Page 39 of Vicious
“Fine. Japanese, Chinese, something else?” I ask before I go back to kissing her.
She doesn’t answer, not verbally. Instead, she tentatively parts her lips for me, letting me feel the fullness of her mouth—the way it feels like it was perfectly matched to make her mine. Her kiss is sweet, uncertain, but I’m there to guide her through it all.
After a long moment of exchanging soft, languid kisses, she whispers, “Chinese.”
“Sure,” I answer in Chinese. “Good girl.”
She sighs. “Do you have to keep calling me things I hate?”
I laugh and nip her jaw. “Absolutely. I love your reactions.”
May grumbles, but she doesn’t pull away.
For the first time since I found her—for the first time since I decided I had to have her—it almost feels like this is real.
Almost.
CHAPTER 10
May
I pass the next few days sewing and studying.
Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that Chase did bring me language books. He brought me the sewing machine, after all. He even brings different levels of books, from beginner to advanced.
I wish I could say I was on the more advanced end, but I can barely read hanzi and my vocabulary probably never progressed past elementary school level.
Chase shows up to feed me and chat with me and teach me to swim, but he doesn’t actually attempt anything sexual. I should be grateful—I am grateful—but I know he’s only sparing me because of how tired he is.
I’m practicing writing a few hanzi the next time Chase enters the room, carrying the usual tray of food.
“Good evening, Ah-May,” Chase greets in Chinese.
I look up at him and offer him a tentative smile. He’s earlier than usual, which has me a little on edge, but I’m sure he’s still tired from a long work week. “Stop calling me that,” I reply in Chinese. That’s a sentence I’ve been working especially hard on this past week. “Asshole.”
“I don’t think asshole is part of the lesson vocabulary,” Chase says with amusement. He stretches out across the bed, and his shirt rides up enough to show off his swimmer’s abs.
“Still pretty sure it’s right,” I inform him tartly, trying not to let my eyes linger. “It’s in one of the advanced books. There’s a section on curse words.” All right, so maybe it had just been a word my mother had used when referring to my father a lot, but I still enjoy needling Chase. I wish I had access to the internet so I could learn “fuckhead” and more creative curses.
“There is not,” Chase responds, smiling. He pulls one of the books over to himself and opens it to a random page. He reads something out loud that I can’t understand, then shakes his head. “They always try to teach you all the boring stuff first.”
He’s not wrong. It is boring, but it’s also the foundation I’ve been lacking. I’d learned some Chinese from my mother before she’d abandoned us, but not enough to navigate around some of the greater intricacies. I shrug. “Gotta start somewhere, I guess.”
“Yeah.” Chase sets the book aside. “I guess it’s easier when you grow up bilingual. I used to speak Chinese more fluently than English, but I’d have a hard time explaining contract law in Chinese.”
I nod, my shoulders starting to relax a little. It’s just a normal night. He’s just here to deliver my food, talk a little, then leave. I can handle that. When he’s not touching me—when I’m not reminded of what he’s done, of what he intends to do with me—it’s easier to get through the evenings.
I start to eat, famished despite the snacks he’s started leaving me in a mini fridge. After a moment, I say, “So. How was work today?”
“Good. I finished a —” Chase says a word I don’t understand, but I assume it’s a contract or a deal or something similar, “—and am free for the next three days.”
At that, I freeze. I don’t want his days to be free. “Plans with your friends?” I try, even though I know perfectly well he intends to spend a lot of that time with me.
His smile turns darker. “Plans with you.” He sits up and points toward the wall with all the BDSM implements. “Maybe I should teach you what all these fun tools are called in Chinese.”
I shake my head quickly. “No,” I say. “I don’t even know what most of them are in English, and I’m definitely not interested in finding out what they’re called in Chinese. Can’t you just go swimming and hang out with your pervy friends or something?”
“Should I invite my pervy friends over?” Chase asks, sounding way too delighted by the prospect. “Hunter invited us to see his girl once. Although just the one time, and he got really protective of her after that. I guess he realized he was more jealous than he thought.”