“Jamie is my friend.”
“And what a friendship it seems.” He sets his drink down on the dresser with a thud. “It’s a bit rich, isn’t it? Stringing along Greene’s golden child while calling for the fall of capitalism?”
“I am not stringing him along, for fuck’s sake!”
“Does lying make you feel better about it?”
“Lying?Lying?You’re the liar—you said you weren’t coming back until Sunday.”
“I did notlie, I got back early—”
“Right, early. So you could come to this bastion of charity?”
“Worried I’d see how close you are with Greene’s pup?”
“Why do you care?” she yells.
“You said you weren’t fucking anyone else.”
Idiot. She’s an idiot, because the sight of that woman, Kara, beside him—bright smile, intelligent eyes—made deep parts of her chest ache. “Well, right. Maybe I lied, just like you.”
Aleksandr takes a sharp step closer to her; Lili does not give an inch. “I do not lie,” he repeats, cold anger taut with furious restraint. “And I was very clear, cheating is an absolute red line for me—if you fuck other people, this is over—”
“I’m not fucking James!” she yells. “I’m here because his girlfriend can’t be! I haven’t so much as kissed anyone else since you and I met, aside from Amina on my birthday—which doesn’t fucking count, she’s my best friend—and even if I had, you’d have no right talking to me like this, when you walked in here with that woman, like I’m some sort of idiot!”
Aleksandr frowns. “What?”
“Don’t insult me by playing dumb—Kara, the one even Michael seems to like!”
Unexpectedly, Aleksandr laughs. Lili flinches.
“You know what? No,” she mutters, making to move around him for the door. “I’m not doing this.”
He grabs her wrist, pulling her back. “I did notbringKara. Her fiancé was right across the room.”
Lili frowns. “What?”
Aleksandr makes an irritated noise in the back of his throat, letting go of her. She draws her arm into her chest, uncertain. “The blond lawyertype with the AG who kept looking like he wanted to off himself. Works for the Southern District. So, no, I did not bring my own employee as my date, Jesus.”
“Isn’t that—isn’t that a conflict of interest, or something?”
“Not any more heinous than you fraternizing with class enemies.”
Lili’s frown deepens into a scowl. “No, you don’t get to push this back on me. I’ve never lied to you about Jamie, but you still lied about when you were coming back!”
“Jesus Christ,” Aleksandr says. “I got back early to seeyou, you obtuse—”
Anger—too hot, stronger than before, obscuring reasons and root causes—crackles over her. “Don’t say shit like that!” she yells. “You can’t—you can’t just say that—”
Aleksandr grabs her face, knocking the drink out of her hand and pulling her onto her toes, kissing her so hard his teeth clash against hers. Around her, the world swerves as he pushes her against the door, slamming her into the wood. Lili gasps, the breath knocked out of her, and his tongue is in her mouth, rough, angry, and she doesn’t want her skin to immediately sing like this; she fights back, tangling her hands in his hair, pulling at his bottom lip with her teeth, wanting to make himhurt.
“You can’t say things like that to me,” she repeats, desperately insistent, as he starts kissing her neck. “This isn’t—this doesn’t mean anything—”
“Shut up, Lili,” he growls into her skin, a glance of teeth that makes her wince.
Her ??grip tightens in his hair. “Don’t tell me what to—oh—” In one fluid motion, his hand finds the slit in her dress, pushing her underwear aside fast. As his fingers start moving over her—harder, faster, than he usually would be immediately, which is good,good, because she wants nothing else from him—Lili grasps his hair harder, enough to hurt. She pulls his mouth back towards her, kissing him with teeth and spite.
It’s a vehement, angry heat in her hips, under the increasing pressure of his fingers. The type of pleasure that makes rage rasp—frustration near to screaming, jealousy so potent it feels like nausea—emotions that eat each other. She’ll tear this from him if she has to, one last time to let him know what he’s going to miss. Her fury from the fight—from seeing him across the room, that bloom of something dangerously close to hope snapping to sudden pieces at the thought of him with someone else—roars into thesimplicity of violent, demanding hunger. Better to fuck away this feeling, this tightening in her chest—I got back early to see you—that she will only call hatred.
