Dark Notes(13)

He watches me with those arctic blue eyes, and I’m not sure if I’m supposed to head toward the nurse’s office or wait to be dismissed. For some reason, it matters. Like he’s testing me. So I wait.

He’s a mercurial, heartless *, but he also surprised me. He didn’t force his mouth against mine, didn’t dig his fingers between my legs. He…stepped back?

Maybe I still have a chance to prove I’m not just a poor girl or a five-minute grope in a hallway.

A recurrent of sharp clicking sounds fills the silence between us. I follow the noise with my gaze, trailing over his tie and waistcoat, visually tracing along the dark dusting of hair on his exposed forearm, and pause on the mechanical watch on his wrist.

Moving wheels with tooth-like points whirl inside the enormous face, ticking, measuring the rhythm of time, like a metronome. Will each ticking moment I spend with him be an irreversible succession into the future? Or will he hold me here, stuck in the present, in this life?

“Miss Westbrook.”

I snap my attention to his face, the angled lines of his jaw, the darker shades of his cheeks where stubble will grow in, and the curve of lips that haven’t been injured by circumstance. He seems untouchable. Maybe his fists are as brutal as his beauty. Just looking at him feels like I’m inhaling a lungful of fire.

Because he’s dangerous, and he seems to know this, too, as he thrusts an impatient finger in the direction of the nurse’s office, his voice fueled with urgency. “Go.”

I turn and hurry down the hall with the weight of his gaze pressing against my back.





As Ivory darts down the hall, she doesn’t look back, doesn’t dare meet my eyes. But the frantic rush of her steps tells me enough. I affect her. Not my professional bearing, but my masculine presence. I terrify her.

A wide grin stretches my mouth.

Separated by the length of the corridor, I still feel the what-ifs firing between us. I know she imagined us together when I corralled her against the wall. I’m certain she felt the power exchange, maybe even detested it, as it stuttered her inhales and dilated her pupils. And still, she waited for my permission to leave.

Knowing that, watching her run away, the sight of her curvaceous body swaying innocently, all of it ignites a predatory need inside me. The need to chase.

But I won’t. Not here. Not ever. I release a breath and wait for my hard-on to receive the message.

The moment she vanishes around the corner, I slouch against the wall.

She’s exactly the kind of woman I’m drawn to. A woman who flees when hunted and comes alive when she’s caught. A woman who bends beneath punishments and seeks acceptance in her humiliation. A woman who bites at a heavy hand, only to melt around the unforgiving grip when it cuts her air.

I demanded her honesty—no sniveling excuses or lies—and expected her to recoil, disobey, or tell me to f*ck off. But she didn’t, couldn’t. It was the moment I realized it’s her nature to give me what I want. When she exposed the embarrassing details of her poverty, offering up her vulnerabilities for me to mock at, heaven help me, it was beautiful and tragic and seductive—a trinity of temptation.

A greedy throb tightens the front of my pants, but the reaction means f*ckall. It’s simple, really. I want sex. Filthy, kinky sex. Nothing more. As raw and enraged as I am about my last mistake, I’m unwilling to move on, unable to let go of Joanne. But I’m also vicious in my resentment and vindictive enough to f*ck as many women as possible with the brutal dominance Joanne craves and can no longer have. Maybe she’ll choke on her poisonous jealousy.

Which makes Ivory a tantalizing tease. I can give her exactly what she needs. I can train her, objectify her, and defile her, and she’d let me, because surrender is the very fabric of her sexuality.

But I could also lose myself in her, because she’s the kind of woman I make mistakes for.

Except she’s not a woman.

As a senior, she’s at least seventeen, the legal age of consent. But she’s still a child, ten years my junior, and sexual conduct between teacher and student is punishable by imprisonment, regardless of age.

The notion is sobering, deflating my dick and making it a hell of a lot easier to keep my hands to myself.

Back in the classroom, the students bombard me with questions about the chromatic scale and the circle of fifths. Slowly, my fixation with Ivory slips into the recesses of my mind.

Until the door opens, and her dark eyes instantly find mine.

I continue the lecture as she slides behind her desk, her bottom lip glazed in a sheen of ointment. I don’t give her more than a half-second glance. I’m the adult here, the one in control of our interactions. Ignoring my fascination with her, pretending I don’t want to devour her with my gaze, sets appropriate boundaries. I’m here to teach her, and that doesn’t include instructions on how to properly suck my cock.

To be honest, despite my disgraceful end as Head of School in Shreveport, I’m excited to be back in the classroom. Nothing fills me with a sense of belonging like standing before a rapt audience and commanding attention with the sound of my voice. This isn’t a job. It’s a creditable use of my need to influence and dominate, a place where I can discipline weaknesses, mold trustful minds, and inspire students with my passion for music.

My veins thrum with energy as I listen to the class discuss the application of an invariant hexachord. I straddle a chair at the front of the room, nodding in encouragement and interjecting only when they stray off topic. They look to me for knowledge, shiver beneath my directives, and I get off on it.