Prescott cants forward in the chair with his arm waving in my direction. “Then he tried to strangle me!”
The dean shifts her slivered eyes to me. “Mr. Marceaux, are you aware of the no touching policy?”
“Yes.” I tilt my head. “Are you aware your son is an asshole?”
“See what I mean?” Prescott throws his hands in the air and slumps in the seat. “He’s fucking nuts.”
Beverly walks around the desk, stops at the wall of windows, and stares out over the manicured lawns. “Mr. Rivard and Mr. Roth, you’ll be written up for language and fighting.” She turns, arms folded beneath her chest, and calmly takes in their outraged expressions. “Wait in the hall while I have a word with Mr. Marceaux.”
A turbulence of emotions storms through me, and leading the onslaught is a heavy, foreboding kind of urgency. If they’re lying about the girlfriend, I won’t find the truth in this office. Nor in this school. I need to perform my own investigation of their after-school activities.
When the door shuts behind them, Beverly drops her arms and stands taller, stiffer, her sharp gaze leaping toward mine. “If you ever lay a hand on my son again—”
“That is the protégé you want me to send to Leopold?” I thrust a finger at the door. “That little douchebag won’t last a month there.”
Her head quivers with the force of her shout. “Enough!”
She touches the collar of her blouse and closes her eyes, inhaling deeply.
I amble toward her and stop inches away. Towering over her, I wait for her to look at me.
My insides burn with anxious rage, but I keep my timbre rich, my voice mellow, and my eyes cool. “When he does something I disapprove of, I’ll handle it however the fuck I want. If you don’t like that, our deal is off.”
As I stride toward the door, she says, “I’ll fire you.”
“No, you won’t.” No need to tell her I’m considering quitting. “I’m his only way into Leopold.”
Ivory
Something’s off today. I feel a weird sort of flux in the air the instant I step into Room 1A. Prescott and Sebastian sit on opposite sides of the classroom. Odd. Almost as odd as the hard and resentful way they’re staring at me. Mr. Marceaux stands behind his desk, also watching me in a hard way. But there’s something else in his expression.
Something I haven’t glimpsed in five weeks.
He looks at me like he’s visualizing spanking me. It’s a subtle smolder contained in his eyes, flickering as if it’s been building for a while, growing and strengthening behind his thick eyelashes, and now, perhaps it’s become too big, too hungry to suppress.
Maybe I’m imagining it, but the dark and heavy bass-type feeling thumping through my insides is most definitely real.
I study him closely as I find my seat, as he begins the lecture, and as he guides the class through the next hour of discussions. In those countless moments when he meets my eyes, there’s a resonance radiating back from his, like he’s experiencing something he’s aching to share with me.
He holds my gaze. “Every minute you’re not in school, you should be practicing your instrument.”
Now that it’s October, we have a number of events to prepare for, the biggest one being the Holiday Chamber Music Celebration. As he brushes over the performance calendar, I’m reminded that he hasn’t chosen the piano soloist. I know I’m the best, but I don’t know if he agrees. His assessment of my skills is so rude and degrading. Even so, his feedback spurs me to try harder, to be better, to please him.
He continues to watch me as he speaks. It’s always me who looks away first, his intensity too potent to take in for long and making me feel dizzy. But when I return to him—and I always do—I notice his fingers trembling or his tongue wetting his bottom lip, validations that I’m not the only one feeling this deeper presence, this vibe, between us.
What changed? How does a man go from spanking and kissing me to five weeks of rejection to vibe-fucking me?
By the time the last bell blares and the classroom empties, I’ve become so sensitive to the flashes of fire in his eyes he doesn’t have to tell me to remain seated. The moment we’re alone, he paralyzes me with a single glance. A silent command. Don’t move.
With strong, measured strides, he approaches my desk, grips the outer edges, and bends over the short distance, invading my space in that predatory way he does.
He looks at me, I look at him, and a woozy tingle sweeps through my limbs.
