Page 81 of Dark Notes

She tucks her hair behind her ear and gives me a sultry look. “Me, too.”

As blocks of buildings blur by, we settle into a vibrating nexus, a wordless bond strengthened with an exchange of lingering glances and smiles. It’s such a comfortable thing, this energy between us, like we’re in our own private world, where past mistakes, college dreams, and student-teacher laws don’t exist. Here, in this secluded suspension of time and space, nothing can break us apart.

I weave our fingers together in her lap. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

She rolls her tongue against the inside of her cheek. “It’s weird sitting in your car, dressed in nice clothes, feeling stuffed from a huge breakfast. My stomach’s happy.” She closes her eyes then opens them, locking on mine. “I’m happy. And scared. I guess I’m scared a lot, but happiness… That doesn’t come around very often, and I’m so afraid to lose it.”

She’s probably thinking of her father and the security she lost when he died.

I want to command her to leave all the worrying to me, but it doesn’t work that way, so I offer her a different perspective. “When we’re together, Ivory, when it’s just you and me like this, happiness can only be limited by us. We make the rules and decide how this is going to go. Our world is as boundless and real as our feelings for each other.”

She lifts my hand and places a kiss on my fingers. “Thank you.”

“For?”

“For always knowing what to say.” She holds my hand beneath her chin. “For feeding me. For letting me feed Schubert. For the phone, the clothes, and—”

“You’re welcome.”

I swear her heart is wrapped around mine, stretching and purring and rubbing against the walls of my chest. It’s exhilarating and terrifying, the way she sneaked inside me so swiftly.

A few blocks from school, I pull over on a quiet side street. “I’m not happy about this.”

She opens the door and tosses me an easy smile. “I walk to school every day.”

“I don’t like the secrecy.”

Been there, did this dance with Joanne. Ivory deserves better.

But if I’m caught, she goes back to Treme, Lorenzo Gandara, and financial desperation. I’m the one responsible for protecting her everything.

I grip the back of her neck and pull her in for a kiss. “It won’t always be this way.”

When she graduates, I won’t be her teacher. Our relationship will be legal and… She’ll go to college, wherever that may be. Then what? Will I follow her? Will she want me to? She won’t have a fucking choice.

She rests her forehead against mine. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

My face inflames as conviction hardens my gut. “I’ll do whatever—”

She presses her soft lips against mine and instantly abates my rising temper, kissing me until my dick swells.

Too soon, she pulls back. “We can discuss the future after I absorb everything that’s happening right now.”

With that, she slips out of the car, her killer body, fuckable ass, and long legs all back lit by the sun. Fucking stunning.

Shouldering her new satchel, she bends down to poke her head in. The neckline of her red dress drops open, giving me an unholy view of her firm young tits heaving against the red silk bra.

She catches me staring and raises an eyebrow.

How can I not look? It’s genetic programming, and Ivory has great fucking tits.

One corner of her mouth lifts in a seductive smirk. “See you in class, Mr. Marceaux.”

She walks away, leaving me with no fucking oxygen in the car. I roll down the window and rev the engine a few times to get her attention.

Glancing over her shoulder, she tucks her grin between nibbling teeth. “Are you trying to race me or impress me?”

I just wanted to see her smile one more time. Now I can breathe again.

I spend the day listening for whispers and paying close attention to subtle expressions. Beverly Rivard greets me in the faculty lounge wearing a tight-lipped scowl of disdain. Nothing new there. Andrea Augustin watches me from a distance, wary and bruised. She’ll get over it. Prescott stays out of my way in the halls and slinks in his seat during class. He’s the one who concerns me the most. I humiliated him in front of Ivory last night, a horrendous blow to his boy ego. But if he opens his mouth, he has more to lose than his dignity.

In the classroom, Ivory maintains her demeanor as a student. She doesn’t hold my gaze too long. Doesn’t flirt or show affection. But the sexual tension between us hovers like an electric storm. If someone knew what to look for, they’d pick up on it. Prescott should have some inkling after the way I defended her, but he doesn’t dare look at her or me. For now, all I can do is keep him under my scrutinizing watch.