**Teacher’s Dirty Secret**

Chapter 31

MISS RAE'S POV

The stairwell behind the old gym was quiet when I stepped onto the landing.

I should have kept walking. The sensible part of me—the part that still answered to Miss Rae, literature teacher, thirty-one years old, carefully put-together—knew this was reckless. The rest of me was already wet and aching and tired of pretending the fear didn’t make it better. So I paused under the flickering light, charcoal skirt brushing against bare skin, and waited.

Daniel appeared from the lower flight like he had known I would stop.

He didn’t speak at first. He just looked at me, eyes dark, then grabbed...