Page 24 of The Education of Ivy Leavold
“Perhaps it would be helpful if we arranged a signal between us, something that would alert me to your need to stop or to leave.” He came closer, and he pulled my hands into his. “That way, if the time ever comes, you won’t have to think of what to say and you won’t have to say anything more.”
“Like what kind of signal?”
He let go of my hands and pressed his fingers against my lips. Instinctively I opened my mouth to nip and lick at them, tasting myself as I did so. My body began thrumming desperately for him once more.
“What’s your favorite flower?”
“Bluebells,” I replied, thinking of the way they had bobbed and rustled around Mr. Markham in the meadow yesterday.
He slid a finger into my mouth and I sucked on it eagerly, wishing it were his cock. “Bluebell, then. Remember that, Ivy. When you say that to me, I shall stand aside and let you leave, even as it kills me inside.”
He pressed up against me, grinding his erection into my corseted stomach. “And if I ever push you too far in your education, if I ever make you feel only pain and no pleasure, use that word then as well. When I hearbluebell, I will stop immediately. That is the signal you will use to tell me if I have gone too far and you need to stop. That and no other word, do you understand?”
I nodded.
“Say yes, Ivy.”
“Yes.”
He rucked up my skirt, exposing my stockinged legs and bare pussy. His whole face darkened with lust. “Now,” he growled. “We need to address the fact that you are not wearing your ring. Not to mention that I found you on the road, walking away from me.”
I felt tears burn at my eyes—tears not of sadness or fear, but of unequivocal relief. This—this was how we were meant to be together. Him demanding, me yielding; me fighting and him relishing the fight.
“I won’t apologize for leaving,” I said, lifting my chin.
“Don’t test me.” His eyes were on my legs and sex, still open to the air. “Or I will show you exactly what it’s like to be afraid of me.”
He palmed my cunt—hard—and my knees weakened. “How am I to teach you if you are going to play truant?” he continued. “Should a teacher not discipline a wayward pupil?”
“Not if the pupil didn’t do anything wrong,” I shot back. But my fierce words were belied by my body, which was melting under his possessive touch.
“What is your signal, wildcat?” he asked calmly.
“Bluebell,” I answered, confused.Didn’t we just talk about this—
I was pushed suddenly to the ground. The air was knocked from my lungs and I didn’t have time to catch it again before he was on top of me, his mouth sealed over mine. He had never treated me so roughly, never pushed me, and everything in me struggled not to escape, but to push him back. To fight back.
Bluebell, my mind remembered.
But no. I didn’t want to stop. I wanted to conquer him.
I scratched at his neck and he groaned, reaching up to pin my wrist above my head. He did the same with my other arm until both wrists were held fast to the ground by one of his hands. I thrashed underneath him, half wanting to buck him off, half desperate for any friction against my aching center, and the more I thrashed, the wilder he looked, until he was yanking his trousers open and pulling out his swollen member. I rolled to the side, thinking I’d manage to get on top of him, but my shoulder was slammed back into the ground, and before I could move or even think, his knees were in between my legs and he thrust inside of me so roughly that I saw static at the edges of my vision, as he seated himself fully in one stroke.
I was wet, but not entirely ready, and I felt the searing heat of him as he dragged himself back out and slammed into me again. “You lay still and take your punishment,” he growled at me, driving into me with another powerful thrust. The weight of his body against my clitoris and the flexing of his hips in between my thighs sent spikes of desire to my core, but the whole scene—us rutting in the road like animals, him restraining my arms and forcing himself on me—it aroused me even further. Of course, he wasn’t truly forcing himself—he had made sure that I remembered how to make him stop. But the illusion of struggle scratched an itch deep inside of me. The truth was that I was furious with him and furious with myself for loving him and furious with Violet for finding him first and then dying and making everything so complicated. I wanted to bite him and scratch him and pull his hair; I wanted to expend all this pent-up anger and pain on his body and score his psyche liked he had scored mine.
And maybe part of me enjoyed being punished. No one since my parents had bothered to take care of me, emotionally, financially or otherwise, and I had prided myself on being independent, but there was something so primally comforting about ceding control. When he mastered me, I felt a burden lift that I didn’t even know was there, the burden of emotional self-sufficiency and isolation. And that’s why he was right—I did like him dangerous and unsafe. Because, however perverse it may be, when he took my body, he was showing me that he was going to take care of me, in all the ways that I needed.
And what was that feeling, if it wasn’t safety?
This realization stunned me. I went slack underneath him as I tried to process it, taking in how perfectly the jagged edges of our souls interlocked, how perfectly he had known me even when I hadn’t known myself. He had always seen this in me, this need to be mastered, and he had given it, as he had given me his heart.
And I could see it now, his heart, as he thrust into me with everything he had, as his eyes glossed with what could only be unshed tears. I watched them as they fell and licked them off my lips as they dripped onto my mouth.
“You’re crying,” I whispered.
He stopped moving, his head hanging in between his muscular shoulders. “Yes,” he said thickly. “I almost lost you.” He met my eyes, his green ones lanced with pain. “I need you, Ivy. And the idea of life without you…I can’t stand it.”
He let go of my wrists and then slid his hands under my waist and lifted me up. We were still joined together and I now rested on his lap, my skirts bunched up around us. He laid his head against my breast as I started moving and wriggling on top of him, trying to grind my clitoris against his pubic bone. “Why do I need you so much?” he asked, his voice quieted by my chest. “Why do I want to cherish you and break you at the same time?”
