I almost gag, closing my eyes and forcing myself to pull in a deep breath. I sweep both of my black gloved hands over my hair.
“Yes, Alexei?” my father asks, and he’s speaking Russian instead of English which never bodes well for either of us. “What do you need?”
“The party tonight,” I begin, thinking of the lavish affairs that I’ve been dragged to since before I can remember, my earliest memories of glittering gowns and carefully tailored suits, secrets and lies and machinations.
My lip curls and I resist the urge to retreat to my bedroom so that I can wash my mouth out. If I could, I’d wash my brain, too, scourge my memories with bleach, but that isn’t how life works, so I’m reduced to eliminating filth on a physical level.
“What about the party tonight?” Papa asks, finally lifting his head to look at me. He rests his arms on the surface of his desk, his mouth turned down in a severe frown. He had initially promised me that moving to this culture-less wasteland of an Oregon town would cure all our ails—his and mine.
“It’ll be refreshing, you’ll see. We’ll escape city life and all the trappings that come with it.”
Instead, my father—Pavel Borisov—has more silver hairs woven throughout his dirty blond locks than he ever had before, and the lines around his mouth are deep channels, making him look a decade older than he did when we lived in a penthouse in New York City.
Now, here we are … in Springfield. Even the name sounds tacky. I’d have at least preferred to move to Eugene—the larger city across the bridge—but no. Even though one could walk from Springfield to Eugene in an instant, as there’s no true delineation between the two, the city limit means everything.
Because Springfield is the project. Springfield is the endgame. Springfield is the ticket.
“The party tonight,” I repeat, realizing that I’ve gotten completely lost in my own thoughts. “I’d rather not attend.” I speak in Russian, just to make sure that Papa knows how serious I am.
“Alexei,” he starts, his voice more strained than I’ve ever heard it. His computer is off, his phone nowhere to be seen, his numerous assistants dismissed. It’s just him and his desk and a sea of papers scattered across the surface of it. Whatever he’s up to, it’s something he wants to keep to himself. “I could really use you there. What could possibly be more important?”
Quite literally anything.
That’s what I want to say to him. I would rather eat broken glass than attend the party tonight. And not just because I lost the buy-in for the race tomorrow and the thought of coming face-to-face with the boys I’d have been up against is humiliating.
My father’s tightened the purse strings as of late. To get that cash, I had to actually take some items from around the house and pawn them. He’s shut off my credit cards, and he hasn’t given me cash in weeks.
His excuse was that I’d gotten out of control, that my grades were plummeting—which was true. I’d been spending more time racing than studying, but I’ve pulled my grades up lately and he hasn’t relaxed his ironclad control over my finances.
I’ll have to find more items to sell …
“I thought that moving here was meant to give us both a reprieve from this sort of thing?” I ask, moving up to his desk and reaching out a single finger to touch the picture frame on the corner. If I were to turn it around, I’d see my mother’s face smiling back at us.
It’s only been two years since she died, but it feels like it was yesterday. I try my best not to think about her. With all the happy memories, there’s an inevitable rain of despair that follows along after.
“These parties are no different than the ones we attended in New York,” I explain, letting my gaze rake across the papers as I try to get a read on what it is exactly that’s got my father so upset, locked up in his home office like a prisoner. Unfortunately, he’s covered up anything telling and flipped several pages over so there’s nothing but a blank page to look at. “These people are no different. Look at yourself, Papa. You’re falling apart.”
“I’m just tired, Alexei,” he says, looking up at me, his eyes the same green as my own. Coincidentally, my mother’s eyes were the same color. It’s her last name that I have—Grove. My father’s last name— Borisov—has deep, twisted roots that neither of them wanted to pass down with their genes.
Not that anyone would ever mistake I wasn’t a Borisov in blood, if not in name.
“Tired doesn’t cause gray hair and wrinkles,” I offer up, moving around the side of the desk and squatting in front of my father. “Don’t work yourself to death for these people.”
