Two big, beautiful green eyes flew open and snagged me. My hand came up and rested underneath her chin. My thumb rubbed her swollen bottom lip, and every nerve ending in my body stood erect. “This situation is…unorthodox. I know. I asked you to tutor me and to cover for me when I needed to leave the grounds so I could have a way to dodge being caught and expelled by the SMC and still do what I needed to do…” I glanced away, knowing very well I shouldn’t have been bringing her further into this shit, but she deserved to know the truth—something that I had been contemplating since Tuesday. “I’m here at St. Mary’s because of Bain.” I couldn’t even look her in the eye as disgust and anger filled me. “My father sent me here to report all there is to know about Bain and his father. You want to talk about a pawn? That’s exactly what I am. Bain leaves the school, and I follow him. That’s why I need you to cover for me and to have a reason to be in the halls after curfew. It’s why I leave the school. My father and Bain’s father are bad fucking men.”
Gemma jumped as my words grew angrier, but I continued to hold her chin in place.
My gaze left the couch, and I found hers again when her soft voice echoed in the room. “I know all about bad men, Isaiah. You don’t have to explain anything else to me.”
My jaw clenched as I fought to keep myself from kissing her again. Gemma was not a pawn. I wouldn’t let her be. That was exactly what Bain was trying to do. He wanted to use her against me just like I suspected he was trying to use Journey against Cade, for whatever fucking reason that was still unknown to me.
“I kissed you in front of everyone to put on a show; that part is true. But kissing you wasn’t fake. What just happened was anything but fake.” I swallowed, licking my lips. Even with the impossibility of her and me ever being anything at the forefront of my head, I couldn’t help myself. My body was aching to have her. My
heart was beating fast with an intensity that made my blood sing. It was much more than attraction. I wasn’t dense. There were things I was feeling that were buried deep below the surface, and that in itself should have pulled me away from her. But instead, I got closer.
I bent my head to hers, shoving any last thought of Bain, my father, the future that awaited me, and the secrets she was keeping away. It was just her and me, locked away in a room underneath the unmoving halls of St. Mary’s Boarding School. Something shifted inside my chest, and I craved to know if she felt this way too. She was my little mystery girl. I was bending in half without knowing the things that went on behind those green eyes. Things were moving so quickly. The ability to deny the hole she was carving with just a single glance from across the dining hall was long gone. Fuck, I needed to touch her.
Gemma’s back curved as she pressed herself to me, and her doe-like eyes nearly stole my breath away. My tongue darted out as I licked my lips again, my chest growing tight as it begged me to shut the fuck up. “We probably shouldn’t go here, Gemma.” Our eyes caught, and the room was caving in. “It won’t last. It can’t go anywhere.” My mother’s face was crowding the outskirts of my memory, and again, that right there should have been the push that I needed to step away, but I didn’t.
“I know,” she whispered, darting her eyes from my mouth and then back to my face. “I’m leaving this life behind one way or another.”
I nodded sternly. “And I can’t leave mine.”
A short breath came from her sweet mouth, and my eyes shut as I inhaled. “That’s the whole point, right? Keeping you here at St. Mary’s. Keeping you from being expelled?”
I didn’t answer her because I couldn’t get my thoughts to stay in that straight, controlled line that they never veered from.
“Isaiah?” My eyes opened in an instant as I locked onto hers. The green pulled me in quickly. “Will you kiss me again?”
My hands around her waist grew firmer until it felt like she was the only thing I’d ever need to ground me. Shit. This was so bad. So fucking bad. “My uncle told me not to corrupt you, Good Girl.” I knew, staring down at her soft expression and perfect parted lips that she was about as innocent as they came. She may have kissed me like she was made for me, but she had exuded innocence from the first moment I laid eyes on her. And I wasn’t going to lie…it was fucking tempting. I wanted to grasp her purity in my devilish fingers and dirty her in every way. I wanted to make her body respond to mine and no one else's.
“And you’re going to listen to your uncle?” The sincerity in her question made a deep, throaty chuckle float out of my mouth.
”I never listen to what my uncle says. I will kiss you over and over again until you tell me to stop.” And maybe not even then.
The smallest lift of her lips made the room tilt. “Good.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Gemma
Isaiah’s eyes shut as I sucked in a shaky breath. His hand splayed out over my torso, resting along the bare skin of my stomach. The feel of his palms on my body was all-consuming. I was suddenly aware of everything he was doing and nothing else. The hardness of him that should have scared me but instead excited me. The way his breath was like a feather brushing against the crook of my neck. The feeling of his chest moving against mine. And at some point, his head had dropped, his hair tickling the side of my cheek as his warm breath coated my flesh, making goosebumps rise on the ends of my arms.
Before I could panic and rethink the last few moments, Isaiah’s teeth scraped over my collarbone, and a jolt of something hot rushed through me, canceling out the hidden threats of Richard that laid ever so quietly in the back of my head. Isaiah’s presence gave me a fraction of safety…of normalcy, and I was running with it.
“So, you’ve been kissed,” he asked as his lips pressed against the side of my throat, right over my pulse point. Everything inside of me came to life, and a need so hot was causing my back to bow and my breath to quicken.
What the hell was he doing to me? I’d always thought I’d be afraid or too nervous to actually enjoy myself if I ever got the chance to feel another's touch. But I wasn’t afraid. Not at all. I was exhilarated. I wanted more.
“Ye-yes,” I answered, tilting my head to the side to give him more access.
“But have you been touched?”
Such a difficult question, and one that I would rather not explain.
Isaiah pulled back just a fraction. The hard planes of his chest still moved against mine. He waited with patient eyes as his grip tightened. The cut arches of his cheekbones were flushed, and his eyes were nearly feral. He was dangerously attractive, standing in front of me like that. Like…like he wanted to consume me.
I swallowed as I let the bitter question leave my mouth. “Touched how?” I knew I was avoiding some of the truth, and he probably knew that too.
Isaiah’s eyes had darkened, like a hooded veil covering the depths of his blue hues. “If you have to ask, then the answer is no.” He paused, taking his palms from my waist and cupping my hands in just one of his. He pushed them up above my head, and I fought the urge to glance at them to make sure my sleeves were still covering my wrists. “Or…” He was looking at my lips now instead of my face. “Whoever touched you before...didn’t know what they were doing. They didn’t know just how unworthy they were to have you in their grasp.”
His lips were a breath away from mine, and I tipped my head. “But…you do?”