Falling For The Forbidden
Page 36
She arches her neck for my mouth. “In the hall on the first day of school. Not quite the same position.”
“I wanted to restrain you just like this and bite your smart mouth.” I sink my teeth into her bottom lip, mercilessly, and release her.
Her breaths quicken. “You scared the shit out of me that day.”
“And now?”
“You scare me in a different way.” She kisses the spot over my heart, making my pulse race. “In the best way.”
“Flatten your palms against the wall.”
As she follows my order, I lean my weight against her, confining her while I tackle my belt, fumbling to loosen it. Christ, I need her. I’m shaking with the urgency to bury myself inside her and thrust hard, fast, and unapologetically. I don’t even care where we are.
I shove my slacks and briefs to my thighs and fist my dick, stroking with one hand as I yank up her dress with the other.
My fingers find her bare, soft, and soaked. Thank God, because I’m already lining up and… Ahhh! Fuck, that first thrust inside her always steals my air. She’s so tight, so wet and warm. I let go, not holding back as I slam into her, again and again, lost in the snug clasp of her body.
Her hands stay on the wall, her thighs trembling against mine.
I lift her, hook her legs around my waist, and drive my hips, deeply, viciously. “I fucking love your pussy.”
With a moan, she bows her back, ankles crossed against my ass, those dark brown eyes dilated and locked on me.
My body tightens with my desperation to come. She feels too damn good, too fucking perfect wrapped around my cock. I want to explode.
I grip the back of her head and press her mouth against mine. Not kissing. I’m too wild and frantic for that. I lock our lips, holding us tightly together, savoring her breaths, as I groan and thrust and fuck her to climax.
Her chest heaves through a series of rising moans, her hands sliding up and down the wall. The instant she clenches around me and her body shudders in release, I come so fucking hard my head spins. “Fuuuuck!”
I drop my brow to hers and hold her against the wall, lazily kissing and panting through the lingering vibrations of pleasure.
She wraps her arms around my neck, lips parted and teasing mine. “You’re all I want.”
I stroke my tongue against hers. “You’re all I need.”
“Mmm. I love that.”
I pull from the warmth of her body, knowing I’ll be back in it by the end of the day. “We only have twenty-four hours. Time to see the city.”
By way of the limo, I give her a whirlwind tour from Central Park to the Statue of Liberty. We walk the crowded streets of Times Square. We dine at a fancy restaurant I had to book two months in advance. Not my thing, but it’s something I wanted her to experience.
Late that night, we lie nude in bed in the Presidential Suite at the Four Seasons Hotel. I’ve been inside her for so long my dick’s numb. But in about twenty minutes, I’ll be ready to go again.
She watches me with heavy-lidded eyes, her arms extended above her head, wrists bound together with my belt. She doesn’t bother moving them or asking me to untie her. I’m not sure she has the energy to speak.
I slide down her curves and kiss her hip, nipping at the bone with enough pressure to make her tremble.
“How did you get into…” She twists her wrists in the shackle of the belt. “This?”
Crawling back up her body, I undo the strap and massage her arms. “When I was fifteen, I found some books stashed away in my dad’s office.”
Her eyes widen, waking with alertness. “Like dirty sex books?”
I curl my fingers around one of her tits, trussing it up to roll my tongue around the nipple. “BDSM books. Kink. Master/slave stuff. I was instantly”—hard as a fucking rock—”intrigued. The next few years, I researched it. Obsessed about it. But I wasn’t bold enough to try anything until I went to college.”
The vein in her throat pulses. “With a girl here in New York?”
“No one important.” I don’t even remember her name.
She relaxes against the soft sheets, her fingers mindlessly combing through my hair as I lick, kiss, and caress her tits. She’s so damn beautiful I can’t keep my hands off her.
Her fingers still in my hair. “What risks did you take today? If I would’ve accepted a spot at Leopold, what would’ve happened with your job and the dean?”
