Something’s off today. I feel a weird sort of flux in the air the instant I step into Room 1A. Prescott and Sebastian sit on opposite sides of the classroom. Odd. Almost as odd as the hard and resentful way they’re staring at me. Mr. Marceaux stands behind his desk, also watching me in a hard way. But there’s something else in his expression.
Something I haven’t glimpsed in five weeks.
He looks at me like he’s visualizing spanking me. It’s a subtle smolder contained in his eyes, flickering as if it’s been building for a while, growing and strengthening behind his thick eyelashes, and now, perhaps it’s become too big, too hungry to suppress.
Maybe I’m imagining it, but the dark and heavy bass-type feeling thumping through my insides is most definitely real.
I study him closely as I find my seat, as he begins the lecture, and as he guides the class through the next hour of discussions. In those countless moments when he meets my eyes, there’s a resonance radiating back from his, like he’s experiencing something he’s aching to share with me.
He holds my gaze. “Every minute you’re not in school, you should be practicing your instrument.”
Now that it’s October, we have a number of events to prepare for, the biggest one being the Holiday Chamber Music Celebration. As he brushes over the performance calendar, I’m reminded that he hasn’t chosen the piano soloist. I know I’m the best, but I don’t know if he agrees. His assessment of my skills is so rude and degrading. Even so, his feedback spurs me to try harder, to be better, to please him.
He continues to watch me as he speaks. It’s always me who looks away first, his intensity too potent to take in for long and making me feel dizzy. But when I return to him—and I always do—I notice his fingers trembling or his tongue wetting his bottom lip, validations that I’m not the only one feeling this deeper presence, this vibe, between us.
What changed? How does a man go from spanking and kissing me to five weeks of rejection to vibe-fucking me?
By the time the last bell blares and the classroom empties, I’ve become so sensitive to the flashes of fire in his eyes he doesn’t have to tell me to remain seated. The moment we’re alone, he paralyzes me with a single glance. A silent command. Don’t move.
With strong, measured strides, he approaches my desk, grips the outer edges, and bends over the short distance, invading my space in that predatory way he does.
He looks at me, I look at him, and a woozy tingle sweeps through my limbs.
“Mr. Marceaux?” Jesus, my heart is going to beat right out of my chest. “What are you doing?”
“Tell me about Prescott Rivard.”
My heart stops in its tracks. “Sorry?”
He slams a fist on the desk, and the echo bangs in tune with the low D of his timbre. “Answer me!”
My shoulders curl forward, and my throat seals shut. Did he find out? I’m supposed to meet Prescott again tonight. What if that fucking prick told on me? But why would he? Prescott would be just as screwed as me.
Play it cool. Mr. Marceaux doesn’t know anything.
“Prescott’s my biggest competitor for Leopold. But I’m better—”
“Not that.” His voice evens into a calm tessitura. “Tell me about your relationship with him outside of school.”
I open my mouth to form a lie, but the words don’t come. I can’t be dishonest with him. I don’t know why. So I settle on the simple truth. “I hate him.”
“Why?”
“He drives around in his fancy car, wearing his too-good-for-everyone smile and being his tampon-ish self.”
He lifts an eyebrow. “Tampon-ish?”
“Yes. Like a tampon. A used, gross, sticky…tampon.”
He rubs a hand over his mouth, staring at me like I’m speaking another language. Dropping his hand on the desk, he narrows his eyes. “Explain what you mean.”
“You really want me to—? Okay, fine. A tampon is repulsive. It bulges and expands with blood. It drips all over the place and smells bad and—”
“Stop. Why is Prescott repulsive?”
“You have to ask?”
He straightens, tucks his fingers in his front pockets, and for the first time in weeks, gives me a half-smile. “No, I guess I don’t.”
Silence wraps around us, but it’s not quiet. The air is so charged and full of heartbeats I get lost in the music that thrums between us. The look in his eyes… My God, it’s overwhelmingly sexual. Not in an I-want-to-fuck-you way. He’s probably thinking that, but his gaze exudes the kind of sensuality that promises more, like if we spent the rest of eternity just sharing eye contact, it would be intimate and mind-blowing and perfect, with or without sex.
It’s a concept I struggle to comprehend. Just thinking about sex with him twists me up in a conflicted heap. But I don’t need to understand or analyze it. I feel it.