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  Bryan pushed the kinky side of himself back years ago but El is impossible to resist when he’s offering himself up so completely.

  When they meet, Bryan instantly wants his daughter’s new teacher. El is attractive and sweet, and he likes Bryan, too. El has already seen him though, years ago when Bryan and his ex used to frequent the local kink club. Bryan gave up that side of himself when they adopted, in fear that the agency would never adopt a child out to two men who enjoyed kink. But when El offers up his submission so completely, he’s too tempting for Bryan to resist for long.

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  Just a Kiss

  Copyright © 2016 Caitlin Ricci

  ISBN: 978-1-4874-0743-8

  Cover art by Carmen Waters

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

  Published by eXtasy Books Inc or

  Devine Destinies, an imprint of eXtasy Books Inc

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  www.eXtasybooks.com or www.devinedestinies.com

  Just a Kiss

  By

  Caitlin Ricci

  Just a Kiss

  I picked up my ex’s call on the first ring, like I always did. “Hey, Carl,” I said as I sank into my leather recliner. I muted the TV, a singing competition was on that I’d been only half paying attention to.

  “Hi, Bryan. Mike says hi.”

  I popped up the footrest and stretched out a little more in my favorite chair in the house. “Say hi back for me.”

  “Did I thank you lately for being so good about us being together?”

  He really didn’t have to. “Carl, we broke up because of us. I’m not upset that you moved on and found someone new. It’s not like Mike had anything to do with my business trips all the time or the emotional distance between us. We tried. We even went to counseling. It didn’t work out. I’m really fine with it.”

  I’d known for about two years before Carl had asked me for a divorce that things weren’t okay. Neither of us was happy and that hadn’t seemed to be getting any better. He asked me to travel less and sometimes I did, but more often than not I hadn’t, until we’d adopted our kid. And realizing that I had wanted to be a parent more than I had wanted to be his husband had been the tipping point for me. That had been four years ago. I had no idea why he was surprised I was fine with him moving on now. I certainly hadn’t been celibate, he just hadn’t known about the guys I’d been with since none of them had been serious enough to bring around our little girl. And it wasn’t as if I hadn’t loved Carl at some point. Part of me still did, but I wasn’t sure that I’d ever loved him enough that I should have married him.

  “That’s so great of you. You’re amazing for that.”

  I laughed and looked up at the ceiling as pop music came through the floor above me from our daughter’s bedroom. “Want to know how her first day of school went or were you just calling to flatter me?”

  “Hang on, I’m going to put you on speakerphone. How does this... Where’s the button... Oh! There it is.”

  He’d always been horrible with technology. He probably would have still had his old VCR player, which he swore by, if I hadn’t made him upgrade before I went mad.

  “Hey, Bryan.”

  “Hey, Mike.”

  When they’d started dating, and I knew Mike was going to be around our kid, I’d done all the standard background work on him to make sure he’d be okay with her and that I had nothing to worry about. What I’d learned was that Mike was extremely normal. The oldest kid with two sisters, single dad, he started working when he was seventeen at the grocery store by his old house and he put himself through college with a liberal arts major. Since then, I’d learned how much he liked art and our daughter, Gwen, loved going to the painting classes he taught at the local rec center. He was a good addition to her life and he made Carl happy. I heard his happiness in his voice now so much more than I had back when we were together.

  “So are you both ready for the riveting tale of Gwen’s tenth day in eighth grade?” We’d been going over her days together ever since we’d separated. It kept us all in touch with what was going on in her life.

  They both laughed.

  “She got to school on time and that little brown haired girl she was sort of friends with last year was waiting for her outside the front doors. Maybe they’ll be closer this year. Last year it seemed like Genel had too much going on to really have many friends, but Gwen said she quit soccer so maybe they’ll do a movie or something.”

  Carl sighed wistfully. “Our kid’s first real friend since we adopted her.”

  He shouldn’t get his hopes up. Gwen didn’t make friends all that easily. Her counselor had told us it could be part of the transition from her previous life, which I’d tried hard not to know the details of, but I’d been told there had been drug use by her parents in front of her.

  “She has home room with Kimberly again. Miss Brintle. Everyone, including her students, still call her Kimberly. They’re reading some book she told me the name of but I forgot. We’ve all read it though. It’s one of those books everyone gets assigned.” I tried to think through the bits and pieces Gwen had told me over her meatball sandwich dinner. “There’s some boy with a really cool jacket with an eagle on it in her math class. Like way cool.” I tried to imitate our daughter’s high voice when she got excited.

  Mike laughed.

