by Pam Godwin
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“Down the street.” He grips the steering wheel with a strong hand and merges into traffic, slowly, confidently, like this is his road and he has all the time in the world.
A minute later, he pulls into Louis Armstrong Park and sets his sunglasses in the cup holder. A short walk takes us to a shaded park bench, where we sit side-by-side and dig into our Hook ‘Em Up sandwiches. The thick bread is piled high with meats and cheeses, requiring two hands to hold it.
Halfway through the sandwich, my stomach aches. I wrap up the leftovers, wipe my mouth with a napkin, and stare out over the green-tinged duck pond. “What did you and Stogie talk about?”
“You.”
Maybe I should be surprised by his honesty, but I’m not. He’s always been direct with me, a trait I’ve come to depend on. If only I could do the same. I want to tell him everything. But he would report me. How could he not?
He takes another bite, and I covertly study his jaw flexing and throat moving as he chews. It’s strange watching a man eat. I’ve never done that. Not consciously. I feel like I’m invading his privacy.
When he goes for another bite, I realize he’s not going to elaborate.
“What about me?”
He swallows, grins. “This is really good.” Another bite. Then another.
Two young black men walk along the opposite side of the pond, but the park is otherwise empty, the sun too high and hot for a lazy stroll.
“Mr. Marceaux…”
He continues to ignore me as he finishes his lunch between long draws on his bottled water. Then he sets my uneaten portion aside, throws the trash away, and lounges against the back of the bench beside me, hands relaxed on his thighs. “I asked him how your living expenses get paid.”
Jesus, he’s like a dog with a bone. I twist and untwist the lid on my water. What would Stogie think of me if he knew what I’m doing? And Mr. Marceaux? He’d probably spank me then expel me. My heart gives a heavy thump.
“What else did you talk about?”
He turns to face me. “Tell me why I’m here.”
To finish that almost-kiss? Do I want that? My hands shake. “I don’t know.”
“You do know, and I want to hear you say it.”
I look away, eyes on the pond, but every inch of my body focuses on him. On the shift in his breathing, the tick of his watch, the lift of his arm as he touches my chin and forces my head to turn back.
His eyes reflect all the luminous shades of the sky, but they’re colder, so terrifying this close up. I refocus on something safer, the ducks on the pond. But his gaze fills my view, his face staying with me, his whole body moving, anticipating my moves. He won’t let me escape him. I want to run.
And I want him to catch me.
The fight in my muscles evaporates as he pulls me into his lap. My pulse kicks up when he arranges my legs to straddle him. His thighs are columns of stone beneath me, powerful and supportive.
Sitting on him, against him, isn’t a bad feeling. It’s much safer than being beneath him, which has been my only experience with other men. But I don’t know where to put my hands. After an awkward moment, I let my fingers gravitate to his t-shirt.
His chest twitches against my palms, the ridges and indentations of muscle like bricks in my hands, so unlike anything I’ve ever felt.
I muster the courage to look up, absorbing the dark shadow on his jawline and the defined curves of his cheekbones. The blue hues in his meteoric eyes fire a voltage of warmth way down deep, below my waist, between my legs. The sensation makes me want to reach up and trace the shape of his lips. But I’m too nervous, too unsure.
It feels like there are invisible strands between us and they’re winding tighter, pulling, shrinking, and strumming with tension.
I sway closer. “Is this why you’re here?”
He meets me halfway, dipping his head, and his mouth drags a sigh across my neck.
I shiver and heat up. My fingers tighten on his shirt, my hips relax in his lap, and a strife of emotions frantically flap in my brain. The position puts my pussy right up against him, flush with the long rigid evidence of his hunger. It should be enough to make me recoil, to pull away, but I can’t. I don’t want to.
“Ivory,” he breathes along my jaw. His hands clench against my back, pulling my chest to his as he nibbles a trail of pleasure to the corner of my lips. “Yes.”
