Dark Notes

He lifts my hand and presses a kiss on my palm. “I will know.”

I search his face, lingering on his sculptured lips, freshly-shaved jaw, and ultramarine eyes. “Then what?”

Promises dance like sinister notes in his gaze. “Then you’ll be grateful for that safe word.”

A shiver licks my spine, and an ache flares between my legs. I want what he’s offering as much as I don’t want it. Or maybe I want to not want it.

I rub the back of my neck then dig into breakfast.

He scrapes his plate clean and pushes it away. “When you’re not at school or here, you won’t leave my side.”

I choke, mumbling around the cheesy bite. “How does that work?”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full.”

Chewing quickly, I swallow. “When I go home—”

“You live with me now.”

I stiffen as his words penetrate my eardrums. I hear them, but their meaning isn’t syncing with my brain.

He sips his coffee, glances at his phone, and looks up at me like he told me to come for dinner, not fucking move in.

I stare at him with my mouth hanging open. “You’re fucking with me.”

Lifting his mug to his lips, he stares right back, not a hint of a smile in his eyes.

He’s serious.

Did I miss an entire conversation where he asked me to move in? Oh wait. He doesn’t ask for anything.

I slouch against the back of the stool. “This is because of Lorenzo.”

“It’s a convenient reason.” He refills his mug with the carafe on the island and returns to his phone.

Damn his anti-I can’t rule, because I want to scream those words repeatedly. “It’s against the law. You’re my teacher!”

“You’re my girl.” He lazily swipes the screen on his phone. “That’s the only law you need to worry about.”

What? My head hammers. “You’re insane.”

“You’re mine.”

“What if someone finds out?”

He scrolls through his email, not a care in the world. “My problem.”

“But Schubert—”

He drops the phone and crashes his lips against mine with a kiss that says Shut up and trust me. Then he leans back and returns to his email. “We’re picking up the cat after school.”

Three lots away from Ivory’s house, I idle the GTO on the street while she feeds the cat. The orange motorcycle isn’t here, but I don’t know if anyone else is home.

If I had a legal explanation for arriving with her at six-thirty in the morning, I’d be in that house with her right now. Instead, I’m forced to monitor her from afar, through the connection between our phones, ready to do whatever is needed to be her anchor point of protection.

The first light of dawn illuminates the patchy shingles on the surrounding homes. I hold my phone in a tight grip, hating that I can’t see her moving around inside. But I hear her through the speaker. Every rasp of her breath through the ear piece draws my own.

Before we left my house, I gave her the phone I bought for her weeks ago. She cradled it in her hands as if it were the priceless Vieuxtemps violin, her pale expression suffused with reluctant acceptance. I look forward to her reaction when I give her a car.

“Is your mom or brother there?” I ask though the phone.

“Both,” she whispers. “Asleep.”

If I hear a gasp or a single troubling sound, I’ll be on that doorstep in under ten seconds.

I flex my hand on the steering wheel, the bruised knuckles peering out from beneath the overlong sleeve. Ivory probably knows the real reason I’m wearing the jacket is to hide the cuts. I don’t want her worrying about what people assume or don’t assume. That’s my job.

As I focus on the rustle of her movements through the phone, my mind wanders back to the bedroom this morning and the erotic way her neck felt in the collar of my grip. She trusts me, yet she panicked, fighting with her body and begging me with her eyes, just as she would with any other man. That’s unacceptable.

Asphyxiation, whipping, deriving pleasure from any kind of pain and humiliation isn’t for the faint of heart. If I had any doubt about what arouses her, my approach would be different. If she were too timid to hold my gaze, she probably wouldn’t have caught my eye in the first place.

If she was anyone else, I wouldn’t be sitting here, one-hundred-percent invested and risking my neck to be with her.

Ivory Westbrook isn’t fragile. She’s built for my brand of protection and appetite for dominance. Treating her with kid gloves would do a great disservice to her.

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.