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“Show me,” I tell him. “Show me I’m yours.”
“Fuck, Kat.” He groans against my mouth, moving inside me, fucking me, but I know he’s still holding back.
“Hard, Lev. I need it. I need you to be like you were. No more kid gloves.”
He stops, then cups my face. His hair sticks to his forehead, and his eyes burn black. His fingers are rough against my cheeks. He nods once, and one hand slides to the back of my head, and when he tugs my hair, I make a sound, a grunt as he forces my head backward and kisses my throat, then shifts one hand to my shoulder, bracing me as he drives into me with urgent, short breaths, his burning eyes never leaving mine.
When I come, I come hard.
He pulls my hair, and I cry out. He thrusts one final time with an animal sound, and when he stills, I feel him pulsate inside me, and we watch each other like this. Here but not here. Together as we pant and come, and when it’s over, I’m spent. Limp. We both are as we lie against the table, catching our breath, sweat dripping from his forehead onto my cheek.
“Never doubt that you’re mine,” he croaks like they’re all the words he can manage. “You will always be mine.”
* * *
When I wake the next morning, it’s to find Lev leaning up on one elbow smiling down at me and pushing hair back from my face.
I’m groggy as I meet his smile with my own.
“How did we get upstairs?”
“You don’t remember?” he asks, raising his eyebrows and sliding his fingertips over the length of my bare shoulder.
But then it comes back to me, and a blush burns my cheeks as I recall what we did when we got upstairs.
“There you go.” He sits up, and I do the same, tucking the blanket over myself.
“What time is it? Why hasn’t Josh come barreling in here?”
“It’s ten, and I think Gleb’s keeping him busy.”
I turn to Lev, my face serious again as I study him. No cuts or bruises. But I remember the question from last night that he never answered.
“What did you do, Lev? Where did you go? I need you to tell me.”
He gets up out of bed and pulls on his jeans.
When he does that, I reach to grab his discarded T-shirt and slip it over my head, sitting up and watching as he picks up his leather jacket.
He used to have one like it before too. That and the white T-shirts he still wears. I remember how I pretty much fell into him the first time we met and smeared magenta lipstick across that pristine white shirt. It feels like an eternity ago. Another lifetime.
“I brought your things,” he starts. “From the apartment you shared with Rachel.”
“What?”
“I collected them the night you took off.”
I remember Rachel telling me that.
“They’re in my car.”
He carries his jacket over and takes two things out of a pocket, then sets the jacket aside and sits down.
“Do you remember what I promised you a long time ago?” he starts, still keeping what he’s holding out of my sight but picking up my arm and turning it over to trace the scarred skin, compliments of Mrs. George after she made me burn the record of abuse Joshua and I had been keeping.
I feel my face drain of blood and my stomach tighten.
“What did you do, Lev?”
“I promised you I’d punish her. And I promise to punish anyone who ever tries to hurt you or our family again.”
“Lev?”
“She doesn’t deserve your tears. She paid. And she’s gone now.”
He opens his hand and lets what he’s holding fall, my gut clenching as I recognize the chain that’s unraveling. The hideous cross that dangles from it.
My hand is at my mouth, and I lean away, my eyes locked on that thing. That cross she’d clutch. I can almost hear her voice, hear her prayers while she stood by as he did what he did to us.
“Hey.” Lev closes his hand around it, eyes urgent on mine when I lift mine to his. “I thought…fuck, I don’t know what I thought. I’ll get rid of it.”
He turns to walk away, but I catch his arm.
“No. It’s not…you didn’t do anything wrong. I just…seeing it again…” I swallow back the lump in my throat and steel my spine. “Give it to me.” I hold out my hand.
“I’ll take care of it. Get rid of it.”
I shake my head. “I need to do that. I need to bury it.”
He studies me for a long time, then finally pockets the thing.
“Lev—”
“We’ll do it together.”
“But—”
“There’s something else. Something much more important, Kat.”
He shows me the other thing, and my heart hammers against my chest in anticipation of what other piece of the past I’ll be confronted with.
