Page 55 of Mastered By Desire

I didn’t mean for the sex to happen. She’s just so hot, and sweet, and innocent. Maybe I wanted to corrupt her a little bit. My boss encouraged my lust for her. He even gave me her panties.

When I returned them to her, I put them in her mouth.

Then I choked her a little. And we fucked and I choked her some more.

And then I ran away like a fucking coward.

YTA, Dmitri. You’re the asshole.

Now that my asshole status has been established, I have to decide what to do about it.

The past five days, I’ve done everything I could to avoid Leah.

And it’s fucking killing me.

New plan: no avoidance.

I’ll face her head-on. Make nice.

The only thing I know how to cook is an omelet or a grilled cheese sandwich. Not exactly “hey sorry I’ve been an asshole” food. But I know she likes Thai, so I order take-out and bring it home.

Leah arrives soon after I do. When she sees me standing in the kitchen, she freezes.

“I just remembered I have somewhere to be,” she begins.

I hold out my hands. “Hey, don’t leave. We should talk.”

She comes all the way inside and drops her bag on the coffee table, looking defeated. Something is off. She looks sad instead of pissed.

I go to her and hold my arms out before dropping them. I don’t know if she wants to be hugged. “Leah, what happened?”

“Mick’s—Mick’s dead.” She closes her eyes for a long moment. Has she been crying?

Surprise renders me speechless. Then I blurt, “What the fuck, really?”

“Yeah.” She looks around the living room, dazed. Her eyes lock on a framed picture of my family, a Christmas gift from my mom.

“What happened?” I’m obviously not sad about his death, but it’s a shock to Leah. A shock to me, as well.

“I don’t know. I mean, he was shot. Murdered. It doesn’t seem possible, and I don’t know how it could even happen. Like, he was just a dumb gamer, right?” She rubs her eyes and shudders.

Maybe he was just a dumb gamer, maybe not. Sometimes we think we know the people closest to us. Growing up, I idolized my grandfather. Every time he told me I was “just like him,” I’d puff up with pride. Then I learned the truth about him. Turns out, I never knew him at all. Which means I don’t know myself, either.

Could be that Leah never really knew Mick.

I give up on trying to keep my distance. She needs a hug. I can do that. I pull her into my arms and try to ignore how right it feels. All the madness of the past few days, the itchy feeling that things aren’t locking into place? All of it disappears as soon as I hold her.

I was going to try to talk her out of participating in the auction next month, but that will have to wait. Fixing her distress is now my number one goal.

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m not sure. Confused. Sad, too. He wasn’t a good guy, at least not for me, but I thought I loved him at one point. Now he’s a dead body that someone left behind like trash. It doesn’t make sense.”

Violence never does. Eleven years later and I still replay that night of my eighteenth birthday, trying to create meaning out of what I witnessed. It’ll never happen. There’s no meaning. Never will be.

I squeeze her gently, trying to offer support. I never know the right things to say. Someone like Gage Jannik could break out the SAT words. Nothing flowery. But something big and thoughtful.

She speaks before I can think of anything to say. “I was—I was thinking I’d get some things together, stay in a hotel for a bit.”

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