Page 126 of Vile Bastards
“Charmed.” Alexei sweeps a gentlemanly half-bow and then holds up a gloved hand. “Pardon me for refusing a handshake; I don’t want to pass on my illness.” Nice cover, germaphobe. I give him a look and our eyes catch. He blinks as if he’s coming out of a trance and turns to my mother.
She looks less than thrilled to see a hoodie-wearing, skeleton-masked hoodlum in her house.
“Nice to meet you, Marie.” Geneva turns to me, but whatever it is that she’s trying to communicate with her gaze, I ignore.
“Come upstairs for a second,” I say, heading for the staircase.
“If you have boys in your room, leave the door open.” Geneva actually sounds somewhat serious when she says that. I stare at her. And then I laugh.
“Oh, that’s funny, Geneva. Hilarious.” I ignore her sputtering as I lead Alexei up the stairs to my room, away from my sister’s creepy stares, Anita’s giggling, my mother’s glaring. I slam the door behind us and put my back to it with a deep and weary sigh. “This family’s going to be the death of me.”
“They seem lovely.” Alexei pulls his mask down, his beautiful pink mouth turned down in an aristocratic frown. It’s a frown that says I get what I want when I want it. As annoying as I find it, I also … I flick the lock and take a step toward him, and he doesn’t back up. Instead, he lets me get up close and personal with his chest, curling my fingers around the zipper of his hooded sweatshirt. I yank it down, and he lets out a small sound. “Since when”—and here he snatches my hands in a tight, gloved grip—“did we agree to casual touching like this?”
His eyes blaze though, and I swear, I smell pheromones, heady and thick.
“Since you let me pop your pretty cherry, fuckboy.” I lean in toward him, putting my lips against the side of his neck. He shudders, and his grip tightens, but he doesn’t move. “If you didn’t want me to stalk you, then you shouldn’t have slept with me.”
I move to release him, but he spins me, shoving me down onto my own bed and crawling over me. His hands pin my wrists to the mattress, and his eyes are on my mouth.
“I told you, Miss Force. I am nobody’s fuckboy.”
“Fine. Boyfriend. Since I upgraded Bohnes, and I guess I’m upgrading Widow two levels all at once, I’ll do it. You’re a boyfriend. Now, shut your fucking mouth and touch me.”
Alexei actually growls at me, but then his mouth is descending, hot and fierce against my own. He draws back almost as quickly as he lunged, panting and shaking, wetting his lips. I snatch him by the hair, and he releases my wrist, doing the same to me.
While he’s distracted, I reach my hand into his pocket, fingers brushing a plastic bag. I knew it. I yank it out, and there they are: the panties. My panties.
“You naughty, little pervert,” I whisper as Alexei’s tongue runs over his lower lip, and I maintain my hold on the panties against all odds.
“Give them back.” There it is, a haughty, imperious command. He even raises his chin as he presses my wrists further into the bed. “They’re mine; I advise you to put them in my pocket before I lose my temper.”
“What happens when you lose your temper?” I ask eagerly, throwing him off a bit. I yank one hand free, reach between us, and shove the panties between his open lips, gagging him with them. Alexei’s entire body goes stiff, goose bumps rising up on his skin, and then he’s tearing away from me. He rips the panties from his mouth, coughing and hacking like a maniac. He turns angry, slitted green eyes my way.
“Do you have any idea how unsanitary that was?” he whispers fiercely, rising up to his full and admittedly impressive height. He shakes the fabric in my direction, fingers flexing tightly around it so that they’re obscured by his gloved fist. “You owe me for that.” Alexei shoves the panties into his pocket, slipping into my bathroom as I sit up on my bed and stare after him.
“Um. You better not be doing what I think you’re doing.” I shove up to my feet, following him in to see that he’s removed a new travel-size toothbrush from his pocket along with a similarly sized tube of toothpaste.
This time, it’s me that narrows my eyes.
“If my panties were really all that gross to you, then you wouldn’t have carried them around in your pocket for an entire week.” I posit the statement, moving over to my bedroom door when Alexei finally catches up to me, hand banded around my upper arm. His lips are near my ear when he speaks.
