Her Teacher's Temptation (15 page)

Ollie wasted no
time in returning the gesture, dragging his nails up my exposed legs. He
ditched his cigarette and I did the same as his face moved towards mine,
choosing to divert his path at the very last minute to trail kisses from my
neck to my ear. “I think you know exactly what I’m implying,” he murmured as I
shivered. When I was high everything seemed extra sensitive and tonight was no
exception. It felt amazing, even having him this close to me.

There wasn’t any
point in drawing this out. I wove one hand through his tight curls to manoeuvre
his lips to mine and dug my nails into his back with the other, leaving him no
room to move backwards. Ollie’s reply was immediate and we didn’t bother with
the small kisses, choosing to leap straight into open mouthed, passionate ones
which had me gasping and struggling for breath.

“There’s no way
I’m not having you tonight,” Ollie growled when he pulled back for breath,
nails scratching marks into my hips in a way that made me groan.

“Obviously,” I
replied between my fast breathing, quickly returning our attention to a long
kiss, our chests pressed completely against each other as my heart rate spiked
to insane levels.

“You know, this
could easily have been Hannah that walked out here and not me,” Meg commented
in a casual voice, interrupting our heavy make-out session and causing me to
pull away with a grimace.

“Why couldn’t
you have just stood in the doorway and kept guard and let us continue then?” I
questioned with a pout.

“You guys are
so cute,” she decided to coo instead, with no real relevance to the situation.
“It’s so sad that it’s all illegal and stuff.”

I rolled my
eyes. “Yes,” I agreed. “It is.”

“But we’re
forgetting about that for the rest of the night, as soon as stupid Hannah has
left,” Ollie explained with a grin, smirking as he gave me a quick kiss on the
forehead. “I suppose I probably should leave you alone for now, though. She is
going soon though, right?” He demanded childishly.

“Oh my gosh, you’re
too adorable,” Meg crooned over any response I was about to give. “I wish you
guys were like this all the time.”

She’d obviously
had far too much of whatever it was she’d taken. “I hope so,” I replied to
Ollie’s question and he stepped out from between my legs, just in time, too,
because Hannah stepped into the back garden just as we’d separated.

“What’s up?”
Meg inquired.

“I’m going
home,” Hannah announced. “Otherwise I think I’m going to fall asleep here and
my mum would be really mad.”

“Oh, really?” I
realised I’d sounded too excited when Hannah shot me an offended look.

“Jeez, don’t
sound too happy,” She muttered.

“It’s just
because I felt like going for a walk.” I quickly made up. “And you probably
shouldn’t walk home alone anyway,” I pointed out seriously. “It’s really late,”
I turned to Ollie. “You’ll come with us, right? Wouldn’t want to leave two
vulnerable females walking around the streets at night without some macho
supervision.”

“Sure.” Ollie
agreed with a roll of his eyes. “Let’s go then, I guess.”

After checking
that she had everything, Hannah, Ollie and I exited the front door and began
the not too long trek back to Hannah’s house. I was full of energy though and
was actually quite glad to be walking around for a bit.

“Oh, I got an
interview at Newcastle, by the way,” I told Ollie with a large grin.

“I’m surprised
they didn’t just skip the interview process,” he replied with a chuckle.

“That’s what
Meg and I said,” Hannah laughed. “I’m fairly certain you’d get a place even if
you didn’t show up to the interview, especially after doing so well in that
writing competition thing.”

“How are you
getting there? My offer still stands.”

“I’m going to
get the train,” I gave him a grateful smile, though. “It wasn’t as much as I’d
thought it’d be.”

“Okay, cool.
You might run into Annabel whilst you’re there. If you have any free time,
anyway. She really likes you for some reason.”

“Hey, what do
you mean ‘for some reason’?” I taunted. “She probably likes me because I was a
bitch to Jemma. Not that she definitely didn’t deserve it.”

“I suppose she
did. I really thought you were going to slap her, though. I was pretty
impressed you didn’t.”

“As long as we
established that I’m definitely the better person,” I smirked. The fact that
he’d broken up with her was proof enough of that.

“Wait, what?
When did this happen? What are we even talking about?” Hannah complained.

“When Mr.
Wright’s sister came back from Newcastle a couple of weeks ago I went out for
dinner with her and Ollie and his stupid girlfriend,” I explained, realising
that this was the first time I’d slipped up on his name all evening in front of
her. “She asked me about the writing thing that I did and then bitched about
drugs. After I apologised, even though I wasn’t even wrong, she said ‘I always
like people who can accept when they’re wrong’,” I grimaced. “What a bitch. She
also called me girl before.”

“She sounds
charming,” Hannah commented, before realising that Ollie was still here.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean-”

“Don’t worry, I
broke up with her. You can say as many negative things as you want.”

