Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 84072 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84072 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
“I’m talking to you.” I quicken my pace to catch up with her. Grabbing her wrist, I tug her back and spin her around. The sound of her dismayed little groan when I cage her against the cold, brick wall is like a drug. It lights up all the parts of me that are cold and dark, parts of me that might as well have died the day my mother decided to swallow a bottle of pills.
Because of the filthy, disgusting slut who birthed the trembling little nothing in front of me. Just the thought of what this girl’s bitch of a mother did to my family makes me see red. Blood rushes in my ears. My heart’s slamming against my ribs. I want to hurt her. Nothing else will satisfy me.
“What do you want?” She’s staring at my chest, gritting her teeth. Is she frustrated? Poor baby. She has no fucking right to be.
“You don’t leave until I say you can leave,” I growl, leaning down so my breath hits her face. “I call the shots around here. Got it?”
I’ve been through this so many times. Little Wren is not the first person who ever needed to be taught the rules.
But she is the first person who hasn’t shown me their fear. There’s no shaking, no trembling, no gasping for air or anything like that. The way it usually is whenever somebody crosses me. Most people know better by now, but there’s always somebody who thinks they can get away with shit. It happens. People forget, or they get lazy, or they think the rules don’t apply to them. It doesn’t usually take much to set them straight. Except for this tiny thing I could snap in half without breaking a sweat.
“Here’s how it’s going to be.” I press her body against the wall with mine, pinning her, almost squeezing the air out of her. “This project? You better know you’re doing all the work.”
“But—” Her jaw tightens when she cuts herself off.
“You’re doing the work,” I repeat, “and we’re getting an A. Do you hear me? Nothing less than an A, unless you feel like facing punishment.”
Her tiny shiver is like gasoline being poured on a fire. It heats me from head to toe, and I can’t help but touch her hair, just to remind her how powerless she is. Winding a soft strand around my finger, I savor the way she freezes and holds her breath. “I can give you a preview of what that will mean, if you want?”
Her nostrils flare when she tries to take a deep breath and fails. “Whatever. Can I go now?”
What the fuck is this? I can’t get a read on her. What’s it going to take to break her? I tug the strand around my finger until she grits her teeth. “I don’t like your attitude. Keep this shit up, and I’m going to have to punish you.”
That’s when she surprises me the most. She lifts her head and stares straight up at me. I can almost feel the heat burning in those light blue eyes, and I don’t hate it. No, if anything, it gets me excited. It makes my heart pound in a way that has nothing to do with hating her and her mother. “You know what?” she mutters. “You can fuck off, Briggs.”
It has to be the shock that makes it so easy for her to get past me. She shoves her palms against my chest and ducks under the arm I threw up to bar the way, but she’s not fast enough. My fingers close around her arm and tighten until she sucks in a sharp breath.
I pull her towards me, my face inches from her ear. “You are so lucky I have more important things to do than punish you right now. Just don’t think this is over.”
Still, I can’t let it go without shoving her hard enough to make her trip over her feet. Somehow, she manages to keep her balance instead of falling the way I hoped she would.
Because nothing about her is the way I hoped. My mind is racing and I’m not going to pretend I don’t feel the way my dick twitches. It senses a challenge. What would it be like to have her wrapped around me, to make her shatter? To show her who holds all the power?
All I can do is stand back and watch her haul ass down the hall. She practically throws herself through the front doors—now she can’t hide how afraid she was, since she wouldn’t be running like there’s a fire in the building unless she was scared out of her mind. There’s something about it that makes the hair on my arms stand on end.
When was the last time I felt this… alive? Like all of a sudden, everything that was foggy and dark is crystal clear. Like I have a reason to look forward to coming to class. I’m not just going through the motions, the way I’ve been doing since my family fell apart. For once, there’s something more than the promise of weed and booze once I get home to sustain me. For once, I don’t want to be numb. I can almost remember what it felt like to be a normal person.