Page 96 of The Dom with the Clever Tongue

Scarlet nudged her. “Don’t be a smartass.”

“Well,” her dad said, sticking his hands in his pockets, oblivious to the exchange. “Should we eat?”

The rest of the visit went similarly. Her dad was quiet, as usual, but his face lit up when Scarlet started talking about a new type of cordless nail gun on the market. Her brother hassled her about having a girlfriend that seemed to fit in better with her family than she did. And Lisa told them in varying degrees of awkwardness, how she approved of “their ways” and didn’t think at all that they were pedophiles or man-haters. Though clumsy and imperfect, she was proud of her family’s reaction to Scarlet. It could’ve been far worse. She shuddered justthinking about how Sabrina’s family flipped out. Of course, being surprised with being bi and poly would make any devout Roman Catholic family a little twitchy. It made her wonder if things had worked out with Malachi, how her family would have taken that. Would her brother have tried to kill Mal?

Scarlet seemed comfortable enough toward the end of dinner to tease Max about his crappy job installing the new door. She even gave Josiah a hug goodbye and didn’t seem grossed out when he returned it with a big wet baby kiss.

As Reece drove them home, she had an overwhelming feeling of peace. And despite the emptiness of Malachi being gone, marrying Scarlet still felt like the right thing to do. Now, someone just had to propose.

Chapter 18

The glass of rye and Coke sat beside her Xbox controller – she couldn’t quite remember why mixing her own drinks was a bad idea, but she knew that Reece said it every time they went to a party. What was wrong with half and half, anyway?

She’d given up on playingCall of Dutyfor the time being and just wallowed in the feeling of being slumped back into the couch. What the hell was wrong with her?

Two weeks of Reece being in Milan hadn’t seemed like a big deal when they’d discussed it, but all this time alone was giving her too much time to think. How could single people handle being alone for such long stretches, with no one touching them? Sure, she Skyped with Reece every few days, but not being able to kiss her or run her hands through her hair was torture. It never used to bother her this much.

She sipped her drink then put it back in the puddled ring on the table. If she had a friend to hang out with maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. It used to be that when Reece was busy with Sabrina or gone for work, Scarlet would enjoy her few hours or days of alone time and read, play video games, and eat Lucky Charms for every meal. Those things weren’t fun anymore. The condo was too damned quiet.

But that wasn’t really it either. She was lonely.

Chocolate bar wrappers, discarded books, and articles of clothing were strewn around the room. There was no one there to care. She grabbed the tumbler off the table and finished off her drink, its sweetness pissing her off. When she poured herself another, she skipped the soda. With the next, she skipped the glass. Drinking rye directly from the bottle cut out the middleman.

She ran a hand through her hair. It felt gross. When was the last time she’d showered? Probably two nights ago when she’d gotten home from work. Another whole day and night until she got to hang out with Jude and the guys on the job. Weren’t three-day weekends supposed to be fun?

As she padded down the hall to their bathroom, her steps were unsteady. The lights in there were bright and made her squinty. She turned on the shower and stripped off her boxers, then took another burning swig from the bottle. Herreflection drew her notice and she made faces at herself for a few minutes before shutting off the light. Enough illumination came in from the bedroom to make out what she was doing, but in the shower stall it was almost pitch black.

The water burned hot, and she gasped as it sprayed over her head and coursed down to leave painful tracks along her skin. Her nipples bunched from the sensation and she closed her eyes, remembering Mal whipping her with coarse rope. The heat in his eyes when he made her suffer. The way he held her afterward. His breath on her neck and his arms wrapped around her tight, like he’d keep her from shaking to pieces before the quiet settled in. Her throat felt thick and her eyes burned. He knew her, like Reece knew her. Intuitively. He watched her face to see what she was really thinking. He gave a shit.

Tears spilled over and she hugged herself for a minute. They’d sent him away because it was best for him, but that didn’t mean she didn’t care. There was an ache behind her ribs that she’d been trying to ignore, but it just wouldn’t go away. Wasn’t time supposed to make things easier? It seemed to be making it worse.

She dashed the tears from her face with a wet hand, annoyed that she was drunk and crying, alone in a dark shower. Pathetic.

Washing only took a few minutes and she got out and toweled off, taking several more pulls from the bottle she’d left on the bathroom counter. The bottle slipped from her wet fingers and crashed to the floor, the impact sending shards of glass flying in all directions. Carefully, she tiptoed through the shrapnel, feeling for the light switch. She looked back and saw the bottle and booze mixed with splashes of blood, and for a few moments she couldn’t figure out how to look at the bottoms of her feet without sitting in glass. She shrugged and kept walking then plopped herself down on the bed and looked blearily down at her soles. There were some cuts that were bleeding, but there didn’t seem to be glass stuck in any of them.

The Band-Aids were in the bathroom and she wasn’t sure what to do. Maybe she would bleed out and be a dried up husk when Reece came home. It would serve her right for leaving her unsupervised.

Reece.

She glanced at the clock, but couldn’t figure out if she was late or not. Luckily, the laptop was on the bed, so she didn’t have to move from her spot. There’d be enough of a mess to clean later. She flipped it open and noticed therewere a bunch of messages from Reece wondering where she was. They had a Skype date. She read them one-eyed, because they made more sense that way. She hit the video call button after she figured out how to make her fingers work right.

Reece answered, looking immaculate.

“Good morning, sunshine.” Scarlet tried hard not to slur, but it sounded pretty bad even to her.

“Are you drunk and naked? And wet? What happened to your skin? You look like you were attacked by a tentacle monster. You’re all red.”

“Do we own sticky tape for bleeding thingies that isn’t in the bathroom?”

“No, why? What did you do?”

“I broke my friend. He’s dead on the bathroom floor.” She made a face. “And the bastard wants me to dance for a Band-Aid.”

Reece sighed. “You don’t even make sense. Show me your booboo.”

Scarlet swung her feet around and kicked the laptop over by accident, smearing blood across the screen.

“Your feet look like hamburger meat! Did you break a glass?”

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