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I raise my hand to slap him. “Stop taunting me,” I say. “I’m just not a slut like people from your side of the tracks.”
“People from my side of the tracks? We are both Russian. We are on the same side of the tracks, you idiot. No wonder your father doesn’t let you handle family business. You don’t know your own nationality.”
“I know plenty about my culture and nationality, and I know enough to know you’re just a butcher’s boy. You don’t want to hurt me. You don’t want to be in this situation. You want to be back with your family, out of trouble. The longer you hold me here, the worse it gets for you.” I realize I still don’t know his name.
He chuckles again and pulls a first aid kit from under the bathroom sink. “Wrong again, princess.”
I look at him, puzzled, but then he tugs me toward the living room. We sit beside each other on the sofa, and he unbuttons his shirt and pulls it off. There’s a brief moment when he removes the cuff from his arm, but he takes his shirt off quickly and slips it back on. I’m now sitting here with him, his shirt off. His chiseled body is marked with scars. I look at his wound and wince.
“Let me clean it. It’s easier if I do it.”
Chapter 7 - Arseny
I look into her eyes, and they look filled with guilt. I push the first aid kit toward her and lean back. “Don’t try anything cute.”
I watch as she opens the medical aid box and starts rummaging through it. She brings out gauze, tape, alcohol wipes, cotton balls, and some disinfectant. She then brings out a syringe without a needle.
“We need hot water,” she says to me.
I nod. “Up we get.”
“This is ridiculous,” she mutters.
“Sorry, but you did this to yourself,” I smile at her. I put a kettle on the stove to boil, and once it whistles, I pour it into a cup, and we sit back down by the first aid equipment.
I watch as she carefully arranges everything and then picks up the syringe and disinfectant. She pours the disinfectant into the hot water and stirs it with the syringe before she extracts some.
“This is going to hurt,” she says as she pushes the syringe into the wound.
“I’m used to pain,” I hiss as she plunges the syringe and hot disinfectant into the gash to rinse out the quarter-inch-deep wound on my chest. The liquid drips down my chest, and I follow her eyes as it pools on my pants by my crotch. I smirk and tilt my head. “Distracted?”
She blinks and shakes her head. “Another round. We need to get all the dirt out of there.”
She extracts more hot disinfectant and rinses out the wound. Then, she picks up a cotton ball, dips it in the mixture, and dabs it on the wound.
She is very gentle. How she calmly cleans the wound and how deft her hands are turns me on. I have never met a woman like this. I’ve never been dealt with like this. Maybe once upon a memory with Mama when I was younger, but father always demanded we be brought up strong and resilient. There was no room for tears in our home.
I’m close enough to Elena to smell her perfume mixed in with the earthy smell of the forest. If it weren’t for the disinfectant overriding it, it would be intoxicating.
“Why are you so angry about losing your father’s butchery? Why is it special to you?” she asks.
I shake my head. “It’s not. I just know your father is buying up all the butchers in the area, which is quite a power move.”
“What do you care? How are you connected to my world? You’re just a butcher's son.” She looks at me curiously.
“It doesn’t matter,” I grunt. “I just need as much information as possible right now.”
“But it’s your father's choice to sell the butchery. Surely, you should take it up with him. Not me.” She looks up at me as though this is the most logical thing she’s ever said.
I smirk, but I don’t answer her.
She discards the soaked and now dirty cotton balls. She takes the alcohol wipe and begins to wipe the wound. “It’s not deep, you won’t need stitches.”
“Feels deep,” I say. “Hurts like hell.”
“Sorry about that,” she looks at me with guilt in her eyes. “I just wanted to get away. I’ve never actually hurt anyone before.”
She blushes as though she’s revealed a big secret. I could have told you she’d never hurt anyone before, that she was a rookie.
