And the last person I’d ever want to hurt is Evelyn. I may love fucking with her with every fiber of my being. She makes me feel things I don’t understand when she squirms and cowers. But I’d never physically bring her harm. I’d die before doing that. I’d kill before allowing anyone else to either.
But what if she likes the pain? The woman at the club said she enjoyed watching Evelyn’s “scene” involving a bullwhip. I’m not sure what a scene is exactly, but a fucking bullwhip? There’s no way a goddamn bullwhip could bring anything but excruciating pain to Ms. Richards’s soft, smooth, perfect, and delicate flesh. Flesh I finally allowed myself to feel as I stroked her beautiful face, and then as I wiped away the lone tear she shed. Does she have scars hidden beneath those prim and proper clothes she wears at school?
No. No, I saw nearly every inch of her supple skin. The image of her standing there in that dark-blue lace underwear will be seared into my mind and spank bank until the day I die. She is a prudish, nerdy librarian by day, and a walking wet dream by night. And now my brain scrambles to come up with a plan. What will I say to her when we’re back at her place?
“You could ruin my life,” she whimpered. And it tugged at my heart I didn’t even know I had. The fear and sadness in her voice, and the actual words she said. I’d murder anyone who’d even think to try to bring ruin to her life, but she doesn’t need to know that. If she believes that about me, then that means she’ll do what I want. She’ll willingly do as I say if she continues to think I’ll hold her secret over her head, ready to drop it at the first sign of her disobedience. But that’ll never happen. I’ll never do anything to hurt her—at least, nothing she doesn’t beg for.
Minutes later, I pull in next to her car in her driveway. I lock my truck behind me and stride to her driver side door before she has a chance to open it, seeing through the window that she’s gripping her steering wheel with both hands, her car still running, as if she’s trying to decide if she wants to punch it in reverse and speed away from what’s about to happen.
I can’t let that happen. Not when I’m the closest I’ve ever been to figuring out things I’ve wanted to know about myself for years. So I grip her door handle and pull.
Locked.
My nostrils flare, and I bend to peer at her face through the window. When she turns her head to look at me, it’s the terror I see in her eyes that keeps me from growling at her like I want to. Instead, I keep my voice low and even. “Come on, little mouse. Time to go inside.”
It takes her a moment, as her eyes take in my whole face, and I soften my features, tamping back some of the anxiousness I feel to get her inside so we can finally talk. I give her a smile, one I hope comes across as friendly and soothing instead of the kind I usually give her that makes her squirm. It must work, because she finally nods, and when she turns off her car, the doors automatically unlock. I yank the handle quickly before she can have a chance to change her mind.
She unbuckles her seat belt then pushes a button, and her trunk pops open. I stand back, allowing her to get out and close the door herself before she walks to the back of her car. But I stay on her heels, ready to defend myself if I see she’s reaching for some sort of weapon. Yet, she only pulls out her purse she’d locked inside while she was at the club.
I brace when she reaches inside it, my muscles tense and ready to strike if she pulls out pepper spray, or even a gun. But again, it’s something harmless, just her keyring, seeing as her car’s key fob had been separate when I handed it to her out of her pocket outside the club.
I pull the trunk closed for her, and she murmurs a quiet thanks before she starts up the walkway to her front door. Lights come on as we pass the sensor, illuminating the porch. My hands in my pockets, I stand behind her as she tries to ring the lock, but her hands are trembling so badly she drops her keys.
“Shit!” she hisses, and she glances behind her quickly, seeing how close I’m standing to her before facing the door once again. If she were to bend to get her keys, she’d have no choice but to press her ass against the front of my thighs, and she must realize this, because she seems to collapse forward, her forehead coming to rest on her front door as her shoulders sag—defeated.
I hear one soft sniffle, and it brings me to my knees, literally. I kneel behind her, reaching between her feet and grabbing the keys that landed on the welcome mat she’s standing on, and I can’t help but linger a moment, trailing a finger along the delicate bone of her ankle above the black leather of her sexy shoe.
