Chapter 12 Roman
ROMAN
The rain hammered off the roof, making me reach for the hoodie I’d brought in here with me, pulling it on and zipping it up before I headed outside.
The air was still warm, but the dusk sky looked ominous, and the deep rumble of thunder, followed by a fork of lightning overhead, told me that a storm was closing in.
It was then Hana’s car caught my eye. Running over, I found it empty, keys in the ignition.
I tried to turn it over, but it didn’t start.
I yelled her name, wondering if she was taking shelter close by, but there was no sign of her.
Pocketing her keys, I wiped the rain from my face and ran over to my own car, hoping this stubborn woman hadn’t decided to walk home in this.
I set the wipers to full and turned out of the drive onto the desolate main road between my house and Hana’s. It didn’t take long to find her, drenched, head down, her sneaker-covered feet splashing through the puddles along the grass-lined edge of the road.
The rain lashed, the thunder felt like it was shaking the foundation of the earth, and lightning illuminated the sky as if someone up there was flicking a light switch on and off. Winding down the window, I slowed to a roll. “Get in,” I yelled over the storm.
She kept her head down. “No.”
“Hana. Get in the car.”
“It’s fine. I’ll be home soon.”
“In about forty-five minutes, and that’s if you’re not hit by lightning.”
She quickened her pace, ignoring me completely, but when lightning struck a tree up ahead, I sped up the car, pulling up in front of her. Climbing out, I stalked towards her.
“Roman, back off. I don’t nee—” Without waiting, I flung her over my shoulder. “What are you doing?” she screamed, sounding as angry as the storm as she kicked her legs and wriggled in my hold. The feel of her fighting me made my cock pay attention, blood rushing to it so fast my head spun.
“I’m not letting you walk home in this.”
“What? You’re going to abduct me and make me come with you?”
I lowered her into the passenger seat, strapping her in before I closed the door, but in the time it took for me to get to the other side, she was out again, running like a petulant child having a tantrum.
“Motherfucker,” I yelled as I chased after her, my now engorged cock leaking with each step, making me wish I’d not gone commando under my shorts.
Reaching out my arm, I wrapped it around her waist, lifting her easily, just as another huge fork of lightning exploded across the sky in front of us. “Why are you so fucking stubborn?”
“I don’t want to be saved?” she screamed.
“You’ll do as you’re fucking told,” I spat back, carrying her one-handed back to the car as she pulled, kicking her legs, trying to break free of my hold. “I’m not playing the nice guy anymore. It’s too dangerous to be out here.”
Opening the car boot with my free hand, I pulled out the roll of electrical tape I kept in there, along with some emergency tech supplies.
I put her down and pinned her to the car with my bodyweight, grabbing her wrists in one hand behind her back while I picked at the end of the tape with my teeth as she bucked and strained against me.
I was so hard now I could barely think about anything other than fucking her, but instead, I bound her wrists and put her back in the passenger seat, satisfied that she couldn’t get out of the car again.
Water now flowed down the road, thunder and lightning coming one after the other, telling me that the storm was now overhead. I climbed back inside, sucking in a deep breath as I looked over at her.
Her hair was plastered to her face and neck, and her shirt was see-through, showing off her dark nipples, telling me she didn’t have a bra on. I closed my eyes for a second, trying to calm the overwhelming thoughts trampling through my restraint.
“Don’t you think this is a little extreme for a storm?” Hana muttered, her chest heaving from the exertion of the last few minutes.
I spun the wheel, turning the car.
“I’m starting to think you’re a psycho,” she whisper-hissed.
I pulled up outside my house, the storm still raging. “Get out,” I told her as I unfastened her seatbelt and leaned across to pull the handle. “But don’t think about running, because I will hunt you down.”
She shivered, and while I tried to tell myself it was probably because she was cold, a fleeting part of me wondered if she liked the idea of me coming after her.
Hana climbed out slowly, her hands taped behind her back, looking to the woods and then back at the house, before her shoulders dropped, defeated. When she moved, I followed behind, letting her inside before I closed and locked the door.
“Are you going to untie my hands?” She stood in front of me, dripping on the hardwood floor.
“Are you going to run again?”
“Probably.”
“Then no.”
I flicked the light switch, but nothing worked, so I presumed the power was still out.
“Roman…” Her voice was soft, teasing.
“That won’t work, little menace.”
“I’m cold and wet. You can’t just leave me like this,” she pouted.
Taking her by the elbow, I pulled her towards the bathroom, grabbing some towels before heading across the hall to the guest room, the whole time never letting her out of my sight.
“I need to get you out of these wet things.” Fuck, how far was I going to take this? She could probably have me arrested on multiple counts already, and I was about to add more to the list.
I lit a candle on the dresser, casting a low glow across the room, before kicking off my soaking shoes, pulling off my hoodie, and then my shorts, leaving me standing there naked.
“Jesus,” she whispered, her eyes landing on my cock.
“Why are you naked… fuck, why are you hard… and so big? Is that a tattoo on your…” Her words tumbled from her lips like she couldn’t quite work out what was going on.
And she’d be right to be freaked out—to her, I was a stranger, although to me, she was as familiar to me as my reflection in the mirror on the vanity.
I ignored her and reached for a towel, quickly drying off my hair and chest, before wrapping it around my waist, my cock tenting the cotton. “I need your permission to undress you.”
She shook her head, but I noticed how fast her pulse hammered in her neck and that her pupils were blown wide, turning her hazel eyes almost black.
“What? No. You’ve seriously got a screw loose. Untape my wrists so I can walk out of here, and we can pretend this little incident didn’t happen.”
I closed the distance between us, skimming my knuckles across her cheek, moving the wet hair back from her beautiful face. “You’re not going anywhere. It’s too dangerous. And I don’t trust you not to run, so give me permission, or you can stand here and freeze until the storm stops.”
“When the storm stops, you’ll let me go.” It wasn’t a question, her voice firm and commanding. It sent a shiver down my spine.
“As soon as it passes, I’ll take you home, but that might be hours.”
The weather warnings had been all over the news, but the storm had hit way before it was meant to. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, nibbling her lip. “Fine. I promise not to run. Can you untie me?” She batted her eyelashes as if she expected me to fall for that.
“No. Do I have your permission to help you dry off?”
“No,” she fired back.
I lifted and dropped one shoulder. “Okay, then. Make yourself at home.”
She twisted so I could see her bound hands. God, she looked good tied up.
“Erm…”
I shrugged again. “I gave you a chance, Hana.” And with that, I turned and walked towards the bedroom door.
“Roman,” she cried, but I carried on moving. “For fuck’s sake. Fine, you have my permission.”
I froze, swallowing hard as it dawned on me what I’d asked for. To strip her naked, to touch her body while I dried her off. The woman I’d spent ten years obsessively hunting down and watching. I wasn’t sure I should do this… if I could trust myself. Could I hold back?
“All talk and no action, Roman?” She let out a sigh. “Well, that is disappointing. I thought with that hard cock you were going to get all feral on me, strip off my clothes, and bend me over so you can show me what a bad girl I’ve been, disobeying you.”
Unbelievably, my cock swelled even more at her words, my balls aching, their weight pulling, reminding me how long it had been since I’d been inside a woman: 6 years, three months, and twenty-four days, to be precise.
Coincidentally, the same number of days I’d been watching Hana.