Page 55 of The Headmistress

“You saw me earlier, Sam.” There was a gentle rebuke right beneath the softly spoken words.

“Ha, I thought exactly the same thing. That I tasted you just this morning.”

“Sam…” The word was more moan than any other sound, and Sam’s stomach clenched with want.

“I miss you all the time. Maybe that’s why I’m sitting here drawing hearts.”

“They keep getting wiped out. And if that isn’t some kind of a metaphor…”

“Today is just freaking chock-full of metaphors!” Exasperated Sam got up, mindful of the shawl, and picked up the chalk again, drawing bigger, if not prettier hearts, in the space of the ones disappearing under the onslaught of the drizzle and the wind.

Magdalene just watched her, head cocked to the side, the expressive eyes in sharp relief on the pale face. The silence felt brittle, like something was just beyond Sam’s reach but too fragile to be grasped and brought to light. Still, Sam tried.

“Look, I don’t care. This hasn’t been easy from the beginning. Nothing about you and me has been easy. I think I walked into some kind of dream between the night in New York and the day you showed up here, like God’s avenging angel.”

“I’m no angel, Sam.”

“Would you stop interrupting for once, you aggravating woman?!” Sam paced around, startling Willoughby with her exasperated tone. He raised his head and gave her a disgruntled half-meow before settling back down.

Magdalene stared at her, clearly taken aback by the tone and the words.

“We have a deal, you and I. And I’m honoring my end of it. But know this, it’s not easy, and while waiting is not something that comes naturally for me, you do. Everything about you is as natural for me as breathing. Missing you, recognizing your scent and your steps. Loving you. It’s all natural for me. So if I have to draw these damn chalk hearts on stone for you every day, despite them getting erased, I will. Because I don’t care about how hard this is. My heart is still beating, as upset, as hurt, as full of longing as it is. And while it does still beat, it will always be full of you. I love you.”

“Damn you, Sam Threadneedle.” And with just that curse, Sam found her arms full of Magdalene who was up from the ground in one second and kissing her the next. Well, she could take being cursed and damned like this. She very much could, when the beloved, now familiar lips, devoured her with so much passion, so much hunger. When the tongue she was intimately familiar with thrust into her mouth with this much determination to steal her breath away. When the hands that she had kissed and knew every inch of, and that had loved her so well, roamed her back before settling on the nape of her neck, sending little shocks up and down her spine and straight between her legs. So let her be damned. As long as she had this, she’d take her damnation and wait as long as she needed to.

20

Of Pining & Reckless Rendezvous

The next month was daunting but fulfilling. The school year was in full swing. Between integrating the new scholarship children, working on a truncated curriculum, traveling to Connecticut for an extended weekend of Dragons competing with the New Haven St. Mary Private School for Girls in an ad-hoc tournament and trouncing them squarely, and helping Lily submit her paintings to the Vivian DeVor College Scholarship Fund for LGBTQIA Youth, Sam really thought she’d have very little time to pine for Magdalene.

Except every single thing she did made her think of the Headmistress more and more. Scholarship girls—Magdalene’s initiative to expand support for vulnerable kids. Connecticut—Magdalene putting an effective stop to in-school fighting and animosity by uniting the Houses in their competitive desire to win against an outsider, instead of being pitted against each other. Lily and Amanda and the rest of the gang continuing to have every opportunity to excel, and proceeding to do so at pretty much everything—including having a real shot at wonderful opportunities at some of the best schools in the country after they’d graduate Dragons. During her days, everything around Sam served as a reminder of the extraordinary woman she had given her heart to.

Sam did not need any aide-memoires for the nights. Awake or in slumber, Magdalene haunted her. Memories of their time together, the feeling of her skin, the taste of her essence, the slide of her mouth against Sam’s. The cheeky nip at her bottom lip, or a low-pitched, almost indecent whine when Sam had taken her time and teased her for too long. Of course, Sam would then prolong the torture even more, transforming the whine into a full-blown scream, as, after all the edging and teasing, Magdalene would come hard, again and again.

To say that the fact that she could absolutely transform this severe, no-nonsense, all-business woman into panting, moaning, and screaming, sweaty putty in her hands made Sam proud, was an understatement. Did it make her cocky? Sure. Did it make her swagger just a little and have an extra spring in her step? You bet. But it also made her feel unbelievably privileged to be the one who got to see Magdalene let go. To be the one who was allowed to do that. To be the one who had the power to do it.

Of course, no amount of power or swaggering—or anything else for that matter— made a repeat of something like that remotely possible, considering the entire school was in session and watching Magdalene like hawks. Numerous parents had expressed their displeasure to the trustees. Two even unenrolled their children from the school, displeased either by Magdalene’s decision to install a lesbian reverend or cut programs they deemed essential.

