My body is still trembling when Pasha lies down beside me. He wraps his arm around my front, placing his hand on the back of my head, and tucks my face into the crook of his neck.
“I wish my first time was with you,” I whisper.
“It will be.”
“Pasha, you know very well—”
His hand covers my lips. “Your first time is going to be with me,” he says next to my ear. “All that from before, it doesn’t count. Do you understand?”
I press my lips together, trying not to cry while something warm swells inside my chest, gluing together a couple of the broken pieces of my soul.
Pavel
“Pasha, ma che fai?”
I look up from the spaghetti I was just going to place into the pot. Asya is standing on the other side of the kitchen island, staring at my hands in horror.
“You do not break spaghetti!
