chapter 8

"Hey, Margie," Blue looked the same as always as she jumped from the last stair of the staircase and took a leaping few bounces to shake off the momentum. When she came to a halt at the dinner table, even her mother looked the same as always.

Luckily, she was in the midst of her summer break after her senior and final schooling year; the break in which she waited to make the leap to tertiary education. In favour of that, she did not look the same as she did on a school morning, which was far worse than the way she did on a holiday morning. Holiday-morning-Blue, as she was, emerged from her bedroom typically with her light and unbrushed hair around her shoulders and a dress of some kind on. School-morning-Blue emerged wearily with a school blouse and skirt on, the blazer icing the cake and the stockings garnishing the frosting, though she looked far more presentable, the uniform failed to rival the appeal of a short and child-like dress, as she often opted for. It was a strange thing to lean towards when dressing; to want to look like a sexualised child. Perhaps that was because she had been a sexualised child. "-Bagels today? You know how much I love you,"

"We've been over this, Blue, it’s 'Margetta', you can't nickname the help," 'And you can't wear blue with that awful tan', was all Blue wanted to say. Still, nothing was stopping the poor woman from making the tragic fashion mistake, so what was stopping Blue? Or who? Besides the woman who wore the figure-hugging blue dress all laws of nature argued against? Who with a valid and totally not redundant opinion was stopping Blue?

"Well, if Margetta is going to be handling my thongs and picking used condoms out of my jean pockets then I should be able to nickname her," It took no longer than a moment for Blue to smooth over her own dress and find her seat opposite her mother. When she did, it took hardly a moment longer for her to ensure her gaze fell everywhere but to the pair of the same blue as her own; like mother, like daughter, it would seem. "I'll call her 'Margetta' when I'm an old Latvian woman,"

"Don't be disgusting — and don't eat too many bagels, either, Richard is coming over any minute from work with your father and his boss to join us for a late breakfast," and suddenly, Blue put the bagel right back onto the plate she had taken from faster than it had taken her to sit down and avert her eyes. Never before in her life had she turned down a fresh and still-warm bagel, just she had never tasted rainbow ice-cream, or done anything her mother had told her to.

"His boss?" Sure, the girl had an odd edge to her words, but somehow it was even something the mother with so much spare time to spend staring at people and figuring out how exactly they ticked didn't notice. Even if she did notice, her skills weren't quite so advanced that she could deduce 'His boss? The one who came inside of me on the landing balcony?' from a simple question with a tone of 'oh, you've got to be joking', served with no more information. It seemed to simply fall unnoticed, instead.

Finally, Blue's eyes found the pair of the woman before her, the very pair she had been avoiding. Alas, the bottle blonde and spray-tan cased woman looked and sounded as oblivious as ever. Thank the heavens — on Blue's behalf, of course. "Yes, Vincent, I'm sure your father introduced the pair of you last night," and so Blue watched as the woman tore into her half of a grapefruit with a fork and a knife as if it were loaded pizza — but it wasn't, it was a fruit greatly resembling a vagina riding the crimson wave. In that moment, Blue was thankful that she had returned her bagel to the pile where it had sat.

"Dad didn't, no," As the blonde spoke, she put the most effort into sounding neutral she ever had... and all without her first cup of coffee.

"You say that as if someone else did," Though the woman sounded curt and knowing of something undisclosed, the fact she failed to look up from her organ-esque fruit convinced Blue it was simply her idea of a witty remark. The same wit Blue seemed to have stolen alongside seventeen ounces of blood in childbirth.

"No one did," when the words flew from Blue's mouth faster than the speed at which she had barrelled towards the dining table, she found herself forcing a pause. She knew, unless she revaluated, she would deeply risk her mother finally picking up on something. That meant, she'd have to force herself to sound as attracted to Vincent, the very man who came inside of her on the balcony, as she was to Robert — Richard. "I have no idea who Velvet or whoever is," A girl’s name… Nice save. "Why's dad's boss coming, anyway?"

