Page 649 of Lessons in Cruelty

She watches me make myself presentable, eyes heavy-lidded, lips parted, as if I put her in a trance. When I hand Haven her leggings, she just stares at them. She doesn’t resist when I slide them back up her legs. When I slip her boots back on her feet.

The only sound she makes when I shove my hand behind her waistband and into her still-drenched pussy is a soft, “Uh.”

I draw out fingers slick with our cum, and ease them into her mouth. She sucks without being asked to, and when I lean in for a languid kiss, I can taste both of us on her tongue.

She melts into me, soft and pliant and mine.

When we finally break apart, she’s swaying on her feet.

“Listen carefully,” I say, tilting her chin up so she has to look at me. “You’re going to go back out there⁠—“

I speak right over her sound of her protest.

“If they ask, you tell them you don’t know anything. If they bring you in for questioning, ask for a lawyer, and don’t say a word. Do you understand?”

She nods silently.

“That’s my good girl.” I press one more kiss to her lips. “Now go.”

She stumbles back toward the library gardens on unsteady legs, and I watch her disappear through the trees. The ambulance must have taken Melissa to Agony Memorial—both she and it are gone. There’s a handful of stragglers in the garden, but only one girl seems to notice Haven, and she turns back to her friends after just one dismissive glance.

I’m surprised Deputy Thatcher isn’t hanging around, and even more surprised he didn’t come looking for Haven.

The most demented, reckless part of myself almost wanted him to find me here with her.

Thank Christ I have the self-control to keep that part of me well contained.

This dance is complex. I can’t fuck it up.

But when it’s over, Haven will have nowhere left to run except straight into my arms.

The part of me that hesitated back there—the part that couldn’t call her bitch because she’d told me not to—I’ll deal with that later.

When I can no longer smell her on my skin.

After I’ve forgotten how much it terrifies me.

Chapter 12

Kai

The interrogation room in Agony Hollow’s county sheriff’s office is airless and musty. The AC unit looks like it was last operational pre-COVID. Judging from the rust on the vents and the water damage on the wall beneath it, that’s probably when it broke down.

I’m cuffed to a metal ring in the table. Lip and cheek stinging. Wrists raw. Still, I keep dragging my cuff’s chain through the ring because it’s better than sitting here doing nothing as I slowly lose my mind.

I tell myself it’s frustration at being locked up when I did nothing wrong…but I know it’s really panic. I got through the first part of the booking fine. Handing over my shit, fingerprints, mugshot.

It was when they started swabbing my mouth for DNA that shit got real way too fast. The stuff they scraped out from under my nails looked a lot like dried blood. And then I had to strip and get photographed, and it was the first time I realized how many scratches and bruises Haven had given me over the past few days.

She likes digging her nails into my shoulders and back when I fuck her. And Jesus, I like it just as much. But when I glanced over my shoulder and saw the marks she’d left on me last night…never mind the bruises on my neck, and the scratches on my wrists and arms.

No wonder Deputy Thatcher is all leaned back in his chair like he’s already won and I’m just too stupid to realize it.

He’s right.

I am that stupid.

I believed Haven when she promised she’d stop seeing Rooke, didn’t I?