Page 68 of Lessons in Cruelty

Haven

Bastian stares at me with a mix of concern, determination, and something else. Not pity—I’m hypersensitive to that.

Curiosity?

Hunger?

I take a nervous sip of my cocoa. “What are you talk⁠—“

Irritation narrows his dark eyes. “Jesus Christ,” he mutters, turning to the fire, shaking his head. He snaps his head back to look at me. “I know who you’re protecting. If you don’t speak to me, I can’t help you.”

The change in him is instant, and almost as unsettling as the way he was just comparing pain and pleasure. I already have way too many inappropriate thoughts in my head about my professor.

Like how his hands would feel around my throat. Whether he’d be respectful like a true gentleman, or rough like I secretly want. Whether a thirty-four-year-old man would know exactly how to make a nineteen-year-old girl fall apart.

Answer is yes.

Fuck.

There’s a flush of heat on my cheeks that’s steadily creeping downward. I press my thighs together under the blanket, but that only makes things worse. I shouldn’t find his frustration attractive, but something about seeing Professor Rooke lose his composure is doing things to me.

He leans closer, cradling his mug in both hands, voice calm and collected again. “I want all my students to be safe. It’s obvious you’re not. Whatever you’re dealing with, I can help.”

He’s gentle with his cup. I’m not. I throttle it like I want the ceramic to shatter and slice my palms into ribbons.

Sure, Professor, let me break it down for you.

I fought tooth and nail to get a grant to AHC, because my life was a shit show and I was about two steps away from jumping off a cliff.

Literally.

Like, literally, literally.

But my ex-best friend has decided to hate me so much for leaving town when I was sixteen that he’s making my new life as hellish as the old one. He wants me out, but I refuse to back down, because my entire life changed when I was awarded that grant.

Now I finally have hope. I finally have a purpose. My misery suddenly feels like a precursor of something great. Not a portent of an awful life.

“Telling you won’t change a fucking thing,” I mutter, dropping my head to glare into my mug.

This fucker lures me in here with false promises, and all I get is awful-tasting cocoa and him prying into my private life.

Where the fuck are my marshmallows?

“Haven…” He says it in that tired voice people use when they’re trying to talk sense into someone young, dumb, and full of⁠—

Ha! Almost, but not quite.

“I’m going to miss my next class,” I tell him, standing so fast that the blanket slides to the floor. But I leave it there, because fuck him.

“Please sit down. I just want to⁠—”

“Are you taking me back, or should I get an Uber?” I stand there, arms crossed, staring at the door, trying not to notice how dangerous and beautiful he looks in the firelight. Like some ancient god that could devour me whole.

“Haven.” His low, commanding tone makes me want to sink back onto the couch. To let him pry every secret from my lips while his hands do terrible, depraved, wonderful things to my body.

I’m bluffing about calling an Uber, of course. Don’t even have the app installed on my phone. And if I did, they’d need a credit card.

Hate to inconvenience you, Professor, but you’re the one who brought me here. Should have known I was a loose cannon. Don’t they teach you that at professor school?