Page 56 of The Preachers' Promise
“Earlier, I was so full of fucking pent-up emotions, I just wanted to crawl back into that bed and push my way inside you while you slept.” He takes hold of my jaw, his green gaze holding me captive. “I wanted to push my cock into your pussy while you were unaware. Do you know what that is?” He grits his teeth. “It’s fucked up, and wrong, and sick.”
If it is, I must be fucked up and wrong and sick, too, because the idea has me aching with need.
“I’d have liked it,” I whisper.
He jerks away as if I’ve slapped him. “See? This is why we can’t go on like this.”
A deep voice comes from the bottom of the stairs. “What the fuck is up with your back?” Malachi is standing there, his eyes wide. “And why can’t we go on like this?”
“It has to stop,” Roman says.
“Like hell it will.” Cain joins Malachi, his huge frame blotting out the stairs beyond.
“Ophelia is fucked up, and I’m fucked up,” he raises his voice, “and that combination is toxic. Worse, it makes me want to do fucked-up things, and that’s wrong.”
Roman talks to us as if we’re children, and it makes me angry.
“Okay, well, how about this.” I put my hands on my hips as I face him, pissed off now. “I give you advanced permission to have sex with me while I’m asleep.”
Roman’s face sets into hard lines, and I know I’ve said the wrong thing.
“Wait, what?” Malachi steps deeper into the basement. “Sleep sex? I mean, I’m down for it, but what the hell have you two been talking about down here?” He flinches as he gets closer to us. “Fuck, Rome, your back.”
“It’s bad,” Cain says as he joins us.
“You know what?” Roman shakes his head. “You don’t need to leave, Ophelia.I do. I’m the one who’s going to screw this up. I’m the one with the demons inside me screaming to get out.”
Mal laughs, and it shocks me because it seems a callous reaction in this moment. “Come on, Rome, we’ve all got fucking demons, and we’re all a little bit sick in the head.”
“I can’t do this,” Roman whispers. “I’m going to destroy everything.”
I feel like I’m falling apart. Just when it seems as if I’m on tentatively solid ground again, it gets ripped out from under me. I knew this was going to happen. I’d sensed it.
“You’re just going to leave me?” I sob, unable to stop the tears.
“You can’t do this, Roman.” Cain steps to him, and, to my surprise, pulls Roman into a hug, taking care to keep his hands around his shoulders where there aren’t any welts. “You’re my fucking brother, in every way but blood. Hell, you’re better than blood because blood just fucks you up, so you can’t leave. We all need you.You can’t leave.”
“I’m broken inside,” Roman says. “I need the pain more and more, and I want to do … bad things.”
“Whatever you want to do, it can’t be as bad as the things I want to do sometimes,” Malachi says.
“Yeah, and there’s not much difference between you hitting yourself, and me going to a fight club.” Cain shrugs.
“Except you’re hurting other people, and I hurt myself,” Roman points out.
Cain shakes his head. “I don’t go to hurt other people. I go to get hit.” His face turns red. “It... umm … it calms me down.”
Roman is breathing heavily, and I can see there’s a battle going on within him. He’s either going to give in and try to make this work, or he’s going to run.
28
MALACHI
The thoughtof Roman noping-out of this and just leaving us has me on the edge of panic. He has a terrible past, but none of us have got to this moment in our lives without scars. I realize how much I need him, and Cain, to be remotely on an even keel as I move through this world.
I force myself to speak. “I know I say a lot of shit, and I’m … well some might call me sarcastic.”
“Never,” Cain says drily, lightening the atmosphere.
