Page 40 of Cruel Demands

“I would rather die.”

Despite everything, my mouth curves. “Very dramatic.”

“I learned from your house.”

A laugh leaves me, quiet and unwilling. Her shoulders relax by one careful inch. She lets out a shaky breath. I don’t touch her. Not yet. I lie there close enough to feel the warmth of her body through the sheets, not close enough to trap her. Her hair spills across the pillow between us. My shirt has slipped off one of her shoulders again, exposing the tanned curve of it. I want to put my mouth there. I want to put my mouth everywhere.

Instead, I say, “Tell me what you were doing.”

She covers her face with one hand. “Please don’t.”

“Do you want me to stay?”

“Yes. I’m sorry.”

“You want me to stay. You want me to know. So, tell me.”

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t. Tell me.”

“I was…” She stops and swallows. “You know what I was doing.”

“I do.”

“Then why are you making me say it?”

“Because if I guess, I take something. If you tell me, you give it.”

The room goes quiet again. This time, the silence has a different shape. Taylor lowers her hand from her face. Still facing away, she whispers, “I was touching myself.”

Heat moves through me so hard I have to close my eyes. My control is not gone. It is worse than gone. It is aware. Every part of it is awake, strained, listening. “What were you thinking about?” I ask.

She makes a small, frustrated sound. “What do you think?”

“Say it.”

“I was thinking about you.”

I inhale once through my nose. “What about me?”

“Mikhail.” The warning in her voice is weak. My name in her mouth is not.

“What were you thinking about?” I ask again.

She turns her head slightly, not enough to look at me. “Your hands.”

I look at my hand on the mattress between us. Scarred. Broad. Not gentle by nature. “What about them?”

“How they felt.”

“Where?”

She presses her face harder into the pillow. “This is cruel.”

“Yes,” I say. “A little.”

That makes her laugh once, breathless and mortified. Then she says, “On my legs. On my wrists.”