by Pam Godwin
That look in his eyes turns my insides upside down, pulling my breaths through a diaphanous haze of happiness and confusion. He doesn’t temper the hunger in his expression, but doesn’t act on it, either. It’s as if he’s letting it build naturally while keeping it contained. As if he’s enjoying the way it makes him feel without thrusting it against me.
I could stand here and stare at him all night, at his model-perfect features, the barely-there stubble on his sculpted jaw, and the heat dancing in his eyes. My fingertips tingle to run through his hair again. Softly, though, unlike the way he stabs his hands through the black strands when he’s angry.
He’s just…so…damn gorgeous. Way too hot to be a teacher. But it’s his self-control I’m attracted to the most. Funny that, since he showed zero restraint with Prescott. Or maybe he did? Prescott is still breathing.
When it comes to me, though, his control is evident in his tight expression and even tighter breaths. He wants, but he doesn’t take. That alone makes me feel more drawn to him.
I grip the gathered sleeves at his elbows and glide my fingers along his sinewy forearms. “Can I bandage your hands?”
“Later.” His face moves an inch closer.
“I don’t get you, Mr. Mar— Emeric. You went from spankings to five weeks of nothing to swinging fists to…” I hesitantly reach up and touch his warm, chiseled cheek. “To looking at me like this. Why?”
“Well, something happened recently.” He gives me a half-smile. “About ten minutes ago.” He turns his face toward my hand and presses his lips to my wrist. “I had an epiphany.”
In the car? My heart rate jumps. “What do you mean?”
“I realized I’ve been in denial since…” His gaze lowers to my mouth momentarily then returns to my eyes. “For a while.”
“Denial about what?”
He steps closer, strokes his hands through my hair, and holds my cheek against his chest. “Let’s not give it a name yet.”
Love pops into my mind, unbidden, quickly followed by hug. Instinctively, my arms wrap around his torso. My hands grip the back of his wool waistcoat, and muscle by muscle, I relax against him. His fingers trail down my spine, shooting shivers from my head to my toes. The circle of his arms tightens, and every molecule inside me becomes hyper-aware of every inch of his body.
His towering height and hard physique feels intimidating and protective, immovable and warm, strange and wonderfully right.
My dad used to hug me, and I miss that love with excruciating heartache. Stogie loves me in a non-huggy, protective-uncle way. But that’s the extent of my experience with the concept.
Exploring something like love with Emeric is terrifyingly reckless. He’s too volatile, unpredictable, and insanely intense. Would he give it one day and take it back the next? Would he taunt me with it, make me beg for it, and use it against me?
Even so, I’d rather receive it in rations than never have it at all.
Except he’s my teacher. He specifically told me I cannot fall in love with him. And he loves another woman.
What exactly am I to him? My stomach boils with jealousy and trepidation, but it doesn’t hurt as much with his arms holding me close and his mouth resting on the top of my head.
Whatever this is…this thing he’s been in denial about, it seems to be making his heart race. Or maybe it’s the hug causing those heavy beats against my ear. Maybe it’s all the same.
I tilt my head and look up at him. “Are you afraid?”
He releases me and steps back, his focus on his hand as he smooths down the black and white striped tie.
I grit my teeth. Dammit, I want him to own his feelings, not pull them back and brush them away. I open my mouth to say just that, but his eyes ensnare mine, and I forget to breathe.
That moment…my God, it feels like a lifetime in the making. His hands curl around my neck, wrenching me into a kiss so consuming it touches me everywhere. Seconds pass like hours. The caress of his mouth robs the strength from my knees. The instant he offers his tongue, a chill of electricity runs wild across my skin. His soft groan vibrates against my lips, eliciting a warm throb between my legs. And his answer…
“Yes.” His hands collar my throat, snugly, possessively, as he kisses a shivery path to my ear and rasps, “I’m afraid.”
My fingers find his hair and pull his mouth back to mine. “Afraid of?”