The smile he gives me is a tad patronizing, but it’s also kind and full of heart. Unlike many of the other students at my fancy new prep school—or any other that I’ve ever attended in my life—I have a father who loves me. A mother who loved me.
It’s more than most of them can lay claim to.
“It’ll be okay, son,” he tells me, still speaking Russian. That’s how I know that he’s not as alright as he’s pretending to be. He speaks English more often when he’s in a good mood since he knows I prefer the language that I grew up with. But when he’s upset? Sometimes, I’m not even sure that he knows he flip-flops between languages.
That’s how he met my mother, on an app for native language speakers to work with each other on their vocabulary and pronunciation of their new language. She was learning Russian; he was learning English.
A true love story.
I rise to my feet, deciding against asking for money. Not tonight. I’ll present him with my grades at the end of the quarter and use them to convince him to restore my credit cards and allowance. I’ll even show him my acceptance letters from Bornstead University, Harvard, Princeton, so on and so forth. That should mollify him a bit.
“You have my permission to skip the party tonight,” he tells me, and I nod my thanks. “Just don’t get yourself into trouble. Focus on your studies.”
“Yes, sir,” I reply in Russian, and then I turn and leave the room, closing the door softly behind me. But not before looking back just once, just in time to see my father put his head in his hand.
Whatever it is that’s going on, it’s affecting him in a way I haven’t seen since my mother’s death.
Hmm.
I move back down the hall, my mind twisted with worry. Who do I have to hurt to give my father a reprieve from his pain?
“Mr. Grove,” a man says, pausing in the foyer as I come down the main staircase. “Your car is ready.” He holds out the key fob, perched on top of a silver tray, but I wave him away.
“Bring the Miura around front instead,” I tell him, thinking back to the other night, to the sea of classic cars and the girls in their short skirts and tight leather pants.
My mind fixates on that awful girl with the long, black braid. She made me feel dirty in a way that rocked me straight to the core. When she reached for my wallet, and I thought she might touch me, I felt homicidal. I most certainly don’t like to be touched, most particularly by someone like her.
I shake the feeling off as the man bows with a murmured, “yes, Mr. Grove,” before taking off again. Slipping my phone from my pocket, I dial up Aspen Kelly and wait for him to answer.
“Alexei Borisov,” he greets, his voice like the tongue of a snake, flicking out and teasing my ear with venom. I shudder and hold the phone slightly away from my face. Just the sound of his voice makes me queasy. He also very purposefully uses my father’s last name when he knows that I go by Grove. “What can I help you with?”
“You offered to take me out tonight. I’d like to accept your invitation.”
There’s a slight pause there before he laughs, the sound breathy and thick with poison.
“I’ll text you an address. Show up around eight.” Another pause. “Do you have any classic cars? I’d bring something ‘72 or older if you have it.”
How … convenient, since the car I just requested our employee bring around was manufactured in 196
9.
He hangs up on me without explanation, and I frown, my thoughts spinning back to the girl with the dark brown eyes shining through the hole in her black mask.
I shudder again, putting my phone away as I contemplate where he might be taking me.
I have no idea what Aspen Kelly is up to—he can be a bit of a wildcard at times—but he’s also the mayor’s son. If anyone might have information that can help my father, it’d be him.
I just need to be careful how, exactly, I inquire about it. One wrong move and I might find myself in trouble.
Scarlett
Bohnes is waiting in the usual spot, leaning back against a tree and smoking a cigarette. His blue eyes sweep me in my tight black minidress, paying special attention to the way it crawls up my thighs in the front, threatening to reveal the bright red panties underneath.
See that? I think it’s a self-hate thing, all of this red that I despise so much. Not only that, but I know everyone at Prescott calls me and my girls the Crimson Crew. I abhor the name, so I don’t bother with it, but that’s the moniker the collective has come up with, and so that’s what it is.
I could no more change it than I could our reputation.
