Page 48 of Wicked Ends
I jumped at Marcus’ deep voice. My gaze flew to the door, which he’d apparently just come in through and closed behind him, leaning on it for good measure.
“What are you doing? This is the ladies’ room,” I pointed out lamely, like the rules might protect me from him.
“I might ask you the same thing… what are you doing? You were supposed to be waiting for me after school.” He sauntered forward.
I backed away, quickly coming up against a hand dryer.
“No. You asked me to, I never agreed,” I argued back.
He nodded slowly. “So, that whole spiel about how you’d do anything I needed to get over the trauma of being taken advantage of was BS? Good of you to admit it up front and get it out of the way… Why don’t you be real with me, Ari?”
“It wasn’t BS, and what is being real with you?” I demanded.
He was backing me toward an open stall, and I wasn’t sure what to do about it.
“Admit that you want me now, as much as you wanted me that night… and all this fucking student-professor forbidden shit is a way to try and keep yourself in line, play it safe.”
I shook my head. “I don’t want you.” I was a fucking liar. Being this close to him, I could smell that intoxicating scent of his, like clean vanilla with a hint of leather and spice. Something unique to this man that had my head spinning. It was a chemicalthing. Something about him spoke to something inside me on a primitive level, and it was completely inappropriate.
“Don’t lie to me, or I’ll be forced to prove you wrong,” Marcus said, still advancing.
The worry and anger I’d been bottling up all day rushed up my throat, and my control snapped.
“Fine. I’m lying. I’m a fucking liar but I’m also a fucking coward—I’m scared. I’m scared all the time.”
My wretched confession stopped Marcus in his tracks for a second. A frown pressed across his brow.
“What are you scared of?” he asked.
I let out a bitter laugh. “Everything. You, me… people from the past. The future. You name it, and I’m scared of it.” I shoved a hand through my hair.Damn it.The drinks from dinner were wearing off fast but had left me unfiltered and tired of pretending to be okay. I wasn’t okay. I was far from okay.
A tear fell and rolled down my cheek. Great, now I was crying.
I shook my head, trying to get a grip, but I was falling, and there was nothing to stop me.
“I don’t want to get in trouble or get tarred and feathered for doing something wrong. I can’t lose this job.” My voice cracked with repressed emotion. “I can’t lose it because I have nowhere else to go and no money to go there, okay?”
“And yet you offered to quit and leave town if I wanted you to,” Marcus pointed out.
He was close now, having advanced while I was fighting to keep my sanity intact.
“Because you’re a student, and I’m the professor, and I have an obligation toward you. I wanted to do the right thing,” I murmured.
His finger brushed the tear from my cheek. “Even if it cost you?”
Another trail of tears slipped down my cheek, and he caught them.
“That’s exactly when you should do the right thing, when it’s hard. That’s when it matters the most,” I whispered.
His chest pressed against mine, and the open stall was right behind me. I swayed into him. He was so strong and broad, and so fucking magnetic, it was hard to look away. He tucked a stray hair behind my ear, and something in that simple move was so caring, my heart clenched hard.
“I don’t want to be one of those professors who takes advantage of their impressionable students. They’re creeps, foul?—”
“And that’s not you, so drop it.”
“It would be me, that’s what everyone would think,” I insisted. “It’s what I’d think about myself.”
Marcus shook his head. “Do you never cut yourself some fucking slack? What about whatyouwant? Why doesn’t it matter? Talk badly about my favorite teacher one more fucking time, and I’ll put you across my knee, and make you scream.”
