Gavriil (Stepanov Mafia)

“Are you excited?” he asked.

“I’m stunned,” I said honestly. “I’ve been on a birth control pill since I first got my period. I didn’t think there was any chance of this.”

“Do you want kids?”

I nodded without having to think about it. Yes, of course. I’d always wanted children. I’d imagined having them much further in the future. When my mother was healthy, or… when I had my own place and a steady job. When I was in a healthy relationship.

Suddenly, I realized what kind of situation Gavril and I were in. Our child was born out of a kind of prostitution. Would I ever tell them that? When they were the right age, would I explain that I had never loved their father, but instead had been trying to keep him from murdering my brother? Was there a right age for a revelation like that? It made Gavril sound like a monster.

And he was a monster… in ways. However, in other ways, not so much.

For instance, he seemed genuinely happy to learn that I was pregnant. For the first time since I’d met him, he was sporting a smile that wasn’t caused by thoughts of violence or sex. He just seemed content.

But caring for his child didn’t mean he would ever care for me. It didn’t mean we would ever be anything more than what we were right now. It didn’t mean he would propose or that we would build a life together.

And did I even want those things anyway?

As soon as the question crossed my mind, I realized that I did. On some level, I wanted to be with Gavril. I wanted to be more than we were now. But was that crazy? Was it the pregnancy hormones talking, or did I actually care for him? For the man who had threatened my brother and left welts up and down my body? For the man who had hired a live-in nurse to take care of my mother and paid a fortune to have a doctor make a home visit to check on me? He wasn’t all bad, and in the few weeks I’d spent with him, Gavril had allowed me to see some of the good.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

I’d been so deep in my thoughts that I nearly forgot he was sitting next to me, and I jolted.

“Yes, fine,” I said, nodding. “I’m fine.”

He leaned forward and looked into my eyes. “You’re prepared to do this?”

“To have a baby?”

“To have our baby,” he clarified.

Our baby. Something about the words sent a flutter through my chest. My breath caught, and before I could stop myself, I had leaned forward and pressed my lips to his.

As soon as our lips met, I knew I’d made a mistake. It had been weeks since we’d started having sex, yet we had never kissed. It was too intimate, too personal. It was something people in relationships did, not something people did with a sex slave. I knew I should pull away. But I couldn’t.

Gavril’s lips were warm and soft. His breath smelled like cinnamon mouthwash, and I wanted to taste him. I wanted to run my tongue along his and bite his lower lip. I wanted to cup his head in my hands and straddle him while we kissed, deeper and deeper until we were breathing each other in.

And then I realized that is exactly what was happening. I slid one leg over Gavril’s lap and lifted myself onto my knees until I was straddling him. His hands grabbed the extra fabric at my sides – his shirt and pants that almost drowned me – and then pressed a hard line down to my hips. He pulled me down onto him, letting me feel his length against me through his jeans. But my head was still lost in the kiss.

Gavril swirled his tongue inside my mouth and brushed his thumbs across my cheekbones, his hands cupping my jaw. He was cradling me like I was something delicate, precious. It was such a departure from what I’d come to experience with Gavril that I almost didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to be with this Gavril. With a Gavril who nibbled on my lips and twirled strands of my hair around his fingers. But I had always been a fast learner.

I pushed him back on the bed and lifted myself up onto my knees, pulling his T-shirt over my head. I wasn’t wearing a bra because my breasts were so sore, so they bounced free. Softly, Gavril reached up to run his hands across them, touching them like individual works of art. His tender touch sent shivers straight through me. I felt warmth and wetness accumulating in my lower body, and I ground my hips down into his to let him know I liked what he was doing.