by Pam Godwin
It did something to me. Called to me. Shook me like an awakening.
As the shock from the pain subsided, my mind began to calm. My limbs loosened, and I relaxed into the belt that rained down on my flesh.
Trickles of liquid heat pooled between my legs, opening the muscles and rippling through me in heavy pulses of need. I adjusted my hips, positioning my clit against the edge of the desk. With each driving blow from the strap, I let my body rock, grinding that bundle of nerves against the hard surface.
As the music climbed, his strikes came harder and faster, and everything increased in intensity—my hunger, my trembling, my pleasure. I rose to the precipice, reaching.
Until the belt hit the floor.
A heartbeat later, he was on me, stretched over my back and hauling my pussy away from the desk, denying me that friction.
“You will not come.” He ruthlessly kicked my feet apart as if he didn’t so much as want my thighs clenching the spot where I ached.
His cock lay along the crevice of my buttocks, rock-hard and miles long, straining behind his zipper. He felt huge, monstrous, throbbing to get inside me.
I wriggled my ass.
He fisted my hair and yanked my head to his shoulder with such viciousness I thought my neck might break. His teeth pressed against my cheek, his lips pulling back and his breaths lashing like an inferno blowing through the gates of hell.
His muscles were coiled, his entire body flexing against me. Or away from me. He was fighting demons.
“Leave.” His hand tightened in my hair, at odds with his hoarse command. “You must go.”
Trapped beneath him, I didn’t have many options. Leaving wasn’t one of them.
I angled my neck, struggling against his hold so I could see his face. When I finally turned enough, when I met his stark gaze, my heart stopped.
A blood vessel throbbed in his brow. Guilt etched his beautiful features. And the pain in his eyes…it devastated me. It wrenched open the door to my soul and stuffed every useless corner with self-loathing and regret.
Magnus was never going to expel me.
And he never wanted to want this.
When it came down to it, after he fucked me, what was I going to do? Would I actually report him? Get him fired? Arrested? Or, the most likely scenario, murdered by my family?
The song ended, and silence assailed, magnifying the harshness of our breaths.
I glanced at the door. It was locked, but I knew from experience that if someone pressed their ear against it, they would hear our conversation.
“Magnus.” I twisted beneath him, swiveling my hips to sit on the edge of the desk.
The action cost me, dragging unbearable pain through my abused backside.
With his legs imprisoning mine, he loosened his grip on my hair but didn’t back away. Instead, he pressed in, his chest heaving, our foreheads touching. He smelled like man and God and war.
The war was still waging. Clashing and burning behind his eyes. I’d sensed his internal struggle so many times before and pressed on with my selfish agenda anyway.
I was the biggest asshole of all.
As part of my religious training over the past six weeks, I’d received the sacraments of Baptism and Confession. I’d fought the whole process in my usual way, going so far as refusing to sit in that creepy dark closet and talk about my sins.
But right now, I felt guilty. I was sick to the pit of my soul with guilt.
It was time to confess.
With a shaky hand, I reached up and rested my fingers against his steely jaw. “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. This is my first confession.”
His breath left him.
“I tried to seduce a priest.” I licked my lips, inches from his. “It was selfish. Vindictive. I want to go home and thought only of my needs, not once considering what would become of him if I succeeded.”
“Is there anything else?” His voice dipped, gruffly sexy and thick with desire.
“I cuss every day and masturbate every night.”
“Tinsley…” He groaned.
“I shouldn’t have said that last part, even if it’s true.” I sighed against his mouth, savoring his heat, his delicious dark scent. “I have a lot of sins, Father. I’m sorry for some of them.”
“Only some?”
“Not gonna lie.”
“You rarely do.” The hand in my hair went slack, his fingers sliding downward to linger along my jawline, caressing. “You’re the most honest person I know. Except for maybe Crisanto.”
“That’s sad.”
“Not for me. For your penance, pray an Act of Contrition.”
“Okay.” I swallowed my pride and held his gaze. “O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended you…”
I regurgitated the prayer from memory in a tone that lacked my typical mockery.
If I could recite every prayer like this—with his hand on my face and his mouth close enough to kiss—I would do it without complaint. So I said the words slowly, drawing it out, never wanting it to end.
He closed his eyes, listening with a serene expression, but the tension didn’t leave his rigid body. He didn’t release me, didn’t move away. He held me as if he were never letting go.
I finished the prayer.
He opened his eyes. “God the Father of mercies, I absolve you from your sins, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
I made the sign of the cross as he said the words. “Amen.”
“Go in peace.” He dropped his fists to the desk on either side of my hips.
“Thank you, Father.”
“Go,” he whispered.
“Magnus?” Uncertain, I sat motionless in the cage of his arms. His command said one thing, but his body language implied that if I twitched a muscle, he would be on me.
“This isn’t over. I can’t… I won’t be able to stop this.”
“What if—?”
“Go!”
At the bellow of his voice, my words shrank into the back of my throat, my limbs already springing into action.
I had to push him with all my strength because he wasn’t moving. The effort gave me a sliver of space between the desk and the brick wall of his body to make my escape.
