by Lily White
Our mouths hovered an inch apart, our lips brushing softly as my fingers curled against her back. Closing my eyes, I fought to remember that she was off limits, a student, a young girl, a thief.
Already, I’d lost ground.
Yes, I’d made it a bad habit to threaten to spank her ass. But to do it? That had crossed dangerous lines, pushing me too many steps forward into a mess of a situation.
I’d lost control, my anger causing me to act in ways that went against rational thought.
Who were those guys with her tonight? And why would she take being spanked over telling me their names? Just the thought of it caused my blood to rush to my head, my pulse to pound like rolling thunder.
I had to know. Had to, if for no other reason than to know the identity of a man who had played a part in my sister’s death.
That thought alone sobered me before I could take this moment further, driving me to a point where I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t take it out on Amelia’s body.
Middle C.
What the fuck was I doing?
“No.”
Pushing away from her, I shoved to my feet, backing away as if the distance would set everything to right, as if it could stop me from giving in to what my body demanded of the girl staring up at me with confusion in her eyes.
“I need to take you home.”
Pacing away, I stabbed my hand through my hair, trying to make sense of what I’d done. None of it made sense. This couldn’t happen. Not again. Not when her future was hanging on the line.
The one thing I was bitching that she needed to protect and here I was threatening it just as much, if not more so, than her back alley schemes.
When I spun back, she was pushing herself up into a sitting position, a wince tightening her features when the skin of her ass met the couch.
Good. I hoped she felt that because it was becoming clear as fucking day that her parents had missed a few opportunities to tan her ass red. If anything, she wouldn’t forget me for the next day, at least. Not with my handprint painted all over her taut skin.
“Did I do something wrong?” A faint whisper, her voice wavering with shame.
“You’ve done a lot of shit wrong, but what just occurred on that couch wasn’t part of it. Everything that’s happened since we entered this house is on me.”
“Fuck.” The word hissed over my lips. “I should never have brought you here.”
How stupid could I be? How reckless and blindly arrogant? If Hastings found out about any of this, her chance at the scholarship would be stripped away. It didn’t matter that they would fire me immediately; I had a career to fall back on. But Amelia? She would be escorted out of there without another word.
Grabbing my keys from the piano, I stalked toward the kitchen. “Get up. We’re leaving before this goes any further.”
I hadn’t forgotten that she had more questions to answer, but I’d painted myself into a corner by spanking her ass.
It would take time to get the information out of her. For now, I needed to get her home, to her car, wherever, just so the threat that I might turn around and make good on my desire to fuck her would be a fantasy in my head rather than a blatant mistake I’d have to answer for later.
Amelia was too much of a temptation, only making it worse by admitting she liked what I had done.
“Let’s go.”
“Lennon-“
“It’s Mr. Carter.” I spun on my heel to face her. “Get up. We’re leaving.”
Doused in confusion, Amelia peeled her body off the couch, following me with the click click click of a set of heels that captured my attention.
The drive back to Majori’s was absent the indecision, aimless turns and meandering roads I’d taken to get to my house. A straight shot, I managed to keep my eye on the brake lights and traffic signals in front of me rather than give in to the allure of Amelia’s too-short skirt.
Beside me, she was silent, her head bowed and her hands gripping the sides of my jacket to hold it closed. A better man would have consoled her, would have explained the sudden shift in mood, the distance placed.
After roughly twenty minutes of sticky, tense silence, we pulled into the parking lot. Majori’s was still open, the interior flooded with light and people, music filtering out when a man opened the door to walk inside.
“Where’s your car?”
“Around the corner.” She lifted her hand to indicate a shadowed slot, so far out of the way that it only served to aggravate me further.
“You know, it’s not safe for a woman to park where a person can hide in wait of her.”
Then again, the most dangerous people who’d been here tonight were apparently her friends.
Pulling up beside the beat down, black Civic, I threw the SUV into park but kept the engine idling. “Are you going to tell me who your friends were?”
Amelia fidgeted in her seat and turned her head toward the passenger window so I could only see the line of her jaw. “Wasn’t planning on it.”
Clipped and tight, her tone gave away exactly what she was feeling.
“You’re upset.”
She didn’t answer, her fingers playing over the fabric of my jacket.
I leaned my head against the seat. “Where are your keys?”
“In a magnetic box above the back tire.”
For fuck’s sake...
“So anybody could be in your car right now? Hiding out in the back seat just waiting for a stupid little girl to climb inside to be subdued?”
Head snapping my direction, she scowled. “Why do you care? If anybody was trying to subdue me, it seems to me that’s already happened. Or do you not remember laying me over your lap to spank me?”
I remembered it. In excruciating detail. The curve of her ass, the pale flesh that highlighted every mark I’d made on her, the sharp clap of skin on skin echoing across the room. Please, a harmonic note rolling over her lips, driving me closer to a dangerous edge each time she said it.
Opening my door, I rounded the SUV to approach her car. The magnetic box was above the rear tire just as she said, plucking at my last nerve. A quick glance and I knew the back seat was empty. Still, I unlocked her car and checked every shadowed corner to make sure nobody was hiding in wait.