Others, like Orla, continued to undermine Magdalene left and right for her perceived temerity to ‘sell out’ the school to the ‘dangerous locals’ who were ‘desecrating the hallowed grounds’ by renovating the old astronomy tower on Viridescent Cliff. However, if the slow-but-sure transformation was anything to go by, the finished product was going to be a state-of-the-art hotel, and staying there would surely cost an arm and a leg, and would thus be unlikely to attract anyone from a different—and much frowned upon by them—social strata than the families of the very wealthy Dragons’ students.

So Sam stayed away from Magdalene. And pined. On the mornings when the whole school had breakfast in the Mess Hall, she couldn’t take her eyes off her. She guessed she wasn’t getting any better at hiding her emotions and was pretty obvious in her longing, since Joanne had swatted at her under the table one day and then winked at Sam’s scandalized expression.

But Sam couldn’t help but watch those long-fingered hands play with the first cup of morning coffee, trace the rim of the mug, slowly stir the golden liquid with the silver spoon, savor the feeling of the hot mug in both palms, warming those always slightly chilly hands. And then the cup would be raised to that sensuous mouth and full lips would touch the edge of it, and the long line of the throat would work, enjoying the prolonged sip, and Sam would need to cross and recross her legs, pressing her thighs together to alleviate some of the tension. Who knew a cup of coffee could be this sexy?

Granted, Sam thought absolutely everything Magdalene did was sexy. Standing in front of the school, announcing some new policy, holding the fate of hundreds of people in those carefully manicured hands, walking the graceful walk with those subtle curves of her hips swaying, slowly scratching Willoughby’s fur—when she believed nobody was watching—from between his ears down to the tip of his nose, making him purr like a well-oiled machine. Sitting in her chair, gently biting the tip of her pen before she used it to sign some poor schmuck’s life or death order. Yawning demonstratively when Orla pontificated on the sanctity of the Dragons’ land.

Yeah, Sam was fully aware she was completely gone for Magdalene. Just lost. Stupid with it too, since, despite her valiant attempts at schooling her features to some extent, even Lily—in the throes of a massive first love herself and following Amanda around campus like a veritable lovesick puppy—would tease her mercilessly. Thank god that girl was tactful and only chose to be a complete and utter smartass and pain in Sam’s behind when they were alone.

And through it all, through the yearning and silent gazes and slow smiles, the love that Sam carried in her heart only grew. Sitting on Amber Dragon in the quiet of the evenings, sometimes with Magdalene, but more often alone as to not tempt fate, she watched the darkening horizon, the reds and oranges, the purples and the pinks of the ocean disappearing under the dark blue blanket of the night and thought that sharing this beauty one day in the open with the one who held her heart would be worth it. Because every day, love was making a bigger space inside Sam. It was pulling the roots of her fear and anxiety, one by one, until there were precious few, until a single glance across the quad was enough to sustain her. To serve as benediction. To give her strength and patience.

And then Magdalene still found ways to make Sam feel cherished. To make Sam feel like she wasn’t all alone with her emotions. A flower, another missive through Willoughby’s collar, a gentle touch of their knuckles as they passed each other just a little too closely in the hallways. And when those small gestures were no longer enough, Magdalene would find major ways to remind Sam of what they had and what they shared, like sneaking into Sam’s room on their trip to Connecticut and surprising her with a set of crimson lingerie that had Sam nearly out of her mind within seconds, taking Magdalene first against the door the moment she’d dropped her trench coat to reveal the Agent Provocateur creation, and then on the floor by the bed, before taking the Headmistress from behind, on her hands and knees on the bed, face down, biting the pillow so hard that Sam had to pay the hotel for the ruined item.

Sam did not mind the price of a pillow. Sam did not mind the sleepless night. Sam did not mind the wrist cramp or the crick in her neck. Sam didn’t even care about the slight sprain of her jaw, because she had been relentless and had not allowed Magdalene out of her room until the early morning hours after they’d both lost count of the number of orgasms Sam had drawn out of her. It was all worth it, even if Sam had overheard George asking Magdalene if she’d slept okay the next day because she was spacing out during their breakfast conversation and looked slightly worse for wear.

Sam tried to pretend it had nothing to do with her edging Magdalene until she’d begged, until she came gushing, until she bit her own hand, leaving marks, in order not to scream and wake up half the hotel. The fact that Magdalene had a bandaid on her hand this morning, to hide the teeth marks from the prying eyes of the world, made Sam wince in sympathy. She had kissed that injured hand afterward, tracing the small but deep imprints the incisors had left with her tongue with deliberate care and precision. It had only led to Magdalene encouraging her to climb in her lap and ride that very hand until Sam had come with a strangled moan and a whispered ‘I love you’.

So while Magdalene was making every single overture in the book, including some from the Kamasutra, to ensure that Sam knew how much she, too, missed her, she had not said those three most craved for words back.

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