Dark Notes

It bounces off his scowl lines and rolls across the floor beside his Doc Martens. He glares at it, shocked to terrifying stillness, before flinging the conductor baton across his desk and leveling me with glacial eyes.

Ohshitohshitohshit. My face catches fire as I stumble backward. My shoulder hits the whiteboard, but I keep going, sliding along the wall and toward the door. What the hell is wrong with me? I never lose my temper. Holy fuck, I never throw markers at my teachers!

He reaches up, wipes his forehead, and glowers at his fingers. Yes, Mr. Marceaux, the fat black dot of my shame is now smeared across your furiously creased brow.

“I’m sorry.” I glance at the closed door, wishing I were on the other side, down the hall, and far away from whatever comes next.

Without removing his eyes from mine, he lifts his chin and loosens the knot of his tie. Fuck, that can’t be good.

As his hands slide over the silk, I recall another rumor I heard this morning about the depraved ways he uses his ties, belts, and other miscellaneous accessories. I don’t believe gossip, but as I stare into those cruel eyes, I plummet into the chasm of whispered images with a sinking stomach.

With the knot hanging loosely beneath his collar, he crooks his finger. “Come with me.”

Three words, spoken without effort, yet they have the power to devastate my future. Fear jolts through my stomach. If he takes me to the dean’s office, will it be a suspension? Or is hurling objects at my teacher grounds for expulsion?

But he doesn’t walk toward the exit. He strides deeper into the back of the room and around the corner, out of sight. I look through the small window in the door, into the empty hallway, and tremble with indecision.

Running will only make this worse.

I push myself forward on wobbly legs and weave through the rows of desks. Every inch of my body is strung-out, running on a live wire that connects the path of my feet to whatever awaits me around that corner. By the time I reach the piano and find him sitting sideways on the end of the bench, my pulse is a reedy, struggling vibration in my veins.

He points at the floor beneath the space of his spread thighs and flicks his wrist, as if adjusting the position of his heavy watch.

The sleeves of his gray and white pinstriped shirt gather around his elbows. He’s wearing another one of those waistcoat-vest things, this one black with little gray buttons. My attention shifts from the yellow tie to the dark shadow of his jaw, the flat line of his lips, and as I fall into the chilling trap of his eyes, I realize with renewed panic that I’m making him wait.

I hurry forward and stand where he indicated, swaying unsteadily between his spread feet.

There’s that crooking finger again, gesturing me closer, closer, and lord help me, when I’m finally in the position he wants, my boobs are right in his face. I curve my spine, attempting to rein them in, but dammit, they’re there and there’s nothing I can do about it.

Heat tingles across my cheeks as he blatantly stares down the scoop of my shirt. It makes me feel gross, cheap, and really fucking angry.

I grab the neckline to yank it up.

His hand catches my wrist, pulling my arm back to my side. “Stop fidgeting and straighten your back.”

I do as he says, even as I’m about to implode with anxiety over the position of our bodies and his silence on the marker incident. “Are you going to report me to the dean?”

“I administer my own punishments.” He gestures at his forehead. “Fix this.”

“Fix it?” A swallow sticks in my throat. “Like rub it off?”

He glares up at me like I’m the dumbest girl in the world. Yes, well, only a dumb girl puts herself in this situation.

With a trembling hand, I press the pad of my thumb against the ink above his eyebrow. I don’t know what I expected—cold, reptilian scales?—but his skin is smooth and warm and human. As I press harder, my free hand catches the back of his head, and my fingers slide through soft black strands. It feels so…personal, affectionate, abnormal.

His face hovers inches beneath mine, the muscles in his cheeks relaxed, lips slightly parted and thick lashes fanning downward. He really is handsome, even if everything about him is potently male. From the woodsy scent of his shampoo and the boxy shape of his jaw to his tapered waist and the way his muscular legs stretch the lean cut of his black slacks, it’s all there to remind me my future hinges on the whims of a man.

A man with ink on his forehead.

I rub harder. “It’s not coming off.”