Hannah
chuckled. “I would, but I’m home now.” She explained, gesturing to the house
we’d stopped in front of. “Thanks for walking me home guys. I really didn’t want
to do that by myself.” Then she seemed to suddenly realise something. “Wait,
does that mean your first name is Oliver?”

Ollie looked
mortified. “Maybe,” he admitted with a groan. “Please don’t ever call me that.”

I was laughing
so hard I almost choked, though. “Oh my God, really? That’s hilarious.”

“Hey!” He
complained. “It’s not that bad. I am older than you. It’s... traditional,” he
defended himself futilely.

“It’s
brilliant. I’m never going to be able to take you seriously again. I can’t
believe I never realised this.”

Ollie scowled
at me. “Whatever then, Madeleine.”

My face still
flushed, especially since he’d made an effort to make it even sexier than
normal. “Hey,” I whined. “You’re not allowed to do that to me.”

“Truce?”

“Fine,” I muttered.

“I don’t
understand.” Hannah complained.

“She totally
digs my accent,” Ollie smirked. “Look how red her face goes when I say it.
Madeleine.”

I couldn’t stop
my cheeks flaming and I pouted. “Stop,” I complained. “It’s not fair.”

“How did you even
find that out?” Hannah questioned suspiciously.

“She told my
friends by accident. What a foolish mistake,” Ollie lied effectively.

Hannah rolled
her eyes. “It’s going to be so funny when you both awkwardly have to go back to
school.”

I chuckled,
then suddenly remembered something. “What happened with Mike?”

Hannah bit her
lip guiltily. “I was going to break up with him the next time I saw him, but
then he’d planned this really nice day for us and I couldn’t bring myself to do
it.”

I frowned. “What
about Ewan? Have you seen him again?”

“We went out
for coffee the other day,” she admitted. “And he kissed me when I went home,
he’s just so sweet. He wants to go out for little dates everywhere. It’s so
cute.”

“You’re going
to break up with Mike next time you see him?” I asked hopefully. It was cruel
for her to lead him on, especially if he was arranging days that were costing
him money or anything.

“Yes, for
definite this time,” she promised.

“You really
should.” Ollie offered his opinion. “If you keep just cheating on him you’ll
feel awful. And you’re bound to be found out too and it’ll just ruin your
chance with this Ewan guy. I’m guessing he doesn’t know you have a boyfriend.”

“He doesn’t,” she
affirmed. “And I will, honestly. I really want to give it a shot with Ewan.
Thanks for the advice guys.” I wasn’t entirely convinced that she’d be breaking
up with Mike any time soon. I was almost inclined to believe that seeing two
guys was what was making this exciting for her. “See you at school.”

“See you later
Hannah! Have fun camping.”

“Thank God
she’s gone,” Ollie declared as we started walking back towards the house,
grabbing my hand in his and lacing our fingers together. “Now we can go and
actually enjoy ourselves.”

I couldn’t help
but grin widely. Ollie really did want to just spend his time with me, it was
so awesome to hear. “We definitely can,” I agreed.

We chatted
mindlessly on the way back and I only realised how cold I was when we were back
in the house. On the sofa, I automatically cuddled into Ollie’s side as he
wrapped an arm around me.

Harry groaned.
“Where’d she go? It was much more enjoyable seeing you try and avoid each
other.”

I smirked.
“What’s wrong?” I inquired innocently, pressing my lips to Ollie’s forehead in
a gentle kiss. “Aren’t you happy me and Ollie get to be around each other now?”

I leant
forward, about to give Ollie a kiss on the lips to annoy Harry further, when he
spoke. “Ollie and I,” He corrected.

I scowled.
“Really?” I complained. “You think I don’t know that? You gave me full marks on
an essay, remember?”

Ollie didn’t
bother to hide his smugness. “It’s too funny to annoy you though.” He decided
to press his lips against mine anyway, though the small peck didn’t stay that
way for long and hands automatically went to hair to bring our faces closer
together. I vaguely heard Harry pretending to gag, but the majority of my
senses were completely focused on Ollie, who I knew I wasn’t likely to be this
close to again. I said that every time I kissed him, though.

“Stop being
mean to them,” Meg accused, sitting down beside us and making me finally pull
away. “Look how cute they are.”

I resisted the
urge to roll my eyes. I was fairly sure we both actually just looked like
complete messes from having been awake for so long, but I didn’t mention it.
“Can we go home?” Ollie asked suddenly. “I’m getting kind of tired and I
definitely don’t want to be going to sleep as soon as we get in.”

Grinning, I
nodded. I knew what he meant. The high was wearing off slightly by now and I
wanted to make the most of having Ollie to myself. “Sure. You’re staying with
Rob tonight, right?” I checked with Meg. “You weren’t planning on staying at
mine or anything?”

