Page 284 of Love Me in the Dark
The bedroom is a warzone.
The mattress is flipped. Drawers yanked out, contents flung across the floor. Curtains ripped from the rods, lying like bodies across the hardwood. One of the paintings has been stabbed through the canvas.
Roman sits in the center of it all.
On the floor. Legs bent. Shirt wrinkled. Bare hands braced on his thighs, smeared with dirt or maybe blood. His jaw is tight, eyes locked on the floor like it might offer absolution.
He looks up.
And everything breaks open.
He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t move. Just watches me like I’m a ghost he thought he’d buried.
I cross the threshold slowly, glass crunching under my shoes.
“You redecorate or something?” I say quietly, needing to break the silence.
His voice is hoarse. “Why did you come back?”
I sit beside him.
I don’t touch him.
Not yet.
“Honestly?” I say. “I didn’t think I would when I left.”
He says nothing.
“But you were right,” I continue, barely a whisper now. “In a world where no one saw me… where no one cared what happened to me”
I look at him, and his eyes are burning.
“You saw me. You see me.”
I reach for his hand.
“I’m yours,” I say. “For as long as you want me.”
He doesn’t breathe.
And when he finally does it’s nothing but a shudder. Like he’s just been brought back to life by my words.
“Mine.” He growls as he pulls me into his arms. “I’ll fucking chain you to me if I have to.”
12
ROMAN
The sun barely filters through the blackout curtains, but I feel it. The shift in the air. The ache in my body. The heaviness of having her—finally having her—lying next to me, soft and pliant in sleep, is the closest thing to peace I’ve ever known.
But peace is a lie.
Because I don’t trust peace.
Not when I’ve bled to earn it.
I turn my head, careful not to wake her, and stare.
