Her face softens in a way that makes something in me pull tight. “So everything after that,” she says, “every move you made…”
“Was about revenge,” I say. “Yes.”
There is no point dressing it up. That has been the center of my life for too long to pretend otherwise.
Katerina is quiet for a moment. Then she asks, “And now?”
The question lands differently than it would have a year ago. Maybe even a month ago. I know what I would have said then. I would have told her it ends when he’s dead and buried and forgotten. I would have said it without hesitation.
Now I look at her sitting beside me in my bed, her hair loose, her face still soft from sleep, and I think about the children sleeping somewhere under her father’s roof. I think about the way she came to me anyway. I think about how badly I wanted revenge when I was younger and how badly I want something else now, something far more dangerous because I never planned for it.
“I still want him ruined,” I say. “I’m just starting to understand that I may not survive getting exactly what I wanted.”
That’s as close to honesty as I can make it.
Katerina moves closer and puts her arms around me. She doesn’t say anything clever or soft or unnecessary. She just holds me.
I let her. And for the first time in years, I feel how tired I really am.
“But,” I continue. “After what you told me…”
Katerina holds her breath. I cannot bring myself to finish the sentence. The children must be kept safe, no matter what.
“I wonder what they will think of me as their father?”
“Believe it or not, but they like you very much,” she says then slightly winces. “But they also think you’re pretty old.”
I roll myself towards her, so my cock is digging into her hips. “Do I feel like an old man to you right now?”
She giggles as an answer, and I kiss her mouth.
Morning comes slowly.
I wake with her still wrapped around me.
For a few seconds I don’t move. I just lie there and let myself feel the weight of her arm across my stomach, the warmth of her thigh over mine, the quiet sound of her breathing against my shoulder. The room is pale with early light. Nothing is urgent yet. No phone calls. No names. No blood. No fathers.
Just this.
Katerina stirs first. She lifts her head, blinks sleep out of her eyes, and for one unguarded second, she looks at me with such softness that it nearly undoes me all over again.
“Hi,” she says, voice rough from sleep.
I touch her face, brush my thumb under her eye. “Hi.”
She smiles a little, then seems to remember herself and tries to hide it. Too late. I’ve already seen it.
There is something different between us now. Not simpler. Nothing about us is simple. But the walls are thinner after thenight. After what I told her. After the way she held me when I finished speaking, without questions, without pity, just her arms around me and her body warm against mine.
She traces a line over my chest with one finger, absentminded at first. Then not absentminded at all.
I look down at her hand. Then at her. “You’re starting something.”
“I might be.” Her voice is still sleepy, but there’s color rising in her cheeks now, and that alone is enough to make me hard.
She feels it almost immediately.
Her eyes lift to mine.
