Safe (Constantine Brothers #3)

1. Roman

ONE

Roman

At moments like this, everything is fine. Lucas and I are in the library with our coffee. He’s in my lap with a book, reading silently. We’re safe and clean and comfortable. We’re together. So everything, really, is more than fine, or it should be.

But there’s too much house around us. Too many people. Too much world.

For a long time, none of that existed for me. There was only the prison and the arena. It was chaotic but small. The rules were simple. Existence was simple. Eat. Fight. Sleep. Endure.

I survived because I accepted that. I reduced myself to exist within that, cutting away everything that didn’t fit in that reality. By the time I was purchased from that place, I wasn’t even human anymore—and didn’t want to be. Being a beast was easier and safer.

So it was a beast that went into another cage and an even smaller world. I never thought outside that space because nothing existed for me outside that space.

Not until Lucas was thrown into it with me.

Then, slowly, I began to realize that the things I had thought were cut away—my name, my … humanness—were actually buried. They were still there. And it turned out that I needed them to be, so that I could save him.

I had to get him out of there because a time would have come when I wouldn’t have been able to protect him. I had long since accepted my own death as inevitable, but I no longer could—because my death would have meant his.

And … I wanted more for him. I wanted this. Him in soft, clean clothes with a cup of coffee and a book. Him in a nice, safe space.

It’s not just fine—it’s good .

So why doesn’t it feel good to me? Why am I so fucking overwhelmed by everything that I had to ask him to read silently?

I love when he reads aloud to me. I love his voice.

But I’m already so exhausted by everything around me, which is somehow sprawling out to infinity and suffocating me at the same time, that couldn’t handle hearing it.

It makes me really angry with myself because I know that we’re safe. We’re in my family home. And yet, I’m so fucking agitated that I can barely sit still in this leather armchair.

I don’t know what to do. I want this with Lucas, all of it. But I don’t belong in this safe space—and I’m so afraid of destroyingit.

Lucas closes the book. “Do you want to work out?”

We work out a lot. At least, I do. It helps me focus and calm down. The small, controlled, familiar actions draw in my awareness. For a little while, the world shrinks back down to a manageable size.

But I don’t want to work out right now. I want to do this , to be here in the library with Lucas. I just want it to feel good, like it’s supposed to.

I shake my head to tell Lucas no. He doesn’t react to my wordlessness. Or maybe he does. He leans into me, pressing his face against my neck. He’s so patient with me.

I wish he didn’t have to be, but this does happen a lot.

I spent years not speaking. I believed, all that time, that my silence was a choice.

I think, in the beginning, it was. But when Lucas came into my life and I found myself wanting to speak for the first time in years, I found my silence hard to break.

And even now, after we’ve been in this house for months, my voice gets locked up all the time.

I hate it. It makes me feel … broken.

Lucas breathes steadily against my throat. I focus on the rhythm and the soft, warm puffs of air. I start to settle in my body and feel the weight of his .

I close my eyes and try to shut us into a space that can hold only the two of us. That space is often sexual, and my body is quick to respond that way. When my cock hardens under Lucas, he starts gently nibbling at my throat.

I tilt my head to give him better access. I could never allow anyone but Lucas at my throat, but I like it with him. In my head, I know, always, that I trust Lucas, but when I show it like this, I actually feel that trust, and feeling it makes something ease inside me.

Setting the book on the end table by his cooling coffee, Lucas shifts in my lap so he can straddle me. We’re both wearing warmups, so it’s easy to feel the stiffness of his cock against mine when he starts to grind on me.

We’ve been having sex a lot lately. It’s always been a big part of our relationship. It’s not just that it feels good; it feels close . It’s a way to speak when words are hard.

Lucas reaches inside my warmups to curl his hand around my cock. I like when Lucas touches me—I do . But sometimes I’m not relaxed enough. My eyes pop open.

At first, all I see is him: his light brown hair styled back from his beautiful face with its high cheekbones, his blue eyes soft but watchful. But then I see our surroundings. I can’t help it. My life has depended on my situational awareness too often for me to not take it in.

There’s no danger, of course. We’re in the library.

The windows frame a view of the Boston estate’s green grass and distant trees.

It’s peaceful outside, and inside too. The wallpapered room has comfortable furniture, glass-shaded lamps, and dark shelves full of books.

They’re things that my mother chose before she died, long before I turned into something that she wouldn’t recognize.

Lucas senses my shift in mood. He releases my cock and tugs my waistband into place. His hands settle on my chest. I feel the heat of them through the thin fabric of my white t-shirt. I bring my eyes back to his. He’s unhappy. Worried.

I find a word inside myself. “Sorry,” I manage.

“It’s okay, Roman. I just …” He trails off, breathes out. “It’s okay,” he repeats, but I know that’s not what he was going to say.

He’s choosing not to tell me. I don’t like that. It’s different from being unable. But I’m unable. I don’t have the words to draw the truth out of him, so I repeat myself too. “Sorry.”

His hands lift from my chest. He strokes my head, feathering my dark, buzzed hair. It used to be longer and wavy, kind of like my brother’s. I used to be vain about it.

It was short like this when Lucas met me. He’s never known me any other way. He accepts me like I am, which I feel when his hands settle on the back of my head and he leans forward to press his forehead to mine. I close my eyes, grateful and ashamed.

