In a fluidity of motion, he tosses his hat, releases our safety belts, and flings his seat backward away from the steering wheel.
His hands fly to his zipper, yanking it down and freeing his hard cock. “Straddle me.”
One gravelly command, and I’m instantly wet.
I launch at him, banging a knee on the console as I tumble into his lap. He wrenches my legs around him, my ass bumping the wheel and honking the horn. We laugh with our mouths melded together, his hands under my skirt and my fingers tangled in his sexy-as-hell hair.
Yanking the crotch of my panties to the side, he plunges a finger inside me. “So fucking ready.”
Then he slams me down on his cock.
I moan through the bursting sensations, clenching my inner muscles and arching my back. He grips my ass with one hand and the back of my head with the other, thrusting vigorously and holding me so tightly he’s the only thing that exists.
He bucks beneath me with hard-hitting drives as the hand on my head directs the angle and depth of the kiss. His tongue fucks my mouth the way his cock fills my pussy. Deeply, urgently, and completely unrestrained.
His muscles shake and contract. His hoarse groans harden my nipples, and the sensual, hungry roll of his hips reduces me to a trembling puddle of surrender.
I dissolve in the steel bands of his arms as he kisses me senseless, drags me up and down his length, and jacks himself off in the clutch of my body.
I come hard and long, my nails scratching his scalp and his name howling from my throat. He shoves inside me in a ruthless grind, drops his head on my shoulder, and chases his release with a deep, throaty groan.
When he lifts his head, we stare at each other, panting, clinging tightly together, lips touching and releasing. He trails his nose along mine, his eyes so close, never looking away. I’m so lost in this man, so over my head, heart wide open, and soul quaking.
We aren’t just a teacher and student, a Dom and submissive, a man and woman.
“We’re a timeless concerto.” I kiss his lips. “A musical masterpiece.”
He drags his mouth across my jaw, his cock jerking inside me. “Like Scriabin’s ‘Black Mass?’”
Too dissonant.
I arch my neck for his lips. “I was thinking along the lines of Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy.’”
“Lame.” He bites the skin beneath my ear. “We’re more like Van Halen’s ‘Hot For Teacher.’”
Oh my God. I stifle my grin. “You’re ruining my analogy. That’s not even a concerto.”
“We’ll compose our own masterpiece.” His mouth glides down my neck, kissing and licking. “A song that will never end.”
I love the sound of that.
Ivory
Two weeks later, I trudge across the school parking lot, digging through my satchel for the car keys. The sun’s long gone, and the time is ticking somewhere south of sleep-thirty. Man, my ass is dragging.
At school, Emeric’s been working me hard behind the piano in preparation for the holiday performance this weekend. At home, he works me hard against the wall, strapped to his headboard, and kneeling beneath the heat of his belt. He’s an endless, high-intensity, cardiovascular workout. For the life of me, I don’t know where he finds his energy.
There’s only a few cars scattered in the lot, the Porsche on one end and the GTO on the other. The surrounding darkness cools the air, chilling my skin beneath the light sweater. The scarce lighting doesn’t help my search for the keys. I root around the text books in my bag, head lowered, cursing under my breath.
Found them. I punch the unlock button and wince at the loud chirp.
When I look up, I come face to face with the last person I expected to see.
Six feet away and leaning against the Porsche, my brother gives me a no-good smile. “Where’ve you been, Ivory?”
My muscles freeze up. How does he know that’s my car? Has he been following me? Does he know where I live? Who I’m living with?
I fidget with the key fob. No use hiding it. I already made the damn car light up. “It took you two months to come looking for me? Wow, Shane. I guess I should feel special you noticed me missing at all.”
He straightens and plucks a cigarette from the pack in his pocket. His buzzed blond hairline recedes from his broad pale forehead, his cheeks sunken beneath dark eyes. He looks as tired as I feel. And thinner. His jeans and flannel shirt hang on his tall, gaunt frame.
What the hell happened to him? Does this have anything to do with Lorenzo’s arrest? My chest tightens.
