Page 267 of Bad for Me

Hello, slut.

We aren’t playing bedroom games now, and we never had been. Maybe his reactions had been genuine, but they’d be coerced, too. Neither of us had disclosed what had happened behind closed doors. That doesn’t change the fact that ithadhappened.

“Delivery,” Misha says, holding up the bags. “Mr… Peterson, was it?”

My throat goes dry. I nod and quickly step aside. “Thanks.”

Misha walks inside, a lot calmer and more confident than I feel. He sets the bag down on the counter of the 70s style kitchen.

After a quick glance around, he laughs. “This place is a dump.”

I glance around at it, as though I’m going to see a new kitchen in the place of the existing one. It’s still all there in its tacky glory, and my cheeks burn in humiliation. It’s not like I can ask the marshals to upgrade my digs to a nicer place.

Part of me thinks they chose this place on purpose, just to remind me how far I’ve fallen.

“Nah. If it was a dump, it would have more stuff in it,” I joke feebly, gripping the counter behind me. My appetite, which I’d thought had been lost, resurges at the smell of the food coming from the bags. “You brought me food?”

“Yep. Hope you like Thai,” Misha answers. He starts going through my cabinets to pull out plates and cutlery. “It’s my favorite type of food. In case you were wondering.”

I start unboxing the food, taking note of the dishes he’d chosen. “I like Thai,” I say.

I’d have said that even if I didn’t.

“Thank you,” I add, only to go awkwardly silent after that. What am I supposed to say to this man? It’s not as though “I’m sorry” covers it, especially when I’m not actually sorry at all.

Misha doles out some food for himself and sits down at the table, right where I’d been sitting to eat my ramen.

I watch him eat for a few minutes, unsure of myself, until he looks up at me. “You don’t want to eat?” he asks.

My stomach rumbles, making it impossible for me to claim I’m not hungry. “I do,” I say carefully. I sit down in the only other chair. “But I guess I’d also like to know if this is my last meal as a somewhat free man.”

“If you don’t cooperate, it might be,” Misha answers. He catches my glare and laughs. “I’m here on official capacity. Now that I’m cleared for work again, I argued that I already have a ‘rapport’with you, so we might as well have me be the official point of contact on this investigation.”

It’s a good thing I’m sitting down.

“Won’t work,” I tell him without batting an eye, though.

Misha actually looks surprised — and a little disappointed, too.

I pick up a plastic fork, studying the pad Thai in front of me. It looks good, smells good, too, but I’m not going to beat around the bush. “It won’t work because I’ve already gotten a taste of you,Misha. I refuse to see you again and again without being able to touch you.”

Misha stops eating and looks at me far more seriously. “That’s your condition? If you don’t get to fuck me, you don’t help take down more child slavers?”

I blink at him, just as surprised as he’d been. “What? No?” I shake my head. “That’s not what I…” I make an agitated noise before spearing my noodles with the fork. “I’m supposed to be a law-abiding citizen now, which means I can’t fuck my point of contact.”

Misha glances down at his food, not saying anything for a while.

The silence is awkward, and it stretches on for a long moment.

“I didn’t have to take this posting,” Misha says quietly. “I think a lot of people argued against it, in fact. But…” He lets out a soft huff. “I couldn’t get you out of my head either. I’ve never felt anything like that. And if you’d resisted, if you’d decided keeping other slavers operating was more important… If you hadn’t saved Tiffany—that is, ‘Fifi’—and the others, or if you hadn’t led us to those kids you’d already saved…”

I swallow hard, looking at his handsome face, wanting more than anything to just touch him and run my fingers through his hair. I have to remind myself that we live in a different world now, one where I can’t just touch him and take him whenever I please. “I did a lot of things, said a lot of things,” I say, carefully choosing my words.

His lips part like he’s about to try to speak, but I shake my head and he quiets. I have more to say.

“I also raped you,” I continue. “I’d do it all over again, too. So that… That’s why it won’t work.”

Misha meets my eyes. “Yeah. You’re not a good person. Turning over a new leaf now doesn’t absolve you of your past sins. But I think there’s hope for you. And what you did to me…” He shrugs. “I know what most people would say about it. But my therapist said there’s no one correct way to feel about what happened to me. So forgive me if I don’t think what you did to me is the same as what’s happening to all those people I’m working to save.”

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