She sucks in an audible breath, her back straightening above me, and then she turns around slowly, looking down at me. Her eyes are swimming with tears. She’d taken her mask off in the car, and it’s the first time I’ve ever seen her without glasses on. She was intriguing and beautiful before, but as I look up into her face now from where I kneel at her feet, she looks like a broken angel. With our eyes locked, she stops crying, and I watch as hers bounce back and forth between my own. I feel at peace inside for the first time in my life, looking up at this woman as she stands above me.
When she holds out her hand for me to give her the keys, I unhurriedly stand instead so as not to spook her, taking the one that’s shaped like a house and sticking it in the lock with a steady hand. I take a step back and gesture for her to continue, and she blushes and turns away to face the door once more with another quiet “thank you” before turning the key, twisting the knob, and pushing the door open.
She takes the key out and drops them into her purse and then hangs it on a hook on the wall of the small foyer. When she flips on the light, I shut and lock the door behind me and look ahead of her into the house.
It’s small but clean, everything neat and tidy, and a part of me relaxes. She takes a few steps inside and flips on another light, illuminating a library, and I can’t help but smile. Why wouldn’t the school librarian have an impressive collection of her own?
“Um…” she starts, and I turn to face her. “I’m… I’m going to go change.”
My hands in my pockets, I trail my eyes over her trench coat, remembering what’s beneath it. I could make her take it off and stay in just her bra and panties. I know I could. She’s that petrified of the information I now have on her. But that won’t do anything to build trust between us. And I have a feeling that what I’m going to request of her is going to require trust too rather than fear alone.
“Where would you like me, Ms. Richards?” I ask, letting inuendo coat my tone, and I know she caught it when the blush rises in her cheeks once more.
She shifts on her feet. “Um… anywhere really. I have… well, I have the chair in there, or the couch in the l-living room.” She takes a couple steps and gestures to something I can’t see yet from this side of the wall. “Or… or the kitchen table is fine,” she adds, pointing to the other side of her, where the kitchen is.
“Anywhere, you said? So you wouldn’t mind if I joined you in your room while you change?” I taunt, lifting a brow, and smirk when her eyes widen.
“No!” she cries then clears her throat. “I-I mean, no, I’ll just take a minute. Make yourself comfortable… out here.” And then she spins around and hurries to the back of the house, disappearing into a room and closing the door behind her.
I chuckle to myself, strolling farther into her modest home until I’m standing in her living room. As small as the place is, I don’t feel cramped. It feels cozy, everything in whites and grays with a dark-gray floor covered in a lighter rug. She has one comfortable-looking love seat and a matching chair, as if she doesn’t really ever have company over, so she doesn’t have a need for much seating. Peeking into the kitchen, I see the table is a two-seater, not four or six, and I realize she probably only has the second chair because it came as a matching set.
How lonely she must feel. Is that why she’s part of a sex club, a place that would more than likely guarantee adult company? But with the masks she and the employee were wearing, and the ones the people wore who entered the club while
I had her pressed to the wall, it seemed everyone wanted to keep their identities hidden. So it was just sex then? Because surely that wouldn’t be a very viable way to meet people you’d want to start a relationship with, no one knowing who you are or anything about you other than your sexual appetite. One thing I’ve learned from hearing other adults talk is that a relationship based on sex has no potential of lasting. It’s why my parents always tried to force into my mind that I shouldn’t be having sex with girls I care nothing about. It would lead to nothing good, so I shouldn’t be doing it.
Yet wasn’t the plan I conjured on the ride over here basically the same thing? If she goes along with it, won’t it just be a relationship based on sex?
No, there’s already more to it than just sex, and we haven’t even done anything yet. The feelings she provokes in me… they have nothing to do with sex, and I’ll just have to find a way to sow those seeds along with everything else that happens.