“The risks are null. I want you to focus on graduating.” I give her a steely look. “Trust me.”
“Okay.”
Bringing her here didn’t put her education at risk. I knew the judges would accept her. If Beverly Rivard is double-dealing behind my back, it won’t prevent Ivory from graduating from Le Moyne or achieving the future she wants.
There’s only three weeks left of school, and Beverly believes I’ve already pushed Prescott’s enrollment past the application process. I haven’t, and I’m not going to. He’ll get into a conservatory. It just won’t be Leopold. By the time Beverly learns this, Ivory will be graduated and I’ll have my resignation turned in.
I’ve done a lot of soul-searching over the past few months. Ivory wants to learn, and I want to teach. We’ll get those things from each other. Then?
She has a very specific image of what her end goal looks like… The lights, the audience, the music. My aspirations aren’t much different.
I know exactly how I’ll make our dreams align.
Emeric
The Monday following our New York trip, I find myself sitting in Beverly Rivard’s office, exchanging glares with her across the desk. I have no idea why I’m here, only that I was summoned after second period. Is this about Leopold? Andrea Augustin? Prescott? Every possibility is a vindictive intruder trying to penetrate my defenses and steal away my future with Ivory.
The eight months that I’ve known Ivory have been a goddamn war, the entire world against her and me. But Shane is located—working as a grunt for a construction crew in Tennessee. Lorenzo is still MIA—my PI is embarrassed to report the trail went cold.
I’ve been waiting for the final shoe to drop.
Beverly draws out the silence, watching me with sharp eyes, probably an attempt to make me squirm.
I’m fighting a high-adrenaline battle on the inside, but I hold my posture loose and force a bored look on my face.
She straightens the long sleeves of her suit jacket and pats at the gray-blonde bun at her nape. When she finishes her preening, she looks down her nose at me and sniffs. “I have some unfortunate news.”
Whatever it is, she seems downright smug about it. That doesn’t bode well for me.
I settle back in the chair with exaggerated casualness.
She unlocks the tablet on the desk and meets my eyes. “One of your students was expelled this morning.”
I have dozens of students, but deep down I know, I fucking know who she means, and it’s an excruciating punch in the gut.
The second punch comes when she rotates the tablet and slides it across the desk.
A soundless video plays on the screen. It’s grainy and dark around the edges, but the Le Moyne theater stage shines beneath the overhead lights. Front and center is Ivory, rising from the piano in a yellow and white daisy printed dress.
I watch in horror as she steps off the stage, walks to the edge of the screen, and kneels between a disembodied pair of legs. Darkness shrouds everything in front of her. The face, clothes, shoes, nothing identifies the person sitting in the shadows of the front row.
But I remember the seductive look in her eyes before the video shows it. I remember her words before her lips move silently on the screen.
I will crawl to you. Bow to you. Whatever you want, I want. Just…give me this.
My insides harden into fiery embers, hissing steam through my veins. If Beverly’s gaze wasn’t burning into me, if the consequences of this video weren’t boiling me into combustible rage, I would watch the remainder of it with a stiff co
ck and a hungry smile. Instead, I force myself to watch it as the man Beverly thought she hired. A jaded, insensitive teacher who only cares about his own agenda.
I pace my breathing and mask my expression, elbow on the arm rest, chin resting on a loosely fisted hand. I would turn off the video, but I need to know if the camera angle captured me when I exited.
The footage shows an indistinguishable hand in Ivory’s hair and her head bobbing up and down in a lap. It ends with her following an obscure silhouette into the dark.
Nothing on the video incriminates me. Hard to find relief in that when Ivory’s been kicked out of school three weeks before her fucking graduation.
Beverly studies my face, her mouth pinched in a line. She’s looking for a reaction from me. It takes every ounce of control I have to not give her one as a rapid-fire of questions riddle my thoughts with bleeding holes.
