I turn away, stomach churning. I need to fucking kill her. It’s the only way to right this wrong. She’s obviously sick in the head. There’s something wrong with her. She’s living in a false reality, and even if she weren’t, it wouldn’t matter. This is the last thing I can do for Gwen. This is the only way to honor who she was. She took me in and cared for me. She was my family, and Natalia destroyed that without a second thought. She betrayed me, and there is no coming back from that.
I turn back to her, my fury driving me to wrap my hands around her neck and squeeze. She doesn’t fight me. She just looks up at me with devastated eyes, accepting that I’m a fucking monster too. As I try to separate my guilt from my actions, I can see myself as the man from her story. Torturing her. Making her cry and beg for mercy, only for her to realize there is none. Are we any different? Am I any different from the man who killed my mother without a second thought?
My hands fall away from her, and I stumble back as she gasps for air, clawing at her throat. What the fuck am I doing? What the fuck have I done to her? She just told me every gut-wrenching detail of the worst moments of her life, and my response was to repeat it. I shake my head, tempted to rip my fucking hair out. I’m sick. I’m so goddamned sick.
I turn away, heading for the door to the cabin entry. I need space. I need to think. I know it’s a stupid fucking move, considering I’ve just left her up there with all my weapons. Maybe it would be better if she tried to kill me. Maybe it would make it easier to do what I came here to do. There’s a part of me that wishes she would come down here with my pistol. I have a feeling Natalia would aim straight for my heart.
I collapse onto the lounger, scrubbing my hands over my face. My grief is still too raw to comprehend, but I’m only beginning to realize it’s not just Gwen that I’m grieving for. It’s the loss of Natalia too. The trust I had in her is shattered. Without her to soften the jagged edges of myself, I don’t know who I’ll become. Who will Nino have to keep him from becoming just like me?
Moisture soaks the edges of my eyes, and I squeeze them shut, trying to turn off these fucking feelings I never wanted. I don’t know how I got here. I don’t know when I changed, but I blame her for it. I blame her for every goddamned thing.
Soft fingertips touch my face, and when I open my eyes, Natalia is kneeling in front of me, as gentle as I’ve ever known her to be when she wipes the evidence of my emotion away. I don’t need her gentility. I need her fucking violence. I need her to brutalize me like she brutalized Gwen.
“I fucking hate you,” I snarl.
She flinches but doesn’t retreat. Instead, she shakes her head as if to say I’m a liar. I watch her with bleary eyes as she rises slowly, her warmth pressing against me as she closes the distance between us. When she tries to kiss me, I grab her face, squeezing her hard as I hold her there in front of me, a mere inch away from my lips. I want to destroy her, but I can’t deny that I want to fuck her too.
She senses that weakness in me, and she grabs onto it with both hands, prying my fingers from her face. This time, I’m ashamed to admit there’s no resistance on my part when her lips collide with mine. I let her kiss me, convincing myself it will be the last time. When she crawls up into my lap, I let that happen too.
Her fingers cup the base of my skull as she delves deeper into my mouth with her tongue, grinding down against my cock. I release myself from the grip of rational thought as I start to rip at her clothes, forcing them out of the way to access the thing I can’t admit I need.
She unbuckles my belt, unzips my trousers, and takes my cock into her palm. I bite back a resentful groan, jerking my hips up into her fist. I’m so fucking hard it’s painful, and I hate myself for it. I hate that I could still want her after everything she’s done, but she tries to make me forget. She kisses me all over, working her way over my jaw and down my neck as she lifts her hips and rubs the head of my dick against her wet cunt. I close my eyes and let it happen. She sinks down on me, and my fingers dig into her waist, holding onto her as she rolls her hips against me. It feels so fucking good it makes me sick. It makes me sick that I could do this with her when Gwen’s body is barely cold.