Page 5 of Broken by my Bully (Lessons in Cruelty Dark Academia #1)

Kai

Little Miss Heavenly.

I’ve jerked off to the memory of her tears more times than I can count. Now Haven Lee is back, and I get to make new ones.

Aw, look at that. She bought a little notepad and everything, just like a real college girl.

But she’s not. She’s here on a grant. A fucking charity case.

She hasn’t earned this. Not like I have.

I spent my summers being tutored, writing mock SAT exams until I dreamt about them in my sleep, getting migraines because I spent all day staring at a laptop.

What was Haven doing?

Fuck knows, because she pissed off out of Agony Hollow the moment things stopped going her way. From what I heard, she’s equal parts train wreck and town bicycle.

How the hell did she get the grant anyway?

Sure, the Haven I knew wasn’t an idiot. But she was much too busy dreaming about wedding dresses and romantic shacks at the beach to care about education. She almost got held back a year in middle school because of her grades .

She doesn’t belong here. Definitely doesn’t deserve to be here.

Absurdly high admission fees gatekeep this institution for a reason. This college isn’t for losers like her. Agony Hollow nurtures visionaries and leaders, the top one percent of the one percent.

Haven is the mud I scrape off my Balenciaga sneakers after my morning run.

The childish, slutty mud I?—

“You must be my scholarship student, Miss Lee.” Rooke’s smooth voice cuts off the thought.

“Yup!” she bleats.

I pretend to be busy on my phone as I watch them with sadistic glee. Rooke watches Haven reluctantly approach, his expression calm and benevolent. Haven’s cheeks are flushed, eyelashes trembling. She’s flustered. Panicked. Like she doesn’t know if she should run, or get on her knees.

If I was still her friend, I’d tell her not to sweat it. It’s just the Rooke Effect kicking in.

Rooke crosses his arms over his chest. “You’re aware that maintaining a B average in my class is a condition of your funding?”

“Yup.”

“Funding you desperately require in order to remain enrolled at this college?”

This time, her voice is little more than a squeak. “Yup.”

My lip curls into a sneer.

Fucking broke-ass loser.

“So what led you to believe skipping my first class of the semester was wise?”

I’m not smirking anymore.

I’m glaring.

Dude needs to lay the fuck off. He’s about to make her cry. I can see her eyes shimmering.

If anyone’s going to be making Haven’s life hell, it’s me .

“Do you need a copy of the coursework, Professor?” I butt in.

Poor Haven glances my way with a grateful smile that disintegrates when I give her disheveled clothing and messy hair a condescending scan.

Rooke looks over at me like he forgot I existed, and wished I’d stop breathing. Permanently.

Fuck.

He is pissed about the phone thing.

I’ve seen plenty of moods on Rooke. He’s currently at level five, irked , but if Haven keeps annoying him, we’re both headed straight for peeved .

He nods. Snaps his fingers.

I open his satchel and rifle through it, looking for the black folder where he keeps his notes. I find a stapled page and yank it out, sliding it over the desk with a shove of my fingers.

Rooke cocks his head to the pages, and Haven gives me a nervous glance as she picks it up from the desk.

I keep my expression neutral now that Rooke’s aware of me again.

Last thing I want is him picking up on any issues between me and Haven. He’s an emotional bloodhound. I once saw him instigate a fight between two frat bros in his class that almost turned into a fistfight.

The remaining notebooks are within easy reach, so Professor Rooke picks one up himself instead of snapping his fingers at me to do it.

He hands it to Haven, and you’d swear it’s a bomb, how gingerly she accepts it. Especially when he doesn’t release it straight away, like he’s tethering her to him.

“I’d prefer you hand this back to me at the end of the semester instead of…” his voice drops as he studies the bright pink notepad Haven’s hugging to her chest like it has a chance of protecting her against him, “…that.”

“Okay,” she says. Quiet. Uneasy.

It’s my second lesson as Professor Rooke’s TA, but I spent the whole of last week with him prepping for the start of his course. I’ve also taken his course twice since I started at AHC. It’s not the first time I’ve heard a student struggle to get their words out around him.

It’s the first I’ve heard Haven sound like this, though.

Sure, she was shy when we met in the woods as kids. We both kinda were. But pretty soon she was yelling and screaming and laughing right beside me as we tore through the trees on whatever mad escapades we were on.

That’s the Heavenly I remember, with her sun-bleached hair and curious smile, nose wrinkled as she squinted in the sunlight, tree branch ready as backup if I failed to kill the dragon I was fighting. Before she became the girl who abandoned her only friend without a fucking word.

So who the fuck is this mousy, bedraggled bundle of nerves?

At least she’s picked up some weight. She was way too skinny as a kid. Guess that’s bound to happen when your dad spends more money on drugs than he does on food.

“What’s the notebook for?” Haven asks.

“Shows up late and doesn’t pay attention. She’s off to a good start, isn’t she, Mr. Jordan?”

Rooke doesn’t look at me. I’m just a fucking prop. He narrows his eyes at her, reaching across and tapping the cover. “It’s your Activity Log. Says so right here.”

“Oh, uh…I think I might have missed?—”

“I don’t have time for this now,” Professor Rooke says, glancing at his watch. “Meet me before class tomorrow and I’ll fill you in.”

“Thank you.” Haven tugs her cardigan tighter around her, juggling her notepad and the new notebook.

If she’s trying to blend in, she’s failing miserably. Around here, students wear designer threads like armor. Even the Steve Jobs types with their discreet, monotonous outfits are kitted out in Burberry or Gucci.

Haven’s an eyesore in her cheap, stained?—

Jesus Christ…she’s not even wearing a bra.

My cock twitches like the traitor it is. Even disheveled and pathetic, she still makes me hard. Makes me want to pin her against Rooke’s desk and show her exactly what she threw away.

She glances nervously at me when I let out a bemused chuckle, her blue eyes widening until I can see the dark rings around her irises. Seems to be the only thing about her that hasn’t changed, those haunted blue eyes.

I used to love making them sparkle.

Now they’re underlined with dark smudges.

I clear my throat. “Professor?” I stab my thumb toward the door when his brown eyes lock onto me. I don’t want to risk hanging around for a lecture about my duties as a T.A.

“Yes, you may leave, Mr. Jordan.” He glances at me, then Haven, and for just a split second, something smug flashes over his face, like he won a bet with himself and gets to buy himself a drink to celebrate.

“Both of you.”

I throw Rooke a two-fingered salute and get the fuck out of his classroom, turning at the last minute so I can slam the door open with my back. Rooke is busy putting his laptop into his satchel, eyes on his task, but Haven’s staring after me with dread etched deep on her face.

I blow a big fucking kiss her way, grinning at the shiver that ripples through her.

I’ve spent ages imagining what I’d do when I saw her again.

It all went flying out the window when we met outside in the hallway, of course. Never meant to choke her out in the open where anyone could see. Didn’t plan on getting hard when that fear—then that dark delight—flooded her eyes.

Seeing her standing there, already looking so fucking lost and broken, it’s not enough.

Nothing will ever be enough.

I don’t just want to hurt her. I want to crawl inside her head and rearrange all the shit inside so she can’t tell the difference between love and hate, pleasure and pain.

I need to break her.

To own her. Completely.

To have her want me so desperately, that she’ll gladly accept whatever scraps of attention I send her way.

And then thank me on her fucking knees for the privilege of breathing the same air as me.

Haven Lee destroyed me when she left.

Time to return the favor.

Unlike her, I’m going to take my sweet fucking time.