"He's losing two of his top employees for a few hours, it's the polite thing to do," Oh, way to go, Marian Pierce, sneak in a compliment of the work ethic for your husband and double it with a compliment for your future son-in-law, if all goes to plan. That was the most ingenious plan you've ever had, Marian, considering you skipped birth control to purposely fall pregnant and get your now husband to actually marry you. Kudos, Marian.

Blue gave her mother a desperate and deep stare, her eyebrows furrowed, her lips in a delicate frown. It was the "look at me, I'm Blue, pat me" stare designed only to remind her mother she appeared as though she would never hurt a fly. The stare designed to make her mother revaluate any decision made that Blue may oppose. The stare that worked every time. "Mom, you can't force Robert on me, there's no chemistry," She even whined as she said it. Kudos, Blue.

"Richard, and after the second date offer you blew off, we came to Richard and he was the only person you exchanged more than monosyllables with," The woman paused the butchering of her grapefruit to finally meet the warm blue gaze of her daughter. She wished she hadn't, it was the fullest form of the "I'm Blue, pat me" stare, the form that could talk any poor soul into suicide if she so desired.

Perhaps it was the fact juice from the butchered grapefruit dripped onto the hem of her dress and stirred the grown woman into a tantrum that caused her to find the courage to rebuke her daughter. "He's on his way, he's to be seated next to you and that's final," And then the woman flew out of her seat in a huff and threw her napkin to the table as though she had the fullest intentions to curse the damn thing. "Margetta! I'm going to change and then you are to stain-treat this dress immediately," And then she stamped away — Blue mouthed a small 'thank you' to the severed grapefruit and listened to the marches of the surgically enhanced woman up the stairs before she finally spoke again. If she had met her mother before she fell pregnant, she wouldn't recognise her, not to deviate from the main issue at hand. The main issue was the fact that she would be forced to converse with three men, two of which she had the slimmest desire to converse with, and one of which nutted inside of her mother some eighteen years and nine months ago.

Only when her mother was so deep in the upper level of the house that Blue could no longer register the fading thumps of her purposeful march, did the girl dare to speak again. When she did, she called out loudly and with full intentions of her voice making it all the way to the kitchen, where (of course) Margetta would be hiding meekly in wait for Marian to storm in, guns blazing, to sodomise the poor maid until the dress was restored to how exactly it was before Marian took out all of her hungover rage on a fruit. "Margie, did you make a pot of coffee this morning?"

"Yes, I did Miss Pierce — just like every other morning," Margetta's voice was just as distantly afraid as any one maid would assume it would be. The poor, poor thing. The worst Marian could do without breaking a nail and throwing a tantrum about that, would be firing the woman. Luckily for Margetta, Blue loved her — and even if the favour of the daughter of the house failed, there was no shortage of work in the region. In fact, the Pierce household was quite small in stark and close comparison to others in the wealthy radius.

"Great, now put some whiskey in it," and the girl paused as she heard her mother quickly barrelling down the stairs. If it was the last time she would see or hear of Margetta alive, she needed to take advantage of the woman and all her early-morning service glory; all of it. "Three shots worth,"

Suddenly, her mother was standing at the doorway of the room. In all honesty, the dress looked much the same as the one she had so carelessly dirtied. The only difference? The depth of the neckline, perhaps even the shape if one would go so far as to mention where the other came to a sharp point, the new dress came to a more rounded dip right in the wrinkled crease between her breasts. "And what if Richard kisses you and gets the impression you're a drunk with no self-respect?" Of course, Marian had to find a way to circle the beloved Richard back into conversation. All Blue wanted to say to her mother was 'well, a man as fine as Robert deserves only the truth', yet all she could do was sigh and bite her tongue — in the very minute she did sigh and bite her tongue, Marian truly thought that the girl was going to reconsider. After all, Margetta had the track record of following Blue's orders before she followed the command of the rude but paying woman... at the end of the day, sometimes, Marian had no choice but to facilitate underage drinking, especially since she was the woman to introduce the habbit on Blue's sixteenth birthday. What she had thought would be a way for Blue to appear to be more matured and more suited for grown and ideally wealthy men quickly became a bad habit she wasn't a stranger to, herself, in her own former years.

