With a growl, he dug his fingers into the nape of Aidan’s neck and deepened the kiss. He tasted the alcohol on Aidan’s tongue, breathed in the man’s lemony aftershave, and the lust whipping through his body intensified from the sensory overload. Aidan’s five o’clock shadow scraped his jaw, a thrilling reminder that it was just the two of them. Just him and another man.

“Son of a bitch,” Aidan hissed when they finally pulled apart.

They were both breathing hard, resting their foreheads together as they caught their breath.

When Dylan noticed the ravenous desire flaring in Aidan’s heavy-lidded eyes, he chuckled, knowing he was probably broadcasting the same damn impatience.

“A month, huh?”

“A month,” Aidan said grimly.

He let his hand drop from its perch on Aidan’s shoulder and took a step away. “I think it’s even more imperative that I go now.”

Aidan sighed. “Probably.”

“Let me know when you’re back in town.”

“You’ll be the first person I call.”

Their gazes locked. The temperature in the hall spiked at least ten degrees. Oh yeah. This was going to be interesting, Dylan decided.

Really, really interesting.

Okay, this was totally a date.

Miranda had no choice but to accept the unwelcome truth as Eric Porter once again steered the conversation away from his daughter, the school and his daughter’s future at the school.

She couldn’t believe Seth had been right. She’d laughed off his suspicions, even joked about them with Andre at the school today, but clearly Seth’s bullshit radar was more technologically advanced than hers. Or maybe he was simply naturally suspicious, while she tried to see the good in people.

But it was getting harder and harder to find anything good about the man across the table from her. Vain, self-absorbed, no sense of humor whatsoever. And the kicker? The douche bag seemed like a terrible father.

“All right. Eric. I’m going to stop you right there,” she said after he’d just invited her to go “yachting” with him next weekend. “I’m actually seeing someone at the moment. And even if I wasn’t, there could still be nothing between us. I don’t date students’ fathers.”

Porter’s lips curled in displeasure. He wasn’t an unattractive man, but he wasn’t her type either. Midthirties, nondescript features. Great hair, though—brown, thick and wavy. And he was obviously in good shape, judging by the way he filled out that expensive black suit of his. Nevertheless, he was too polished, too bland and too f**king slimy.

“I thought we were connecting,” he said, gesturing to their half-eaten pasta dishes and glasses of red wine.

“And I thought we were here to discuss Catherine,” she said coolly.

Clearly we were both wrong, ass**le.

“We did.” Porter cast a grin she suspected was supposed to look boyish, but which came off as sleazy and made her skin crawl. “And now we’re discussing other subjects. I’ll be honest, Miranda, I was taken with you from the moment we met.”

Seth’s voice cackled a continuous loop of I told you so in her head.

“I mean, you’re an attractive woman, and you—well, I’ll just come out and say it, you’ve got an amazing body.”

Ew, gross. Had he really just said that?

“Amazing,” he emphasized, then eyed her expectantly, as if he was waiting for her to thank him.

What she did was drop her napkin on the table and rise to her feet.

“I’m sorry, I should get going,” she said, though she wasn’t sorry at all and they both knew it. “I need to get home to my kids.” Oh, screw it, why even lie? “And if I’m being honest, I’m not entirely comfortable with where the conversation has headed. If I led you on in any way, Mr. Porter, then I apologize, but like I said before, I won’t be getting involved with you, now or in the future.”

There was a brief silence, and Porter’s features darkened with contempt. He swiftly yanked a leather wallet from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. “Well, I can’t say I’m not disappointed,” he muttered.

And then he officially graduated from the class of douche bag and proved he belonged in the league of nasty son of a bitch.

“Not just in you, but your school,” Porter said snidely. “I wonder if it might be more beneficial for Cat if she worked with an instructor who had more than just ‘Las Vegas showgirl’ on her resume.”

Miranda decided not to mention that Catherine wasn’t even her student. She also decided slapping this man in public wasn’t the brightest of ideas.

“I’ll have to discuss it with Cat’s mother,” Porter added. “See how she feels about the situation.”

“You do that,” Miranda said coldly.

A gust of anger, annoyance and disbelief followed her outside like a black cloud over her head. Un-fucking-believable. She couldn’t believe she’d wasted an entire hour with that jerk.

Curling her hands into fists, she marched down the sidewalk toward the end of the block and headed for the parking lot behind the school. She didn’t bother going inside to tell Elsa about the unpleasant encounter with Porter, but she did send a quick text saying she’d fill her in tomorrow.

All she wanted to do at the moment was go home and see how Seth was faring with the kids. She hadn’t received any SOS texts this past hour, so she assumed he was holding his own, but she was still incredibly curious about what she’d find when she walked through the door.