Chapter 27
Chapter
Twenty-Seven
LUCA
I’m pretty sure if someone asked me what heaven looked like, I’d tell them it was sitting at the edge of the stage and watching Maddox Levine read lines from some Shakespeare play I haven’t thought about since high school.
He’s trying to teach the students how to be emotional and emotive when they speak.
I’m caught up in the deep rumble of his voice, and the way his eyes burn with passion as he moves across the stage.
He really could have been an actor if he’d wanted. Then I would have been seeing him on the television and silently aching because of the crush I had on him.
Maybe it’s selfish, but I’m really glad he’s here instead… that he’s mine.
God, he’s actually mine, and just that thought is enough to make my stomach tighten, my body ache. I can see the way some of the students watch him when they’re not too busy being terrified. He’s gorgeous—he’s commanding and powerful and of course they’d have crushes.
But he’s mine.
It’s heady knowledge.
He throws a glance at me while I’m staring, and what I’m thinking must be showing on my face because I catch the minute change to his posture, the way his shoulders straighten, his chest puffs out.
It makes me squirm in my seat, and I force my eyes down to my phone before I do something ridiculous, like try to get him to come behind the curtain with me.
It is one hundred percent Professor Levine’s fault that I am the way I am now—I never wanted this way before I was with him.
I manage to keep my eyes off him for the rest of class, but that doesn’t do a thing for the way his voice is rumbling in my ears, the way I feel like he’s talking just for me now. I know that’s not right. He’s teaching…
But…
I stand and start picking up the little scraps of paper the students left behind as he walks them to the door.
I think he’s going to head back to his office, so it’s almost strange when I hear the lock click into place.
I’m standing nervously in the middle of the stage when he disappears into the room at the back of the auditorium where the lights and sound are handled.
There’s a moment where everything goes dark, and before I have a chance to call out, a spotlight flickers to life.
It illuminates the space where I’m standing, leaving me bathed in a halo of light surrounded by a sea of darkness.
I’m not sure how I know where he is, but I can almost sense when Maddox starts approaching the stage.
“You look so good up there, little lamb… all caught in the spotlight.” The low rumble of his voice echoes through the auditorium, and it’s somehow even more sensual when I can’t tell where he is. “Are you going to put on a show for me?”
I think back to the person I was at the start of the semester, to the boy who ran away that first night at Mask.
I think about who I was, and who Maddox Levine makes me think I have the strength to be… and then I pull my T-shirt over my head.
It’s a strange feeling, standing here, sensing the way he’s moving around in the darkness without being able to see anything.
With the light in my eyes, I can’t adjust. I can’t get a sense of where he is, until his voice comes from the left, closer to the stage.
“What would you do if this was your one chance to show the world how much you want me, little lamb? If you could prove to a room full of people that you were mine?” The last word comes out as an actual growl, and the low moan that catches in my chest and nearly strangles me echoes through the silence in reply.
“Anything,” I whisper, though I already know it’s not enough. “Everything.”
There’s another beat of silence, and this time his voice is even closer, near the right edge of the stage. When I look down, I can just make out the shape of him in the darkness. I feel like I’m being hunted—like prey.
I feel like I want to get caught.
“Touch yourself, little lamb. Show me what anything and everything look like.”
I’m hesitant at first, trying to keep my focus on his figure as it dissolves back into the darkness.
My fingers brush along my bare torso, along my stomach, brushing up to my sternum.
When the tips catch against my nipples, I let out a little gasp, and I’m rewarded with another low rumbling sound of satisfaction that echoes the moan tearing from my chest.
It’s like he’s touching me, the darkness of the room reaching out and forming greedy fingers that brush against my skin and steal my breath.
Feeling behind me, I find the prop stairs he was standing on earlier when he was reading and sit down on them. One, I need some kind of support, because this is hot enough to make my knees weak.
And two, I need something to lean against as I slide out of my jeans, kicking my shoes off and pushing the neat little pile to the side. Danger pulses just beneath my skin, making goosebumps trail across my arms—we could get caught.
Anyone could come in and see.
My cock twitches, and with my eyes focused on the darkness in front of me, I slide my hand between my legs and start to touch myself.
The cool kiss of the air tickles against my bare skin as I stroke my cock, my eyes focused on where Maddox’s voice came from before.
It makes me jump when I hear him on the stage after what feels like hours, though I’m pretty sure it’s only been a minute or two.
My body is already tingling, threatening to spill over simply because of how forbidden and wrong this feels.
“Look at you, Luca. All spread out and on display. If everyone could see you now, they’d know you belonged to someone else.
” The low, growling murmur of his voice makes my head loll to the side.
I can just make out his figure now, standing behind the curtain where I usually sit during class.
He’s watching me the way I was watching him earlier, a perfect mirror—proof that I wasn’t hiding anything from him.
“When I’m teaching I can feel your eyes on me.
It makes it hard to think, hard to work.
It makes it hard to do anything but want…
and now I can see why. Come on, little lamb… tell me what it feels like.”
