Page 162 of Vile Bastards
She just stares at me and then, in an oddly vulnerable maneuver, turns over and scoots so that her ass is pressed to my crotch, and I’m wrapped around her like a cocoon. Spooning, I believe, is what the layperson calls this position.
“Why are you like this?” she whispers, and I know that I’ve done something right. I try my best not to preen my monster fur while she’s wrapped up in my arms like this; I don’t want to frighten her. Although … I’m not sure there’s anything I could do to frighten her other than harm her which, obviously, will never happen.
“Like what? I’m fairly certain you’re the only woman who finds me charming.”
“You said you could sleep with any girl in Prescott,” she returns, voice colored with jealousy. That just makes me laugh, and the sound causes goose bumps to rise on her bare arms. I rub my palm up and down her left one and smile against her hair, breathing in her cherry and chocolate smell.
“Which is not the same thing as them finding me charming, I’m afraid.”
There’s another long stretch of silence there where I wonder if she hasn’t fallen asleep.
“Bohnes, why did Megan Face and Tommy Tits have that sleeping bag?”
Mm. Of course she’d want to know the answer to that question. I have it, obviously. Before I started work on Chet Jr. Cody Archer, I finished work on them. Didn’t kill either of the idiots; they weren’t worth the dirt I’d bury them in.
But I don’t think either of them will be a problem in the future.
“Because they were paid to find Lemon, and to watch her.”
“But why?” Scarlett grinds out. Only, I’m not going to tell her. This one’s on Ash Kelly.
“Let’s see if your wealthy boy toy tells you the truth first. If he doesn’t, then I will.”
Scarlett turns over to look up at me, and I can see in her eyes that she’s afraid. It’s not death that scares her; it’s not pain; it’s not failure. The only thing that frightens this woman is seeing the ones she cares about get hurt.
It makes me even more determined to protect her.
“I’m not going to like this revelation, am I, Bohnes?”
I can’t control the frown that softens my lips, but I can at least push her onto her back with gentle fingers and climb over her.
“No, darkest love, I don’t think that you will …”
I shed my pants, and she spreads her legs, and for a couple of hours there, the whole world is bliss.
I suppose that’s where the phrase calm before the storm was coined. Not on a ship at sea, but in the arms of a man’s beloved.
There’s always a spot of clear, blue sky before the lightning strikes.
Scarlett
Someone is pounding at my door and screaming.
I wake up with a start, panting heavily, shaking all over, sore as hell between the thighs. Bohnes is gone as he always is before first light, and my idiot sister has damn near sent me into a panic attack. I’ve had fewer and fewer of them as of late, but they’re not entirely gone.
Waking me from a dead sleep by punching my door and yelling? Not a good look.
With a snarl, I throw my legs over the edge of the bed, groan at the soreness between my thighs—Bohnes truly does have a monstrous dick—and fling my bedroom door open with fire blazing in my gaze.
“What?” I growl out, just before I see Widow standing at the end of the hallway near the stairs, arms crossed over his broad chest. Alexis huffs at me and throws out an accusatory arm in his direction.
“Your precious fuckboy is here,” she snaps, and then she’s shoving past me and disappearing into her own room. She slams the door so aggressively that a framed picture of our dead baby brother actually comes off the wall. Like a boss, Widow catches it before it hits the ground and places it gently back on the nail.
“You’re here early,” I murmur, stepping back and holding out a hand to indicate he should come in. He does, sitting on the edge of my bed and casting a wary look at the rumpled sheets. I won’t mention that Bohnes was here not all that long ago, or that he drove my pelvis into the mattress with slow, steady strokes of his cock. I mean, not unless Widow asks. “What’s up?”
“Have you seen this?” he asks me, pulling his phone from his pocket and passing it over to me. The gesture reminds me of Emma Jean and the news of Trish Edelman, Widow’s aunt, who just so happens to work for the mayor. If I weren’t still yawning and blinking sleep from my eyes, I’d ask about it now.
Instead, I take the phone and stare down at the number of views on the video Widow posted of the botched P-Trip race yesterday. Um. The fuck?
