Learning the Ropes (2 page)

“Oh, ha, ha.” Celeste pulled a pen out of Mac’s hand and then passed the stack of papers to her left, taking a quiz off the top. “Will this be a timed exercise or is there a prize for coming in first?”

“I would imagine that getting the most answers right means that you are also having the most interesting sex, based on these questions. That’s kind of like a prize in and of itself,” Brianna pointed out.

“See, we’re all winners already and all that jazz. Let’s go,” Mac directed.

All of the girls picked up their pens and began to study the test. Rory smiled as she saw the first question. It asked what gland was responsible for releasing moisture when a woman was aroused. If all of the questions were about the biology of sex, she was in for an A+ for sure. As the biology teacher, she’d better score 100%, otherwise she was in the wrong line of work.

The next question wasn’t so easy though. It was a multiple-choice about the most common place outside of the bedroom for a couple to have sex. As someone who had never had sex outside of the bedroom, all of the answers seemed implausible. They ranged from a party to a pool to a backseat. Rory didn’t consider herself much of an exhibitionist so she had never considered the logistics of having sex in a populated area, much less at a party. She hoped the question referred to sneaking off. She tried to keep her mind away from how her students would answer these questions. She was sure that they wouldn’t be taking nearly as much time as she was over each question.

Rory decided to employ a test-taking strategy she often recommended to her students: answer all of the questions you know first and then go back to reason out the harder ones. She skipped down the page and was only able to answer two more questions that were mainly biology-focused. The rest were questions about favorite kinks and diagrams asking the responder to identify the sex position. The answers were completely beyond her though. It wasn’t that she only had sex in missionary; it was more that she had no idea what the names of the positions were. And one of them didn’t even look anatomically possible. Or maybe it was possible for a woman who did more yoga than she did.

If this quiz was showing her anything, it was that maybe her friends were a little bit right. It was possible that she did need to get out there and date more. She never considered herself picky about those kinds of things, but perhaps she was. Rory had always ascribed to the belief that there was no reason to go out with someone that she couldn’t really see herself with. After all, there were only two reasonable outcomes of a romantic relationship: it either broke up or stayed together forever. Her friends, especially Celeste, would protest that sometimes dates ended in really good friendships. Upon pressing, though, she had never been able to supply the name of one man with whom that had been true for her.

Whether or not Rory ultimately decided to go on a date had very little to do with physical attractiveness either. So no one could accuse her of being shallow in that regard. Rather, her reluctance always stemmed from the fact that she had never experienced that magic zing. The falling in love at first sight feeling that her friends and books and movies always promised but didn’t deliver. She thought she had felt the zing once, but it had turned out only to be a fling. Maybe she was zing-proof.

Rory shook herself out of her musings and realized that all of her friends were finished and laughing over their answers. Her page was still mostly blank and no amount of time was going to change that. Rory quickly circled the rest of the answers in a random pattern and put her pen down to signal she was done.

Mac smiled at her. “Okay, everyone pass their papers to the left for the person next to you to grade. I’ll call out the answers from the key.” She waved a sealed envelope in front of them. “Just so everyone can be sure I didn’t cheat.”

Rory reluctantly passed her quiz to the left and took Brianna’s to grade. She skimmed the other woman’s paper and felt her heart sink as she realized that most of their answers differed. She lightened up considerably as Mac began to read out the correct answers, though. Although Brianna hadn’t done terribly, her quiz certainly didn’t qualify her to be a vixen. Maybe she wouldn’t be the lowest score after all.

She should have known better. Celeste handed back her quiz with a big fat F written at the top. Rory supposed it was her luck that Celeste had been in possession of the only red pen in the bunch. “An F? Are you sure that’s necessary? I was under the impression this wasn’t a letter-graded test.”

Mac laughed and proudly displayed her mostly correct paper. “I bet this is the first time you’ve ever failed a test, isn’t it, Rory?”

“I did not fail!”

“I know I teach physical education, but we give participation grades and, to the best of my memory, an F is a fail,” Brianna piped up.

