Page 2 of Cruel When He Smiles (Sinners of Blackthorne U #3)

Nate

Present Time

Liam Callahan is full of shit, and everyone around here eats it up like it’s gospel.

Campus sweetheart, student government president, captain of the soccer team—every title, every handshake, every empty grin he gives the world merely adds to the lie. He’s got that All-American, trust-me-with-your-daughter look, the kind that makes professors fawn and girls lean in when he talks.

I know better. There’s something wrong with him.

It’s in the way he smiles too perfectly. How his eyes don’t quite match the expression on his face. The way people fall over themselves to explain away anything he does because he couldn’t possibly be at fault.

I don’t get that luxury.

I’m the one who people expect to fuck up. The angry one. The legacy with the attitude, the mouth, and the record. I throw a punch, and it’s a pattern. He throws a word like a blade and, somehow, he’s praised for it.

I hate him. I hate how he walks into the counseling office like he owns the air. Like we’re here for a coffee date instead of mandated anger management because I clocked him on the field. I hate how he greets Dr. Ellis with that flawless, toothpaste commercial smile.

But that smile is a weapon. Too measured. Too perfect. And his eyes—those hazel eyes with their flecks of green—they’re wrong. Empty, instead of being full of life. It feels like he’s watching the world from behind glass, bored and waiting to find something worth destroying.

And apparently, I’m that something.

He doesn’t sit, he sprawls, claiming the space beside me like it’s his throne, and I’m just some peasant who should be grateful to sit in his presence.

The fucker doesn’t even look at me. That pisses me off more than anything else.

If he smirked, if he threw a jab, if he acknowledged me in any way, I could respond.

But this… this silence? This surgical removal of attention?

It burns hotter than any insult could. Like I’m not even interesting enough to provoke again.

I breathe in and out. Focus . Stay grounded . Don’t snap .

Dr. Ellis is talking, but her voice is white noise under the pulse pounding in my ears. My hands are fists in my lap, pressing hard against my thighs, and I focus on the feeling of my nails leaving indents on my palm to keep from launching myself across the room.

He tripped me. Laughed. Whispered low enough that I couldn’t tell if I imagined it or if he really said it. Something about boys like me staying on their knees. My body acted before my brain caught up, and my fist connected with his jaw. A clean shot, and he didn’t even fight back; he just smiled.

And that should have been my first clue that I was playing a game I didn’t understand.

“Nathaniel.”

Dr. Ellis’s voice pulls me back. I blink, refocusing, and she’s watching me with that careful, measured look therapists always have, trying to pick me apart piece by piece to figure out what makes me tick.

My head snaps up, and I force my shoulders to relax. “What?”

“I asked if you think you might have overreacted.”

I huff out a bitter laugh. Next to me, Liam’s still lounging, one ankle resting on his knee, fingers tapping casually against the armrest. He doesn’t speak, but I feel him waiting.

“No,” I answer flatly. If she thinks I’m going to be the one to apologize, she’s out of her damn mind.

Liam beats me to it anyway. “I just want to say,” he starts, and I can already hear the act in his voice. A well-practiced performance he’s played a thousand times before. “I feel bad about what happened. I never wanted things to escalate like that. I take full responsibility for my part in it.”

I turn my head slowly, finally looking at him. His part in it ? This motherfucker orchestrated the whole damn thing.

Dr. Ellis beams like he’s sprouting angel wings. “That’s very mature of you, Liam.” Then her eyes land on me, expectant.

I raise an eyebrow. “Yeah, no. I don’t feel bad for decking him.”

Liam lets out a quiet laugh, barely audible, but I hear it. Dr. Ellis doesn’t seem to.

“You don’t think you were in the wrong?” she asks.

I lean forward, forearms resting on my knees, staring straight ahead. “I think if someone runs their mouth, they should be ready for what comes next. I think Liam knows that. And I think he said what he said on purpose.”

She turns to him. “Is that what happened, Liam?”

He finally looks at me, and the second that our eyes lock, my whole body goes cold.

Not because he’s angry or because he looks hurt.

But because he looks too calm. His expression doesn’t change, but his gaze scrapes over my face like he’s cataloging pressure points and picking the perfect spot to slide the knife in.

Then he smiles. It’s faint, nothing you could pin anything on, but it drips with intent. “I think it was just a misunderstanding,” he says. “I never meant to upset Nate. I thought we were joking around. I guess I didn’t realize how sensitive he’d be.”

Sensitive?

This motherfucker.

I breathe in through my nose, slow and controlled, so I don’t snap, or give him the satisfaction of knowing he got to me. I know what he’s doing. He’s framing the entire thing to make it appear as if I was being irrational. Like he was just joking around, and I lost my temper.

Like I’m the problem.

Liam exhales, shaking his head, and then the asshole puts a hand on my shoulder, squeezing gently as if we’re friends and he’s trying to help me through this.

My entire body tenses at the contact, at the sheer audacity of him touching me, but Dr. Ellis is already nodding like she’s impressed that he’s being the bigger person here. But under his fingers, I feel the message: “You’re not the one in control.”

“Nathaniel—”

“Nate,” I say through gritted teeth, loathing that fucking name. “It’s Nate.”

“Nate,” she says with a sigh, “this is about self-control. About learning how to regulate your emotions. Liam’s offering you peace.”

He’s offering poison. Sugar-dipped and wrapped in silk.

My skin crawls. Every instinct in me screams to shrug him off, but I don’t move. Instead, I sit there and let it burn, let him think he’s winning even though I want to break his fucking hand. But I don’t do anything.

Because that’s what he wants, isn’t it? He wants me to react, wants me to lose it so he can sit back and watch me prove him right. So, I do the one thing I know will piss him off.

