Page 38 of Forbidden Lessons

“I know what makes you tick. I know what makes you break.”

I can feel her heartbeat.

A steady, soft knocking against my pec.

What would it take to make it skip a beat?

“You’re gonna get in your car, and you’re gonna drive out of here, and you won’t dare look in your fucking rear-view mirror.”

Another sound, this one definitely a protest because it’s accompanied by a furious wriggle of her hips, like she’s trying to break out of my grip.

“Shh, shh,” I whisper, coiling my arm tighter around her middle like a python. “You’re not listening, Heavenly.”

She goes still. The breath puffing against my fingers from her nose comes in short, hard huffs.

I brush my lips against the shell of her ear, and I swear she still smells like apple pie. A touch of cinnamon, apple, sweet caramel, and for some fucking reason, that makes my cock stir behind my sweat’s soft cashmere. Or maybe it’s just her proximity.

It’s been years since I’ve been this close to a girl.

“You stay the fuck away from this place, or I’ll get the admin office to set up a meeting with your dad and the dean.”

She gives one savage jerk in my grip and sinks her nails into my arm.

“You don’t want that, do you? Your daddy walking in here…waltzingin here, demanding to know what the fuck is so important he had to stop hitting that pipe?”

The fight leaves her body. Like I’d been holding a marionette doll and someone cut the strings. She slumps forward, her weight falling against me.

My cock hardens even more in my lap, pressure building.

I slide my hand off her mouth. I lean back, grabbing her shoulders, holding her up for inspection to see how deep the knife slid in.

Yeah. I hit a nerve. Judging from how pale her face is, maybe even a fucking artery.

I give her a soft shake, and her head just flops, like she doesn’t have the strength to keep her neck stiff.

“That’s it,” I murmur, a smile tugging at my lips as I study her ashen face, the smudges under her eyes, the dark mark on her jaw where she must have hit the car last night when I?—

Fuck.

I didn’t realize I’d been that rough with her.

Didn’t know it would leave a bruise.

But I don’t know what’s fucking me up more…that I hurt her, or that it left a mark for everyone to see.

The whiplash from that thought is swift and brutal.

It doesn’t fucking matter.

She’s got it now.

It worked. All of it. Especially this last, fatal blow.

She’s putty in my hands, limp and docile and…so fucking broken looking.

I grab her chin, and she winces at the pressure I apply on that bruise. Her eyelashes flutter, but she keeps her eyes averted. Doesn’t want me to see her pain, or can’t stand looking at the man who’d dare turn against her like this?

As if she couldn’t see this coming.

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