She was everything I wasn’t.
I’d never been so taken with a woman, and it unnerved the hell out of me. She was smart and strong and willful enough to pierce my exterior. Hell, she was the only woman who might understand me and accept me for who I was.
I feared that for her.
I meant what I’d told her. I wouldn’t be able to stop this. But to protect her from me, I was going to damn well fucking try.
As the opossums set off into the darkness, she stood beside me, watching them fade away. She blew a kiss, a little wave, and tilting her face to the night sky, she released a joyous laugh.
A much better send-off than a shoebox and burial mound.
I gave her the time she needed, standing silently at her side and absorbing her beauty in my periphery. We hugged the blankets around our shoulders, our arms brushing, hers shaking with the cold. Without thought, I pulled her against me, chest to chest, enveloping her in fleece and body heat.
She rested her cheek against me and sighed. My body hardened. Our hips pulled together. Her soft, pearl-colored hair tickled my throat. I wasn’t wearing my collar.
This was a bad idea.
She snaked her arms under the blankets and wound them around my back. “Confession time.”
“We already did that today.”
“This isn’t a sin. It’s more of an admission.”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“Too bad. I know who left the carnage in my room, and when you punish her…” She made a groaning sound. “This is hard for me to say.”
I bit back a smile, knowing what would come out of her mouth.
“I don’t want you to whip her.” She stared up at me through her lashes. “Or spank her or look under her skirt or—”
“Tinsley—”
“—touch her in any way. Mostly, I don’t want you to be with her the way you were with me today.” She propped her chin on my chest, her gaze never leaving mine. “I have no right to ask this of you, and hearing it out loud sounds so petty and inappropriately jealous. I swear, Magnus, I’m not going to make any more moves on you. Except for maybe hugs.” She tightened her arms around me. “This is nice. But I’m not going to come to class without underwear or try to sleep with you or anything like that again.”
I waited for the relief to hit, but it didn’t come. “Does this mean you’ll behave in my classroom? No more backtalk or disrespect?”
“What?” She reared her head back, snorting. “Let’s not go crazy here. I’m still going to make your life a living hell.”
Impossible. Every second with her was unexpected and challenging and pure bliss.
“I won’t give up on my one great passion.” She shifted her weight, inadvertently rubbing against the fly of my jeans. “But while I’m removing you as part of my plot against my mother, I don’t want…” Her lips parted as she searched my face. “Damn, why do you have to be so exasperatingly gorgeous?”
I had that very thought about her every second of every day.
“What I’m trying to say…” She blinked and sucked in a breath, abdomen tight. “Nevada has a massive hard-on for you, and I don’t want you to reward what she did to me tonight by lifting her skirt and—”
“Shut up,” I murmured, watching her plump lips roll in and push out, wrestling with her silence. “I’ve only ever taken a strap to three students, and in all three cases, I felt nothing. No anger, no frustration, no interest outside of a professional capacity.”
Her eyes flickered as she absorbed my words. “You felt anger with me.”
“I feel everything with you.”
Dear God, I couldn’t suppress this fixation, couldn’t pretend my attraction to her didn’t weaken my promise to God when, at soul level, I wanted this heavenly creature with every filthy breath in my body.
The moonlight lit up her hair in unearthly hues of glimmering white. Her beauty was elegantly delicate and airy in a way that seemed too perfect for this world.
But it was her perceptive, intelligent gaze that reached into my carefully constructed existence and shredded my control. I couldn’t remember my name when she looked at me like this. Like she saw me—the man, the sinner, the murderer—and accepted what she saw.
My lips separated on all the words that wouldn’t come.
We can’t.
You’re my student.
I’m twice your age.
You’re a Constantine.
I’m a priest.
I’ll hurt you.
I’ll kill you.
All the reasons, all the logic and truth and sanity, slipped through my fingers as she lifted on her toes and stared at my mouth. There was nothing but the rapid thud of my heart, the timorous tumble of her breaths, and the temptation of her forbidden lips.
My hand went to her neck, fingers curling, restraining. I dipped my head, weightless, gasping for air and finding none. Until her sweet exhalation misted over my lips, teasing me with the taste of sin.