Trapped With My Teacher
By: Penny Wylder“Let me see,” I reply, not trusting the unsure note in his voice.
With one last scowl, he leads me through a narrow kitchen—gas stovetop, that’s good, in case we lose power—and out back. Sure enough, there is a wood stack, complete with a tarp over it to keep the wood dry in the snow. Still, I cross my arms and lean back to study the sky, assessing. “We should bring more of this inside,” I say. “Just in case it really starts to come down. We’ll want to have enough dry wood so we can use it to dry off any wet wood if we need to delve into the deeper reserves later.”
He casts a sideways glance at me, assessing as well. But if he wants to argue, he bites his tongue over it for now. Tony pulls the tarp back a little, and working together, we carry armful after armful of wood into the little mudroom off the kitchen. Every now and then as I pass him squeezing through the narrow back door of the cabin, our arms brush, and a fresh riot of tingles shoot along my skin.
I ignore that and keep my face expressionless, my attention focused on the task at hand. I don’t have time to be distracted by anyone right now, much less him. I need to make sure we’re prepared in case this storm gets as bad as the radio claims it will.
Once we’ve brought in enough wood to last us at least three days, just in case it’s a really thick blizzard—it’ll take the snowplows a while to make it this far up into the mountains—I fix the tarp over the remaining wood and head back into the house to assess the rest of the cabin.
For his part, Professor Lakewood just leans back against the gas stove and watches me move around the cabin.
Right. So there’s a tiny little living room with a small couch—not big enough for anyone to sleep on unless they curl up into fetal position. Aside from that and the wood-burning stove, there’s the kitchen—really just a galley kitchen with the stovetop, a tiny sink, and a little icebox with some basics inside. I find a few jugs of water, some dry goods—mostly cereal and preserves, so that’s something. Aside from that, some frozen meat and fish in the tiny fridge—hard to judge how old it is, but when I scrape off some ice patches to read the sell-by date, it still looks good. And we can stick that out in the snow to keep if the power fails.
Beyond the kitchen is the real dilemma, though. I stop short on the threshold and stare a moment at the bedroom. It’s tiny, even smaller than the kitchen. “Bedroom” is a generous word for it, really. More like “sleepable closet.”
Professor Lakewood steps up beside me to peer over my shoulder. “Going to be a cozy fit,” he points out.
That’s putting it lightly. The bed takes up the entire “room,” and it’s a single bed. Plenty of fuzzy blankets to keep warm, and a cute little reading nook beside it stacked with books and a lamp. But definitely not made for more than one person. Let alone two people who currently hate each another.
“I’ll take the couch,” I say.
He scoffs. “Don’t be ridiculous. A child could barely fit on that couch.”
“I’ll make it work.” I spin around and brush past him. Our shoulders collide, and damn him, that distracts me all over again, because I can’t help thinking if we shared that bed, what it would feel like to have his warm, muscular body curled up against mine. How would those washboard abs feel against my backside, with his strong arms wrapped around my waist? And if I arched back against him, pressed my hips to his, would I feel something else? Feel him getting excited by my proximity, growing hard against my ass? How big is the cock he’s hiding in those loose jeans?
I shake myself. Stop it. You hate him, remember?
Luckily, he doesn’t make it easy to forget. “I know problem-solving isn’t your strong suit, Corina, but you have to admit we’ll both need to share the bed. Especially if the temperature drops more than it already has. We’ll need to conserve body heat.”
I grimace with my back still turned. He’s right. That doesn’t mean I need to admit it yet. “Well we’ll just have to wait and see what the temperature does,” I reply. Then I step into the kitchen and eye the wood stack. About a quarter of it is smaller bits and pieces—kindling we’ll be able to use to get the fire started. The rest are big logs. They’ll be good for once we have the heat roaring, but we’ll need a little more in-between pieces.