I smile.

A slow, cold curve of my lips; an expression that holds none of the warmth that he’s pretending to have. I reach up, pat his hand once before shoving it off my shoulder, then lean back in my chair, forcing my body to relax.

“Sure,” I say, and my voice is light now, amused. “Maybe I overreacted .”

Liam’s eyes gleam.

Dr. Ellis doesn’t see the moment, but I do. That flicker behind his eyes, the brief crack in his endless calm. It’s gone in a blink, replaced by that same smug, impenetrable grin.

She seems pleased. “I think we’ve made some progress today.”

Yeah. He played her like a fucking violin.

I push up from my chair. “Are we done?”

Dr. Ellis frowns but checks the clock. I don’t miss the way Liam watches me; studying, assessing, and already planning whatever the fuck his next move is.

“Yes,” she says. “I expect to see both of you next week.”

I don’t bother responding. I’m already halfway out the door, and I feel as Liam follows.

He doesn’t speak right away. He walks next to me, casual, unhurried, like we’re friends leaving class together instead of two people forced into the same room because I hit him, and he fucking let me.

“Hey, Carter,” he calls casually. “You forgot to thank me.”

I stop and take a breath before I give them another reason to put me in time out with Dr. Ellis. When I turn, I notice he’s only a few feet away, too close in the narrow hallway. “For what?”

“For making you look like a misunderstood rebel instead of an unhinged delinquent. You’re welcome, by the way.”

I blink at the audacity of this guy. “You’re full of yourself.”

“Comes with the territory,” he says with a grin and steps in closer. There’s a wall at my back because of course there is. He times this shit perfectly. His voice lowers and drops into a warm and coaxing tone too soft for the threat hiding beneath. “You like when I push you, don’t you?”

I clench my jaw. “Back the fuck up.”

He ignores the command but scans my face. His voice stays soft and intimate, but every word slides under my skin like a knife. “God, you’re cute when you’re mad.”

I suck in a stuttered breath. “Stay the fuck away from me, Callahan.”

His eyes glitter with malice. “Can’t. We’ve got more sessions together. And besides…” That smile again—slow, creeping as his gaze drags over my face, and my body breaks out in fucking goosebumps. “I think we’re going to be good for each other, Pup.”

The word slithers through the air and slides down my spine like a live wire. My whole body tenses, a split second away from reacting, and I hate that the part of me he always manages to get under—the angry, spiteful, completely screwed-up part—doesn’t just tense.

No. That part fucking twitches. Somewhere deep in my stomach, lower than I want to admit. Heat coils tightly in a way that makes me want to punch a wall or scream or claw at my own skin until it stops humming.

“Don’t fucking call me that,” I bite out, but my voice is not as steady as I want it to be. There’s a thread in it. A crack I know he hears because his eyes light up with an unholy gleam.

“Why not?” he asks softly. “It suits you. All bark and bite. Trying so hard to be dangerous, but still so…” His eyes dip, and my stomach clenches. “ Eager. ”

My throat works around nothing. I can’t even breathe right now. I want to shove him back and wipe that smug, knowing expression off his face, but my feet stay rooted to the floor.

“I’m not fucking eager,” I snap, but it’s weak. Pathetic. Even I know it. My voice dips at the end, and I’m not sure if I’m telling him or myself.

Liam’s smile curves wider, the devil in it no longer hiding. “No?” he murmurs. “Then why are you still standing here, Pup?”

I breathe hard through my nose. “You keep calling me that, I’m going to bite.”

“Good,” he says, too quickly. “I like it when they bite. Makes me want to leash them.”

My fingers curl into fists again, nails biting into my palms as if pain could distract me from the way his voice curls around me like a chain. I hate this man. I hate him . I hate that he can say something so simple and make my body betray me this way.

“I won’t play your games, Liam,” I grit out, glaring at the spot on his chest because, if I meet his eyes again, I’ll do something I’ll regret.

But Liam just leans in, and the scent of him—clean soap and expensive cologne—hits me like a drug I didn’t ask to take. His mouth is so close to my ear that I can feel the heat of every breath as he speaks.

“You’re already playing, you just haven’t figured out whether you want to win…” A pause, and then his voice lowers even more, “or cry for me.”

My breath catches, and I can’t hide the way my knees almost buckle.

His lips don’t touch me, but they hover. So fucking close… and that’s when I finally shove him. It’s not a punch, not what he deserves, but it’s enough to create space between us, enough to make him stumble half a step back and let out a delighted laugh.

“God, you’re fun,” he murmurs, that cruel smile sending unwanted shivers up my spine.

I don’t respond. I turn on my heel and bolt down the hallway, not caring who sees or what they think. My chest is tight. My skin is crawling. My fists are clenched. And my dick—

No.

No, no, no.

I storm outside, past the fountain, past the sidewalk full of smiling, normal students who don’t have blood on their hands or devils whispering in their ears. When I get to the side of the building, out of sight, I press the heels of my hands against the cool brick, forcing myself to breathe.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

Why the hell did that get to me?

It’s not as though I haven’t dealt with assholes before. I grew up around worse. I’ve survived worse. But Liam Callahan is a different breed; he doesn’t just push buttons, he programs them. He scripts the whole damn game before you even know you’re playing.

And I let him call me Pup.

I let it get under my skin, let it stick in my chest like a hook, dragging me down somewhere dark and dangerous that I’ve spent my whole life trying to avoid.

Especially after her. Because, for all the hate burning in my chest and all the disgust clawing up my throat, a tiny part of me wants him to call me that again.

And that—

That’s what terrifies me most.