Chapter 31
THIRTY-ONE
MAGGIE
We sit on the edge of the bed in silence. The world outside the bedroom door continues on. People partying. Cleaners cleaning. Pigs eating.
Steam from the open en-suite door still lingers in the air, but beneath it, that unmistakable coppery smell of blood. My hair soaks the towel I grip around me, my fingers tight. Roman’s hair is equally wet, his skin covered in a constellation of water droplets.
We both look hollow.
Like the couples you see at three in the morning in A&E. Sitting close but not touching. Trying to rationalise the trauma we’ve seen. Bruises are blossoming while a thousand horrid thoughts rampage.
My brain just won’t shut up.
The bat.
The knife.
Coffin’s screeching.
Blood. So much blood.
The way Eddie’s throat gushed until there was nothing left for it to expel.
The scene replays over and over again, and I keep searching for a way it could have ended differently. I can’t find one, but the guilt still eats at me.
‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper, not daring to glance at Roman as I speak. ‘For all of it. For tying you to a door. For my family, being who they are. For Eddie hurting you. For the pigs. For nearly getting you killed. For what you had to witness…’
I trail off, knowing my words won’t make any of it better.
Roman has had to witness death, and it’s all my fault.
In this bubble, I’m protected. But will Roman crack when we get home?
Will he go to the police, or worse, his online world?
Dad has enough sway that anything brought officially can be quashed, but with the way social media grasps onto anything salacious, I could be ruined.
Roman’s platform is big enough to make my family’s secrets a global sensation.
Roman’s stare burns into the side of my face, and I can’t look at him. I press my tongue against the roof of my mouth to ward off the tears that threaten.
His hand turns my chin, and his mouth claims mine.
The kiss isn’t soft, and he doesn’t seek permission. Roman kisses me like it’ll fix everything.
It’s firm and grounding, his tongue making it hard to think straight. I melt into his touch, craving oblivion. When he rests his forehead against mine out breath mingles in needy pants.
‘Enough of the apologising’ he says.
My pulse swooshes in my ears.
‘There’s time for figuring this all out later, but tonight isn’t the time.’
I forget how to breathe for a second. ‘Roman—’
‘Enough.’ His fingers tighten on my jaw, tilting my face up until I have no choice but to meet his eyes. ‘Look at me.’
His expression shifts to hunger. The need to gain some control. The softness is still there, but it’s wrapped in darkness. Obsession.
Eliza had told me often enough about using sex to eradicate overthinking after murder. And while Roman didn’t kill Eddie, I recognise the need for animalistic override.
‘You’ve been running on fear and adrenaline for hours,’ he murmurs. ‘You’re in survival mode. We both are.’
His thumb brushes my throat.
‘So here’s what’s going to happen.’ My breath hitches at the throaty timber of his words. ‘For the rest of tonight, we don’t think. We don’t plan. We don’t apologise. We don’t remember.’
Heat coils low in my stomach as he trails his fingers down my neck and over my collarbone.
‘Let me take this from you.’
I swallow. ‘Take what?’
‘The stress and the guilt.’
He tips me back onto the bed and yanks my hands above my head, holding my wrists firmly in one hand. It’s tight enough that I know struggling will be fruitless, not that I want to anyway. The way his fingers tighten has me remembering the morning and the way he’d given fully into desire.
I craved more.
My towel slips open, and his gaze travels over my bared skin, darkening with every naked inch.
‘Look at you. So fucking perfect, Princess.’
His eyes watch my face, my throat, and the rise and fall of my chest. There’s no pity or softness there, just the promise of pleasure.
Want.
My face burns. ‘You don’t have to—’
‘Have to?’ His mouth curves, slow and dangerous. ‘Oh, baby girl, there’s nothing I want more than to make you fall apart.’
His muscled arms flex as he shifts closer. I swallow hard, arching my back in an invitation. Not that he sought permission. No, Roman is in the mood to take.
This version of him has me weak.
‘Open your legs. Let me see all of you.’