“Nice ride.” He lights the smoke and glides a hand over the white hood. “How’d you score it? Turning tricks?”
My trembling fingers curl around the strap of my satchel. Emeric will be right behind me, and Shane will recognize him from the night he broke Shane’s nose. If I run back inside, maybe I can circumvent him.
I pivot in the direction of Crescent Hall. Too late. Emeric’s halfway across the lot, his long strides eating up the pavement and heading right toward me. I can’t see his face from this distance, but I know exactly what I’d find in his eyes. The hairs lift on my arms.
How can I warn him that the shadowy line behind me is my brother? Anything I do will make Shane suspicious. He’s blocking my path to the car, but I could walk in the opposite direction, head down the road or something. Emeric would chase me down.
Shane would, too. He came here for a reason, and he’s not going to leave until he gets it.
There’s nothing I can do to stop this impending confrontation.
I spin back to Shane, my stomach rolling. “What do you want?”
He exhales a stream of smoke. “Mom’s gone.”
“So? She’s always—”
“No, she packed up her shit a month ago and fucking dis…” His eyes shift over my shoulder, tapering into slits. His mouth drops open in disbelief. “I fucking know that guy.”
Shit. My pulse leaps to my throat. Why couldn’t Emeric just let me handle this?
“Is there a problem here?” His chilling voice is right behind me, tingling up my spine.
Emeric steps in front of me, hands clasped behind his rigid back, his expensive suit pervading the air with authority.
Shane might’ve lost weight, but his frame is wider and taller than Emeric’s. If this turns into a physical throw down, Emeric might never be able to play piano again.
I move to Emeric’s side. He shifts with me, as if to block me again, then stops, planting his feet in a wide stance. He knows as well as I do the importance of maintaining a neutral demeanor in front of my brother. He’s here to investigate a trespasser, not to protect his girlfriend.
Shane takes him in from head to toe, flicking his ashes into the six-foot distance between them. “You work at Ivory’s school? Like a teacher or something?”
Emeric cocks his head, eyes on Shane. “Miss Westbrook, is this man bothering you?”
I need to choose my words carefully. The intensity in the way Shane’s gaze darts between Emeric and me tells me he’s trying to figure out why a teacher at my uppity school walked into a bar and punched him four months ago.
I gaze up at the stone-hard angles of Emeric’s profile and return to Shane. “This is my brother, and he was just leaving.”
Shane smirks. “Need some answers, little sis. Like, I don’t know… Who are you living with? And why did this frat boy”—he waves the cigarette at Emeric—”break my fucking nose?”
With his attention bolted on Shane, Emeric doesn’t move, not a twitch. His silence is somewhat shocking, but there’s a purpose to everything he does. A spoken word reveals things. Muteness gives less away. But Shane’s not going to let this go, so I open my mouth.
“I’m staying with a friend from school.” I arrange my lips into a display of wonderment. “She has this huge house and has all these spare cars.” I gesture at the Porsche. “Can you blame me for moving out of our dump to live in a mansion? A mansion, Shane. For real.”
He studies
me with skepticism. “Didn’t realize you gave a shit about that stuff.”
I don’t, dammit, but I can’t exactly tell him the truth. “Where did Mom go?”
He drops the cigarette and smashes it with his boot. “Don’t know.” His eyebrows pull together, his focus flitting to Emeric and back to me. “Her phone’s shut off. No note. No calls. Not even a Fuck you. Have a nice life.”
Even in her frequent absences, she always kept in touch with Shane.
I rub my arms. “Do you think she’s in trouble?”
“Nah.” He shrugs, stares at the pavement. “She found something better is all.”
Something better than family. In a way, I guess I did, too.
We exchange a suspended look, and in that tiniest sliver of a heartbeat, I see the boy I knew before he enlisted in the Marines. The brother who used to walk me to school, put gum in my hair, and draw penises in my music books. The son who loved his father as much as I did. As we stare at one another, we share a raw moment of loss, for our dad, our mom, and the love we once had for each other.
