Pretending to ignore Ivory’s outburst, I stand. “Thank you, Deb, for seeing this through.”
She rises, glancing at Ivory and back to me, her lips turned down. “This is it, then.”
“It is.” There’s only one woman in my future, and she’s due for a spanking. “I’ll walk you out.”
Ivory’s fuming glare follows me into the hall until I turn the corner. I wish Deb well at the door, close it with a relieved sigh of finality, and return to the kitchen.
Ivory paces along the counter, hands balled at her sides. “You’ve had sex with that woman. That much is obvious. But what else is going on? Why does she do things for you?” Her tone rises to a maniacal pitch, her strides quickening as she circles the island. “Oh, right. Because she wants you. She’s so fucking hot for you I’m surprised she didn’t pull your dick out and suck—”
“Ivory.”
The strike of my voice brings her pacing to a full stop.
Lacing my fingers behind my back, I give her a list of short, specific commands and punctuate it with a stern, “Go.”
A flush spreads from her neck to her chest, and I bet it travels further down and licks her sweet pussy like a hot, wet kiss. She wants what I offer more than she dreads it.
She stomps out of the kitchen. I pour another cup of coffee.
Her needs, desires, and fears run deep. So deep she could easily lose her way in the darkness. She needs a rope, not one that tethers her to her horrific past, but a strong, unbreakable line to guide her forward. The bindings might hold her down, but I’m pulling the other end.
I’ll never let go.
With Schubert at my feet, I make him a plate of leftover chicken, grinning at the memory of Ivory’s stern tone when she moved in. No table scraps, Emeric!
Sitting the cat in my lap, I let him lap at the dish of chicken on the island. It’s a harmless secret between Schubert and me.
I scratch his neck while he eats and enjoy my coffee. When he’s finished, I take a shower and throw on a pair of jeans. Then I grab my favorite belt, a length of rope, and find her waiting for me in the music room.
Naked and bent over the keyboard of the piano, she rests her palms on the lid beside the cuffs. Exactly as I instructed. Her feistiness might be my fuel, but her obedience is my fucking fire.
Without speaking, I lock her wrists in the shackles and use the rope to tie a simple breast harness around her chest, making sure the vertical sections press against her nipples. She watches me with huge brown eyes, her curiosity momentarily outweighing her anger.
Once her full tits are trussed up, I tighten the straps, cinching her against the piano until her chest brushes the keyboard.
When I take my position behind her, the erotic view poises my arousal on the cusp of detonation.
In teasing strokes, I trace the belt across the perfect rise of her ass. “What are the first rules I taught you?”
With her cheek pressed to the surface of the piano, her lips push out in a heavy sigh. “No lies. Don’t question your methods. Never look away.” She cranes her neck to glare at me. “And always call you out for being a dick.”
I swing the belt, my cock throbbing painfully at the sound of her yelp. “Apologize.”
“Fuck off. That’s my rule, and it stays. Whatever you’re doing with that woman…” Her chin quivers, her voice a pissed-off snarl. “You’re a dick.”
I stifle my grin and give her another hard whack. “You just doubled your strikes. Tell me what was going through your stubborn fucking head when you answered the door.”
“I checked through the window first. I’ve never seen her before. Not at school or—”
“Are you sure about that? Can you identify every parent of every student?”
She squeezes her eyes shut and groans. “No.”
“You fucked up.”
“Yeah.”
“No unnecessary risks, Ivory.”
“Okay.” She rocks her hips.
I let the belt fly, tapping, whipping, and pounding her ass like a drum, every strike filling the room with her musical moans.
When her backside glows hot and red, I bend over the curve of her spine, tightly embrace her slender torso, and let her feel me breathing with her. My lips touch her shoulder, and her inhale stutters. I cup her breast, pinching the rope around her nipple, and she grinds her fevered ass against my trapped cock.
