“Are you awake?” I ask him once I notice his eyelids flutter.
Tommy grunts and attempts to roll over onto his back but there’s simply not enough room. I move up until I’m sitting on the bed instead of lying down so that he has a little more room.
“I am now,” he grumbles.
I brush my fingers along his bare hip and back up to his waist again, avoiding the stitched wound that is red and angry.
“How are you feeling?” I tilt my head to the side, my gaze moving up to his face.
He sighs and opens his eyes all the way. “Sore, but alive,” he tells me. “You?”
I purse my lips. “I’m fine.”
Tommy rolls over onto his back to his other side and then reaches out for me. “Come here.” His voice is low and raspy, it causes a shiver to run up my spine and I can’t resist his command. Usually I’m the more dominant one, but in this moment, I don’t care.
I lay back down on my side, facing him, and press my forehead to his. This moment feels softer, more vulnerable, than any moment before. I’m not sure how I feel about it. Anxiety fills me.
Getting attached to this man is a bad idea, and I know it. Letting him see parts of me that no one else gets to, is even worse of an idea.
Despite this, I don’t move. I stay here with him, against his naked body with my clothed one and look into his eyes.
“What are you thinking about?” I ask him after a long moment of silence.
“You,” he admits. “I’m curious about you.”
“What about me?” My voice is just barely above a whisper.
Tommy brushes his fingers along my jawline while he speaks. “Everything. Where you grew up, what your parents were like, why you are the way you are.”
I chuckle weakly. “Those are…loaded subjects,” I say. “Especially that last one.”
“So, tell me,” he insists. “Anything. I’ll listen.”
I hum softly while thinking. “I grew up in Volgograd. My family was very poor. Most of my memories before I was eight are eating potatoes every single night because it’s all we could afford,” I explain.
“What happened when you were eight?” he asks me, seeming to catch on.
I look down at his mouth then his chest as I speak. “My father discovered the world of hired killers,” I tell him. “Discovered he didn’t much care how he made his money, as long as he did. He dragged me into it when a friend of his stole some of his money to pay a gambling debt back. Put a gun in my hands and told me to end it for him.”
“Damn,” Tommy whispers. “Did you?”
“Yes,” I say. “He wasn’t alone though, there was a little girl there, about my age, his daughter.”
Tommy’s breath catches in his throat. “What did you do?”
“Whenever anyone asks that I tell them I killed her,” I say.
“What did you really do?” he asks.
“I married her.” My eyes meet his again.
He blinks. “So, that’s how you met your wife…Damn. How did she forgive you for killing her father?”
“She didn’t forgive me, she thanked me. Apparently, the man beat her regularly. So, killing him saved her. Even if it meant she was on her own after that… I always looked out for her.” My heart squeezes in my chest and my throat tightens even more. “I guess in the end it’s true though… I did kill her.”
Tommy’s hand grips my shoulder. “No, you didn’t, Alek. You couldn’t have known what was going to happen.”
“If I wasn’t involved in this killing shit, had a respectable job, we might’ve lived somewhere nice. Somewhere I wasn’t afraid of getting caught,” I insist. “I wouldn’t have needed to watch my back…and failed at it.”
