Official Description:
He gave me art and words and passion and life, but all I wanted was him.
I’ve had spanglemaker9 on my author alert over on FFN for quite some time. Even after I started getting email notifications of her new story, The Art Teacher, I didn’t start reading it right away. I had a lot going on and was doing a lot of writing. I finally got to a point where I started doing more reading, but still, I didn’t start it. But trust me, when I finally did, I about smacked myself for not starting it a long time ago.
When did I start it? Literally, three days before Christmas, and when I finally did, I couldn’t stop reading it. When I went to click on the next chapter and realized there was no next button, I pretty much cried, no, sobbed like a baby.
This story ripped through me in a way very few stories ever have. Like this part in Chapter 4:
“He blows again, scowling, then decides it’s dry enough and carefully lays the gauze pad over it. He rips off a few lengths of surgical tape and gently tapes the edges down, his fingers barely touching me. He has such long, elegant fingers.
Then he sits back a little bit, with a smile, clapping a hand on the outside of each of my knees. “There,” he declares happily. “As good as new.”
I can’t take it any more, and I can’t let him stand up and leave. My left hand reaches out and closes over his, which is curled part-way around my knee. The smile evaporates from his face and his eyes meet mine, wide and scared. I tighten my hand over his and his fingers tighten around the backs of my knees in response.
He squeezes his eyes shut. “Shit,” he whispers.
But he hasn’t moved. He’s not pulling away. In fact, he’s leaning forward a little, like a magnet has pulled him that way. I lean forward, too, my hand still over his, his hands still curled around the backs of my knees. Our faces are only inches apart. When he finally opens his eyes, they’re not wide or scared. He looks like he wants to devour me. I’m not sure who moves first. I think we do it together. But the space between us closes, his face moving into mine. An instant later, our mouths meet. Edward lets out a shaky exhale through his nose the second we connect, and it’s so full of tension and desire that I can almost feel it scorch my skin.”
Scorch indeed. The end of this chapter simply kills me dead. The emotion I felt after reading this chapter was enough to make me want to curl up in a ball and cry and have Alice sooth me.
And then, Bella moves on…with Alec. I could see that he was not the kind of love Bella needed. He is a worker, as in, dives in and never emerges kind of worker. He pays no “real” attention to Bella and she is left on her own more often then not, which, of course she doesn’t mind because there is a part of her that always goes back to Edward, but I cringe at the emptiness of their relationship.
Edward re-emerges in Chapter 7 and I wanted to jump up and down. Okay, so maybe I did…just a little (read: a lot), but Bella is not going to go easy on him, and she shouldn’t. I felt her nervousness here:
“He looks up at me sharply. And we are not casual acquaintances. How I could have ever thought we could be is ridiculous. There is so much energy bouncing between us that I feel faint from it. I swallow hard, but I can’t look away from him.
“Really?” his voice is soft. “That’s… Bella, I…”
Hearing him call me that again is the spark that ignites my panic. I step back a full foot and look off to the side, towards the elevators.”
But what I really want to get to, oh yes, I really want to get to the most recent chapter. When Chapter 8 was in my inbox, I didn’t even know. There were a couple of Twitter RT’s and I freaking ran. Yep, I won’t lie, I totally ran to my computer. And it was sooooo worth it. You see how nervous she is here:
“Isabella, could you call Mr. Cullen and let him know we’re here?” Margaret asks.
I fumble with my binder, looking for Edward’s contact sheet. When I find his number, it only takes me a moment to realize that I can’t call him. I can’t trust myself to sound detached and professional with Margaret and Lucy looking on, so I take the coward’s way out again and I text him instead.
We’re downstairs.
I busy myself for a moment, reorganizing the papers in my binder, until Margaret interrupts me.
“Oh, look! Here he is.”
And here, she has a revelation:
“I half-listen to the rest of them wrap up the chit chat. Instead of participating, I look around the room again at Edward’s paintings. I remember once he told us that it is the artist’s soul up there on the canvas. In Edward’s case, though, he has it wrong. I think it’s my soul on his canvases.”
And as much as I want to tell you what happens at the end of this chapter, I won’t because you seriously need to read this story if you aren’t already. My words do not justify the amazingness that is The Art Teacher. When I was reading Chapter 8 I honestly felt my body grow warm and buzz, and that was before the “end” of the chapter that is so phenomenal.
