Chapter 11
Bastian
Haven’s hand is ice-cold and trembling. But she grips me as if I’m the only thing keeping her attached to this reality.
I catalog every micro-expression that crosses her beautiful, devastated face as I lead her deeper into the dark, away from the boy being pinned to the ground by security.
Grief. Rage. Desperation.
Surrender.
The last makes my cock stiffen against my zipper, but it’s the grief that undoes me.
The way it strips her bare, makes her jaw tremble, turns those blue eyes into something so raw and devastating.
For a wonderfully strange, unguarded moment, I forget to analyze and simply look.
She’s beautiful. Horrifyingly, inconveniently beautiful.
We don’t go far—just deep enough that the trees provide cover, but close enough that we can still hear the crowd, the crackle of police radios, Kai’s yells.
When I bring her to a halt, she stares up at me with those glacial-blue eyes that have haunted my thoughts since the moment I saw her photo in the pile of scholarship applications on my desk earlier this year.
Behind her, I catch movement through the trees. Kai being hauled to his feet by Deputy Thatcher. He’s disheveled and manic, looking exactly like a delinquent capable of Melissa’s kidnapping and assault.
His eyes find us across the distance, quickly distinguishing us from the shadows.
I smile and wave.
His expression, even at a distance, is pure anguish. Deputy Thatcher has to physically restrain him when he lunges in our direction.
So protective.
So possessive.
As if I’ve stolen something from him. Kai doesn’t seem to realize she was never really his to begin with. He was merely keeping her company until she came to her senses. Until she understood who she was truly meant to be with.
Me.
The victory that surges through me is sexual in its intensity.
I shove Haven against a tree trunk, my cock thickening at the grunt she makes when her back hits the bark. I’m on her before she can inhale again, fingers curling around her throat, thumb pressed to the hollow between her collarbones.
“It always fascinates me how desperately trauma victims try to control the narrative.”
She grabs my wrist, but doesn’t try to escape. Fear and adrenaline have blown her pupils wide…a physiological response I’ve been waiting to see for far too long.
“They don’t seem to realize it’s merely self-sabotage masquerading as agency. See…” I pinch her bottom lip hard enough to make her flinch. “You’d rather burn it all down yourself than wait for someone else to light the match.”
“You’re delusional,” she mumbles, tugging her lip free with a sharp twist of her head. “If anyone’s been starting fires, it’s you. Or have you forgotten about the video Kai has of you?”
“I remember it quite fondly, in fact.” I smirk at her. “Especially the part where I deleted it off his phone.”
Her eyes become skittish. “Are you a pathological liar or something? Kai would never let you—”
“He didn’t have a choice in the matter. But he certainly chose not to tell you. You two lovebirds really need to work on your communication. In a few years, after he’s served his sentence, of course.”
It’s sad how quickly her expression changes from disgust to resignation.
If I ever needed confirmation of just how much Kai keeps from her, this would be it.
She might believe he’s capable of change, but Kai has survived by keeping his darkest thoughts and deeds locked up deep inside.
It’ll take more than a simple love affair to rewrite those neural pathways.
“Seem a little desperate to control the narrative yourself, you fucking narcissist,” she says bitterly.
She’s still trying to look defiant. Chin up, shoulders back, her nails digging into my wrist—almost believable if it weren’t for the tremor in her jaw. The way her breath comes shallow and fast. How her throat moves with a hard swallow.
I’d probably pity her. Good thing I’m incapable of feeling sympathy.
“Take off your pants and underwear.”
I tighten my grip a fraction, watching her blue eyes flutter as I think about all the ways I could hurt her if she refuses. All the ways I want to hurt her.
For a heartbeat, she just stares at me, lips parted. Her mouth opens—no doubt to argue, to scream, to call me every name I deserve. Her head turns toward the trees, back toward the garden where Kai was dragged away, where the ambulance lights were still strobing minutes ago.
Where the safe, sane, normal choice is waiting for her.
But then she looks back at me.
And something in her face shuts down.
The girl who might have walked away is still in there, watching. But she’s not the one in charge anymore.
Her hands move to her waistband of her leggings.
Not reluctantly.
But slowly, carefully.
“I won’t ask twice, girl.”
She’s shaking—adrenaline, need, the crash of everything that just happened—but she hooks her thumbs into the elastic and pushes down. The beige leggings pool at her ankles along with a scrap of black cotton that must be her underwear.
No more bikini briefs for my sweet girl. Apparently she’s switched to thongs.