But then Blue finally delivered the more tame version of the line she so desired to slide from between her lips with a shameless smile; "Make it five, Margie," and suddenly the woman couldn't bring herself to give even two shits any more. She had made a monster. She had bred a child who grew to be the exact copy of herself, without taking into account the house worth of plastic surgery hanging from her chest and her hairline alike. It was and always would be unknown if Marian failed to smile because of the tear-jerking botox and face-lift regime, or simply because the poor woman had no soul. Like most things, it could indeed be a good mix of both. She could have sold her soul to pay for the surgery.

When Margetta finally emerged from the depths of the kitchen with a dainty teapot it seemed only stupid to put coffee in, there was no way for Marian to ever know for sure if Margetta had spiked the morning brew or not. Blue knew for sure if the requested five shots had been added the moment she took her first gulp. And in addition to the fact that Margetta never failed to make awful, strong and bitter coffee, it burned as she took the mouthful down her throat without the quick pause she felt she needed that would still offer no reprieve to the potency. The only plus to the two conflicting solutions to form one product, was the fact that it physically was warm, and yet offered the burning warmth at the very same time — and that combination was far better than her consumption of iced wine the evening before. Blue paused over her mug as her mother shifted and smoothed out her dress beneath her, making an attempt to settle in her seat. For the fleeting moment she made the decision to speak again, decidedly due to the fact she felt somewhat bad for her mother.

She knew that her mother cared — and though she didn't actually care about Blue, but instead her reputation, it resembled authentic human emotion.

"Thanks for taking mom's side, Margie," and she made the effort to be just beneath the volume Margetta could physically pick up from the kitchen but of a volume great enough to lull Marian into a soft sense of victory.

"I knew the pair of you would still be eating," Only one thing was worse than facing Marian before twelve; Bradley Pierce.

The name was often misleading. It was the name of a party-boy or the thirty-eight-year-old leader of a college fraternity with time spent so often getting wasted he was balls deep in student debt with all the times he'd had to repeat the course. It was strange, he was an average man with the most disinteresting and booze-less life in the entire working industry.

"We're only still eating because Blue spends half of her life in bed and only emerges for meals — late, may I add," Marian spoke sharply, though Blue couldn't bring herself to care as of her second cup of the godly-nectar-infused-coffee. In all honesty, Blue was considering producing the flask she had taped under the surface of the table right at her seat and further diluting the coffee. In that case, Robert, Richard, wouldn't have to kiss Blue to discover the amount to which she was intoxicated. All it would take would be Blue simply breathing in the general direction of the man whose sight repulsed her more than anything in the world.

In the thickness of the headache that was sneaking whiskey-flavoured coffee past her mother, Blue failed to notice as a man seated himself right beside her. She was too busy sculling her teacup as if it was the best tasting coffee to ever land on her tongue to notice the man sparing her a glance and unbuttoning the single button of his blazer; even when his elbow brushed her shoulder and her eyes brushed his as she scanned the table for her beloved coffee pot. And even then, when they landed on the green and dark pair almost sinister beneath the frame of even darker brows, it took her a long moment to double back and for her stomach to sink far further than it ever had. In all honesty, she had forgotten that her mother had said the infamous Vincent was set to arrive.

"Richard, please, I have a seat for you right here," just as the man began to lower himself to the seat of the table right beside his boss, the kraken struck again. This time, all because Vincent had stolen his designated seat by her side, it was to seat him opposite. Poor, poor Richard had no idea.

