Dark Notes(42)

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 f*cking 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 punishments, 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.”