AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 1
Mackenzie
“It’s over. I—I can’t do this anymore.”
I wish my voice sounded stronger, but it wavers as the words I’ve been practicing in my head for weeks finally make it out of my mouth.
My throat is dry, and I’m trembling but trying to hide it.
Professor Paxton Kassell stands in front of me. We’re in his bedroom, in his apartment, as we so often are.
I’m his dirty little secret. He doesn’t want us to be seen in public.
A muscle ticks in his jaw. “Don’t do this, Mackenzie. I mean it.”
Fuck, I hate how attractive he is. His inner ugliness should mask the fact he has an incredible body and a head of thick auburn hair—hair I’ve raked my nails through often enough. His eyes are too gray to be called blue, but too blue to be gray—an individual shade I’ve never quite managed to pin down. There’s so much I thought I loved about him, but they were all surface lies.
He’s been my lover for the past year, but enough is enough.
I have to stay strong.
“I’m sorry, but it is. I’ve made up my mind.”
I should have stood up to him sooner. The moment he started to get possessive with me, interrogating me about where I was going, who I was with, why I was wearing makeup, I should have to ended things.
I can’t believe I’ve let it go so far.
Paxton is thirty-five years old, and I was only eighteen when he first made his interest in me known. Everyone at college swooned over him, and his classes were always full. When he kept making excuses to speak to me about my work after class, standing too close, and complimenting everything about me, I was flattered. Everyone else was jealous as hell—both the boys and the girls—and having his full attention made me feel special. It didn’t take long for the talks about my work to become him ‘accidentally’ bumping into me in public. At the time, I genuinely thought it was accidental, but now that I look back I can see how stupid I’d been. My social media accounts had been public, and I was always posting about where I was and what I was doing. It wouldn’t have taken him much detective work to figure out my routines.
I didn’t see the manipulation and coercive control. I thought I was in love for the first time in my life—hell, I was in love. I was obsessed with him, and he was with me. The sex was incredible, and he completely took over my thoughts. I wanted to spend time with him, so I didn’t care that I always had to tell my friends I was busy studying. But after about six months, I started to emerge from the sex-induced haze I’d been in and realized how much of student life I was missing out on.
He changed then. Questioned everything I was doing. Wanted to know why I was dressed in a certain way—who I was wearing it for. He never laid a finger on me in a violent way, but he threatened others. He told me that if he ever saw me with another man, he’d kill them and then himself.
“Come on, baby, you don’t mean that,” he says, his lips drawing tight as his gaze hardens.
“I do,” I insist.
“Bullshit. You’re too young to know your own mind.”
This is how he always is. Demeaning. Dismissive. I clench my fists and try to stand up to him. I remember the way he treated me after my father died. The fact he got jealous of me going to my own dad’s funeral. Instead of comforting me and supporting me, this asshole was quizzing me on the length of my skirt.
Anger flares inside me. “I’m nineteen years old. Almost twenty.”
He shakes his head dismissively. “Still a baby.”
How dare he? This is why I’ve struggled so hard to make myself heard. Make myself seen. He hasn’t respected a single thing about me since the day we met.
Oh, he acted like he did in the early days, made me feel like I was someone special. Told me I was mature for my age. That eighteen- and nineteen-year-old boys wouldn’t understand me the way he did.
I grind my teeth. “Old enough to have been fucking you for the past year, though.”
He edges closer. “If you really mean it, then don’t we deserve one last time, huh, baby? You know how good I make you feel.”
His hand slips up the outside of my thigh, cupping my ass cheek. I wish I was wearing something more substantial than my thin cotton sundress. It’s early September, but it’s still warm. Frustratingly, my skin reacts to his touch and heat pools between my thighs.
No, I remind myself. I don’t want this. That’s the whole point of this conversation; I need to put an end to it. But he has a way of manipulating me, of making me think I want things when I don’t. I know he’s going to use this to tie me to him again. No way will he let this be the last time. If I give in to him, he’ll keep manipulating me.
He pulls me into him, jamming his cock against my flat stomach. He’s so hard for me. How can he be so turned on when I’m in the process of breaking up with him? He lowers his head and places his lips to my neck, giving me feather-light kisses and nibbles just the way I like it.
