“Why did you save me?” Her tone weakens. “You shouldn’t have. If you hadn’t, Nadia and Nicholas would still be alive.”
“We don’t know that. No one does. But there’s one thing for certain. If you go back there, all the effort they put into you will be for nothing.” I release her. “If that’s what you want, go right ahead.”
Her lips purse, then she grinds her teeth and releases a sound of absolute desperation.
This time, she can’t seem to control the tears that pour out, soaking her chin. She tries to wipe them away and miserably fails to put an end to them.
“Why am I so weak?” She dabs at her eyes with both hands even as she cries like a baby.
“You’re not weak.” I pat her shoulder. “You’re just human.”
It’s only a simple gesture and a few words to make her snap the fuck out of it, but it’s as if I’ve opened Pandora’s box.
Sasha throws her whole weight against me. Her head leans on my chest, and her sniffles echo in the air.
“I can’t…I just can’t stop thinking about how it’s all because of me… Everyone dies because I exist in their lives…”
Who’s everyone?
I don’t ask that, though, knowing full well that she’s not in the right state of mind to answer. Or that if I do ask, she might pull away, and that option doesn’t necessarily appeal to me.
She places her chin on my chest, staring up at me with eyes so wretched and full of pain, they nearly appear black. “Am I cursed?”
“Only if you believe you are. Try to think that you’re not.”
An ironic smile lifts the corner of her full lips. “You make it sound so easy.”
“You can make it easy.”
She buries her face in my chest again and nuzzles her nose in my clothes. My hand twitches, but I have no fucking clue if it’s to remove her or hold her closer to me.
One thing’s for certain, her closeness has become fucking unbearable ever since the day she ‘unknowingly’ dry humped me.
I was seconds away from pinning her down, tearing her clothes off, biting her skin, and fucking her until she cried and screamed.
Every time she’s come close since, I’ve been having the same images. Only, they’ve intensified tenfold.
Like right now.
It doesn’t matter that she’s grieving or having a weak moment that she hates so much. All I can think about is biting, marking, and sucking on her skin. Maybe even confiscating these tears so that they belong only to me.
So no one else but me will be able to see her in this state.
My body goes rigid despite myself. The weight of the image and the need to act on it are clashing, and the only loser is my resolve.
If Sasha notices the change, she doesn’t act on it and continues crying in my chest.
I close my eyes and tip my head up.
Fuck.
These are going to be the longest few hours of my life.
14
SASHA
Nadia’s and Nicholas’s deaths hit me hard.