Chapter 6 Haven #2
I nod. “Straight to voicemail.” I pick at a loose thread on my leggings. “I even left a message on the sorority’s group chat.”
“And?”
“Abigail’s the only one who responded.” I clear my throat. “She was…less than helpful.”
“Fucking bitch.”
“Accurate.” I blow out a breath. “I just wanna know if she’s okay, you know?”
Kai grabs his knees and pulls himself into a sit. “Okay. Monday, first thing, we’ll go see Nora. She’s got to have Melissa’s emergency contacts.”
“And she’ll just give it to us?”
He grins. “All it took was a Snickers bar to get your number.”
I let out an incredulous laugh, slapping his leg. “You fucking stalker!”
A flicker of guilt crosses his face before he smothers it with a grin.
“That’s Monday’s shit. Right now—“ he gestures at my textbook “—you gotta focus on not failing midterms. You can’t give Rooke a reason to take away your grant.”
My stomach tightens at Bastian’s name.
“Focus. Right.” I pick up my textbook again, staring at the same paragraph I’ve read seventeen times. “Piaget. Cognitive development. I can do this.”
Kai settles back into his spot, pulling his textbook onto his stomach again. His foot finds my thigh, a casual touch that shouldn’t make me feel as settled as it does.
We study in comfortable silence for a few minutes. Or at least, Kai studies. I’m mostly just moving my eyes across words while my brain rehashes the Melissa situation in increasingly anxious circles.
She’s fine.
It’s been five days.
Family. Stress. Rehab.
Why wouldn’t she have told me she’s going away?
Because we’re not BFFs. I didn’t even tell her I was going down to the coast. Why’d she tell me she was—
…I saw that…
Fuck, Bastian, get out of my head!
Kai’s phone buzzes again.
This time, when he picks it up and reads the message, his energy changes like someone flipped a switch.
His shoulders tense. His jaw tightens.
He stares at the screen for a long moment, then sets the phone facedown on the coffee table.
“Who was that?” I ask.
“No one.”
I frown. “Didn’t look like no one.”
“It’s nothing, Haven.” He picks up his highlighter, focusing on his textbook. “Just drop it.”
But I can’t drop it. Because I know that look. I’ve seen it before—the way his face goes carefully blank, the way his eyes won’t quite meet mine. His whole body is coiling as if he’s preparing to bolt or fight.
Something’s wrong.
“Kai—”
“I said drop it,” he growls, like a dog if you get too close to its bowl while it’s eating.
Which, of course, makes me want to push harder.
Because there’re only two people I can think of who could cause such a sudden change in Kai…and one of them is in hospital.
“It’s Bastian, isn’t it?”
Kai’s head snaps up. “What?”
“What did he text you?”
“Jesus Christ.” He tosses his highlighter onto the coffee table. It rolls off and hits the floor. “Not everything is about him.”
“Then who—”
“Can we just study? Please?” He scrubs a hand over his face. “I really don’t want to do this right now.”
“Do what? Talk? Share? Act like we’re actually in a relationship instead of just fucking each other and pretending we’re fine?”
Kai’s jaw tightens, but he keeps his eyes sullenly glued to his notes, refusing to respond. I try to go back to my textbook, but I end up studying Kai’s body language instead of Piaget’s bullshit.
I last maybe a minute.
“If he’s still messaging you, then we should—“
Kai’s phone blasts out the chorus of the hip-hop song he uses as his ringtone.
His head whips to stare at his phone on the coffee table. The screen lights up, displaying a name I can’t quite read from this angle.
But I can read his face just fine.
And he looks terrified.
“Gonna get that?” I ask.
“No.”
“Kai—”
“I’m not getting it.” His voice is strained.
The phone keeps ringing.
“Seems important.”
“It’s not.”
“How do you know?”
“Haven, I swear to God—”
One second I’m on my end of the sofa, the next I’m scrambling across the cushions, reaching for his phone.
“Don’t!” Kai grabs my sweater to stop me, but I pull free.
My fingers close around the phone.
I glimpse the caller ID—Sharon—before Kai tackles me to the floor, landing on top of me.
His weight crushes me as he tries to pry the phone from my hand. I twist away, giggling, waving it out of reach. We both know he could overpower me in a heartbeat. But I’m squirming too much, and he’s being careful not to hurt me.
“Give it back!” he shouts.
“Only if you answer it,” I shoot back with a giggle.
“I’m fucking serious—“
“So am I!”
I’m laughing even though nothing about this is funny. And I keep wriggling under him, even though his weight has me firmly pinned to the floor. He makes a wild grab for the phone, latching onto my wrist. I yank my arm between us, twisting out of his grip.
