Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 79892 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79892 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
“I have a proposition for you,” he said. “We can call it a training exercise, or a psychological experiment—whichever suits you.”
“Am I a TA or a test subject?”
“Both, perhaps.” Fox tucked a loose lock of hair behind his ear. Irritating mess; he always meant to cut it, and yet... He let his gaze drift to the mantle. The butsudan resting there, its deep-polished rosewood glinting in the afternoon light drifting through the windows, its doors currently closed and its contents private...as they should be. Tearing his gaze away, he made himself focus on Summer. “Once per day, I expect you to do something outside your comfort zone. Challenge yourself to take on a role as a leader, or mentor. Challenge yourself to approach this job with confidence, rather than asking permission to do what you must do. If you cannot learn to be bold, Mr. Hemlock, at the very least learn to fake it in the necessary environments so that your knees knocking together do not drown out the lesson you are trying to deliver.”
Summer’s lips twitched faintly. “Pavlovian conditioning is a little 101 level, sir. Are you trying to make me assert my own authority?”
“I’m not trying to make you do anything,” Fox replied. “My only goal is to see if you can take the steps needed to face down a classroom of unruly, disrespectful children on your own. Do I need to hold your hand in that, or do you feel capable of attempting it under your own impetus?”
Summer plucked at his jeans. “The children don’t scare me.”
“Oh? Then what does?”
No answer. Simply a heavy silence, fraught with meaning, and yet—for all his understanding of psychology, of psychiatry, of the small markers that gave away intent and thought and emotion... Fox couldn’t quite read what that meaning might be. Not when the Summer he had known as a boy was necessarily a stranger to him, with the appropriate distance between teacher and student; not when the Summer he saw now was a new person, shaped by years of experiences Fox as yet had no insight into, and technically stood on almost equal footing as his peer and assistant.
And if he were honest with himself...no matter how he tried, no matter what clinical understanding he possessed...
He somehow always felt at one remove from other people’s feelings, observing them and yet never quite understanding them, the soul of his own emotions locked away.
Summer took a deep, slow breath, his shoulders rising and falling. “Every day? Does that include today?”
“You don’t technically start work until Monday, so you may take the weekend to consider, if you’d like,” Fox said. “Or you may start today. But that is still not an answer as to what frightens you.”
“Okay,” Summer said shakily, rising to his feet with wooden motions. “Okay then. I’ll show you what scares me.”
He stepped rigidly across the living room, navigating the low polished coffee table with an awkward bump of his shins against the wood. Fox watched, brow raised, as Summer drew closer to the couch—but startlement prickled down his arms in a rush like goosebumps and fine hairs raising as Summer bent over him, bracing one hand to the back of the sofa.
Before the young man captured Fox’s chin, his jaw, in roughened fingertips.
Tipped his face up.
And kissed him.
Chapter Two
Summer had no idea what he was doing.
He hadn’t meant to kiss Professor Iseya. He’d just—he—after sitting there listening to Iseya list Summer’s faults and remind Summer that he hadn’t changed at all, something had risen up inside him. Something irritated, that whited out his thoughts and smothered his common sense until he wasn’t really choosing to do anything; just reacting to provocation. If he wanted to look at it from a psychology perspective, Iseya had pricked at Summer’s id.
Until it had bitten back.
But Freud had been a hack, and dissection of the psyche couldn’t explain why Summer was bent over Professor Iseya with his mouth pressed hot against the man’s and the taste of him on his lips.
Iseya’s mouth was a stern thing of cruel sensuality, made for whispering cold-edged, cutting words of emotionless logic with articulated precision, every curve and dip of his lips defined as if they’d been shaped by the razor of his tongue...but for just a moment, those lips went soft. Slack. A moment that shot through Summer with a wilding heat; a moment that charged him with a vibrant rush and made his entire body go so hot he felt as though he burned with every harsh draught of smoke he’d inhaled just minutes before.
He’d thought about this more times than he cared to admit, as a boy. Back when he’d been fascinated by the older man’s frosty demeanor; by the glint of eyes a silver as pale and inscrutable as the forest’s mist; by the controlled elegance in his minimalistic movements; by the quiet hint of command in his every gesture. When Summer had been a teenager, Professor Iseya had been a fantasy, out of reach, unreal.