"Thank you, Misses Pierce,"

And here it comes. "Please, it's just Marian," And don't you worry, Richard, soon enough it will be just mom — that would be the next line, right? If all went to plan? If Blue succumbed to the plan B of 'I've done nothing but provide for you, you owe me this'. "Vincent, this is my daughter," and Marian spoke just as her loyal husband found a seat by the woman's side and planted a slobbery and forced kiss on her taught cheek. Soon enough, she would become disfigured by plastic surgery, one would think. It would get to the point where the woman's lips would be so far stretched out from face lifts she would no longer be able to even close her mouth. And if it came to that point, there would be no cheek left. It would be just lip. Everywhere. It would be the joker but with a smooth and ageless complexion. She would permanently have the ear-to-ear grin she hadn’t had since she was 14.

"Blue, I presume, happy birthday from yesterday," Blue watched as the man shifted in a way that would have been awkward if it had not been him, of all people, and moved to extend a hand to her. The hand was smooth as she accepted the gesture; smooth and cold and stony and somehow smooth again yet not at all soft. Exactly stony. It was the perfect way to describe the hand. And yet the man had unclothed her with said hand a mere twelve hours ago — perhaps she didn't have the time to think about it when so readily consumed by what his blue-steeler felt like either pressing against her or inside of her. "Is the coffee any good?"

"The maid made it, she makes the best coffee — Blue, give Vincent some coffee," Marian sounded almost frantic as she ordered the sleepy-eyed, messy-haired daughter to give up the cup of life and death she had cradled against herself for the entire exchange. Marian was and always would be the last person to know what exactly Margetta's coffee tasted like; the woman hated coffee, she'd rather die before she tasted a single cup. Poor Vincent was in for a large surprise. At the very same time, he was in for the best surprise of his life.

"Try it," The blonde thrust her cup to the man and the contents spilled and shifted over the lip as she did, only just narrowly escaping the leap from the mug to the table. When she spoke again, she lowered her voice so low no one else on the table heard her; a trick she had developed over the years to escape the wrath of her mother. "You won't get anything from me you haven't already,"

Blue watched eagerly as the man chuckled shortly and lifted the mug she had nursed only a moment before to his own lips. When he did, he took the same large gulp Blue had innocently taken the very first time she tasted the intoxicated brew of the morning. With the same never-failing tone of amusement, she watched as the man's eyes widened and he lowered the cup to the table with a stable grip. No one would ever know he was startled by the contents of the mug, thankfully — no one but Blue. Blue quickly gave in to a short chuckle of her own. "Blue, this is the best coffee I have ever had," The man murmured the words to the girl, though the volume could be debated to be unnecessary. Marian had launched into conversation with Richard about his career and his love life which would leave anyone with even a vague sense of innocence to believe that Marian wanted to marry Richard... something that would surely launch the apocalypse.

"Thank you, Vincent, it's a secret recipe," Blue, too, shared the same murmur Vincent had adopted. Bradley was too occupied by striving for completely even distribution of butter on his bagel to notice the quick banter between the two. Richard was too consumed by Marian and her small talk and Marian was too subsequently consumed by Richard. Margetta was too occupied by scratching a hardened spot of food from the table as she collected used crockery.

"And how much of this secret recipe exactly do you use?"

"Five shots,"

And just as Vincent raised the teacup to his lips and the words slid through his ears, he succumbed to a loud and short laugh which finally someone noticed — in fact, something everyone noticed. All conversation fell to an immediate silence.

Blue's heart sank. Vincent, as charming and frightening as he was, would need an exceptional explanation as to how the man who never laughed suddenly did, and because of a woman he "just" met. "Your daughter makes the most inappropriate jokes, Bradley," Blue offered Vincent a guilty smile as she took in his words, and though the man had thrown her under the bus at the expense of protecting himself and her from the scrutiny of Marian Pierce, the quip did the job. Blue knew that it did the job, because Marian sighed and frowned at her daughter from across the table, and she gave the girl a look of disapproval. Vincent offered Blue a quick and mischievous yet somehow apologetic smile, a smile to which the girl offered a short "Sorry," to the woman from across the table.

So that was how Vincent got to the; by covering his ass with somebody else and managing minimal damage—it was both offensive and charming... it got the job done with no hard feelings.