“Getting caught.” He turns us, presses my back against the wall, and whispers between drugging licks along my lips. “Going to jail.”
I want to argue, but I have no voice, no breath, only his sinful mouth and the support of his strong chest against mine.
He angles his head, twining our tongues, deeper, faster, and I float on the thermal currents writhing between us. The crotch of my panties feels wet, my body temperature dialed to feverish levels. The cotton of my shirt and the elastic of my bra itch and squeeze my skin. I want them off.
“I’m afraid of hurting you.” He tilts his head in the opposite direction, a new angle, eating at my mouth as if he can’t reach deep enough. “But I’m not stopping, Ivory.” Another hungry kiss. “You’re mine.”
A sense of belonging swells in my chest. It feels so big and full and too good to be true. I don’t know if I can trust it. As I waver, his heat and strength vanish, leaving me swaying against the wall.
He grips my wrist and yanks me ahead of him in the hall, steering me forward. I attempt a wobbly step, but he’s behind me, his strong fingers sliding from my waist, over my hips, and curling around my thighs.
His mouth traces the line of my shoulder and nibbles along my neck. He pauses at my ear, his tone husky. “Last room on the right.”
With a staggering inhale, I walk ahead. His footfalls trail a few steps behind, and I can’t help but crane my neck to hold his heated gaze. When I reach the doorway, I pivot and back in, my attention paralyzed by all the unnamed emotions hardening his fierce expression.
I should be anxious. I should be fucking terrified. But he’s not Lorenzo or Prescott or the countless others who make me want to die. Emeric has made me feel more alive tonight than I have in seventeen years.
The periphery of my vision catches a bed, some furniture, lots of grays and blacks. His bedroom? I don’t glance around, don’t avert my eyes from the man who is jeopardizing his career, his freedom, to be with me.
He prowls closer, his overwhelming proximity chasing me backward, slowly, breathlessly, deeper into the room. Will he ask his questions now? Will the truth disgust him to the point of hatred? There have been so few people in my life who believe in me. I can’t bear the thought of losing that protective look on his face.
He catches my waist and pulls me against him, his voice low and guttural. “You have no idea what that does to me.”
“What?”
“The way you stare at me like I’m worth more to you than”—he glances around the room—“a big fancy house.”
A burning flush sweeps across my cheeks. What is he saying? That because I’m poor, I should be star-struck and gaping at his stuff? I care more about him than all the money in the world. But maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe he thinks I’m a lovesick high school girl.
I narrow my eyes. “The molding in this place… It’s everywhere. Scalloped designs on the living room ceiling, square panels on the walls, chair rails run the length of the hall. I could peel it all off and hock it while you’re—”
“Brat.” His beautiful face splits into a smile as he shuffles me backward and sets me on the edge of the mattress.
He leaves me there and strides to the dresser. As he empties his pockets, I’m hit with a heavy dose of reality. I’m in Mr. Marceaux’s bedroom. Sitting on his bed. Watching him do things, personal things in his private space, that no one else at school has witnessed.
With his back to me, he places his wallet and keys in a wooden dish. His phone and mechanical watch go next. His waistcoat falls over the back of a stiff leather chair. His necktie follows.
&n
bsp; When his hands fall to his belt, my breath catches.
He shifts to face me, his fingers slowly unclasping the buckle. “It’s time to address the issue we’ve been avoiding.”
My stomach sinks, and a wave of vertigo shivers through me.
He slides the belt free, winds it into a coil, and sets it on the nightstand beside the bed.
“No lies.” He clasps his hands behind his back, squared shoulders stretch the white button-up across his chest, and his glare hardens. “Omitting is the same as lying.”
Shit! I squeeze my eyes shut. Shit, fucking shit.
“Ivory.”
I open my eyes and find him studying me. Of course, he is. Always watching. Always seeing too much. I bite my lip. This isn’t going to end well.
“I’m probably going to lose my cool again.” He glances at his shoes, smirking to himself. “Since I can’t seem to control my temper where you’re concerned.” He looks up beneath a veil of thick lashes. “Remember what I said about that.”
