Page 105 of Dark, Forbidden, & Taboo

The way he held me against the door with his body.

The way he turned to force me to face him.

The way he gripped my throat like he wanted to snap it.

Then the way he lowered himself to his knees and …

Stop thinking about it,I admonish myself when I feel my core start to become warm.

___

I getup from my chair, letting it slam against the wall behind my desk. I’m so frustrated with him at this point, that I hope the sudden movement stuns him into behaving for the rest of the period.

Finley Bradshaw and his ragtag, misfit friends glance up at me. They seem to be taken aback by my sudden outburst, while he seems to find it amusing.

“Sorry, Your Holiness,” he begins with a smirk dancing across his lips. “I didn’t realize that having a quiet chat would get your panties in a bunch.”

I make my way down the rows of desks straight to the back of the room, and I wedge myself between his and the student's in front of him.

“Do you like spending your afternoons in detention, Mr. Bradshaw?” I grind out as calmly as I can.

“Not really,” he responds breezily. “But at least I know that’s the only time one of us will get some wood.”

My mouth becomes a tight line of anger as I remind myself that he’s just a child, and prone to ridiculous outbursts like this.

Do I enjoy punishing him after school? No, and that’s only because it still doesn’t seem to get anything through his thick skull.

If it did, then we wouldn’t have to go through the archaic procedure almost every single afternoon during the week.

“Unless you’d like to join us for an afternoon session, I suggest you regain control of yourselves,” I snap at his friends.

“Yeah, guys. I don’t know if a gangbang is in the Bible,” Finley chimes in with an eye roll.

“Get out of my classroom!” I boom at him as my hands become tight fists by my sides. “Go to the principal’s office and stay there for the remainder of the day!”

___

I let out a heavy sigh and wonder if that was the exact day when everything went so wrong.

Chapter 8

Finley

Alaugh escapes meat Ava’s obvious joy each and every time the seesaw tips and she ends up on top. She uses her feet to push off the ground as hard as she can, and I’ve almost fallen off my end a time or two.

And while I study her happiness, I can’t help but wonder how much of it has to do with her aunt.

Did this lady finally change and learn how to treat children, or is she still the dragon lady I remember, and Ava’s merely masking the bullshit she’s been going through?

I never had the chance to put on a façade.

I had always been an angry child and I even spent one summer in juvie because of Her Holiness.

She didn’t like the fact that I followed her back to the convent one afternoon afterdetention, and threatened to shove her ruler up her ass if she ever hit me with it again.

She had the head nun call the police and then lied to them when they arrived. She said that I had been stalking and threatening her, so instead of having summer school to catch up on my grades, I had a mini-vacation in the local detention center for unruly youths.

“So,” I begin as I push against the ground and send her back down to the bottom. “You were saying that your parents left. Where did they go?”

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