Page 12 of Vermilion Desire

Chapter Four

Wolf

“Oh, god, I am too full.”

I drag my eyes from the television to the girl lying on her side, head on my lap, and struggling to digest the amount of food she had eaten just ten minutes ago. Not even washing the dishes helped the digestion problem, and it’s entirely her fault for making too much since she was used to making a bigger portion to leave for Cal if he ever gets hungry throughout the day.

Patting her head, I try to soothe her the best I could. My home doesn’t have digestive medicine to help her. A face filled with confusion, Scarletta asks, “Don’t you have work?”

“It’s my off day,” I simply reply, mesmerized by the silkiness of her gorgeous hair. The redness is pure, a brighter red than what I have seen before, while her amber eyes blink to absorb what I had just said.

I know what I said was weird. I don’t take personal days or vacations. I just leave them stacked and keep piling up. It’s useless to me because every moment I let myself relax means that all of the open cases fade more into the background.

“Lazy day?” she suggests.

“I’m alright with whatever you want.”

Scarletta smiles brightly, blinding me temporarily as she closes her eyes. They snap open with her lips letting out a gasp. My fingers tighten in her hair, stopping her from doing anything reckless as she slowly moves away from her thoughts.

“We have to go grocery shopping.” She takes my other hand, tugging on them mindlessly.

We barely salvaged much in my home this morning to make breakfast, but it was worth it because I got to see my lovely Scarletta pouncing around the kitchen under the natural glow of the morning sun.

It’s beautiful, and it’s not everlasting, and I desperately pretend that she isn’t too taboo for me to touch when she gave me a morning hug.

It was fleeting, but it was love.

“Come, come,” she ushers, grunting as she rolls off the couch with a thump.

With quick movements, she whines and runs to my room, where she had slept again to change. I took the floor in the living room, and it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would have been.

Scarletta skips out of the bedroom, knocking into my back and chuckling to herself while apologizing. It’s adorable, and I don’t chide her for blindly running around. I wouldn’t want her to get bruises from falling and bumping into corners with her small hips.

“I’m ready!” She twirls, lifting a bold red dress to match her hair.

This is one of the benefits of summer; she can wear anything she wishes and as little as she wants. However, that rule only applies within the house. She is not allowed to go outside with anything provocative, and if she wants to wear short dresses, then she will have to let me escort her.

That rule was set yesterday when I sat her down to discuss house rules. I don’t have much; I just want to make sure she knows that they are instilled there to protect her and not to control her freedom.

What a load of shit. That’s exactly what I’m doing. I restrict her freedom, and I sure as hell am not going to let any men near her.

The grocery store is close by, just a ten-minute walk in the sun while honking cars pierce the peaceful morning. The man in a red sports car honks again at a minivan, and out comes a man bigger than me.

His skin was inked; a cigarette dangled from his snarling lips, and black sunglasses framed his face into malice.

Scarletta lets the scene trap her as I drag her along. The sports car man jerks his head back into his car, reversed and slammed into the car behind him.

Everything is a mess as the owner of the car the sports car wrecked comes out as a woman with a forked tongue and a trail of profanities that could be made into a new language.

As a detective and a law enforcement agent, it’s my duty to step in to prevent them from clawing each other’s eyes out. However, they aren’t doing anything to warrant me to step in yet, and I won’t as Scarletta laces her small fingers with mine.

I forget about that foolish scene and focus on the way she fits flawlessly with me. Scarletta doesn’t seem to know what her action did to me, and I can only wordlessly follow her around the massive grocery store.

When she lets go, I regret not holding on tighter.

My job is to carry the basket. I refuse to push a damn malfunctioning cart around. Every time I take one, it’s always a broken one with a fucked-up wheel that either makes the bone-chilling squeaks or it won’t move at all once the momentum has stopped.

The basket is filled with at least three weeks’ worth of food by my calculation. I only calculate how much we eat during breakfast and dinner because I have lunch at the station, and I can’t ever forget to put Cal into the equation with his big mouth.

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