“You had your dick in my ass an hour ago, and you’re worried about sharing eyeliner?” Zero said with a snort.
“That’s different.” He seasoned the pork chops without looking over at Zero. “After supper I need you to read something,” he said to no one in particular.
“She’s already reading for me after supper.”
“I’m paying her. She’s mine.”
Zero bit into a carrot stick. “She likes me better. She’s mine.” He flashed an amused look at me.
“Neither of you own me, so I guess I’ll decide which of you I’m reading for tonight,” I said lightly. “One? The other? Both? I guess we’ll have to wait and see what mood I’m in.”
“She thinks neither of us own her.”
“Poor, deluded girl.”
They both chuckled.
Uh-oh. When they were united, they were far more intimidating.
“You wouldn’t want to ruin supper,” I reminded them. Vandal had turned to regard me, and so had Zero, who was still holding an unnecessarily large paring knife.
“We could throw her in the basement until she admits we own her,” Zero suggested.
“Spoken like a man who wants her body. How about I use her mind first, then you can do what you want with the rest of her.”
“Or we can use her little holes until the fight has gone out of her. She might stay on task better after that.”
“She’ll fall asleep. Putting a reader to sleep isn’t the kind of feedback I need right now.”
Zero turned back to the vegetables and slid them into a waiting bowl. “Do what you want with her. I’ll take what’s left. For that matter, go now. I’ll tell you when supper is ready.”
Vandal caught me by the ponytail and tugged me toward his office, my body responding to the rough treatment even though he was joking around.
“Excuse me,” I complained. “I don’t remember volunteering to be manhandled twenty-four seven.”
He let go when we were in his office. “Should I check your panties? I bet you liked that just fine.”
“Who says I’m wearing panties?”
His hand froze on a stack of paper and he eyed me with curiosity, as though he might be able to see through my dress if he looked at me hard enough. “Aren’t you?”
“That’s none of your business!”
“You’re the one who brought it up. I think you want me to check. Do you like it when I humiliate you, little monster?”
“Of course not.” I swallowed, and I knew he’d seen me do it. Stupid tells. I couldn’t bluff anyone about anything. “Can we just get down to business?”
He laughed low, mocking me.
Could a mere mortal get away with smacking the Prince of Darkness? Because I was seriously contemplating it.
“What do you want me to critique in here? Your dick? Because I’ve already seen it.”
“Oh, are we pretending you don’t flounce around the house trying to entice me into bending you over every stick of furniture?” he asked, sounding honestly curious. Bastard.
“I do not,” I replied, putting as much of a chill in the words as I could muster.
“Sundresses and leggings. Leggings and sundresses. We ask you not to be so distracting but you can’t seem to help yourself.”
“Maybe the problem is with your perverted, overheated brain and not with me dressing for the weather.”
He sighed and sat behind his desk, motioning for me to take the seat across from him, as if this were a job interview, or maybe I was his secretary about to take notes.
“You’re probably right.” He laughed with what sounded like self-deprecation. “Maybe we’re so used to this being a boy’s clubhouse that the female interloper can’t help but be appealing. Or maybe it’s a bit of both. Considering the fact that you’ve consented to fuck either or both of us, possibly even at the same time, distraction is inevitable. Men with new toys tend to be a bit obsessive.”
“I’m not your toy.”
“Aren’t you?”
I arched a brow at him for a change and got back to my feet. “I’m going to help Zero with supper. Sit in here and be a weirdo as long as you’d like.”
“Wait,” he called, sounding exasperated, as I got to the door.
“What?” I looked over my shoulder but made it clear with my body language that I was already fucking out of there.
“I’m sorry. I…” He rolled his eyes. “Arguing with you is easy and fun, and it’s a distraction from what I really don’t want to do.”
“Which is?”
He barked a laugh. “Which is editing another fucking word of this fucking disaster masquerading as a book.”
“When you get frustrated or stuck, you come looking for me to be a distraction?”
“Maybe.”
“You’re mean to me for fun.”
“Well, no. I’m mean to everyone. It’s not always fun.”
“But being mean to me is.”
He groaned and buried his face in his hands. “I mean…maybe sometimes. Sometimes you’re just annoying.”
“Because I exist?”
“Yes.” He looked at me with hopeful eyes and slid a stack of paper in my direction, so that it sat in front of the chair I’d vacated. “Fix it. Please.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. You’re pathetic.” I stomped back to my chair and sat, snatching the papers up with a childish flourish. God, if I stayed here too long his annoying personality traits were going to rub off on me.
I read the scene until I got to the problem, which was easily identifiable by the preponderance of red scribbles between the lines and in the margin.
“I thought red pen was only for your father.”
“Those are my father’s thoughts.”
“You gave him this?”
“Well…no. He’s dead. I just know what he’d think. I can still hear him in my goddamned head, all the way from hell or wherever the bastard ended up.”
I stared at him in stunned silence. Sorry probably wasn’t the right thing to say, but I wasn’t sure what else to go with.
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry he’s dead?”
“I’m sorry he was mean to you, and that you haven’t been able to shake him.”
“He was brilliant,” Vandal said, his voice loud.
“So what?”
“He was hard on me because he knew I could do better.”
“So now you’re constantly guessing what he’d think or what he’d say if he was around.” I nodded, knowing exactly what that felt like.
I always tried to think of my parents as benevolent and supportive, which was easy to do because I’d been young when they died and didn’t know them well. In Vandal’s situation, if his father had always been critical of him, it made sense to believe his father would never be satisfied with his work.
“Fuck him.” Vandal said, picking up the mug on his desk. He threw it and it sailed past me to hit the street art painting that hung on the wall beside the door. The mug burst into pieces, showering to the floor. It had left a dent in the artwork, just left of center.