I didn’t look back until I was through the door and in the hallway.
He stood where I’d left him, leaning forward with his fists on the desk, arms straight, head down, and chin pressed to his chest. But his eyes were on me, glowing like blue flames beneath the veil of his lashes.
I hesitated.
“Go, Tinsley.” Nothing moved but his lips, his voice low and guttural. “Run.”
I ran. Through the building, down the stairs, and straight to the grove, I didn’t stop until I reached the opossums’ hollow.
Jade and Willow weren’t there, but that had become more common in the past few days. They were venturing out and scavenging for their meals, returning only to sleep during the day.
My mind raced a mile a minute as I stood there catching my breath. Surrounded by the privacy of trees, I let my hand wander to my backside. The touch stung, making me hiss.
Twisting at the waist, I hiked up the skirt and inspected the damage. For as brutally as he’d whipped me, I’d expected lacerations and blood. But I didn’t see an open cut. No broken skin. No bleeding.
He’d welted me. Reddened my skin. It would hurt like a bitch to sit, but the marks would fade within a week.
He knew what he was doing. He knew, and he’d tried to protect me from it. From him.
His mastery with a strap hadn’t been learned with students at Sion Academy. No, he’d done this before. Like before before.
High school students didn’t arouse him. Inflicting pain did. I had a sneaking suspicion that rough sex was very much a part of his past and shaped the mystery that he was today.
I was captivated, enthralled, turned on like I’d never been before. But seducing him was no longer an option. I didn’t ever want to
see that pained, guilt-ridden look on his face again.
I needed another plan because, dammit, I wasn’t going to marry the family of my mother’s choosing. Maybe I wouldn’t get married at all.
My mother had groomed Keaton the same way, pushing him into a relationship with Clara Blair. A Blair and Constantine marriage would’ve made my powerful mother all the more powerful. But Keaton had put a stop to that.
If he could do it, maybe I could, too. It gave me hope.
The evening was warm for November in Maine. I pulled my cardigan around me and curled up on the ground to wait for Jaden and Willow to return. It took me a long time to find a comfortable position without aggravating my welts.
Each flaring bite of pain made me think of him. And smile.
I rested my head on my folded arms, and within minutes, I fell asleep.
The sky rumbled, jolting me awake. Wind gusted through trees, cooling the air and spitting droplets of rain. The approaching storm had darkened the sky, but so had the late hour. It was past curfew.
It wasn’t the first time I’d fallen asleep out here and missed check-in. Oh, well.
I looked around for Jaden and Willow and felt a deep ache of disappointment. They hadn’t returned. What if they’d left for good? Without a goodbye? I couldn’t bear it.
On the way back to the residence hall, I winced through each step and resisted the urge to rub my butt. At the top of the stairs to my dorm, Daisy was waiting.
“I’m going to report you this time.” She crossed her arms, blocking my path.
“Good for you.” I shouldered past her.
“This is your last strike. He’ll suspend you this time.”
“Don’t care.”
A suspension would send me home for a few days. I would have to deal with the wrath of my mother, but it would be worth it just to see my siblings, sleep in my own bed, and spend the morning somewhere that wasn’t church.
But I wouldn’t get a suspension. Magnus was onto me and would never give me what I wanted.
I slipped into my dorm, and my attention instantly went to the shoebox on my bed. “Who’s been in my room?”
“No one,” Daisy shouted from her room.
This box didn’t magically appear on its own. I approached it cautiously, marking the worn edges and faded labels. It was an old box. Probably not a gift.
I set my phone on the desk and bent down, flipping off the lid.
For a moment, I didn’t understand. My brain took snapshots, trying to piece the images together. Gray, crust, wet, toes, blood, pink tails, Mickey Mouse ears.
My chest burned.
Opossums.
Mangled.
My heart raced.
Jaden and Willow.
Dead.
My throat caught fire.
“No.” I stumbled. Couldn’t feel my feet. “No, no, no, no!”
That couldn’t be them. It couldn’t. Why would anyone do that? Why were they in a box? Why were they here?
A scream rose from my chest and hit the air with all the mortal terror in my body.
“Who did this?” I screamed until my voice bled, and I started hyperventilating. “Who…fucking…did this?”
I grabbed the box and stormed into the hallway. Heads poked out of doorways, their faces smeary and distorted through my tears.
“You’re waking the entire floor,” Daisy whisper-shouted behind me. “Go back to your room.”
“Fuck you.” I shrieked and swung a finger toward all the girls in the hall. “Whoever did this…swear to God, I will find you. You’re so fucking dead.”
I hated their eyes on me. I hated their lack of sorrow and compassion. They didn’t understand. None of these people understood how fucking much this hurt.
Snapping the lid onto the box, I hugged it to my chest and charged toward the stairs.
“Tinsley.” Daisy held a phone to her ear and a hand outstretched, palm out, as if to stop me from leaving.
A torrent of sobs piled up in my throat as I ducked beneath her arm and ran down the stairs.
Miriam waited on the ground floor. Whether she was trying to stop me or talk to me, I didn’t wait to find out. I kept running, needing to be outside, away from this godforsaken place.
