I swallow. I don’t know how I feel about the choking. Does it go beyond my comfort zone? What will he try next? “Why do you want to push me like that?”
“It’s the ultimate trust, and the power in that is unparalleled.”
Despite the unease gurgling inside me, I manage to keep my voice steady. “I don’t want anyone to have power over—”
“No, Ivory. You’re the one with the power. You set the limits and decide when it stops.” He frowns down at me as a twitch skates across his hairless chest. “You didn’t use your safe word.”
Fuck, I forgot. “I couldn’t talk with your hand—”
“Bullshit. You didn’t try.”
I adjust the shirt over my thighs. “That’s the lesson, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Without another word, he steps inside the closet, leaving me in a flushed heap of turmoil.
A few minutes later, he emerges fully clothed and tells me to come to the kitchen when I’m ready to go.
The purpose of his lesson consumes me as I shower, brush my hair and teeth, and dress alone in his bedroom. I know my perceptions of sex and men are jaded, but the pressure of his hand on my throat was nothing compared to the past four years of pain and fear. Doesn’t make his methods acceptable, but the shockingly harsh way he does things might actually be effective.
The next time he makes me uncomfortable, I’m positive I’ll be thinking about that safe word. And he’ll heed it. Since I’ve known him, he hasn’t taken a single thing I wasn’t willing to give. My God, there is power in that. Knowing he’ll stop when I say the word makes me feel taller, steadier…lighter.
I tread down the stairs in the soft leather of new shoes. The adorable flats have little silver spikes and black mesh around the toes. They add a trendy touch to the red woven dress. The three-quarter sleeves will keep me warm in the autumn evenings. The straight hem goes past my knees, and the bodice has this cool sash that crisscrosses from back to front and ties at my waist.
The whole outfit makes me feel elegant and…cherished. A niggling voice in my head reminds me that I didn’t earn these clothes. Except Emeric gave them to me under the very clear understanding that I belong to him and, in turn, everything he possesses is mine. Hard to wrap my mind around that. But for now, I’ll wear the clothes because his gift means more to me than my damnable pride.
I find him sitting at the island in the kitchen, picking through a plate of pastries topped with eggs, cheese, and bacon. His attention jumps to me, and he freezes. Only his eyes move, heating beneath dark brows as he makes an unhurried tour up and down my body.
It’s obvious he bought these clothes because my current wardrobe is lacking. But when he continues his head-to-toe perusal, I realize he went shopping because he was thinking about me, maybe imagining how I would look dressed in the things he likes.
On the final pass, his rock-hard facial features soften with satisfaction. Something inside me catches and holds. I put that look on his face by accepting his gift. I don’t know what it is, but knowing I please him meshes so well with all the new feelings he stirs in me.
He meets my eyes. “Luckiest dress on the planet.”
My heart trundles into a cadenza of heavy beats. “Can’t believe how well it fits.”
He glances at my lips. “Sit down and eat.”
His brown paisley necktie, off-white button-up, and brown slacks would look old-fashioned on another man. But on him, it’s a statement in designer metro-sexy. Hell, he could wear a popped collar and bedazzled cutoffs, and women would drop their panties as he walks by.
The robust scent of coffee swirls around me as I sit beside him. “No waistcoat today?”
“Jacket weather.”
I glance at the brown suede jacket draped over the back of his seat. The long sleeves might help hide the cuts on his knuckles.
He loads up my plate, pours my juice, and rests a hand on my thigh. I haven’t been cared for this way since my dad was alive. Sitting here in nice clothes, putting food in my belly, I study him as a fatherless girl would her protector, as a student with her teacher, but more than that, I look at him as a woman opening her heart to a man.
He fills so many voids in my life, and my desire for him only knits me closer, tighter to a world I’ve only dreamed about. A world where I interact with a man because I want to, because he cares about me as much as I care about him.
Except he says I’m not ready.
Before I met him, gentleness was all I wanted, but now?
When I began formal musical studies, I gained an acute appreciation for Bach’s kickass usage of counterpoint. Those who don’t know how to listen to his music only hear a mess of noisy lines. But what he composed was multiple melodies, with each hand playing a different version of the same song.
Emeric applies counterpoint in everything he does. With one hand, he taps with tenderness and self-control while his other bangs with intensity and dominance. His methods may be contradictory, but he executes them in perfect harmony.
I set down the fork and grip his fingers on my thigh. “How will I know when I’m ready?”
He lifts my hand and presses a kiss on my palm. “I will know.”
I search his face, lingering on his sculptured lips, freshly-shaved jaw, and ultramarine eyes. “Then what?”
Promises dance like sinister notes in his gaze. “Then you’ll be grateful for that safe word.”
A shiver licks my spine, and an ache flares between my legs. I want what he’s offering as much as I don’t want it. Or maybe I want to not want it.
I rub the back of my neck then dig into breakfast.
He scrapes his plate clean and pushes it away. “When you’re not at school or here, you won’t leave my side.”
I choke, mumbling around the cheesy bite. “How does that work?”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full.”
Chewing quickly, I swallow. “When I go home—”
“You live with me now.”