I obey, even as a flush of heat fills my cheeks. The low growl he lets out when he spies that I’m already wet has me trembling.
‘How long have you touched this pretty cunt for me?’
‘Months,’ I admit, biting my lip as his fingertips graze my splayed thighs.
‘Even though you knew I couldn’t have you? Did you take me so I’d stuff you full of cock, Maggie?’
‘No,’ I whimper. ‘But I want you to. Please?’
He slides two fingers into me with ease. Not an ounce of resistance to meet him. Pleasure coils in my core, and I shudder beneath the salacious touch.
When he curls toward my inner walls, he focuses on my face, watching as my lips open.
‘I love how responsive you are. How badly you need to come to function. That I can tame your wild mind by making you squeal for me.’
God damn. Where has this side of Roman been?
Oh, the other side of the wall, you idiot.
His mouth finds mine as he teases me with his hand, dragging slow touches between my thighs until I want to scream. Too slow. Too soft. I want more. The world narrows to the places where our bodies connect.
‘You can take more, can’t you?’ Roman inserts a third finger and increases the tempo of his fingers as I arch more.
‘I can take everything you’ve got for me,’ I mumble before nipping at his lip.
For the first time all night, my mind goes quiet.
Within moments, I’m writhing beneath his touch, lust drunk with desire as he stokes me with deep thrusts of his fingers, stretching and exploring. His gaze doesn’t move from my face, those darkening eyes taking in every desperate gasp.
As tension builds deep inside me, the tears I’d been holding back release. I’m not sad, and I can’t control them, but shame creeps up my chest.
‘Please don’t stop,’ I stammer, my eyes sliding away from his face.
‘Let it all go, Maggie.’ Roman demands, his fingers not letting up their divine intrusion.
The tears track down my cheek and disappear into my hair as I chase the fall, grinding my hips to press the pad of his thumb against my aching clit.
My breath catches when Roman leans down and drags his tongue across my wet cheeks, tasting my tears.
‘I want all of you tonight. Every last fucking drop. Your pleasure. Your tears. Give me more.
The grumble in his throat drives me closer to the edge, and I curse when he pulls his fingers from me.
‘Put them back,’ I demand with an angry whine.
‘No, Princess. I need more.’
He stands and pulls my hips harshly to the edge of the bed, his gloriously firm body hovering above me. His hair is mussed, and his body bruised from the events of the day.
His towel hits the floor, and there he is, hard as a fucking rock, and so close to sinking himself inside me.
‘I’ve imagined you right here, wet and ready, your pretty cunt all pink and puffy. Just perfect.’
Roman leans forward, dragging the head of his cock across my clit. I’m lost to all sense, tipping my hips to try to claim him.
He presses the tip through my folds, resting it right against my entrance. I can feel it pulsing and want it inside me badly.
‘Fuck me,’ I breathe.
‘Do you have a condom?’
Fucking condoms. I don’t have any. And given that he’s a bit of a man whore we probably should find some.
But I don’t want to.
I want flesh on flesh.
I want him to cum inside me.
Given that it might be over when the real world hits.
‘I’m on the injection. Do you usually use condoms?’
‘Always,’ Roman says.
‘Then fuck me, Roman. Make me forget.’
He hesitates for only a moment, but there’s no holding back. He inches his dick into me at a glacial pace, watching my face with rapt reverence.
My mouth makes an O as I adjust to his delicious girth. His slow insertion is torturous, but when I greedily try to take more, he pins my hips, his fingers sinking into my soft flesh.
‘You’ll take what you’re given,’ he growls.
And. I’m. Fucking. Soaked.
‘Please?’ I beg, squirming beneath him.
At last, his will-power broke.
With one solid thrust, he fills me until I fear I’ll burst, holding me tight as I shudder from the sudden fullness.
He doesn’t even make two more strokes before I lose control, my pussy tightening around him as I cry out.
‘Damn, Maggie,’ he moans. ‘I’m just getting started.’
I can’t answer for the absolute bliss flooding my system.