7. Roman
SEVEN
Roman
Quinn drives us home while Vitali brings the other car.
I’m glad it’s Quinn and not my brother. Sometimes, it’s so fucking hard to be around Vitali.
When I knocked on the cell door and Vitali opened it, I froze.
And Vitali, who never, ever drops his eyes, did.
He backed off, backed away, pretty much vanished.
But I know he’s behind us in the Jeep. I know he saw … too much.
So did Quinn, but it’s different. Quinn didn’t know me before. And there are no questions in his eyes. I almost feel like he knows something that I don’t, like all of this makes a whole lot of sense to him, way more than it does to me .
Lucas stays curled up against me the whole way back. I just hold onto him and try to think. But my head feels heavy. My whole body does. I feel like it should be night instead of afternoon.
When we reach the house, Quinn stops at the front to let me and Lucas out.
As we walk up the steps, both cars travel around to the back.
As they pull out of sight and I stop feeling so aware of them, I have a sudden, sharp realization that both of them, and Sasha too, would take care of Lucas. If I weren’t around.
Lucas and I go inside. The house is quiet, with Sasha keeping out of sight. We go up to our room.
Lucas uses the bathroom then turns on the shower. I know he might want to be left alone, but I need to see him. Before I can open the door, however, he does. He takes my hand and leads me to the shower.
It’s a luxury, showering with Lucas like this, and I feel intensely aware of the nice bathroom and the privacy. I didn’t like seeing Lucas in that bare, dirty cell. I didn’t like having him lying on that filthy mattress. He didn’t belong in that space. He belongs here.
He notices the force of my attention before I do. I’m washing the shampoo from his hair, running my hands over his head again and again like it’s the last time I’ll ever get to do it, when he curls his hands over my wrists.
His eyes are calm and patient. He’s so beautiful and gentle and kind .
He deserves better.
When I drop my hands to his shoulders, he offers me a small smile.
It makes me sad.
We finish showering and dry off. We put on clean sweats and t-shirts. Lucas helps me put a fresh bandage on my forearm, then we go out into the bedroom. There’s a tray of food waiting inside the door.
Lucas goes to retrieve it. He bypasses the couch and sets the tray on the floor. Quinn’s hand is evident in the steak sandwiches, just as it was in the bagels. I’m struck, though, by the difference in the setting. God, I hated seeing Lucas in that cell.
I sit on the floor with him. He starts munching on the pickles and potato chips. I’m not hungry, but I enjoy watching him. He tries to hand me some chips, but I shake my head. His hand drops and he puts the chips back in the bowl. His face changes. His eyes change.
“You scared me,” he says quietly.
I close my eyes, thinking about how I tackled him out of the bed. For the first time since last night, something wakes up in the deadness of me. I feel like I need to hit something. A wall. Myself.
“I know,” I tell him. “I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t know where you were going. I was so scared you were going to wreck that car. ”
For a second, I’m confused. I don’t know what he’s talking about. Then I remember fleeing the house.
“Oh,” I say.
Now he looks confused. But he figures it out quickly. “You thought I meant I was scared when you …” He trails off. He doesn’t want to say it. That I attacked him.
Suddenly, I can’t remain sitting. I get up and walk to the sliding glass door.
Lucas says, “You were having a nightmare. I woke you up. You didn’t know where you were.”
I squeeze my eyes shut.
I’ve been trying so hard to keep things shut inside myself, especially around Lucas, but it just keeps fucking coming out.
“Roman—”
“I could hurt you, Lucas.”
“You’ve never hurt me. Even in the beginning. The guards told me you would kill me, but you didn’t—you never hurt me, not once.”
I start breathing harder. The guards weren’t lying. I had killed others in my cell. I don’t like to think how scared Lucas must have been when they threw him in there with me. I didn’t think like that then. Butnow … everything’s different. Everything’s harder.
“It was different then,” I tell him.
“Why?”
Frustration wells inside me. “Because things made sense there. Nothing was confusing. I belonged there. I don’t belong here—I shouldn’t be here. ”
I hear Lucas get to his feet. “What the hell does that mean?” When I just keep staring out the glass door, he shouts, “Roman!”
I turn to face him, but before I can figure out how to reply, he demands, “Answer me right now . What do you mean you shouldn’t be here?”
