Chapter 49
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
BELLATRIX
Ifinished buffing down my thumb nail and tossed the file onto the floor.
Long nails were fine for people like Gabby.
And Vee. And most of the women who walked through our door asking for help.
People who didn’t have to worry about the width of their trigger fingers.
But for people like me, people who used their hands to do those other people’s dirty work, they were just a hindrance.
I glanced down at my reddened cuticles and brittle tips. No bright colors or pretty designs. And whenever they did get long enough to do something with, they would break into jagged edges. Snag on clothes or accidentally poke me in my sleep.
I let out a long sigh. They never grew right anyway, so I didn’t see the point in all the upkeep.
Felt the same way about this place. It wasn’t mine so I didn’t care to upkeep with it either.
Though, considering the state of my bedroom back home, it could be argued that ownership didn’t have anything to do with it.
I just couldn’t care less about cleaning something just to watch it get dirty all over again. Especially when I cared even less about what he had to say about it.
I hadn’t heard him come up the stairs, but I’d grown used to that. He didn’t make noise when he walked. So I didn’t move from my spot on the bed, a leg crossed over a knee and Netflix playing on the tv in the corner, when Casper came pushing through the door.
I’d decided the nickname he gave himself was more fitting than whatever his mother used to call him. He seemed more like a Casper than a Kaz. More child ghost than Russian assassin.
He kicked a few chip packets out of his way and set a bag on the closest dresser.
Then he looked across at the overflowing trash can, the dirty hamper filled to the top with clothes, and the empty food containers I’d left out on his nightstand.
He’d been gone for two days. But you wouldn’t know it by looking at the place.
There was enough shit lying around you would have thought it had been at least a week.
He scratched the top of his head and quirked a brow. He had a new gash there and a couple of fresh bruises I spotted on his knuckles. “You always this…?” He waved a hand around the room.
I shifted my eyes from the drama on the screen to the drama that I was sure was about to play out in front of me. “This what?”
“Messy?”
“Only since the day I was born.” Covered ass to toe in my own shit.
I lifted a shoulder and settled back into the mattress, brushing a few crumbs off the sheets before returning my attention to the tv.
“Sorry to break it to you… but this is what living with me looks like. You can cut your losses at any time. Just give me the book and I’ll be out of your hair. ”
Without realizing it, Gabby had given me an idea. I’d never been the easiest person to share a space with. And I wasn’t about to make things any easier for the fucker blackmailing me to share a space with him.
Best part was… I wasn’t doing anything more than being my imperfect self.
Now, it wasn’t as though I expected him to see a few bras scrunched up on the floor, a sink full of dishes, and a couple boxes of feminine products and suddenly go running scared.
What I did expect was all of it to keep piling on until it made him uncomfortable.
It was like slowly prying off someone’s toenails one at a time.
It wasn’t the final tug that got ?em. It was the slow build-up.
This was just a slightly less messy version of that.
He took another second or two to scan the room, swiping one of his weird candy bars from a shelf before flopping down next to me on the bed. He peeled the wrapper off and threw it on the floor beside the chip packets.
“Always did love me a dirty girl.” He smirked, dipping the candy bar in my direction. I shook my head, and he shrugged and shoved the entire thing into his mouth. Chewing obnoxiously loud when he added, “I like it. Feels more lived in.”
I rolled on to my side, propping myself up on an elbow. “You like living in filth?”
“The question is… do you like it, myshka?” He bopped me on the nose with the tip of his chocolate-covered finger, and I scrunched up my face and jerked back.
Which the asshole seemed to take as an invitation to jump on top of me.
One of his hands holding two of mine, his knees tucked against my ribs, and his mouth slowly lowering towards my face.
His tongue peeked out and then he was licking the chocolate off my nose, continuing down my neck, along my collarbone, and lower until he had no choice but to drop my wrists so he could lift my shirt and suck one of my nipples between his lips.
He didn’t stop until it was red and pebbled and smelled sweet.
Then, like he hadn’t been the one to start it, he yanked my shirt back into place. Pushed off the mattress and stood to his full height. A smirk tugging on one side of his mouth as he adjusted the bulge in his pants.
“Get dressed.” He jutted his chin towards the clothes I had piled up on top of his dresser. “We got somewhere to be.”
“Where?” I grumbled as I slid off the bed, my lady balls bluer than I ever remember them being before, which pissed me off. And then I was pissed off because I was pissed off.
“You’ll see,” was all he gave me as he grabbed the bag he’d come in with and walked right back out the door again.