“It’s the only answer I can give you.”
I settle back against his chest, hyperaware of his heartbeat under my ear, of how his body goes taut whenever I ask the wrong questions.
“Will you stay with me?”
“Of course.”
He adjusts so I can curl against his side, and he strokes my hair with gentle repetition. The gesture is soothing, but I can feel the control it’s taking for him to be tender when something darker lurks beneath the surface.
“The man in the memory,” I say quietly. “He knew what he was doing. Like he’d mapped my responses.”
“Perhaps it was an old boyfriend.” Dmitri’s hand stills in my hair. “Some men are just experienced.”
“It wasn’t experience. It was data collection.”
“Explain?”
“He touched me like he was running diagnostics. Like my body was equipment he needed to test.”
“That sounds like a nightmare, not a memory.”
“Maybe. But nightmares usually aren’t that detailed.”
He’s quiet for a long moment. “Try not to think about it. Focus on what’s real.”
“And what’s real?”
“This. Us. Right now.”
Something about the way he says it makes me think he’s trying to convince himself as much as me. Like he knows our time is limited and he’s trying to hold onto whatever we have before it disappears.
“Dmitri?”
“Mm?”
“In my other dreams, the violent ones… I’m not afraid. I’m good at what I’m doing.”
“Dreams don’t always reflect reality.”
“What if they do?”
His hand starts moving in my hair again, but the gesture feels more anxious. “Then we’ll deal with whatever that means when the time comes.”
The words should comfort me, but they don’t. There’s something desperate about the way he says them, like he’s making promises he’s not sure he can keep.
As I drift off, I catch him staring at the ceiling with the look of a man who knows he’s living on borrowed time. Like he’s waiting for something to happen that will change everything between us.
And maybe destroy it entirely.
7
Dmitri
“You look like shit,” is my brother’s greeting before he even sits down.
“Good morning to you, too, brother.”
Alexei’s always been the impulsive one. Quick to anger and slow to think. Deadly when it counts. He looks like he wants to strangle someone today, and I’m pretty sure it’s me.
