Page 161 of Promised to the Alpha Prince

“Sure,” I said. “But I don’t have all this latent sexual trauma—”

“Look, this may come as a fucking surprise to you, Johannes, but when I’m having consensual intercourse with people I love, I’m not actually thinking about the times in my life in which I was assaulted.”

“I didn’t think you were—”

“Yes, you did,” he said. “Because you thought we were having sex in a way that I ‘needed.’ And you apparently, the entire time that we were making love, were thinking about people assaulting me. You were tainting everything we ever had together by tying it to the worst things that ever happened to me. You were trapping me in that place, making me a perpetual victim. I worked through that shit a long time ago—”

“Bullshit,” I said. “You never worked through any of it. Every time we go into a room you’ve never been in, you go and look around for danger. You’re still—”

“But that’s not about the sexual part of it,” he said, clenching his hands into fists.

“How could it not be?” I said.

“You just don’t even understand me,” he said.

“I…” I didn’t know what to say. “I don’t think I do,” I said finally. Because I was sort of floored. I swallowed. “I want to, though. Look, I’ve been apologizing nonstop, sending you a thousand texts saying the same thing. I’ll do better. Tell me what you need from me, and I will give it to you. If I hurt you, I want to make it right. So, talk to me, for fuck’s sake. Please.”

Nikolai squared his shoulders. “I’m not a victim.”

I hesitated, and then I said, carefully, “Okay.”

He looked up at the ceiling of the car. “All right, all right. I am a victim. No. I was a victim.” He nodded, as if agreeing with himself. “I’m not anymore. I want you to stop seeing me that way.” He glanced at me.

I was quiet, just digesting that. Was he right? Did I see him as a victim?

Aurelie piped up, “Um, Johannes? I think maybe you sometimes feel sort of like you’re not very important?”

I leaned around Nik to give her a look, furrowing my brow.

“I don’t think that,” she said quickly. “I’m just saying, I think sometimes, you’re looking for ways to sort of prove to yourself that you’re important, or that you have some purpose or something. You’re the second in line to the throne, and you’re a rich prince, and you want some kind of, I don’t know, important work to do?”

“I mean, doesn’t everybody?” I said.

“Definitely,” she said. “And you are very good with people. You’re good at making people feel at ease and everyone likes you, and I think you go out of your way sometimes for other people in that way, but you maybe… have a tendency to turn people into, um, projects?”

I sat back and blinked hard, thinking that through.

“Like, Dmitri,” she said. “You wanted me and you to get in this conspiracy about how he’d had anal sex or whatever, but I talked to him, and it’s not about that. And—well, I mean, I don’t have a leg to stand on, because I do want us all to enter into a conspiracy to fix Dmitri, so… Maybe I just understand this about you, because you and I are similar in this way, Johannes.”

I cleared my throat. “I don’t want to fix you, Nik, I swear.”

“Are you sure?” he said. “Because with both of you, with Dmitri and you, you both have this savior thing with me. But at least with Dmitri he assumes it’s done. He already saved me, right? He wants me to be grateful and lick his fucking boots, but with you, it’s like, you can’t ever let me be saved. And I don’t know if you can see this, but if you’re always rescuing me or whatever, then we’re never equals. It’s this relationship where you’re always better than me—”

“No!” I shook my head furiously. “Absolutely not.”

“But do you see what I mean?” he said.

“Maybe,” I said. “But I swear to you, I don’t think of myself as better than you, Nikolai. I’m not trying to save you. I just want to love you the way you need to be loved.”

“Except you decide what that way is, not me,” said Nikolai. “You don’t ask me, you just assume, and sometimes, you’re wrong.”

I sighed heavily. “Shit. That’s like a Dmitri-level sort of power-play, huh? It’s fucked up. I didn’t even realize I was doing that.”

Nikolai reached over and seized my hand. “Fuck, baby, of course you didn’t. I’m sorry.”

Wait, he was apologizing to me?

“I…” He sighed. “I’ve been abused so much in my life, I expect the worst of people. I’ve been too hard on you. You have good intentions. You always have good intentions. I know this.” He shook his head. “I should know this.”

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