She rolls her eyes. “Don’t get too excited. I’m just not a cruel person.”
“I’d say you’re cruel.” My hand rounds the small of her back and I grab her hips, pulling her up onto my lap until she’s straddling me.
“How’s that?” she whispers, throwing her arms over my shoulders.
“The mere sight of you, the feeling of you…” My lips brush hers, and a groan escapes me. “It feels like a punishment. The worst kind, Fiona.”
“Aleksei…” My name on her lips feels like she’s begging me for something I don’t know if I’m ready for.
“You should go to sleep. You have work in the morning,” I tell her.
But I can’t seem to pull away, my fingers sliding into her hair. I want so badly to kiss her.
“Yeah, right… Work.” She sucks in a shallow breath, slowly slipping her arms from my shoulders.
It hurts to let her go, but I do it anyway.
She slides off me and stands there for a moment, her eyes on mine, and something flickers across her face. “Good night, I guess.”
She wants me to stop her. To join her. But I don’t.
“Sleep well.”
I curse myself for not getting up and following her as she scurries out of sight. Once she’s gone, I sit there like an idiot.
It shouldn’t feel like this. Like wanting her is a wound I keep digging into.
Why can’t it be easy? How does Konstantin do it and remain true to who he is? I don’t know if I have that in me. If I do, it’s buried so deep under everything I’ve done, everything I am, that I’ll never find it.
Something inside me locks up when she’s near. It pushes back, makes me say things I don’t mean, makes me cold when all I want is to hold her.
She thinks I’ve been avoiding her because I’m indifferent, but she’s never been more wrong.
If anything, Fiona should be relieved. Because I don’t know how to love someone without destroying it.
And she deserves better than that. She deserves better than me.
FIONA
I don’t expect him to follow me upstairs, but some stupid, naïve part waits for the sound of his footsteps anyway.
They never come, though.
It’s better this way. That’s what I tell myself as I strip out of my clothes and pull on one of the silk camisoles he bought me.
The silence stretches around me as I sit at the edge of the bed and stare at the wall, the corner of my vision catching on the faint outline of the open door. I hate how much I care. That I noticed the way he didn’t wince when I pressed down on his wound, the way he didn’t even flinch when I cleaned it. Like he’s used to the pain. Like it’s a friend he grew up with.
God, what kind of childhood leaves someone like that?
I pull my knees to my chest, wrapping my arms around them as I rest my chin on top. His words replay in my head.
It feels like a punishment.
Is that what I am to him? Or was that his twisted way of saying I matter?
I should be angry. Iamangry. He’s been cold, distant, shutting me out in every way that matters. Then he says things like that?
Kirill’s words echo again.
