Page 154 of Forbidden Lessons

Hot water stings the cut on my ribs, and I take another five slow counts before I can work up the courage to look down and assess the damage. With the blood already washed off, it looks like a tiny little tear in my skin.

Not wide, not deep.

So why does it hurt so fucking much?

There’s a bar of soap in here that one of the sorority sisters must have left behind. I lather up every inch of my skin, even my hair.

Especially between my legs, my vajayjay’s pH balance be damned.

I want him off me. Gone. Every trace.

But the more I scrub, the more I can feel him.

His crushing weight.

His hot skin.

That sound he made when I grabbed his dick.

Fuck!

I wish I could scream, but then I’d have everyone in the house running in here, seeing me like this.

Naked, damaged, broken.

That’s not going to happen.

What Kai did tonight will never happen again. It’s pathetic, and sad, and feels like a step backward, but from now on, I won’t go anywhere alone. Because that’s when he knows he can play with me as hard and rough as he wants.

I’m no snitch. Never have been, never will be. That’s something that runs deep in Riversiders’ blood.

There’s a pair of towels near the sink, and one of them is just large enough to cover me from nipples to non-existent thigh gap. I don’t bother looking at myself in the mirror, because I know I look like shit.

you’re so fucking beaut?—

Melissa lays her phone on her stomach when I come back into our bedroom. “Where the hell were you?”

“Bathroom.”

“But I was just in there. A…few minutes ago.”

I turn my back on her so I can drag one of the duffel bags onto the bed to look for something to sleep in. One of Bastian’s hoodies would have been nice.

“We must have just missed each…” I trail off.

“What’s wrong?” Melissa’s bed squeaks, and I jolt like I just stuck my fingers in a wall socket.

Do I seriously have PTSD? And my trigger is Melissa’sbed spring?

Fuck, if only Bastian was still a therapist. He’d have a field day with this. She shuffles over to me in her bunny slippers, then peers over my shoulder.

“Oh, I know,” she sighs, patting me on the shoulder, then getting back into bed. “Hate opening them too. Absolute sacrilege.”

I poke a finger through one of the plastic wrapped bundles neatly arranged inside the duffel bag. Then I tear it with a kind of calm abandon. The smell of freshly laundered clothes puffs into my face.

That scent could have easily landed itself in second or third place in my overall ‘things I’d love to smell again’ list.

If I didn’t feel so fucking violated.

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