by Isadora Rose
“Miss Montague is beautiful, certainly, but she is also a very skilled teacher,” Cooper said sharply. “Her beauty does not preclude her from being a superb teacher, and though certain measures need to be taken to safeguard her from the interest of those of our boys who are all but men, I assure you that I consider her fully deserving of the position she has at Highdown Hall.”
Amelia’s eyes widened, for the sincerity of the headmaster’s fierce words was impossible to mistake. She yearned to fly into his arms and demonstrate the full height of the gratitude she felt towards him for his heated, unexpected support of her, but all she could do was show it in the only way now available to them. Her low moan vibrated through his cock and he tensed further, breathing heavily as she sucked on his cock and revelled in the salty, intimate taste on her tongue.
“Are you sure you are well, headmaster?” Austin asked. “You seem to be running something of a fever – perhaps a trip to the infirmary would be in order.”
Cooper snorted as she pulled back to sneak a glance up at him. Their eyes briefly locked, and the lust she saw in the depths of his thrilled her beyond comprehension. “I am perfectly well, Austin. Indeed, I have never been better! However, if that is all, then I would thank you and Thompson to leave me in peace now, for there is much I must attend to before lessons commence.”
“Of course, headmaster.”
She stilled in anticipation, but the footsteps she expected did not come until the headmaster banged on the desktop with his balled fist.
“See yourselves out, then!” he barked.
Amelia clenched her lips together to stifle a sudden burst of laughter as the headmaster pulled his cock out of her mouth, and to her astonishment a tiny smile twitched at the corners of his thin lips as the two men finally departed and closed the door behind them.
“Up you get, you devious minx,” Cooper said under his breath. “Delightful as it has been having you down there doing your very best to tear down my self-control, now we are alone again I want to make the very most of having you undressed and defenceless against me.”
He pushed his chair back and held his hands out to help her up, and though she glanced down longingly at his cock she obeyed him and allowed him to pull her to her feet, standing before him as his eyes raked across her and his predatory smile widened further.
“I hope you intend to attend to me, sir,” she said, deliberately mimicking him with a lift of her brow that only darkened his eyes yet further.
“Damned right I do,” the headmaster said as he fumbled over the buttons of his shirt, his face furiously reddened and his breath coming in shallow gasps. “You are a wicked, glorious little woman, Amelia – and you are mine. Into my lap, now!”
She scrambled to obey him, for her body yearned to be joined up with his in every possible way. She felt no shame, for the desire he so clearly felt for her emboldened her to share everything with him, and as his arms tightened around her to hold her near she threw her own arms around his neck and stretched up to deliver a fierce kiss to the side of his throat before she spoke again.
“Did I make you forget you had invited Austin and Thompson, James?”
He cupped her ass in the palms of his hands with a harsh groan. “Amelia, you have the power to make me forget everything but how much I want you – nay, how much I need you! No other woman have ever had that power over me, vixen. Hands behind your back,” he said abruptly.
“Hands -”
“Behind your back, Amelia!”
The urgency in his voice could have only one meaning, and Amelia buried her face in his shoulder to mute her cry of elation as her body instantly obeyed his command. The scent of musk and sweat was deeply lascivious, full of the promise of all that was to come, and she breathed in deeply as he forced his hand between their bodies, groping roughly at her breasts before he tugged his tie loose and then deftly bound it around her wrists to restrain them in the small of her back as she shamelessly straddled his waist and threw her head back in unbound elation.
Cooper clenched his jaw, clearly waging a losing battle for his self-control as he pinched Amelia’s nipples with an appreciative groan before sinking down lower in his chair so that his rock-hard cock pushed up against her cock, the tip already entering her as she shuddered and bore down against it. She had been ready for this ever since she had first thought of him upon waking, and now she could withstand no further delay. Though hindered by the fact her wrists were bound so tightly behind her, she gripped him between her thighs and sought out his eyes with her own as she pushed down to take the full length of his cock inside her.
He swore under his breath and drew back before allowing the full height of his passion for her to spill through, thrusting deeply into her as the morning sun shone through the closed drapes of his office window. Time stood still around them, the world nothing more than the two of them until she finally found the presence of mind to say what she had wanted to before he had ordered her back into his arms.
“Thank you, James,” she said breathlessly.
He wound one hand through her hair and wrenched her head back as he buried his cock inside her again. “For this?”
“Yes, God yes, but I meant for what you said to Austin and Thompson!” Amelia arched and clenched her lips tightly together to bite back a loud cry of bliss, the constriction of the tie around her wrists the perfect complement to the shallow thrusts of the headmaster’s cock inside her. It was all she could do to retain a faltering grip on her wits and focus on what she wanted to say to him. “I think you meant what you said, and if that is so then I owe you my thanks. Despite your evident lust for me, you see me as more than just a woman – and that means more to me than I think you know.”
Cooper kissed her fiercely before he answered with words. “Aye, I do, and I always have, Amelia. I wanted you from the very first, but your wit and intelligence was clear even in the letter you wrote requesting an interview. Few headmasters would take the risk of employing a female teacher, let alone one as young and lovely as you, but the moment we met I sensed you were worth that risk. How very glad I am now that I decided to take a chance on you, my dear!”
