Page 87 of Born in Depravity

The shakes came first.

I didn’t even realize it at first, until he tightened his arms around me. Then the tears came, and they wouldn’t stop.

These were silent cries, but I knew Mikhail was aware of every single one of them.

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

I didn’t want to be silent anymore. I wanted to tell somebody what happened. I wanted to tell him, for no reason other than to acknowledge that it was real. What I went through was real, and it wasn’t all in my head.

I wanted to tell him what that ugly, terrible man did to me. I wanted to tell him how badly his slap had shaken me, how I had felt when he laid his body on top of mine. I wanted to tell him about the fears I had when I realized he was trying to take his clothes off.

I wanted to tell him about the relief that hit me so forcefully once I saw Damien at the door. Once I saw the fury in his eyes, and knew it wasn’t directed at me. Wanted to tell him about the satisfaction I had gotten when Damien hit the man, and when the man cried with blood coming out of his broken nose.

Mikhail turned me until I faced him. For the first time, his blue eyes weren’t expressionless, but filled with so many emotions, I felt almost suffocated by it—in a good way.

I closed my mouth, my lips trembling.

I grabbed his hand and held it to my cheek. The cheek the man had slapped.

Mikhail cocked his head to the side, trying to figure out what I was trying to tell him without words. I shackled his wrist with my fingers and held him there and shook him a bit.

His brows furrowed.

With my other hand, I pointed to a particular sensitive spot. I was sure there would be a bruise there by tomorrow.

“Did the fucking bastard hit you?” he asked in a low voice.

I nodded.

“Right here?”

Again, I nodded, fresh tears coming out.

“Shh,” he said to me, though I hadn’t said anything. He cupped my face with both hands and pulled me closer, resting his forehead against mine.

I didn’t know what to do with this side of him, only that I wished it wouldn’t go away. I didn’t want him to go back to being mean to me. Didn’t want him to go back to being cold toward me. And I realized, with some finality, I would do whatever it took to ensure he wouldn’t.

They had finally broken me down.

I moved closer to him.

Mikhail’s eyes widened in surprise, before he quickly neutralized his expression, but he didn’t stop me. He wrapped his arms around me and he held me to him.

We stayed like that for a while. I didn’t know how long, but when the water turned tepid, Mikhail pulled away from me and drained half of it before he turned on the faucet and let in warmer water.

It felt good against my skin. I didn’t fight him when he cleaned me, and it didn’t take him long. The next thing I knew, I was standing in the bathtub, shivering slightly while Mikhail grabbed a towel. He wrapped one around his trim waist, drawing my attention to the skin on his upper body, all the beautiful art etched there, as droplets of water ran down the length of him.

Something hot unfurled inside me, and I looked away from him before he could notice.

Mikhail wrapped a big white fluffy towel around me and lifted me up in his arms, as if I was someone incapable of doing anything by myself.

He put me back on the bed and quickly pulled on black boxer briefs before sitting me between his legs and, like he had done before, brushed my hair.

He was gentle about it, untangling the long strands carefully.

My eyes grew heavy.

It seemed all I had done since we got here was eat and sleep, and I was still tired, even after my nap from earlier.

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