Page 61 of Ruin

“True?” he breathes the words against my lips, our noses brushing, my teeth grit as I breathe him in. “It is true, you can’t be fucking me, I’m a man, and no Pakhan of The Bratva is gay, Kazimir.”

“I’m not gay.”

“Okay, well, either way, Ka-”

“I’m not fucking gay!” I scream it through my teeth, a crevice deep between my brows, forehead colliding with his as I drop my face forward, squeezing my eyes shut. “I’m not gay.”

He doesn’t say anything. Panting, nose pressing so hard against his it’s almost painful, I can’t pull away. I’m scared if I let go of him right now, it’ll be the last time we ever touch.

“I’m not gay, you’re not- that’s not what this is,” I mumble, and it feels desperate, the words scratching their way up my throat.

“Okay,” he says placatingly, it’s so un-Charlie.

His lips brush mine with the word, and I can’t pull myself away, my fingers firm around his throat, but I’m not squeezing him anymore. He’s not pulling away, my heart is pounding so hard, I wonder if he can feel it against his steady one. My other hand moves to his at his side, fingers curling between his, holding onto him, but he doesn’t grip me back.

“Charlie,” I breathe his name into his mouth, summoning him forth. “Please,” it’s a desperate plea, my lips plucking softly at his parted ones. “Just for tonight, let us have this,” I groan as his fingers close over mine, my teeth clamping over his bottom lip, dragging it away from his teeth to suck on it. “I want you,” I murmur, and he freezes, his breath hard against my mouth.

There is silence between us as we both still. Waiting.

“I’m with someone, Kaz, someone else.”

The earth just sort of shatters beneath my feet, and all at once I release my hold on him, jerking myself back from him. I shove my fingers through my hair, grip both sides of my head and drop forward, bending at the waist.

“I don’t wanna do this anymore,” he says it all so unevenly, like he’s not even sure of what the fuck it is he’s saying. “I don’t want to be kept in the shadows anymore.”

“You live in the fucking shadows, Charlie. What the fuck do you mean?” I snap at him, gnashing my teeth as I pace back and forth behind the white painted wicker chair I was just occupying.

“We’re almost forty,” he says loosely, factually, and it’s not factual for him, he’s thirty-seven to my thirty-nine.

“What has that got to do with anything?” I straighten, run a hand down my sweat-soaked skin, over my chest in the gap of my shirt.

“I want to make the most of the time I have left,” he shrugs, like it should be obvious, as though he doesn’t understand why I’m not thinking much the same. “We will all die young in this life, Kazimir,” he says softly, despite his sharp, cracked voice, it sounds like he’s explaining this all to a small child.

I suddenly feel panic. At the thought of losing him. Death. Even just this. Whatever the fuckthisis. It feels as though he is getting further and further away from me, and I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all. And I want it to stop. I want it all to stop.

“I have someone, I think, I could spend my time with now,” it’s like a razor blade to the wrist, but it’s pressed deep and dragging slowly through my veins, gouging deeper and deeper until it hits bone. “I want to spend my time with her.”

My head snaps up sharply, neck crunching, “Her?”

And fuck me, he smiles, his fucking lips lift, curling at the corners for no more than half a second but I see it and I witness the way he tries to smother it, realising what he’s just said, giving me too much. It’s not to taunt me, I realise, it’s organic, the reaction, true happiness at the thought of her.

“You don’t fuck women, Charlie,” I scoff, shaking my head with mocked disgust, but it slices deep, the pain, as I force the words out.

“I fuck her,” he says carefully.

And I think about it, him, only having ever fucked people he actually likes, has some sort of connection with.

‘I connect with souls, not genitalia.’

He told me that once. I never understood it before, but it’s starting to become clearer. In this moment, my heart thundering so hard in my chest it’s threatening to burst free. I’m starting to understand him.

“Charlie, I want-”

“That’s the problem,” he bites out, cutting me off this time. “That’s the problem with all of you, you all want, want, want. Well, what about what the fuck I want?” I’m surprised, by his outburst, his lack of careful control he so well curates to every situation. “None of you give a fuck about me, not really, I’m second to everyone, third, fourth, tenth, and I’m done with it. If I’m not number one, Kazimir, I don’t want to be anything.”

I stare at him, his shoulders tense, moonlit washed skin glittering with a thin layer of sweat from the high humidity of the room. Eyes hard on mine, his chest heaves but he doesn’t say anything else.

I lick my lips, think over his rushed words, blinking to clear my thoughts.

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