They walked in silence to her car, the moon lighting their way and the wind making its own music in the swirl of leaves at their feet. Derek wanted to say something, and by the way Layla's eyes kept darting in his direction, he thought maybe she did too.
But what do you say after a kiss like that?
Well, she certainly knew what to say. According to her, "thanks" just about summed it up.
He'd had women beg for more, stare at him with the glamour of his fame shining in their eyes, or whisper whatever words they thought would snag him for more than one night, but he'd never had a woman simply say "thanks" as if he'd just passed a basket of dinner rolls across the table.
Hell, he probably should have thanked her first. The taste of her lips and the delicate press of her hand on his thigh right before she practically climbed on top of him...that kiss did something to him. Like flipping a light switch so that he could finally see that up until tonight he hadn't ever kissed a woman. Not really.
More than that, he'd never let a woman kiss him. The real him, the person he was underneath the swagger and cool detachment he wore as part of his required uniform.
"Here's my car," Layla said as they came to a stop next to the only car in the back lot.
"Are you sure?" Derek pretended to search the empty lot. "You might have forgotten where you parked it."
Layla laughed, a deep, rich sound that made him feel warmer in the chilly autumn air than his jacket ever could. "No...I'm fairly certain this is it," she said. Her eyes sparkled with a mixture of moonlight, amusement, and something else...
Good to know Derek wasn't the only one still reeling from whatever had exploded between them back on that piano bench. God, he wanted to fuck her on that bench. He wanted to feel her on top of him, all around him, her breasts in his face and her ass slapping his thighs as she rode him right there in the middle of the store.
Any other woman, and he would have made it happen. He would have locked the door and closed the blinds and he would have fucked her senseless.
But not Ms. M. She wasn't like any of those other women. He wanted better for her.
He thought that maybe for the first time in the rush and blur he called life, he wanted to take things slow. Do things right, whatever that meant.
Maybe he'd deluded himself into thinking that fucking thumbtack actually knew what he needed, but something about Ms. M felt different.
Felt right.
He wanted to impress her, but not in his usual fashion of glitz and glamor and the power that came from being someone who made his money from selling his talent to legions of eager fans. He wanted to impress her by being himself.
If he could even remember how to be himself anymore. No one ever let him.
"Glad you got it fixed so quickly." He smiled back at her but mentally punched himself in the arm for not thinking to make sure it got to the shop the other day. He'd just been so distracted by the way they'd sat in the car, breathing the music together as if it were the most natural thing in the world, he couldn't think of anything besides kissing her.
And now that he'd done that, he couldn't stop thinking about how he was going to do it again.
She reached for the car door, but then spun back to him. He could tell by the defiant set of her jaw and the glint in her eyes she was working herself up to say something.
"I've been told I need to have a little more fun." She lifted her chin as if she'd just issued a challenge and not stated a fact.
God he loved that look.
"That's funny," he said. "I've been told I need to have a little less."
"I'm just wondering..." She cleared her throat and looked up at the moon. Then her eyes met his again, and her gaze narrowed. "If you're free, I wouldn't be adverse to revisiting our game from the other day."
Their game.
He tried not to rankle at the implication--yet again--that none of this meant anything to him. She couldn't still believe that he was some self-absorbed asshole who would try on another life just for fun but go back to what was "real" as soon as he got bored.
Sure, he loved his career. His music was everything to him. For as long as he could remember, it was the most real thing in his life. But maybe he'd like a little of this to be real, too.
Derek thought about telling her that, but he didn't. Fuck, he'd bought a house in town, even if he'd barely spent any time in it. He probably should tell Layla that, too, but he didn't know if that would make her think better of worse of him, and he didn't want to ruin whatever it was that was happening between them right now.
House-related confessions could wait. Right now, Layla wanted to play a game, so he was going to fucking play along, even if some part of him he never knew existed wanted to grab her by the shoulders and tell her he wanted just one person in his life who didn't play games with him.
And for some reason he didn't understand, he thought he might want that person to be her. Even if it was just for a little while.
"What did you have in mind?" Derek pulled his phone out of his pants pocket. Four missed calls in the last hour, all from his agent. He frowned at the intrusion of his real life into the life he was busy pretending he had. He pushed the button and watched as the phone powered off. Silent wasn't good enough.
He returned his gaze to his sexy little teacher, only to find her scowling at him, her arms folded across her chest. Her hair was mussed from their kiss, the ebony waves framing her face in a sexed-up way that made him want to fuck her even more than he already did.
He didn't say a word about her hair being messed up, though. He liked her that way, all lusty and angry and...shit...he just liked her.
The way she talked about her kids, her music, how it wasn't just a job to her. He didn't think he'd ever met a woman more beautiful, inside and out.
And beautiful though she was, she was pissed again, probably because she thought he considered his missed calls to be more important than she was. She couldn't be more wrong. He smiled, causing her scowl to deepen.
Fuck. She was the perfect combination of spitfire and sexiness. It made him want to apologize even though this time, he hadn't done anything wrong. He decided right then and there that the next time he apologized to her, it would be with his mouth on her clit. He bet she tasted sweet even if right this second she looked anything but. His dick got hard just thinking about it.
Layla lifted her chin again, but this time uncertainty danced behind the challenge in her eyes. "Pie."
"Pie?"
She looked at the ground, but he couldn't help but notice her gaze drifting up his legs. Or rather his pants.
He forced himself not to smile again because he didn't want her to think he was making fun of her, but it had become pretty obvious to him by now that his pants turned his angry little band teacher on. And hell if that didn't turn him on.
"Yes, pie." Layla said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "You left me a pie the other day--thank you, by the way--but I can't eat it all by myself. Maybe you'd like to come over and have a piece."
"You're welcome. And you're inviting me to your house? For pie?"
She shook her head. He could see the blush spreading across her cheeks, even in the moonlight.
"Forget it," she said. "Of course you don't want to have a boring old piece of pie with me. I just thought--"
"It sounds perfect." And it really did. He didn't know what it was about her, but he would have done anything she asked if it meant he got to spend more time with her.
Layla cleared her throat. "Oh...alright, then. Do you want to follow me? Where's your car?"
"It's on the street. The school's just down the road, isn't it? I think I remember how to get to your house from there."
He knew perfectly well how to get to her house from there. He'd driven by it every evening this week reliving their moment in the rain and wondering if she'd think he was a stalker if he stopped by to say "hello," but he wasn't about to tell her that.
"Okay. Good."
He watched as she climbed in her car. She rolled down her window, the cool wind stirring the hair over her shoulder. "I'll wait for you on the main road anyway. Just follow me so you don't get lost."
"Yes, Ms. M." He nodded.
Her eyes narrowed again, but he was beginning to recognize that look as her way of trying to pretend she didn't like something when she actually did. Before she could say anything else, he leaned down, poking his head through her window and cupping her face in his hands. He kissed her, loving the way her lips instantly parted for him, as if they'd been kissing each other all their lives.
Derek pulled away even though he didn't want to, because if he didn't, he'd stand there kissing her like that all night long. "It's my turn to thank you," he said.
"What for?" She blinked up at him, her tongue darting across her lips and sending all his blood straight to his cock.
"You weren't the only one having a shitty day." He flashed her a grin before jogging across the parking lot to the street where his car waited for him.