Page 117 of Vulnerate

“You only want to fuck me.”

“I want to worship your body because it holds everything of the woman I love. I want to fuck you so we can have another kid. I need to fuck you because it’s the only way for me to be a fraction of the depth inside of you that you’re in me. You think I don’t love you? Ask me for anything other than leaving me and I’ll give you it.”

She finally relents and lays her head on my shoulder. Her voice is softer and makes patterns on the side of my neck with the tips of her fingers. “Okay tell me something true, something no one else knows.”

I give her my biggest secret and something that was always meant to die with me on a whisper. “I thought about running away when Viktor was a baby. I was tired and since the first moment I knew he existed there’s been this band, a fist, inside my chest stopping my lungs from fully inflating.”

She softens as my voice lowers and I rest my forehead on hers feeling the same turbulent emotions as when he was a baby.

“He cried all the time when he was teething and I was a teenager. I didn’t know shit, some nights I would take him to Vlad just so I could breathe. And others, I’d sit there planning a new life. One where he was looked after, and I was far away so I couldn’t fuck him up. Vlad and Dima would’ve raised him, they were doing it in front of me anyway, so I thought about it, and I was invested in the plan enough to get fake papers with a new name. I know it makes me a shitty father, but the thought of me hurting him wasn’t an option.”

I’m not helping my case by telling her how dark those thoughts were. But I was lost, there’s no regret over my decision to stay in my kid’s life which just makes the shame of the thoughts that much deeper. I was going to abandon him, leave him and start a new life.

Soft lips brush my jaw with an equally gentle claim.

“You’re a good dad, he loves you.”

I look down and correct her, “He treats me like a sibling because I was an idiot and I’ve let him do whatever he wants, I still do it now. Vlad had to teach me how to change his diaper, Dima potty trained him, and I copied the instructions he showed me. I was just there doing dumb shit to make him laugh because every time he cried it was like someone was stabbing me.”

“How is that a bad thing? He knows you’ll always be there for him, that he can ask or tell you anything and you won’t abandon him.”

The way she says it makes it a positive when I know the next kid we have is going to be raised differently. That shit isn’t fair on Viktor, he’s my first kid and he should have gotten the best too.

The elevator pings and Dani lifts off me so I can check who it is. I don’t expect to see Viktor walking towards me with his eyes closed and my heart cracks at the unease in his voice. “Dad?”

I lower my voice and walk towards him. “Yeah, what’s wrong?”

He shakes his head and squints. The color has gone from his face and he winces with each movement.

“Nothing, I don’t feel good, can we watch movie?” I pick him up and I know he’s bad when there’s no heat in his voice. “I can walk.”

Pressing my cheek to his temple to test his temperature, I make circles on his back. “I know you can, I just miss when you were little, and you’d sit on my shoulders everywhere I went.”

He smiles but doesn’t open his eyes as I walk into my room.

“I remember that. You’d let me fall asleep there too and you wouldn’t move until I woke up.”

I hum and sit back against the headboard as I fully relax and dim the lights. “You’d drool in my hair, it was better than you pissing on me though.”

Dani’s face melts and she just blinks up at me as she lays on her side while Viktor gets defensive.

“I don’t drool.”

He taps the back of my head lightly, so I keep making circles on his back. “You do, I have to swap your pillow out in the middle of the night because it’s full of spit.”

His eyes are still closed but he’s not tired as he issues a threat.

“The next time you need a hug I’m not going to do it and you can hug the spit pillow.”

My phones buzzes and Tali’s message comes through, forcing me to split my time.

Tali:

Inessa just threatened to shoot me if I don’t let her go look for King Crazy ??

If I lock her in her room do you think she’ll actually do it?

She’s got shit aim but crazy women can get superhuman strength, right?

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