Page 55 of Corrupted Guilt

And it would kill me. Not my body. But inside my heart, my soul whatever the hell you want to call it that place deep inside that I had never let anybody touch me. Until Katya had slipped in, past all my defenses, broke through all my walls and became a part of my mind and my soul my heart.

I knew what I had to do to really protect her. It wasn't marrying her. It wasn't locking her up in any safe house or safe room or fucking fallout shelter. It was letting her go. Sending her away from this life, from the bratva and then going on in living my life, such as it was, without her.

I had always been alone very much inside myself, and it always seemed perfectly natural, and I had never wanted it to be any different. Even when Dmitry took me home with him, got me off the streets. I was still alone. I wasn't his brother; I wasn’t Viktor’s son or Katya’s brother. They were a broken and fractured family, and I was a guest, also broken and fractured but never part of them, never a family member.

Dmitry, more than Viktor, included me in everything and treated me like one of the family but I wasn't. I knew I wasn't. I was apart, alone, different. And I didn’t mind.

I must have known—or suspected at least, as a child— how much it would hurt to love. So, I didn’t.

The Kolesovas were too broken, incapable of love once the mother passed. Katya was capable and came closest, but I never allowed myself to get close to her. Except that one night.

I was too intense to fall in love easily like Dmitry or even Katya. She loved me since she was a child— schoolgirl crush sort of thing. I enjoyed it but I knew that if she could love me like that, then she could love someone else just as easily.

And I knew she would grow out of it, grow up and see the real me and know how unlovable I was.

I also knew what I liked about it— the schoolgirl looking at me like I was a God. Admiring me, looking up to me, worshiping me, idealizing me. Inventing the perfect me in her mind— not seeing any of the bad only the good. But now I've shown her the bad—rubbed her face in the bad.

I use the 90 percent rule for most of my men: I love 90% of who they are what they do, 90% of what they bring to the table. But every man I have, there’s that 10% that I don't like. That 10% that I wish I could change. But that's the thing. Someone like Maxim is childish, he doesn’t take most things seriously. For Anton it's the taking everything seriously and not being able to relax and connect with the people under him. But that 10% that I don't like in them is what makes that 90% possible. I had to learn to love the 10% because the 90% was impossible without it. I could do that with my men, and I could do that with Katya, but I don't think she could do it with me.

My coldness and emotional distance had been my greatest defense, but Katya shattered it and now it hurt. It hurt so goddamn much.

My body hurt but it was my heart, soul, mind, or whatever the hell you want to call it that hurt more.

My body was much better after a few days of drug-induced sleep and the care of Katya.

I couldn’t believe she had stayed by me the whole time. She had endless chances to escape—at the cemetery, every time I slept since then. Yet she stayed each time. She carried me fromthe wreck and dragged me to her new Jeep and back to the lake house, into her bed.

And she has positively ignited since she started to settle into this lake house: decorating, cooking, building fires, turning this house into her home, her nest. The pride and sense of accomplishment has lit her up and given her confidence from her toes to her ears, she even walks surer of herself in this place and breathes deeper, calmer.

I was finishing her breakfast of cheesy eggs and bacon while she watched, hovered over me really. Annoying but slightly endearing.

“I like you much better like this,” Katya told me. “Weak as a kitten, harmless, —"

“Inyourbed,” I finish her thought for her. She blushes and ignores me.

“Weak, dependent on me for everything, my little kitten,mykiska—”

“I won’t be here very long, and I’m still strong enough to drag you in here with me,” I said as I reach out for her waist, but she slips away, and I wince at the sharp pain in my side.

She admonished me, “Dr. Zemlin said you’re supposed to stay still, no movements that put pressure on your ribs. No pulling or liftinganything, especially me. You must rest,” she scolded, adding, “Absolutely no sex until you’re better.”

“The usual flavor of sex between us would be very painful for me, but we could branch out and try something easier on me, something where you do most of the work,” I tell her, then add innocently, patting the empty space on the mattress beside me, “I’ll rest if you stay with me.”

She eased into the crook of my arm, “Is this hurting you?”

“I’m feeling better by the minute,” I say as I pull the covers over us both.

My thumb grazed the edge of her lower lip, then slipped down, stroking the soft skin beneath her chin before pulling her in for a long, deep, wet kiss.

My mouth covered hers, hot and slow, and my hand drifted down along her spine, bringing her hips aligned with mine. I kissed her more aggressively, my tongue probing, searching deeper, as she moaned in response.

This bed was the entire world while we kissed, and our hands wandered. She moaned into my mouth as I cupped her ass and brought her closer to my erection.

“No, you can’t, your ribs—” she pretested.

“I’m fine. Better than fine. Much better, aren’t you?” I assuaged her as I guided her hips, rolling them with mine, against my cock until she began to moan with each stroke.

Who would ever have thought this gentle, almost-sex could be so amazing? I cursed my cracked ribs for not being able to really fuck her the way I wanted to, needed to, but this soft and gentle stuff was severely underrated.

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