“Scarlett,” Bohnes says, exhaling the word along with the sweet-scented smoke from his cigarette. I move up to stand in front of him, ignoring the way his huge form overshadows mine. He’s shirtless today, wearing leather pants and black cowboy boots. Somehow, the look suits him in a way it wouldn’t anyone else.
I take the cigarette from his fingers, enjoying the way his lips part and his pupils dilate. I turn so that my back is to him, just a careful inch or so between our bodies.
Bohnes exhales again, reaching up with both hands and carefully skimming them over my curves, but without touching me. I manage to suppress a shudder, taking a drag on the cigarette and filling my lungs with tobacco and cloves and poison.
“No Widow tonight?” he queries, a strange note in his words that I don’t care to examine. “He doesn’t want to masturbate to us again?”
Oh. Shit. I wasn’t aware that Bohnes knew about that. But of course he does. Why should I be surprised? He knows everything that happens at Prescott High—maybe even more so than I do. He’s the shadow of the school, the cleaner, the fixer if you will.
It’s his job to mop up the messes the other students create—for a price. And he will do quite literally anything for the right amount of cash. Maybe even fuck someone? I have no idea because I never asked. That isn’t the type of transaction that we have.
He runs his fingers through my hair. It’s loose for once and falling in thick shiny waves around my shoulders. My mother has pin-straight hair while my father has springy curls. I wound up with something in-between. Usually, I blow it out to keep it straight, but it takes hours. I couldn’t be fucked tonight.
Gooseflesh tears across my bare skin as Bohnes rubs the dark strands between his fingers and then proceeds to caress them with his cheek.
“I’m having a party tonight. Will you come?” he asks, and my breath releases in a rush. Will I? Of course I will. I could use it, after the week I’ve had. Between Lemon and Aspen and Emma Jean, I need a break.
“Maybe,” I respond coyly, letting out a gasp as Bohnes uses my hair to yank me closer to him, until his body is curved over mine, a monstrous shadow consuming my spirit as I continue to smoke the cigarette and he begins to lick and kiss and suck on my neck again.
“Tell me what’s going on between you and Widow,” he growls out, and I shiver again, the cigarette spinning from my fingers and landing on the forest floor. Bohnes smashes it with his boot, caging me in between his legs as he wraps both of his huge arms around me.
Without a shirt on, with the barely-there dress I’m wearing, I can feel his naked skin all over mine, and my pussy goes nuts. I react to him in a way I’ve never reacted to another guy before. My thoughts are filled with carnal images that become dreams, that shift into wishes that absolutely must be filled.
“Nothing’s going on with Widow,” I explain, and then I’m gasping as Bohnes yanks my black dress up my hips, pushing my panties below my butt cheeks before he cups my bare heat from the front. It’s a strong grip, a possessive one.
We’ve been over this more than once—I don’t want a boyfriend.
I want a fuckboy, a sidepiece, some free-range cock.
“Really?” Bohnes hisses at me, and then he bites me again, hard enough that I throw my head back into him, my cunt rubbing against his hand. “That’s not what it looked like when I caught you fucking yourself in his ‘Vette.”
He slides a single finger up my folds, and I choke back a gasp.
“He got cum all over my car—I had to return the favor,” I breathe, loving the feeling of freedom that comes with being around Bohnes. He’s nothing to me; I’m nothing to him. But at the same time, we’re both monsters made out of Prescott’s shadows, and we both know all the sordid things that happen in and around our neighborhood. We’re not rivals nor are we allies; we can just be honest with each other. “That’s all it is.”
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you wanted to fuck him,” he accuses, sliding two fingers inside of me and causing my knees to buckle. This time, he lets me fall, following me into the leaves as I roll onto my back and Bohnes stares down at my red panties, tangled around my thighs.
He reaches out and curls his fingers around them, sliding them down my legs and then tucking them into his back pocket.
“I’m going to wrap these panties around my cock later and jack off into them, swipe the cum from my tip with your pussy-scented lace.” He drops down to all fours above me, and then he takes my mouth with his.
