Page 81 of Broken by my Bully
The motherfucking morgue.
I stab the answer button, and whisper-shout, “Hello?”
There’s a long pause. “Haven?”
That voice. Deep. Controlled.Completelyinappropriate at three in the fucking morning.
Fuck.
Fuuuck.
I press my thighs together, hating how his voice affects me even through the phone.
“Professor?” I slur, because of course I’m still drunk. “The fuck you doing calling your student at—” I squint at my phone because I’ve already forgotten the time”—three thirty AM?”
“Language, Miss Lee.”
“Oh,nowyou care about being appropriate?”
Tequila makes me brave. Stupid? Same thing.
“Afteryou got me drunk in your house? Alone? At thirty—” I hesitate, because I can’t remember his exact age, either. “—something years old?”
Silence.
Then, “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“Atthreein the morning?” My voice cracks. “That’s not...teachers don’t…you can’tdothat.”
“I’m aware,” he mutters, like he wishes he had the common sense not to be on the phone with me. Like he expects me to feel sorry for him because he can’t control himself.
“Yeah? That why you calling? To confess your sins?” I turn my voice into a squeak. “Or’d Bastian have a nightmare about corrupting innocent freshmen?”
He lets out a half-growl, half-laugh. “Innocent? That what you think you are?”
“I’mnineteen.”
“I’m aware, Haven.Painfullyaware.”
Bastian growling in your ear is not something any woman of ovulating age should hear after she’s consumed as much tequila as I have.
I swear, he just got me pregnantthrough the phone.
“Yeah? You sure?” I gesticulate wildly, slamming the side of my hand into the toilet paper dispenser. “’Cos it sure don’t seem that way. What with all the, all thetouching?—“
“Haven.” My name sounds gets strangled in his throat, coming out strained, frustrated.
“—and the eye-fucking?—”
“Enough.” The word cracks through the phone like a whip.
Good. Let him get angry. Let him think about what he’s done.
“You’re imagining things. I would never overstep. Unlike my underage student, who can barely form coherent sentences.”
“Oh, fuuuck you, professor.”
He exhales into my ear. “If you’re quite done? I’m calling about your submission. I need to know who sent that letter.”