  “Um... She had chicken fingers for lunch. I picked her up on time...” I was struggling to come up with things to tell them from an all-in-all rather uneventful day according to our daughter. I’m sure a lot had happened to her today, but even a few years after adopting her, sometimes it was hard to get her to open up to either of us about even the small stuff, let alone if anything big were to happen. When something did come up she called her counselor who then called me since I was the parent she lived with now that I’d quit the job that had required me to travel all the time, and I would bring her in. I didn’t love that Gwen went to her first instead of coming to me, but I thought that might change in time once she got to know us more and learned she could trust us and rely on us fully as her parents.

  “What are you making for her bake fair tomorrow?” Carl asked me.

  Her what now? “Uh...”

  “Shit! You forgot?” And he sounded instantly disappointed in my parenting skills.

  “No. I didn’t forget.” I got up from the recliner and walked over to the dry erase board where I’d asked Gwen to put down all of her important dates for school. It wasn’t listed there. But it was on the school calendar beside it that had gone out to all of us parents two months ago along with the bus schedule and school rules. Shit.

  “Do you need me to run to the store?” Carl offered. “I’ll get you a few dozen cupcakes.”

  And have me mess up the first solo thing I’d been asked to do for her? No. I was more than able to handle this just fine
. “Relax. I’m good. I can handle making something for the bake fair.” I even had the perfect recipe.

  “Are you sure?” Carl didn’t sound convinced.

  “Yes. I’m making fudge.” I heard him making appreciative noises through the phone and I rolled my eyes. He still had such a sweet tooth. “Bye guys. See you when I drop Gwen off this weekend.” She had every weekend with them but they were always good about letting me have her if I’d grabbed tickets for something on a Saturday night. It really amazed me how much better Carl and I were now that Mike was in the picture. We were back to being close friends and sometimes the four of us even went out together. It was strange being that close to one of my exes when every other one of them I’d wanted to kick off the face of the planet. But it worked for us.

  They said bye to me and I went straight upstairs to knock on Gwen’s closed door. She turned down her music then opened the door for me. “Hi,” she said meekly.

  “Hey. Why didn’t you tell me there was a bake fair tomorrow? Did you not want to go?”

  She shrugged and I leaned against the wall outside of her door.

  “Gwen... C’mon. I’m not a mind reader. If you don’t want to have anything to bring, you don’t have to take something. But the letter from the school made it seem like a big deal so if you’re not interested I’d like to know what’s going on.”

  She rubbed her arms and looked down at her feet. “I didn’t want you to feel like you had to.”

  “You mean you didn’t want to bug me for something,” I guessed. She’d been the same way when I’d taken her school shopping, only agreeing to get the absolute minimum and because I’d made her.

  She nodded and I sat down in front of her door so that at least we could look at each other. “Gwen, honey, you’re my kid. I know I’m not your dad, and I’m not trying to replace him but for me you’re it. I’m not going to have another child. And I want to do things for you. I’ll do anything for you. Nothing that you could ever need from me would be an inconvenience. Now, can we talk about this bake fair thing?”

  She gave me another little nod.

  “Is it important to you that you have something there?”

  “I don’t want you to be upset.”

  Shit. I hated when she sounded like she was so near tears just because she wanted something and didn’t know how to ask me for it. The first time Carl and I had taken her out to dinner, a week after she’d come to live with us, she’d broken down crying at the table and neither one of us had had any kind of idea of what we were supposed to do in that situation.

  “How about if I make some fudge, and if you don’t like it or don’t want it at the bake sale, we’ll go by the store on the way to school and get something tomorrow? Would that be okay?” I really hoped it would be because I needed something to go right here.

  “Can I help?” she asked me, her voice quiet and full of uncertainty.

  I grinned up at her and got back up to my feet. “Of course you can. I’d love to have your help.” I offered her my hand and she clutched it all the way back down to the kitchen.

  She took one of the stools by the island and I grabbed down the four ingredients that I’d need. “Now, this fudge is the result of Carl needing something sweet late one night when I was too tired to go to the store and he was too lazy to do it himself.” She laughed a little and I lined up the powdered sugar, the peanut butter, the vanilla extract, and the butter.

  “That looks like a lot of sugar.”

  I nodded and pulled down a glass mixing bowl and a wooden spoon. “It is. This is probably one of those things your dentist wouldn’t approve of you eating.” She smiled and I dumped a stick of butter, a bit of vanilla, and some peanut butter into the bowl. “Now, these guys have to go into the microwave together, but just until the butter is melty.” I showed her how then when it was hot and perfect I brought it over again.

  “What’s next?”

  There was only one thing left to put in. “Pour the powdered sugar in, but slowly, and watch your hands on the bowl. It’s really hot.” I stirred the wet ingredients while she started pouring in the powdered sugar. It was clumpy at first but then it started to smooth out. Once it was nearly cookie dough status I had her stop.

  “I thought fudge was thicker than that,” she said as I began spreading it into a pan.

