Lessons in Sin

Separating the man from his job in the literal sense was a whole other story.

There were fifteen girls in this econometrics class, including me. As he bent down to grab the paper he dropped, all of them stared at his ass, including me.

Chiseled perfection. There was no other way to describe those taut gluteus muscles. As a matter of fact, chiseled perfection could be used to describe all of Magnus Falke. Except his personality. For that, I would lose the perfection and just go with chiseled.

Or squared.

Old-fashioned and lame.

But also mysterious.

He was an enigma to me, and that made him dangerously intriguing. I wanted his secrets. I longed to know what corralled him into priesthood and prevented him from returning to his former sexual self.

My internet searches yielded nothing but praise for his past achievements. Self-made billionaire? One hundred percent. He’d gotten rich by flipping businesses. In essence, he bought flailing corporations, fixed them up, and made an astronomical profit when he sold them.

By day, he was the king of the corporate world. By night, he was New York’s most eligible bachelor.

There were very few photos of him as if someone diligently erased them from the internet. But the ones I’d found showed him wearing suits and tuxedos, attending extravagant parties, each taken with a different woman on his arm. Always older ladies, closer to my mother’s age. All perfectly built and strikingly beautiful. Fashion models. Beauty queens. Celebrities.

Looking at those pictures made my stomach turn. He could and did have any woman he wanted, and I hated that for reasons I refused to examine.

Even now, dressed in his priestly black on black, he was an effigy of desire and temptation. Shadowed jawline, wicked mean mouth, brown hair falling over his forehead as he crouched to the floor. Then he straightened, turning. His lashes lifted to half-mast, and his piercing blue eyes landed directly on me.

Bedroom eyes.

I imagined they looked just like that, sensual and heated, when he was in the throes of orgasm.

Now that I had his rapt attention, I slid my finger between my lips and slowly sucked from tip to knuckle. As I withdrew it, I painted the wetness from my mouth along my slack bottom lip, rolling my tongue a little and—

“Class dismissed.” He clipped out the words, never taking his eyes off my lips.

I smiled.

He scowled.

“We still have ten minutes.” Carrie, so desperate to be the teacher’s pet, didn’t move from her chair.

“Get out!” His roar rattled the windows and cleared the room in under three seconds.

I might’ve peed a little, but I forced myself to remain seated. Forced my gaze to stay with his.

Something had changed since the night he returned my phone. I’d deliberately shown him my underwear, and just like that, he’d stopped punishing me with labor that put me on my knees.

No more floor scrubbing.

All week, I’d argued through his lessons, spat obscene words at his face, and engaged in my usual ornery way. But each infraction was met with forced prayers and Bible study.

Boring.

My sore knees were happy about the reprieve from scrubbing, but sitting in this classroom reading passages of scripture wasn’t doing him or me any favors. It only inspired me to be naughtier.

Theoretically, I represented everything he should avoid. My age, his vow, our student–teacher relationship—so many obstacles. I was forbidden, prohibited by state and church, taboo in every sense of the word.

Not to mention that the Constantines, one of the most powerful families in the country, had threatened him more than once.

I had to separate him from all that, physically, emotionally, and mentally, so that he could become engrossed with me. I needed to be too seductive to resist.

Last month, I would’ve never believed I could do it. But during Keaton’s visit—oh man, my brother would die if he knew this—his reaction to the way Magnus looked at me gave me perspective. Very little sneaked past Keaton. He knew how to read people, and if he suspected Magnus was having inappropriate thoughts about me, he was onto something.

It made me feel desirable.

So today, my forty-first day at Sion Academy, I came to class prepared to play dirty.

The door shut behind the last student, leaving Magnus and me and the crackling tension in the air.

“Here.” He pressed a finger to the desk in the front row, indicating I was to move to that spot without question or delay.

I took my time. Stretched my arms. Gathered my books. Rolled my hips. Tried to exude seduction in a fugly, green plaid skirt that hung like a sack and clashed with my complexion. But hey, I had to work with what I had.

When I finally lowered into the chair before him, I returned my finger to my lip, stroking the wet flesh.

His hand slammed down on the desk, making me jump. Then his face moved in. Dark brows, firm lips, unwavering glare. Furious. Terrifying.