Page 54 of Broken by my Bully (Lessons in Cruelty Dark Academia #1)

Kai

Haven only struggles when we get to the first-floor landing. By then, there’s a fire burning inside me, and only one way to extinguish it. If she’d bolted out the front door, I’d have chased her down anyway.

I need to hurt something.

Haven tugs at her bags one more time, then yanks her arm free. I love how her eyes go round in surprise, like she didn’t think she had the strength.

She doesn’t.

I let her go.

That way, she’ll lead me right where I want to go.

She turns and sprints down the hall, and I follow, duffel bags and all. By the time she reaches the door at the end of the hallway, I’m on her heels.

Haven grabs the door jamb and swings around, crashing into the wall. As I rush past her into the room, I glimpse her grabbing the door handle and slamming the door closed to trap me inside the room.

Cute.

But I’m too fast and too strong. Too fucking hungry for this .

I drop her bags, grab the door, and haul it open, dragging her back inside the room before she can let go of the handle.

She whirls around, trying to run out. Her breath hitches in her throat in sheer panic, and I can sense the scream building inside her as I latch onto her hair.

I tug her down so hard she falls on her back with a grunt of pain.

She rolls onto her side and throws me a pleading look as I slowly reach behind me and push the door shut with my fingertips.

Her mouth opens for a scream.

I’m beside her on the floor in an instant, hands locked around her throat to stifle the sound.

Haven grips my wrists, clawing desperately, leaving furrows in my skin. Then she goes for my eyes, but I lean back far enough so she can’t reach me, savoring the way her body arches beneath me.

“If you’re quiet, I’ll let you breathe,” I murmur.

The muscles under my fingers tense. Her pulse bumps against my palms, fast as a hummingbird’s wings. She’s back to clawing at my wrists, then trying to peel my fingers away from her throat.

“Or I could just keep holding on, Haven. I’m ready this time. Ready to send you straight to heaven.”

I squeeze harder, and a convulsion jerks through her body. Her gaze darts frantically around the room as if she’s looking for help, a weapon, an escape route.

“Blink twice if you want to breathe,” I tell her.

She goes still, eyes squeezing shut like she doesn’t even want to accidentally blink. I give her a hard shake, forcing her to snap her eyes open.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you.”

Her eyes snap open, and fuck, there it is. That look. Terror mixed with something dark that makes my dick so hard it hurts.

With obvious reluctance, Haven blinks twice.

I don’t release her immediately—just to watch that flash of panic—then let her suck in air like the desperate little thing she is.

When I settle my full weight on her hips, she groans like I’m crushing her.

But she goes quiet when I pull out the steak knife I’d stolen from the kitchen downstairs, and deathly still as I lay it against her throat. I saw it gently back and forth over her skin, drawing a thin line of blood, my eyes glued to hers as the sting makes her flinch.

“Nothing like that blunt thing I used to carry around the woods, is it?” I twist the knife, dragging the sharp tip to her jaw, then her chin. Lightly enough that I don’t cut her, but from the way she shudders, I might as well have been flaying her.

“Melissa’ll be back any second,” she croaks, and then coughs. “If she finds you here, then—” Her teeth click shut as I press the tip of the knife against the plush, pink pillow of her bottom lip.

“Then nothing, ‘cos you’re gonna be quiet, aren’t you?” I press the knife harder, harder, until a tiny spot of blood wells up from the tip where it pierces her lip.

“No,” she blubbers. “Touch me and I’ll fucking scream.”

I grind against her, and she makes a sound that goes straight to my cock.

“Yeah,” I chuckle. “But I’m already touching you, Heavenly. I’m touching you in all sorts of places.”

Her lips tremble, and I use my thumb to smear that drop of blood over her mouth like lipstick.

Scarlet lips for my scarlet whore.

“I bet you want her to find us,” I say, flicking out my tongue to lick the blood from my thumb. “You love an audience, don’t you? Someone watching you get railed.”

I grind her against the floor again, and she groans in pain, one hand shooting to my stomach, the other clawing into my thigh to relieve the heavy weight on her guts.

“No—” My backhand cuts her off. The knife finds her cheekbone.

“No more lies. You spread your legs for him yet? Or are you still playing virgin? ”

Tears spill down her cheeks. “I’m not a slut, Kai. You’re the only guy I?—“

Haven cuts off with a strangled cry as I snatch the front of her dress and stab the knife through the fabric. Shocked blue eyes follow my hand as I shear through her black dress, exposing her breasts and belly to the cool air of her new bedroom.

She watches, so morbidly fascinated with the fact that I’ve just stripped her half-naked that she’s forgotten to struggle, to resist, to even scream.

Jesus, she looks good.

All woman now, but I can still see every scar I gave her. Every mark that proves she’s mine.

I trace the faint line from her collarbone to her sternum with the knife tip, then flick her nipple.

“Where’s your bra, Haven?”

She’s staring at me like I’m the Ghost of Childhood Past, and, fuck, I guess I am. But when I say those words, I see how they trigger her. From the flinch on her face to the way her mouth slackens and grows wide.

Her hands slap over her breasts, trying to cover them.

That’s when the sobbing begins.

Deep, mournful, wrenching sobs that shake her whole body.

I clap a hand over her mouth, expecting her to stop me, but her hands just flop onto the carpet, fingers curling up like she’s already dead.

I drop on top of her, urging her legs open with my knees, sinking between them. When I drag the knife down the curve of her breast, she lets me.

Because I’ve broken her again.

“Hey, shhh, shhh,” I croon, our faces less than an inch apart. “It’s okay, Heavenly. You didn’t need it anyway.”

I didn’t think her sobs could be any more wretched, but I guess I underestimated the power of my words. But it’s not the words she’s reacting to. It’s the memory.

And here I thought Haven had forgotten all about me. About us .

But the woman lying under me is grieving for the dead.

Little Haven.

Little Kai.

Fuck, I miss them too.

But not enough to stop.