“Hmm,” Celeste pondered with a finger tapping her lips in mock concentration, “Bree, if you had to give Rory a participation grade for quiz-like activities, what do you think it would be?”

“Probably, ‘Works well individually but needs to learn to play with others.’”

Even Rory had to laugh at that one while rolling her eyes.

“Honestly, Rory, you got all of the technical questions right, but none of the fun experienced-based stuff,” Celeste pointed out.

Rory tried to bluff her way out of talking about it. “I wasn’t trying to answer for myself. I thought the purpose was to answer the way most people would answer, to get it right.”

Mac shook her head in dismay. “No, the point was to take the quiz and see how many right answers you would get. So that you can know if you’re playing it too safe or if you need to take a walk on the wild side.”

Rory stabbed her finger at question number eight. “I don’t think that not knowing a position called ‘deep stick’ is a sign of playing it safe. I think it’s a sign of being an average person.”

“Everyone else got it right,” Brianna pointed out mildly.

“Well, everyone else is a good guesser. I’m a scientist. Based on facts, remember? I try to make educated guesses or nothing at all. What you see here is just a by-product of not having enough time or experimental data.” Rory folded her arms over her chest defensively and leaned back in her seat. She just knew that they were going to have something to say about that. Even she could see that it was a weak excuse at best. Wasn’t experimental data the whole point?

Celeste slowly grinned at her. “Well, then, according to you, all you need is someone to help you gather some data.” She tapped her finger to her lips and pretended to get lost in thought. “Let’s see…who would be willing to help you learn more about kinky sex?” She brightened and snapped her fingers. “I know—any guy on the face of the Earth!”

Rory rolled her eyes as the other women laughed. “The problem isn’t finding an available guy. The problem is finding an available guy who wants me and whom I want in return. I don’t need every guy on the face of the Earth. Just one good one.”

Mac stopped laughing and her eyes softened. “I know, sweetheart, and you will find someone. But in the meantime you can have some fun. I just feel like you’re lonely and unhappy and I don’t want you to be.”

Rory bit her lip and tried to force her mouth to deny it. To tell her friends that she wasn’t lonely; that they were great and between them and her family she had all of the companionship she could ever need. That her last thought before falling asleep every night wasn’t to wish she had a man sleeping next to her in the big bed she had inherited. Not even necessarily in a sexual way—although that would be wonderful, too. Just someone to share body heat with when she got cold, and breathing to hear when she woke up in the middle of the night. She couldn’t make herself say the words though and had to choke down a knot of tears that unexpectedly closed her throat.

Seeming to sense her distress, Celeste came to her rescue… sort of. “I know who you should take your walk on the wild side with. Noah Sellig.”

Rory tried to ignore the flash of heat that coursed through her body at just the mention of his name. “I have no idea why you would mention him at all. He is the most arrogant, obnoxious, jerk of a human being—”

“That ever made you want to jump his bones?” Brianna suggested innocently. “I think the lady doth protest too much.”

“The lady protests exactly the right amount when you’re talking about Noah. I can’t believe you guys would actually set me up with him. He’s such a womanizer.”

“Oh, please, Grandma Moses. I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone use the word womanizer in our age group,” Celeste scoffed.

“Britney Spears had a song about it not too long ago.” Yes! Finally, listening to her students’ constant talk about the next big song was of some use to her!

Celeste rolled right over her words as if she hadn’t even heard them. It figured that the one time she was up on pop culture, no one even acknowledged it. “Besides, no one is suggesting that you have a serious relationship with the man. Just a fling so that you can check off a few more right answers on the next quiz. Even you have to admit he’s perfect for that at least. And there’s no denying that you two have massive sparks whenever you’re in the same room together,” she said.

“That’s not romantic sparks—that’s the fuse on my temper igniting,” Rory retorted.

Celeste held up her hands in mock surrender. “I’m just saying, he’s the only man I’ve ever seen you react to strongly—in any fashion. Maybe it’s worth exploring.”

