Free Learning the Ropes by Remy Richard

thrill up her spine.
    “Students are coming this way.” Rory hopped off the desk and was surprised to find her legs wobbly. She tried to fix her hair as best she could, but there was probably no fix for what was surely a ‘just got laid’ look on her face.
    “Right.” Noah nodded and turned his back on her to gather control of himself. Rory moved to her desk and began to pack up her papers and laptop for the evening. “Sorry about that. I guess I kind of lost control there.”
    She looked up as she finished securing her bag. “Just forget it. It was both of us. Let’s just call it temporary insanity brought on by a highly sexualized topic.”
    Noah frowned at her. “I’m willing to call it crazy, but not to forget it. Making out with a teacher in her classroom is a pretty big fantasy come true for me. Even if it is a few years later than I hoped it would be.”
    Rory rolled her eyes and laughed. “Please don’t even try to tell me that this is the first classroom you’ve made out in.”
    “I’m not saying that at all. Although I think it may be the first classroom you’ve made out in.”
    “Of course it is!”
    Noah strolled closer and tugged on a loose tendril of hair. “I don’t mean as a teacher. I mean as a student. You ever engage in a little detention hall hanky-panky, Rory?”
    “I would have had to have been assigned detention for that now, wouldn’t I? I don’t think so.”
    Noah nodded. “You were a good girl. I bet you kept your make-out sessions firmly in cars at some sort of lover’s lane. Possibly the back of a movie theater.”
    Rory pulled away from his light grasp and picked up his jacket to hand back to him. “You’re right—I was a good girl in high school. I didn’t do any making out in any locations until I was in college.”
    “No way. I bet you were beating the guys off with a stick.”
    Rory laughed but there wasn’t a lot of mirth in it. “Not exactly. Most guys didn’t look twice at me. I was shy and awkward and into my studies.”
    “I would have looked way more than twice,” he said, his voice low.
    Rory shook her head and began moving towards the door. The sooner this conversation was over, the better. She hadn’t meant to reveal anything so personal. She was chalking this all up to residual lust-induced stupidity. “That’s a nice thing to say but I’m sure you were popular in high school. We wouldn’t have run with the same crowd.”
    Noah followed her to the door but stopped to pin her in the doorway. “Well now that you’ve had your first make-out session in detention hall, how was it?”
    Rory tilted her head and pretended to think about it. Amazing . “Overrated.”
    “Ouch,” he laughed and, after a glance outside to make sure that they were alone, he dropped a quick kiss on her lips. “I guess I’ll have to do better next time.”
    Rory stood stunned by the casual show of affection for a moment and then hastened to correct his confusion. “There’s not going to be a next time.”
    Noah just started towards the parking lot and waved a hand at her in farewell. “We’ll see. I’ll be by to help you practice soon. And you know you can call and ask for me to come by first.”
    Practice? Was he going to practice making out with her? Frankly, neither one of them seemed to need it. It took her a moment to realize he meant practice her lecture with her. She tried to tamp down her disappointment as she locked her classroom door and headed for home.

Chapter Five
    Noah pulled up to the curb and carefully balanced the pizza and a bottle of wine as he got out of his truck. A glance around Rory’s neighborhood proved it to be just as idyllic as he remembered. In the gathering twilight, two kids slowly rode their bikes down the street in a twining pattern. The spring air was cool and fresh and smelled faintly of hamburgers being cooked on a grill somewhere. The night would have been perfect, if he had actually been an invited guest at Rory’s