Page 29 of Fuckboy Psychos (Scarlett Force 1)
Oddly enough, Aspen’s smell tonight is different than it was the other night. I remember thinking that he’d laid it on way too thick, this pungent black pepper and saffron smell that burned my nostrils. Tonight, he’s got this light, pleasant airy smell, like a lazy afternoon spent surrounded by roses and jasmine. Also … how do I not remember him having the barest tease of a British accent?
As I’m considering killing the man, I find this disturbing urge sweep through me, a quiet whisper like a demon curling its clawed hands around my shoulder, its lips near my ear. Rise up on your tiptoes, Scar; lick that drop of blood from his neck.
My reaction to his new cologne is so upsetting that I whip the blade back and then throw it out, slicing across Aspen’s right cheek and drawing a thin slice of red.
He doesn’t even react.
My blood goes cold as a frown replaces the surprised part of his lips, and he reaches up two fingers to touch the wound. He stares down at the crimson on his fingertips and then slips them into his mouth, sucking them clean.
Our eyes meet as I grind my teeth together.
“Where the fuck is she?” I growl out, keeping the knife held in a tight five-finger grip. If nothing else, this display should help erase the embarrassment I suffered last night at being chewed out by Lemon in front of the entire Prescott High crowd.
“She?” Aspen asks, his voice this cultured purr that reeks of entitlement and privilege, of silver spoons and silk ties and boarding schools in faraway places. He’s the embodiment of the sort of person I hate: one who believes his money can buy him anything. Last night, even though I kicked his ass on the track, it didn’t change what he believed. He believed he was leveraging fifty grand to fuck me. He thought he could, essentially, buy me and my dignity. “Oh, the blonde.”
“Yeah, the blonde, you colossal douchebag. Last everyone here saw, she was with you. Now she’s missing.”
Aspen smiles at me. It’s a terrible smile. It’s like a garrote being wrapped around my neck and pulled taut, slicing through bone and muscles, spraying blood.
“Maybe,” he queries, his raven eyes shiny with excitement, his dark hair catching the light of the bonfire and glowing an enchanting blue-black. “Or maybe she’s just missing for you. Have you considered that possibility?”
“Ask anyone here: my patience is minimal. I have zero tolerance for bullshit. What did you do with Lemon last night?”
Aspen Kelly is this close to finding my knife embedded in his stomach.
“Other than fuck her brains out?” he queries, the right side of his mouth twisting back in a smirk. “I dumped her off at that hovel she calls a home with my cum dripping down her thighs.”
I lunge at him. I know that I shouldn’t. I know that if I were going to kill this man, I’d have to do it somewhere else. I’d have to be more careful than this.
Before Nisha or Basti can step in the way they usually do, a hand wraps around my wrist and an arm bands across my middle. Bohnes’ distinctive burnt sugar and juniper scent crashes into Aspen’s disturbingly romantic scent, clearing my sinuses like I’ve just bitten down on a chili pepper.
“You can’t murder a rich boy in plain sight, Scarlett,” he tsks, running his hot tongue along the shell of my ear, his nighttime secrets and moonlit nights voice slamming into the wild fury inside my veins, creating the very thing that happens when cool water meets heated metal: steam. So much fucking steam.
I yank away from Bohnes, tearing my wrist from his grip, the knife still clutched in my hand. Aspen is laughing now, this genteel murmur that barely qualifies as human emotion. It’s detached. It’s psychotic. It’s broken and jagged, and it’s triggering every violent impulse I have inside of me.
“Race me again, and I’ll tell you where your friend is,” Aspen offers up, but I’m already shaking my head. Too many years working this track and listening to Prescott and Oak Valley scum use word games to maneuver around the rules.
“Scarlett,” Nisha warns, trying to step in and then eyeing Bohnes in a way that says she’s considering getting her own knife out. “Don’t do this.”
“I’m not stupid enough to accept such a bullshit offer,” I snap, hot and angry and starting to feel the icy fingers of true terror. Since we entered high school, I’ve been worried about Lemon. She’s emotionally weak and needy; she suffers from MAD (male approval disorder), and she is absolutely one-hundred-percent the type of person who would end up in a ditch somewhere.
I’ve tried for years to protect her.
Years.
Last night, I told her off, I let her go with Aspen when I should’ve pushed back …
