Page 14 of Broken by my Bully (Lessons in Cruelty Dark Academia #1)

Kai

Fuuuck, my head hurts. I should’ve stayed at the frat house, where there’s unlimited painkillers, closed shades, and soft bedding. But Rooke made his standards crystal clear when I applied to be his TA.

He expects a hundred-and-ten percent from his students, but demands two-fifty from me. Which didn’t scare me back when I took the job, but things have changed since then.

I need Rooke as much as he needs me.

Maybe even more.

So I drag myself to class, and I try to look like I wasn’t dying inside. I think he bought it, but it’s always hard to tell what’s going on in Rooke’s head.

Fuck, I’m regretting it though. The beers were fine. I can drink plenty of those and be a-okay, but I didn’t stop there. Whiskey joined the party, and that’s when shit got real.

One shot, two shots, four.

But I still wasn’t drunk enough to drown out Haven’s puppy eyes.

Could still taste her skin from when I licked that apple pie off her face. Sweet and salty and so fucking addictive I can’t stop thinking about pinning her down to find out what the rest of her tastes like .

I won’t lie, it’s something I’ve thought about way too many times in my life.

And the sound of her whimpering like an injured animal? I’ve heard that too before.

Way, way too many times.

Now I’m recovering in the only quiet, dimly lit place on this campus—the library—while I wait for today’s second round of painkillers and my energy drink to kick in.

Most students not in class are outside, soaking up the dregs of sunlight struggling through the thin clouds.

There’s a handful of nerds inside with me, but most only stay long enough to find and check out whatever book they’d been after before leaving.

I’m in one of the little alcoves dotted about the place.

Most are beside windows, but some have only a moody painting for decoration and a green study lamp embedded on the table for light.

I’m in one of those, but I turned my light off, because I’m as photosensitive as a fucking vampire today.

I’d even be wearing my shades inside like a douchebag… but I forgot them in the lecture hall.

I groan at the thought of having to walk back to the frat house without my sunglasses. Maybe there will be denser cloud cover by then. Looks like the rains are coming early this year.

“…let me see…yeah, right over there. Should be a charging station just under that desk.”

Jesus Christ, who the fuck is disturbing my peace?

I’m lying down on the curved, cushioned bench, so all it takes is rolling my head to the side to glimpse a pair of legs walking past nearby.

A floral-print dress belonging to the librarian.

Someone follows close behind in faded jeans.

All I can see is a section of their thighs and ass, and despite how I’m feeling, I purse my lips with appreciation.

That’s a good-looking ass, even in a pair of shapeless jeans.

“That’ll be great, thanks.”

I sit up so fast I’m hit with a dizzy spell, but the pair has already disappeared behind one of the stacks .

No fucking way.

This hangover is making me hallucinate or some shit, because I swear to God that girl sounded just like Heavenly.

I take a sip of my energy drink and carefully slide out of the bench, heading in the same direction. There’s just a flutter of a printed skirt as the librarian rounds the corner of another stack.

I stalk after them and pause at the end to peek around the shelf of books.

“Here you go. And don’t forget your book.” There’s a soft thump, and I hurriedly retreat before the librarian can spot me. I wait to hear the rustle of her clothing pass, count a few breaths, and then stride down the stack again.

I stop when I see Haven.

She has her back to me, bending over as she plugs her phone into the charging station beneath the bench of the alcove the librarian led her to. This one has a window overlooking the garden, but there isn’t much light coming through. Guess it’s getting cloudier out there.

I lean against the shelf of books beside me, hooking my thumb into the pocket of my Brunello sweats as I watch her. The library is cool enough that I haven’t had to take off my Gucci hoodie, but Haven is zipped up like we’re in Alaska.

She slides into the booth and lets out a sigh as she shifts around to get comfortable.

With her sunglasses still on, the cap and zipped-up hoodie, she looks like she’s in fucking witness protection, but they haven’t moved her to a safe house yet.

