Page 37 of Broken by my Bully (Lessons in Cruelty Dark Academia #1)

Haven

Professor Rooke gives me a double take when I step back into the living area. He’s perched on the edge of his sofa, cradling a cup of coffee in his hands. The fireplace casts a faint, warm glow over his face, smudging his features until it’s hard to make out his expression.

I can’t tell if his brows are raised in surprise or outrage.

“Is this okay?” I ask, stopping halfway to the sofa.

“Of course.” He clears his throat. “Glad you found something that…fits.”

I tug on a rolled-up sleeve. “I had to make it work.”

“It definitely…works.” He clears his throat again and flicks a hand toward my coffee cup. “Hope it’s still warm enough.”

“The massage setting on your shower made me feel so good, I think I owe it money,” I say, giving him a small smile as I come to sit beside him.

“It’s a great shower.” He nods a few times, his eyes fixed on the flames dancing over the pretty pebbles. “Great shower.”

It’s weird as hell sitting this close to him without underwear, even if there’s no way for him to know. No way I was putting on my soggy panties again .

Not after scrubbing myself clean with Bastian’s delicious shower gel, and then drying off with the fluffiest towel I’ve ever felt. I never realized everything I owned was so thin and scratchy. Because I’ve never had anything to compare it to, I guess.

I pick up my coffee, closing my eyes as I inhale the rich aroma.

“No bourbon this time?” I ask wryly before taking a small sip.

He laughs, and then immediately cuts off the sound. His eyes flicker over to me, and then dart away, like he can’t bear to look at me.

Oh, shit. Can he see the marks Kai left on me?

I grab the front of the hoodie, near the base of the hood, snuggling deeper into it like I’m still cold. After that shower, I’m definitely not cold.

“Here.” Bastian leans over, snagging the throw from the back of the sofa and dragging it over my legs.

I get the feeling it’s less about keeping me warm and more about covering me up. Maybe this hoodie was a bad idea. I should have looked for shorts or something.

Or a pair of Professor Rooke’s silk boxers.

Coffee splutters out of my mouth. Fuck, that thought came out of nowhere.

“You okay?”

“Hot,” I lie, wiping at my mouth and ducking my head to check I didn’t get any coffee on his dove-gray hoodie.

When I look up, I catch him staring at me again with his brown eyes. He looks away, sips his coffee, grimaces. “Why did you come here, Haven?”

My shower would have been a lot shorter if I hadn’t washed my hair, or spent long minutes under the massage setting. But I had a feeling Bastian was going to ask that exact question, and I was trying to figure out what the hell I would say.

“I, uh…have to take a few days off school.”

“Wh—?”

I hold up a hand, fending off his question. “It’s personal, and I don’t want to talk about it.”

He turns to stare into the fire. “You waited outside my door in the pouring rain to tell me you wouldn’t be in class for a few days?”

His voice is as hollow as the lie I’m trying to pass off as the truth.

“Don’t be dramatic. It was barely drizzling.”

“You were soaked.”

“I didn’t know you’d be home so late.”

“How rude of me.”

I let out a frustrated sigh. “I thought a face-to-face thing would be the more…mature way to handle this.”

He’s quiet for a moment, then glances at me from the corner of his eye. He’s still wearing the same clothes as earlier, but thankfully he’s buttoned up his white shirt again.

“Nothing more mature than rubbing someone’s mistake in their face,” he mutters.

Indignation blazes across my cheeks. “What?”

“I shouldn’t have called the other night, and then said all those things. Shouldn’t have left it like that.” He shakes his head. “I’ve had other things on my mind. I’m only human.”

I let the silence filter down between us, silently drumming my fingers against the warm coffee cup in my lap.

The beautiful thing about broken things like Haven Lee is that they’re so grateful when someone finally handles them with care.

Even if that care comes with conditions.

Like trust.

Or submission.

“I’m sorry too. I’m still trying to get a handle on this whole professor-student thing. None of my teachers ever got involved in my studies. It’s kinda overwhelming.”

“Should I back off?” His voice is barely audible, his attention still directed to the fireplace. “Let you destroy what I assume is your one and only opportunity for a better life?”

If it hadn’t been drizzling, I swear I would have heard crickets.

“What makes you think?—?”

“Applying for that grant was your Hail Mary. I know it. You know it.” He takes a slow sip of his coffee, and then shifts to face me on the sofa, one knee sliding up onto the cushion. “You’re not as good a liar as you think you are, Miss Lee.”

My envy of him is violent and sickening.

