Page 48 of Vile Bastards
“Me? I’m fine.” I cross my arms over the back of my chair and lean down, wondering how to bring up such a sensitive subject. “Do you want to tell me what happened exactly after the Lambo hit the water?”
“I’d rather not go over it.” It’s a strong suggestion, one that I heed for the time being.
Alexei thought he was going to die, sought me out, fucked me against his better germophobic judgment, and then saved my life in a freezing river in the middle of the night. He also nearly died although he didn’t quite get an official time of death the way I did.
Technically, I died a bit later than three am, but it was close enough.
Let’s just call my death at the witching hour and be done with it.
“Should we talk about your declaration to court me?” I begin, moving over to the table and approaching him in a way that leaves no doubt as to what I might do if I touch him.
With each step forward I take, Alexei takes one back, these ridiculous pink rubber gloves on, a container of antiseptic wipes in one hand.
He allows his back to touch the wall—I mean, why not? he scrubbed it clean—and I put my hands on either side of him, caging him in.
“What is there to talk about? I was with clear with my intentions, wasn’t I?”
“There’s the virginity thing,” I start, and he sighs heavily. When I go to move one hand off the wall to his chest, he snatches my wrist in his gloved fingers and stops me just short of touching his sweatshirt. “You came to the track and bareback fucked me, Alexei.”
“I will not discuss that just now,” he breathes, and I can see that I’m really pushing his buttons here. I rise up on my tiptoes and lean in toward him, breathing against the side of his neck.
“Miss Force, I’m going to ask you very nicely to back away.”
“Or what?” I challenge, drawing back slightly and looking up at him. “You’ll punish me for it? How? By touching me?”
Alexei knocks my other arm off the wall and snatches my wrist at the same moment, using his grip on both to push me back a step. Our eyes meet, and I wonder if he’s thinking about the way he lifted me up against that muddy wall, tore my panties, rutted into me like an animal.
He better be thinking about that.
I’m sick and tired of these boys turning me down.
How dare they deny me what’s mine?
“You’re a nasty pervert, aren’t you, Alexei? You’re just used to hiding it behind a layer of contempt, disdain, and gentility. But can you still maintain that, a poor, homeless, jobless loser such as yourself?” I strain forward, my lips threatening to make contact with the side of his jaw.
“Control yourself, Miss Force. I’m determined to behave as a gentleman, but I ask you to respect my personal space bubble, something that you’ve failed to do from moment one.” Alexei gives me a small shove back, releasing my wrists at the same time. “We’re courting, not fucking.”
“You’re kidding me?” I’m standing there and looking at him, dressed for the first time in a casual outfit (although it looks expensive as shit) with a very obvious hard-on in his sweatpants. “You think you can play me like that? My pussy was your dying wish. Can’t front me on this one, Grove.”
“Front you?” He sounds genuinely confused, and then offers up a derisive laugh. It’s absolutely dripping with privilege and expectation. “I’m telling you how it’s going to be.”
“Oh, you are telling me?” I point at him and then at myself. “Boy, you have got another thing coming.”
“More appropriately, it would be ‘another think coming’. The use of that phrase dates to the mid-nineteenth century. ‘Another thing coming’ is an eggcorn; it came about several decades later.”
“An eggcorn?” I choke out. I have no idea what a fucking eggcorn is, and I’m not about to ask. “Did you just red pen my grammar, bitch?”
“Bitch?” Alexei asks and then sighs, offering me up a cool sweep of eyes, his haughty gaze turning all the warm places inside of me ice-cold. “You have a filthy fucking mouth, Scarlett Force. Maybe I should fill it, so that you’ll stay quiet?”
I let out a sharp breath.
Oh, so that is how this is going to be, is it?
“Why is my chair the only one you didn’t wipe off?” I put my hands on the back of it and bend low, breathing deep. “Ah, so you can sniff it, is that it? All you rich deviants are the same. Twisted, sick, and fucked in the head.”
Alexei turns away from me and strips the rubber gloves off with sharp, angry movements.
“Just the smell of you in here is too much.” He clucks his tongue and then turns to gaze imperiously over his shoulder. “I’m relieved to see that you’re still alive, and I very much look forward to our future courtship. We’ll start small: let’s have coffee sometime, shall we?”