“Stop!” His hand claps over the front of my throat, and we both stop moving. He lets out a flustered breath, the irritation on his face slowly retreating. “Just stop, Haven.”
Our faces are inches apart. I can feel his breath on my lips.
The phone keeps ringing between us.
His thumb presses just hard enough into the side of my neck to make my pulse jump. Those green eyes are as dark as rain-soaked moss—desperate and panicked, like just the sound of his mother’s voice could yank him back to the toxic hellscape he escaped when he left for college.
“Answer it,” I say, voice steady despite his weight, his heat. “Or I will.”
He snorts, voice low and bitter when he murmurs, “Like you could handle her.” His grip tightens a fraction, the sudden lack of air making my chest heave.
“Fuck you.” I buck my hips up, legs locking around his waist, and use every ounce of fury to roll us. Momentum does the rest, until he’s on his back and I’m straddling his waist.
He loses his grip on my throat, and I grab his wrists instead, slamming them to the floor beside his head.
I could get high off this feeling alone.
“What—” He cuts off when I curl my fingers around his neck.
“You’re done letting them rule you, Kai.” I squeeze, hard as I can, nails biting in. “Say it.”
Kai’s laughs vibrates under my palms. His eyes glint, hooded and amused, like this is the funniest shit.
“Damn, you been working out?” He flexes his throat against my hold so casually, like I’m a kitten swatting at a lion. “You feel stronger than the last time you tried to strangle me.”
Heat floods my face at the memory of me trying to choke him at the pine tree beside the campus all those weeks ago.
“Fuck you,” I snap, but I don’t let go. Instead, I lean in closer, voice dropping low as I grip his neck even harder. “Pick up that phone and tell your mom to go fuck herself.”
His laughter fades, body going still under me. There’s a flicker—his breath catches, hips twitching up involuntarily, cock hardening against my thigh through his jeans.
Does he like this? Me trying to own him? To hurt him?
Do I?
The answer scares me more than his hands ever could.
His eyes shutter, and there’s a low hum in his throat that I can feel through my fingers.
“Bossy fucking slut,” he mutters, voice husky, hands flexing but not fighting.
I press until air hisses through his teeth. “Don’t act like you don’t love being ordered around,” I murmur.
I know what I’m about to say will hurt him.
I fucking know.
But the sick, broken part of me that wants to prove I’m unlovable—because then it can say ‘I told you so’—says it anyway.
“Kai’s a good boy for everyone, even his godawful mommy—“
His hands shoot up, wrenching mine away and flipping us so fast, the room spins. I’m flat on my back again, his full weight crushing down, one forearm across my chest, the other hand clamping my throat.
The pressure is real now, controlled but vicious.
“Too far, Miss H,” he growls, face inches from mine, breath ragged. “Too fucking far.”
His knee shoves between my legs, roughly spreading them, free hand delving behind my leggings. I grab his wrist, scratching him as I try to pluck him away.
“Okay!” I bleat out, panic pushing tears into my eyes. “I’m sorry—“
Stars burst behind my eyes as he cuts off my air, and the apology meant to free me.
His fingers find my clit, circling hard and fast—no buildup, just pure punishment—while his thumb digs into my windpipe, doling out breaths in shallow bursts.
I claw at his arm, raking my nails over his skin until it’s slippery with blood, gasping when he lets a sliver of air down my throat.
“Kai—stop! I was just—”
But he doesn’t stop. Doesn’t let me speak. When I try to grab his face, he turns away with a low chuckle.
“That little power trip got you all wet,” he grates.
He plunges two fingers inside me, curling deep, his thumb grinding relentlessly over my clit until my body’s arching against my will. I can feel how wet I am, how I clench around his fingers.
The feel of his hand on my throat, the lack of air, it amps everything up to eleven. Pleasure and pain twist into an incomprehensible tangle of sensation that builds too fast to stop.
He watches my face with narrowed eyes, mouth trembling. “Now who’s the good girl, just lying there and taking it?” He squeezes my throat tighter still, fingers pistoning until an orgasm tears through me.
My body shudders under him, gargled moans of pleasure and panic smothered when he falls on top of me and kisses me. With every teasing nip and lick he gives me, the fingers around my throat open a fraction.
I suck greedily at the air, at him, at anything to ground me back in reality.
But my hips are bucking into his hand, already wanting more.
Wanting him—inside me, stretching me open, fucking me until I come apart again. I shove a hand under his hoodie, fumbling beneath his shirt until I can graze my nails down his back. Until I can sink them in and give him a taste of the pain he’s doled out to me.