My frustration is coiling tighter, turning into something worse. “In this room, Lucas, in this house, in this fucking world—I shouldn’t fucking be here.”
Lucas comes at me with an anger I have never seen in him. His eyes are wide and furious. He aims a finger at me.
“Don’t you fucking talk like that! You have to be here—”
“ You belong here, Lucas. You should be here. Everyone will take care of you—”
“What, you mean without you?”
“Whether I’m here or not!”
“For fuck’s sake, Roman, I don’t belong here —I belong with you !”
I start to turn away, but Lucas grabs at me. If anyone but Lucas grabbed me like that, I would lose it, but I let him do it. A convulsion goes through my body because I can’t not react to being grabbed, but I make myself allow it.
His hands fist the fabric of my shirt as he gets in my face, eyes blazing with fury. “I will go with you, wherever you fucking go. And if you’re talking about what I think you’re talking about, I’ll go there with you too. Do you fucking understand me? ”
“Stop it,” I snap as I grab his wrists, pulling his hands from my shirt. Now I’m angry too.
He tries to yank free of my grip. “Let go!”
I don’t let go. I walk him backwards toward the bed. I force him down onto it. I lean over him, right in his face.
“You are not to talk like that,” I tell him. “If I’m not here, I have to know—”
“If you’re not here, you don’t get to know. That’s how it fucking works, Roman. You have to fucking be here.”
“Lucas—”
His legs hook suddenly around my torso. He squeezes tight. I snarl at him as my cock reacts. He shouldn’t be playing like this, not when I’m angry.
I still have hold of his wrists. He yanks again, but I haul his arms up over his head and pin his wrists to the bed. His legs remain locked around me.
“Let go ,” I order him.
“ Never .”
I snarl again and lower my head to bite his neck, but before I can, he bites me .
I shout, shocked and furious. I let go of his wrists, intending to pull away from him, but he wraps his arms around me, and his legs squeeze tighter.
I won’t shove him off me, so I pin him with my body instead.
I bury my face in the covers above his shoulder, and I yell in frustration and anger and something else that I can’t identify.
Lucas still clings to me, but he starts kissing me and nibbling at me and murmuring against me. I don’t know what else to do with my body, so I start rocking against him. His cock is hard and so is mine. I grind on him, ruthlessly, until he comes in his sweats.
He didn’t expect to. He’s disoriented by it. He’s loose and sloppy as I manhandle him, tearing the clothes from him. I tear off my own and use it to tie his wrists together, then to the headboard.
I grab the lube, slick my cock, and force his legs open. I won’t shove my cock straight into him, but I can’t be nice either. I’m so, so angry with him.
I put my hand over his face, splaying my fingers so he can breathe through his nose but making sure he understands how fully he is in my possession.
I push my fingers into him, scissoring inside him until I feel him open for me.
He’s hard again, his cock twitching against his contracting abdomen in the traces of his first release.
I set my cockhead against his hole and start pushing my way into his body. With my free hand, I shove his leg up, opening him further. I hold him down, hold him wide, and start to fuck him.
It’s ugly. My pelvis smacks against him again and again. My cock plunges with sloppy, filthy sounds. I’m grunting and angry. He’s crying out against my hand, his shouts muffled by it. His hands twist against the fabric of my shirt where it binds his wrists.
I watch him writhe. I watch his cock leak precum. I watch it twitch and strain. When his balls draw up I know he’s close. I don’t touch his cock or let him touch it. He needs to come from me fucking him—and I can tell that he’s going to .
The first spurt of cum shoots onto his chest. He bucks under me, tightening on my cock, and shouts against my hand.
I pound into him relentlessly as his cock spurts again and again, releasing ropes of cum all over his torso.
It’s so erotic and he’s gripping me so hard that I start coming too.
When my cock pulses and kicks inside him, he spasms under me, moaning and twitching, leaking more.
He milks me hard until I’m straining against him with rough, harsh sounds. I’m shaking by the end, and so is he.
When I lift my hand from his face and untie his wrists, he wraps his arms around my neck and starts crying.
I slide my hands under him and pull him up against me.
I bury my face against his neck. All my anger is gone and all my frustration too.
But the thing I couldn’t identify is still there, and I know it now.
It’s fear.