Page 45 of Cruel Demands

I look away.

Not because I am noble.

Because I am not.

I stand and cross to the window, adjusting myself with an irritation that is almost anger. My body doesn’t care about consequence. It has never been especially loyal to my better judgment.

Outside, Moscow wakes beneath a thin white veil. Cars move slowly along the street beyond the gate. Men walk with their collars turned up, heads bowed against the cold. A normal morning. An ordinary city pretending it is not full of rot.

I pick up her dress, underwear, and tights from the floor and fold them neatly on the chair next to the bed. Beside me, Taylor makes a soft sound and shifts.

I close my eyes. I should have sent her home.

No. Earlier than that. I should have let her return to her friend at the bar. I should have ignored the way she said lonely like she was naming me in front of witnesses. I should have heard twenty and stood up, paid the bill, and walked away.

Instead, I brought her here. Instead, I know the sound she makes when she’s trying not to ask for more.

There are lines I didn’t cross last night. I can recite them if I need to. I did not take her virginity. I did not use her drunkenness as permission. I stopped when I realized she was not as ready as she wanted to be. I made her say what she wanted. I gave her less than she asked for.

All of that is true. None of it absolves me from what I did do and how I feel about it. How I know she will feel about it. The kind of life I brought her back to, knowing it was not safe.

The mattress creaks. “Mikhail?” Her voice is rough with sleep. My name in it is worse in the morning.

I turn. Taylor pushes herself up on one elbow, her long dirty-blond hair tangled around her face, her bangs pointing in several directions, my shirt sliding off one shoulder. For a moment, she looks confused. Then the room returns to her. The bed. The windows. Me standing half-dressed near the curtains.

Her eyes widen. Then her cheeks go red. Not delicately. Completely. “Oh my God.” She looks down at herself, grabs the blanket, and pulls it to her chest. She makes a sound between a groan and a laugh, then drops her face into her hands. “I want to evaporate.”

“That seems dramatic.”

“I learned from your house,” she repeats, and a smile moves at the edge of my mouth before I can stop it.

That is how it happens, I think. Not with the girl in the dress. Not with the mouth and the hands and the feverish stupidity of night.

This. Her in my bed, embarrassed and sharp-tongued in the morning light. This is what will ruin me if I let it.

Her eyes narrow. “You’re enjoying this.”

“No.”

“You are.”

“A little.” I point to the chair. “I folded your clothes.” Taylor’s blush deepens when she notices her underwear on top of the pile. I turn away. “Towels are in the cabinet. You know where the bathroom is. I will have coffee brought up.”

“Coffee?” She sits up too quickly, panic wiping away what remained of her modesty. She clutches the blanket to her chest with one hand while wriggling out of my shirt with the other, then tosses it onto the floor in front of me. “What time is it?”

I glance at my watch. “Eight thirty-seven.”

The color drains from her face. I know before she says it. “No,” she whispers.

“What?”

“No, no, no.” She throws the blanket back, then barely seems to remember that she is naked before snatching it against herself again. “My job. My job. I start today.”

The word lands unpleasantly. Job. Reality returns with it. Not the soft morning reality of coffee and borrowed shirts. The real one. Schedules. Names. Places. The world outside my locked bedroom.

“What time?”

“Nine.” She looks around frantically, as if the answer might change if she finds the right corner of the room. “Nine. I have to be there at nine. I’m going to be late. I’m going to be late on my first day. Oh my God, my parents are going to kill me. No, I’m going to kill me first.”