All I can say if you aren’t reading this, you should be!
I was pretty late to the spanglemaker party, only having read Faking It a few months ago, and then jumping into The Wedding Party shortly thereafter. She’s most definitely made a fan out of me with her ability to tell a kickass story. The Art Teacher doesn’t disappoint in that department either.
Bella’s a high school senior, forced into an art class by her mother. Until she finds out who the teacher is… she’s not very thrilled about it. But after she sees him? She’s pretty much sold. And so are we. This story will draw you in fast and keep you coming back for more.
“I shouldn’t cover it up while it’s damp,” he says absently, still staring at the scrape like he’s afraid to look away. And I’m still staring at him, because I can’t not. Then he leans forward a little, purses his lips, and blows on my knee. I suck in my breath and hold it, biting my lips to keep back the sounds I want to make. His breath is warm, so warm, but the skin along my legs breaks out with goosebumps anyway. I’m almost shaking.
He blows again, scowling, then decides it’s dry enough and carefully lays the gauze pad over it. He rips off a few lengths of surgical tape and gently tapes the edges down, his fingers barely touching me. He has such long, elegant fingers.
Then he sits back a little bit, with a smile, clapping a hand on the outside of each of my knees. “There,” he declares happily. “As good as new.”
I can’t take it any more, and I can’t let him stand up and leave. My left hand reaches out and closes over his, which is curled part-way around my knee. The smile evaporates from his face and his eyes meet mine, wide and scared. I tighten my hand over his and his fingers tighten around the backs of my knees in response.
He squeezes his eyes shut. “Shit,” he whispers.
As with all of spanglemaker’s stories, it’s not without it’s share of heartfail, but that just makes the story better. If you haven’t already started reading this, you should be!
What can I say? I love everything Spanglemaker writes. Not just because of the way she puts words together or because she comes up with amazing storylines or because she writes some of the hottest smut I’ve ever read.
It’s the way she makes me feel when I’m reading. She gets it. It’s like I’m in the moment, experiencing it right along with the characters.
Right from the beginning, the very first time we meet Edward–you can feel it when Bella looks at him.
He spends a second setting all his stuff down on the desk and I notice all the girls around me have stopped talking and turned to look at him. The boys are still murmuring, but I can hear the dismissive scoffs starting. They’re jealous already, and they should be. The poser rich boys at Spencer can’t hold a candle to this guy, and it’s obvious. Even with all their money, they can’t touch what he has; this natural magnetism that radiates off his skin.
He finally looks up at us with a polite smile already on his face. I can’t breathe for a second. He’s sort of pale, but it looks good on him. And he’s got these crazy cheekbones. His face would almost be pretty, if not for the strong jawline and his thick eyebrows. His eyes are a tiny bit angled; a little exotic. He is, without a doubt, the most amazing man I’ve ever laid eyes on in real life.
“Are you Mr. Cullen?” Jane is, predictably, the first one to speak. She’s leaning forward on her elbows, and if I could see the front of her, I’m sure I’d see that she’s popped open an additional button on her shirt to show off her cleavage.
His polite smile grows wider and genuine. I catch my breath at how it transforms his face. His eyes crinkle up in the corners and his angular face becomes warm and glowing, almost boyish. He lays a hand across his chest in mock-pain.
“Please…” he says. “Not Mr. Cullen. I can’t take it. It’s Edward.”
And I’m undone. By all of it. His voice…low and vibrating at a frequency that I can feel in my fingertips; his artless demeanor; his name…Edward. I don’t want to swoon. I can feel every girl in the room already doing it. But I can’t help it. He’s remarkable and every nerve in my body is reaching out towards him.
There is a low, nervous laugh from the girls in the room in response to his words. I’m silent. I can’t laugh. I can’t move. I curl my fingers around the edge of my desk and press my knees together, unable to do more than stare at him and record every tiny detail.
I love that this story is so deep and so emotional and when it hurts, fuck, it hurts. But, when it feels good, it’s soooo good. They have great banter and the characters are so believable and real. It’s amazing, and like loss4words and Caren said, if you aren’t reading this, you are really missing out! So, read it right nao!
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