“Jacket weather.”
I glance at the brown suede jacket draped over the back of his seat. The long sleeves might help hide the cuts on his knuckles.
He loads up my plate, pours my juice, and rests a hand on my thigh. I haven’t been cared for this way since my dad was alive. Sitting here in nice clothes, putting food in my belly, I study him as a fatherless girl would her protector, as a student with her teacher, but more than that, I look at him as a woman opening her heart to a man.
He fills so many voids in my life, and my desire for him only knits me closer, tighter to a world I’ve only dreamed about. A world where I interact with a man because I want to, because he cares about me as much as I care about him.
Except he says I’m not ready.
Before I met him, gentleness was all I wanted, but now?
When I began formal musical studies, I gained an acute appreciation for Bach’s kickass usage of counterpoint. Those who don’t know how to listen to his music only hear a mess of noisy lines. But what he composed was multiple melodies, with each hand playing a different version of the same song.
Emeric applies counterpoint in everything he does. With one hand, he taps with tenderness and self-control while his other bangs with intensity and dominance. His methods may be contradictory, but he executes them in perfect harmony.
I set down the fork and grip his fingers on my thigh. “How will I know when I’m ready?”
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.