Lessons in Sin

I held my breath.

He locked the door.

Click.

A teeny sound, one that exploded into a swarm of bees inside me.

CHAPTER 16

TINSLEY

Breathing wasn’t an option. All the air in the classroom had fled.

Magnus removed the phone from his pocket, tapped the screen, and moments later, church music strummed in my ears. Loudly.

I didn’t know the name of the song, but I heard it every morning during Mass—the slow chime of bells, haunting flute, and hypnotic thrum of a harp.

In church, it sounded peaceful.

In this room, with him, it rang of pain and damnation.

Paralyzed, I didn’t take my eyes off him as he walked toward me in a slow, menacing manner.

I suppressed the need to swallow and jutted my chin higher.

For six weeks, I’d poked and pushed and drove the beast to the edge. I wanted to watch him unravel so completely he would have no other option than to send me home. I was here for the ruination. Mine. His. No matter how badly it hurt.

This could’ve been so much easier. He could’ve gotten rid of me on day one, but his arrogance stood in the way. Now, we would both pay the price.

He set down the phone, the ghostly music pealing around us. He didn’t try to speak over it. Instead, his hand shot to my hair, fingers closing around the roots, and with a force of aggression that emptied my lungs, he swung me out of the chair.

My hips slammed into the desk as he threw me face down across the surface. The rough treatment should’ve panicked me, but I loved the feel of his iron grip, the heat of his legs against my backside, and his single-minded focus on teaching me a lesson.

I wanted his lessons in sin.

Stars danced across my vision as he shoved me harder against the desk. Then he was on me, his whiskered jaw scratching my cheek, his heavy frame folding around my back, tucking me against him as he panted in my ear.

“I tried to protect you.” He curled his fingers around my throat and scraped his teeth against my jaw. “I tried, and now, it’s too late. I won’t be able to stop. Not with you.”

Every thought, every snarky retort, died with my breath. The collar of his fingers around my throat squeezed harder, sending my nails across the desk, scratching, breaking, my entire body fighting for sips of oxygen.

“I’m not a liar, Tinsley.” He lowered his free hand to the front of my thighs and gathered my uniform in his fist, dragging the hem up my legs. “But I lied to you once. I’m interested in everything beneath your skirt. Every hole. Every drop of blood. Don’t make a sound.”

Holy sweet Lord Jesus. He was going to fuck me. For once, I would do every damn thing he told me to do. I wouldn’t make a sound.

At my nod, he released my throat. Then his weight was gone, taking all the heat with him.

Turning my head, I clutched my neck and angled my chin upward to gulp air into my lungs. Standing behind me, he wasn’t looking at my face. His eyes were fixed on my ass.

He lifted my skirt.

The material flipped over my back, and goosebumps stampeded across my skin. Bare skin.

No panties.

Yeah, I’d come prepared.

His outrage was immediate.

“You’ve been like this all day?” His voice roared, his expression thunder, booming, deafening in his anger.

“You said you didn’t want to see my underwear again.”

So I’d stopped wearing them, holding out with wicked hope that he would get an eyeful the next time I scrubbed the floor. Well, he was getting an eyeful now, and it produced a quivery, satisfying rush of warmth between my legs.

He was right. I craved his attention. Good or bad, positive or negative, platonic or sexual, I was crying for it.

His heated gaze gave it to me, never leaving my exposed backside as his hands fell to his belt. In a swift movement, the leather strap pulled free and dangled from his fist. Then…

Crack!

I lay there, suspended in that split second of shock between the strike in my ears and the pain it would bring. With my neck craned, I watched in frozen silence as he reared back the belt and swung again.

The second blow landed just as the fire from the first erupted. It spread outward, radiating across my buttocks and stabbing deeply and with precision directly into my bones.

Mouth dry, muscles locked, I gasped without sound.

Then he beat the unholy hell out of me.

The instrumental church music played on. His strikes kept time with the toll of the bells, and his labored breaths built in crescendo with the flute.

I couldn’t breathe at all. My teeth sank into the insides of my cheeks, and the metallic taste of blood wet my tongue. The urge to reach back and protect my burning butt was enormous. Instead, I clutched the edge of the desk and focused on him.