Page 39 of Cruel Demands

There are fates worse than death.

I count, not sheep or numbers, but doors. Something my father taught me long ago when I was just a boy and could not sleep, when my mother was sick of reading me books and would tell him, “Kirill, deal with your son.” He would come and tell me to keep my eyes open, that I had better not close them. The same manipulation he used on grown men worked just as well on his child. Then he would have me count doors. Bedroom. Hall. Stairs. Front room. Security office. Courtyard. Gate.

When I’m done counting doors, I count men. Nikolai at the east entrance. Yuri downstairs. Pavel in the car. Two more by the outer gate.

I count enemies. That takes longer.

Beside me, Taylor shifts. Then again. Then again. “Stop moving,” I say.

She freezes. “I’m trying.”

“You are failing.”

“You’re not a very soothing sleep companion.”

“I am not here to soothe you.”

“No,” she mutters. “You’re here to lie there like a sexually repressed vampire and judge my breathing.” A laugh almost leaves me. Almost. “Instead of…” she mutters, then trails off and goes quiet. I catch my laugh in my throat, where it turns into something rougher. “Instead of touching me.”

“Go to sleep, Taylor,” I tell her firmly, not listening.

She hates that. I can feel her hating it. Good. Let her hate it. Let her be angry enough to remember she has choices.

“You can still stay,” she whispers.

“I am staying.”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” I murmur, listening to her breathing and waiting for it to even out.

I wake in the silent room with Taylor asleep beside me. I do not know what pulled me out of sleep, but I honor the buzzing in my body, the cold shooting through my skin. With my arms behind my head, I move nothing but my eyes, sweeping the dark corners of the room for any boogeymen, all too real in my life.

Then the sheet whispers. Not much. Just a soft movement beneath the blanket. I don’t move, breathing shallowly in my chest, watching the slight rustle at Taylor’s hip.

I hear a strained breath, a gasp she bites off, turns her head, and gives to the pillow. No, surely she is not doing what I think she is. My eyes open wider, but I don’t move. At least, not any part I have control over. My cock twitches violently, and I have to open and close my fists and breathe deeply through my nose.

Then she moves again, and I know. I know exactly what she’s doing.

Her breath goes shallow. Uneven. One hand grips the pillow near her face, a sheen of glowing sweat shining over the high bone of her cheek in the pale moonlight slipping beneath the curtains. Her other hand is hidden beneath the blanket, moving carefully, secretly, desperately.

I stare at the dark line of her shoulder. I should say nothing. No. I should leave. No. I should tell her I’m awake and stop her. No. None of the answers leave either of us unscathed. She thinks I’m asleep. Or she hopes I am. Or she wants to be caught and doesn’t know how to ask. Any of those possibilities is enough to make a saint violent, and I am nothing close to a saint.

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.”