“Mr. Marceaux?” Jesus, my heart is going to beat right out of my chest. “What are you doing?”
“Tell me about Prescott Rivard.”
My heart stops in its tracks. “Sorry?”
He slams a fist on the desk, and the echo bangs in tune with the low D of his timbre. “Answer me!”
My shoulders curl forward, and my throat seals shut. Did he find out? I’m supposed to meet Prescott again tonight. What if that fucking prick told on me? But why would he? Prescott would be just as screwed as me.
Play it cool. Mr. Marceaux doesn’t know anything.
“Prescott’s my biggest competitor for Leopold. But I’m better—”
“Not that.” His voice evens into a calm tessitura. “Tell me about your relationship with him outside of school.”
I open my mouth to form a lie, but the words don’t come. I can’t be dishonest with him. I don’t know why. So I settle on the simple truth. “I hate him.”
“Why?”
“He drives around in his fancy car, wearing his too-good-for-everyone smile and being his tampon-ish self.”
He lifts an eyebrow. “Tampon-ish?”
“Yes. Like a tampon. A used, gross, sticky…tampon.”
He rubs a hand over his mouth, staring at me like I’m speaking another language. Dropping his hand on the desk, he narrows his eyes. “Explain what you mean.”
“You really want me to—? Okay, fine. A tampon is repulsive. It bulges and expands with blood. It drips all over the place and smells bad and—”
“Stop. Why is Prescott repulsive?”
“You have to ask?”
He straightens, tucks his fingers in his front pockets, and for the first time in weeks, gives me a half-smile. “No, I guess I don’t.”
Silence wraps around us, but it’s not quiet. The air is so charged and full of heartbeats I get lost in the music that thrums between us. The look in his eyes… My God, it’s overwhelmingly sexual. Not in an I-want-to-fuck-you way. He’s probably thinking that, but his gaze exudes the kind of sensuality that promises more, like if we spent the rest of eternity just sharing eye contact, it would be intimate and mind-blowing and perfect, with or without sex.
It’s a concept I struggle to comprehend. Just thinking about sex with him twists me up in a conflicted heap. But I don’t need to understand or analyze it. I feel it.
The cadence of our breaths plays a soft song of want and hunger and desire in the background, and while those sexual undertones aren’t necessary in our silent communication, they add rhythm and flavor to the heart of our music.
“Mr. Marceaux?” I rub my palms on my thighs, holding his gaze, and whisper, “You’re sharing your notes.”
Lines form on his forehead as he grips the back of his neck. “What?”
“I feel your notes. Here.” I touch my breastbone, my voice shaking. “They’re dark and hypnotic, like your breaths and your heartbeats.”
He takes a step back, then another step, and another. Distance doesn’t matter. I still hear him. Still feel him. He’s inside me.
Turning away, he wanders through the front of the room, zigzagging, switching directions, as if he doesn’t know where he’s going. He ends up at his desk, fumbling with his laptop.
“You’re working on Prokofiev’s Concerto No.2 today,” he says with his back to me. “Go get warmed up.”
Damn. That’s such an intense piece that requires an incredible amount of focus. Is that why he chose it? To distract me?
Disappoint
ment burrows into my chest as I stand from the desk and follow his order.
For the next four hours, I endure his swatting hands and harsh criticism of my piano performance, all the while regretting telling him about the way he makes me feel. I should’ve focused first on preparing and nurturing those words before chucking them out, half-formed, into the winds of his volatility, with the ridiculous hope it would snag and hold his affection for me.
He sends me home at seven o’clock, not a minute after, with an immutable and heart-breaking, “Good night, Miss Westbrook.”
Only I can’t go home. Thirty-minutes later, I’m sitting in the vacant lot in the projects in the back seat of Prescott’s Cadillac, watching him roll on a condom for the seventh time since school started.
I can do this. As long as he doesn’t fuck my ass—something he’s never attempted—I’ll endure. I always do.
“I’m not supposed to be here.” He reaches under my skirt.