Did he buy her those?
I hold out my free hand, and she slips out of her soft, ankle-high boots just long enough to pull the leggings off. The November air is frosty enough that I can see goosebumps rise on her thighs, so I let her keep her socks on.
Frostbite is an ugly thing.
I smile, lifting her underwear to my nose. “Smells like someone needs their greedy little cunt stuffed.”
She’s bare to me. Exposed. Vulnerable in ways that awaken the true dark in me for the first time in days.
When I drop to my knees in front of her, her breath hitches.
“Open for me.”
She obeys quickly, fingers sliding her labia open—probably thinking I’m going to taste her, that I’m giving her something.
I’m not that generous.
I lean in close—close enough that she can feel my breath on her clit—and spit onto her skin, just above her clit. Mud and rotting leaves grind into the knees of my slacks, cold and damp, the earthy-sweet smell of decomposition mingling with her arousal.
She reaches for my hair, perhaps to drag me closer, but I catch her wrist and redirect that hand between her legs too. The sound she makes when I force her fingers through my spit, then down onto her clit is desperate, hungry, confused.
“Rub yourself,” I order, eyes flicking up to lock with hers. “You won’t come without my permission. And you won’t stop without it, either.”
She gasps as she circles her clit, fingertips slippery with my spit, her breath hitching.
Her face contorts, eyebrows bunching as if she’s about to sob.
Her hips roll against her touch, bucking so slowly, so sensually, my mouth is watering.
The pain of my hardening cock fighting for room behind my slacks is utter fucking bliss.
Christ, she’s so fucking perfect.
I grab her thighs, wrenching them open, my gaze flickering from her degrading performance to the agony in her eyes as pleasure and humiliation war on her beautiful features.
“That’s it,” I murmur, watching every micro-movement. “Show me what you do when you’re alone at night. How you touch yourself when you think about your professor. Because you do, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she moans guiltily. “Fuck—yes—”
“Of course you do. This needy little hole doesn’t know better. It wants to be defiled. Now fuck yourself. Fingers in deep. I want to hear how wet you are minutes after your Romeo was cuffed.”
Her fingers dip into her cunt without hesitation. She keeps massaging her clit with one hand as she works the fingers of her other in and out of her pussy.
“Eyes on me,” I snap when I look up and see her eyelids shivering closed.
She forces her eyes wide open, gazing down at me through trembling lashes, eyes glassy with lust and need.
The sound of her fingers thrusting into her wet hole is almost as hypnotic as the pathetic little whimpers she lets out.
“Deeper, girl. I want everyone on campus to hear what a filthy slut you are for me.”
“Shut up! I’m not—“ She cuts off with an angry sound.
“Not what? A slut?” I chuckle. “You’re finger-fucking yourself for your professor like a desperate little whore.”
Her breathing speeds up. She’s trying not to make a sound, but a moan breaks loose, mingled with a broken sob that echoes off the trees.
“Please!”
“Please what, girl? Please stop? Or please remind you what a greedy cunt you have?” I drag a knuckle up the inside of her leg, collecting her slick. “You’re dripping down your thighs, slut, so it’s obvious you’re enjoying every second of this.”
The fingers working her clit slip, losing grip in the slickness. She’s too impatient, too hungry for a climax, for an end to the humiliation that’s fueling her own need.
“Kai is thinking of you right now, girl. Wondering where you are. You realize that, don’t you?”
Her panicked whimper is delicious enough to make precum leak from my cock.
“He probably thinks you’re worried about him. Probably still thinks you’re his good girl, innocent and loyal. But look at you—“
I rush to a stand, grab her wrist, and ram her fingers deeper than she dared to go on her own. Her pained gasp sends a wave of electrified heat down my spine. I keep her buried inside, slowly rocking her fingers—grinding her palm against her clit—as I try to get them in even deeper.
“You’re knuckle-deep inside your own cunt,” I murmur into her ear. “Getting wetter every time I call you a whore. Because this is who you really are.”
Her eyes squeeze shut, a mournful wail leaving her quivering mouth.
“Haven, look at me,” I growl darkly. “Fucking look at me.”
Lashes clumped with tears shiver open. There’s barely a shred of blue around her blown-out pupils, her eyes flickering all over my face like she doesn’t dare get locked onto me.
“There’s nothing wrong with you, my sweet little slut.” I release her wrist, sliding my fingers down the back of her hand until my fingertips are nestled against her entrance.