Page 97 of Broken by my Bully

The tears are really flowing now. It’s not all physical pain anymore. This runs deeper.

“Kai, please…”

He turns back to me, a wild light in his eyes that makes my heart patter frantically, desperately, in my chest.

“Kai—” I cut off with another yelp of pain as he uses the grip in my hair to drag me around the tree.

He slams me against the trunk so hard, leaves flutter down around us. Dragging his hand out of my hair, he grabs my face, eyes darting to my lips.

“Shut your filthy slut mouth,” he pants.

Again, his eyes flicker away. Searching.

My heart is going a thousand beats per second now.

“Stop, please, Kai, don’t?—“

His slap sends my head spinning to the side, my mind reeling. Then he’s gripping my face again, his nails digging into the soft flesh of my cheeks. My eyes are drawn to the row of not-quite-symmetrical-enough teeth marks on his arm. To the rivulets of blood trickling down, staining his white sweater.

But as soon as he speaks, my gaze flashes back to him as if summoned.

“You fucked up my head,” he whispers, his voice so soft, so low,he sounds lost in the woods in the dark. “I wanted you back. I wanted you to stay gone. I was so fucking confused.” His eyes flinch to slits, then widen with an intensity that makes my stomach churn. “I could never stop thinking about you, Haven.”

Again, his eyes drop to my mouth. His thumb swipes over my bottom lip, then back. Pauses in the middle.

And he presses, presses, until it feels like he’s pushing my teeth out of their sockets. Bark scrapes the back of my head. I can hear my hair crunching between my skull and the tree.

My hands come up, flattening against his chest, trying to push him away.

Useless.

So I slide them up, wrap my fingers around his throat.

I can feel his pulse. Throbbing. But my fingers don’t touch. His neck is too thick. Muscle and bone and windpipe I can’t damage.

His thumb invades my mouth, bringing with it a bittersweet hint of grass. Skin slightly rough, mostly warm.

He leans his hips forward, crushing them against mine. “Try it. You might just like it.” Which is confusing as fuck, because now I can feel his cock. A rigid length digging into my pubic bone.

Is that what he’s talking about?

“I’ve strangled someone before,” he says so matter-of-fact, my knees want to give in. “It’s hard work, Heavenly. I kept at it as long as I could, but it didn’t get the job done.”

My eyes flutter as I squeeze his throat.

He lifts his chin, eyes flashing down at me, daring me.

So I squeeze harder, and harder.Harder.

“Yeah, that’s it.”

I could teach courses in compartmentalizing. Run masterclasses. I’ve been doing it all my life.

I’m only now, right now, realizing how I’ve been repressing. A hundred million thoughts bubble to the surface of my mind as I try to strangle the life out of Kai, because fuck him, I was ready to give him everything, and he just fucking ghosted me.

“Don’t hold back,” he says, and then his other hand is on my stomach, curling around my side, sliding down my ass. “Kill me. If you can.”

I grimace, my arms shaking as I strain to tighten my grip, but his face isn’t even turning red.