Claiming His Reunion Obsession: An Instalove Possessive Alpha Romance (A Man Who Knows What He Wants Book 162) Read online

  “I think your ass is perfect by the way,” he growls, touching my ear with his nose this time, squeezing my hand a good few times to prove his point.

  I shudder another breath in and blush cherry red, feeling like a bride or something. Everyone who comes up to register is much friendlier than the slutty bullies from my miserable school past and most of them also assume that Quinn and I are already a couple.

  “Mr. Quinn… and Michelle Baker? Wow! When did you two get together…?”

  “Such a cute couple…”

  “I always thought she had a thing for him…”

  After the first few, Quinn’s blushing as much as I am, letting people know I’m just helping him out, but after a few more positive comments he goes out on a limb.

  “Maybe this could be like a date…?” he asks me, then correcting himself.

  “Maybe it should be a date. If you don’t think that’s too weird? I mean. I am a little older, your old school teacher and your dad’s friend.”

  It hits me like cold water and Quinn’s face registers my expression as he struggles to greet the next wave of reunion attendees.

  I remember my dad.

  Shit!

  My god! What would he say if he saw me holding hands, gushing over his old friend Quincy Quinn? I don’t have to think hard to know that. I know my dad better than anyone.

  He’d send me to my room and have plenty to say about it, that’s what. Even though I’m twenty-one now and I’m sure Quinn’s his own man, doesn’t need my dad’s permission either.

  I busy myself with helping a couple who have the same first name, spelled slightly different, then organize their name tags and get them signed in. Quinn’s busy with a few registration dramas of his own and it's some minutes before we have a chance to say anything to each other again.

  “Your dad, huh?” Quinn says more than asks. His mouth creasing down at one side as he breathes out heavy through his nose. He looks suddenly disappointed, like I know I’d look if he suddenly told me it’s just not gonna work. I’m too young, too fat… too much his friend’s daughter.

  “I’m not my dad.” I tell him forcefully, feeling myself flush as my eyes narrow. I grip his hand again and although I know where I want to put it, I can only give it a squeeze.

  Feeling his huge, thick fingers under my own makes me shudder again, like if this doesn’t get taken somewhere private and soon, I know I’ll just burst inside.

  His low sound of approval makes me feel a little better, but I wish this registration thing would hurry up and finish so we can talk properly. It’s impossible for me to do both and I know Quinn feels the same.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Q uinn

  “Well… I think that’s all of ‘em. A couple of no shows, but they never RSVP’d either.” I say, puffing out a breath through my cheeks, letting the table cloth I’ve been covering myself with slide away some, hoping she might want to sneak another peek at me down there.

  I’ve managed to stay hard this whole time. Not intentionally either, I might add. Shit, if I was still a teacher, this is kind of stuff that would get me fired. But we’re all consenting adults here, and Chelle’s old enough to know what she wants.

  She pleases me by looking down straight away, and I can tell she just can’t help herself as much as I feel like showing off a little in front of her.

  I wish she’d lift up that dress some, let me have a little show and tell of her own, but it’s not even seven o’clock… we have hours of reunion together.

  And hopefully for a long time too after that…

  She bites her lower lip again, unable to take her eyes off my hardness, which just went up a notch, which I never thought would be possible. My dick’s so hard, it’s me who feels like the damned teenager all over again.

  “You see what you do to me, Chelle?” I ask her, willing her to touch me, wanting to command her to touch me down there.

  She makes that little sound again, like a whimpering moan, like she’s frustrated but about to come herself, any minute.

  “It’s not my imagination, is it?” I ask her, point blank. Really needing to put this whole thing in perspective.

  Her head shaking side to side, her single ponytail swishing in time with her whole body making me growl again, and taking her hand I feel her going straight for my aching bulge. She gasps as she touches it, making me grunt and jerk in my seat. I’ve never known anything so intense.

  “What if someone comes?” she asks innocently, looking around, a fearful habit I’d like to see her change one day.

  “I think someone’s about to,” I warn her, and use her hand to stroke me some more, making her smile a devilish grin, her eyes narrowing further as she wiggles in her seat and I can tell she’s just as hot right now as I am.

  “Mister Quinn!” A harsh, shrill voice calls out, making us both look up, Chelle’s hand darting back over to her own lap in a split second.

  My heart’s in my throat and I gulp hard, until I realize the voice of my old boss, ex-principal, Wilson Tucker is being broadcast from his aging but friendly, smiling face.

  He’s striding up to the registration desk, having no idea what the pair of us have just been doing.

  “Don’t get up, Quincy, I’m late for once… how the hell are you!” he asks, pumping my hand.

  “It’s good to see you sir,” I say, truthfully. I left the school on good terms and it was Wilson who encouraged me to do two things: get in shape and to go out on a limb by starting my own business.

  “Glad to hear it, oh! And is this the lucky lady in your life, eh?” he says, sharing a crafty wink with both of us.

  “This is Michelle Baker, Mr. Tucker. She was in my Biology class…”

  “Ahhh! Baker! Of course, how are you? So glad to see everyone here again tonight… after all these years. I’d best push on though, got my speech to rehearse yet,” he says, patting his jacket pocket and looking absently past us, a few lines rolling silently over his lips as he disappears through the huge double doors behind us.