“What are you doing?”
“Checking to make sure nobody besides me realized you’re the easiest prey known to man.”
I turned to her, tossed the key her direction, and stepped aside so she could climb down from her seat and into her car. “Drive carefully.”
Those damn heels clicked against the concrete, her neck craning as we stood facing each other in the deep shadow of the parking lot. Neither of us spoke, moved, hell, breathed in the still silence of our parting.
Amelia was the first to move. Shrugging off my jacket, she handed it to me.
I shook my head, refusing it. “You should keep it. At least until you get home and find some actual clothes to wear.”
So heavy, the look in her eyes. “I can’t. If I take it home-“
Her voice quieted, the words she hadn’t spoken driving a hot spear of rage down my spine.
Familiar, that fury, a face from the past resurfacing, trapping me beneath the weight of what I’d lost because of him. Just the thought that he had his hands on Amelia, too, locked the muscles in my jaw. Was it the man in the alley that she would to rush home to?
“Tell me you’re not dating that guy from the alley. The one who’s name you refuse to give me.”
A slight uptick at the corner of her lips. “No. He’s not-“ Sighing, she shoved the jacket against my chest. “Just take this so I can go.”
Careful not to brush her hand, I accepted the jacket and folded it over my arm. Just turn and go, I told myself. Leave before she can draw you back in. She was an event horizon like no other.
A point of no return.
The breeze that blew past us rustled her hair, dark silk blowing over her shoulder. My hand moved as if separate of my thoughts, my fingers trapping
her chin to lift her face up to mine.
Amelia stilled in place, lips slightly parted, teal eyes wide with apprehension.
“What happened between us tonight goes no further. Tomorrow, when you return to class, I’m nothing more than your teacher and you my student. Do you understand that?”
Her breath was warm against my palm, her gaze narrowing just enough to tell me everything she was thinking.
With effort I pulled my hand away, stepped back and waited for her to climb into her car. When she was safely inside, I turned to round my SUV, her voice catching my attention.
“Penguins.”
Confusion knit my brows as I turned back to her. “I’m sorry?”
A tilt of her chin. “Your jacket. From a distance it looks like tiny black dots, but up close, they’re little penguins.”
To be honest, I’d never really noticed. Glancing down at the fabric folded over my arm, I studied the pattern. “You’re right.”
“Where do you buy your clothes, Mr. Carter? Your wardrobe looks like what happens when a thrift store eats something bad and throws up.”
My lips kicked up at the corners. “I’ve never been one to care much.”
“It works on you. Your style.”
Lifting my gaze to hers, I inclined my head. “Drive safely, Amelia.”
A moment of hesitation before Amelia straightened in the seat and shut her door. I stepped away. Gave her room to back out. Leaned against the back of my SUV waiting to ensure she made it out of the parking lot without any problems. The taillights of her car were tiny points of light in the distance by the time I climbed into my vehicle as well.
My hand slammed down on the steering wheel, a tiny bleep of the horn echoing across the dark night.
If she were any other woman, I wouldn’t have regretted what I’d done. But Amelia was forbidden fruit; a student, an aggravation, a woman so fucking reckless I wanted to spank her ass again every time I thought of what I’d seen her do in that dark alley.
Head falling back against the seat, I scrubbed my hand down my face, aggravated to have seen that face from the past, to not know his name even when I’d found a person who could tell me.
This wasn’t done.
It couldn’t be done.
Not until Amelia broke down and admitted to me the name that went with the face.
Amelia
Every second. Every minute. Every hour.
Time is a set of beats, a metronome ticking down the days, perpetual, ceaseless, unrelenting as it drives you forward regardless of whether exhaustion weighs heavy or whether your mind is screaming for just one paused second in order to catch up.
A never-ending beat ticking, a count to which no person alive has always been able to keep. Every musician will stumble over the notes of a racing melody, just like every soul will stumble on the days when time moves too fast and reality stops making sense.
I was that musician. I was that soul. And while I waited for Lennon to arrive to class and open the doors, I drummed my fingers over my bent knees, counting the beats, begging the universe to rest long enough for me to learn how to breathe easily again.
“Admit it, Jess, he’s hot. And rich. I looked him up the night after our first class and he knows everybody in the music industry.”
To my left, a group of girls sat against the wall, their heads angled toward each other, their quiet voices floating down the long hall where other students stood waiting patiently.
“If Mr. Carter wanted to keep me after or class for some private tutoring, I’d happily bend over his desk and -“
“Morning everyone. Sorry I’m late. Something kept me up last night.”
My head snapped left, gaze lifting to Mr. Carter’s face. It felt stupid to call him that after what we’d done.
He approached with a bag slung over his shoulder, his scuffed olive green Docs a heavy beat against the linoleum floor.
Perhaps it was a phantom pain, or a trick of the mind that made my ass tingle with the sting he’d left last night. Even this morning, my pale flesh was tinged a faint pink, a handprint clearly outlined on the right cheek. Thankfully, it wouldn’t bruise, but the visual reminder had sent a collision of contradictory emotions storming through me.
