Page 45 of Broken by my Bully (Lessons in Cruelty Dark Academia #1)

I force a smile and hold up my glass, trying to stare down into my bowl. There’s this weird smell filling my nose that’s rich and musty and so fucking sexy I’m considering asking Bastian to leave the room so I can have some alone time with my food.

“Here’s hoping hell doesn’t exist,” he says, glancing at the painting.

“Fuck,” I say through a laugh. “I’ll drink to that.”

I clink his glass, my mouth pursed, but he keeps staring at me like he’s expecting a reply. It’s only when I take a sip of wine that he breaks his focus.

“Oh my God,” I murmur, as soon as I’ve slurped down the first bite of food. “What is this?”

“Wild mushroom ragout pasta with truffle oil.”

I stop eating. “Like…mushrooms you’ve picked yourself?” What else could ‘wild mushrooms’ possibly mean?

Kai made me eat ‘wild mushrooms’ once. Thank God it was only a sliver. I was sick the whole afternoon, but I didn’t even care because I was too busy talking to the grass. Not my fault—it wouldn’t stop talking to me .

Bastian laughs at my expression and takes a sip of wine. There’s a twinkle of firelight in his eyes when he looks over at me. “Like oyster and shiitake mushrooms I bought at the grocer. But I’ll take the compliment.”

Why can’t I shut my damn mouth?

Thankfully, dinner is so good that I barely stop to breathe, never mind speak. Bastian is silent too. The only sound is the soft jazz playing through his invisible sound system.

Then I hear another sound, so quiet it barely registers. But when it does, oh boy.

click

My fork clangs down into my almost empty bowl.

“Everything okay?”

I swipe at my mouth with the linen napkin he’d rolled around my cutlery. Then a big sip of wine to chase the pasta stuck in my throat.

“Yeah, um, sorry. Thought I heard something.” I try a laugh, cutting off when I hear how forced it sounds. “If you haven’t noticed yet, I’m kinda jumpy.”

“Hm.”

Dude, stahp.

“So, uh, what’s back there?” I ask as innocently as I can. I take a sip of my wine, pointing with my chin to the corridor leading to his study when he just keeps watching me.

“My office.”

“That it?” I try to sound disappointed, but everything’s ringing hollow in my ears. That soft sound, followed by the violent clatter of my fork against my bowl has the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.

“What were you expecting? A sex dungeon, or a secret laboratory?”

“I never?—”

He scoffs, the playful pull of his mouth not reaching his hard, dark eyes. “I’ve heard the rumors, Haven. Everyone on campus thinks I’m a sociopath, or a serial killer hiding from the cops. ”

Bastian leans in on his elbows, tilting his head and studying me intently through narrowed eyes. “Everyone except you. Why is that?”

Suddenly I don’t care about this fancy dinner, or this fancy house, or this exceptionally handsome, intimidatingly intelligent man.

It doesn’t add up.

Why is this man so fascinated with me?

This isn’t about all that. I am worthy, bullshit on that positive affirmations tape in my car. It’s like I’m building a puzzle, but all the pieces are the same color, and I still haven’t found a single straight edge.

I shake my head. “Forget I asked,” I mumble, taking another swig of wine and picking up my fork again.

I can feel his eyes on me, watching as I toy with my food.

“Did you move around a lot as a kid, Haven?”

I’m about to shovel another bite into my mouth, but instead I lay down my fork so I can stare at him with all my energy.

“Are you psychoanalyzing me?”

“That’s a bit of a leap.” He wipes his mouth too, and then takes a sip of wine, leaning back from his bowl like he’s done eating.

“So is a random question about my childhood after I admit I’m jumpy.”

He gives me a slow nod. “Touché.”

Then he sits forward in a rush, cradling the base of his wineglass on his palm. “Sometimes, a heightened stress response could be caused by childhood trauma.” He holds up a hand as if I’m going to interrupt him.

I’m not.

Professor Rooke is fascinating, especially when he goes into full-on teach mode. He punctuates each point by tapping a finger against his glass.

