Page 616 of Lessons in Cruelty

The bowl where I normally toss my keys wobbles precariously before joining it in a hail of glass. Melissa ends up sprawled on top of me, screaming, kicking, clawing at my face with her free hand as she tries to tug the poker free.

When her nails rake across my throat and I feel my skin split, Bad Wolf howls.

Not in pain.

But in wicked delight.

I rip the poker from the girl’s grip and hurl it away. It clatters on the floor, far out of reach. Realizing she’s outmatched, Melissa tries to scramble up, but I grab her hair and tug her to the side, rolling on top of her.

“Alexa, lock the doors!”

We’re close enough to the front door that I hear the door latch in the beat of stunned silence.

I grin down at her. “Now what?”

She spits in my face.

And when I sit back with a laugh to wipe my face, she punches me in the fucking dick with alarming accuracy. I roll off her with a groan, rendered incapacitated and left to watch as she scrambles up and yanks on the front door.

“Alexa, unlock the door!” Melissa shrieks.

“What’s your voice code?” Alexa drones, completely unaffected by her life or death situation.

“Fuck!”

Melissa throws a glance toward me, then runs into the kitchen. She’s grabbing for a knife, fingers closing around the handle just as I reach her.

I seize her wrist.

Twist.

The knife clatters to the floor, and I spin her around, slamming her back against the counter hard enough to rattle the dishes in the cabinets.

“Stop!” I snarl.

“Let me go!”

She drives her knee toward my groin. I block it with my thigh and pin her tighter against the counter. She’s panting, shaking, tears streaming down her face.

“P-please,” she shivers out. “Please just let me go.”

I lean in closer, and she cringes away with a muffled choking sound. “You’re a smart girl,” I taunt. “You know we’re way past that.”

“I won’t tell anyone,” she blubbers. “I swear on my life.”

I chuckle. “You really expect us to just go back to the way things were, Melissa?”

“Y-yes. I can—I can pretend⁠—”

“We’re not the same two people who woke up that Sunday morning. Everything changed when you got into my car.”

“But—But—” Red-veined eyes swivel up to me, and I’m surprised by the flare of anger in them. “You tricked me!”

I rock back on my heels with a sigh, caging her in with a hand on either side of her slender waist.

Her Chanel dress is no longer immaculate—and neither is she. Trails of black mascara paint her cheeks. Her foundation is smeared, the flawless skin beneath peeking out. Hair that swung like a silk curtain now clings to her scalp, matted with oil and blood.

“You saying I forced you to get into my car?”