He looks so comfortable in his own skin. This wealthy, educated, confident, sexy fucking man. He makes me feel like a pathetic piece of shit. I thought he didn’t know how bad off I was, but I guess he’s really good at poker.

And here I thought I was playing solitaire.

His voice is light and mocking when he murmurs, “Pretend, if you can, that you’re an adult, and explain to me why you’d put your future at risk like this?”

Kai broke something inside me. I was a pro at smothering things with a pillow until they stopped squirming.

My shitty childhood.

My even shittier family.

My lack of everything that makes for a decent life.

But Kai fucking shredded my defenses.

There’s no holding back my resentment. My indignation. The fury that Bastian motherfucking Rooke’s condescending smirk ignites.

I slam my coffee cup down on the table. When I turn and duck my head toward him, he leans back like I’m attacking him. I grab the back of the sofa with one hand, the front of my warm, gray hoodie with the other.

“ This , Professor,” I hiss, tugging down the fabric. “ This is why.”

His coffee cup freezes halfway to his lips. Then slowly, deliberately, he sets it on the floor.

The temperature in the room drops ten degrees.

“Stand up.”

It’s not a request. My legs obey before my brain catches up.

He rises too, circling me. He uses the back of his hand to brush away my hair, getting a better look at the ligature marks around my throat. His fingers ghost over the marks without touching, and somehow that’s worse than if he’d grabbed me.

“Turn your head.” His voice is clinical. Detached. Terrifying.

Maybe that’s why I do as he commands.

He stops in front of me, and when our eyes meet, his are black. “Did you lose consciousness when he choked you?”

I jerk away, but Bastian grabs the back of my neck and hauls me close again.

“This isn’t his fault,” I say, drawing a harsh laugh out of him.

His eyes latch onto mine. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I mean it, Professor.” My arms shake as I try to keep some distance between us, but he’s pulling on my neck, refusing to let me stand. “I antagonized him.”

His response is mixed with a feral growl. “You antagonized him? Tell me, Haven, what exactly did you do to deserve being strangled? Breathe too loud? Exist?”

I wish I could look away, but I’m trapped by my own morbid curiosity, desperate to see how this plays out.

This is what I wanted, right? I was driven to Bastian’s house in the night, in the rain, for the sole purpose of incriminating Kai. But now that the moment’s here, wave after wave of guilt keeps crashing over me.

Does that mean I came here for a different reason? Something even more despicable than ratting out a friend?

Ex -friend. God, why is it so hard to remember that Kai is my enemy?

“You don’t understand?—”

“Oh, I understand fucking perfectly , girl.”

His hand tightens on the back of my throat like he wants to leave marks of his own, eyes gleaming with fury.

“Some little boy put his hands on what’s mine .”

Mine.

Like I’m his property.

Like he’s already claimed me .

“I’m not yours,” I whisper through trembling lips as I stare up at him with wide eyes.

“No?” He ducks down, leaning in until his breath warms my ear. “Then why come here? Why not the hospital? The police? A friend?”

His lips brush my ear, sending a shiver through me that pools between my legs.

“You came to me , Haven. At night. In the rain. You need me.

“I don’t need anyone!” I wish I could shout, but my body feels like it’s wrapped up in a tight coil.

“Obviously, you do, because it seems you have no fucking clue what happens next.”

“Let me go,” I say, pushing against his chest.

“Not until your ass is in a chair at the sheriff’s office.”

His words put a lump in my stomach. “What?”

He drags our bodies flush, eyes hunting for something in mine. “You will report this.”

I knock his hand away. “Fuck you.”

He stares at me like I’ve lost my fucking mind. Joke’s on him, because that happened a long time ago. “Haven, you’ve been assaulted?—“

“I told you, I had it coming!” I dust myself off, taking another step back in case he tries to grab me again. “I’ll be back at classes next week, once the bruises have gone away. I’m a fast healer.”

We stand just like that, two feet away, both our hands clenched into fists like we’re contemplating going around to see who wins this argument.

Then he slumps, eyes dropping to the floor between us. He pinches the bridge of his nose, sighing. “Christ, I should have stuck to private practice.”

“Yeah, maybe you should have.”

He turns his head, studying me out of the corner of his eye.

There it is again. That flash of annoyance and curiosity instantly hidden behind a calm mask.

“You know what I find most interesting about you, Miss Lee?”

“I’m all ears, Professor,” I say sourly.

My tone doesn’t seem to affect him in the slightest. He brushes away my hair, openly studying the marks Kai’s brutal grip had left on my throat.

“How you keep willingly putting yourself in harm’s way.” His voice drops to a deep rasp. “First him, then me.”