But then her father said something that she didn't expect him to say; "She got it from me," a quick phrase that completely caught Blue by surprise. All Blue wanted to say at that point, was a simple 'Tell him off, then', but it fell into the bank of insults and jokes which would never see the light of day. Yet through all the headache that had come from Vincent and the 'special coffee' in less than thirty seconds, the man finished the cup in less than five seconds, refilled it and slid it back to Blue in a manner at which the contents didn’t make the same leap of faith for the dinning table.

Then, he murmured lowly. "You're going to need this," and so Blue followed his example and gulped the contents of the mug quite quickly, herself. Perhaps they were a match made in heaven; a match of creeping alcoholism and dry humour... not to mention striking looks.

"Blue, you're going to Harvard, aren't you? — Richard makes large donations, he's found himself to have a large influence over the board of application," Marian asked the question she knew was rather a hooded version of 'You've agreed to go because you have no choice, haven't you?'

Blue paused as she refilled her cup of one part liquor, three parts coffee. It only took a swift two moments for her to prepare the quip she didn’t have a single urge to suppress. Perhaps if she stirred enough of a scene, she’d be sent to her room and she could escape Richard. More importantly, escape Vincent. "Richard, you want to sleep with me, right?"

"Blue!" Of course, her mother never accounted for how strange it would sound for her to scream a colour in disapproval.

"I'm not sure how you want me to respond," and as Robert offered no more than the words and a small frown, her father chuckled and Vincent offered an amused grin of his own — and finally, Blue truly wondered how old exactly Richard was, and whether her mother would have cut off her head altogether if she had referred to Richard as 'Robert' in the very same damning sentence she had spoken. With the inappropriate remark and the deliberate use of the wrong name, both Richard and her mother would surely be so offended they would simply bond over the traumatically aggravating experience before running off and eloping. Best case scenario.

Yet before Blue could pipe in, Vincent stole her thunder. Admittedly, she was finding it increasingly harder and harder to hate him. “She’s saying that the only way she’ll get into Harvard is by sleeping with whoever it takes,” And as he spoke, he peered at Blue from the corner of his eye with a slight smirk and a devious twinkle in his gaze — a look that told her she could get anyone to do anything by sleeping with them. Case in point.

Quickly and awkwardly, Richard forced a laugh. "She's just like you, Bradley — she's hilarious,"

For the first time of perhaps the entire history of the breakfast table, Blue was the only person not laughing.

Instead of joining in and perhaps succumbing to peer pressure and forcing a belly-involved laugh at something not even remotely amusing, Blue found her feet in less than a moment. "Please excuse me, mom, I need to use the bathroom," but as Blue tucked her chair in quietly and Marian launched into conversation, the blonde kicked a certain someone's chair on her way past. Vincent wasn’t met with an even remotely explaining glance, but instead a generous view of her shoulder as she walked quickly towards the doorframe and slid right through.

From there, she flattened herself against the wall just by the frame's shoulder, where she waited with a certain intent and lingering frown. Blue wasn’t sure what the appeal was for Richard; perhaps the allure was her dowry, perhaps it was simply the 'Blue effect; the effect of a combination of her revealing clothing and the way in which her jokes made her seem so irresistible and yet easily obtainable. In shorter terms, she was cheap and came in pretty packaging. That was the 'Blue effect'.

It took little more than a minute or two for Vincent to deliver a simple excuse of 'needing to take a call' for Blue to grab the man by the arm as he emerged from the zoo which was the Pierce breakfast table, and to steer the man with surprising strength in the direction of her father's study. Tragically displayed on the wall was an oil painting of Blue as a five-year-old, which both ignored. In principle, if the pair were caught emerging together, Blue simply used the bathroom of her father's office, Vincent simply locked the door as he took the call... it was so perfect it could have only been intentional — Blue’s only reason, however, was the lock at her disposal.

