Page 31 of The Fire Beneath the Frost

All I could think—over and over like a broken reel—was: So this is what it’s supposed to feel like.

I’d spent my whole life assuming there was something wrong with me.That I was defective in some quiet, shameful way.The boys I grew up with, they used to whisper about girls’ legs, breasts, the way they giggled.They’d sneak glances at magazine covers, draw crude things in their notebooks.Laugh like they were all in on some great secret.

I waited for that feeling to come.I waited for it to awaken inside me like a sleeping beast.

It never did.

I told myself maybe I was a late bloomer.Maybe I was too serious.Maybe I just hadn’t met the right girl.

But the truth was—none of them made my legs shake.None of them made me want to melt into another person’s skin.

Petyr did.

God help me, all I wanted in that moment was to feel his body pressed against mine again.To kiss him until I couldn’t remember my name.And if there was more, if there were things to learn, things I had only imagined in the dark, I wanted him to be the one to teach me.

Petyr must’ve seen it in my eyes.The need, and the terror.The aching question mark of who I even was now.

He leaned in and pulled me close again.Not for another kiss, but to whisper against the side of my face, his breath warm against my temple.

“I want to make you feel things you never imagined possible.”

I shivered.Not from cold.Not even from fear.

From desire.

He stroked my cheek with the backs of his fingers, slow and deliberate.My breath hitched like I’d been sucker-punched in the gut.He looked around the room at the men who weren’t watching us, the shadows that welcomed our secrets, and then reached for my hand again.

I gave it to him without thinking.

Petyr pulled me through another doorway into a quiet, dark room.The heavy thump of muffled music barely reached this far.It smelled of mildew, old water, the faint trace of sweat and something older, more primal.I should’ve been disgusted, but all I could focus on was him.

Petyr turned to me again and kissed me.This time, it was slower, deeper, hungrier.I leaned into him like my body had given up on standing for itself.My cock was aching, hard and hot and straining in my trousers like it had a mind of its own.

I moaned into his mouth.Actually moaned, and my knees threatened to buckle, but I didn’t want to stop.

My hands were everywhere, Petyr’s shoulders, his chest, the sharp angle of his hips.I needed to know him.I needed to feel something solid because everything inside me was dissolving.His hands were equally greedy, sliding beneath my coat, then my shirt, fingertips grazing over my skin like they’d been starved for the taste of it.

I gasped again.

I didn’t know what I was doing.I was terrified.But I couldn’t stop.

He must’ve felt the way I trembled.Maybe he heard my breath falter again.

Because he broke the kiss, just enough to whisper, “Trust me.”

That word hit me like a slap.

Trust.

I’d been told to trust men all my life.Trust the Party.Trust my superiors.Trust the system.All it ever got me was bruised knuckles and a thousand unspoken things shoved into the back of my throat.

But right now?With Petyr?

I did.

God help me, I did.

I nodded, slowly, and watched the way his eyes darkened.His hands moved to my belt, then paused.I nodded again, more sure this time.

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