Grey lets out something like a laugh before squeezing my knee.
“Oh, come on. Smile a little, Ashbourne. It won’t?—”
“Kill me?”
I finish the phrase for him, turning to look at his vacant expression.
With no light to highlight the hollows of his features, he looks rather ordinary. Generic. Like someone pulled a set of desired traits from a hat.
Tall, strong, handsome.
It’s enough to entice until you realize pushy and pathetic were also in the mix.
I lean away from him, putting as much distance between us as I can.
“You have three seconds to remove your hand from my leg,” I warn.
He smirks.
“Or what? You gonna make me get on my knees again?”
“Or I tell everybody you fuck like a fifteen-year-old boy fumbling for his dick in the dark.”
Grey jerks as if I’ve slapped him, hand falling away at last.
“Gods, you’re an ungrateful bitch,” he hisses.
My lip curls.
“What is there to be grateful for?”
“Ifedyou,” he snaps, as if that were some great gift to my kind rather than his singular purpose.
“Oh, you want me to say thank you?” I ask. “Is that it? You want me to thank you for your aimless stroking? For that bullshit feed you gave me? I had to call another man to finish your job for you. So you’ll have to excuse me if I’m not the picture of gratitude.”
My arms cross, and he stares at me, gears grinding as he tries to make sense of what I’m saying. I can’t be the first woman to tell him this. But if, by some chance, I am, I’m more than happy to deliver the message and save who knows how many women from his feckless fingers.
“Go back inside, Grey. There are plenty of unwitting girls for you to impress, but I’m not one of ‘em.”
I twist in my seat, dismissing him and excusing myself from the conversation, but he isn’t satisfied with its conclusion.
He stands abruptly.
“You know, Ashbourne. You’re not as hot as you think you are. The only reason anyone pays you any attention is that you’re easy. You think any guy gives a fuck about feeding you?”
He steps forward, leaning over me, blotting out the moonlight.
“I don’t care if I gave you crumbs. Because you know what I still got?” He pushes his fat finger at me. “You. And the best part is, we don’t even have to care what you want, because you’re guaranteed to like it. Like every other succ-slu?—”
The echo of a smack fills the clearing as my hand comes across his face. He clutches his cheek, shocked. But only for a moment.
His expression quickly shifts, surprise morphing into insecurity, insecurity turning to rage, and before I can think to move, his hands rope around my throat.
“You greedy bitch!”
He spits the words in my face, his grip tight as he lifts me from my seat.
The air in my lungs seizes as he yanks me into the dirt, slamming me against the hard-packed earth. A loud crack sounds as my head comes down on a rock, not once, not twice, but three times. Until my ears are ringing once again and my vision blurs.