The agony was all-consuming, pouring from my eyes, my nose, my goddamn heart. I clutched the box tighter to my chest.
My fuzzy little babies.
Oh God, why? Why them?
When I burst through the doors, it was raining, falling in heavy, angry sheets. I wrapped my cardigan around the box, trying to protect it as I bolted into the storm.
I didn’t know where I was going. I didn’t look around, didn’t slow, didn’t think. My feet splashed through the puddles. My hair stuck to my face, and I just ran.
Straight to the gate.
To him.
I needed Magnus.
He would fix this. Somehow, he would make it better.
Lightning lit up the sky. Thunder crashed. The ice-cold downpour seeped through my clothes and drenched my skin. My teeth chattered violently, and my loafers filled with water, slipping off my heels as I tore through the night.
A streetlamp rose above the arched gate, illuminating the only way out of this nightmare. When I reached the hinged barrier, I realized I’d left my phone behind.
My heart sank, but I couldn’t feel it. I didn’t have the emotional capacity for more pain. I was cold, soaked to the bone, and overwrought with grief.
It was the grief that pulled me to the ground.
Hugging the box to my chest, I collapsed to my knees, dropped my head to the gate, and cried.
When the pound of footsteps erupted, I had no intention of moving from this spot. The sound arrived fast, sprinting, but it wasn’t behind me. It came from the other side of the gate.
A single long-legged stride.
I felt the charge in the air, the intensity of his presence, before I lifted my head.
Dark jeans, light blue shirt, dark scruff on a squared jaw.
No collar.
I almost didn’t recognize him. Until I reached the final destination and fell into the mercurial eyes of the most beautiful man I’d ever seen.
Drenched from head to toe, he stood like an undefeatable force in the raging, whipping rain.
He’d come for me.
“Magnus.” I held up the box, my voice like sandpaper. “I need you.”
He opened the gate.
CHAPTER 17
MAGNUS
Everything inside me heated at the familiarity of my name on Tinsley’s lips.
She looked like a broken angel, kneeling in the brutal storm, hair like gold gossamer around her ethereal face, and shattered blue eyes staring up at me, so trusting, so needful, so goddamn beautiful.
Nine years ago, I would have dragged her into the shadows and fucked her like this—drenched, shivering, heartbroken, ass reddened with my marks, uniform shoved up and twisted about her waist, face smashed into the mud, and my cock a hard lesson that some things should never be coaxed out of hiding.
I was no longer that monster. But I knew, in the sick workings of my mind, that I couldn’t be trusted. Not with Tinsley. Never again.
“Someone killed Jaden and Willow.” Her chin quivered, and she locked her jaw tight, anger leaking into her voice. “Someone killed them! You can punish me for breaking curfew. Do whatever you want to me. But please, Magnus. Please, help me.”
I’d received calls from both Daisy and Miriam explaining the situation. Someone had left the dead opossums in a shoebox on Tinsley’s bed. When I found that someone, there would be hell to pay. But right now, I needed to get her out of the rain.
My gaze lifted to the residence hall at a distance behind her. Dark windows, lights out, the students would’ve been sent back to their beds. I couldn’t send Tinsley back in there like this. She’d run for a reason. She’d asked for my help, and by that, she meant comfort.
She needed me to console her.
I w
asn’t the right person for that job, but I would figure it out because, dammit, I didn’t want anyone else holding her.
“Let’s go.” I reached for the shoebox.
With a snarl, she yanked it against her chest and curled her shoulders around it, refusing to let go.
“All right.” I crouched, hooked my arms beneath her back and legs, and lifted her featherlight weight, cradling her against me.
As I turned and carried her toward the center of the village, she burrowed closer and buried her face in my neck. It felt astonishingly, horribly right.
“Why would someone kill them?” She wept quietly. “I don’t understand.”
There were depraved people in the world. I knew that too well. I was one of them. But I would’ve never believed any of my students were capable of killing an animal. Some of the girls could be ruthless, but this was psychopathic behavior.
“Evil is inexplicable.” I bowed my head over hers, trying to shield her from the rain. “But it won’t go unpunished. Not in this life or the next.”
I took her to the closest building to protect her from the elements. Perhaps it was the one place I could protect her from me.
With the key from my pocket, I unlocked the towering arched doors of the church and carried her inside.
The familiar scent of incense and candle wax perfumed the air. A single aisle ran down the center, separating twenty rows of wooden pews on either side. I flicked on the dimmest light, illuminating the fourteen floor-to-ceiling stained glass windows, each illustrating one of the Stations of the Cross.
Straight ahead, at the end of the aisle, stood the altar.
I could lock the doors, spread her over that marble slab, and fuck her until she forgot all about the opossums. The simmering heat in my blood demanded it.
But there was also guilt, thick and cold, congealing in my stomach.
This was a church. I never allowed my depraved thoughts to desecrate these walls. She was safe from me here.
I carried her to the first row and lowered into the pew. We were soaked from the rain, quivering uncontrollably, and dripping water all over the place. As I shifted to set her beside me, her arm stiffened around my back, wordlessly demanding I not let go.