His mouth slides over mine, lips brushing, warm and soft and nice. Strong hands move up my neck, cup my jaw, and angle my head. He presses his lips harder, parting them, opening mine, and the first touch of his tongue shoots a thrill of electricity down my back.
My whole body should be shrinking, cringing with disgust, yet the rub of his tongue, the flavor of his mouth, and the pressure of his fingers against my head liquefies my insides into a needy simmer. Instead of jerking away from the strokes of his tongue, I lean in, stretching my mouth and deepening the connection.
A groan vibrates in his chest, and my own moan claws out as his lips move deliciously, firmly, against mine, touching me in a way I’ve never wanted or enjoyed. Over the past four years, I’ve been fed pools of drool and gagged by countless probing tongues. But I’ve never been kissed. Not like this. And I’ve never kissed back. Never experienced this kind of intimacy with a man while thinking, Don’t stop.
The hands on my head guide me closer, demanding I stay with him. How crazy is it that I don’t want to be anywhere else? I can’t even close my eyes for fear he’ll disappear.
Thickets of black lashes splay over his cheekbones. The muscles in his face contract with the urgency of his swirling tongue.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he whispers against my lips then attacks my mouth with renewed hunger.
His chest and hips rock against mine. My inhales sharpen, and his exhales pull grunts of satisfaction from his throat.
“I can’t stay away.” Another drugging kiss. “I want you.” He nibbles my lower lip, licks just inside the seam, then rests his forehead against mine. “You make me want things I can’t have.”
I angle forward to refasten our mouths, but his grip on my jaw holds me still.
“We have to stop.” His fingers curl in my hair as his face draws away, leaving a tingling chill on my cheeks.
I flatten my palms on his sweat-damp chest. “I didn’t kiss you to help my chances for Leopold.”
“Oh, Ivory.” His hands tremble as they glide around my neck, over my shoulders, and down my arms. “So young and straightforward.” He grips my thighs, just below the hem of the shorts, and rolls his hips beneath my ass. “So perfect.”
The hard length of him pulses against the crotch of my shorts. Why isn’t that triggering my gag reflex? Why aren’t I curling up and reaching for the safe place in my head?
Why do I want to unzip his jeans and gaze upon that mysterious part of him? Why do I want to hold it in my hands and make his body flex in pleasure?
“This ends now.” He clutches my waist and sets me on the bench beside him.
My chest tightens, rejecting those words. No more touches? No more kisses? “What? Why?”
“It’s reckless. Dangerous.” He bows forward and braces elbows on his spread knees, staring out across the park.
“Because of Ms. Augustin?”
“She’s not a concern, but there’ll be others.” His eyes cut to mine, flinty and unmoving. “There’s always someone watching, waiting to ruin the prosperity of a life they don’t have.”
No one wants my life, and people don’t concern themselves with what happens in Treme. “You can come here and kiss me whenever—”
“I’m not a school boy, Ivory. This isn’t an innocent make-out session behind the bleachers.” In a blur of movement, he’s on me, chest against mine and strong fingers wrapped around my neck. “The things I want to do to you would give you nightmares.”
He’s trying to scare me, but he’s not cutting my air. He administers his own punishm
ents, but the sickness inside me craves more of his spankings. He doesn’t give me nightmares. He makes me float through the air in a dream.
He releases my neck and perches on the edge of the bench, putting two feet of turmoil between us. My hands shake to reach for him, my entire body aching to climb back in his lap and return to the safety of his arms. For the first time in my life, I want a man to touch me, and he’s…casting me away?
“I don’t want this to end,” I whisper, the backs of my eyes burning.
“I didn’t ask for your opinion.”
His rejection lands in my stomach like a hot coal, stealing my breath and filling my tear ducts with moisture.
“Shit.” He glares at my wet eyes, his expression paling beneath a sheen of sweat. “You cannot fall in love with me.”
“Cannot…what?” I jerk back, inhaling sharply and swiping at a runaway tear. “Oh my God, of all the cocky, arrogant things to say! I would never.”
“I’m offended.” He laughs, but it’s strained. “High school girls have a way of falling fast and ignorantly in love.”
