Page 478 of Lessons in Cruelty

“I saw your bed,” I whisper. “All that blood on your mattress. Never knew you liked it so rough.”

Her fingernails dig into my wrists, then she slaps my arm, eyes begging me to let up so she can breathe.

“Think I don’t want to put this all behind us, baby? Start fresh? Have you forgotten how I’ve always been there for you?” I lean down, one hand still on her throat, the other smoothing damp hair away from her face.

“Who cheered you up when your dad was all strung out? Who bought you your first bra after you lied and told me you didn’t need one?”

She flinches when I pick a half-crushed leaf out of her tangled hair, and again when I stroke her tensed bottom lip.

“Have you forgotten who you belong to, Miss H?”

She whimpers when I duck down and catch her lip between my teeth, her hands grabbing at my hair to pull me away. But when I apply more pressure, she goes still.

I suck that pillowy flesh into my mouth, nip it, let it pop free. Lick her, despite how she struggles.

There’s a hint of copper on my tongue when I whisper, “Game over.”

Her skin is cold and damp under my fingers, but I can feel the heat underneath, the way her pulse flutters like a trapped bird. The sound of her breathing, harsh and ragged through her constricted throat, drowns out everything else.

I chuckle, holding out my hand. “Hand ‘em over.”

Her chest hitches as I release her throat, then she’s sucking a greedy breath into her lungs hard enough to push against my torso.

We stare at each other, only her eyelids flickering when rainwater drips from my hair onto her face. Slowly, her mouth trembling harder and harder, she reaches down and takes off her underwear.

“Look at you, playing by the rules,” I murmur, dragging hair off her cheek with a knuckle. Her hand is shaking as she passes me her panties, and we spend a second or two in a tug of war as she refuses to let the damp fabric go.

I bundle her underwear in a fist, tilting my head when she just stares furiously up at me.

Slowly, even more fucking reluctantly than before, she opens her mouth and lets me push her underwear between her lips. There really wasn’t anything else to gag her with back in the woods. I hardly ever wore shoes, and she’d do anything not to have to take off her shirt back then.

I slowly lay my full weight over her body, wrenching open her thighs and slipping my body between her legs before she can close them. I ease my cock out of my sweatpants, fist the base, and drag the crown over her cunt.

“Still owe me ten minutes in Heavenly.”

She spits out her underwear. “Like hell I do.”

A tremor goes through me at the flash of defiance in her blue eyes.

I loved it when she fought me.

Seems that kink has only grown stronger.

Her clawed hands go for my face, and I have to let go of my cock so I can fend her off.

Maybe that was her plan, because as I’m going for her hands, she slips her leg free and almost knees me in the fucking balls.

I twist aside just in time, but that gives her just enough of a gap to wriggle out from under me. She throws herself over the back of the sofa, trying to escape again. She might have made it if I hadn’t slung an arm around her throat, locking her in place.

Now her hips are flush with the back cushions. Her knees sink into the seam between the backrest and the seat, and her silly little skirt rides so high up her ass, it’s rendered useless.

She grabs the top of the sofa, trying to push away, and then fumbles in her skirt.

If I hadn’t had her in a chokehold, she might have stabbed me with the ice pick that materialized in her hand.

But when she throws her arm back, I easily catch it.

Haven yells in pain as I twist her arm up behind her back. The ice pick drops between our bodies, coming to rest just above the curve of her ass.