Page 55 of The Preachers' Promise
“They won’t.” His words are terse, and he doesn’t meet my eye. “I’ve done it before. It’s not my first time. You weren’t meant to see.”
“Roman, we’re all living together in one house. I think we were going to see.” I keep my tone as neutral as I can. I’m scaredthat one wrong word or wrong expression will close him off to me for good.
A lot of the time, I move through this world focused on my own pain, and my own fears, but seeing Roman like this pulls me right out of myself. All I care about is him.Hispain.Hisfears. Because heisafraid, I can see it in his eyes. That’s why I’m treading so carefully.
I glance at the rope, discarded to the side. My vision blurs with tears at the sight of the bloodied knots.
“Please let me put some antibiotic lotion on the cuts. I won’t tell the others.”
He laughs, and it’s bitter and dark. “Well, as you say, they’re going to see, aren’t they? Unless we don’t do any more sex stuff.” Turning to look at his back in the mirror, he winces. “I might have gone a bit too far this time.”
To my shock, he smiles. It’s wobbly and a little forlorn, but it’s a smile, at least.
A horrible thought hits me. “Is it me? Has all this crap with me and my family, and what happened at the facility, triggered you? Is being around me so much what made you go too far?”
His face darkens, and regret at my words has me clamping my mouth shut, but it’s too late. So much for approaching this whole situation carefully.
“What? No.” He looks down at the floor as if he’s trying to hide from me.
I cover my hand with my mouth, horrified. “Oh, my God, itisbecause of all my crap. I can’t be the reason you did this to yourself.”
He looks up, wrenching his gaze from the ground as if it’s weighted down. “Jesus, Ophelia, not everything in this life is about you.”
He’s retreated into anger, the usual male go-to when any difficult emotions rear their head. His words hurt, but I won’t back down.
“You’ve hurt yourself more than you usually do, and here we are, with you all having to look after me again.” I raise my arms in a futile gesture of impatience. “I’m a burden, on all of you, and you’ve got enough of your own shit to deal with.” I soften my voice. “I can’t bear that my baggage has caused you pain, Roman.”
He stands so suddenly my head spins. He paces up and down the length of the mirrors, his fingers knotted in his hair. “It’s not your crap, and it’s not that you’re a burden, but yeah, it is being around you that’s stirred some shit inside me. I thought I had such tight control over myself, and I knew if I allowed you to get close, I’d also lose that control. I wasn’t strong enough, and I let you in.”
The words hit me so hard they leave me winded.
“I’ll leave,” I say brokenly.
Where, I don’t know, but I can’t be responsible for him doing this to himself.
“No, you will fucking not.” He whirls on me, anger in his olive gaze.
Standing, I walk to him and take his hands. I expect him to pull away, but he doesn’t.
“Roman, I don’t know what to do.”
“It’s not taking care of you that’s set this off, or your past.”
I frown, confused as hell. “Well, what is it, then?”
“You make me want to do things I shouldn’t.”
His words are so quiet, I strain to fully hear them.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m scared, Ophelia, that deep down, I carry the sickness of those men in my family who hurt me.”
My heart slams painfully against its cage as tears burn the backs of my eyes. “Roman, no. You could never be like them. You’ve been so kind to me, so good to me.”
“I grabbed your hair and forced my cock down your throat.”
“I wanted it,” I argue, trying but failing to get through to him.
