I turn my eyes to it. Anything to end this.
“A defensive wound. The crosshatching shows that the scar was made when you were very young.” His gaze is fierce with soul. “It’s what happens when the skin stretches over it as the body grows. This one you got when you were ten, defending a child in your housing block from a sadistic teenaged predator.”
His fingers move along the raised ridges of the scar as if it speaks a language only he can divine. I feel magic in the space between us.
“You threw yourself into danger so that the weaker child could get away. You were like this, Tanechka. Even in the brothel. You wanted to take the pain for those women. This is who you are—this! This scar is who you are, true and fierce.”
I feel like weeping. I’d always imagined it was something dark and despicable, that scar.
He tries to push my tunic all the way off me.
“Viktor,” I say, clutching the brown serge to my shoulder. “Nothing erases having taken a life.”
“You will know about these things you carry.” He pulls at the fabric. This is a battle I won’t win—he’s stronger and has the advantage of knowing I won’t truly hurt him.
There’s no sense allowing him to rip my robe more, so I push him away and cast off the rest of my outer garments. “Happy?”
I tremble before him in nothing but a thin, nearly see-through slip and panties. My tunic is a heap at my feet. It’ll take forever to sew it back up. I focus on that. I’ll acquire a needle and thread and sew it back up.
“Do what you will,” I continue. “I was prepared for as much at the brothel.”
He looks devastated at my words. “You think I’d hurt you like that?” He presses gentle fingers over the fabric of the slip, pressing it to the place where my ribcage turns to soft belly. I stiffen as I realize what he’s going for—two long white scars, a double scar like train tracks curling around my side. They become visible when he presses the fabric around them.
“You got this rescuing a puppy from barbed wire. Your father beat you for your trouble, as you knew he would, but you did it anyway. There was no vulnerable being you wouldn’t fight for. Your father was drunk and weak, but you were strong. You were the head of your little family, even caring for your father, much as you disdained him. You had such principles.”
My pulse races. It’s because of the revelation, but it’s also because of his nearness. The way he knows everything about me is seductive. All of these things I dreaded to know seem not so bad.
“And here…” He presses two fingers to a spot on my ribs that sometimes aches. “At the age of fourteen you confronted the police who were demanding protection money from a friend, a poor girl who spent all of her money to bury her baby son, who’d just died. The police beat you with clubs and shattered this rib. They said you attacked them. You probably did. You hated the police, and you hated Putin and his people. This landed you in a home for bad girls.” He grazes his fingertips over the spot. “It hurts in the rain and snow. A heating pad helps. I have one. I’ll bring it to you and show you how you used it.”
I school my features, trying to appear unaffected. It does hurt, sometimes. So much of me hurts.
“I know your body as my own, lisichka,” he whispers. “It once was my own, just like my body was yours. Even now, everything I am is for you.”
A wave of something flows through me, dark and glittery and despairing.
He moves his hand to the side of my mid-section, to the angriest, worst scar of all. The bullet—even the nuns knew I’d been shot there. There’s an exit wound behind.
Viktor drops to his knees, lips an inch from this ugly, ugly wound. He presses the thin fabric of the slip to it so that it shows through, and he traces around it with his finger. His finger thick and blunt. With his other hand he touches my hip.
I grip against the sensation of the way he holds me. I grit my teeth against the goodness of it.
“The doctor said you should keep it moist. With coconut oil. I’ll bring you some.”
I nod, heart in my throat.
He traces around it again. I suck in a breath, focusing my mind on the repairs I must do on the garments he ripped. I imagine the types of stitches I’ll use—anything to take my mind off his tender touch.
But he’s hard to ignore, this clothed and powerful man on his knees before me. I’m aware of his roughness against my bareness.
He makes my belly quiver. My breathing speeds. The thrill of it transports me, and I think I don’t want him to stop. I’m to take a vow of chastity, and here I stand, not wanting this killer to stop touching me. Tears gather in my eyes.
He touches the center of the scar, and I stiffen. Because now he has to kiss it there. That’s the game. Touch and kiss. “Please, no,” I gasp.
Eyes turned up at me, he brings his lips to it. Softly, gently. His kiss is silky and electric.