Chapter 8 #2
“You know that everything I do, I do for you,” he explains unnecessarily, and I sense a coup.
I can feel the incoming storm on my old wound, that shattered tibia from the car accident.
Now that I know what my intuition feels like, I’ve learned to trust it implicitly.
“Cutting off a man’s balls. Severing a man’s dick. Everything.”
“You gonna try to run me off the track again tonight, you stupid-ass fuckboy?” I scowl at him as I move away, but he catches my hand.
I know that’s what he’s gonna do. It’s what Bohnes always does.
Whatever it takes to get the job done. Having him fall in love with me is the greatest stroke of luck I’ve ever experienced, but it’s a double-edged sword.
“What’ll you do if Ash-pen wins this race tonight, huh? Will you listen to him?”
Bohnes snorts and puts his forehead to my hand, like a knight kissing the knuckles of his queen.
“Should I? Widow doesn’t listen to the track rules.
” He squeezes my hand almost too hard, but then relaxes at the very last second.
He knows my exact point of pain, precisely how hard he can push.
My breath catches and Bohnes looks up, meeting my eyes.
He isn’t smiling this time. “You are not going to win the race tonight. Withdraw before it gets messy, Scarlett.”
I yank my hand back from him, rubbing my fingers together in thought.
There’s a huge wet spot on my bed from last night.
There’s blood, too, all over my pillows.
I scratched Bohnes to shit during sex, huge red ribbons down his ghost-pale back.
Doesn’t matter that we’d eat holes into each other’s spirits and live there.
Doesn’t matter that I’d stalk him if he wasn’t busy stalking me.
What matters is that we’re having our very first couple argument. It’s crazy, but we’ll get through it.
“You think I’m afraid of you?” I ask him, my voice like ice. This is the real me. The cold part inside of all that wild Prescott heat. Bohnes saw it in me from the beginning, I think. It’s why he likes me so much. “You can’t beat me on the track.”
“Me, maybe not. But me and Widow and Alexei and Aspen.” Bohnes spits that final name like it’s poison, rising from his couch with such fluid grace that he may as well be made of water.
He points at me. “We’ll play as dirty as we need to play in order to win.
Four against one, does that sound like good odds to you?
” He leans in toward me, a menace, a threat, a lover.
I put my arms around his neck and he sighs, lost to me but still unwilling to compromise.
“You brought us together. This is how you pay for that mistake.”
“If you hadn’t been so fucking bossy from the get-go, it’d just be me and you in a relationship.
You’re the problem, Bohnes.” I grab his ass the way he did to me yesterday morning, real handsy, palm full of cheek.
“Meet me in the woods beside the track before the race starts. We can finish that clove.” I lick his ear and he shudders, wrapping his arms around my waist and holding me tight.
He knows what I mean with that invitation. Meet me out there to fuck. Meet me out there where you stained your dick with my virgin blood. Meet me outside in winter under a silver moon.
“Drop out of the race or get ground into the mud, Scarlett. Don’t make me do this.” He squeezes me to that perfect edge. The best hug ever. But one bit tighter and it’d hurt. The man is a genius. He’s also wrong. About this Ash thing, he is wrong. I will prove it to him.
I have to fuck them over before they fuck me.
“You meeting me or not?” I ask, and he shudders again. Crumpling to the floor in front of me in a black and white striped coat and a smile made of knives. Bowing his head. His worship is real; his docility is not.
“That’s a joke, right? You’re really asking me that?” He’s laughing as he rolls his head on his neck and makes it crack. “You know I love to fuck you before I kick your ass. That’s my most favorite of all.”
I shake my head at him.
“See what I mean? You just can’t help yourself.” I put my hands on my hips and give him another wry look. “The Widow thing though? Whatever you ask him to do to pay you back, make it really good.” I grin. “Make it hurt. He deserves it.”
We both do, for taking advantage of Bohnes. I’m genuinely sorry and he knows it. If he wins tonight, I’ll do what he says. Even if…even if he tells me I have to get rid of Ash. I’ll respect the rules of the track.
“If you ever break up with Adrian, he’s dead.
” Bohnes climbs to his feet and holds up his hands, palms out.
He’s wearing combat boots with silver bat wings on the toes and absolutely zero makeup.
The visual punch of that pale face with pink lips is enough to make me feel off-kilter.
He’s dressed this way on purpose. “That I can promise you.”