“No, that’s
cool,” Meg gave a tinkly laugh. “Have fun.”

Ollie and I
shared a smirk. We would definitely be having fun.

Chapter Twenty-One

A scowling Meg
slouched into the seat beside me. I gave her a wary sideways glance. “You
okay?” I checked, hoping I didn’t say anything to provoke her apparent annoyance
ever further.

“Just hungover
and on a come down,” Meg explained, burying her face in her hands and groaning
loudly. We were a bit early so there were only a few other people in the
classroom so far. Ollie was nowhere to be seen. “Feeling rough,” she clarified.

It was a good
job that Meg was too busy scrubbing at her eyes to notice my immediate scowl.
Meg had said she wasn’t interested in doing drugs again for a while - I’d
really hoped she was telling the truth. Evidently Ollie had been right in thinking
she’d just been saying it to appease me. “I thought you didn’t want to do any E
for a bit,” I reminded her, twirling a piece of hair around my fingers. I
wasn’t sure when I’d become scared of what I said around her.

“I hadn’t done
it for a while. I hadn’t done any since that party in half term,” she dismissed
easily.

I sent her a
flat look. “Two and a half weeks isn’t ‘a while’,” I assured her sceptically.
“You know it’s supposed to be two or three months between taking it.”

“Oh come on,
you know that’s excessive. It’s just to scaremonger, or whatever.” I wasn’t
sure whether Meg actually believed that or not. If she did, then it really was
a serious problem.

“Not really,” I
argued. “I’m fairly sure it wouldn’t say it on like every website you checked
if it was wrong.”

Meg unleashed a
full glare on me, which was only amplified by the black bags under her eyes.
“Stop being so bitchy about it. It’s not a big deal, okay? And besides, it’s my
life, not yours. Stop pretending to be so self-righteous.”

My eyes widened
and I was stunned into silence. “Okay,” I agreed quietly. Clearly I wasn’t
going to accomplish anything here other than to provoke Meg even more. When it
came to this situation, I was never sure what to do. My mind went blank on
normal conversation, so it was hard for me to even pull us out of this
argument. “I got an offer from Newcastle,” I supplied with a small smile.

“Oh, well done
you.” I was shocked my Meg’s sarcastic and bitter tone. “Congrats. Obviously
you were going to get all your offers. I bet you haven’t already been rejected
from two unis like someone.”

I bit the
inside of my cheek. I’d apparently made another mistake, then. “I’m sorry, I
had no idea.” Meg was hardly stupid and she got fairly good grades last year -
I wasn’t sure what would make universities reject her. “Which ones?”

“St. Andrews
and Bristol,” she supplied, before sighing. “It’s not even that I particularly
wanted to go to those ones, it’s just a bit demoralising, you know?”

“Yeah, I know,”
I agreed. I hadn’t applied to anywhere that required super high grades or an
interview like I knew both of those universities did (Newcastle was nowhere
near as high up on the league tables), which was probably why I’d gotten an
offer already. “You’ll definitely get an offer from Nottingham, though.” That
was where Meg had her heart set on.

“I really hope
so,” she muttered. “Otherwise I don’t even know what I’m going to do.”

I was on the
verge of getting it over and done with and asking Meg how her mum was doing when
Ollie entered the classroom and told us to get our texts out. I’d ask another
time. In the classroom probably wasn’t the best place anyway since it was such
a sensitive topic.

Ollie was
slightly off his game today, and I frowned as tried to concentrate on what he
was saying. The fact that he was so obviously preoccupied with something else
meant that I was automatically not focusing on the lesson as my mind raced with
possibilities.

The first was
that he’d met a girl who he liked and she was occupying his mind. I attempted
to dismiss this, though - I was just being irrational, as I tended to be when
it came to Ollie. I was kind of stumped when it came to anything else, though.
There was always the chance it was something to do with his parents, since they
might be pressuring him after breaking up with Jemma. Or maybe Jemma herself
was doing something to irritate him. Perhaps Nick was back and had threatened
him to get around my dad. I frowned at that idea. Surely if it was something
like that then he’d tell me.

But despite how
insanely curious I was, I knew I couldn’t stay at the end of the lesson to find
out. After the party we’d made a firm agreement to stay away from each other
and I was really doing my best to honour it. We had to acknowledge that it was
for the best, no matter how depressing.

I was therefore
incredibly surprised when Ollie asked me to stay back at the end of the lesson.
I’d given up on talking to Meg about my Ollie issues. It had gotten too
personal for me to joke about it any longer without feeling sad, so she
continued to think that there was something going on and didn’t look at all
shocked by Ollie’s request.

It must just be
something to do with my last essay, I decided. It had been an awkward question
and I knew my writing hadn’t been particularly good. My lack of concentration
in his lessons was starting to actually have an impact.

