Page 44 of Lessons in Cruelty

Had I really been that rough with her?

I don’t know what’s fucking me up more…that I hurt her, or that it left a mark for everyone to see.

The whiplash from that thought is swift and brutal.

It doesn’t fucking matter.

It’s finally sinking in.

It worked. All of it. Especially this last, fatal blow.

She’s putty in my hands, limp and docile and…so fucking broken looking.

I grab her chin, and she winces at the pressure I apply to that bruise. Her eyelashes flutter, but she keeps her eyes averted. Doesn’t want me to see her pain, or can’t stand looking at the man who’d dare turn against her like this?

As if she hadn’t seen this coming.

I thought I used to live in the clouds, but this girl is fucking delusional. We were taught back in high school already how every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

Someone should remind her how physics works.

Right here.

Right fucking now.

“I want to believe you’ll never come back,” I say, my voice as hard as my cock. “But lying is as easy as breathing for you.”

She seems to come awake, body flinching. But her eyelids are at half-mast, her head lowered, as she says, “I’ll do whatever you want.”

Those words send a jolt of déjà vu through me.

…please, Kai. I need this. I’ll do whatever you want…

And it gets me hard. So fucking hard.

Christ, how fucked up am I?

I force her head up, trying to get her to look me in the eye so I can lord this moment over her, but her eyes just shift to the window.

Looking for an escape.

“Yeah, we both wish you’d made different life choices, Heavenly. But here we are.”

Her throat moves. “Please let me go,” she murmurs without a trace of emotion.

I pinch harder.

Her eyes squeeze shut. “Please.”

All she wanted to do was get away from me. But then she came back…except, it wasn’t for me, was it?

That fucking pisses me off.

I might have left Riverside when we were kids, but I was always there for her. Right up to the point where she made it clear she’d been using me, that she had no problem crumpling me up and tossing me like a paper napkin.

Being with Haven is like pouring water down a drain. You just keep giving more and more of yourself…but it never fills up. You’re left with nothing to show for your effort.

It’s time she paid me back.