Chapter 30 Amber
AMBER
Roman held me all night.
I fell asleep in his arms. It was a deep sleep, one I needed after all that happened.
The adrenaline hell of realizing I was being kidnapped. The panic of trying to protect Emily and Henry. The PTSD that hit so hard when that man stood behind me.
That wasn’t all that wore me down, though.
All that happened here, after I was back in the penthouse and able to decompress with Roman. That was potent too. Fear encompassed me when I took the leap of faith to tell him about William. My stomach had twisted into knots when I explained how those men were looking for me.
Throughout it all, he’d held me and consoled me. Let me cry on him. Listened to me without judgment.
I woke up and stretched slightly, doing my best not to wake him now.
I’d vaguely registered him in the middle of the night when he told me that he’d handle the twins when they woke up.
And I’d accepted his help. Between the scare and trauma and the difficult confession, I’d been too spent to get up and assist him with feeding them or getting them to settle back down.
He was still sleeping in, and I marveled at him in bed with me.
That he was declaring I could stay. That he would do all he could to protect me.
Even kill William?
The thought had entered my mind so many times.
I’d dreamed it and wished upon every star for my adoptive father to be dead.
In the manner of wanting to survive and not be locked in his house, subjected to his negligence and dismissal, I wanted him gone.
Dead. No longer able to harm me or mess with my head.
Roman hadn’t even flinched when I implied that I wanted William handled like that.
He hadn’t scoffed or laughed at me. He hadn’t recoiled in disgust or shock.
And why would he have? He admitted what I’d been suspecting.
He was part of a crime family, so yeah, it made sense that the suggestion to kill someone wouldn’t have stunned him.
He’d killed others in the name of protecting me and the twins.
But he had to draw a line at being able to kill William for me.
I sighed, wishing there were some way out of my past. But that wasn’t even all of it. I choked and couldn’t share the ugly words about why William was likely desperate to reclaim me.
Just accept what you can.
I admired his rugged profile, that slight stubble taking over his lean jawline. All the sharp angles of his face. The steady rise and fall of his chiseled chest as he slept.
Accept that you’ve had this long away from William, this much time to learn how good it can be with someone like him.
And I did. I had it so good with Roman, able to love his children, safe to be at peace in his penthouse without worrying about how to afford the basics of life.
I don’t know what I would’ve done without you.
Gratitude swelled in my heart, and I knew that I’d never be able to find all the adequate words to make him understand that he was my hero. My protector. My killer.
I smiled as I scooted closer.
I’d probably always fail to find the right words to fully convey how grateful I was for him.
But I can show you…
Slinking down the bed as carefully as I could, I moved further under the covers. I crawled alongside his body until I reached his shorts to ease them off his hips.
Biting my lip, I watched his face for any sign of him waking up. I strained to listen for if the twins were about to wake up too. Because I wanted to give him a wake-up call of a particular variety.
His cock sprang out from the fabric. Hard, stiff, and ridged with the veins. I licked my lips as I continued to reveal his erection. My mouth watered for a taste of him again.
And I could only hope he’d like this surprise. This token of gratitude.
The second I closed my lips around his cockhead, he moved.
A slight jerk of his hips indicated he wasn’t fully asleep anymore, but I didn’t stop there.
Swirling my tongue around the wide mushroomed tip earned me a low growl.
When I spread my lips open some more and sank over him, he slid his hands into my hair.
The caress of his fingers on my scalp almost made me shiver in delight, but it was the stretch of him deep inside my mouth that had me humming in satisfaction.
And that did the trick. He woke up fully then. Sitting upright a little and gazing down at me, the lazy sleepiness faded from his eyes. “What are you doing?”
I only smiled at him, not taking my mouth off his cock.
“Amber?” He seemed surprised, but not alarmed.
I dragged my tongue up the underside of his dick before I let him go. “Just saying good morning.”
“Hmm.” He kept his hands on my head but he didn’t push me to continue.
Instead, he watched me with a dazed but curious look on his face.
If he was that pensive, he was thinking too much.
And if he was thinking at all, I wasn’t doing this right.
He normally turned into a caveman, doing his best not to fuck my mouth too hard when I went down on him.
I pulled back up again and flicked the tip of my tongue on the top of his cockhead. “And thank you.”
As I sank back over him, he furrowed his brow.
What?
What’s wrong?
This isn’t good?
He let me bob on his shaft one more time before he did a crunch and sat up fully. With that movement, he shifted his hands lower, around my head, until he could ease them further down under my armpits.
A squeal waited in my throat at how swiftly he picked me up and brought me back up on the mattress next to him. He didn’t stop there, rolling until I was on my back and he was hovering over me, holding both my hands over my head.