“Well, I’m offended you think I’m that ignorant.” I tug at the hem of my shorts. “No worries, Mr. Marceaux. Thoughts of love haven’t even crossed my mind.”
He stares at the pond. “I know you’re not ignorant, Ivory. It’s just…”
With a hand resting against his mouth, he bends against his knees and watches the ducks preen and splash in the water. But he’s not really watching, not with his gaze turned inward and his expression morphing with whatever he’s thinking about.
Why would he even mention love? If his mind went there, does that mean he’s feeling something? It was a good kiss. For the love of God, it was a kiss I’ll remember for the rest of my life, one I’ll compare all future kisses against. But love? What does he even know about that?
I glance over at him, and something clicks painfully in my mind. “You loved her, didn’t you? That teacher in Shreveport? Joanne?”
Please say no.
He drops his hands, holding them between his knees, forearms braced on his thighs, as he stares at the ground.
“I still love her.” He meets my eyes. “As much as I hate her.”
Jealousy fires ignorantly through my insides, surging like bile in my throat. I would love to be loved, even if it comes with hatred. It’s better than nothing at all. “Will you tell me what happened?”
He reclines and rests an arm along the back of the bench. “I value the honesty between us.” His hand sifts through the ends of my hair. “I don’t want that to end.”
My heart squeezes at the thought of anything ending between us, but I’ll never lie to him. At least, not about the stuff that won’t get me expelled.
“We were together four years.” His fingers move through my hair, softly, hypnotically. “With Shreveport’s non-fraternization policy, our relationship was a secret. We owned separate houses, but lived together in one. Drove separately to school. Kept our interactions professional at work. Until…”
He doesn’t have to finish that sentence. I’m consumed with images of her mouth gagged with his tie, wrists bound by his belt, and her body bent as he fucked her on a desk. Is she a better musician than me? Smarter? Prettier? Did he tell her she’s so fucking beautiful, too? I ball my hands into fists. The sexual positions don’t affect me nearly as much as the idea of him doing those things with someone else.
With one hand in my hair, he scoots closer and places the other over my fists, prying them open. “We were just playing out a fantasy. Having a little fun after hours.”
“Then what happened? How did you lose—? Shit, did she set you up?”
His fingers twitch against mine. “No. But getting caught like that put her in a precarious position. She could admit she violated the non-fraternization policy, that she was willingly tied up, and lose her job in a shroud of shame that would follow her everywhere. Or she could call it what it looked like. Bound and gagged and raped. Either way, I was getting fired.”
Rape. I turn that word over in my head, examining it from all angles. I think I experience it sometimes, but I never know what to do about it. A girl can say she was forced. A man can claim she wanted it. The police decide who’s telling the truth, and if they side with the man? He will retaliate against the girl.
But it doesn’t sound like Mr. Marceaux struck back.
A crazy surge of protectiveness—for him—buzzes through me. “You could’ve defended yourself. Told them about your relationship. Proved you were living together. At the very least, she would’ve lost her job and you wouldn’t have been charged with forcing her.”
“The rape charges didn’t stick. The stigma did, but I don’t give a shit about that. There are a million things I could’ve done to ruin her job. Things I can still do.”
“But you love her.” Oh God, why does my heart hurt so badly?
His expression darkens with a deep scowl. “And she loves her career.” He pulls his hands away and sits forward on the bench, his profile etched in pain. “She’s Head of School at Shreveport now.”
What a bitch. “I’m sorry, but she sounds awful. How can you possibly love her?”
He pinches the bridge of his nose and closes his eyes. “Sometimes you love people you shouldn’t, and in the endless space of that love, nothing else matters.” When he lifts his head, his entire demeanor changes. The man in the waistcoat and tie returns with a fortified jaw and hard eyes as he rises and clasps his hands behind his back. “No more touching and kissing, Miss Westbrook. I’m your teacher, your mentor, and nothing more.”
I jump to my feet. “I would never do that to you. I can’t even fathom ruining your career.”