My eyebrows pull in as I think back. “You never hit a woman in anger?”
“Good girl.”
My lungs expand, inhaling those words.
He kneels before me, his chest touching my closed knees and his hands on my hips. “I know you need money. I’ve deduced that Prescott and Sebastian pay you.” His eyes spark with anger. “Tell me how and when the arrangement began.”
I want to caress his face, but the angles of his bone structure suddenly appear too sharp, too untouchable. So I place my palm on the warm skin of his forearm, where it rests alongside my thigh. “I’ll tell you. I promise. But what will happen to my education and Leo—?”
“Leopold is neither here nor there. This isn’t a student-teacher conference.” He shifts, grips the hem of my skirt, and shoves it up my thighs until it sits just below my panties.
I keep my knees together, but I don’t fight him.
“This is you and me, Ivory.” His fingers slide beneath the gathered fabric, tracing the hidden bend between my legs and hips. “We’re just a man and a woman, sharing an intimate moment of honesty.”
I like the sound of that almost as much as the soothing touch of his fingers. A silent caesura stretches between us, during which time isn’t counted or weighed. Eventually, his caresses calm me enough to speak.
“Freshman year, I was desperate for friends, desperate to fit in, and offered to help some of the kids with their homework.” Sweat slicks my hands, and I clasp them over the crease of my clenched bare thighs. “Only the boys took me up on the help. Prescott and his friends. At some point in that first year, my tutoring turned into me doing their homework for them.”
“And what I saw in the car?”
“They touched and kissed and took things I didn’t want to give.”
Emeric rises, his hands raking through his hair as a violent symphony clashes and vibrates in his eyes.
“They took things…” He drops his arms and flexes his fists at his sides. “Explain that.”
I tell him how I threatened to stop helping them, how they offered to pay me if I continued, and how badly I needed the income to keep my house. By the time I get to the part about them taking more than the homework, Emeric is pacing a furious track through the room.
If he’s going to burn off steam, he has the space to do it. I mean, it’s the biggest bedroom I’ve ever seen, with nothing on the floor to trip him up. For a guy, he’s surprisingly tidy.
And for a girl who’s in a cage with a pacing lion, I feel strangely detached. Liberated even.
Finally voicing these things is freeing, and he absorbs every word like he’s living it, feeling it. Yes, he’s angry, but he hasn’t once directed it at me. He cares enough to be angry for me.
He stops before me, his face as red as his swollen knuckles. “You told them no?”
Directing my eyes to his Doc Martens, I nod. “For a while.”
“Define a while.”
“The first couple of years.”
“They raped you. For years.” His scathing voice rolls into bellow. “Look at me!”
My gaze jumps to his. The horror etching his face makes my heart pound so hard it hurts.
How do I explain these embarrassing things when I’m not even sure about any of it? “I don’t know.”
“There’s no I-don’t-know’s about it, Ivory.” He grips the back of his neck with both hands and paces in a tight circle. “You were either willing or you weren’t. Which is it?”
“Sometimes, I feel trapped by circumstance. Sometimes, I’m held down. Other times, I just let it happen.”
“You just let it happen,” he echoes with venom. “Bullshit!”
The roar of his shout hitches my shoulders. He spins and slams his fist into the wall, wrenching a gasp from my throat.
I leap from the bed, shoving my skirt down as I cautiously approach his back. “Emeric.”
He punches another hole, and another, his arms flexing and contracting with the impact as dust and sheet rock explode around him.
“Emeric, stop!”
Breathing heavily, he braces a forearm on the wall, rests his brow on his arm, and angles his head to look at me. “Which one of those fuckers took your virginity?”
“No one at Le Moyne.” I step closer, within arm’s reach. “I was already…” Used. Ruined.
He reaches out and drags me against him, pinning me between his heaving chest and the wall.
Blood and dust cover the knuckles of the hand he lifts to gently caress my cheek. “There’s more you haven’t told me.”
