Page 151 of Vile Bastards
“I can’t believe you just pushed your father’s boss’ son down the stairs,” I murmur, but Ash simply slips his hands into the pockets of his suit jacket, the sleeves sparkling with his dead twin brother’s signature cuff links.
“I couldn’t let you kill him, now could I?” Ash asks, lifting his gaze up to the camera in the corner of the room. Is it recording? Might be. He drops those obsessive eyes of his to mine, polished and sharp like two pieces of obsidian in a pale face. There’s a wild streak in there, crouching just beneath all of his practiced apathy. “Besides, it’s very on-brand for Aspen.” He taps at his chest with a single finger, and I offer up a tight smile. “Don’t worry about it: I’ll take care of the cameras. As far as Chet Jr. goes? I say we leave him there and pretend it was all an accident.”
For what Cody just did to me, he’ll be lucky to have died during that fall.
I reach into my pocket and pull out a tube of red lipstick—Victory Lap is the name of this shade—and paint my mouth pretty with it. After all, it’s not every day that some ratchet-ass bitch from south Prescott gets to race in the Portland Classic Car Circuit. Not every day you murder the son of a violent business mogul either.
“I feel like we both knew I’d be racing here today,” I remark, heading out of the office with Ash Kelly on my heels. He follows me down the stairs, sticking close behind me as I step carefully over Chet Jr.’s comatose body, careful not to put my foot in the puddle of ruby red blood. We continue down the second flight of stairs and along a sterile hallway lined with portraits of rich boys, smiling and clutching trophies to their chests. Each and every one of them looks like a goddamn Chad to me (it’s not a compliment).
I’m nearing the end of the hallway when Ash’s hand lashes out and grabs my wrist. He yanks me back and around, spinning me into his arms. The registration form flutters to the floor like an autumn leaf.
Ash’s eyes find my mouth before lifting back to my face.
“No matter where we go, what we do, we always find each other, don’t we?”
I mean, Ash isn’t wrong. At the coffee shop, at the grocery store, at the pond, here at P-Trip. We’re drawn together in strange, inexplicable ways, two puppets pulled together by the spell of a decidedly dark and powerful magician.
My back is slammed into the wall, and then his mouth is descending on mine. The way this man kisses, it’s otherworldly. I’m transported. I’m in space. I’m no longer human. It’s just Ash and his wildflower smell, his hot tongue, his knee pushing my thighs apart.
I wore wide-legged brown trousers today, a white dress shirt with short sleeves, and heels as red as the color I despise so much. Because blood is a constant in my life. Because blood defines me. Because blood is my best friend and my worst enemy both.
The trousers though, they make hot, violent quickies in temporarily unoccupied hallways difficult.
Ash kisses down the side of my neck, his hands gripping my upper arms with punishing heat.
“Let’s go outside,” I whisper, voice suggestive. He draws back slightly, frowning. “I need to check on Widow.”
Harsh, angry footfalls precede the man in question, and then there he is, panting hard and swiping a small stream of blood from the corner of his mouth. His eyes light on me and Ash in our compromised position, and a thunderstorm rolls across his features.
“I never gave you permission to sleep with her, Aspen Kelly.” Widow isn’t wrong. He raced Aspen and won, a victory that was supposed to guarantee that Aspen and I wouldn’t be fucking. And I know that Ash isn’t Aspen; Widow knows it. But still. The sentiment remains.
“Are you alright?” I ask Widow, but he’s not. He’s furious. At me for coming in here when I knew I was walking into trouble? At Cody for being a perverted twatwaffle? At Ash for being with me when he really, really, really isn’t supposed to be?
“Well, well,” a voice says from the opposite end of the hallway. I turn my head to find Bohnes standing there in a trench coat, smoking a cigarette and studying one of the portraits with interest. “Here I came to save you, but it seems like I’ve been beaten to the punch—for once.”
Widow scowls viciously and Ash laughs, moving back slightly and running his fingers through his ebon hair.
“You two were absurdly late. Something might’ve happened.” Ash throws a strangely sympathetic look my way, but I just cock a brow and stare back at him.
“I had that shit covered.”
“If you call stabbing Chet Jr. on CCTV handled.” Ash turns away from me and gives Widow a scathing once-over. “Where were the two of you while my woman was being assaulted?”