He laughs, but it sounds more like a snarl. “If we were caught doing something inappropriate, you would have to choose between my career and your education, between a man you’ve known for a week and a dream you’ve chased for three years. What choice would you make?”
Leopold shoves itself into my mind, but I fight it back, refusing to admit it. “We’ll be careful.”
“Exactly. Go home.” He thrusts his finger in the direction of my house.
I glance over my shoulder. If it weren’t for the trees, I’d be able to see my house from here. How does he know where I live? The address in my file?
When I look back, he’s walking away, hands tucked in his front pockets and head down. A bleeding, miserable kind of longing cleaves through my chest. He’s done.
I grab the uneaten sandwich from the bench and trudge along the track toward my house, each step heavier and harder to take. Maybe I don’t have to obey him this time? Maybe this is one of those rules that are meant to be broken?
Spinning around, I race after him. He pauses at the clapping sound of my ballet flats, his broad shoulders tightening the t-shirt. But he doesn’t turn.
I circle the towering pillar of his body, and holy hell, he’s so tall and dark and beautiful. And angry. Deep lines fan from the corners of his icy eyes, his lips a slash of displeasure, and the cords in his neck stretched beneath whiskered skin.
Bolstering my spine, I step up to him and wrap my arms around his waist. Every solid inch I touch flexes with muscle.
He holds his hands in his pockets, his chest lifting with a deep breath. “You’re disobeying me.”
I press my cheek against the ledge of his pecs. “I won’t hurt you. I promise.”
“I will hurt you.”
“Okay.”
His hands grip my shoulders, forcing me back a step, but he doesn’t let go. He bends his knees, putting his eyes at the same level as mine. “Tell me who hurt you, and I’ll give you anything you want.”
My pulse hammers, and my molars crash together. Did he plan this? Did he touch and kiss me until my head spun, only to take it all back so he could dangle it as an incentive to talk?
I back up, shifting out of arm’s reach and shaking my head.
His face tightens, and my stomach caves in. I hate disappointing h
im.
With a hand on his hip and the other pointing toward my house, he stares at the ground.
Good, because I hate his eyes. And I adore them, too. Especially when he touches me and tells me I’m beautiful. And now, he’s punishing me by refusing to look at me.
In a fog of shame, I hug the sandwich to my chest and drag my feet home. As I walk, I sneak peeks over my shoulder. He doesn’t move. I can’t see his eyes, but I know they’re following me, watching me, protecting me.
Whatever this is, however inappropriate and risky, he doesn’t want it to end. Spending four private hours a day together for the rest of the year, it’s only going to become more. More punishments, more music, more Mr. Marceaux. I don’t care what he says. This isn’t over.
“It’s over.” I slam the beer bottle down harder than I intended and cringe at the cracking sound on Mom’s glass table. Shit. I rub a finger over the chip and glance at her apologetically. “Sorry, Mom.”
“I don’t care about the damn table. I’m concerned about you.” She corks a wine bottle on the back counter and crosses the kitchen to sit beside me, a glass of red cupped in her hand. Setting it on the table, she twists the stem and gathers her words. “I know you’ve been unhappy for a while, but this is different. You’ve been a hot-tempered, sulky pain-in-the-ass for the past few weeks.”
Five weeks, to be exact.
Five weeks since I kissed Ivory. Since I felt her skin beneath my hands. Since I punished her the way we both need. Five agonizing weeks since I sent her home in the park with regret overrunning my nervous system.
“Honey.” She places her hand on my forearm and gives it a firm squeeze. “Does Joanne know it’s over?”
Joanne is still texting me, but her messages go unanswered. I know what she wants, she knows what I want, and neither of us is willing to compromise.
“She still stubbornly refuses to accept my terms.” I shove a hand through the overlong strands touching my forehead. Christ, I need a haircut. “This has nothing to do with her.”
“Oh.” Mom’s persistent blue eyes roam my face, searching for answers. “This isn’t about your car, is it?”