Read The Not Gate (Tom and Alice #1) for Free Online

was he letting these thoughts run free?
    ‘Did you?’ Tom smiled and shook his head, ‘Just making a protest?’
    ‘Yes, something like that.’
    ‘I really am sorry, Alice. I hope we’ve cleared the air. I’m here for all my students, especially the ones with commitment and talent like you.’
    ‘Fresh start, sir?’ she said as she stood up, holding out her hand like a man to him. He honestly didn’t think he could get any hotter or more uncomfortable if he tried. He took her hand and shook it firmly twice.
    ‘Fresh start,’ he echoed. Wishing like hell she would stop calling him, sir .
    She smiled her wide grin, turned towards the door and left him sitting there. With a little girly wave of her hand, she was gone.
    Tom sat back in his chair and looked down at his hands. They were shaking, really shaking. He made fists so tight that his knuckles turned white, willing them to stop.
    If she had been any other woman in the world making him feel the way he felt right now, as she walked out of the room he would have dragged her back in, lay her out on top of his desk and got to know her so quickly, so fucking thoroughly she wouldn’t have had time to think. But she wasn’t any other woman, she was barely even a woman and she was his student.
    Tom needed to get a handle on this, and he was sure he could… he had to. But it didn’t stop him from going home that night and finishing the relationship with Lizzie, the woman he’d been dating for the last two months.
    Why?
    Because the thoughts he was battling with now felt a whole lot like cheating and that just didn’t sit well.

FRESH START
    Friday 27 th October
    A lice felt like she was on top of the bloody world. She couldn’t believe that her plan had worked so well and he’d nearly touched her. Okay, he didn’t actually do it and as much as she knew it meant nothing, she still couldn’t help herself from imagining that it did. She believed him when he said he didn’t hate her. There was honesty in all his looks and genuine concern when she very embarrassingly explained her problems about him, to his face. It had been hard, but so worth it.
    It was a total triumph and the following week had been great. Mr Chambers talked to her in class, asked her for answers and gave her some really nice comments on her work. She had received an A for her essay and he’d mentioned it to the rest of the class as an example of a job well done.
    Yes, he still didn’t look directly at her very much. She thought he was probably worried that he’d almost touched her and was fretting that her father was going to come bursting into the school to sort him out or something?
    He smiled at her now and that was the best thing of all. Each time his cheeks pulled up revealing his neat square teeth. The cute dimples. She would smile. She couldn’t help herself it was the most adorable and hottest thing she’d ever seen.
    Annoyingly though, it seemed that Mr Chambers was fast becoming the school stud and she was informed daily that all of her friends and most of the girls in the sixth form were thinking very much the same as her. The pitfalls of liking an attractive man were becoming the bane of her school life. The whispers, laughter, swooning and whistles as he walked by just made Alice plain jealous.

    She walked to afternoon registration with the girls and even before she got to the form room her senses became heightened and the hairs on her arms shot up. The conversation she’d been having was now just a muffled background noise. He was nearby and her Tom radar was alert. She walked into the room and he was sitting at his desk. Life fell into slow motion, he raised his head and smiled at them, teacher style.
    Totally hot…
    ‘Okay guys, I’ve got to go over your reports with each of you this lesson. So, if you’re not up here talking to me then talk amongst yourselves quietly. Do some homework or read a book? Also I have letters here about the sixth form trip to Hill End, so