I hold her there, caressing and kissing, until her breaths fall into rhythm with mine. “When I met Deb over the summer, she had some financial problems. I paid off her debt, and she did a few favors for me. Our relationship was physical, practical, and convenient.” I lick the soft skin on her neck, stroking her ear with a murmuring tone. “We haven’t been intimate since school began.”
She nods, her entire body lifting toward my voice, shivering beneath my lips, and purring for my touch. “Imagining you with her makes me feel really twisted up.”
Welcome to my world. With the belt in my grip, I tease her with it, dragging the leather up and down the V of her inner thighs. “You’ll never see her again.”
“Thank God.”
I release her abruptly and step back. “I, on the other hand, have to spend hours every day with Prescott, Sebastian, and all the other pricks who have touched you.”
“Shit.” She closes her eyes. “I never thought of that.”
I swing the belt again, over and over without pause. She tenses, whimpers, and jerks in the restraints. My cock throbs with the sound of every hard blow, my focus locked on the wriggle of her beautiful ass as I alternate between her cheeks, thighs, and the sides of her legs.
Within minutes, she sinks into the pain, her muscles relaxing, all that smooth golden skin a canvas of pink stripes.
Each snap of welting heat is a reminder she’s not the only one who feels jealous, possessive, and twisted up. But there’s a deeper purpose for the pain. It gives her the power to open her mind. To mend emotional injuries inflicted by men who used her. To put all her fears in my hands, trusting me to protect her.
“Please, Emeric.” She bends her neck to see me, her eyes half-mast and clouded in a fog of agony and pleasure.
Her pleading look and the hungry rush of her breaths jolts a primal current through me. I love fucking her, but nothing compares to this moment as she begs with a hooded expression, her fingers curling against the shackles, and her arousal leaking down her thighs.
I grip the rope at her back and tighten the harness over her nipples, stimulating her until she releases a husky moan. Then I flog her again, harder, faster, relishing the bond in our eye contact.
She’s mine, and her gaze tells me she knows this, her body trembling for me to take her and push her. To punish her so painfully she cries only for me, knowing I’ll keep her safe from anyone who wishes to harm her.
When the tears finally come, she slumps over the keyboard and drops her head on the piano lid. Her skin flushes and shudders, her hips rolling with mindless need. She’s so fucking captivating I drop the belt, unable to slow my urgent frenzy to remove my jeans.
I wrestle the denim down my legs and off my feet. Then I launch at her, dipping fingers inside her tight wet cunt and spreading her open. She moans and grinds against my hand, making me so goddamn hard I don’t have the patience to slow this down.
I fist my cock with shaking fingers, line up our bodies, and bury myself in one, long thrust. We groan in concert, our hips crashing together and deepening the connection. Christ, she feels so fucking good. I drive harder, sinking and retreating, obsessed and enthralled with the snug clasp of her pussy.
Sliding my hands over her arms, I hook my thumbs beneath the shackles and lace our fingers together. She clutches at my grip and clamps down around my cock, her breaths a musical motif of desire.
Her reactions, her emotions, every movement she makes belongs to me. Entirely under my command to bend at my will. She possesses me, as well, in all the same ways. I’m hers.
Leaning over her back, I s
how her through the twitching heat of my body that she owns me. As I pound inside her, lost in her warmth, she rests her cheek on the piano and gasps with her eyes closed. Her soft mouth, the feel of her body against mine, and the bliss of her clenching muscles around me propel me toward release.
“We’re going to come, Ivory.” I kick my hips and tighten my fingers around hers as the pressure in my cock builds, threatening to burst. “Now.”
With her mind and body under my charge, she leaps off the cliff with me, moaning and panting as we plunge together into an exploding, body-trembling harmony of pleasure.
I slide my lips over her spine, coating her skin with the heave of my breaths. She’s so sensitive, shivering against my touch. Fuck, I love that, almost as much as the way she strains in the restraints to arch into the brush of my mouth. I stay there, holding her in sated relief, mesmerized by the lyrical language of our heartbeats.