In the end, I want Evelyn to be mine.
Chapter 6
Evie
What the hell am I doing? I should be… what? Calling the cops? Reporting him to the school? Telling his parents? No, no, and no. I can’t do any of that. It would do no good. It would only end up with me being fired for trying to sully his name. As I was told the first time I tried to report him at the school, I shouldn’t waste my time.
The best thing for me to do would be to just do as he asks, put up with him for the rest of the school year, and then he’ll be off to college and will forget about me. Right? It’s October. There’s only a little more than two quarters left. I can handle that.
And as far as him being a student… he’s eighteen. He’s a consenting adult. If anything, I would be the one who could claim non-consent if it were to come down to it. Not that anyone one care. Not that anyone would believe me. But at least I couldn’t be thrown in jail for inappropriate behavior with a minor. Because I have no doubt what Nate plans to do with me is highly inappropriate. The promise in his eyes, the threatening words against my ear, the innuendo behind the seemingly innocent things he asks. There’s no way what he wants from me could be anything but sexual.
I pull out my drawer and tug on a pair of black leggings, and then I open my closet and grab a random tee, hurriedly taking off my coat and throwing on the shirt in case Nate has the bright idea to bust in my bedroom door. Not that it would matter. He’s already seen me in nothing but my skimpiest under things.
I don’t bother to take my contacts out. As much as I don’t want to have this conversation with Nathaniel, I don’t want to waste the time to change back into my glasses and leave him out there alone doing God knows what. I snatch a hair tie off the dresser and pull my loose curls into a high ponytail. So much for all the effort I spent hours on getting ready for the night.
Taking hold of my bedroom doorknob, I take a deep breath, say a silent prayer that this doesn’t turn my life into a dumpster fire, and pull it open. I approach my living room cautiously, glancing around and not seeing Nate neither here nor the kitchen. I walk the short distance to my library, and that’s when I spot him, over by my bookcases and paging through a book with a red cover. When I step inside, I focus on the story in his hands and see it’s one of my favorite novels, Brie Learns the Art of Submission by Red Phoenix.
He glances up at me, closing the book and turning it over. It’s a huge novel, a trade size paperback, but his large hands make it look tiny. When he focuses his attention on the back cover, not saying a word, my nerves finally get the best of me, and I collapse on my oversized ottoman and wait as he reads what the story is about. And when he’s done, I take in the way he carefully replaces it exactly where I had it on its shelf.
He turns to face me, putting his hands in his pockets, looking relaxed, even though the air around me seems to be thick with tension. I wait, wondering what he’ll say, imagining the worst as I try to think of what he could want from me, how he’ll start off this conversation. So when he finally does, I jerk, sitting up straight at the sound of his deep, quiet voice. The first male voice I’ve ever heard inside my library, inside my home.
“Seems like a very educational book, Ms. Richards. Does there happen to be one on the art of dominance?” He asks this so casually, as if he’s asking for a book on bird watching, or if I can direct him to a cookbook he might enjoy, hell, anything other than the lifestyle I lead.
I fidget with the hem of my T-shirt in my lap, not knowing exactly how to respond.
“Um… I’ve… I’ve never really looked into it before. That’s not something I’d personally need to read up on, so you wouldn’t find it in my collection,” I tell him nervously.
I watch as he strolls over to my writing desk, takes hold of the back of the rolling chair, and pulls it from beneath the desk. I think he might take a seat there, but he doesn’t. Instead, he pulls it around until it’s in front of him, and then he pushes it to a stop right in front of me. He lowers himself into it, his big frame making it squeak as he settles his weight into it. His legs are spread on either side of mine, so when he uses his feet to wheel the chair closer to me, my legs are trapped between his and the ottoman I’m sitting on.
He’s so close, closer than he ever was at school, when I always have the circulation desk to hide behind. But not as close as he was half an hour ago, when he had me pressed against the building of the club.