  “It is. This one will cool down and get harder in the fridge overnight. Do you want to put it in?” She nodded and took the pan. I went to open the door for her.

  “Night,” she said when we were all done and I only had the two dishes left to clean.

  “Thanks for your help.”

  She gave me a little smile then darted back up to her room. I felt like I’d just won something kind of big in even getting her to help me with that.

  The next morning I got up early and sliced the fudge into what I thought were normal people portions, and not Carl sized pieces, which were about a fourth of the batch. I hadn’t made enough fudge for everyone in the school to have some, but I thought it would be enough for the bake fair. I didn’t have any of those pricing stickers and I didn’t know how to price fudge, anyway, so I left it alone and figured that would be good enough.

  When I took Gwen to school, with the fudge bars wrapped up in a plastic grocery bag in her hands, I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do. “Do you want me to go to the bake sale with you?”

  “You can. If you want to.”

  I was going to take that to mean yes, she did want me there, but she didn’t want to inconvenience me. “I’d love to be there.” It would beat going back home and binge watching TV for a few hours at least. I parked my car then walked her in. We got the usual looks I was getting pretty used to after being her adoptive parent for a while. Gwen was black. I was white. I had a rainbow flag tattooed on my forearm. She wouldn’t be getting any tattoos for a long time but clearly enough kids knew what a rainbow flag meant that they were staring at me.

  I just followed her to a side hallway where tables were already set up with big yellow tablecloths on them that said Bake Sale in huge block letters. “Go on up and find an empty spot,” I said.

  Gwen nodded and I watched some of the other kids trying to neatly arrange the cookies and cupcakes they’d brought. One kid even had piles of brownies with him. Some parents clearly had planned this a lot better than I had.

  “Hi. Are you Gwen’s dad?”

  I turned to see a guy with bright red hair and a crooked bow tie smiling at me. He offered me his hand, which I took. “I’m one of them. Bryan Keverion. And you are?”

  “That’s El.” I looked over at Gwen to see her standing beside me. “He’s my English teacher. He’s having us keep a journal this year.”

  “Ellwood Jenner,” he introduced himself. “Or just El. Everyone calls me that.” I had to wonder about a school that had everyone call them by their first names. It seemed odd to me but if my kid liked it then so be it. “You said you were one of Gwen’s dads? Is your partner coming to the bake sale as well?”

  Why would he? I looked to Gwen to see if this was some parent participation required event or something, but she looked just as lost as I did so I gave my attention back to El. “No, Carl and I aren’t together, but I’m sure you’ll see him around for something later on in the year. Maybe we’ll volunteer to chaperone the school dance or something.”

  Gwen groaned and I laughed. Sometimes she was so absolutely normal it was refreshing. I saw that I didn’t have her attention anymore, and that it was focused on some little boy with a leather jacket on. “Go over and talk to him,” I encouraged her.

  She bit her bottom lip and shook her head but I gave her a little nudge, which got her going in that direction.

  “I think it’s wonderful that you two adopted,” El said.

  “Thanks.” I turned back to look at him, and found him smiling at me.

  “Would you like to have a parent-teacher conference?”

  He was entering int
o crazy person territory. “She hasn’t been in this school that long,” I reminded him. We shouldn’t have had anything to talk about.

  He blushed and nodded. “Well... then... would you like a cup of coffee? My first class isn’t for another hour since I don’t have a home room to teach.”

  There was something definitely inappropriate about having coffee with my daughter’s cute teacher, but I decided to go for it anyway. Maybe I was a little crazy, too. And I’d missed my usual cup of coffee so far that morning so I was definitely needing some. “Sure. Just one cup, though.”

  He smiled at me then I followed him into a cramped little office filled with bookshelves overflowing with dozens of copies of familiar titles. He poured me a cup of coffee then offered me creamer cups and sugar packets, both of which I refused. This early in the morning I needed my coffee straight up and bitter.

  “May I call you Bryan?”

  He was letting me call him El so I shrugged and sipped on my coffee, which was horrible, but I was fine with it. I could always go drive through for some on the way back home.

  He crossed one leg over the other then leaned toward me across his desk. “I’d like to talk about Gwen and her placement in my class.”

  I put my cup of coffee down in a hurry. “Is there something wrong with my kid being in your class? Or her work? I’m sure if she spent a little time with a tutor she’d be right there with the other students, and I’ll work with her to get her to that place.” Gwen couldn’t be held back. She already had so little self-esteem that I didn’t know what that would do to her.

  El shook his head. “No, that’s not what I’m getting at here at all. Have you ever read anything that your daughter has written?”

  “We let her have her privacy. She has a journal for when she sees her therapist and she reads it with Gwen but we didn’t want to try to pry. If there’s something we need to know the therapist has assured us that she’ll make a meeting with us to talk about it.”