  I feel a sigh of relief leaving me, sure we’d been caught doing something we probably shouldn’t, but can’t seem to help either right now.

  “I gotta go to the ladies room,” Chelle says softly, I smile a nod to her, but once she’s a few feet away I realize how not okay I am with it.

  I can’t stand the idea of her not being right next to me, even if she’s only going to the ladies room.

  I growl in disapproval, wishing my own arousal was a little less obvious, but taking a look around I figure it's safe enough.

  I follow behind her a few steps, urging her on as she looks over her shoulder.

  “I’ll wait for you out here,” I tell her. “So you don’t get lost on the way back.”

  I notice her strange look, which echoes my own mind’s instant obsession with her. It’s like I can’t let her out of my sight, not even for a few minutes.

  Not because I’m afraid for her or want to baby her, but just because I want her so damned much.

  Because she’s mine.

  Like anything that belongs to me, like my heart. My soul.

  Would I walk around without it? Hell no.

  Chelle’s different and it’s just a matter of time before I’ll be able to prove that to her.

  She stops to look at me at the door to the ladies room, hanging in the doorframe, “I can manage things from here,” she purrs, and I have to hold back.

  I’m sure she can manage to take herself to the bathroom Quinn, ease up.

  “I’ll be waiting right here,” I tell her, and I lean against the wall opposite, resting my foot on the brickwork. Something I would never have dared do when I was a teacher here.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Chelle

  I’m shaking so hard by the time I sit down in the stall, with it only registering how wet I am, how worked up I am just from being so close to Quinn for about an hour.

  I’ve never felt anything like it. I’m not one to wax my own board, but
damn. If I don’t feel like I have to do something, or have something taken care of soon, otherwise I’ll be paddling home.

  I hear the door and figure it's Quinn again, breaking protocol to double check I’m okay.

  Glancing through the little gap in the stall door, my heart freezes when I see whose eyes meet mine in the mirror on the wall opposite.

  Cindy Sanders.

  I feel my heart flutter so hard, it feels like it’s stopped, the intense wave of adrenaline rushing through me all over again, making me feel like I’m in ninth grade again.

  I want to look away, but she sees the fear in my eyes and smirks to herself, holding my eyes in hers making me wonder what it is about people like her that even makes them tick.

  Why are they so mean?

  I wished Quinn had come in here with me now…

  Shit!

  C’mon girl, you’re adults now. This is bullshit.

  I finish what I came in to do and take a breath, making my way out to wash my hands.

  I can’t help it, but a sound escapes me when Cindy pushes her hand down over mine when I go to turn on the faucet.

  She grips my wrist hard and I wince, trying not to cry out in pain, trying not to let her know how scared I am.

  “You haven’t changed a bit, Miss-smell…” she taunts me with gritted teeth. I can smell liquor on her breath, even though it’s been advertised as a dry event. Her and the other girls must’ve smuggled some liquor in.

  It’s just like them too, breaking the rules and ruining other people’s fun in the process.

  This woman’s more than just tipsy. She’s loaded and she’s mad at me for some reason

  “Let me go. Cindy.” I hear myself saying with some authority. It’s part of my nurses training to deal with things like this, but I never thought it would be someplace like the ladies room in my old high school.

  “Make me,” she spits out, gripping me tighter, making me cry out.

  The door behind us swings open violently, hitting the wall behind it with a bang. I breathe a sigh of relief as Cindy relaxes her grip before tossing my hand away from her like something that wants to bite.

  It’s Quinn. I knew he’d come rescue me.

  Eventually.

  “Everything alright in here?” he says, his deep voice full of calm control, full of power and real authority.

  Cindy traipses over to him, her joints as loose as her mouth and, no doubt the rest of her anatomy.

  She gets herself as close to Quinn as her height allows, looking up at him and tracing a finger down his chest.

  “You wanna good time, big boy? I’m ready when you are.”

  Quinn’s eyes narrow in disgust and he turns his head away from her to get a breath of fresher air.

  “You’re drunk at a dry event, do you really want to end your evening, which is already over with a trip to the police station for assault?” he snarls at her, looming up over her as she shrinks back from him.

  “You alright, Chelle?” he asks me, not taking his eyes off Cindy for a second.

  Before she can even manufacture one of her slutty, drunken bimbo comebacks, he tells her how it’s gonna be.

  “You’ll go home, now. You can catch a cab or call an Uber, but I won’t see you driving home. I’ll be checking to make sure you’re gone. You got five minutes.”

  She hesitates for a few moments, giving me an evil stare in the mirror, before puffing out a hoarse, cruel little laugh.

  “Go your hardest, cowboy… If you wanna ride that fat hog instead of my fine ass, then be my guest,” she makes like she’s gonna say something else, but Quinn looms up large again and she slinks out, mumbling hateful things that only remind me of a past I thought I’d grown out of years ago.

  It hurts me so much to feel the same things all over again.

  Far worse than the pain in my wrist from where she grabbed me.

