear to only scare him. Adriana, on the other hand,
would give them the go-ahead to throw punches, even use restraints
if needed. For those reasons, I couldn’t tell her about my
relationship. I had to tell Em.
And being that person, she knew the truth —
that despite being technically dumped, I was beyond relieved to be
out of what had felt like a twisted marriage. From the ages of
eighteen to twenty-one, I’d essentially been Mrs. Benjamin
Kingdon.
Adriana eyed me. “Guess I’ll believe Em
since you tell her everything now,” she said, cocking an eyebrow. I
tensed, but she relieved me by changing the subject and playfully
pouting her full, berry lips. “Anyway, thank fucking God you’re
back, honey. You were too young to be married!”
As far as she and the girls were concerned,
I
had
been a wife for the past three years. While they were
still starting their nights at 1AM and hooking up all over the
city, I was tending to Ben’s every need in his TriBeCa loft and if
not that, waiting for him to come home from work where he always
stayed late. When I wasn’t at Todos or school, I was raising our
child, Jack – the Akita puppy that he one day decided he
wanted.
“Oh! Look at that,” Adriana feigned surprise
when a complimentary round of drinks arrived at our table. I held
back a laugh. I’d missed this act of hers. Half the reason she ever
played our late-girl shots game was to amuse the staff and endear
us to them. They’d always want to send a consolation drink to
whichever one of us had to down the disgusting vodka, but then of
course they’d feel the need to include the rest of the girls on the
free round. And then once it was delivered, she and Linh would
flirt with our server, be it a boy or girl, and this friendship for
the night would ensure free dessert sent to our table at the end of
the meal.
But tonight, Adriana had other orders of
business. Sipping on her strawberry Caipirinha, she peeked
mischievously at me. “So. Drunk enough to start talking about Ben?
Since, apparently, I need to get you hammered for you to tell me
things anymore?”
I frowned. “Ade.”
“I’m just kidding. I know it was because
that prick was holding your silence hostage. Like a true
fucker.”
“Ade,
this
is why I didn’t talk about
him,” I protested with a laugh. “Because I don’t want to get you
all riled up. I know you hated him.”
“We all hated him. Ade just talked about it
more,” Linh said truthfully. She plucked a yellow flower from the
table and tucked it into her wavy hair. “Probably because Ben hated
her most.”
My lips pursed awkwardly. We never really
talked about that, but leave it to Linh to casually say things that
most people tiptoe around. “Let’s not talk about Ben,” I
decided.
“Why not?” Adriana wore a sassy look as she
let her cocktail straw hang from her lips like a cigarette. “Isn’t
step one of recovery acknowledging the problem?”
Yes. She had me. Step one of getting past
Ben was talking about him, but I didn’t know where to start.
Despite the fact that we’d dated for so long, he was still a
stranger to the girls. He’d hung out with Em the most because he
thought she was “calm” and “civilized” compared to Adriana and
Linh, but that still just meant on four brief occasions over the
course of three years. Three years that I spent being tight-lipped
about our relationship, too stubborn to admit that he was the
reason for why I’d eventually left work, quit school and stopped
seeing my closest friends, especially Adriana. To Ben, she meant
danger. She was the best friend that every girl wanted — beautiful
with a contagious sense of adventure and charisma that attracted
men everywhere she went. Confident, good-looking men whom Ben
figured would eventually start flirting with her friends. And so he
resorted to calling her “trashy,” even “slutty” when she was
actually neither.
Far worse, I let him.
Ugh
. Thinking about what an asshole
he was and what an idiot I’d been made me feel ready to spill about
the failed relationship. As long as Adriana didn’t ask about the
last straw – that final argument that I hadn’t told a soul about
yet. It was too humiliating and I couldn’t stand the filthy,
crawling feeling I got every time I remembered it.
“So?” Adriana’s challenge stirred me from my
thoughts.
I heaved a sigh. “What do you want to
know?”
She squealed. “Oh my God, Linh. Where do we
start?”
Linh didn’t hesitate. “
How
much money
did he give you for allowance?”
The table to our right quieted curiously. I
cringed. Apparently no amount of drunkenness could ease my shame of
ever having accepted an allowance from Ben. It sounded like fun to
Linh, but she didn’t know what it bought. In the beginning, neither
did I. All I knew was that it helped for when Mom asked to “borrow”
money. The requests started out as just as a few hundred dollars
for someone’s birthday gift, but it didn’t take long for them to
become monthly deposits into her bank account, the numbers ranging
from five hundred to five thousand dollars at a time. And after
every deposit, I received an immediate text from her — not a thank
you, but a reminder to keep these transactions a complete and utter
secret, even from my father.
“Um.” I stirred my drink. “Don’t you guys
want to talk about something else? Penis size, maybe?” I laughed
nervously. That would distract them. But the moment the suggestion
left my mouth, I regretted it. Half because the only thing Adriana
loves more than talking dirty is doing it in public, just to see
how red my face will get. It’s a reminder of “what a Stepford wife”
I’ve become since Ben. Before dating him, she and I had been
inseparable, the ones who poured the staff shots and rallied
everyone to go out after weekend closing shifts, which always ended
past 2AM.
That was only half of my worry though. The
other half was over the table to our left, which was being seated
with a party of two men. From just the corner of my eye, I was sure
that I recognized one – someone whom I probably shouldn’t be
discussing this topic in front of. He seemed to be glancing at me
too, but before I could look over and confirm, a server stepped
between our tables to make our tableside guacamole. That didn’t
stop Adriana from talking.
“Didn’t you say he would only do it reverse
cowgirl?”
“Ade!” Judging from the “whoa” I picked up
on my left, the guys next to us had heard.
Oh God, he’s hearing
all of this
.
“What?” Adriana played innocent, twirling a
platinum lock around her finger. “If Ben had anything right, that
was it. Your ass to waist ratio was
made
for reverse
cowgirl.” Her hazel eyes gleamed, absolutely delighting in my
mortification. She plucked the strawberry off the side of her glass
and licked the alcohol off its tip. “I’d do the same with you if I
had a penis.”
“
Ade!
There are kids here.”
“No, there aren’t.”
It was worth a shot. “Well, can you pretend
there are?” I asked, my fingers cold against my now burning cheeks.
I quickly dropped them though when I remembered that visible
embarrassment only ever fueled Adriana to up her ante. “Anyway, are
we all okay with cilantro?” I asked brightly, trying to change the
subject to our guacamole.
“I got a preview of you in reverse cowgirl
before! Remember? At Linh’s lingerie party?”
No dice. The question prompted a hushed
mutter from the next table. “This guy needs to move so I can see
already,” a gruff voice said — probably his friend.
“The Halloween party, yes, I remember, but
can we all look at the guacamole, please?” I asked hastily,
desperate to shut Adriana up, especially if it really was the
person I thought it was sitting next to me. He was from home and he
wasn’t supposed to know that this side of me ever existed. At home,
I was a poised, elegant and well-behaved girl from a poised,
elegant and well-behaved family.
