“Wife?” I frown as I process. We are just standing still, staring at each other.
“Not the fucking point,” he barks, taking another step towards me. “Why does everyone keep saying that?”
I frown even harder as my body automatically retreats. I’m not sure if it’s years of being abused or just the pure power coming off him, but my back hits the wall again and the impact knocks the air from my lungs. A hiss slips past my teeth as a sharp pain suddenly shoots up my spine. Fire blooms across my shoulders as I try to grit my teeth and starve off the tears that want to fall. His eyes darken at the noise and his head swivels so quickly I worry he’ll give himself whiplash. I can see his teeth grinding in his jaw as he slowly looks back at me. It feels like the air just got a hundred degrees colder as his nostrils flare.
“Turn around,” he grits out.
I hesitate, not because I mean to, but because my body is slow to catch up with everything that’s just happened. One minute I was controlling Daniel, the next I wasn’t, and now I’m stood here covered in his blood, with Roman looking at me like an avenging angel. I can already see he’s one second away from snapping.
“Turn the fuck around, Fae. I am holding on to my sanity by a fucking broken bit of thread here.”
I exhale slowly and turn. My body feels like it’s dragging behind the command, as if it doesn’t quite belong to me yet. My legs feel unsteady as I face the wall and I flatten my palms against it, bracing without thinking. I can barely hear anything over my own pulse and the sound of the radio playing, but I feel his presence closing in behind me before he even touches me. Heat rolls off him as he steps closer and goose pimples scatter across my neck at the feeling of his breath against my skin.
I have to swallow a real moan this time and the realisation that I finally know the difference between good goose pimples and bad settles heavily in my chest as my fingers press harder into the wall. I will never be able to survive being a Swallow again. He’s tainted it for life. Those illusions of living a fantasy every time I was forced to sleep with someone have been ripped out from under me now that I know how truly different it feels.
The room feels too small, like there’s nowhere left to breathe as I hear the click of metal and my stomach drops.
“Roman—”
The cold brush of a blade skims over my skin and I gasp as my dress gives way. The sound is sharp and violent, and cool air hits skin that still feels wrong, still doesn’t feel like mine.
“Motherfucker,” he snarls, one hand pressing softly into my spine to keep me still.
I flinch, and a whimper slips out of me before I can stop it. His touch isn’t gentle, but it isn’t careless either.
“What did he do?” he growls, actually growls. It sounds low and dangerous, like he already knows the answer and just wants to hear me say it.
“I… he pushed me when he came in and lost control,” I mumble, quieter than I intend, as the words leave me.
A flash of embarrassment hits me, like saying them out loud makes the failure of my mission more obvious. Roman exhales heavily behind me as if he’s trying to hold something down thatis desperate to surface. His hand lifts to my neck and he gently moves my hair to one side. It tickles as it brushes over my shoulder, making me shiver in a way that has nothing to do with the cold.
There is a pause, just long enough that I feel the weight of his silence and then I feel him move. The change in height is what makes me turn my head slightly, my brows pulling together as I try to understand what he’s doing. Roman drops down to his knees behind me, his gaze fixed on my back in a way that feels exposing. I can see in his eyes him cataloguing every bruise and mark that I can’t see.
“I should have killed him,” he murmurs and I can’t help the smile that spreads across my face.
“He’s already dead.”
“Not enough,” he cuts his gaze to Daniel and frowns before looking back at me.
My breath catches as he leans forward. The first press of his lips is soft enough that it almost doesn’t register, just a warm brush against my skin that still feels too sensitive and too aware. He doesn’t rush it or take, but instead gently claims. He moves slowly, kissing along the line of my shoulder and down my back as his careful fingertips trace soothing patterns over the marks his mouth hasn’t reached yet.
“Silly girl,” he whispers against my skin. “You’re going to give me a heart attack, you know.”
He leans back in, pressing butterfly kisses everywhere my skin is exposed, completely ignoring the blood drying on me. The sensation feels like cooling gel on a hot summer’s day, and my body tingles with need at the soft, reverent touches. Heat curls low in my stomach, and I turn to face the wall again to try and starve off the feeling.
Breathing in deep, I press my thighs together without meaning to, the movement small but almost instinctive as I tryto reduce my need for him to consume me. I feel his hands grab my hips tighter and I curse myself for turning this sexual. I’mnotsexual. Or I wasn’t until him. Now every look and touch awakens something deep inside me.
He nips the flesh of my hips and I bite my lip as his tongue gently caresses the sting away. Flicking my head back over my shoulder, I look down to see his dark brown eyes staring back at me. They burn with lust; I whimper at the sight. Roman shifts onto his haunches and licks his juicy lips.
“Are you needy, little one?” he asks as his voice settles over me like velvet and the way he sayslittle onemakes my breath catch in my throat.
I don’t even try to hide the way my body reacts this time, the way everything in me seems to lean toward him without permission, like I’ve already made a choice I haven’t caught up to yet.
I don’t answer him.
My fingers press harder into the wall as I see him move closer again, his hands sliding from my hips to my waist like he’s giving me time to pull away if I want to.
I don’t.