Page 43 of Cruel Demands

I keep my hand exactly as she asks. Not more. Not less. She turns her face into my shoulder. Not hiding from me this time. Hiding in me.

She is quiet. Still trying to be careful, even now. Still trying to make her desire small enough to be acceptable. I will not allow that. “Let me hear you,” I say.

She shakes her head against my shoulder.

“Yes.”

“This house is huge,” she whispers. “It echoes.”

Despite myself, I smile against her hair. “No one is listening.”

“You are.”

“I am meant to.”

“Okay,” she whispers, her cheeks pink and her breathing shallow. I watch her face, the way her mouth falls open between her words, and I know that I’m doing it to her, can feel the slick heat between her legs reaching all the way down her thighs. “Don’t make fun of me.”

Something black and possessive opens in my chest. I lift my head and look down at her. “Never.”

She believes me. I see it happen, and it terrifies me.

I move my hand again. Her fingers curl into my shirt. She falls apart by degrees. First her breath. Then her pride. Then the careful little wall she has built between wanting and asking. She says my name once, then again, and the second time there is nothing careful in it.

I have heard my name spoken in fear, anger, respect. I have not heard it like prayer.

Her body tightens around my finger. I know she is close before she does. She panics then. Her eyes open wide, and she grips my wrist hard enough to hurt. “Mikhail.”

“I know.”

“I don’t⁠—”

“I know.”

“It feels⁠—”

“I know,” I say. She looks at me, lost and furious and trusting me with all of it. I kiss her forehead. “Let it happen. I have you.”

That’s all it takes. Her body bows against mine, and I cover her mouth with my shoulder when the sound breaks out of her. Not to silence her. To give her somewhere to put it. She clutches at me, trembling through it, my name caught in her throat like something she cannot decide whether to curse or keep.

I don’t stop until she comes down. Then I stop immediately. No more. Not one more touch than she can answer for tomorrow. My hand leaves her slowly. I pull the blanket back into place with more care than I have used for anything in years.

Taylor lies beside me, breathing hard, eyes closed, face flushed. She looks younger afterward. Softer. Not innocent. I know better now than to confuse those things. But unguarded.

Mine, some brutal part of me thinks. No. Not mine. Not like that. Not yet. Never, if I have any decency left.

Decency. What an ugly thing to ask of myself now.

Taylor’s eyes open. For a moment, she says nothing. Then, very quietly, “That was not nothing.”

My chest tightens. “No,” I say. “It was not.”

She looks embarrassed again. I catch her chin before she can look away. “Don’t ruin it by being ashamed.”

Her throat moves. “I’m not ashamed.”

“You are.”

“I’m not.”