Her chest heaved with each heavy breath and her hands clung to his arms. Twisting her head, she kissed him, hard and wet, then mumbled, “Tell me.”
“Everything. You in my life have become everything.”
“What…” Her question died on her lips as he shifted his hips to thrust his cock into the hilt. She cried out his name, her fingernails digging crescents into his arm, the slight sting only serving to make him plunge harder.
As her inner sex gripped him, he shoved his face into her neck and sucked on the delicate skin between her neck and shoulder where her pulse raced. Crashing over the edge after her, he continued to pulse until she’d drained every drop from him. With his arms wrapped tightly around her, pulling her into his chest, they stayed connected in the most intimate way until their breathing eased, their heartbeats slowed, and he slipped from her body. Nuzzling her neck again, he whispered, “I love you.”
She twisted in his arms again, now pressing her front to his, her gaze searching his face before filling with tears. “I love you, too.”
They soon fell asleep in each other’s arms, Caitlyn first. As he lay listening to her steady breathing, he smiled. A business that’s growing and the woman I love in my arms. Yeah, things couldn’t be more perfect.
28
Caitlyn slipped out of the back of the auditorium and made a beeline for the ladies’ room. One of her assigned duties was being at the high school on evenings when there was a band or chorus concert. She never minded her duties, enjoying the music, and was always interested in seeing the activities some of her students participated in.
Walking back into the lobby, she spied Barbara, Jamie, Renée, and Jon standing near the main staircase. Grinning, she walked over. “You guys need a break, also?”
“My duty is to keep an eye on the downstairs hallway going to the gym locker rooms to make sure nobody is sneaking around where they shouldn’t,” Jon said. He glanced over toward Renée, and his brow lowered. “Are you okay?”
Caitlyn peered closer at her friend, noticing Renée’s fingers shake slightly as she rubbed her forehead.
“I’ve got a headache that I haven’t been able to get rid of.” Renée sighed. “I left my pain reliever up in my room today. I think I need to go get it.”
“I’ll go,” Caitlyn volunteered. “You don’t need to walk around, and quite frankly, I need to stretch my legs.”
Renée nodded, then grimaced. Reaching into her purse, she pulled out her keys and handed them over. “I keep them locked in my desk.”
“Thanks, Caitlyn,” Jon said before turning back to Renée. “Let’s go sit over here so you don’t have to go back into the auditorium.”
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Caitlyn said as she turned and jogged up the main staircase to the second floor. The science wing was at the far end of the building, and she tiptoe-walked as fast as she could down the dark hall, hating the sound of her clicking heels on the tiled floor. Making her way to Renée’s classroom, she found the key to enter, then flipped the switch on the wall, blinking as the dark space quickly illuminated with the glare from the fluorescent lights.
Walking straight to Renée’s desk, she unlocked the drawers, looking through each one with no success. Finally opening the large drawer, she spied a bottle of over-the-counter headache medicine. Reaching in, she noted a box decorated with the script T&B tea on the top. Knowing it would only take an extra moment to heat a mug of herbal tea in the teacher’s lounge, she wondered if Renée would find that soothing.
Reaching into the drawer, she pulled out the box and opened it. There, on top, were packets of tea, and she smiled, thinking of how many boxes she had packed over the past year of sharing the Victorian house and helping Terri and Bjorn with their business. The shredded paper stuffing around the tea bags seemed disturbed and she pushed it to the side. A large plastic bag with white powder was at the bottom of the box, smaller bags filled with powder shoved to the side.
Staring at the contents, she plopped into the desk chair, still bent over the drawer as she tried to discern what she was looking at. Why is this packed into the bottom of the box of tea? Is it some of Renée’s chemicals for her class? That can’t be right… she’d never put chemicals near something she was going to drink.
The inkling of an idea began to take shape, but Caitlyn shook her head slowly, her mind unwilling to follow the train of thought. With a shaking hand, she placed the box back into the drawer. Standing quickly, she stepped back as though the drawer now contained snakes ready to strike. But Renée? Why does she have it here?
“Oh, God,” she whispered to the empty room as Russ’ words came back to her. “I got to the nearest men’s room down the hall and pulled out the bag. There was a smaller bag of pills and four bags of white powder. I emptied all the bags into the toilet and flushed them away.”
None of what her eyes were seeing or the thoughts her mind was churning made sense. Clapping her fingers over her mouth, she swallowed deeply. Is Renée receiving drugs and planting them here at school for the kids to deal with? And hiding them where all the mixture of scents will disguise what’s here?
No answers were going to be found, but she startled, realizing she had been gone several minutes and needed to get back to the lobby with Renée’s meds. Snatching a tissue from the desk, she picked up a small bag of white powder and shoved it into her purse. Then, making sure the tea box looked just like she’d found it, she grabbed the bottle of headache pills and closed the drawer, locking it securely. Rushing out of the room, she looked back, determining it was as she found it, flipped off the light, and re-locked the outer door. Tiptoe-running back down the dark hall, she jumped when two people came out of one of the dark classrooms.
“Shit!” she cried out, throwing her hands up in front of her.
Barbara and Jamie cried out as well, all three staring at each other, wide eyes. Barbara’s lips were slightly swollen and her hair a mess. Jamie grinned, wiping a pink gloss from his lips.
Slapping her hand over her pounding heart, she stared at the two of them, shaking her head. “Jesus, you two are worse than the teenagers slipping around up here to make out!” Inclining her head toward Jamie, she added, “You missed a little of her gloss on your face,” and then toward Barbara, she said, “And you might want to smooth your hair back down.”
Barbara, blushing furiously, glided her hands over her hair as Jamie continued to wipe gloss off his lips. “Sorry, Caitlyn. We didn’t mean to scare you.”
As her heartbeat slowed only a tad, she nodded. “It’s okay. I need to get back down with Renée’s medicine.” Hurrying on past them, she made it back to the lobby where Jon was standing next to Renée with a soda in his hand.
Scowling, he asked, “What took you so long?”
“Sorry, I ran into Barbara and Jamie.” She hoped her excuse would satisfy, and it seemed to work as he took the bottle from her, tapped out two tablets, and handed them to Renée along with a soda.
The bag of powder in her purse felt like a hot beacon, glaring out for all to see, and she was torn between wanting to get away from Renée and not wanting to draw undue attention to herself. Thankfully, the concert was soon finished, and as the attendees streamed out of the auditorium, she moved away from Renée and hurried out to the parking lot.