Eventually, we pull ourselves from the state of exhausted bliss. After I untie her, we eat breakfast and return to bed in an entwined knot of limbs. There, I make love to her without fight or urgency. My hips rock lazily between her thighs, her ankles cross at my back, and my mind revels in the erogenous sensation of tenderness. I can fuck her gently or violently, missionary or upside down. Doesn’t matter as long as I’m inside her, with her, connected to her on every level.
Too soon, the sun slants through the window and dips behind the horizon. I don’t want to leave the cocoon of her body, but it’s time to get ready.
Showered, shaved, and groomed, I stand at the dresser in my tux, fucking with the bow tie around my neck. The sound of her footsteps exiting the closet brings my head around.
The first glimpse stops my heart. As I absorb the view, my pulse restarts, ticking higher, faster, and striking the chime of complete and utter adoration.
Ushered in ivory lace, the Louis Vuitton gown sheathes her knockout figure from the bateau neckline to the crystal pumps on her feet. I bought the dress after the first time I heard her play, knowing without a doubt she would wear it for tonight’s performance in a sold-out theater.
“Turn—” My voice cracks. I cough behind my fist. “Turn around.”
A coy smile lifts her lips as she pivots. Her long dark hair wraps in an elegantly messy knot on the back of her head, with wayward tendrils trailing down her neck. Slim ivory straps loop around her shoulders, leaving the expanse of her back on gorgeous display.
Black curlicues of ink draw a graceful, meandering vine from her waist to her nape, swirling flourishes over her spine and around her shoulder blades. She’s so damn arresting, my chest burns with the reminder to breathe.
Crossing the room until I’m right up on her, I brush my lips along her shoulder. “So beautiful I’m shaking.”
I let her feel the tremors in my fingers as I trace the delicate artwork on her spine.
She hums softly, her head tipping. “The tat was my first arrangement.”
I freeze then resume my caress, my stomach twisting. “You were thirteen.”
“Yeah. I got it after my dad died.” Her hand reaches back and finds the one at my side, bringing it forward to rest on her hip. “Right after Lorenzo…”
Just the mention of his name makes me want to pound my fists into his face until he chokes on his blood.
Her shoulders tense, relax. “The tattoo artist refused me because of my age. Until I suggested a different kind of payment.”
I continue to trace the whorls of ink, letting the softness of her skin calm my rising anger. “You offered him sex.”
She nods. “I needed this tattoo.”
With her back to me, I can’t see her eyes, but the emotion in her voice squeezes my chest.
“My dad claimed he didn’t just hear the notes when he played. He could see them curling through the air like scrollwork. Every song was a graphical image in his mind, and he drew those embellishments in the margins of his music sheets.”
When I was thirteen, I played with my dick while daydreaming about a girl—any girl—touching it.
When she was thirteen, she sold her body to a tattoo artist for a permanent keepsake of her dead father.
I glance down the curve of her back, my finger following the curls of ink with new appreciation. “Which song is this one?”
She gives me a watery smile over her shoulder. “His favorite Herbie Hancock, ‘Someday My Prince Will Come.’”
I’m no prince, but when I’m buried inside Ivory, I will always come.
Stepping around her, I remove a platinum bracelet from my pocket and clasp it around her wrist.
She studies it with wide eyes, holding the tiny frog charm between her fingers. “Edvard Grieg kept a frog figurine in his pocket at all times.”
I curve a hand around her waist, fingers stroking her naked back. “And he would rub it before concerts for good luck.”
She nods and kisses me, breathing against my lips, “Thank you.”
That night, she plays with more passion and skill than all of her peers combined. Stogie watches from the audience, his face stretched in a huge smile. I watch from the stage wings, my heart beating in time with her fingers.
Everything is good.
Joanne, Shane, and Lorenzo are gone. Prescott and Ms. Augustin are contained. The dean has nothing on me, while I have enough blackmail to ruin her career. I’ve been so careful.
Everything is perfect.
Too perfect. Like life has handed me a song filled with soul-deep joy and told me to savor every note.
Because eventually, the song will end.
