Dark Notes(55)

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 f*cking 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.