Page 507 of Lessons in Cruelty

Kai’s body goes rigid, only his eyes shifting to the door. “Uh…hey man,” he says hesitantly.

“Morning,” the guy replies. Then he drops his gaze, looking at me like I’ve just crawled out of a sewer duct. I swear he doesn’t even blink. Maybe he has scales that slide over his eyes like a lizard’s. “Haven Lee.”

I shudder to think how this guy knows who I am.

He just keeps staring at me, so I mumble, “Morning?” past Kai’s fingers.

“We have a meeting tomorrow morning at nine.” His gaze goes back to Kai, who quickly pulls his fingers out of my mouth. “You should be there.”

He disappears as silently as he arrived.

I work saliva into my mouth, trying to wash out the taste of Kai’s salty fingers. “Is everyone in this frat house a fucking psycho?”

I expect him to argue, but he just keeps looking at the door like he’s expecting his bro to walk back in.

“Kai.”

“Yeah.” He sounds defeated, and I don’t like it.

I squirm under him. “Get off me.”

He looks down at me, face expressionless.

“You don’t like this?” He slides his lower body up and grinds his hips against mine, rubbing his hard dick over my pelvis.

Now I wish his fingers were back in my mouth, because at least they’d have stifled the groan that slips out.

Fuck that, I want him to flip me over and hook my mouth like a fish as he slams into me from behind…and I loathe myself for even thinking that. For wanting something so humiliating, so wrong when all I should feel is rage. But my anger is burning low, smothered by heat building in places I’d rather die than admit.

All it takes is one broken sound sneaking past my lips, a tiny mewl that somehow captures all the confusion and anger and regret and fucking ovary-aching desire raging inside my head.

A death rattle that signals the end of this war.

He’s been silent, watching, unmoving as I waged my battle…but then his jaw tightens, a muscle twitching beneath his skin like a fuse catching a spark.

One tick.

That’s my only warning before he drops his weight and crushes his mouth against mine.

My body locks up, breath trapped in my lungs, hands clenched, even toes curled tight like I can somehow contain the last of my anger reserves.

Mentally, I’m still spitting mad.

I want to turn away. I want to bite his lips so hard he bleeds.

I need to make him hurt like he keeps hurting me with his stupid unfinished letters and the pathetically cute gift he never sent. For stealing my book, and then lying about having read it.

For stealing my heart, and then spitting on it.

But that uninvited contact spreads through me like a wildfire, and it razes every defense of mine to the blackened ground.

I whimper as I fight to hold on to some semblance of control, but all I can think about is how good it felt when he stretched my pussy last night with the same cock that’s resting so heavy and so hard between my thighs.

I try not to respond to his kiss. To play dead so it’s like he’s trying to make out with a corpse. But with every lick and suck and slide of his tongue against mine, my heart beats faster and faster.

My clit tingles.

My fucking pussy aches.