Page 41 of Trust

I think about my own family, which isn’t steeped in blood but is steeped in misery nonetheless. Dealing drugs is never pretty, and watching addicts come back time and again for “just another hit” has always brought despair down upon my shoulders.

I enabled that.

My whole family still does.

“I’m not innocent,” I whisper.

“No?” Ilya runs his knuckles along my cheek. “You have a beautiful soul, Micah. I can hear it in your music.”

“Beauty doesn’t equal goodness,” I say, and I lean into the touch again despite myself. Charles had been handsome, too. “It doesn’t equal innocence.”

I’m so far from innocent.

I’m deceiving him right now.

If what Adam tells me is right, if Ilya really is Russian mafia and an informant has already disappeared, Ilya would kill me if he knew the truth.

But I can’t back out now.

Ilya bends down, and I tilt my face up. I stare directly into his pale blue eyes, feeling them boring into me—but not judging. Not like Adam’s do.

“Do you want this?” Ilya asks. “Do you want me?”

A shiver runs through me, and I whisper helplessly, “It would be cheating. I don’t want to cheat, Ilya. You’d never respect me if I did.”

But Adam said it’s not cheating if it’s “work.” He’d wanted me to do this, at any cost.

I need to do this. I need Ilya to trust me.

Or is it simply that I want him like he seems to want me?

“Why would you say that? You are reaching for something you desire. You deserve to be happy, Micah. And I know you aren’t happy with…” Ilya shakes his head. “I have seen men beaten bloody. Sex does not make me lose respect.”

My heart is thundering in my chest, and I exhale shakily.

Will it make me lose respect in myself?

Something small, then. Something… Something I can handle.

I turn away from him, nuzzling his inner thigh. “May I?” I ask, my voice barely audible.

Ilya looks down at me and nods. He spreads his legs wider. “You want to sit there, pet?”

Pet.

The word makes my mouth go dry, and I lick my lips, unsure of what to make of it. It should be demeaning; from Adam, it would be.

From Ilya, it feelsright.

I want more than to simply sit between his thighs, but I’m not sure how to ask. I’m not sure how tosaywhat I want. I hesitate, then lean in, kissing along the inner seam of his pants until my lips press beside his cock. “Here,” I whisper.

If I do this, he’ll think I’m here for sex. He won’t think I’m here for any other reason.

Ilya inhales sharply. “You want a treat, pet? You want to take me into your mouth and suck me?”

I nod quickly.

I’m only doing this because I have to.