Page 43 of Corrupted Guilt

“It wasn’t your responsibility to save Tasha from herself any more than Dmitry.”

Keeping my head down, I stared at the hand over mine, elegant but brutally strong, with a faint scattering of hair on the back of it.

"You won't be able to go home, ever. Or back to school for a while."

"Oh," I said. "You mean, I can't go back at all."

"That's right," he said.

I thought about it, looking at him, saying, "Will you take me with you?"

"Isn’t that what I did?”

“Yes, but now I’m asking.”

“For how long?"

I managed a wan smile. "Until one of us gets bored, I suppose."

"Will you break down anymore, like you did tonight?"

"No. That was just a surprise, that's all. The same thing won't surprise me twice."

"Maybe something else will surprise you."

"I don't think so."

“I blame myself.”

“I know. You’re suffering for nothing, but you intend to suffer anyways.”

“It’s not even suffering, I feel numb.”

“Maybe I can make you feel something,” he said.

18. Yuri

Closing my eyes, I leaned my head back against the bed frame and exhaled a long, slow sigh. … I wanted her badly.

I hated it when women cried. Hated. Hated. Hated it. At the first sign of tears, I got angry, or I left the room. But as soon as my arms had gone around Katya, everything I’d been certain of was gone.

She reached for me not out of passion just the need for human touch. It electrified me. No one had ever sought comfort from me before, and the act of giving it had felt more unspeakably intimate than the most blistering sex. I’d felt the force of my entire being wrap around her in a moment of sweet, raw connection.

My thoughts were in anarchy. My body still smoldered with Katya’s slight weight in my lap. I had kissed her silky cheek, damp with salt tears and I wanted to kiss her again, everywhere, for hours. I wanted her naked and exhausted in my arms.

I couldn’t believe this girl wasn’t a complete wreck after what I had put her through and what her father had put her through and what she had put herself through. She should be crying in a corner, incomprehensible, inconsolable. But here she was, strong enough to be weak in my arms.

“Tell me why you chose here college over marrying Petya or me?” The question came tumbling out unexpectedly but now that it was out there, I desperately wanted to know the answer. A weak person would have jumped at the protection and limitedindependence a sham marriage would have afforded. Escaping from marriage would have been easier than escape from here. But she rejected that easier path.

“Marriage never works out the way it’s supposed to,” she answered without thinking.

“How do you mean? How should it work out?”

“Two people should be able to stand each other.”

“Sure, that helps,” I chuckled.

“No, really. Too many end up with slammed doors and separate bedrooms and persist like that,” she insisted.

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