Rory bit her lip and shook her head. If only they knew that she had already done some exploring with Noah. And that while it had been as explosive as they had imagined, just one encounter together had pulverized her when he’d walked away. So she was still tempted by him. So what? A lot of things that were bad for her were tempting and she managed to stay away from them without much trouble.

Mac clapped her hands together and recalled her attention. “Since I can see you’re already thinking about it, maybe you should listen to us. Noah should be at The Lucky Stripe with John and some other guys. Why don’t we all go over there now and you can chat him up?”

Celeste was nodding vigorously while Brianna starting shaking her head. “I can’t play anymore tonight, guys. I have track practice early in the morning. But you all have fun.”

Rory jumped on that bandwagon as fast as possible. “Me neither. While I appreciate all of the ideas and moral support to do something ridiculous, I’ve got papers to grade and a Chemistry Club meeting at lunch tomorrow so there’s really no other time for me to work on them.”

“You guys are such spoilsports!” Celeste huffed. “We’re young; you can stand one night of not going to bed by 10:30.”

Both Rory and Brianna remained adamant, even through Celeste’s griping all the way through splitting the check and last-minute plans for next week. Mac wasn’t paying too much attention as her head was already at The Lucky Stripe with her new love, and Brianna seemed able to tune her out easily enough. But Rory heard Celeste’s voice in her head all the way home.

Maybe it was time for her to step outside of her box and take a walk on the wild side. Noah clearly wasn’t an acceptable choice, but she could afford to be a little less picky if the whole purpose of the relationship was sex. That basically meant the man had to be clean, good in bed, and attractive to her. Attracted
to
her wouldn’t hurt either. And she supposed he’d have to be a somewhat nice and normal person. She wasn’t in the market for a stalker. But smart, funny, good job—all the things that were so necessary in an actual boyfriend were not needed at all in a fling.

She was still considering the idea when she got home and was able to unload her lunch box, purse, and bag. Clenched in her hand was her copy of the quiz with her fat F on the top. Celeste had even drawn a frowny face. Rory had to admit her grade wasn’t exactly gold-star material. She surveyed it with a sigh and moved to throw it away, but at the last minute she changed her mind. She used her favorite quote magnet—”Well-behaved women rarely make history”—to affix it to the refrigerator door where she wouldn’t be able to forget it. Maybe it would spur her on to make some changes in her life.

Rory took one last look at it before grabbing her bag and heading to the dining table to grade some tests. Hopefully her students would fare better than she had.

Chapter Two

If ever there was a girl who looked like she was about to encounter a problem, it was Rory Puckett.

Sitting on the other side of the bar from where Noah Sellig was shooting pool alone, Rory was definitely heading for trouble. While Noah was enjoying a relatively solitary evening in his darkened corner of the bar, Rory was holding court with a couple of very interested guys who were keeping her supplied with a steady stream of liquor. As usual, he had resisted the urge to go over to her since she had walked in earlier. He had learned some time ago that where Rory was concerned he was better off keeping a good distance between them, despite the fact that distance was the last thing he wanted from her.

But, to keep the peace, he stayed away and watched as she had entered alone and promptly been deluged with drink offers from men hoping to take her home at the end of the night. He’d tried to ignore as she had accepted drink after drink and begun to lean more heavily on the table in front of her. It had taken all of his willpower to stay away when she had engaged in a sexy slow dance with one of the bar regulars. But now it seemed that the last two guys sitting at her table were making their final bids to be the lucky guy to leave with her. Which was strange because, as many times as Noah had seen Rory at The Lucky Stripe, he had never seen her leave with anyone other than her date or her girlfriends.

Noah tightened his grip on the pool stick in his hand and tried to concentrate on his next shot. A shot that was totally wasted when a voice from behind startled him.

“This is really some of the worst pool I’ve ever seen in this bar.”

Noah turned around to see John Tolman leaning against the side of the pool table next to his, smirking and shaking his head. “Maybe if some people didn’t feel the need to sneak up on unsuspecting players, it wouldn’t be such a problem.” Noah straightened up from his table and clapped his friend on the back. “I didn’t think I’d see you here tonight. I thought you’d still be in lockdown with Mac,” he teased.