Page 939 of Lessons in Cruelty

Rooke crouches in front of me. “You’ve been a good boy, Fox, but you’re holding back. You have so much potential. All you need is someone to show you how to harness it.”

I recognize the tone of his voice. It’s the one he used in the lecture hall when I visited his class. Back then, I thought he was an arrogant fool. Now I’m not sure what he is.

What the fuck am I anymore?

“Say ‘no’, and I’ll let you leave.” His eyes move over my face like the beam of a torch. “Come on, Fox. You’ve been saying it to yourself your whole life. It should come easy.”

I clear my throat, work saliva back into my mouth with a dry tongue.

“Could do with some more of that whiskey.”

The corner of Rooke’s mouth tilts up. “You’ll want a clear head, Fox.”

He doesn’t go back to the couch. Instead, Rooke crosses to the breakfast nook and drags a second chair across the floorboards, unhurried, and sets it down six feet from mine. Facing me.

“Kai? Come sit.”

“What?” Kai scoffs. “Fuck no.” He shoots to his feet, the lazy insolence from earlier gone, replaced by outright disobedience. “You want to put on a show for that pig, do it yourself.”

Rooke’s voice doesn’t change one iota. “Sit down, boy.”

“Make me,” Kai growls.

Rooke closes the distance, snapping the belt out of his silk robe and looping it around Kai’s throat in one smooth motion as he sidesteps Kai’s clumsy grab.

Kai’s snarl chokes off mid-syllable as Rooke pulls the silk tight, arching Kai’s back against his chest. The younger man gets one fist into Rooke’s gown, another in his hair, but Rooke just shakes off the grip and starts walking him backward, shoving him down on the chair so hard it scrapes a foot over the floor.

“I love how you still think you’ll beat me in a fight.” Rooke stands behind him, the robe’s silk belt wound once around his knuckles, held taut enough that Kai has to sit up straight to breathe.

He’s shaking with anger, but he’s also hard enough to tent the front of his boxers.

“Haven.” Rooke doesn’t look away from me. “Come deal with his attitude.”

She peels the Henley over her head as she crosses the room and drops it where it lands.

Firelight sits on the fading stripe across her throat, the same width as the belt binding my hands behind the back of the chair. The necklace lies in the hollow between her collarbones, sparkling.

She sinks to the floor beside his chair, her profile stark against the window white-washed with snow at the breakfast nook.

Unhurried, she peels Kai’s pants down. His cock slaps up against his stomach, flushed, wet at the tip.

“Christ, Bash,” Kai says, shifting in his seat to glance up at Rooke. “You’re really going to let her do this to me in front of him?”

“You were hard before he sat down,” Haven says. She wraps her hand around the base of his cock and squeezes him. “Don’t pretend you don’t want this.”

“Fuck you, Haven.”

“You did,” she murmurs slyly. “In the woods, against the maple tree, remember? And you weren’t complaining like this when you made me blow you in the library where anyone could walk past. Remember that?”

Kai’s jaw works as he looks over at me.

“You taking notes, officer?”

“You’re such a simp, Kai. Rock hard and already soaked.” She squeezes him again, hard enough to make him turn his attention back to her with a groan. “Where’s the boy who used to tie me to a tree and pinch my nipples until I cried?”

“Shut up,” Kai grates out.

“I said deal with it, Haven, not talk.” Rooke’s voice is flat.