I’m not Ivory’s only teacher, but I bet I’m the only one Beverly called in for a video viewing. What does she know? The footage is five months old. How long has she been sitting on it? Why is she just now using it?
Some of those answers might reveal themselves if I understood how and why the theater was equipped with a live camera.
I cock my head. “Signed parental consent is required by law to photograph or film a student, especially when it invades her privacy. What are you thinking? You know those laws are there specifically to protect student misconduct from public attention.”
She turns her glare to the tablet in front of me. “The school didn’t place the camera. It was someone’s personal device.”
There we go. That someone is either Andrea Augustin or Prescott. Both knew I moved Ivory’s lessons to the theater, and both have a reason to fuck me over. But if they set me up, they would know it was me in the footage.
My pulse hurtles as I push a dispassionate tone through my voice. “Did you interrogate Miss Westbrook before you sent her home?”
“Yes, of course. She refused to…participate.”
“Explain.”
“She didn’t say a word after I showed her the video.” She shrugs. “It’s her funeral.”
Christ, Ivory must be freaking the fuck out right now. Why hasn’t she called me?
My temperature rises, but I maintain a cool façade. “She wouldn’t tell you the identity of the boy in the video?”
Beverly huffs. “She wouldn’t answer any of my questions.”
In a student-teacher affair, the student is a victim and therefore immune to school punishment or criminal action. All Ivory had to do was say my name, and she would’ve been exonerated.
Instead, she let Beverly assume her sexual misconduct was with another student, knowing it would result in her own expulsion. Four years at Le Moyne, and she gave up her high school diploma. A Le Moyne diploma. One that her father sacrificed everything for her to receive.
And she walked away from it.
To protect me.
I’ll rectify that right now.
“That’s me.” I tap the video screen.
Beverly blinks. “Mr. Marceaux—”
“Surely you figured that out based on the substantial size of the cock.” I grin. “I can pull it out if you need proof.”
She looks like she’s going to throw up, but beneath the disgust, there isn’t a hint of shock. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but I don’t believe for a minute you intend to ruin your career and go to jail for that…that…” She winces at my murderous glare. “Girl.”
The evidence of how deep I will go for Ivory is rotting at the bottom of a Louisiana swamp.
I pull the phone from my pocket and call her.
Beverly stretches an arm across the desk. “What are you doing?”
“Emeric.” The sound of Ivory’s tear-soaked voice makes my chest cave in.
I press the phone tighter to my ear. “Where are you?”
“Sitting in the parking lot.” Her tone rises an octave. “Oh God, Emeric. I wanted to call you, but I was afraid you would be with the dean and—”
“I’m with her now.” I smile at the sight of Beverly viciously grinding her jaw. “Come back inside.”
“But I’m—”
“You’re not expelled. Go directly to her office.” I end the call.
Beverly jerks forward, hands fisted on the desk and eyes hard and tapered. “I’m going to turn you in to the authorities.”
Except she hasn’t made the call yet.
Because she still needs my referral for Prescott. And because misconduct between a student and teacher would be bad publicity for Le Moyne.
“Let’s get to the point, Beverly.” I set the phone on my knee and drum my fingers against it. “It’s clear you pulled this video out of your arsenal to get rid of Ivory. Tell me why you chose today, of all days, to do it.”
She straightens and draws in a deep breath. “I received a disturbing call last night.” An angry flush rises up her neck. “You took her to Leopold. For an audition.”
My assumptions were right about her double-dealing connections. “Who called you?”
“Someone who has access to the admittance records. The Leopold faculty is all in a buzz about the young virtuoso from Le Moyne. Yet not one person there has mentioned Prescott’s name.”
I’m going to go out on a limb here. “Prescott set up that camera and gave it to you months ago. You didn’t want to use it because you didn’t want the scandal. Now you’re panicking, because you realized I have no intention of pushing your worthless son past the auditions.”
One, he’s not good enough for Leopold. Two, I’ve drawn attention to myself after Ivory’s audition. The Leopold faculty would question why I didn’t bring Prescott for an audition as well. Someone would dig, and it would lead to my mom’s involvement.