I stiffen as his words penetrate my eardrums. I hear them, but their meaning isn’t syncing with my brain.
He sips his coffee, glances at his phone, and looks up at me like he told me to come for dinner, not fucking move in.
I stare at him with my mouth hanging open. “You’re fucking with me.”
Lifting his mug to his lips, he stares right back, not a hint of a smile in his eyes.
He’s serious.
Did I miss an entire conversation where he asked me to move in? Oh wait. He doesn’t ask for anything.
I slouch against the back of the stool. “This is because of Lorenzo.”
“It’s a convenient reason.” He refills his mug with the carafe on the island and returns to his phone.
Damn his anti-I can’t rule, because I want to scream those words repeatedly. “It’s against the law. You’re my teacher!”
“You’re my girl.” He lazily swipes the screen on his phone. “That’s the only law you need to worry about.”
What? My head hammers. “You’re insane.”
“You’re mine.”
“What if someone finds out?”
He scrolls through his email, not a care in the world. “My problem.”
“But Schubert—”
He drops the phone and crashes his lips against mine with a kiss that says Shut up and trust me. Then he leans back and returns to his email. “We’re picking up the cat after school.”
Emeric
Three lots away from Ivory’s house, I idle the GTO on the street while she feeds the cat. The orange motorcycle isn’t here, but I don’t know if anyone else is home.
If I had a legal explanation for arriving with her at six-thirty in the morning, I’d be in that house with her right now. Instead, I’m forced to monitor her from afar, through the connection between our phones, ready to do whatever is needed to be her anchor point of protection.
The first light of dawn illuminates the patchy shingles on the surrounding homes. I hold my phone in a tight gr
ip, hating that I can’t see her moving around inside. But I hear her through the speaker. Every rasp of her breath through the ear piece draws my own.
Before we left my house, I gave her the phone I bought for her weeks ago. She cradled it in her hands as if it were the priceless Vieuxtemps violin, her pale expression suffused with reluctant acceptance. I look forward to her reaction when I give her a car.
“Is your mom or brother there?” I ask though the phone.
“Both,” she whispers. “Asleep.”
If I hear a gasp or a single troubling sound, I’ll be on that doorstep in under ten seconds.
I flex my hand on the steering wheel, the bruised knuckles peering out from beneath the overlong sleeve. Ivory probably knows the real reason I’m wearing the jacket is to hide the cuts. I don’t want her worrying about what people assume or don’t assume. That’s my job.
As I focus on the rustle of her movements through the phone, my mind wanders back to the bedroom this morning and the erotic way her neck felt in the collar of my grip. She trusts me, yet she panicked, fighting with her body and begging me with her eyes, just as she would with any other man. That’s unacceptable.
Asphyxiation, whipping, deriving pleasure from any kind of pain and humiliation isn’t for the faint of heart. If I had any doubt about what arouses her, my approach would be different. If she were too timid to hold my gaze, she probably wouldn’t have caught my eye in the first place.
If she was anyone else, I wouldn’t be sitting here, one-hundred-percent invested and risking my neck to be with her.
Ivory Westbrook isn’t fragile. She’s built for my brand of protection and appetite for dominance. Treating her with kid gloves would do a great disservice to her.
Her emotional strength is one of the many reasons I’m so wildly attracted to her. Yes, she’s the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen, but I’m spellbound by the entire package. She stands up to me when she thinks I’m wrong, yet grows wet beneath the force of my voice and the heat of my belt. I bet my grandfather’s Fazioli that normal monotonous sex with an unassertive man would stifle her.
Whether those qualities stem from her submissive nature or her abusive past, it’s my responsibility as her first real sexual partner to make her aware of the many facets of pleasure. Sex doesn’t have to conform to society’s standards to be sane. It doesn’t have to be slow and tender to be safe. And it doesn’t have to be free of leather cuffs to be consensual.
She’s learning, but how aware is aware enough? This is the hard part.
I want her, and that need is an endless throbbing beat inside me, like an unwritten song banging against my ribcage to get out. Moving her into my home and sleeping beside her while not fucking her is pure torture. But I know she’s aware of my restraint, and I also know how much she appreciates and respects it.
The fact that I ache to truss her up, sink my teeth into her tits, and strangle her gasps isn’t the issue. The very circumstance of her abuse combined with my role as her teacher makes even the gentlest intimacy with her tricky. I could coax her legs open with eloquent words, fuck her sweetly, and she’d let it happen because it’s the only way she knows how to respond to a man.
Well, fuck that. Before I enter her body, she’ll be with me mentally and emotionally, on her terms, making a conscious choice between stopping me or surrendering to me. Unlike this morning when my hand was around her throat. She neither yielded nor used her safe word. Because she doesn’t yet understand what it really means to be willing.
A few minutes later, she returns to the car and latches the seat belt.
I hit the gas, taking in her relaxed posture in the edge of my periphery. “They didn’t wake up?”
“Nope.” A soft smile touches her lips. “Schubert misses me.” She turns in the seat to face me. “Emeric, we need to talk—”
“If this is about moving in, it’s non-negotiable.”
“I have a say in where I live.”