I can’t take the tension anymore. I have to get this conversation going or I’m going to have a panic attack, and then there won’t be any talking whatsoever. “Nathaniel…, what is it you want from me? Please. Just… tell me what you’re going to do.”
When I meet his eyes, it’s not the look of a feline in this cat-and-mouse game we’ve always played like I expect. There’s a seriousness in his features, a barely whispered plea for help that’s there for one split second before he hides it behind a slow smile that raises goose bumps along my arms and neck.
“You know, I’ve always thought you’re pretty, Ms. Richards.” He lifts his hand and traces the line of my jaw, and I shiver. “And then I thought you were sexy as fuck when I saw you basically naked at the club and with your mask on.” His fingertip trails down the column of my throat before it hooks into the neckline of my tee. He pulls it out and lets go, and it snaps back into place. “But you, here, in comfortable clothes, your hair pulled back from your face for once instead of hiding behind it and without your glasses?” He reaches behind me and tugs gently on my ponytail. “You’re the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen,” he rumbles huskily. And the way he says it, with the look on his face, for some reason, it comes across as sincere. It doesn’t sound like the taunting tone he uses when he teases me at school. His compliment is genuine, and I blink in surprise.
“Th-thank you.” I blush. I don’t know what else to say. No one’s ever told me something like that, unwavering, right to my face before.
His smile is soft this time, a real one that reaches his eyes. “You’re welcome.” He glances down to my lap, where I’m wringing my hands, and he takes hold of them in his, the sheer size of them engulfing mine and making them look like a child’s. “Ms. Richards… Evelyn. Can I call you Evelyn when we’re outside of school?” he interrupts himself to ask politely, and it’s so against his normal character of doing as he pleases that I squeak out a reply before thinking about the consequences.
“Yeah, that’s fine.”
He chuckles, the sound making my veins vibrate beneath my skin. “Awesome.” The use of the word reminds me that even though he’s a huge, intimidating, sometimes threatening man, he’s also just an eighteen-year-old with a past I really know nothing about. “Evelyn, what I want from you, in exchange for keeping your little secret—” I swallow as he lowers his head but looks up at me from beneath his thick eyebrows. “—is for you to teach me everything you know about Dominance.”
I shake my head shallowly, my brow furrowing in worry. “I… I told you, I don’t know anything about that. I’m… I’m a submissiv
e,” I admit out loud, and my heart gives a little flutter at saying the words openly to someone outside the club. “I’m on the total opposite end of the spectrum. I don’t… understand a Dominant’s need for control. I can’t teach you anything about that. I’m… I’m programmed with the contrary. I hate control. I despise it. It’s the bane of my existence, having to make decisions day in and day out.” I’m trembling, and suddenly I’m word vomiting everything I’ve only ever told one other person in the whole world, my therapist.
And Nate just holds my hands tighter, narrowing his eyes and taking it all in. No longer threatening. He’s absorbing every word out of my mouth, his grip on me keeping me grounded, so I keep going.
“A Dominant…” I shake my head, trying to find the right words. “A Dominant is like the yin to my yang, my other half, the perfect opposite. Everything that I hate, that makes me anxious, that makes me panic, has the opposite effect on them. Control of situations, being a leader, having people rely on you, mastering a scene—”
“A scene. What does that mean exactly? I heard you and the other girl talking about a scene at the club,” he asks, and he has his studious face on, the one I’ve seen him wear in classrooms I’ve come by when dropping off books and media needed for a teacher’s lesson. It’s like he’s zeroed in on what’s being taught, taking it in, pulling it apart and learning all its parts at a quantum level inside his mind. This is why he’s so brilliant, why he’s the top of his class and not just popular and athletic.
For some reason, it makes me relax a little. This question… I can answer this. I live for this. I know this like I know where every single book in my personal library is placed.
A Lesson in Blackmail: Black Mountain Academy / a Club Alias Novel Page 4