That was me.

I scared her badly enough that she feels the need to disguise herself.

Should I be impressed at how brave she is, or pissed that I didn’t do enough to keep her away?

It’s because I keep picturing us when we were kids. That cute, cheeky little girl who’d go trundling through the woods with me on a merry adventure, not this grown-ass, fucked-up fraud in front of me. I’m going at this half-throttle when it should be pedal to the metal.

Haven grabs the brim of her AHC cap and starts to pull it off, then quickly looks around like she first wants to make sure she’s alone.

But she’s not. And when she spots me leaning against the stack just a few feet away, she scrambles to the center of the bench, right by the window, like that’s her escape route.

Guess she realizes I’m too close. If she tried to run, I’d snag her like a rabbit in a snare.

Her legs are up, knees by her chest. She’s gripping the bench beneath her like she needs the support.

Those blue eyes are wide, fearful, but determined.

“I’ll scream,” she says bluntly.

I thought about a lot of things last night when I was slamming back shots of whiskey and working my way through a six-pack of beer. Like what if she came back? I laughed it off, had another shot, and then remembered the feeling I had when I saw her yesterday, after warning her off the first time.

That initial shock, then the anger, then the cold, boiling hatred.

As much as it hurt, I forced myself to dig into the past, sifting through the sun-soaked, shade-dappled memories of our childhood together.

We’d known each other for years before I moved out of that trailer park in Riverside. We played our games, and we grew to know each other through the glimpses of pain and frustration we’d let each other see.

I understood Haven. And she understood me.

We gave each other what we wanted until what we wanted became too big of an ask.

I walk closer, and she opens her mouth, but there must be something on my face she doesn’t like because she remains silent, watching and waiting even as I lean forward and rest my palms on the table .

“You like this, don’t you?” I murmur. “That’s why you keep coming back for more.”

A crease appears between her dark eyebrows, her lips slowly sealing.

I slide my hands over the polished wood as I take a seat on the edge of the bench. She leans away, but her ass stays right where it is as she watches me uneasily.

“I’m the only Hillsider who’ll dare sit this close to you, know that?”

Haven’s eyelashes flutter, then a touch of color bleeds into her cheeks. “You fucking arrogant pri?—”

I make a grab for her, and it must take her by surprise, because she barely moves before I’ve got my hand latched onto the back of her neck. She gasps, her eyes squeezing shut at my touch only to fly open a second later so she can glare at me.

She hunches her shoulders, drawing her legs even closer to her body.

“That’s why you don’t want to leave, isn’t it?” I purr, using my other hand to brush a strand of hair out of her face. “Poor little trailer trash Haven. You must have thought you hit the fucking jackpot when they gave you that grant.”

Pride floods her eyes, making them sparkle. “I got that grant on merit, not because of pity.”

My laugh makes her cheeks grow even redder.

“Please, Heavenly. They took one look at your sorry ass and saw the perfect poster child. The tragedy of such a pretty girl trapped in the slums of Riverside. Every time she tries to crawl her way out, she just keeps falling back in the shit. Or on another dick.”

Her slap catches me off guard.

Then she’s dragging my fingers off her neck and scrambling to get out of the bench. I grab her arm she tears it free. But she’s caught when I snag the back of her shirt and twist the fabric, dragging it tight against her body.

She twists and starts slapping at my hand, but I pull at her shirt, dragging the two of us together over the leather bench. Her body goes stiff when our thighs crash into each other.

I recognize the sudden shift from angry to terrified. As soon as she opens her mouth, I know she’s going to scream. But my hand muffles the sound, just as I resist her struggles with an arm slung around her waist.

We’re facing each other like lovers, and if it weren’t for the hand on her mouth, it might have looked to any bystanders that we were about to kiss.

But a quick scan confirms that the nearby stacks are still empty. We’re deep in encyclopedia territory, so the chances of someone passing by are slim to none.

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, I could kiss 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.”