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He pinches my clit with his other hand, making me moan into my palm. “You’re mine,” Gabriel growls. “This cunt is mine. Your body is mine. Your mind is fucking mine, Nora. You will break for me, or you will fucking die.”

“Then kill me,” I groan. “Fucking kill me then.”

“Oh, but our experiments have just begun, pretty girl. I have so much to learn about you,” he says.

More footsteps can be heard above, and I cover my mouth again and squeeze my eyes shut. Gabriel fucks me harder with the handle of his knife, and my thighs are shaking. He’s roughly pinching and rolling my clit, and I am desperately trying to keep my hips from rocking. I can’t control my body. I can’t control how I respond. This man is a fucking psychopath, but holy fuck, this orgasm is fixing to be earth-shattering.

It’s in this moment right now that I decide the only way out of this is death. One of us has to die, and I’m going to make damn sure it’s him. I’ll pay the cost to rid him of this world, even if it’s my soul. I will fucking kill him before I break for him.

When the pressure breaks, I hold my breath. The orgasm that follows nearly makes my knees buckle as it rips through my body.

Gabriel pulls away and smirks at me as he casually takes my panties to clean the handle. He puts his knife away before shoving my panties into his pocket.

“Run along now, Nora. I’ll be seeing you soon,” he says. I grit my teeth and fix my skirt. When I start to step past him, his voice stops me. “Dead girls can’t talk, Nora. Don’t forget that.”

I decide not to say anything and simply walk away.

No matter the consequence, he will never break me. The difference between him and me is that I will lie to get what I want. May the unbecoming have mercy on your soul.

Chapter Thirteen

Gabriel

I couldn’t be happier with how Nora is responding to my experiments. She is just the right amount of fearful, but still thinks she is in control. I suspect it will take a maximum of four weeks before she initiates sexual contact first.

For years, I was fascinated with death and how much a human could take before they simply gave up and no longer wanted to survive. But Nora… She is something special. She is resilient by nature but wounded enough to be susceptible to influence.

Going to prison was unfortunate, but it taught me a lot. First and foremost, I should have known better than to keep my phone on me. That’s a mistake I never should have made. Secondly, my next experiment will not be about death, but life.

How much can a human take before becoming willing? At what point does Nora stop becoming my victim and start seeking out affection from me? Can I condition her through the violence she so obviously craves? She might have psychopathic tendencies, but she is very much empathetic. She feels a range of emotions, and each of them looks beautiful on her.

Alas, I am but a man, and what I wouldn’t give to bury myself inside of her. She will vehemently deny any and all association with true arousal, but she will still come so beautifully with my cock buried inside of her. Her body will seek me out, even if her words are vile. We both know that she responds best to pain, so pain is what she will feel.

There is a knock on my office door, so I sit back as Dean Gideon Nettle walks in. “Dr. Ashcroft,” he says with a smile.

“Gideon,” I say, standing to shake his hand.

“It’s good to see you, Gabriel,” he says. “I just wanted to come by and officially reinstate your position as Head of the Psychology department. I hope there aren’t any hard feelings about the suspension.”

“None at all, Gideon,” I say with a smile. He really is a brown-nosing prick, but whatever. “Would you like me to take back over my classes?”

“Yes,” he says. “You can resume first thing tomorrow.”

“To be transparent, one of Green’s students was assigned to me for the criminal psychology interview project,” I say. “He is having her continue her interview.”

“Eh. It gives her more practice,” he says. “I’m sure that detective will be up your ass again eventually anyhow.”

“Oh, he has officers tailing me every time I leave campus,” I laugh.

“I can’t even believe they thought you did it anyway,” he says.

“Yeah,” I muse. Fucking idiot. “I’m just going to get my office sorted so that I am ready for tomorrow.”

“I’ll leave you to it then,” he says. “If you need anything, let me know.”

“Will do, Gideon,” I say with a kind smile.

Someone really should research how fucking gullible these people are. How can someone be so dense?