He blinks, breaking the connection, and grips the back of his neck. “Someone is still paying the bills.”
I wait for Emeric to react, but he stands still and silent like a watchtower, no doubt weighing every spoken word and preparing to expose his relationship with me if Shane does something stupid.
“I won’t leave you homeless.” For now. I send a silent thank you to the man at my side for covering the expenses and making this easier.
“I’m going away for a while.” Shane steps toward us, slowly, arms at his sides, expression sullen. “But I don’t want to lose Dad’s house.”
My head swims. “Where are you going?”
He stops within arm’s reach of Emeric and boldly plucks something from the lapel of Emeric’s jacket.
Tension seeps into Emeric’s posture, his lips flattening in a line. I stop breathing.
Shane holds up one of Schubert’s orange hairs between his pinched fingers.
A smirk twists his lips. “I used to live with a cat. Damn thing shed all over my clothes.” He flicks the hair and levels me with a knowing look. “I miss him.”
Dread swells in the back of my throat, and my skin breaks out in a sickly sweat. He knows. Oh God, he fucking knows.
His gaze touches mine, his tone bitterly soft. “Fuck you.” Shoving his hands in his pockets, he walks away. “Have a nice life.”
I hold my breath as his dark silhouette crosses the parking lot and melts into the shadows of the street. The road that will take him to the bus stop. To wherever he’s going. Hopefully to a place where he forgets all about me and the man at my side.
Emeric’s sharp whisper jolts me out of my breathless stasis. “Get in the car.”
Emeric
I stretch my gait, running harder, faster, letting the burn sink deep into my muscles. The digital display on the treadmill reads 8.07 miles. I have two more miles to go, but I might cut it short this morning. It’s Saturday, and I’m anxious to crawl back into bed with Ivory.
I’d still be with her if my internal alarm clock hadn’t woken me. Or maybe it was a nightmare. Awake or asleep, I can’t shake this chronic feeling of dread.
It’s been five days since Shane Westbrook disappeared. He walked out of the parking lot, and poof. Gone. After I put Ivory in her car, I drove the streets, looking for him. Then I turned the hunt over to my PI.
There hasn’t been a sign of him at the house—his or mine, at the bars in Treme, or anywhere in New Orleans.
Of all the ways he could expose my relationship with Ivory, I repeatedly ask myself, Why would he? He has nothing to gain from it—except my retaliation. Why bite the hand that pays his bills? Doing so would only cause him to lose his father’s house, which seemed to be the purpose of his surprise visit. That, and to say goodbye to Ivory.
Good fucking riddance.
The pound of my sneakers paces my breaths as my thoughts race ahead to tonight. The Holiday Chamber Music Celebration will be a sold-out event. Ivory is years ahead of her peers and too damn talented for the concertos she plays.
But I look forward to being there. I want to be at her side tonight and every night after, with an up-close view of every moment she shivers beneath the lights of her dreams.
Midway through my cool down, the doorbell rings. I hit the stop button and grab a towel, my pulse sprinting.
The security gate doesn’t encompass the front entry, so anyone can walk right up to the door from the street. Who the hell would be here at seven in the morning?
I jog through the house, toweling sweat from my bare chest and neck.
Ivory stands beside the open front door with her back to me, her silhouette haloed by the flush of dawn.
What the fuck is she doing? She’s blocking my view of whoever is on the porch. If it’s someone from school…
“I’m a friend of Emeric’s,” says a familiar feline voice.
In three strides, I reach the door and meet Deb’s vivid hazel eyes. She spent some time styling her light brown bob this morning, her full tits and shapely legs on display in the skimpy dress.
I suspect this visit is a mix of business and pleasure. “You should’ve called.”
“I thought…” Her smirk reveals her dirty thoughts. It slips when she meets Ivory’s glare. “I didn’t know you had company.”
It’s none of her business who I spend my time with. But she’s good people, and I have no reason to be a dick.