“What’s up?” I
inquired with a frown after everyone had filtered out of the room and just the
two of us were left. “Was my essay really that bad?”

“What? Your
essay was fine. It wasn’t your best, but it was still good. That isn’t why I
asked you to stay behind.”

My eyebrows
knitted closer together. So this was a non-school related thing. He’d broken
our agreement first and that had me smiling inside. “What’s up, then?” I
inquired hesitantly. It was bound to be bad news.

Ollie shifted
awkwardly on the spot for a moment, so I took that time to sit atop one of the
front desks. We were apparently going to be here for a while. “I have a really big
favour to ask.”

It turned out
that Ollie’s puppy eyes were far better and more effective than mine. I was
fairly sure he could have asked me anything and I would have agreed just from
the look he was giving me. “Sure, what is it?”

After running a
hand through his thick curls, Ollie rushed his words together. “My cousin is
getting married next weekend and my mum says that I have to bring a date and
since I messed it up with Jemma I don’t really have anyone to ask. I’ll buy you
a dress and everything. Please?”

I found myself
laughing. Ollie was just too cute when he was being this nervous. “I’ll come
with you,” I assured him, before pausing and biting the inside of my cheek.
“This kind of goes against everything we agreed on, though.” I had to remind
him, no matter how much I wanted to just roll with it.

“I know,” he
agreed, sighing lightly. “But this is the last time, I promise. It’s just this
is a pretty big deal to my parents and they’ll be really mad if I don’t bring
anyone now.”

“I would have
said yes without the dress thing, I don’t mind buying my own clothes.” I
assured him.

Ollie waved me
off. “I want to,” he assured me. “It’s at a pretty fancy place so I don’t want
you to have to pay loads for a dress you’ll probably only wear once.”

I considered my
response briefly. “Okay, but as long as you're going to come shopping with me
and not expect me to just give you a receipt.” The knowledge that I was just
wanting to spend time with him was obvious to the both of us, but thankfully he
didn't bother to question it.

“That was what
I was going to suggest anyway. So I'm glad we've got a deal. We'll have to go
somewhere like Nottingham where we're not going to see anyone, though.”

“I don't mind.”
That just meant we got to spend lots of time together in the car, too. “Do you
really think your mother is going to approve of me?” I was forced to inquire
sceptically. From what I'd heard about his parents, I wasn't exactly the ideal
fit for Ollie right now. I certainly wasn't ready to get married. Plus, it was
slightly illegal.

Ollie ran a
hand through his hair and avoided my eyes slightly. “Well, obviously I'm not
going to be telling anyone you're my student and we're only going as friends,
but I might tell everyone you're a couple of years older than you actually
are,” he confessed with a small blush. “Like, nineteen maybe? I think you could
pass for that.”

I chuckled.
“That's what I figured” I understood that it was for the best – not only for
him but for me too, so that his parents wouldn't just automatically dismiss me
as being not good for Ollie. “Just text me the date and stuff closer to the
time,” then I smirked, “and looking around to see which city has the best dress
shops.”

Ollie rolled
his eyes slightly. “Of course.”

I gnawed on my
lip slightly before speaking again. If we were going to be going to a wedding
together, then there was no reason I wasn't allowed to ask him for advice now.
“Meg's still doing drugs a lot. I don't know what I can do about it. She got
really mad with me for mentioning it again. I think I have to ask her about her
mum.”

Ollie pondered
this. “Maybe that's what's wrong. Maybe she just needs someone to talk about
her mum to, you know? Instead of just bottling it up, or whatever.”

“Maybe,” I
agreed. “I wasn't sure whether it was better to just avoid it and try not to
remind her of it or to talk about it.”

“I don't think
she'd be being so irresponsible if it wasn't on her mind most of the time.”

“I suppose I
have kind of been selfishly avoiding talking about it because it's awkward.” My
face fell completely. How else was Meg supposed to deal with it if her best
friend was being useless and patronising rather than actually helpful?

“It's not your
fault,” Ollie quickly assured me. “It might not even be true, but I think you
should at least try talking to her. It might help.”

“I guess so,” I
allowed. “Thanks, I'll talk to her soon,” I tried to promise myself. I was so
bad in these situations, though. I tended to put the talking thing off as long
as possible. “I'm going to go and get some food,” I told him, grateful that my
stomach hadn't made any embarrassing noises yet considering how hungry I was.
“Send me the details soon.”

“Sure thing.”
As I was about to exit the room, though, Ollie began speaking again. “And it's less
of a wedding and more of a whole weekend in the middle of Cornwall where
they're getting married,” he rushed out. “But you already agreed, so I'm taking
your word for it now.”

I gawked and he
gave me an impish grin. Well, that was certainly likely to be more interesting
than the few hours I'd been anticipating.