Ivory
Christmas comes and goes in a blur of extravagant presents and warm smiles at his parents’ house. Emeric and I spend the rest of our two-week break at home, in bed, tucked in an indestructible bubble of whispering, touching, kissing bliss. Every second with him feels like a dream, like any moment, someone’s going to cruelly shake my shoulder and force me to wake up.
Since I moved in, our trips outside of the house have been limited to school, weekly visits to Stogie’s, and weekend dinners at the Marceaux’s. There are no date nights at the movies, romantic dinners in the French Quarter, or hand-holding strolls along the Mississippi River. We do normal in the privacy of our own world, such as binging on a TV series starring bearded pirates with perfect teeth.
Doesn’t really matter what we do as long as I have him to do it with.
When I graduate, we’ll be free of the student-teacher restriction. No more hiding and living in fear. Then…?
He says Leopold is mine if I want it. I don’t know how. If he breaks his deal with the dean, our entire world will come crashing down. I intend to pursue a spot there on my own. Maybe it’ll take me years. Maybe I’ll move there and knock on the recruiters’ doors every day until they get sick of seeing me.
He says he’ll move to New York with me while I work on my degree. That makes my heart soar, but I can’t ask him to leave his job and his family.
He says I can do whatever I set my mind on. I believe him.
December ends a discordant passage in my life, a coda to Treme and my broken family.
January is the prelude of a new song, promising a year of hard decisions.
February glides by in a glissando of homework, piano lessons, and quiet evenings with Emeric.
March kicks off with a countdown to spring break, unseasonably warm weather, and…
A bladder infection.
Squatting on the toilet, I hunch over in pain. I haven’t moved for thirty minutes, every teeny trickle of pee burning fire between my legs. “I’m going to be late for school.”
Emeric crouches in front of me and rests the back of his hand on my forehead, concern darkening his blue eyes. “Still no fever, but you’re staying home, and that’s final.” He shoves a glass of water in my hand. “Drink.”
More water means more urinating, which means more burning. “No more.”
He arranges my fingers around the glass, forcing me to hold it. “Dehydrati
on is the reason you’re sitting here.”
“And too much sex.” I manage a grin and take a sip.
“No such thing.” His palms slide up my bare thighs, stroking tenderly. “Keep drinking.”
I force down the fluid with a glare. The black hair on top of his head is a finger-raked rebellion of sexiness, while the trimmed sides scream clean-cut Mr. Professor. With his freshly shaved jawline, potently masculine scent, and swank gray waistcoat and jacket, he’s ready to take on the world. Or at least, a school full of privileged teenagers.
My dirty ponytail hangs down the front of the only thing I’m wearing—his Guns N’ Roses t-shirt. I won’t be ready to go anytime soon. My stomach sinks. For the first time in four years, I’m going to miss a day of school.
“I know it hurts.” He takes the glass, sets it on the floor, and brushes his thumb over my bottom lip. “My dad’s bringing medicine.”
My body clenches against a sharp wave of pain, releasing another stream of pee. I groan, my eyes watering through the godawful burn.
“Fuck this.” He reaches for the knot on his tie. “I’m staying here.”
“What for?” I grab his hand, stopping his attack on the shirt collar. “What would you do? Sit in here and watch me pee all day?”
His eyes flash. “Yes.”
“Terrible idea.” I tangle our fingers together and hold them between my knees. “How will it look if we’re both gone? Neither of us ever miss school. People will notice.”
He drags his free hand down his face, his expression pained. The secrecy of our relationship, seeing me sick, leaving me alone, all of it torments him.
I lean in and kiss his mouth, wishing my teeth were clean. “This is embarrassing enough without your hawk eyes all up in my business.”
It’s really not that bad. I’m well-adjusted to his invasiveness. Whether I’m on my period or using the bathroom, he has no concept of personal boundaries, always hovering, interrogating, and examining me inside and out. I get it, though. Because I’m just as obsessed with him.
Straightening my back, I use one of his favorite commands. “Go.”
Falling for the Forbidden: 10 Full-Length Novels Page 31