Vincent, with a sharp and cruel smile instantly took the girl’s hips in his hands as she silently locked the door, drawing her flush against himself. “Round two?” His voice was rough and low as he bowed his head to search her eyes. He knew that she didn’t take him away for a quickie, of course, but what was the harm in teasing her? From the way her hips instantly rocked against his and her hand lifted and hesitated as though she was itching to touch him, he knew that she wasn’t as against the idea as she’d like to have him think.

Shaking her head, she gathered the little resolve she had to break away. Quickly, she shook her head, drowning, gathering her thoughts. "No! What are you doing here?"

"I was invited for breakfast by your mother, Blue, do you expect me to turn down all future functions which may involve you simply because you told me 'we can't see each other again'?" His voice, though he tried, wasn't quite as cold as his blonde counterpart's. He watched as she crossed her arms, pacing slowly, hair tangled in a way that made him want to clean her up… There was something about her that gave him instincts he didn’t know he had.

The girl pouted, if only slightly. "Yes, but when you say it like that it makes me feel like an asshole,"

Though by that point, Blue had brought herself to expect a response completely different to what she was given, Vincent's own tone was soft — hell, even his hands were, the rough and marbled hands, as he gripped the upper-arms of the girl before him. "Well, I need you, Blue — you intrigue and arouse and entice me," Was this simply a product of the 'Blue-effect'? It couldn't have been. At the time of both their meeting and their intercourse, Blue had acted far from incapable of intelligent conversation and had dressed with both modesty and a mature appeal, though of course, her mother had dressed her. Perhaps Vincent, at that point, was simply a fluke. An outlier from the theory. A result of experimental human error.

Blue sighed. Shouldn't the roles have been reversed? "Look, last night was great while it lasted but..."

Vincent also sighed. When he spoke, he didn't sound as though he was parenting her, despite the fact she sounded she was, him; as though she was trying to explain to a baby that she wasn't evil incarnate for plugging up the very socket it had stabbed blindly with a fork. "But what, Blue?" In fact, he sounded affectionate… almost.

When Blue finally spoke again, she threw a glance to the oil-painting by her side, blushed deeply, and decided things could not get any worse. She was having the awkward 'morning after' conversation, even without the unintentional and meaningless sleepover, next to a thirteen-year-old portrait, locked in her father’s office, tipsy at eleven in the morning. In other words, she accepted that, in that moment, she had nothing to lose. "I don't know! I don't want to have my heart broken because I decided I could play ball in the same league as a rich fucking thirty-year-old,"

Blue searched the eyes of the man before her but failed to find anything conclusive. They held a certain air of both thinking and withholding something—Blue would probably never know what exactly. It was in the way his brows turned down ever-so-slightly and fell just between a gaze and a frown; in the slight upturn of his lips; in the flexing of his jaw. It was intriguing. Slowly, Vincent approached, edging the girl backwards until finally she met the wall. Only then did he lift his hands to brace the wall either side of her. And Blue was far too taken by the fact that in that moment, Vincent could do whatever he wanted with her and she wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. Not that she wanted to.

When Vincent spoke, he lowered his voice. "I would sooner die than break your heart, Blue — on that you have my word," and though his voice was rough and careful, his hands remained still and purposeful by her shoulders. She couldn't move, even if she somehow mustered the desire to.

"That's a big promise for a girl you barely know," and so Blue paused and inhaled deeply. Just as she did, the skin between her collar bones dipped and deepened with the hasty gasp for air. Her chest burned and her stomach expanded. It was the most satisfying and calming deep breath she had ever taken — and yet she still felt such a great amount of unrest.

The man smiled just as he took her shoulders in his hands, right where he traced the length of her collarbones with his thumbs. It was a strange thing to do. Suddenly, Blue was on the brink of being convinced they were in love — not complete strangers. "Considering you still have my cüm inside of you, I'd say we know each other quite well,"

And though Blue smiled sweetly and Vincent was sure that that was all of a response he was given, it took little more than a long moment for her to gather few words in a quiet tone... "Tonight at nine-thirty — you, me, a coffee shop... what do you think?"

