Split

Chapter 7

7

I ’ve always been a heavy sleeper. Our housekeeper used to tease me about it, saying she could run the vacuum around my bed and it wouldn’t even rouse me.

Since I moved into Roman’s haunted mansion, however, I don’t sleep as deeply. Maybe it’s the fact that the house is so quiet to begin with, but every creak has me cracking my eyes open, casting a way glance toward my door through the pitch black.

My first night here, every noise was a false alarm, and thus my restlessness was in vain.

Tonight, that’s not the case.

I wake with a start to the sound of the lock on my bedroom door turning over, the hinges creaking as it’s slowly pushed open. Jolting up in bed, I clutch the covers tightly to my chest, staring into the inky darkness.

For a second, I’m not sure if I really heard the door open or if my mind’s just playing tricks on me in my exhausted delirium. Then I hear the soft thud of footsteps moving across the room toward me, the little hairs on the back of my neck standing on end as I see Roman emerge from the shadows in front of my bed like a specter.

“What are you doing in here?” I hiss, both frightened by his sudden intrusion and angry that he just barged into my room uninvited.

He doesn’t respond. I eye him nervously as he approaches the opposite side of my bed, dressed in a simple dark t-shirt and a pair of pajama pants. It’s a little jarring to see him without the suit, his usually coiffed hair in a state of rugged dishevelment. I’m so caught off guard by this entire situation that I just watch in a suspended state of shock as he reaches down to pull back the covers, sliding into bed next to me.

My whole body tenses as he shuffles closer beneath the blankets, his arm darting out to clamp firmly around my waist and yank me back down to lie beside him.

“W-what are you doing?” I sputter, my back going rigid as he pulls it tight against the solid wall of muscle that makes up his broad chest.

“Sleeping with my wife,” he murmurs, his hand tucking up underneath my silk camisole, palm splaying wide against my belly.

My heart races, mouth going dry. His warm breath skates over the back of my neck, his hard body firmly anchored against mine. With the way he’s pinning me, his hand pressed to my stomach and his leg locked over mine, I can barely move an inch.

“I don’t want you in here!” I whisper-shout, trying in vain to wriggle free from his iron grip.

“Well that’s too damn bad,” he chuckles, grinding his hips forward.

My breath catches as I feel the hard ridge of his cock riding against my ass, his hand on my belly sliding up higher beneath my camisole, fingers toying with my nipple.

“Stop!” I grit out through clenched teeth, grabbing onto his forearm and digging my fingernails into his flesh.

It doesn’t deter him in the least. Instead, it seems to encourage him. His chest rumbles against my back with something that sounds like a growl, low and demonic. Rather than fear, heat licks up my spine.

It has to be a biological response, nothing more. I don’t want Roman in my bed, I don’t want to feel his hands on me. I know for a fact that this isn’t something I want , yet my back arches to chase his touch, my teeth sinking into the cushion of my lower lip to stifle a whimper as he pinches my nipple hard.

“I can feel how fast your pulse is racing, hear how your breath keeps hitching,” he murmurs, his lips brushing the shell of my ear as his hand leaves my breast and glides up to wrap around my throat. “And you might not even realize it, but you’re pushing your ass back against my cock right now. You may say you want me to stop, but your body is telling me something else entirely, pet.”

I’m stunned to silence, throat bobbing beneath his palm with a hard swallow.

I should kick, fight, scream, bite… but instead, I whisper, “Did you fuck that waitress?”

Roman goes quiet for a long moment, the silence stretching between us endlessly as his fingers flex their grip around my throat. He’s not applying pressure to restrict my breathing, but his hand remains locked in place, almost as a warning of how easily he could.

“Yes,” he finally utters, and a wave of white-hot rage spears through me.

“Get off!” I grunt, clawing at his hand on my neck and fighting in earnest to get free.

It’s almost laughable how effortlessly he keeps me restrained. “No.”

With one hand still firmly locked around my throat, he wrestles the other down the front of my shorts, shoving it between my legs to force them apart.

“Didn’t we come to an understanding last night?” he growls, his rough hand clamping down over my bare mound. “You’re here to please me, wife.”

I squeeze my thighs together, as if that’ll somehow stop him from going further. “Roman…”

“ Sir, ” he corrects, then shoves his hand down farther, plunging a thick digit inside me.

My inner walls clench at the intrusion, my mouth gaping open to gasp for air.

“I knew it,” he declares smugly, pumping his finger in and out a few times while humiliation scalds my veins. Then he abruptly retracts his hand, pulling it out of my shorts and bringing it up to my mouth, wiping his glistening finger against my lips. “You’re soaked.”

I recoil with disgust and he lifts his hand away from my mouth, bringing it up behind my ear where I hear the telltale slurp of him sucking my arousal off his finger.

I cringe, another shiver racing up my spine as I struggle to discern the sensations raging through my body and mind.

Anger.

Outrage.

Shame.

Disgust.

Fear.

Desire?

He reaches down between my legs again, shoving his hand beneath my shorts to stroke his fingers through my slick folds. “I’ll bet you don’t even know why this makes you so wet,” he murmurs, teeth nipping my earlobe as his other hand finally leaves my throat, sliding down to grope my breast again. “Fear and arousal are two sides of the same coin, pet.” He pinches my nipple harder than the last time, causing me to suck in a gasp through my gritted teeth. “Much like pain and pleasure.”

What the hell is happening to me right now?

I hate this man with every fiber of my being, yet my body seems to be reacting to him on its own accord. A flood of heat rushes south, my breath coming out in short, staccato pants as he rubs the pad of a finger against my clit.

Wesley wasn’t very adept at the intricacies of female anatomy. Sure, we touched and explored and experimented, but his clumsy hands were never able to provoke this type of reaction from my body. Roman plays my clit like the strings of a harp, creating a symphony of sensation that my mind can’t even process beyond craving more .

“It’s maddening, isn’t it?” he hums, applying the perfect amount of pressure behind his ministrations until my legs tremble. “To hate something, yet want it so much?”

“Fuck you,” I breathe, my hips grinding senselessly in time with his movements. The coil in my belly is winding tighter and tighter, my muscles clenching as I climb the precipice of release.

And then, just as I’m about to tip over the edge and go freefalling into my climax, he stops .

Roman flattens his hand, patting it against my pussy. “You’ll get rewarded when you learn to behave, pet,” he murmurs, pulling his hand out of my shorts.

My mouth falls open in shocked indignation, my lips opening and closing like a fish out of water.

I want to scream, curse, burn this damned house to the ground…

Instead, I just lay there, furiously fighting to catch my breath as Roman releases his hold on me and slides out of bed. I punch my fists against the mattress to sit up, turning my outraged expression on him, but he just pivots away and pads toward the door, his silhouette disappearing into the cover of darkness beyond my bed.

I hear my bedroom door creak open and close behind him, followed by the metallic scrape of the key turning in the lock. Then he’s gone in the night, leaving me in a puddle of my own shameful desperation.