Page 86 of Deviant Need

I wave him off. “I’m fine.”

“Did he hurt you?” His voice drops, careful.

“Let it go.”

He sighs, worrying his lip between his teeth. “You ready to see what I found?”

He picks up his phone and hands it to me. I zoom in on a newspaper article about a family massacre in Germany. Four people killed, one child missing. I swallow hard and look up at him, then back at the screen, reading it again to make sure I’m understanding this right. His family? But how does this connect to everything?

“That’s not all. Go to the other picture I took.”

I scroll to the next picture and gape at what I’m seeing. The child in the photo is around two years old. Those eyes, that face. It’s Daniil. No question about it.

He has bruises and cuts all over him, blood smeared across his dirty, small body. He’s only wearing a diaper and crying, holding a stuffed elephant tight against his chest. His ribs are sticking out, visible and pronounced under his skin. He looks starved, like he hasn’t eaten in months.

He loved that elephant and held onto it every night until he was ten, when he lost it somehow. He was inconsolable, wouldn’t sleep right for weeks. I spent an entire month tearing the house apart looking for it, and nobody else bothered to help.

I spotted another elephant at the store when I was with my my mother. I shoved it in my jacket when she wasn’t looking and brought it home for him. He smiled and said thank you, kept it on his bed, but it wasn’t the same. He still looked for the original one every night before falling asleep. We never found it.

The next picture shows our mother’s handwriting in Russian.

I look up at him. “You look like you got put through a blender in that picture. What happened to you?”

The pieces are starting to come together, but none of it makes sense. How did he end up with us? What happened to his real family?

Standing up, I slide over to his booth and sit beside him. My hand goes to his jaw, tilting his face so he has to look me in the eyes. “That picture was messed up. I’m sorry.”

He nods, and I wipe the tear off his face with my thumb. I press a quick kiss to his lips, then my eyes flick around the diner real quick, but nobody’s paying attention to us.

“We can eat our food and then drive home. You can pick whatever movie you want. I promise I’ll sit through the entire thing, even if you pick Star Wars.”

“That’s the biggest lie you’ve ever told.”

“I mean it. I’ll sit through that entire movie if it makes you happy, but I’ll probably be daydreaming about sucking your huge cock instead.”

He opens his mouth, and his eyes go wide in panic, a flush crawling up his neck. I can’t help grinning at him. He glances around nervously, checking if anyone heard.

He clears his throat. “No filter whatsoever.”

“Yeah, and you’ve dealt with it for how many years now?”

He leans his head against me. I wrap my arm around him and rest my chin on top of his head while we wait for our food.

Sprinting from the kitchen to the living room, I vault over the couch, landing hard on my ass. Daniil almost bounces off the cushions and shoots me a death glare, but I catch the small smile he’s trying to hide before he turns back to the TV.

Star Wars. Again. For the millionth time. I know every scene by heart now, could quote half the damn movie in my sleep.

Sitting still has never been possible for me. My body gets restless fast, needs constant movement, or I’ll crawl out of my skin. They slapped an ADHD diagnosis on me when I was a kid after I got expelled from three schools in one year. Fighting mostly, couldn’t keep my hands to myself when someone pissed me off. Threw a desk at a teacher once, but he deserved it for saying something he shouldn’t have.

Leaning back into the couch, I take a deep hit of the joint, then cup his chin. “Open for me.”

He opens his mouth for me, and I lean in to blow smoke between his lips, watching him take it in, watching his throat work as he holds it. He exhales slowly, and the breath hits my chin warm. I give up pretending I’m not staring and lean in to kiss him, soft and careful. Just a press of lips, but it lights me up inside.

He moves fast. His hand shoots to the back of my neck and drags me in hard, his tongue pushing into my mouth and taking complete control. I grab his face with my free hand and haul him closer, needing more of him, needing everything he’ll give me.

“I need you,” he whispers.

Those three words make me act like a dog with a bone.