More men who take. More truth to share. I’ll tell him everything, because he hasn’t pushed me away, hasn’t once looked at me with repulsion.
He drops his forehead to mine, fingers resting against my cheek, and says quietly, “I want to whip you for being so damn uninformed about rape.”
But I’m learning the differences, as well as who to trust and when to ask for help. I always thought the safest place to go was in my head, that no one could hurt me there. But standing between a busted wall and the fuming man who destroyed it, I’ve never felt safer.
I hold his hand against my face and meet his passionate gaze. “I trust you.”
All my disgusting secrets have finally caught up with me. But for the first time in my life, I don’t have to face them alone.
My self-control is a goddamn joke, and the unflappable part of my brain is lost beneath chilling images of Ivory cornered, hurt, and alone. My hands shake as I teeter on the verge of manic brutality, consumed with the kind of throbbing headache that can only be comforted by bloodshed.
I knew there was sexual abuse, but part of me believed it was in the past, like it had been a single horrifying moment in her life. I never envisioned years of rape.
How many motherfuckers will I have to kill? And while I’m murdering my way through her nightmares, how will I stop myself from becoming the worst of them all?
Ivory’s view of sex is most likely damaged all to hell. How will she respond to sex with me? Will she freeze up? Am I pushing her too fast? What the fuck do I do now, if anything, regarding our relationship?
My heart thunders louder, faster, my muscles expanding with the direction of my thoughts.
“Hey.” She holds my sore hand against her cheek. “You’re getting all tense again.”
I think she may be crazier than I am. She doesn’t cringe or try to put a safe distance between us. Instead, she gives me a gentle smile and stares up at me with huge brown eyes full of trust.
Yes, I brought her home to keep her safe, but she has no idea how close I am to snapping. My entire body shakes to bend her over and fuck her so hard all she remembers is me. And that will destroy her.
I step back and stab a shaky finger toward the bed. “Sit.”
She smooths down her skirt and follows my order, glancing nervously at the belt on the nightstand.
My palm feels hot and achy, my arm tensing to swing that strap. Less because of anger and mor
e because I’m desperate to put all this shit behind us and spend the rest of the night welting her into orgasmic bliss.
But it’s not like I can just go at her with a belt in hand. That would sabotage her trust. I have to teach her that there’s a better, more meaningful kind of pain than what she’s experienced. The willing kind.
To do that, I have to pull myself together.
With measured breaths, I take a moment to indulge in her beauty, absorbing her perfect turned-up nose, tawny complexion, and dark shiny hair. But it’s the boldness in her eyes, the strength in her smile, and the potency of her aura that calms me. It’s impossible not to gravitate toward her, to not be captivated by the grace and tenacity she emanates.
As I stare at her, I realize with startling clarity she doesn’t need me to slay her past. She’s already lived it and came out the other side with more fortitude than any person I know.
But she does need me to listen, to support her without losing my head, and most of all, to protect her from future harm.
With a steadier pulse and the headache subsiding, I join her on the edge of the bed, my feet beside hers on the floor. Bending over her lap, I reach for her ankles. I’ve despised her glued-together shoes since the first day when I slid them onto her feet. They’re not good enough for her, and watching her walk around in them week after week makes me want to give her every penny I have.
I push the little black flats off her heels and let them drop to the floor. If she only knew how many size-seven replacements I’ve bought her. The whole damn closet behind me is filled, not just with shoes, but clothes and bags and… Jesus, I sound like a psychopath, even in my head.
I’m not even a shopper. Fucking hate it. But for the past five weeks, it was the most benign way I found to channel my inappropriate obsession with her.
Gathering her sideways in my lap, I scoot up the mattress and recline against the headboard.
With my arms wrapped around her delicate frame, I caress her back. “Tell me about your first time. How old were you?”
She rests her cheek on my shoulder, her voice tentative. “You go first.”
An outraged Answer me builds in my throat, but I swallow it, reminding myself that honesty goes both ways.