“This could be anything from abuse to simply existing in a dysfunctional family unit. For instance, parents fighting all the time. Their children become more vigilant about their surroundings. Walking on eggshells to predict the next trigger, so they’ll be prepared for the fallout.”

He takes a sip of wine.

“Hm.” I lay my palm on the table between us. “Maybe you shouldn’t have left private practice.”

He stares at me, blinks, then laughs. “Jesus,” he murmurs. “I forget how jaded you kids are.”

“Call me a kid again, Boomer.”

Waving his hand, Bastian sits back again and takes another sip of his wine. “Slip of the tongue. Did you get through today’s material?”

I shrug. “I’m sad I missed the group discussion. How did it go?”

He shrugs too. Shakes his head. “Would have gone a lot better if you were there. I rarely hear a new perspective these days.”

“And I’d have given this new perspective?” I’m frowning as I take another sip.

The wine is a lot tarter than I’d expected, but it’s not awful. There’s a hint of something woody left behind on my tongue after every sip, which I quite like. I’m not sure if it’s intentional, but it seems to complement the earthiness of the mushrooms in the pasta.

“Of course.” He holds out his hand again. “No offense, but most of the kids I teach are impatiently waiting for their trust funds to mature so they can jet off to Europe for a year.”

“I’m both offended and appalled.”

“By their generational wealth?”

“By your assumptions.” I sniff, leaning back as I take a sip of wine. This pasta is filling, but I’m not done with my bowl yet. “I could go to Europe if I wanted.”

He cocks a dark, silver-streaked eyebrow. “I’m not following.”

“It’s easy. I just need to find me a sugar daddy, open an OnlyFeet account—“ I snap my fingers “—I’ll be rolling in it.”

Bastian frowns. “OnlyFeet,” he repeats woodenly.

“Yeah.” I nod, taking another sip.

I’m really enjoying this wine now. And despite the not-so-subtle reminders Bastian keeps tossing my way, I feel mature and worldly holding this big glass, its ice cubes clinking gently against the sides.

My professor is still frowning.

“What? You don’t think my feet are pretty enough?”

“Last I saw them, they were covered in mud.”

My mouth falls open as I stab a finger at him. “You promised.”

He flashes me a smile, lifting one hand in surrender. “My apologies.” Then he sets down his glass and spreads his hands wide. “Shall I compare thee feet to a summer’s day? Thou feet art more lovely, and more separate.”

“Wow,” I whisper, setting my glass down a little harder than I’d wanted to. “Okay, I’m totally hiring you to run my OnlyFeet account.”

He chuckles, shaking his head as he takes a long sip of wine.

Fuck me.

The mischievous twinkle in his eyes makes me squeeze my thighs together. I’m trying to stifle the sudden tingle between them, but it only makes it worse.

And he’s still looking at me, his gaze sly like he’s thinking all sorts of things he shouldn’t be.

“So I think you’ve dragged this out long enough,” I say, clearing my throat halfway through because, for some reason, it’s all clogged up with embarrassment. “Go on. Tell me why I’m here.”

The look in his warm brown eyes changes.

This. This is the reason I let him lure me here. It’s the way he looks at me, like he knows I can handle whatever he’s about to say. He can call me a kid as much as he wants, but I know he doesn’t think of me like that. Not really.

Jaded? Try exhausted. I’ve seen enough, endured enough, handled enough for nine lives.

Guess Bastian can’t be my sugar daddy, because he refuses to sugarcoat anything.

“You’re going back to class tomorrow.”

Fuck, but the gasp I gasp. “That’s not your choice?— “

“Everything about you is my choice now.”

I drop my head, my hand rising absently to stroke the side of my neck. When I realize what I’m doing, I pluck it away and sit on it.

There’s no way I’m looking up at him.

And here I was just thinking about how he never treats me like a kid. But his tone of voice, those short, brook-no-nonsense sentences?

This is what I imagine being disciplined feels like.

“Your housing. Your education. Your future. All of it runs through me.”

