by Pam Godwin
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 real 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.
How can I not look? It’s genetic programming, and Ivory has great fucking tits.
One corner of her mouth lifts in a seductive smirk. “See you in class, Mr. Marceaux.”
She walks away, leaving me with no fucking oxygen in the car. I roll down the window and rev the engine a few times to get her attention.
Glancing over her shoulder, she tucks her grin between nibbling teeth. “Are you trying to race me or impress me?”
I just wanted to see her smile one more time. Now I can breathe again.
I spend the day listening for whispers and paying close attention to subtle expressions. Beverly Rivard greets me in the faculty lounge wearing a tight-lipped scowl of disdain. Nothing new there. Andrea Augustin watches me from a distance, wary and bruised. She’ll get over it. Prescott stays out of my way in the halls and slinks in his seat during class. He’s the one who concerns me the most. I humiliated him in front of Ivory last night, a horrendous blow to his boy ego. But if he opens his mouth, he has more to lose than his dignity.
In the classroom, Ivory maintains her demeanor as a student. She doesn’t hold my gaze too long. Doesn’t flirt or show affection. But the sexual tension between us hovers like an electric storm. If someone knew what to look for, they’d pick up on it. Prescott should have some inkling after the way I defended her, but he doesn’t dare look at her or me. For now, all I can do is keep him under my scrutinizing watch.
After Ivory’s private lessons, we return to her house. The starless sky and absence of light casts her street in a smudge of shadows.
Tucking the GTO into the same spot I used this morning, I take in the blackness beyond her windows. “No one’s home.”
“Guess not.” She opens the car door. “I’ll be quick.”
I turn off the engine and join her on the street.
She shakes her head and points back at the car. “Stay here. Someone might come home.”
It’s risky, but she’s not going into a dark house alone at night. Nor is she going to carry out a cat and all her belongings by herself. But in case her brother shows up, I need to prepare her for an unpleasant reintroduction.
I grab her hand and lead her to the front porch. “I met Shane a while back.”
“What?” She stops on the sidewalk and stares up at me with wide eyes. “When?”
I pull on her squeezing fingers, forcing her feet to follow me up the stairs. “He doesn’t know who I am, and sadly, he doesn’t know why I broke his nose.”
She gasps, her steps faltering, but I keep her moving.
“That was you?” Her brow draws down as she unlocks the door. A sigh billows past her lips. “Because of the cut on my lip.”
“No one hurts my girl.”
“I love when you say that,” she whispers softly.
With gentle hands, she straightens my tie, her fingers drifting down the silk before she turns away.
When she opens the door, the scent of stale cigarette smoke floods my nose.
A second later, an orange tabby races out of the dark depths and slows at her feet, purring like a motor and rubbing against her ankles.
She scoops him up, nuzzling his round head against her neck like he’s the most vital thing in the world.
I tuck my hands in my pockets and try to restrain my jealousy over a damn cat. “Are you going to let me in sometime tonight?”
“So impatient.” She flicks the wall switch and floods the small room with light. Then she holds the cat out to me and drops him in my arms, forcing me to take him. “I just need to grab his stuff.”
As she races through the line of doorways toward the back of the house, the fur ball in my hands sheds no less than a thousand orange hairs all over my suede jacket.
I step inside, glaring down at him. “Are you going to piss on my rugs?”
Round gold eyes blink lazily. Then he drags his hairy cheek across my chest, burrowing in.
I’ve never lived with a pet, but he seems friendly enough. The shedding, though…
“Can we shave this thing?” I shout toward the back room.
The creak of her footsteps pauses. “I thought you didn’t like shaved pussies.”
A grin stretches my face. Touché, my beautiful girl.
I carry Schubert through a tidy living room. It’s clean because there’s not a damn thing here but a cardboard box of clothes in the corner, a small end table, and a couch with sagging cushions. Continuing toward the back, I pass a bedroom, then another bedroom, both barely big enough to accommodate the mattresses on the floor and the mess of laundry and ashtrays.
Neither bedroom offers a hint of the girl I know. Ivory is organized, her clothes are simple and few, and she doesn’t smoke. Realization tightens my chest and quickens my steps.
I reach the last room, the kitchen, and find her lifting a pan of litter by the back door. “Where do you sleep?”