I don’t actually know what I’m ashamed of. It’s too vague. I just know that I feel it in this house .

Lucas sits up and lets his hands drift down my neck, returning them to my chest. He’s still unhappy, but he’s found a place for it inside himself. He’s put it away.

“We should work out,” he says. “Then we can make breakfast.”

I can tell he doesn’t actually want to work out right now. He wants to stay here and read, but I’ve ruined it, and he wouldn’t be happy if I left him. I’ve tried it before when I got like this.

So I nod.

We return to our bedroom upstairs so Lucas can get his shoes. I prefer to be barefoot.

While Lucas is putting on his shoes, I feel the urge to start pacing. I resist it by going to the sliding glass door and looking out across the deck to the stretch of lawn and the trees. There’s still no danger. No one to fight.

“I’m ready,” Lucas says, drawing my attention back to him.

We go down to the gym on the lowest level of the house, where I can hear light footsteps on a treadmill. I know it’s Sasha before we even walk in.

In place of the black fatigues and tank top that she wears while actively on guard duty, Sasha is dressed in gray shorts and a black t-shirt.

Her toned arms and legs move in fast, rhythmic motion as she runs.

Her long, dark braid is bouncing against her back.

She glances over as Lucas and I enter. Everyone in this house is alert for danger.

Everyone but Lucas. But he doesn’t need to be. I don’t want him to live like that.

The gym is huge, easily ten times the size of my old cell.

It has so much more than the punching bag and pullup bar that were my only activities before Lucas was thrown in with me, but I still find myself ignoring the array of free weights and machines in favor of the bag.

Sometimes I spar with Quinn, but I would never spar with Lucas.

I don’t trust myself enough, and I don’t like the idea of swinging my fists in his direction, not even to spar.

He starts stretching on the sparring mats while I get going with the punching bag. Lucas sometimes tries to get me to use the gloves, but I don’t like all that stuff on my hands.

Lucas stays with me for a while, half stretching, half lounging, but once I’m deep in the familiar rhythm, he gets up and goes to join Sasha on the treadmills.

That’s good, of course. There’s no reason for him to sit and watch me, but I still kind of hate it. Lucas is mine.

I punch harder and faster.

When I hear Lucas laugh, my eyes jump from the bag to him and Sasha. I see his head turned her way, but I can’t hear their words over the whoosh and pound of the treadmills.

I like that Lucas laughs with Sasha. I do . But it’s hard to hear right now, when I feel so incapable of being part of it. I block it out .

I focus on the bag, on the rhythm, on the mechanics of my body. The problem is that it’s so fucking artificial. The bag hangs heavy and inanimate. It doesn’t fight back. I don’t have to think or react. Every second is the same, every movement a repetition. It’s more endurance than effort.

As my hands go numb, my mind slips into a different place.

I keep hitting the bag, but I stop being fully aware of it.

I hear the thuds of my fists and rhythm of the treadmills, but the sounds transmute in my head.

My back muscles get tight. At first, I’m aware that they’re just tugging under the scar tissue, but the numbness spreads through my body and confuses me.

I hear the whip whoosh through the air. The snap is loud, but the impact against my back feels dull, more of a punch, more like pressure. I know the pain will come later, but I don’t feel it right now. I’m numb. I just endure.

It’s better to stay silent at times like this. It’s not always possible, but I do my best.

It could be mere seconds that pass, or hours. Pain distorts time.

I hear a voice.

That voice is saying my name, but it doesn’t make sense. I don’t have a name, not here, not anymore. I’m just the Beast, and it’s better that way. The Beast can handle this.

“Roman!”

I wheel around, snarling at the name to drive it away, furious that anyone would try to force it on me. The light is sharp, almost blinding. It’s always like that, cutting down through the dimness into the fighting pit. At first, all I see is a figure, a body—and bodies are for hitting.

But as I stalk forward, something trips in my mind.

The blue eyes, widening, pierce through to a different place, a different part of me.

Everything jumbles. The space is too big, the walls brick instead of stone.

I’m too numb to tell whether there’s sand beneath my feet, but the colors are wrong. Everything is wrong.

I stop. I stare at those blue eyes, and I know them. I follow them through the hole they’ve pierced inside my mind. I let them pull me back.

Lucas closes the distance between us. He tries to take my hand, but my fist is clenched. He works his fingers into the tight space until my hand opens enough for him to thread his fingers with mine. He tugs at me. My feet move. I follow.

I’m vaguely aware of the gym around us, of Sasha standing at the edge of the mats, but I just let Lucas lead me out.

My numbness wears off as we move through the house. I start shivering. My teeth start chattering, so I tighten my jaw to stop them.

As we pass through the sitting room, I hear Vitali and Quinn in the kitchen, but Lucas draws me to the staircase. We go up to our bedroom.

Lucas closes us in. He locks the door. It’s symbolic. No one will come in. He does it for me .

He tugs at my clothes, helping me get rid of everything. He strips down too, then we get in the bed. Lucas pulls up the covers as I tug him against me, his bare body molding to mine.

I close my eyes and pretend we’re in our cell and that there’s nothing in the world but us.