Page 85 of Vasily the Hammer

“I’m not going to have sex with someone who ruined my life!”

I’m not about to point out that she was seduced by a hoodie that I’ve worn for half a day and probably smells more like the TJMaxx we picked it up at than me. I’m not going to point out that I haven’t ruined her life either. I know I haven’t. I know that I made it harder than I should have, and I know that I could have done a better job of protecting her than telling Dima I didn’t want to know what was happening in her life. But I didn’t ruin it.

Nothing I say now will help my cause, so I curl my fingers into her hair, tugging it into my fist, and tip her head to the side so I can lick the long, delicate curve of her shoulder and neck.

A tremor runs straight through her body, bending her spine, grinding it into my shaft, making me groan her name as she whimpers mine.

I slide my hand from her breast down to the apex of her thighs. “Fuck,zvyozdochka,you move like that again, and I’m going to blow my load all over your back.”

“Stop!” she protests, but any true fight dies off when my middle finger wiggles in between her folds to swirl around her clit. She bucks back again, robbing me of my breath momentarily.

“You never mean it when you say that,” I chuckle lowly when I catch myself again.

“I do,” she pouts.

“You don’t.” Not when I scrape her most sensitive spot with my nail and her hand flies back to grab my thigh, to dig into the thick muscle there, to coax me into her. “You want this load in you pussy, don’t you?”

She drops her face to her other hand, the one that’s supporting her against the ancient, heavily-caulked, mildew-stained shower wall, and moans, “No, Vasya, no!” into her hand.

And then she pops one foot up onto her toes to go bow-legged, giving me space to slide my cock into her heat.

“Yes,zvyozdochka,you want me to fill you with my cum so you can grow another baby in your womb.”

I don’t know why that was the wrong thing to say. I’ve said things like that to her dozens of times before. I said it to taunt everyone watching our livestream in Flagstaff, foolishly putting my faith in her birth control pills even though she as good as toldme she didn’t take them like she was supposed to. I meant it every single time in Los Angeles because I was drunk on her, and despite my past convictions to keep her as far away from me as possible so I wouldn’t pass my curse on, I couldn’t let her go.

But the way she stiffens and then begins to shake, the way she brushes my hand away and spins in the space I’ve given her, facing me but not, her head hung down, I know I’ve said the wrong thing.

“I didn’t mean that,” I say automatically. I guess at the end of the day,Iwant her to have another baby, but that’s a lot right now and might be too real for her when I didn’t mean for it to be so serious in the moment.

“I can’t get pregnant again,” she bemoans with so much anguish I want to take it into myself and make it my own.

“Ana,” I sigh, not wanting to hurt her with the reality of the situation. “Are you sure you aren’t already?”

Her bottom lip actually warbles like this would be the most disastrous thing that ever happened to her and not an unexpected blessing at an unfortunate time.

Fuck me.

“No, Vasya.” She finally looks up at me with big, teary eyes before leaning into me so my shoulder will dampen her words. “When I had Artom, things didn’t go right. They had to do an emergency hysterectomy, so I—I can’t have any more kids.”

It’s . . .

It’s a lot.

For a second, all I can do is breathe as I absorb her words.

I’m a father, and I’ve never met my son. That will be rectified when this is all over. I’m going to raise my son.

But I’m never going to wait for a pregnancy test or know the feeling of my entire future getting rewritten by two lines on a pieceof plastic. I’ll never hear the heartbeat for the first time. Ana and I won’t debate over whether we want to know the sex of the baby.

I’ll never feel my baby kick inside her belly.

I won’t be able to satisfy her cravings, regardless of what they are. No late-night pickles and ice cream, no raging hormones that can only be satisfied with good cock. No reassurances that she is my goddess as she grows with my child.

No Lamaze class.

I won’t ever truly appreciate the moment my child enters the world. I won’t learn how to hold a baby properly and still be terrified but in a manly way. I won’t wear my baby proudly in one of those baby backpacks. I won’t suffer disaster diapers or cheer on first steps.

I won’t know the feeling of my baby calling me daddy the first time.

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