Page 120 of Brutal Prince

His thumbs stroke the side of my neck.

I immediately look up at Mr. Denard, but the teacher’s head is down and he’s busy on his cellphone. Everyone else in detention is either catching forty winks or busy on their phones too. Meanwhile, the video is playing so loud, I doubt anyone would hear us having a full-on conversation.

They definitely don’t hear him dragging away his desk, or bringing his chair closer to mine.

I feel him shift — there’s weight on my shoulders one second, gone the next — and then his knees wrap around my seat.

“You know what I think?” Briar murmurs as he settles down behind me. His breath stirs the fine hairs by my ear, and that makes me squirm in my seat. “I think you’re too serious.”

Serious about making you pay for what you did, yeah.

God, I wish I could just yell at him. Maybe I should go to the police. It would be my word against theirs but, fuck, it has to do something, right?

This is probably exactly what Addy had to go through all those months ago. Why she went off the rails and had to be told to leave Briar alone.

“You know what’ll loosen you up, Angel?”

His hand slides down the front of my chest. He squeezes my breast hard enough to make me bite my lip, and then his hand sinks lower, and lower, and lower.

“Losing your v-card,” he whispers, his lips touching my ear.

Fuck.

Fuck!

I should go sit somewhere else. Raise my hand and hope Mr. Denard will take my side for a change.

But if I lead him on, there’s a chance we can pick up right where we left off.

I don’t fucking know.

No, no more lies. The truth. I will squeeze it out of him one way or the other.

Briar slides his hand around my throat. I’m flung back to my episode in the tub, where the thought of him doing just this tipped me over the edge.

“Was it you?” I murmur, shifting despite myself as his other hand smooths my skirt over my thigh. “Were you in my house?”

Briar’s soft chuckle warms the back of my neck and sends another flurry of goosebumps over my skin. “What the hell are you on about?”

It must have been him. I want it to be him. And how fucked up is that? Beyond-thought fucked up, that’s what.

Briar grabs the edge of my skirt and draws it up my leg. Higher. Higher. Where his fingertips brush my skin, electric tingles crackle like branches of lightning through a stormy sky.

“You’re tensing up again.”

“Because you have your hand up my fucking skirt.”

“Relax, Angel. I can’t finger you out of being a virgin.”

I let out a soft huff, and then clamp my lips shut when his fingertips reach the seam of my underwear.

If Denard was to look up... If any of the five students in front of us happened to look back…

I shift in my seat, and grab Briar’s wrist. “Stop.”

“Why?”

“Because—”

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