"A coffee place open at ten? Do you mean to tell me there's an actual place that serves coffee with whiskey?" And so Blue laughed loudly, just as she did, she tilted her head and shifted her eyes to his neck and back to his in a solid sweep before her lips finally fell to a small and distant smile. In that moment, reminded of their shared brew, he realised just how well Blue could hold her liquor. It intrigued him — it offered a small glimpse to a side he had previously brushed away... the side that asked to be fücked on a balcony.

Her voice was raspy and bubbled in the back of her mouth as though she had to clear her throat... but she didn't bow to the urge. She ignored it and instead continued with a rough; "It serves regular coffee — now is that a yes or a no?"

"I'll be parked across the road at quarter past nine," When he spoke, his voice was much the same. Perhaps it was only the effect of the situation — of the fact they were seemingly negotiating a first date as though it was nothing. The girl nodded and offered a final smile before she mustered the courage and the will to break away from the man and to instead turn towards the door. As she did, she made an effort to steer clear of the painting in an effort not to draw attention to it. "Kiss me, Blue,"

Though she didn't drop her hand from the lock of the door, she took his eyes in a challenging stare. "Do I get a please?"

Only when Vincent paced towards the girl with considerably brisk strides and took her face in his hands did she release the lock. Without pause, Vincent took her face between his hands and roughly took her mouth in his without a word. As Blue’s hands instinctively braced the man’s shoulders, his own began to wander and tug at her clothes in a way that made her heart sink. Whether it was due to the way it plastered her flush against him or the fact it almost felt like he was undressing her, she lost all resolve to fight her desire.

And when she shoved the girl against the door, she made no effort to stifle a loud groan — but his lips had left hers, and he had built her up so much she was far too aroused to go back to breakfast like nothing was wrong. “You sure as hell don’t,” Before she could think any better of it, she slipped her fingers beneath the waistband of his pants and tugged her against himself, a hand guiding his mouth to hers and the other slipping deeper and deeper inside of his trousers.

Just as she felt she was about to gain the upper hand, fingertips grazing a certain bulge standing at attention, begging to be taken care of, he took her wrist in his hand, removed her from his slacks and met her kiss with just as much force and eagerness. In just a second, his mouth dropping from hers and trailing wet, hot kisses down the side of her neck, Blue surrendered completely to Vincent. She did little to object as his hands guided hers to his shoulders. Before she could brace herself, he slipped a hand through her hair, held her eyes to his, slipped the other beneath the hem of her sundress and began to stroke her through her underwear. “For what it’s worth, I can’t stop thinking about you,” he hummed the words lowly, watching as her mouth hung open eagerly and her eyebrows furrowed. Before he could think any better of it, he released her and took a long, casual step back, straightening his shirt and tucking what of it had come out back under his belt.

Tiredly, she leant all her weight against the wall, eyes cast to the ceiling, a disbelieving frown plastered where his mouth ought to be. “You’re kidding me,” She mumbled the words, raking a shaking hand through her hair. Reluctantly, she met the man’s eyes, a small frown cemented above the narrow, blue-brown eyes.

“You started it when you put your hands in my pants — I was just returning the favour,” With a small, ever-growing smirk and soft eyes, he approached once more. Gingerly, he leant forwards and placed a rough, slow kiss that instantly melted any frown on Blue’s waiting lips. “I’ll see you at quarter-past nine,”

With a wry smile, Blue crossed her arms as the man drew back. “Have fun waiting, I’m supposed to be having dinner with Richard so I might not get out until quarter to,”

It was a smile Vincent then mirrored; somehow, his voice deepened even further, just as his smile deepened in agreement and it seemed the green of his eyes deepened, also. Though he looked mean and twisted, Blue had never felt more comfortable in someone’s company in her life. "If you're not out by quarter past nine and in my car, your dad's breakfast tomorrow will be a severance package,"

Blue's heart skipped a beat and her smile quirked — "Threatening my father's job now, are you?"

"Yes, yes I am," And in all honesty, she had completely overlooked that detail until then.