  “You alright, Chelle? I’m sorry… I didn’t think she would…” but it doesn’t matter anymore.

  I hurl myself at Quinn, burying myself in his huge chest as I croak the first wave of tears as they flow out of me. Pouring from the depths of my past, from all the times I wanted to cry, all the times I needed the strength of his hug. I cry for my past.

  The life before Quinn.

  “It’s alright,” he murmurs in his deep voice, vibrating through his body into mine, “I got you now, nobody’s gonna hurt you any more.”

  He holds me so close, so tenderly and I’m gripping him at times, thumping his chest as I tell him how bad those girls all treated me, how they made my whole life hell. Made it so I didn’t want to come to school at all.

  “The same people, or people just like them…” I pause, “They were all at college too… people like her everywhere, making it impossible for me to even get on with my life.”

  “You should’ve said something, you could’ve come to me,” he tells me, and I know he’s right. But there’s just something about the fear when someone like Cindy Sanders has something over you.

  As quickly as my fear and memories came, they almost vanish.

  Almost.

  Just being close to Quinn, having someone to listen as well as his huge chest to cry on helps, I can’t reach his shoulders…, but knowing that he actually cares, more than cares. Knowing he wants me all to himself. It’s the most incredible feeling I’ve ever known.

  It’s like everything bad that’s happened to me has been building up to this moment, the moment I realize that I want to be his, nobody else’s.

  I want him to claim me, to take me as his own.

  Forever.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Q uinn

  It takes everything I have not to act out when I hear Chelle cry out from the bathroom. I practically kick the door open to get to her, that other woman, the bubble chested bimbo.

  I’m glad she was never in my class, and I’m cut up that Chelle felt she could never come to me, as her teacher, or any of her teachers about it.

  To think that bullying like this was going on right under our noses, escaping us. It makes my stomach turn. It makes me love Chelle even more for being so brave about it, for coming to this reunion tonight, for being grown up enough to face her demons.

  And there it is.

  I love her. Is it possible, even after such a short amount of time?

  Yup. You bet it is. My heart’s never wrong, and I’m a man who knows what he wants.

  I don’t just want Chelle, I love her. I want her to love her, for the rest of my days. No matter what.

  I feel each of her sobs as my own, I grind my jaw tighter than my fists when I hear how those people treated her so bad. I can feel her tears going straight to my heart and I vow, to myself and to her that nobody is ever going to make her feel that way again.

  Nobody. And if they even try, they’ll answer to me.

  “I’m sorry,” she sniffs, patting my front where she’s been crying as I hold her as close as I dare, as tight as I dare without hurting her. I want her that much, I need to be inside her more than anything now.

  I look down at her reddened eyes, using my thumbs to wipe away the last of her tears.

  “I don’t want to see you cry anymore, Chelle. Only smiles from now on, with us. Not them.”

  I lean down, feeling her trembling in my arms, like a small animal now, all the wildness frightened out of her. I need to show her how much she means to me. How much I love her.

  How much I want her.

  Our faces draw closer, and I can feel the warmth of her breath on my lips as hers quake less than an inch from my own.

  I let out a groan of satisfaction, her own body yielding to mine completely…

  And then the door bursts open, startling us both and making Chelle jump an inch off the ground.

  “Oops! Sorry, hey! This is the ladies y’know… go get a room or something…” the voice says half-laughing at us in a nice way, it’s one of the nice people at the reunion, one of the hundreds of nice people in the building. But
Chelle’s still spooked from her run in with Cindy and I shield her, drawing her to me like precious cargo as I guide her out into the empty hall.

  “You wanna go someplace else?” I ask her, remembering the awful state of both my truck and my apartment.

  Not ideal for any visitors, let alone the love of my life…

  “I want you to do that again,” she whispers, clutching me again, looking up at me intently.

  “Do what?” I ask, still wincing internally about the state of my solo, bachelor life after more than twenty years.

  “What we almost just did in there, silly!” she says, smiling now, punching my chest lightly.

  And I feel better, I know it wouldn’t matter where we went. I know we’d be happy because we’re together. Finally.

  I lean in again, and the whole corridor, the whole world, even the same woman coming out of the bathroom again rolling her eyes at us. It all disappears.

  It’s like we’re floating on a cloud, looking down on the world we left behind, our mouths joined as our souls yearn to be.

  The passionate intensity of her kiss surprises me, but I register my own as I lift her up easily, and feel her legs wrap around my waist. Her arms are around my neck and I feel the fullness of her chest, the warmth between her thick thighs pressing against my already hardening groin as I press her back to the wall next to the door of the ladies room.

  “I want you Chelle,” I hear myself growling, her own little moans, her whole body shaking against mine, her only reply.

  It’s the only reply I need.

  As fate would have it, we’re within staggering distance of an empty classroom, the door unlocked. I open the door with one hand, holding Chelle right up against me with the other.

  Jackpot.

  I picked a room with some huge bean bags, couches and easy chairs. It’s a chill out room for students, something we never had when I was at school and they were only debating to have them at all as I left the profession.

  “It’ll encourage students to fornicate…”

  “They’ll be all over each other in there, who’s gonna supervise them?”