Page 41 of Broken by my Bully
Not impossible, though, especially if the do-gooder librarian comes to check up on Haven.
Haven, who’s so close I can smell her. I swear she still smells like apple pie. A touch of cinnamon, apple, sweet caramel, and for some fucking reason, that makes my cock stir behind the soft cashmere of my sweats. Or maybe it’s her proximity.
It’s been years since I’ve been this close to a girl.
So close, Icouldkiss her.
Which I almost did last night.
What the fuck possessed me to lick apple pie off her face, I don’t know, but Christ, it was a struggle not to turn that weird act into something else. Her skin felt so soft under my tongue, and even now, I can feel those pillowy lips pressed to my palm.
“Kai—”
“Shut up,” I whisper, pressing the tip of my nose against hers for a moment before pressing our cheeks together as I move my mouth to her ear. “You want to know what I remember? I remember you on your knees in the mud, crying. Begging.”
There’s a muffled sound, maybe a protest, maybe something else. I’m enjoying the feel of her body pressed to mine too much to draw away so I can look into her eyes.
“Stop.”
“I remember the sounds you made whenever I tied you up.”
I can feel her rapid heartbeat against my chest. So desperate. So terrified. But she’s not fighting as hard as she should be…the Haven I knew could scratch and claw her way out of anything.
Her breath hitches when I lean in.
“You’re scared because I know how to hurt you,” I whisper. My hand slides from her wrist to her hip, fingers digging in possessively. “You’re scared because youwantme to hurt you. Even after all these years, Haven, it still scares you how much you need me.”
She tries to shake her head, but I catch her chin, forcing her to look at me. Those blue eyes are wide, pupils dilated.
“Liar,” I breathe, and her lips part on a soft gasp. “Your body remembers what I used to do to you in those woods. You might have forgotten how you’d beg for more, even through your tears…but your body remembers.”
“All I remember is being your punching bag,” she says, blue eyes blazing with barely tempered fury.
“If you hated it so much, why the fuck did you keep coming back for more, huh?”
She licks her lips, eyes narrowing, but the anger in them fades like a flame starved of oxygen. “You’re all I had, Kai.”
A pulse of something—guilt, shame, regret, who the fuck knows?—tightens my chest. But I know this game. She’s played it so many times before. Poor little Haven, the unloved girl.
“So why’d you fuck it all up, huh?”
She opens her mouth, but I don’t let her speak. I’ve had enough of her poisonous lies.
“Listen to me, Heavenly. You’re gonna get in your car, and you’re gonna drive out of here, and you won’t dare look in your fucking rearview mirror.”
Another sound, this one definitely a protest because it’s accompanied by a furious wriggle of her hips, like she’s trying to break out of my grip.
“Shhh, shhh,” I whisper, coiling my arm tighter around hermiddle like a python. “You’re notlistening, Heavenly.” My voice becomes a frustrated rasp.
She goes still. The breath puffing against my fingers from her nose comes in short, hard huffs.
I brush my lips against the shell of her ear. “You stay the fuck away from this place, or I’ll get the admin office to set up a meeting with your dad and the dean.”
She gives one savage jerk in my grip and sinks her nails into my arm.
“You don’t want that, do you? Your daddy walking in here…staggeringin here, demanding to know what the fuck is so important he had to stop hitting that pipe?”
The fight leaves her body. Like I’d been holding a marionette doll and someone cut the strings. She slumps forward, her weight falling against me.