She grabs a few cans of cat food from the cluttered counter and walks past me into the closest bedroom. “This is my mom’s room.”
I trail behind her, stroking the cat and stirring up more loose hairs. My heart slams against my chest as I absorb the impoverished conditions she’s lived in. When she reaches the second bedroom, I know what she’s going to say, and I don’t want to hear it.
“Shane’s room.” She stares blankly at the piles of dirty clothes. “It used to be mine, but when my dad died, Shane moved back in. So…”
She continues forward, returning to the front room. My stomach caves in as I glare at the droopy sofa with new eyes.
“This is where I sleep.” She looks up at me expectedly. “Ready to go?”
I swallow down my anger with the reminder that she will never sleep on a goddamn couch again.
“That’s all you’re bringing?” I nod at the litter pan and cans of chow in her arms.
Her eyes lower to the cat purring against my chest, and she smiles warmly. “He’s all I have left here.”
As I drive out of her neighborhood, the tension in my muscles loosens with each block I put between her and that house. I’ve never felt more right about a decision than I do about this one.
With the cat crouched and mewing in the back seat, there’s only one thing left that will bring her back to Treme.
I make an unplanned stop, pulling up to the curb along the barred windows of the store.
She twists in the seat and searches my face. “What are we doing here?”
“The old man hasn’t seen you in a couple days. Go in there, give him your phone number, and tell him you’re safe.”
That wins me a huge smile before she leaps out and dashes inside.
An hour later, while dining in my kitchen over a spread of catered quesadillas, Ivory gives me her written list of bills. Just like I specified, it includes items she needs to buy, such as miscellaneous school supplies, deodorant, and tampons. I grin when I see birth control on the list.
She tries to tell me what I will and won’t do with her bills, but I shut her up with my lips fused to hers and my fingers in her cunt. Her back bows over the kitchen island, our empty plates rattling with the thrust of my hand. Two orgasms later, she stumbles into the living room to work on her homework, argument forgotten.
My bruised knuckles are still too tender to play piano, so I run on my treadmill, shower, and jack off to memories of her head tilted back, throat exposed, legs spread, writhing and vulnerable in my arms. Vulnerable to all the dirty, depraved things I fantasize about doing to every hole in her body. Christ, if she only knew what I have planned for her.
Before exiting the shower, I rub out another orgasm because fucking hell, I’ll be sleeping beside her tonight.
&
nbsp; I tell myself she’s not ready for the kinky, savage way I fuck, but in the back of my mind, there’s an expiration date on my self-control. A date that’s attached to her doctor’s appointment on Saturday—only four days away. I have this strong coiling need to be with her without anything between us, including condoms. Once her test results confirm I can do that, all bets are off.
She moves to the bedroom to finish her homework with Schubert curled up beside her. I slip into my office and set up the payments to cover her family’s measly expenses. I consider paying off their mortgage. It would be easier, but fuck them. I’ll fund their bills until Ivory graduates, only because I don’t want to give them a reason to go looking for her. After that, they can sleep under a fucking bridge.
I reach out to my catering service and have them add Stogie to their daily route. He might refuse the food. Or maybe he’ll see it for what it is: my gratitude for offering Ivory a safe place to go all these years.
With that finished, I place a few more phone calls, find a reliable PI, and make contact. Ending the conversation, the investigator has very little to go on. A name. A license plate number. But he ensures me it’s enough.
By the end of the week, the PI proves his worth by providing everything I need to move forward.
I know exactly how I’ll deal with Lorenzo Gandara.
Friday afternoon, I head toward my locker in Campus Center. Ellie hurries alongside me, going on about how I have a fast skip in my step. Rather than pointing out that her legs are shorter than mine, I slow my gait and playfully hip-check her.
“You seem different.” She smiles up at me, blinking angular brown eyes. “That’s all I’m saying.”
She hasn’t mentioned my new clothes. No, she’s too busy trying to find hidden meaning in the way I walk.
“You’re…lighter. You know, like easy breezy.” She springs ahead of me and bounces backward toward our lockers, her black ponytail whipping around her neck. “You have a boyfriend, don’t you?”
I don’t know what Emeric is, but it definitely doesn’t begin with boy. “So you think a guy is some magical remedy for weight loss? Or maybe you’re saying I’m gassy?”
