Anastasia’s mouth drops and her heartbeat quickens against mine. “That doesn’t mean she knows anything.”
“Oh I think she does.” My don’t-give-a-fuck smile makes her tremble with more shameful humiliation. “Don’t worry, I’m sure she’ll understand. She was young once.”
“You’re just being an asshole. She doesn’t know anything.”
“What if she did? You know it wouldn’t matter, right? You’re mine. Not Viktor’s. You never, ever were.”
The hurt in her eyes grips me more than it should and I want to grab her and shake her. There’s no question of her guilt, nor the strong feelings she has for her beloved Viktor. And I despise it.
When she was ready for me to take her, I wasn’t mistaken about the need and desire I saw in her eyes screaming at me to devour her. She wanted me. Then she remembered him and she stopped wanting me.
Or rather, the more accurate description is that she felt guilty for wanting me.
It’s an invisible war of shit. But I know I want her badly enough to fight.
I’m a possessive motherfucker that way. When I came here, it was to take everything, including her. It’s not enough just to take her body. A body is a shell. It’s what’s inside that counts. Those are the parts worth stealing.
We’ll continue our games—her punishment—until we can’t.
Until one of us cracks.
Until I break her and get my dear brother out of her system, or she breaks me by my wanting her so damn much.
“Be ready for me later.” I subsume my wretchedness and leave her staring after me.
While she questions her heart, I question myself.
I’m jealous of what she feels for Viktor.
That was never part of the plan.
Neither was obsession.
ChapterEighteen
Anastasia
Ifeel like a slut.
I can’t shake the feeling no matter what I tell myself or how I paint things in my mind.
Sluts don’t normally have the clash of emotions I’m experiencing.
Usually, they don’t care. I’ve encountered enough of them to know. There were tons of sluts in high school and even more in college.
They didn’t care as they went from one guy to the other. And they certainly wouldn’t have a problem with being with a guy’s older brother.
Not like me. The girl who’s committed her soul to its own shitty apartment in purgatory.
Here I am again, sitting on the sofa in the sun room, trying to study but failing miserably because I can’t get my guilt-riddled mind to think of anything else besides Desmier Volkova.
I’ve been back at college for a few days now. When I get home, I either study in here or by the pool.
Studying has been the only thing to distract me from the guilt I feel over the nightlypunishmentswhich send me deeper down the river of shame.
I just can’t do it today.
I’ve been in here now for the last three hours with my cognitive psychology textbook aging in my hands. I’m supposed to be reading about the early onset of neurodegenerative disorders, but I haven’t gotten past the first page.