8. Mikhail #2
I close my eyes. I have survived men pointing guns at my chest. I have survived betrayal.
Blood. Prison visits. My father’s voice.
My mother’s tears. I have watched men die and felt less afraid than I feel now, lying beside this girl while she touches herself in my bed and tries not to make a sound.
“Mikhail,” she breathes. Not to wake me. Not even to say my name. She says it to herself, part of whatever fantasy she has happening in her head while she touches herself across this pillow.
“Taylor,” I murmur back.
She stops so fast the mattress jolts. For three seconds, there’s no sound at all. Then she says, in a voice so mortified I almost hate myself enough to leave, “Oh my God.”
I turn my head. She’s still facing away from me, body rigid beneath the blanket, hand trapped between her thighs like she can disappear if she does not move.
“Look at me,” I say.
“No.”
“Taylor.”
“I would rather die.”
Despite everything, my mouth curves. “Very dramatic.”
“I learned from your house.”
A laugh leaves me, quiet and unwilling. Her shoulders relax by one careful inch.
She lets out a shaky breath. I don’t touch her.
Not yet. I lie there close enough to feel the warmth of her body through the sheets, not close enough to trap her.
Her hair spills across the pillow between us.
My shirt has slipped off one of her shoulders again, exposing the tanned curve of it.
I want to put my mouth there. I want to put my mouth everywhere.
Instead, I say, “Tell me what you were doing.”
She covers her face with one hand. “Please don’t.”
“Do you want me to stay?”
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
“You want me to stay. You want me to know. So, tell me.”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t. Tell me.”
“I was…” She stops and swallows. “You know what I was doing.”
“I do.”
“Then why are you making me say it?”
“Because if I guess, I take something. If you tell me, you give it.”
The room goes quiet again. This time, the silence has a different shape. Taylor lowers her hand from her face. Still facing away, she whispers, “I was touching myself.”
Heat moves through me so hard I have to close my eyes. My control is not gone. It is worse than gone. It is aware. Every part of it is awake, strained, listening. “What were you thinking about?” I ask.
She makes a small, frustrated sound. “What do you think?”
“Say it.”
“I was thinking about you.”
I inhale once through my nose. “What about me?”
“Mikhail.” The warning in her voice is weak. My name in her mouth is not.
“What were you thinking about?” I ask again.
She turns her head slightly, not enough to look at me. “Your hands.”
I look at my hand on the mattress between us. Scarred. Broad. Not gentle by nature. “What about them?”
“How they felt.”
“Where?”
She presses her face harder into the pillow. “This is cruel.”
“Yes,” I say. “A little.”
That makes her laugh once, breathless and mortified. Then she says, “On my legs. On my wrists.”
My fingers curl against the sheet. “And?”
Her voice drops so low I barely hear it. “Inside my underwear.”
My body goes still again. Not the stillness of restraint this time. The stillness of a man standing at the edge of a very high place, looking down.
“You want my hands?” I ask.
Her breath catches. “Yes.”
“No sex.”
“I know.”
“No mouth. No tongue.”
She tries to hide a shiver. Fails. “Okay,” she whispers.
She turns more fully onto her back. The blanket shifts with her, slipping down to her waist before she catches it.
My shirt is wrinkled around her thighs. One bare leg bends.
The other stays straight. She looks embarrassed and wanting and furious with herself for both.
I stay where I am. “Say what you want,” I tell her.
Her eyes flash. “You and saying things. Fine.” She lifts her chin. “I want you to touch me.”
“Where?”
“Mikhail.” Her cheeks flush deeper. She holds my gaze for one second. Then another. Then her eyes drop to my mouth. “Between my legs,” she whispers.
I move slowly. I am not gentle. If I move quickly, I will not stop with my hand. I lift the blanket and move the pillow, still dressed, still pretending that means anything. Taylor watches every movement. Her breath trembles when my hand finds her knee. Just her knee.
Again. A beginning I can survive. Her eyes close. “No,” I say. They open. “Stay with me.” Her face changes. She moves her hand, placing it over mine where it rests on her knee. I turn my hand palm-up beneath hers. “Show me,” I whisper into her ear.
Her lips part. For a moment, I think she will refuse. Her pride rises. Her fear with it. Then she looks at our hands, and the fear changes into something else. She guides my hand up her thigh. Not far at first. An inch. Another. The higher she moves us, the more her breathing changes.
By the time she brings my hand to the hem of my shirt, she’s trembling again. “Is this all right?” I ask.
She nods.
“Slovami.” Words.
“Yes.”
I slide my hand beneath the shirt. Her skin is hot. Soft.
She makes a sound and turns her face away. I stop. “No, no,” she says quickly, gripping my wrist. “Don’t stop. Please.”
Please. My eyes close for half a second.
I am a bad man. I have always known this. Other people know it too, though not as many as should. But the worst part of me is not the violence. It is not the orders I give or the blood I do not clean from my own hands anymore.
The worst part is this. That one please from her mouth makes me want to give her anything. “Then open your eyes,” I tell her.
She looks back at me, lust bright and unguarded in her eyes. My hand moves higher. She opens for me without meaning to, knees parting beneath the blanket, and I feel the heat of her before I touch her properly. I stop just short.
Her hips lift. Impatient. Instinctive. I put my free hand on her hip and hold her down. Her eyes fly to mine. “No chasing,” I say.
Her breath leaves her in a rush. “You’re so bossy.”
“Yes.”
“It’s annoying.”
“Yes.”
“I like it.” The words come out before she can stop them. I see the moment she realizes she has said them. I smile. She covers her eyes with one hand. “Forget I said that.”
“No.”
“Mikhail.”
“No,” I say again and touch her.
Her whole body jolts. My finger slides slowly through her slit, warm and wet, and I watch her face because I don’t trust myself to look anywhere else. Her mouth opens, but no sound comes out.
Her hand drops from her eyes and grips the sheet. Then my wrist. Then the sheet again, as if she can’t decide whether to pull me closer or push me away. I ease one finger inside her and hold it still there, pressing my thumb against her clit in a slow, gentle rhythm.
The low sound in her throat breaks into a gasp.
There. There is the sound I have been trying not to imagine.
I should not be the one to hear it. I should not be the one beside her in the dark, learning the way her body answers when her pride finally goes quiet. But I am.
I keep my touch slow enough to build as I begin moving my finger inside her. I do not push it as deep as I could. I let my thumb stay on her clit, pressing in a steady rhythm. I listen to every breath, every small movement, every place her body tightens or softens beneath my hand.
She tries to turn her face into the pillow. I catch her chin with my free hand. “No hiding.”
Her eyes are bright, her chest pink, her breathing thick. “I hate that rule.”
“You hate me too, but you obey,” I say into her ear and curl my finger more deeply inside her.
She makes a broken sound. My control slips one inch. I lower my mouth to her temple. Not her mouth. Not her throat. Not the places I want. Her temple.
Even there, she shivers. “Good girl,” I murmur before I can stop myself.