My body is numb, but not numb enough. I feel his fingers yanking down my panties. I smell the greed he exhales onto my face.
“I got grounded today.” He drags the underwear down my legs and off my feet. “For two months.”
Nothingness rings in my ears. Everything is too quiet, too lifeless in the absence of Mr. Marceaux.
“But I’ll find a way to meet up with you.” He pushes me onto my back.
I can’t do this again. Can’t endure his hands, his thrusts, the sounds of his pleasure. This thing he does with me, it’s not rape, but it still feels forced, unwanted, dreaded. If I tell him no, he will force it. Maybe I can fight him off this time, but what happens to my bills? My future?
He pries my knees apart, and I jerk them back together.
“What are you doing?” Kneeling over me, he shoves his trousers down his thighs.
The outcomes of my choices are so illogical. If I keep my legs closed, I might lose my house and turn into a crack whore like my mom. If I let Prescott do what he wants, I have a chance at something great. How messed up is that?
I push my hands against him, holding him away. “I don’t want this.”
But I do. I want this in a non-grabby, non-needy, give-and-take way. I want to connect with a man the way I want my music to connect with an audience. Emotionally. Profoundly. Innately.
I want this with someone who cares.
He forces his hips between my legs and wrestles my swinging arms. “What’s wrong with you?”
“This.” I ram my forearms against his chest. “You.”
The throaty rumble of an engine sounds in the distance, growing louder, closer, vibrating my body.
The hairs lift on my arms, and I strain my eyes through the darkness of the back seat, unable to see.
“Is that…?” I grab Prescott’s shoulders as he mounts me. I try to push him off, a wasted effort. “Is that a GTO?”
“Fuck if I know.” He grips his dick, poking it around my opening. “Hold still.”
The rumbling car is close. Close enough to stop on the street. Close enough that Prescott lifts his head to look out the back window.
“Shit,” he whispers. “Someone’s here.”
Ice fills my veins. He’s looking for me? I gulp for air and shove against Prescott’s frozen chest.
He can’t see me like this. He can’t. He can’t.
I kick and buck, trying to straighten my skirt, unable to move Prescott’s weight.
“Move!” Oh God, I can’t close my legs.
The door behind him swings open, and the sudden overhead light hurts my eyes. An arm reaches in, and in a blink, Prescott is jerked from the car and flying backward, vanishing in the pitch-black of night.
The sounds of pained grunts harmonize with the purr of the idling GTO. I grapple with the skirt, yank it down my legs, my eyes wide and locked on the open door.
Footsteps close in, the crunch of boots on gravel. Black slacks, a waistcoat, then a tie fills the door frame. He bends down, and when his face lowers into view, all I see is murderous blue.
I can’t move. Can’t breathe. This is it. He might as well kill me, because my life ends now.
No Le Moyne. No Leopold. No future.
No more music with Mr. Marceaux.
He stabs a finger in the direction of the street and bellows, “Get your fucking ass in my car!”
Emeric
The fucker is going to die.
I leave Ivory to collect her things from the car as I storm back to the moaning piece of shit on the ground. Despite my cloud of rage, I managed to contain all the punches to Prescott’s ribs when I ripped him from the back seat. But as he stares up at me now, arms wrapped around his mid-section, my hands clench to shatter every bone in his contorted face.
The shadows of Central City’s projects blanket the empty lot. The decrepit walls of apartment buildings are poorly lit, and the groves of overgrowth and garbage stink of abandonment. Thickly-leaved vines climb light poles and crumbling foundations, forming a protective veil in the absence of moonlight.
Prescott sprawls on his back with his pants bunched around his thighs. One glance at the condom still hanging from his flaccid dick, and my control disintegrates. Madness like I’ve never known explodes hot and thick inside me, constricting my chest and burning my muscles.
This is the perfect place to kill someone. No one will see. No one will care.
I crouch over him and wrap my fingers around his throat. “You’re dead.”
He claws at my hand, sucking for air. “N-not just me. She’s a whore and f…f…fucks everyone.”
