Page 22 of Bought

The chicken is delicious, crispy on the outside, tender on the inside. For the next few minutes, all we do is eat, and I start to feel comfortable. When Ethan isn’t performing perverted sex acts on me, he’s good and easy company. I’m not a big talker, but he doesn’t make me feel awkward. Doesn’t throw out lines about me being quiet or ‘smile, sweetheart.’ He is perfectly comfortable with my taciturn self.

These are the small kindnesses he shows me, the acceptance I’ve craved throughout my life but never really received.

“Would you like dessert, sir?” Forsyth glides up with the promise of treats.

“No, thank you, Forsyth.”

“And for the lady?”

Now I’m a lady according to the man. Not because of me, but because of this bit of cloth wrapped around me. I have a wild, petulant impulse to take it off, ball it up, and throw it at his face.

“I dunno. Whatever.” I put my elbows on the table, knowing that will probably piss him off.

Ethan raises a brow at me as Forsyth glides away again. “Are you trying to show you can’t be domesticated?”

“Fuck that guy,” I growl under my breath.

Ethan chuckles. “You’re acting like a spoiled little girl,” he says. “If you keep it up, I’ll punish you like one.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I’ll take you over my knee and spank you right in front of him.”

I feel my face heat instantly. I know he would do it. He fucked me in front of cops on the very first day we met. But that was different. I didn’t know those cops. I didn’t have a burgeoning personal vendetta against them.

“Mr. Jack Ford.” Forsyth interrupts us with an announcement.

A man strides onto the balcony without waiting. It’s like he owns the place, like there wasn’t possibly anything going on that he wasn’t entitled to be a part of.

I take an instant, gut dislike to him. He’s handsome and I recognize him from the same sorts of pictures I’ve seen Ethan in. Jack Ford is the co-founder of Vipyr. Referred to commonly in the media as ‘Killer Jack.’ He has a five o’clock shadow turning into a ten o’clock pelt. It looks effortless, but I would put money on it being painstakingly styled.

He is wearing a white shirt and silvery gray, super tight suit pants. His style is modern, where Ethan’s is timeless. And it’s much more forced. I can tell every accessory has been agonized over, from the cufflinks, which appear to be little silver guillotines, all the way to the aviator-style sunglasses pushed up and into his hair.

A broad, shark-like smile establishes itself on his face as he sees me. He swoops down, takes my hand, complete with chicken grease fingers and presses an even more greasy kiss to the back of it.

“Hello, m’lady. And who might you be?”

“This is Casey,” Ethan says. “Hi, Jack.”

“Casey. What a beautiful companion.”

When Ethan called me beautiful, I felt beautiful. When Jack says the same words, my skin crawls with the disingenuousness of it. I get the strong impression that Jack Ford wouldn’t know beauty anywhere. He has those flat eyes that don’t quite emote, and when they fall on me, I feel cold.

“I thought you were in Argentina,” Ethan says, wiping his fingers on a cloth napkin.

“Oh, you know, business called,” Jack says, inserting himself into a chair that wasn’t between Ethan and me until he dragged it across the balcony, the grating sound making me even more on edge than I was.

He nestles in between us, folds his hands over his stomach, and looks from Ethan to me and back again. “I heard we had a problem,” he purrs.

“You heard wrong,” Ethan replies calmly. “Want some chicken?”

“No, I’m only eating vegetarian now,” Jack says. “Clearing my chakras.”

“You don’t have chakras.” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them. I don’t mean to be argumentative, but words like chakra are basically a trigger word for me. They smack of bullshit, the same kind of bullshit Jack is steeped in.

“Why? Because you don’t think they’re real, or because you think I’m soulless?”

His question is as direct and socially jarring as my comment was, perhaps even more so.

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