“Widow understands that. If he wants to leave, he’ll have to kill us both. He’s not going anywhere.” I stretch my arms above my head, watching the T-shirt rise up the front of my body in the reflection of Bohnes’ eyes. “Should I get dressed, so we can head over to the track?”
“Is there any need to wait?” he murmurs, hungry for me.
“The art of anticipation,” I explain, and then I proceed to ignore him.
With each second I refuse to acknowledge him, the hunger rises, grows, climbs, multiplies.
The hunger quickens.
I continue to ignore Bohnes until I’ve showered, changed, and fixed my hair.
Driven to the track. Parked. Raced some spoiled Oak Valley Prep brat for the rights to their car.
This is what I’ll have the hacker girl, Hype, drive when she gets here.
It’s a nice vehicle, too, a 1965 MGB GT in forest green.
I have no idea what Hype’s experience level is, so I had to pick something I thought would work for a beginner.
Then I had some Wesley’s fries with Bastian.
Shared a cherry cola with him while sitting in his lap to piss Widow off.
Let Jennifer Atwell gossip in my left ear.
Watched Nisha pace and complain about how stupid tonight’s race is gonna be.
Enjoyed Alexei’s discomfort at the unapologetic filth that is the Prescott track.
Only then did I let Bohnes coax me into the forest with a black cigarette that smells like Christmas.
“I know it’s killing me, but it feels so good,” I moan at him, smoking the clove and then murmuring the exact same phrase when he mercilessly rips my cute panties off (the same panties that Alexei left soiled in my drawer). “I know you’re killing me, but you feel so good.”
Bohnes drives that monster cock between my spread thighs without mercy. He did not enjoy the quickening hunger the way that I did. His anger makes it so much better though, that savage way he punches his hips into me.
I’m bent over and wearing a short-sleeved black-and-white striped bow blouse that’s currently undone and showing off my tits. No accident there that it matches his jacket. My leather waist cincher is obscured by the black trumpet skirt that’s bunched up around my middle.
I’m standing on the toes of my red platform heels, tied with silk ribbons around my ankles. I’ve even got guillotine earrings on, swaying with each violent thrust. Our pre-race ritual under the moonlight. The leaves are falling fast, and it’s more winter than fall out here now.
My skin is ice-knifed, which makes Bohnes’ cool hands feel hot.
I’ve got the clove cigarette we’re sharing hanging out of my mouth. It bounces when he rams me into that trunk, and I moan in ecstasy. Just completely unhinged. I’ve had a weird week, okay?
“God, you have a huge dick,” I groan as he pushes deep, crushing my bare skin against the tree bark. He knows how much I love it, too. It’s like he’s psychic or something.
“So I was told—with a candle.” He laughs and jerks us both backward, taking us tumbling to the hard ground.
I’m put on my knees on the frozen dirt and mounted from behind, cheek pressed against the unforgiving earth.
My wrists are locked together under his hand and pressed into my lower back. My ass is up in the air.
It’s freezing out here, a tousled winter mess of full evergreens and empty oaks. A lone raven calls out in the distance, and the rumble of engines is the frame of our existence. We’re the last race on the docket tonight, but what a race it’s going to be.
Scarlett versus her fuckboys.
It’s really not an appropriate moment for me to say it.
“I love you.” The words come out and hit Bohnes in the chest like a spell. I’ve magicked him. He’s spellbound and frozen. “Did you hear me?”
“Why do you think I stopped?” he replies, and then he releases my wrists and puts that huge hand on the back of my head, pushing me into the dirt.
I’m railed to within an inch of my life, ruining my sexy outfit.
Don’t care. These clothes were chosen with this exact purpose in mind.
I wanted to see Bohnes tear at them in a frenzy.
He rakes me with his cock, each stroke like a strike of lightning to the heart. My pulse speeds and races, turning me into a dizzy mess. The orgasm is a violent sigh of relief, my fingers digging at the earth and drawing gouges. Eyes half-closed. Body a crumpled mess.
Bohnes finishes in me, but then he pulls us apart quickly. I’m dragged up to a sitting position before I’m ready, and he grabs my face in two dirty hands.
“You don’t even have to love me. You just have to do what I say,” he explains, and I roll my eyes.
Under the moonlight, in this strange, liminal place, he looks older. In a good way. In a hey, I could maybe imagine growing old with you sort of way.