“Thank you?” he whispered hotly.
I nodded.
“What the hell does that mean?” he demanded quietly enough that he wouldn’t wake Emily or Henry but sternly enough for me to know he wasn’t happy.
“I…” I frowned, confused about how I’d screwed up. “I wanted to please you.” I tried to shrug but couldn’t with how he held my arms up. “I wanted to pay you back for rescuing me.”
He narrowed his eyes and growled, moving over me more fully so he pinned me in place. It wasn’t easy to ignore the press of his dick prodding against me, but the seriousness in his gaze worried me.
“Amber.” He licked his lips and exhaled an exasperated breath. “I appreciate your gratitude—which isn’t necessary. Ever.”
I swallowed hard, still unsure how he could be this testy.
“But I would much rather have your honesty instead.”
“My… my honesty?” Wasn’t what I told him last night enough? “Are you calling me a liar?”
“No. I wouldn’t have any grounds to call you a liar, would I?”
Well, shit.
I cringed.
“Unless you are still holding back and not telling me the whole truth about your situation.” He leveled a firm glare on me, and it intimidated me. Not so much that I worried he’d get mad, but perhaps that he was getting tired of playing any games with me.
“I did.”
“There’s nothing else you haven’t told me that would be relative to your situation with William Rossen?”
I stared him down, too scared to share the last part. The worst of it. The piece of me that would always tell the tale of how I was damaged goods. Not free to be his or anyone else’s. Ever.
“Maybe like why Rossen could be motivated to go so far to get you back in his house—not as an adopted child but a fully grown and independent woman who should be able to do whatever she wants with her life.”
“So long as he’s alive, I’ll never be able to do what I want with my life.”
“Why?” he pressed, giving me such a beseeching look of a plea that it broke my heart.
“Because…”
Just tell him.
Go for it.
Get it over with.
If I wanted to cling to this idea of a future here, he had to know sooner or later. I couldn’t let this secret stay trapped in me and eating away at me forever.
“Because when I was about ten years old, one of William’s friends snuck into my room and raped me.”
I swallowed hard, willing myself not to cry.
Roman’s face remained locked in that intense seriousness as he stared down at me.
“His friend came into my room and… and raped me. William was furious because I was damaged goods.” I ignored the sting of tears in my eyes and the tremble of my lips as I spoke.
“He had adopted me to give me to someone else. But his friend ruined it, helping himself to me. William told him that he had to take me now that I was no longer worth anything to him.”
“Fuck.” Roman growled and reversed our positions. He was on his back with me draped over him as he clutched me tightly, bracing his hand on the back of my head.
“I realized with time that William had only adopted me to sell me to one of his friends. And since I wasn’t a virgin anymore, no one would want me for the price he was asking.”
“He told you this?”
“He told me that I was good for nothing after that incident. I picked up on the details as I lived there and hid near my room.”
“Then why did he keep you there? Why is he still trying to keep you?” he asked, stroking his hand on my back, grounding me.
“Because he made his friend, the one who raped me, agree to take me.” I cleared my throat. “That man was arrested, though. William didn’t tell me anything, but I overheard bits and pieces. It seemed like he was keeping me with him until his friend was paroled so I could be paid for and collected.”
We lay there in the quiet for such long moments that my worry escalated threefold.
“Say something,” I begged, trying not to cry. This was my darkest secret. My biggest shame. And I dreaded that he’d want nothing to do with me anymore.
“He was holding you there until he could give you away?”
I nodded, rubbing my cheek on his chest. “That was the only reason. He repeatedly told me in the beginning, when I would ask to leave or for him to explain why that happened, that it was what I deserved. That I owed him for adopting me.”
“Fucking bastard.” He shook his head as I lifted up to face him.
“I’m sorry, Roman. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. I’m so ashamed and I hate that I’m damaged at—”
He growled again, rolling to get me on my back again so he could hover over me. “You’re not damaged. You are not, Amber. You are the kind of goodness I could only ever dream of having in my life.”
I blinked back the tears as my heart swelled with love.
“Hear me and believe me when I say that he will never hurt you again.” He hung his head for a moment and let out a deep breath before facing me. “You don’t owe him anything. You don’t owe me anything either. You understand? You are—” He gritted his teeth. “You will never have to fear him again.”
My heart ached at his choice of words. I didn’t owe him anything? What did that mean? That he didn’t want to be committed to me anymore? And never for anything long term?
I struggled to accept that he still saw me as something dispensable. But I clung to the reality of what else he vowed. “How can you know that? You said you can’t kill him.”
“I’ll find another way to seek justice, Amber.” He kissed my forehead. “I swear on it.”