Chapter 68 #2
I’ve faced off against Ezra. My dad. Haven’s dad. A couple of other guys over the years when the booze was flowing and the hormones raging.
Nothing could have prepared me for the look in Rooke’s eyes. They’re blown out, nearly all black, and livid.
“I asked if there’d be cops knocking at my door when you came to rescue Haven after the Rain Dance. Why’d you lie?”
I scoff. “I didn’t know—“
“That there’d be an investigation after you put your brother into a fucking coma?” The last words are a vicious whisper.
“No. I mean…yes, obviously, but…” I grab Rooke’s wrist, trying to prise his fingers off my clothes, but he twists his hand even tighter, pulling me away from the wall before slamming me back again. Crowding in even closer.
“But what, boy?”
He’s not mad at me.
Despite his brutal grip, the way his body shakes like he’s struggling not to wail on me until I end up in that empty bed next to Ezra, the way he searches my face tells me this isn’t anger.
It’s fear.
Instead of trying to pull him off me, I tighten my grip until I can feel the muscles in his wrist bunching.
“You worried they’ll find out about you and my brother? What you did to him?” I murmur, my eyes narrowing as I try to search a face that’s mostly in shadow.
“What he begged me to do to him.” Rooke chuckles as he leans back, flattening his hand on my chest and pushing me harder into the wall. “I have every reason to be here. Ezra is a former student. You, however, look like you’re trying to assuage your guilt.”
His gaze drops to my mouth before slowly trailing back to my eyes. “Or are you here to finish the job?”
I don’t like the way he’s looking at me. Or how rough and low his voice is suddenly. How hooded his eyes are when he locks gazes with me again.
“I’m his brother. If anyone has a reason to be here, it’s me.”
Rooke’s lips curl up at the edges. It might have been a smile if that mirth ever reached his eyes, but they’re as cold and hard as the wall he has me pinned against.
“You really think all we did was fuck?” Rooke says, putting so much emphasis on that last word, it conjures up images of him pressed up against my brother.
Bitter saliva rushes into my mouth.
It tastes just like Rooke’s cum.
“He couldn’t wait to let it all out. The beatings. The assaults. Any of this ring a bell, Kai?” He uses the tip of his finger to move a chunk of hair off my forehead.
My face heats. Part shame, part guilt.
How could Ezra snitch like this? And to this fucking psycho of all people? What the hell did my brother even see in him, anyway? He doesn’t give a fuck about anyone else but himself.
Yet somehow he conned Haven too.
How either of them can find him—
Okay, fine. Rooke’s attractive. I’ll give them that.
But can’t they see how fucking manipulative he is? Maybe because he was never interested in me, I never got to experience the charm he slathers on his victims.
Until now.
“We had a tough childhood. Who doesn’t?” I snap.
There’s a fractured light in Rooke’s eyes then. Something wild, almost frantic that glows before he dips his head, the shadows blocking it out.
“We? Sounds like you quite enjoyed yourself as a kid. Ezra’s the one that suffered, not you.”
My jaw clenches.
Un-fucking-believable.
“He chose—”
Rooke’s free hand clasps my throat. He leans into me, his warmth, his smell, all forming a dark oppressive presence that keeps me at bay as much as the hand on my throat.
Kick him in the fucking balls.
Claw out his eyes.
Spit in his face.
Do. Fucking. Something.
But I do nothing. I just let him manhandle me, my teeth clamped closed, my entire body trembling with suppressed anger.
“He chose?” Rooke murmurs. The tip of his nose brushes mine, his warm, sweet breath washing over my mouth with every word. “And exactly which options did you give him, boy?”
“Me?” There’s a buzzing in my ears.
Rooke is too close again.
His body too warm. Too hard. Too insistent as he presses against me. I need to figure out the thing in Rooke’s words that’s not making sense, but my brain is too busy stopping my dick from getting hard.
I don’t want this.
I don’t want him.
I want Haven.
Always.
Forever.
My chest is hammering, my breath shortening against the press of his body, and I fucking hate that I can’t stop shaking. My brain is screaming at me to shove him off, but my legs won’t move.
I swallow hard, but saliva just keeps rushing back into my mouth. “He chose to stay.”
“You’re lying again,” Rooke murmurs, the tip of his nose sliding over my cheek as he moves his mouth to my ear. “You’ll have to learn how to hide your tells with that cop sniffing around, boy.”
A vicious pulse of blood hardens my dick even more when he licks the side of my ear, a delusional part of me responding to his dominance even when I’m sick to my stomach.
This is what Rooke does.
He makes you complicit in your own destruction.
“I’m not lying,” I mutter through clenched teeth, pulling my head out of reach. Rooke simply follows with a muted chuckle.
There’s a stinging pain when he nips my earlobe. I shove him away with a yell, and he rocks back on his heels, laughing, like this is all some fucking game, and he’s already winning.
Then he’s crowding against me again, one hand still on my throat, the other dragging my hoodie down my shoulder with his fist.
His dick presses against my leg. It’s even harder than mine.
“Sounds like you enjoy inflicting pain,” Rooke says, his eyes flicking down to my exposed shoulder. “Do you enjoy receiving it, too?”
Finally, my brain grinds out the answer to the puzzle it had been trying to solve.
My heart is banging against my chest, a solid wall of vomit building in my throat as I meet Rooke’s gaze. I have an inch on him, but he might as well be towering over me, that’s how powerless I feel right now.
“He told you I hurt him?” I whisper through numb lips.
“Even showed me the scars.” Rooke drags his bottom lip through his teeth, his eyes dropping to my mouth. “I was particularly fond of the one you left on his shoulder.”
“I…I never touched him.” My voice is so weak, I can barely hear myself. “It was…it was…”
But I can’t say it. I can’t fucking say it. Not even to defend myself.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
He smiles. “Once more, boy. With feeling.”
My voice erupts in a roar. “Fuck you! I never—”
Rooke drops his head, his teeth sinking into the muscle bulging just above my collarbone.
That nip on my earlobe? A bee sting.
This? A fucking shark attack.
I yell, shoving him so hard he falls back with a stagger.
“What the fuck!” I clap a hand over the livid teeth marks he left on my flesh, whipping my head up to stare at him as aching pain stabs into my body. There’s blood under my fingers—warm, already slippery.
He grins at me, licking blood off his teeth with a slow swirl of his tongue as he walks backward to the door.
All without taking his eyes off me.
Like he’s soaking in every second of my pain, my disgust…my humiliation.
“Funny thing about blood,” he says, dragging the tip of his finger over his bottom lip. “Doesn’t matter where it comes from. Your flesh, Haven’s pussy…all tastes the same to me.”