He tastes like the cigarette we both just smoked, but since it was a clove, it’s like kissing a Christmas cookie or something—but tainted just a little. Tainted. This whole encounter is tainted.
My arms wrap around his neck, even though this is dangerous territory to be wading in.
Bohnes jerks away from me, panting and laughing both at the same time.
“Don’t lie to me, Scarlett Force,” he repeats, staring down at me from those eyes, the ones that have as much warmth as an arctic glacier. He lets his attention slip down, away from my face to my breasts, and then further still, down to my naked cunt.
I’ve been keeping it smooth, just for him. Much as I want to deny that fact, he’s the only person who sees it, so it must be true.
His eyes lift back up to mine, and my breath catches as he grabs my knees and pushes my legs apart.
“Tell me the truth. Do you want to fuck the new guy? Does he turn you on?”
“Not as much as you do,” I say, and Bohnes laughs again, dropping down to his elbows and burying his face between my thighs. The second his slick tongue slides over the swollen pink flesh at the apex of my pussy, I’m screaming and digging my nails into the dirt.
This is the first time we’ve done this, the first time I’ve ever had a hot mouth between my thighs, tasting and lapping at my heat like it’s the elixir of life.
“Mmm,” Bohnes murmurs in that crypts-and-coffins voice of his. “You taste so sweet, Scarlett. Whoever would’ve thought?” He dives right back down as I dig my fingertips into his white hair, yanking on it. The harder I pull, the deeper he thrusts his tongue, the messier he gets.
Saliva drips down my ass, mixed with my own juices, teasing the aching spot of my rear entrance. Yet another game that Bohnes and I haven’t yet played. I could see trying it all with him. I don’t know why. Maybe I should save a few firsts for somebody else?
As soon as he sucks my clit into his mouth like he’s giving me a blow job, I completely lose my shit. I’m crying and kicking at the dirt beneath us with fancy black heels as I keep his head trapped between my legs, blood pumping furiously through my veins, highlighting my most sensitive areas.
My nipples are officially on fire, and I swear, if he doesn’t touch them soon, I’ll burst. Frustrated, I rip the dress down, exposing
my tits, and I take my nipples between my fingertips. I yank on them mercilessly as Bohnes devours my cunt, licking and laving me with his hot mouth, murmuring things under his breath that I can’t quite make out, but which vibrate against my folds and make me writhe.
He takes me to the edge with just his mouth, using his hands to hold my thighs wide.
“I’m gonna come,” I murmur, massaging my own breasts. “I’m gonna come. Oh God, Bohnes. Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop.”
And then, just as that wild web of pleasure stretches from my nipples to my clit, to my empty, aching channel, Bohnes stops. He pulls away and sits up, the lower half of his face shiny with a mixture of his own saliva and my warm arousal.
He runs his tongue in a lewd circle, smacking his lips and offering me up a disturbed grin.
“I could eat you whole, Scarlett Force,” he tells me, and then he lets his head fall back and he laughs. The sound of whatever race is currently going on carries through the dark like a growl, a night song of competing engines to drown out the dark and disturbed union taking place in the woods. “I could consume you,” he continues, his teeth gritted as he leans his huge body over mine, and I grab at him, digging my nails into his muscular upper back.
He’s so pale above me, he practically glows in what little moonlight manages to break through the trees. Paired with the icy eyes and the white hair, the tattoos on his hands, arms, back, and legs, he’s truly a beautiful nightmare.
I should probably be afraid of him. Quite a few people are—and with good reason. Not much scares me though, even things that should. So maybe that’s what it is? Maybe there’s nothing special about Bohnes at all?
“Consume me then,” I breathe, trying to yank him down, trying to get him to fuck me. That’s the easy part, I think. He wants to fuck me so bad, but he’s looking at me like he isn’t sure if he wants to take me up on the offer.
F*ckboy Psychos Page 13
