Loving Teacher by Jade Stratton

CHAPTER ONE

    Mark sat at his desk, trying to focus on a short story in his book while the rest of the class descended into chaos, with voices raised in a cacophony of gossip and laughter while crumpled wads of paper and rubber bands sailed overhead.  
    “Hey, dickhead!”  
    He glanced up to see a triangular paper football whirling through the air, straight at his face. With a sigh of annoyance, he batted it aside with the book.
    “That would’ve been a score!” Jerry Kennedy crowed. The star quarterback of the school football team, he was everything that Mark wasn’t: big, tough, popular with the girls, and a total asshole. Jerry gave Mark the finger as his two sidekicks laughed, then flicked another paper football that Mark dodged with a slight movement of his head. Fortunately, Mark only had to deal with Jerry in this class, and Mark still wondered how Jerry had made it into advanced English composition, or why he had even bothered.
    With a sigh of resignation, Mark closed his book and looked at the clock: ten minutes had passed since the bell had rung, signaling the start of the first English class of his last semester in high school. The class was going ballistic in part because their teacher, Mrs. Pauls, had retired at the end of last semester, and a new teacher had been hired over winter break to take her place. Speculation was that it was some old battle-ax from another school in the district, but no one had been able to wheedle any more out of the teachers or counselors except that their new teacher was a woman.
    All eyes turned to the door as it flew open and a woman in her early twenties strode into the lion’s den. Conversation ceased and the last salvo of projectiles fell to the floor as her heels clicked across the vinyl tiles.  
    She was petite, and had she been standing beside Mark, the top of her head would have just reached his eyes. Her chestnut hair, which was pulled back into a bun, framed a heart-shaped face that held inquisitive brown eyes, a pert nose, and lips that were accustomed to smiling. She had an athletic body that was clad in a shimmering cream-colored blouse that almost masked the bra that contained her perfectly proportioned breasts, and form-fitting dark maroon pants that left little of her lower body, particularly her amazingly tight ass, to the imagination.  
    Mark blinked. A single word flashed through his mind that captured the overall impression she made upon him: elfin . An elvish princess, come among them disguised as a mere mortal.  
    “Oh, my God,” someone whispered, and for one terrifyingly embarrassing moment Mark thought he might have been the one who’d said it. It turned out someone else had, but if the words hadn’t slipped from his own lips, they had certainly echoed through his mind.
    The young woman turned to the boy who had spoken, her face lighting up with a bright smile. “Good morning,” she said, to him and everyone else. “I’m sorry I’m late, but I had a bit of trouble getting away from one of the other teachers in the lounge.”
    “Mr. O’Neil,” Mark said automatically before clamping his lips shut. Giggles rippled through the class.  
    The teacher, the elvish princess, turned toward him, flashing a smile that turned Mark’s insides to jelly. “How did you know?”
    “Because he’s an extrovert with no social skills,” Mark managed.
    “And Mark should know,” Jerry chimed in smoothly with a sidelong glance at Mark. “He’s O’Neil’s favorite student.”
    “I see,” the elvish princess said, with a look at Mark that he translated to Oh, you poor thing . He felt a rash of heat creeping up the back of his neck and resisted the temptation — barely — to throw his book at Jerry.  
    Picking up a dry erase marker, the princess faced the white board and began writing her name in the upper left corner, “I’m Ms. Nikki Baumann. As I’m sure you’ve guessed, I’m your new advanced English composition teacher.” She continued