“Not when it comes to your safety.” I veer onto Rampart Street and head toward Le Moyne. “With Shane and Lorenzo in that house, I don’t need to tell you how un-fucking-safe it is to live there.”
She purses her lips into a frown.
I rest my hand on her thigh. “Stop fighting this.”
“I’m your student. If someone figures out I’m living with—”
“I will be arrested, and you will be free and clear of any consequences.”
“Exactly. I don’t want that!”
“The risk is mine.” I infuse my voice with authority, a tone that reminds her I’m the solution for her situation simply because I’m in charge, in control, and it is my purpose, above all else, to keep her safe. “This is my decision, and you will not question me about it again.”
As I slow at a stoplight, she unlatches her seat belt and leans over the console.
Her hand makes a familiar sweep through my hair, her eyes smiling up at me. “You’re sort of charming when you get all serious and bossy.” She lowers her chin and deepens her voice. “Like I’m the man, laying down the law, and this is how it’s going to be.”
Cute. I shake my head, fighting back a grin.
She tightens her fingers against my scalp and moves her mouth a hair’s width away. “But I have my own mind and voice, and you’re going to hear it whenever and however I want.”
I stare at her lips, amused and aroused. “I expect nothing less, Miss Westbrook.”
Just as she expects me to shut her down when she questions me.
“Good.” A glimmer flickers in her gaze. “You should also expect that I won’t be giving up on Leopold.”
Of course, she won’t, which means I need to figure out how to make it work.
She slides her fingers to my jaw, cupping my face as she kisses me. No one from Le Moyne would venture into this part of town, so passing motorists can gawk all they want.
I lick her lips and press forward to join our tongues. Just a nuzzling stroke, a suggestive movement, but that’s all it takes. She moans, angling her head for a deeper connection, her chest shifting closer, heaving for air. Christ, her desire is as staggering as my own.
The traffic light is going to change any second. I don’t give a shit. I take over the kiss, gripping her hips and wrenching us together against the console. With my foot firmly pressed on the brake, I give her a thorough teasing with my tongue, stabbing and lashing between her lips, as my hand shifts lower to grab her ass in a bruising grip.
A honk sounds behind us. We pull apart, laughing through heavy breaths like school kids.
I propel the car forward, my attention darting between her and the road. “Every time I see you today, I’m going to think about that kiss.”
She tucks her hair behind her ear and gives me a sultry look. “Me, too.”
As blocks of buildings blur by, we settle into a vibrating nexus, a wordless bond strengthened with an exchange of lingering glances and smiles. It’s such a comfortable thing, this energy between us, like we’re in our own private world, where past mistakes, college dreams, and student-teacher laws don’t exist. Here, in this secluded suspension of time and space, nothing can break us apart.
I weave our fingers together in her lap. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
She rolls her tongue against the inside of her cheek. “It’s weird sitting in your car, dressed in nice clothes, feeling stuffed from a huge breakfast. My stomach’s happy.” She closes her eyes then opens them, locking on mine. “I’m happy. And scared. I guess I’m scared a lot, but happiness… That doesn’t come around very often, and I’m so afraid to lose it.”
She’s probably thinking of her father and the security she lost when he died.
I want to command her to leave all the worrying to me, but it doesn’t work that way, so I offer her a different perspective. “When we’re together, Ivory, when it’s just you and me like this, happiness can only be limited by us. We make the rules and decide how this is going to go. Our world is as boundless and r
eal as our feelings for each other.”
She lifts my hand and places a kiss on my fingers. “Thank you.”
“For?”
“For always knowing what to say.” She holds my hand beneath her chin. “For feeding me. For letting me feed Schubert. For the phone, the clothes, and—”
“You’re welcome.”
I swear her heart is wrapped around mine, stretching and purring and rubbing against the walls of my chest. It’s exhilarating and terrifying, the way she sneaked inside me so swiftly.
A few blocks from school, I pull over on a quiet side street. “I’m not happy about this.”
She opens the door and tosses me an easy smile. “I walk to school every day.”
“I don’t like the secrecy.”
Been there, did this dance with Joanne. Ivory deserves better.
But if I’m caught, she goes back to Treme, Lorenzo Gandara, and financial desperation. I’m the one responsible for protecting her everything.
I grip the back of her neck and pull her in for a kiss. “It won’t always be this way.”
When she graduates, I won’t be her teacher. Our relationship will be legal and… She’ll go to college, wherever that may be. Then what? Will I follow her? Will she want me to? She won’t have a fucking choice.
She rests her forehead against mine. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
My face inflames as conviction hardens my gut. “I’ll do whatever—”
She presses her soft lips against mine and instantly abates my rising temper, kissing me until my dick swells.
Too soon, she pulls back. “We can discuss the future after I absorb everything that’s happening right now.”
With that, she slips out of the car, her killer body, fuckable ass, and long legs all back lit by the sun. Fucking stunning.
Shouldering her new satchel, she bends down to poke her head in. The neckline of her red dress drops open, giving me an unholy view of her firm young tits heaving against the red silk bra.
She catches me staring and raises an eyebrow.
Falling For The Forbidden Page 22