“I didn’t ask for?—“

“You showed up at my door. Bleeding. Broken. Begging.” His finger traces my bruises. “What did you think would happen?”

“I thought you’d help me.”

Frustration narrows his eyes. “I am helping.”

“Would you do it?” I snap, my chin still down, but my eyes flashing up to glare at him through my lashes.

“Would you go back there all bruised and battered? What do you think they’ll say about me?

It’s already out that I live in my fucking car.

You have no idea what it’s like being on the receiving end of that kind of attention. ”

He blinks, as if surprised by my barrage of angry words. Then he leans back his head and laughs.

I’m close to shouting now. “How is this funny?”

He crosses his arms over his chest, studying me for a moment before looking away. “I know exactly what you’re going through, Haven.” He pushes away his bowl, considers his wineglass for a moment, and then tosses back what’s left in one gulp.

“But we’re not here to talk about me.” He glances at my wineglass. “Are you done?”

There’s still an inch of wine in the bottom. I drain it like he had, and he takes it without a word and sets it down on the counter beside the fridge.

…I know exactly what you’re going through…

Was Bastian bullied too? I guess if he was half as smart in elementary school as he is now, he’d probably have drawn the wrong attention more than once.

Shit. Never judge someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes, I guess. Even if you’re muddy and barefoot and he’s wearing…

“Why are you looking at my feet?” Bastian asks as he takes a bottle of amber liquid from the top shelf of one of his kitchen cabinets.

Does he have eyes in the back of his head or something?

I quickly straighten. “Wondering what shoes you wear.”

“What shoes, or what size?”

Thank God he has his back turned, because my face just caught alight. I quickly press my hands to my cheeks, trying to soak up the heat before he comes back with two glasses.

Another wine for me.

A bourbon for him.

He heads around the kitchen counter, coming right to my side, so close I can feel the heat of his body. I flinch at the soft clink my glass makes as he sets it down beside my hand.

“You’ll go back to class,” he says. “And when they make fun of you living in your car, you’ll laugh at them, because it won’t be true.”

My hand wraps around the glass as I try to summon that coolness to my face.

He’s too close.

His voice too intense.

My entire body is coming alive just from being in his aura. My skin flushing. My nipples tightening. My clit tingling. If he stays here much longer, there’s going to be a wet spot on this fucking kitchen stool when I get up.

“But it is,” I whisper, wanting this conversation to be over, but refusing to give him any ground.

“Not for much longer.”

My breath hitches when he scrapes a finger over the slope of my neck, moving my hair away.

To better see the bruises on my skin ?

Or so that he can kiss my neck?

“I’ve called in a favor. Gamma Alpha Zeta has agreed to give you full room and board.”

My hair falls back into place.

I keep my eyes straight ahead, watching Bastian as he leans on his elbows beside me, face turned to me. Scanning my face. Watching my reaction.

“Now if anyone wants to make fun of you, you get to laugh in their face.”

My chest puffs out as I take a full breath. I turn, trying not to lean away, but Bastian is so close it’s like I’m waiting for a kiss.

Maybe I am.

Would I push him away if he tried?

His gaze is so steady on mine it feels like he’s delving into the depths of my rotting soul. And maybe it’s the booze giving me some backbone, but I force myself not to look away.

“I’d rather spit in their eye.”

“Would you?” He takes hold of my chin. “Then show me.”

Bastian’s never looked more commanding. Head tilted back, eyes hooded. So laughably in control, it shocks me that he’s a teacher and not a general in some army.

“What?” I whisper, my brain refusing to process his words.

“Spit.” He swipes his thumb over my bottom lip. “I want to see that fire you’re so proud of.”

I’m frozen. The wine makes everything fuzzy except his eyes.

“That’s what I thought.” He tugs away his hand, but I can still feel the ghost of his touch on my skin, tingling over my lip.

“All bark.” A flicker of a smile. “But we’ll fix that. By the time I’m done with you, you’ll bite exactly when and where I tell you to.”