Page 252 of Tis the Season to be Bullied

“Briar.” His name catches in my throat, mingling with a gasp when his lips touch the back of my neck.

“Jesus, you smell so fucking good,” he says, those words chasing warm puffs of air over my skin.

Oh God, why did I wake him? Now I can’t move away if I wanted to. It feels like the forest’s claimed me and I’ve gone and taken root.

Briar’s lips skate over my neck, my jaw, my cheekbone. He rains a flurry of light kisses over my face, hesitating when he reaches the edge of my mouth. He pauses, his warm, sweet breath fluttering over my lips as the hand on my belly moves down.

Get up. Run away. Don’t let him pull you under!

Briar groans as if he can’t hold back anymore, and his mouth crashes against mine. He takes without asking, dancing without letting me lead, all the while ignoring my mewls of protest.

A frantic ache bursts into my core, thumping in time with Briar’s furious kiss.

How the fuck could I want someone so badly? I don’t care if I never breathe, eat, sleep, or regain consciousness again. All I want is him. I want to give him everything. More and more and more, until there’s nothing left for me to give.

Nothing left for him to take.

I shiver violently at the thought, and Briar pulls back with a reluctant exhale. “You cold, Angel?”

As if offering up the heat of his body, he pulls me hard against him.

I can feel every muscle on his body.

And his rock hard cock.

How easy it would be to just lie here and let this happen. To let him slip a hand up my skirt and tug down my leggings. For his cock to?—

I shove at him and scramble up. He lifts his hands in mock surrender, a strange half-smile on his mouth as he stares up at me. Lowering his hands, he props himself up on one elbow.

Laying on his side, he should look defenseless, weak. He doesn’t. He could be a leopard waking from a catnap.

His earlier words tumble back into my mind.

Just tell them you don’t like it here.

Thankfully—thankfully—I don’t have any tears left. He drained them out of me like the sun drains the deserts.

He doesn’t deserve to know, doesn’t even deserve an explanation, but I’m hoping it will be like a thorn in his paw. Something small, seemingly insignificant, but that will drive him mad over time. And the only mouse around to take it out would be me.

“My father—” I swallow hard, and fist my hands at my side. “Stage four Hodgkin Lymphoma. Know what that is? It’s a cancer that attacks your lymph nodes. They thought they got it in time, that they could cut it out.” My voice fails for a second, but I bite the inside of my bottom lip hard enough to taste blood, and then force out the rest. “They kept cutting and cutting, but that didn’t stop it spreading. Eventually, there was nothing left for them to cut out. Not without killing him outright.” I let out a soft laugh. “They dragged it out for a year. A fucking year. That was when he told me and my mom that he’d had enough. That he just wanted the pain to end.” I hold up my hand, fingers spread. “He died five years ago.”

Through my entire toneless monologue, Briar’s expression doesn’t shift an inch. But his eyes keep darting all over my face, like he’s scanning me for the first hint of a lie.

Just thinking about Dad, repeating that story, brings a visceral image to mind; how pale and thin he looked on his bed, skin the same color as the sheets but more translucent. He’d insisted on coming home—said he didn’t want to die in the hospital—and I hated him for that because I knew that, when he died, his spirit would haunt us forever.

And it did.

A black cloud hung over our house every second of every day after he passed away.

My legs go weak, and I hurriedly sink to the ground before I fall.

On my knees, ass on my heels, hands on my thighs—here I sit in supplication to Prince Briar. Am I begging him to stop tormenting me, or for him to go through with his threats?

He watches me with that same intrusive glare as before; silent, unreadable.

Probably waiting to call bullshit on my train wreck of a life.

I smile, but there’s fuck all warmth in it, because my soul is frozen solid. I’ve been a fucking Ice Queen for half a decade. And my frozen heart? Some random, sadistic fuck shattered it a week ago.

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