Page 475 of Lessons in Cruelty

He looks down at me, impossibly tall, an imposing silhouette with his dark clothes and face bathed in shadows.

My aching foot feels hot and stingy. The rest of my body cold, trembling.

Except for one tiny piece, deep inside.

Not the part of me that found an ice pick to defend myself with. But the part of me that’s so fucked up, it hid it, so Kai still thinks he has the upper hand for now.

Because that part of me can’t wait to see what his fucked-up mind is going to come up with next. That part is shooting excited tingles into my pussy, hoping, however this plays out, that it ends hard and rough.

The first few times I felt this way, it was disturbing as fuck. What kind of girl gets off on the threat of violence and pain and being forced to do things she doesn’t want to?

The kind of girl who watched her father destroy her life one drug-fueled bender at a time.

Bruised apples don’t fall far from the tree.

“Always loved the Quiet Game,” Kai murmurs as he sinks into a squat in front of me.

He glances down, stares at my bleeding foot. When he reaches out, I flinch, wanting to draw away, but I force my leg straight again.

Kai strokes his knuckle down the center of my bare sole. I can barely feel it compared to the pulsing pain radiating from the cut.

It’s only when he grabs the piece of glass that I realize it’s still embedded in my foot.

Not as if there was time to attend to my wound.

Kai always looks after me, though.

I yell when he tugs out the glass, slumping back against the cabinet, my breath haggard.

Fuck, that hurt.

He strokes my foot again, staring at the wicked shard of red glass before tossing it into the nearby basin with impressive accuracy.

“Remember how you’d bite your lip until it bled so you wouldn’t make a sound?”

The way his voice drops low, lethal, should have been a sign.

But Miss H never backs down from a challenge, does she?

She embraces it.

When Kai grabs my ankle, holding my foot still, she grins at him, daring him. And, like always, the smile he gives back is just as wicked.

“Remember how I’d lick the blood from your mouth, and even then, you wouldn’t make a sound?”

But it’s Haven who screams when he presses his thumb on that deep cut, and Haven that kicks his hand off her, and Haven that scrambles up, shoving him so he falls onto his back.

“That’s one, Miss H!”

But it’s Haven who hobbles toward the window, because she’s finally come to her senses and realized this isn’t just a game anymore. That Kai’s not just going to tickle her until she cries Uncle, or pinch her until she’s purple and blue.

Kai’s all grown up, and he’s going to wanna do grown-up things to her.

So Haven runs.

But Kai catches her before she can escape.

Chapter 54