“Good,” I whine, the word catching in my chest. “Like I’m putting on a performance…
ju… mmf… just for you.” My other hand drifts up, fingers trailing along my throat before they catch in my hair.
I arch my back, wondering if he can see the way my stomach trembles, the way my cock is already leaking.
“I wish everyone could see. I wish everyone could know.”
There’s a shuffle of sound, and when my lids flutter open again, Maddox Levine is on his hands and knees in front of me, crawling across the stage like some great cat until he’s just between my thighs.
When he glances up at me, there’s a thunderstorm in his gaze—danger.
Disaster. A possessive darkness that I’ve never seen before, something that writes lines along the length of my spine and wraps around my throat to strangle me.
“I don’t. I think if anyone else saw you like this right now, I’d go a little crazy.
” He leans in, nuzzling at my thigh, licking a hot stripe against my balls that makes me shiver.
“I’d want to tear out their eyes for seeing you like this…
because this…” He leans closer, nuzzling the curve of my thigh… “All of this was made just for me.”
Those eyes flash up to me again, not demanding—compelling. Pulling the words out while my hand flies faster.
“Everything I am was made for you.”
It’s a promise that seems to cause the fire in his eyes to ripple into an explosion.
Maddox grabs my hand, pulling my fingers up to glide through his hair…
and then the heat of his mouth envelops my cock and my entire world gets caught up in his flames.
I’m going to lose it before he even swallows around me if I’m not careful, and my fingers instantly tighten in his hair, tugging his head back so I can try to catch my breath.
“Do you want me to stop?”
“No,” I answer before he even gets the full question out. “I just want…” God, I’m not even sure… “I just want to look at you.” It sounds embarrassing when I say it, but the way the heat in his eyes flares to a slow-burning ember tells me it wasn’t the wrong thing.
He’s deliberate when he dips his head again, letting a string of saliva drip from his mouth to fall to the head of my cock—and he’s slow when he twists his hand around my length this time, slicking that wetness back until I feel the heat of his thumb work it against my hole.
I want him to take me apart here at center stage; I want to think about it every time he’s giving a lecture.
I want Maddox Levine to take every broken piece of who I used to be in his hands so he can see the way I fit together differently—the way he helped me fit.
“Then look at me, Luca,” he murmurs, drawing another slow line up my cock with this tongue.
“Watch the way you bring me to my knees… the way I want to worship every inch of you.” He drops his head again and takes me to the back of his throat, and I know there’s no more stopping.
There’s just flight… a burst of wings, a fall of feathers.
There’s heaven and hell… and somewhere higher than both is the place Maddox takes me as he pushes me over the edge.
I dissolve into a thousand fragmented pieces ready to be made whole around the shape of his heart.
My lips are still warm from the kiss Professor Levine pressed there before he headed out. I’d wanted to get on my knees and return the favor, but apparently what he needed was something we didn’t have time for while on school grounds.
After that, I’d told him to go to his office before he missed his next class and I’d clean up the mess his students—and we—had left behind. Even though he’d been reluctant to leave, I’d finally waved him off with a promise of coming over tonight.
Professor Levine…
Maddox…
Mad. My lips lift into a smile at the last word.
It’s so weird, the way my brain has slowly sorted him from one category to the other.
It feels like I’ve known him longer than a few months—honestly, with the way he touches me, with the way I’m missing him even though he’s barely been gone for a few minutes, it feels like I’ve known him my entire life.
Maybe I should tell him that.
Maybe I should—
The sound of clapping makes my head jerk up. I have no idea why I know who it is before my eyes focus, but my fingers grip the stack of scripts I’ve been neatly organizing and I frown.
“What do you want, Professor Hilman?” I can’t keep the disdain out of my voice, but it doesn’t seem to put him off. He keeps slapping his hands together like he’s determined to make a point, and he doesn’t stop until I feel my shoulders slump.
“That was… quite the performance you put on, Luca.”
Quite the…
There’s no way he saw…
There’s no way he knows.
I…
“What?”
“Imagine my surprise when I borrowed the extra set of keys from the janitor because I told him I forgot something in here and saw you and Professor Levine.” He tsks softly, stalking toward the stage.
I’m frozen in the low lighting, my fingers clutching the scripts so hard I’m pretty sure my arms are shaking.
“I see why you’re confused now… he’s filled your head with a bunch of nonsense, hasn’t he? ”
He’s still moving toward me like this is all normal, and all I want to do is throw the papers at his face and push him off the stage.
“It’s not like that.” My brows draw together and I hope the conviction in my voice rings true. “I don’t know what you think you saw, but—”
He pulls out his phone… and there on the screen is my worst nightmare. Professor Levine between my legs and my head thrown back.
It isn’t the expression on my face that catches me off guard, it’s his.
The soft reverence in his eyes. The adoration.
The love.
Maddox Levine is looking at me like I’m his entire world, and now the fate of that world is hovering between me and an asshole with a smirk on his face. I feel almost numb as I put the papers down on the chair and blow out a slow, shaking breath.
“What do you want, Professor Hilman?”
“Please, call me Alec,” he smirks… and when he steps toward me, I know I’m not going to like whatever he has to say.