Chapter 106 Mr Teague?

Chapter 106 Mr Teague?
Chapter 106: Mr Teague? 

Ivy

My nerves were on fire when I lifted my hand to knock. I fixed my shirt. Then my skirt. Then the shirt again. I told myself, for the hundredth time that morning, that I was here to tutor a four-year-old. 

Not to look at the boy’s father. Not to remember the shape of his mouth. Not to do anything stupid.

I raised my hand a second time. The door opened before my knuckles landed on it.

The sight of him pulled the air straight out of my lungs.

Leo stood in the doorway sweaty and half-dressed, like he had come from training and had not bothered with anything except the chain at his throat and a pair of grey sweatpants slung so low on his hips they were a problem. 

The fabric clung to him in all the places I had once been allowed to touch. It did nothing to hide the heavy outline of him. My face went hot. I dragged my eyes up with more force than was polite and still felt the afterimage burned behind them.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Teague.” My voice came out steadier than I felt. “I’m here for Callum. I apologize if I’m a few minutes late.”

He stepped aside. “He’s waiting in the living room. He’s been excited all morning. Usually he doesn’t care much for school.”

I stepped inside. The house smelled expensive and lived-in. “I’m glad I made a good impression.”

He looked at me for less than a second. Then he looked away, as if even that was too much. As if the sight of me still disgusted him.

“I’ll be in the gym if you need anything,” he said, already turning. “Second door on the left. Or you can call.”

He did not wait for an answer. He walked off without a second glance.

The coldness made my skin prickly with goosebumps. He had moved on. Of course he had. 

He had pushed me out of a hospital room, believed the worst of me, built a life with my sister and a child, and now he could barely stand to say my name without putting a title in front of it.

I was so stupid.

He had broken up with me. He had sent me away when I needed him most. He had let me leave town carrying a secret I never got to tell him. And my heart still did that pathetic little skip when he opened a door in sweatpants.

Could I truly ever hate Leo Teague?

I wanted to. God, I wanted to.

\~~~~~

Callum was easy to love and easier to teach.

He sat at the low table with his pencils lined up and listened when I spoke. When he got a row of letters right, his whole face lit up.

“Good job, Callum.” I clapped softly. “You’re doing great.”

He held up the page like a trophy. “I’m gonna show Daddy. And when Mommy comes home, I’ll show her too. She’s going to be proud of me.”

I smiled. The curiosity I had been swallowing all afternoon slipped loose anyway.

“Your mommy’s not home? Where is she?”

“Mommy went away with her boyfriend,” he said, completely casual. “They went on a trip together.”

The word boyfriend hit me so hard I felt my eyes widen. “Callum,” I said carefully, “where did you hear that?”

“From Mommy and Daddy talking.” He shrugged, already reaching for the next worksheet. As if it were normal. As if the two people who raised him were not a couple at all.

Leo and Maddie were not together?

I looked at the little boy—at the mouth that looked so much like Andy’s it still startled me—and decided I needed answers from the man who would barely look at me.

I ruffled Callum’s hair. “Keep working on this, okay? Miss Ivy just needs to speak with your daddy. I’ll be right back.”

“Okay, Miss Ivy!”

I stood, smoothed my skirt, and followed the directions Leo had thrown over his shoulder. The gym door was closed. I knocked.

“Mr. Teague? It’s Miss Ivy. Can I have a word?”

The formality still made my skin crawl. Two people who had seen each other naked. Two people who had been in each other’s lives. Miss Ivy. Mr. Teague.

No answer.

I opened the door a crack and was instantly hit in the face by the warm air. The space smelled of rubber and sweat. And it was empty.

I closed it again and stood in the hallway, listening.

A sound came from the last door on the left. Low. Rough. It was Leo’s voice.

I followed it.

I had my hand raised to knock when I heard it again, clearer this time.

“Fuck… Ivy.” Then I heard a groan. Almost a moan.

I froze. Then, against every professional instinct I owned, I leaned closer. Under his voice I heard another one. Mine.

Curiosity did the rest. I turned the handle and eased the door open.

The bedroom smelled like him. Like the old room in Weeping Willow. Like the night I had given him everything and believed it meant something. 

Water was running in the attached bath. Before I could say his name, a grunt rolled out of the steam, followed by a recording I recognized down to the crack in it.

“I love you, Leo.” That was me. 

Then I heard a curse. Followed by a low, wrecked sound of release that punched the air out of me.

That was my voice, on a loop from years ago.

My legs carried me to the bathroom door before my pride could stop them. I told myself I would knock. I told myself I would leave. I did neither.

I opened the door, steam spilled out. And I came face to face with the long, powerful line of Leo’s bare back.

The saliva in my mouth vanished.

He was standing under the spray, one forearm braced against the tile, head bowed, water running in sheets down the carved terrain of him. 

His shoulders were broader than I remembered. The muscles along his spine flexed with every stroke of his hand. 

His ass—God—was tight, high, athletic, the kind of body a fighter earned and then maintained. Water traced the dip at the base of his spine and slid over skin I had once touched. 

His hips rolled in a slow, filthy move. The chain he still wore hung around his neck. He was all heat and strain and unfiltered want, and he was doing it to the sound of me saying I loved him.

I stood there like an idiot, furious and aching at the same time.

This was the man who had looked through me at the front door. The man who had called me Miss Lennon as if we were strangers. The man who had believed a lie and thrown me away. And here he was, using my old voice like it still belonged to him.

Hurt rose in my chest. 

I had spent five years training myself not to want this. I had let Alvin touch me last night and felt guilty afterwards. I had stood on a graduation lawn and searched a crowd for his ghost. I had bled out a pregnancy Leo never knew existed. 

And he was in a marble shower, groaning my name like I had not been discarded.

My eyes hungrily dragged over him anyway.

The heavy flex of his forearm when the recording hit the words again—I love you, Leo—and his whole body answered like it hurt.

I should have backed out. I should have closed the door and gone back to phonics.

I did not.

“Mr. Teague?”