She delivered a lingering kiss in response to the curve of his sinewed throat, greedy for the scent of sex and sweat on his skin that she had come to know and cherish. Each stroke of his cock was driving her closer to the peak of her pleasure, and she no longer had the ability to force it back. Helpless in the face of all he was doing to her, she writhed against her bonds with a frustrated sob, desperate to touch him as she felt her climax begin to descend with unstoppable force. He shook his head, but his eyes softened as he wrapped his arms around her bare body to crush her against his chest, delivering a surprisingly tender kiss to the crown of her hair as she tensed in his arms.
“Let it come, Amelia,” he said quietly, the sound of her name on his lips as powerful a thrill as it had been the first time she had heard it there. “Though I would gladly spend all day like this making you wait for the pleasure I can give you, today time is not our friend. If you want this, then you must come for me now, love.”
Amelia’s heart missed a beat, but then her entire body lurched and the room spun around her, the headmaster’s words enough to send her soaring into the sweetest, most consuming of pleasures. She yearned to touch him and hold onto him, but all she could do was slump into his supportive hold and cover his rough skin in a hundred kisses as she battled with all her might to mute the sounds of her explosive climax. Only the door separated them from the teachers and students streaming through the corridor outside, and they could not be allowed to intrude.
Cooper hushed her as she rocked against him and choked back cry after cry, and then issued a strangled groan of his own as his own orgasm clearly caught him off-guard. He pumped his hips against her, panting for breath as his seed filled her and she nodded urgently, glorying in his climax as much as she did in his own. All too soon, though, their private moment of euphoria receded and the cares of the world
outside the door flooded back into the breach.
Unwillingly, she glanced over her shoulder to the clock on the wall that silently proclaimed a warning of how near the school day was to beginning. The headmaster’s eyes followed hers and narrowed in acknowledgement, but still he did not loosen his hold on her. Instead, his face contorted afresh as he roughly spoke. “I do not want to relinquish you, my dear.”
“And neither do I want to leave your arms, headmaster, but the school’s demands cannot be ignored. Friday will soon arrive, I am sure -”
“And this coming Friday it will be me you willingly turn to,” he cut in, fierce jealousy erupting out of nowhere to blaze in the depths of his darkened eyes. “Say it is so, Amelia!”
Amelia’s stomach flipped over, but the words fell naturally from her lips before she could even try to hold them back. “It is so, James.”
VIII.
Lesson Eight
Amelia clenched her lips tightly together as the vicar’s droning sermon echoed around the church eaves. She barely heard a word he said, for not only was she seated next to Cooper in the church pew, but before they dressed for the Sunday morning service he had given her an order that was impossible to defy.
Fixed to her taut nipples were the two tiny brass clamps he had produced on that first glorious encounter in his study. As he no doubt intended, the aching pain they caused had awoken a simmering undercurrent of arousal that simply would not abate. Despite the setting, she was powerless to stop her thoughts from turning back to the weekend’s glories. Just as had been the case last week, the headmaster had escorted her to his cottage after they had taken dinner with the staff on Friday evening, and they had not left again until the time had come to escort the students to church. They had ventured out of his bed only when it had become absolutely necessary to eat or drink, yet still she craved him with more ferocity than ever.
The compulsion to lean against his broad shoulder consumed her, and every grim, secretive smile he chanced in her direction sent her longing for him spiralling afresh. To her confusion, though, there seemed to be something more than mere physical desire causing him to hold his body tense in anticipation. He kept his grey eyes near unblinkingly trained on the vicar, and when the elderly man finally reached the parish notices, Cooper drew a sharp breath and squared his shoulders.
Amelia’s breath caught in her throat when the headmaster then reached across to openly lay his hand on top of hers as the vicar spoke the very last words she had expected to hear.
“I publish the banns of James Dante Cooper of this parish of Little Hampton, and Miss Amelia Mignonette Montague, spinster of the same parish. If any of you know cause or just impediment why these two persons should not be joined together in holy matrimony, you are to declare it.”
She must surely have misheard him. Dumbstruck, her lips parted as she instinctively turned to Cooper in search of confirmation – and received all she needed in the face of the triumph in his eyes. He gave a tiny jerk of his head as a low buzz of intrigue rippled through the pews around them, muting the rest of the vicar’s words; not that Amelia would have been able to pay attention to them, for her head was whirling. Battling to retain a grip on any single thought amongst the chaos that now reigned, she did not even realise the service had concluded until the headmaster rose to his feet and pulled her with him to stand at his side.
Cooper smilingly accepted all the congratulations that instantly came their way, and there was a defiant spark in his grey eyes that dared her to challenge him. She wanted to, but the words would not come. Instead, Amelia found herself smiling faintly and unconsciously leaning against his broad shoulder as he slowly began to steer them out of the church and towards the open courtyard where the midday sun merrily beat down, oblivious to the seismic shift she sensed her life was about to undergo.
