Page 23 of Wicked Surrender

“I’m not squirming,” I protested.

“But you’re such a good little angel that you can’t even say the word.”

“Sex?” I replied nonchalantly with a shrug. “Fucking?” Another shrug. “They’re just words.”

The same as everything else you say.All his insults and teases were just words, and they’d never bring me down so low that he’d keep me down.

“Yeah.” He laughed rudely. “They are just words. Because there’s no way you’re not a virgin, too hopeless to ever make a guy wantthat.” He gestured at me with a cruel sneer.

All right. That one hurt. Just a little. Any woman would feel a bit crushed to hear a man critique her as unfuckable. That was just a basic principle of Self-Esteem 101.

“Whatever you say,” I replied dully before going back to the trig problems, distracting myself from the sting of his remark.

Ignore him.

He won’t last.

He’ll quit any day now.

Then I can go back to normal.

But by the end of the night when he got up to stalk away, I hated the very twisted and niggling thought that it was kind of exciting to stand up to him.

To be challenged and survive the fight.

Just enough to want to experience it again.

8

JASON

After two and a half weeks of being tutored by Laura, I wasn’t sure of what I hoped to accomplish with her. I wasn’t going to change. I would remain rude and mean toward her. She wasn’t my friend. She’d never be my ally. As Dean Chen’s daughter, she was a direct target to pay back that man I hated.

As I worked out with Rory, though, idle and thinking too much about her, I wondered how I would know whether I was succeeding.

“She obviously hasn’t told her dad that you’re being an asshole to her,” he commented after hearing me out when I spotted him lifting.

“No, she hasn’t.” And that was interesting too. I was sure after the first week that she’d tattle to her daddy that I was showing up, acting like a fucking jerk, and not doing a single thing to show any sign of “good faith” that I wanted to improve my grades.

I expected her to be upset and tell him, and then to have Dean Chen email me or send another letter to request another disciplinary hearing.

That hadn’t happened, though, and it confused me.

Was I not making her life hell?

When I considered that a couple of days ago, I doubled down. Posting about her and following her on campus, I made sure to target her even more outside of the time she tutored me.

She wasn’t fond of the torture. That much was obvious. Something about making her stiffen at the sound of my voice made me feel triumphant. Seeing her duck her head in shame made me victorious and stronger.

Yet, she didn’t tattle. She didn’t outwardly fight back.

Trying to understand why she let me treat her like shit only forced me to question what I was hoping to get out of it.

Yeah, it was a sick pleasure to make her upset. It was a projection of how much I loathed her dad and wanted to pay him back. But if she never told her dad, how was I even hurting Dean Chen? If she told him and he didn’t care, then that was even more messed up.

“Or,” Rory said with a smile as he set the bar back on the rests, “she’s too scared to tell on you.”

I liked that idea more. The thought of getting under her skin gave me something to focus on instead of the raging anger about her dad.

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