Page 50 of A Game So Reckless

“Not afraid of those, either.”

I turn from her, heading for one of the kitchen drawers. There are no lights on in here. Shadows pool and stretch. The glint gleaming on the paring knife’s blade is a faint slash of silver as I take it from the drawer.

Valentina stiffens. I can hear her rapid breathing.

I slice into the peach, cutting out a generous piece. I offer it to her, balanced on the blade of the knife.

“I don’t want a peach, Darragh,” she says, dark fire sparking in her gaze. “I want the stuff in that bag.”

There’s a part of me that wants to wrench open her mouth and slide the peach inside. Because who is she to deny me anything? A fucking Titone, standing in my house, spitting on my hospitality.

But a larger part of me simply wants to keep her here. So I hold the knife above my own face, opening my mouth to accept the next juicy slice. As I chew, I see the way Valentina’s gaze tracks the movements of my neck, my jaw, before she wrenches her eyes away.

“Here.” I put the remaining peach on the countertop then pull out the box of tampons. “Take it.”

I hold the box against my own chest, so that she has to come to me. I can see her pride roiling against the fact that she’s already come this far. She wants to tell me to go fuck myself and leave, slamming the door on her way out. I can see it in her eyes. But she’s already so close. A sort of sunk cost fallacy of the soul.

Dark elation courses through me when she takes a step towards me. And then another. And another. She snatches the box from my hand like a feral fucking thing, hesitating once she’s got it, as if she’s waiting for me to try to take it back from her.

“Go on, then. Bathroom’s over there.” I jerk my chin towards the open door beyond the kitchen. That bathroom doesn’t have any windows. So it looks like a black and empty cavern from here. A yawning mouth that’s going to swallow her whole.

And fuck me if she doesn’t raise her cute little chin and stomp right towards it.

But she’s so focused on being pissed and brave and ignoring me now that she doesn’t know I’m right behind her until she tries to shut the door and finds my boot in the way.

“What the hell?” she breathes from the darkness, one hand on the box, one hand on the doorknob. “What are you doing?”

“Supervising.”

“Supervising… Supervising what?”

I don’t answer her. Instead, I force the door further open and step inside. I turn on the softer of the two sets of lights in here. The dimmer one meant for the middle of the night when you don’t want fluorescent lights burning a hole in your fucking brain while you take a quick, sleepy piss. It sends soft golden dust drifting through the air. The warmest, barest illumination of her tumbling dark hair, her eyelashes, her achingly flawless skin.

“I’ll take this,” I tell her, hooking my fingers into the belt I’ve made of my own shirtsleeves at her hips and pulling the garment away. Once I’ve tossed it aside, my fingers skim the button at the front of her tiny denim shorts. “Need me to take off the rest?”

“So, that’s it, then? You’re going to stand there and watch me put a tampon in?”

“Was planning to sit, actually.”

There’s a bench with big cushions beside the shower in here. It always struck me as the stupidest furniture choice. Who wants to lounge around on a bench in the fucking bathroom?

But now, it strikes me as perfectly-placed. I sit down on it, leaning back and draping my arms along the cushions. Valentina stands in the centre of the room. Her jaw works. Her eyes flash. Prey that’s too proud to admit it.

Then, a vindictive sort of calm comes over her features.

“Fine,” she says. “I’m not modest. And you’re obviously not scared of a little blood. You want to watch me do this like some kind of pervert? Be my fucking guest.”

Big words. I tilt my head, daring her to do it.

She slams the box down on the counter, rips it open, and fishes out a tubed wrapped in crinkly plastic. Then, moving quickly, as if worried she might lose her nerve if she slows for even a second, she wrenches her shorts and panties down over her hips in one vicious movement. With a few wiggles and kicks, the clothing is abandoned.

“Goddamnit,” she whispers under her breath. There’s a big patch of dark, dark red on her panties. So much blood that there’s no way it hasn’t soaked through to her shorts underneath.

So much blood that there has to be some on my shirt, too.

And that fact does something to me. Does something I don’t fucking recognize. My heart is beating too fast. My spine feels like a dog has started using it as a chew toy. I run my fingers aggressively along my jaw, my mouth, feeling my own gaze go dark, rabid,ravenousas it trails up from her bloodied underthings, to her bare thighs, to her pussy.

It's there.Right there. Waxed or shaved entirely smooth, the skin looking so soft it makes my mouth go dry. She’s paler in this place, a perfect triangle of tan lines that would probably make a good portion of the straight male population come on sight.

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