Free Shattered Virtue by Magda Alexander

please and thank you, Mr. Steele.”
    Unlike my childhood education, which consisted of “Fuck off” and “Get lost, kid.” Suddenly I can’t stand the Miss Goody Two-Shoes I have in my arms. “Even when you fuck?”
    She jerks back. “You shouldn’t say things like that.”
    “What? Fuck? ”
    “Yes.”
    “So what did you do with your boyfriends—make love, have sex, or maybe a more cultured phrase such as ‘engage in coitus’?” A sudden thought occurs to me. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe she’s a virgin. “Wait, you’ve had sex, haven’t you?”
    “What kind of a question is that?”
    “Are you a virgin, Madrigal?”
    “Not that it’s any of your business, but no, I’m not.”
    My nostrils flare as I breathe in her scent. L’Amour indeed. “Did you fuck some preppy boy preapproved by Gramps?”
    “Stop it.”
    “You probably went out on, oh, say, ten to twenty dates before you granted him second base. It probably took close to a year before you allowed him into your bed. I bet your grandfather has your fiancé all picked out for you. Some clean-cut boy, rich, of course, who’ll give you a nice shiny ring and screw you once a week, just often enough to give you those 2.4 kids you preppy types have. And, of course, you’ll retire from that assistant prosecutor’s job to take care of the children because that’s what your mother did.”
    Claws out, she flies at me. “Don’t talk about my mother!” she screams.
    I grab her wrists and wrestle her back. “Sore subject?”
    “She was murdered, you bastard.”
    What little humanity I still possess rears its head. Easing my hold, I let her go. “I’m sorry. I truly am. I shouldn’t have brought her into this.” I knew her mother had been murdered, and yet I used her against Madrigal. Because I’m a bastard and that’s what I do. I have no excuse. Absolutely none.
    Her chest rises and falls in double time. She’s had enough. And, let’s face it, I’ve had enough myself. I throw back the cover, start to climb out.
    “Where are you going?”
    “To the stuffed chair. I’ll spend the rest of the night there.”
    “Don’t go. Please.”
    I blink, unable to figure her out.
    “It’s warmer with you in the bed. Please.”
    So it’s my body warmth she desires. Fair enough. Least I can do after the crack I made.
    “Fine.” I drop back to the torture chamber, tuck her feet back between my thighs. My penance for lashing out at her. I turn my thoughts in another direction before I go stark raving mad. “Is that why you want to become a prosecutor? To avenge her death?”
    Her breath stutters. “You’re very good, Mr. Steele, at figuring people out, even in the dark.” Her voice trembles with resentment. Caught between those two emotions is something else, something primal that calls out to me—her sweet passion.
    “The dark’s when I do my best work. Tell me about your parents’ murders.” I’m not being a bastard. I sense her need to talk, to lance the pain. And I’m the perfect person for her to talk to. I understand what she’s going through more than she knows. Once, long ago, I lost someone close to me.
    “Why?”
    “Because neither of us can sleep, and there’s only one other thing I enjoy doing in bed.”
    She gasps.
    “And talking will keep my mind off it.” I pray she goes for it, because it won’t take much more to do what I’m burning to do.
    For half a minute or so, she doesn’t say anything. Her halted breathing tells me she’s screwing up her courage to reveal something incredibly painful to her. Finally she takes a deep breath, eases it out as if she’s trying to prolong the moment when words will flow from her. “They were killed twelve years ago.” Her voice, so self-assured a minute before, now wavers with emotion. “A brutal home invasion. My father was shot dead, a single bullet to the stomach. He was the lucky one. My beautiful mother was beaten, her throat slit.” Her voice cracks; her pain is