Primal rage smothers me, blinding my vision and fogging my mind. I move on instinct, rearing back and driving my knuckles, hard and fast, into his chest.
A scream coughs from his lungs. “Oh God, please, please…”
“You will never…” I connect with his stomach. “Touch her.” Another hit, high on his ribs. “Again.”
Then I attack. The sounds of his cries, the pain in my hands, the exertion of my breaths, all of it fades away as I bring the wrath of hell upon him. His arms shoot up, warding me off, but I pummel through it, hitting every exposed inch of his torso.
“Mr. Marceaux!” Ivory’s shout comes from behind me.
My insides seethe at her defiance. “Get in the goddamn car!”
Prescott tries to roll away, and I jerk him back, pounding my fists against his chest.
“Mr. Marceaux, stop!” She screams, closer now, inches away.
I’m in a zone, my tunnel vision consumed with blood and vengeance and broken bones. With each smack of my fists, her pleas and shouts no longer register…until her mouth moves so close, her breath brushes my ear.
“Emeric.”
I freeze mid-swing, my veins on fire to finish this.
Bending behind me, she snakes her arms over my shoulders, her chest against my back and her fingers digging into my shirt. With her face alongside mine, she whispers, “You won’t just lose your job. You’ll go to jail. He’s not worth it.”
I reach up and grip her hand against my heaving chest. “But you are. You’re worth it.”
She whimpers and squeezes my fingers. “I’m so sorry. I never meant—” She tries to pull me back. “Please. Take me home.”
Please. King of hell, that word on her lips.
I launch to my feet, knocking her backward with the surge of my body. With a hand on her arm to balance her, I thrust the other in the direction of my car. “I won’t tell you again.”
Eyes wide and glassy, she hugs the strap of the satchel against her shoulder and drags her feet to the GTO.
The sound of retching draws me back to Prescott. With his pants in place, he rocks on hands and knees and empties his stomach into a snarl of weeds, sobbing between each heave.
As I wait for him to finish, I pull in deep breaths and try to summon some semblance of control. I’m not a murderer. Hell, before Ivory, I hadn’t swung my fists since I was a testosterone-fueled teenager.
I glance at her, taking in her
defeated posture and horrified expression as she lowers into my car. I shift my attention to my swollen hands, shocked to find them violently shaking. She’s turned me into a homicidal animal.
She’ll pay for letting this asshole into her body. But the bruises that’ll cover his torso for the next couple weeks? That’s on me.
“Get up.” I grab his hair, relishing his wailing cries as I haul him toward the Cadillac and shove him into the driver’s seat.
Tremors twitch along his skinny arms, his face pale and tear-soaked as he stares straight ahead. There’s no visible blood or swelling on any part of his exposed skin. If it weren’t for his pained expression and dirt-smeared clothes, no one would know I just beat the shit out of him.
With an arm braced on the top of the door, I lean in. “Look at me.”
He cowers, and his hands fly up to block his head. “Don’t hit me.”
My fists flex to strike, to feel his body giving beneath the force of my anguish, but I bury it, saving it. For Ivory.
Once he realizes I’m neither swinging nor going anywhere, he drags bloodshot eyes to mine.
“You have two choices.” I enunciate each word, softly, deliberately. “One. Tell no one what happened. Not a word about what you’ve been doing with Miss Westbrook. Let those bruises heal without revealing them to anyone, and that’ll be your only punishment for paying a girl for sex.”
His eyes narrow into a scathing glare.
I match his glare with one that makes him wither. “Two. Limp around like a fucking pussy. Tell the dean what you did to earn those injuries, and say goodbye to Leopold. Doesn’t matter how powerful my connections, there isn’t a conservatory in the world that will accept an applicant facing charges for buying sexual services.”
His eyes bulge. “I’m only seventeen!”
“That’s old enough to be charged as an adult and young enough to be the belle of the ball in state prison.”
Falling For The Forbidden Page 16