Beverly called me in so she could deliver Ivory’s unfortunate news herself and gloat over having the upper hand. She expected me to let Ivory take the fall alone and push Prescott through to keep my job.
Now, in a weak grasp at straws, she’s threatening to call the authorities. Except the video doesn’t implicate me.
She’s got nothing.
I pull the tablet closer and launch a browser. “Ivory will graduate from Le Moyne, and you will treat her with the utmost respect.”
“No!” Beverly glares at me so hard I think her eyeballs might burst. “I want her out of my school.”
Logging onto a cloud storage platform, I access the account I set up in the event Beverly decides to be a bitch.
Kicking Ivory out of school? Definitely a bitch.
I cue up the first video and turn the tablet, rather enjoying the symbolic turning of tables.
Beverly snatches it from my hand. As she stares at the screen, her fingers clench around the plastic casing.
A fist knocks softly on the door.
I leave Beverly to watch her husband pile drive Deb’s ass and open the door. I’m met with huge brown eyes, red-rimmed and swollen.
Ivory silently steps in. I shut the door, tangle our fingers together, and guide her to one of the chairs in front of Beverly’s desk.
We sit side by side, hand in hand. She moves her gaze from our fingers to Beverly then to my face, her eyebrows lifting in question.
I would love to kiss her, but that might be pushing it. “Beverly was just about to tell you to return to class.”
Beverly looks up from the screen, her complexion a sheet of white. She doesn’t cry or rage or freeze up. I suspect she already knew her husband cheated. But given her strong need to maintain an image that captivates and impresses everyone around her, she wouldn’t want anyone to know her marriage is a steaming pile of shit.
I imagine right about now she’s mentally shitting herself as she thinks through the fallout if those videos were ever made public. Her career as dean? Fucked. Her husband’s face on all his car commercials? Forever associated with the money shot on Deb’s ass. Prescott’s connections to other colleges? As worthless as his musical ability.
With a look of defeat, she powers off the tablet and sets it down. “What do you want?”
I squeeze Ivory’s hand. “I already told you.”
Beverly sets her jaw. “I can’t allow this…” She waves a hand between us. “To go on in my school. End things with Miss Westbrook.”
Like hell. But I’m willing to compromise. “Ivory stays. I’ll submit my resignation immediately.”
Ivory flinches beside me. “Emeric, don’t—”
I cinch my fingers around her wrist in a tight shackle, reminding her to trust me. I have her.
My unwavering gaze narrows on Beverly. “Tell Ivory to return to class.”
Beverly stares at me from across the desk, her eyes deep cauldrons of hatred. “Miss Westbrook, return to class.”
Ivory
I wake the same way I do most mornings. Drowsy, happy, horny. Except today is different.
Today, I’m a drowsy, happy, horny Le Moyne Academy graduate.
Yesterday’s ceremony was held in the campus theater. The very same theater that almost cost me that diploma. Stogie and Emeric’s parents were there. The dean demanded Emeric not show his face, though I’m certain I glimpsed his fedora in the crowd. When I asked him about it, he kissed me into a warm, gooey stupor. I’d love one of those kisses now.
I reach behind me, expecting to bump into warm skin. Instead, I encounter cold, vacant blankets.
Blowing out a breath, I sit up and glance at the clock. 7:13 AM.
Damn him. He told me the morning workouts would stop. I hate waking up alone.
I climb out of bed, wrap a robe around my nude body, and set off to find him.
Ten minutes later, I come up empty and check the garage. The GTO is gone. Maybe he’s picking up breakfast?
As I shuffle into the kitchen, something moves in my periphery. “The hell?”
I spin just as a tiny streak of black darts across the floor and disappears around the island. Is there a rat in the house?
Cautiously, I tiptoe around the corner and gasp. “Oh my… What?” I cover my smile with trembling fingers.