Page 43 of Brutal Game

And then he leaned over the table, raising a hand to stroke my cheek. A shiver broke out, lighting up my spine.

I flinched away. “Don’t,” I said, my throat tight. “Don’t mock me.”

“I’m not mocking you.”

Someone shushed us. I turned to see a student at a study carrel glaring at us. They looked at Jack, blushed, and looked back down at their computer.

“Sorry,” they said, like they were the ones who’d broken the rules. It was truly amazing how being around a celebrity—and Jack was a celebrity—warped people’s minds and values. Parasocial relationships were wild.

I cleared my throat. “We need to decide on a topic for the project.” I squared my shoulders. He was going to hate what I said next. “I was thinking we could do it on the connection between power and sexual narcissism.”

He shook his head, a shark’s grin flashing on his gorgeous face. “You don’t give up, do you?”

“Never.”

“Strong, brave, and tenacious,” he murmured. “Too bad though, because that’s not what we’re doing.”

“Oh, you have an idea?”

“Yeah. I think we do our project on the symptoms of sexual repression and shame around sex. Sound familiar?”

“I’m not repressed,” I hissed. My cheeks heated.

He hummed. “Are you sure, princess?”

“Don’t call me princess.”

His eyes, warm a moment ago, hardened. “I’ll call youwhatever I want, Aviva. And I’ve changed my mind. You’re right, we should do our project on sex and power—specifically the psychology behind giving up power in sex, the freedom in submission and consensual nonconsent. That feels…apt.”

I swallowed. The room, once chilly, grew sweltering. “Submission isn’t deviant.”

His eyes were intense. “No, but it is considered divergent behavior.”

“And what’s between us isn’t consensual.”

He shrugged. Once again, I couldn’t read the look in his eyes. “You’re right. It’s not. But you still want it, don’t you, princess? Even though you tell yourself you don’t?”

“Jack.” I glanced around. “Not here.”

It was like waving a red flag in front of a bull. I’d dared him, and as he shook his head at me before slowly disappearing under the table, I regretted my words.

“Jack,” I hissed again. “You can’t?—”

But he either didn’t hear me, or didn’t care, because a moment later, my leggings were being pulled down, and my panties followed. And then my thighs were being pushed open and his mouth was on me and his tongue was drawing gentle circles around my clit and he was sucking it between his lips and working it and working me and I had to cover my mouth with my hand and trap my long, desperate, helpless whimper so everyone around us didn’t figure out what he was doing to me.

He fingered me as he licked and sucked, one finger, then two, stretching me. The ache felt so good. I was still new to this, new to sex, and as he played with my pussy and lit up my whole body with pleasure, a thought came to me: Jack was shaping me around him. Around his own need, his own desire. My body was his Pygmalion as he moldedme into exactly what he wanted me to be. Until I craved him, craved this so badly, I worried I’d never want anyone else.

And then I wasn’t thinking anymore because he’d bitten down, because I was too busy coming, on his face, his fingers, completely out of control around strangers. I couldn’t care as the sharp, brutal pleasure took over my every thought and feeling. I shook apart into pieces, my thighs caught in his grip as he feasted on me. It was too much, but he wouldn’t stop, just worked my clit more, worked me harder, faster, and I fell apart all over again. And then again. And then again.

Finally, he released me, dropping a kiss on my mound so tender I almost cried. It was in complete opposition with the rest of his treatment of me. All these quick but sweet moments threw me, and I expected that was the point.

He pulled my underwear and leggings back up as I slumped back in my chair, drained. Moments later, he reappeared from beneath the table, his mouth wet with me.

“You can’t tell me you didn’t want that,” he murmured. “I can taste how much you want it. Don’t deny it or deny me, princess.”

I tried to saydon’t call me princess, but my body was too buzzed.

Especially when he stood up from his chair, came around the other side of the table, and leaned down to kiss me. I tasted myself on him as he poured intensity into the kiss, into my mouth, and he was right, because I wanted it, wanted him.

---