Page 143 of Forbidden Lessons

Fuck, maybe it is.

Her lips tremble, and I use my thumb to smear that drop of blood over her mouth like lipstick.

Scarlet lips for my scarlet whore.

“I bet you want her to find us,” I say, flicking out my tongue to lick the blood from my thumb. “You love an audience, don’t you? Someone watching you get railed.”

I grind her against the floor again, and she groans in pain, one hand shooting to my stomach, the other clawing into my thigh to relieve the heavy weight on her guts.

“No—” My backhand cuts her off.

The knife blade pressed to the curve of her cheekbone, just below her eye, makes her entire body stiffen.

But not as much as my cock.

I’m already considering pulling down my zip and letting it out, because there’s no space left in my Guccis.

“No more lies.” I seize her throat again, use my fingers to guide her face back toward me. “Tell the truth for a change. You just might like it.”

She gives her head a violent shake. “I don’t like being watched,” she hisses, tears suddenly glittering in her eyes. “I’m not a slut, Kai. You’re the only guy I?—“

Haven cuts off with a strangled cry as I snatch the front of her dress and stab the knife through the fabric. Shocked blue eyes follow my hand as I shear through her black dress, exposing her breasts and belly to the cool air of her new bedroom.

She watches, so morbidly fascinated with the fact that I’ve just stripped her half-naked that she’s forgotten to struggle, to resist, to scream.

Jesus, she looks good. The only flaw on her creamy skin, the odd beauty mark or freckle. And the scars, of course.

Fuck, we’ve given each other a lot of scars over the years.

There’s no denying that this is a woman’s body. That the heart beating so frantically behind her ribcage is that of a woman’s. But when my eyes climb up and meet hers, all I see is the girl that drove a stake through my heart.

There’s a long scar from her collarbone to her sternum, so faint you’d have to know it was there to see it. I drag the tip of the knife down it, and then flick her nipple.

“Where’s your bra, Haven?”

She’s staring at me like I’m the Ghost of Childhood Past, and fuck, I guess I am. But when I say those words, I see how they trigger her. From the flinch on her face to the way her mouth slackens and grows wide.

Her hands slap over her breasts, trying to cover them.

That’s when the sobbing begins. Deep, mournful, wrenching sobs that shake her whole body. I clap a hand over her mouth, expecting her to stop me, but her hands just flop onto the carpet, fingers curling up like she’s already dead.

I drop down on top of her, urging her legs open with my knees, sinking between them. When I drag the knife down the curve of her breast, she lets me.

Because I’ve broken her again.

“Hey, shh, shh,” I croon, our faces less than an inch apart. “It’s okay, Heavenly. You didn’t need it, anyway.”

I didn’t think her sobs could be any more wretched, but I guess I underestimated the power of my words. But it’s not the words she’s reacting to. It’s the memory.

And here I thought Haven had forgotten all about me. Aboutus.

But the woman lying under me is grieving for the dead.

Little Haven.

Little Kai.

Fuck, I miss them.

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