Anger.
Shame.
Embarrassment.
Want...
Lennon nodded at some students, smiled down at the girls who were giggling and twirling their hair like a bunch of mean girl middle schoolers.
Yet his eyes scanned right over me. No acknowledgment whatsoever. Not a simple passing glance or second thought. I didn’t want to admit to myself that being looked over hurt, that for a moment I’d held my breath wondering if it would be possible to meet his eyes and not see the glaring truth of what we’d done.
Guess it didn’t matter much to him. What’s worse was that I wondered what exactly it had been that kept him so occupied he’d not slept. Where had he gone, or who had he done, after parting ways with me?
Why did I even care?
Pushing myself up from the floor, I filed in behind the other students, making a point not to glance in his direction, fighting every damn instinct I had to turn and look at a man who had the uncanny ability to piss me off and turn me on all at the same time.
As if taking my weight were a chore, the legs of my chair screeched across the floor loud enough to draw attention when I sat down. Immediately to my right, Jillian Bates turned her head, sneering at me as if I weren’t good enough to scrape the mud from the bottoms of her name brand shoes. She could kiss my ass for all I cared. Just a few minutes ago, she’d been the one fantasizing about bending over Lennon’s desk while I was the one with his handprints painting my skin.
I wasn’t sure what that said about me, but if it gave me a leg up in this class, I would take it.
Like a curtain, my hair hung down around my face, a tiny slit open through which I could watch Lennon arranging the papers on his desk. He looked good today, despite having been kept up.
Ripped jeans hung loose over his narrow hips, a blue band shirt tight to his sculpted body. I couldn’t see which band, just the tour cities and dates running a list in small print down his back. His suspenders hung loose against the sides of his legs. Why wear them if they weren’t snug over the shoulders? For that matter, why did he wear them at all?
He turned to the class and I averted my eyes, trying to convince myself that it was because I didn’t care, and not because I couldn’t handle the rejection again if he couldn’t be bothered to notice me.
Maybe I was just one of many.
Maybe the first time I’d let a man touch me in an intimate way was nothing more than another game Lennon could expertly play. Maybe he’d used me just like every other asshole I’d lured to the shadows for another one of my brother’s schemes.
Shoulders shaking with silent laughter, I imagined letting Ben beat Lennon’s ass just for thinking he had the right to touch me.
Not that I’d said no, but still, my mind has a habit of getting vengeful when my heart twists with confusion and hurt.
“Twenty-five of you remain in this class.” He paused, but not before the deep resonance of his voice could carry across the room to stroke me in all the forbidden places. “By the end of this week, only ten will stay.”
A chorus of squeaking chairs, heavy sighs and concerned murmurs filled the room, Lennon’s observant eyes studying the class from his standard perch against the front of his desk.
Say please...
Damn it. The memory of what he’d done to me wouldn’t stop playing in my head, my heart gripping again when his blue eyes scanned over me. It was as if I no longer existed in his world.
“Although it’s understandable that you all are worried, and a kinder teacher would tell you the worry is for nothing, I won’t lie. I have no intent to coddle you. You should be worried. The first round of performances proved to me you deserve to be heard, but none of you were perfect. Not one of you have the discipline, the driv
e, the talent, to put me in my place and show me what it means to make music.”
He was an asshole. I was sure most of the class would agree with me. All except his fan girls, of course, but even they were a little pink in the cheeks. How dare he belittle us?
“That being said, what I intend to do is make you all better.” He pulled his hands from his pockets and gripped them over the edge of the desk.
Silence, all eyes on him, all minds focused with rapt attention.
Say please...
My gaze dropped to his hands. The same hands that had played my body as effortlessly and as masterfully as they could a piano. The same hands that had threatened to cut off my air when wrapped around my throat.
“But first I need to work with each of you individually to determine if you’re worth the effort.”
He pushed away from his desk, his movement fluid and sure as he grabbed a single sheet of paper from his desk, crossed the room to the whiteboard and clipped it in place. Turning to the class, he tipped his head just slightly to the paper.
“This is the schedule of private instruction...”
My shoulders tensed at the thought of being alone with him, shivers like tiny skittering fingers running down my spine. A psychosomatic response, the cheeks of my ass burning to remember his hands on my bare skin. Heat burned my face to remember the way my body had responded.
Did you like it...
Crossing my arms over my stomach, I leaned forward and pressed my forehead against the cool wood of the desk.
“...each student will be given forty-five minutes to prove they can handle criticism and follow directions. I won’t tolerate hurt feelings or disobedience.”
Ha! Thankfully I didn’t laugh out loud. Not that what he’d said was funny. It was a little too truthful, yet nobody in this classroom knew it besides me.
“Miss Dillon.”
Sitting up so quickly that it wrenched the muscles in my neck and back, I met his eyes for the first time since last night, a stern warning glimmering in the deep blue.
Lennon’s eyes were a churning ocean, violent and chaotic, tiny specks of light reflecting like whitecaps breaking in the distance.
“Am I boring you?”