As they stepped outside, he tucked her hand into the crook of his arm and then laid his on top of it, the gesture somehow more intimate and bittersweet than anything they had shared in his bed. “Amelia?”
His voice was far tenderer than she had ever heard it before, and the sound of it effortlessly stripped away all defence she had remaining. To her chagrin, her lower lip trembled as she pulled her head back to gaze up at him, unable to find any words to answer him through the lump now constricting her throat.
Cooper’s thumb brushed against the back of her hand, and a tiny furrow creased his brow. “I have already asked Austin to see the boys back to the school, so the rest of the day is our own, Amelia. Therefore, if you do not object I would rather like to take a walk with my lovely little fiancée. I suspect we will have much to say to each other, after all. What do you say?”
Amelia arched into him against her will, able to see no-one but the headmaster despite the swarm of teachers, students and parishioners still around them calling out their congratulations. Her heart was pounding wildly out of time, and dazed by all she felt, she found herself far more reckless than she would ordinarily dare to be. “You did not need my permission for aught else, sir,” she said under her breath.
His eyes darkened with the reminder despite the sharp breath that betrayed his irritation. “Save it until we are alone, my dear – please. Shall we, then?”
“I think we should, yes.”
The headmaster stared down at her without speaking for a few more moments, and then nodded slowly as he extricated them from the crowd and moved away from the church in silence. The gentle incline of the hill overlooking the village was before them, and though his face tightened as his grey eyes briefly scanned the manor where Freddie lived with his father, the earl, Cooper led her up the hill and towards the copse that nestled halfway up.
When they emerged into a small clearing, she thought he would finally offer up an explanation, but still he did not speak. Finally coming to the realisation he was content to wait for her to break the silence that had settled between them, she glanced up at him warily as they came to a halt under the shadow of an ancient oak tree. “Dante?” she said eventually.
Cooper arched one dark brow. “Indeed. My father is an ardent admirer of Dante Alighieri and all his work. I have to say though, my dear, I did not expect that my name would be what caught your attention from all that the vicar had to say.”
“No.” Amelia breathed in deeply, painfully aware of the gravity of the conversation they were about to have – and coming to see, against her will, how very much she wanted all he offered. “No, sir; if I am not mistaken, the vicar read our banns. That can have only one meaning.”
His lips thinned. “Indeed.”
“Then it is true – you want to marry me?”
“Very much, Amelia, and what is more, I will marry you. I understand this may have come as something of a shock to you, but I see no reason to delay in formalising all there is between us.” The headmaster reached for her hand, enclosing it inside his and flashing the briefest of smiles when she made no protest as he pulled her near. “Come now, my dear, I know the thought probably never even crossed your mind until this moment, but surely the idea of being my wife appeals to you!”
Amelia shivered, conflicted by the powerful compulsion to gladly accept his unconventional proposal; a compulsion so at odds to all she had felt when he had first made his desire for her apparent that she could barely comprehend the force of the changes that had been wreaked upon her in so short a time. She whetted her lips, searching around for a protest to make despite the fact that already her mind was filling with quiet elation at the future that lay ahead. “How did you manage this? I did not even sign the banns certificate.”
“I falsified your signature, for I wanted to surprise you with this,” the headmaster said as he steadily backed her up against the tree trunk behind them. “I could not be certain you would willingly sign the papers, but now it is a fait accompli and we can logically talk through any protests you might have before we return to the school for luncheon. Amelia, you will be my wife, for I saw the thrill that passed through your eyes when the
vicar read our banns. Argue if you like, but I shall simply silence your mouth with my own by way of an answer. I doubt you will still find yourself able to refuse me after that particular delight.”
She shook her head in stunned disbelief at his renewed arrogance, even as the merest thought of his kiss sent her lust for him soaring once more. “You truly are a devil, sir!”
“Then why did you not leap up and protest? Nay,” Cooper said, holding up a hand to silence her attempted retort. “I know the reason, my dear, so do not waste your breath. You did not do so because the thought of being my wife and forever at my side is something you realise you want beyond all reason. You need feel no shame in confessing it, for have we not already shared much more than mere emotion?”
Amelia’s grip on her outrage was rapidly slipping away to no more than a memory, a whisper in the back of her mind that meant nothing in comparison to the truth of the headmaster’s words. Dazed, her voice shook wildly when she finally found the composure to speak again. “Then if you are so convinced of that, James, why did you go to such lengths of deceit to present this to me in such a way? The custom is to ask a lady and her family’s permission first, after all.”
“Yet you have no family for me to seek permission from; the only one to ask was you, and I did not think that necessary,” he said calmly. “Your reaction to me whenever I take you speaks your admiration and ardour without the need for words. Forgive me if I sound arrogant, my dear Amelia, but I am entirely convinced I will be able to please you in every possible way. After all, you gain as much from our marriage as I will, if not more. Your social and financial standing will improve immeasurably.”
“As if I care for that!”
A ghost of a smile darted across his face. “I know you do not, not beyond the basics of a lifetime’s security. That is part of your appeal to me.”