Ivory crosses her arms beneath her chest, her boobs threatening to spill out of her tiny camisole. Then she turns her glare on me. “You know her?”
“Yes.” I grip the muscle on the back of her arm and apply a warning pressure. “This is Deb.”
Ivory sets her jaw and widens her stance in cheeky sleep shorts that reveal more ass than they cover. My dick twitches.
“Ivory.” I wait for her to look at me. “Deb and I have a few things to discuss. Go start the coffee.”
She presses her lips flat, studying Deb from beneath her lashes, then storms off toward the kitchen.
I’m tempted to yank those sexy little shorts down and stripe her fucking ass.
The moment she disappears around the corner, Deb steps inside and caresses her hands over my pecs. “God, I’ve missed you.”
I clutch her wrist and guide her back, hardening my expression with a look that makes her posture wither.
She twists her arm until I release her, disappointment creasing her face. “Who is she?”
I close the front door. “She is serious.”
“I see that. She’s also a bit territorial, don’t you think? Where’d you find her?”
“Where isn’t important. What matters is she’s not going anywhere.”
She scans my face, and her shoulders slump. “Jesus. You love her?”
Also none of her business. I turn away and head toward the kitchen, expecting her to follow. “Did you get the recording?”
She catches up with me, dips a hand into her purse, and holds up a flash drive.
I take it from her, hoping to hell I’ll never have to use it.
In the kitchen, Ivory bends over my multi-thousand-dollar Astra coffee machine, squinting at all the switches. When she looks up, her attention locks on Deb, and a muscle bounces in her cheek.
She refocuses on me, her finger blindly, sassily, stabbing at buttons. “This thing doesn’t work.”
I feel my grin all the way to my cock. “Did you put the beans in?”
“Beans?” She stares at the funnel on top. “This?”
Adorable. With my hands on her hips, I scoot her to the side.
Deb settles in at the island behind us. “Nice place.”
The confirmation that she’s never been here should soothe some of Ivory’s bratty jealousy. I sneak a peek at her.
Nope. Ivory’s arms return to a crossed position beneath her heaving tits.
Focusing on the coffee, I level the beans in the scoop, discard
ing the ones that rise above the rim. It’s an impractical habit, one I enjoy for the pure trivia of it.
“Sixty beans?” Ivory asks.
“Yes.” I share a smile with her, marveling at the richness of her mind. “If I fill the scoop right to the rim.”
Deb watches us from the island. “Why sixty?”
Ivory leans against the counter. “Beethoven counted out sixty beans every time he brewed coffee. He claimed that made the perfect cup.” She raises her eyebrow at me. “He was rigidly meticulous.”
She’s trying to insult me, but I know she loves my attention to detail.
“So…Ivory?” Deb perches her chin on her hand. “Are you a musician, like Emeric?”
“Yes.” Ivory smiles, sweetly. “Emeric and I went to Leopold together.”
What is she up to?
Her grin doesn’t look as sweet when she glares in my direction. “He still has a hard time accepting that I graduated with higher honors than he did.”
I bite down on the inside of my cheek. I’m going to welt her so raw she sees triple.
With the coffee brewed and poured, Deb spends the next twenty minutes outlining her adulterous affair with the dean’s husband, Howard Rivard. She’s been fucking Mr. Rivard for weeks, without his knowledge of the recordings or suspicion of blackmail. It’s more than enough.
Ivory refuses to join us at the island, maintaining her stubborn position against the back counter. During Deb’s accounts, Ivory’s expression morphs between shock and disgust, all while maintaining a heavy glare of antagonism.
Deb seems oblivious, her attention completely focused on me. “For an old guy, he’s really quite virile.” She winks at me. “But he’s got nothing on you, Sir.”
“That’s it.” Ivory charges toward the island and slams a hand on the surface, the other pointing shakily at Deb. “Who is she to you?”
Glancing at my wrist, I realize I’m not wearing my watch. But I know it’s still early. I’ll have plenty of time before her performance to draw out an appropriate punishment.
Falling For The Forbidden Page 30
