Page 33 of Roar Me Like You Mean It
“I saw… everything.” My voice is a rasp. “A fortress of black stone, somewhere cold. He wasn’t alone. There were others like him, like you. But they were… hollow. Just weapons. He was building an army.”
He goes still, a predator catching a scent on the wind. The air in the room thickens.
“The Pact,” he says, the words dropping like stones. “We were five. Brothers. We swore an oath, forswore mates, forswore any claim to a life beyond the fight. Our rage… it isn’t a temper, Jennifer. It’s a living thing. A mate would be an anchor, a vulnerability. And the world needed us sharp. Unbreakable.”
A bitter laugh escapes me. “Unbreakable? Look at you. Look at me.”
His gaze cuts to me, sharp and gold. “Precisely. We knew the risk. So we swore. No ties. No softness. Just the watch.”
“And Roman?”
Malek’s jaw works. He looks away, toward the window, as if he can see the ghost of it all playing out in the rain-streaked glass. “He was the best of us. The strongest. He found her first. A human, like you. Didn’t tell us. We felt the bond forming in him, saw the control start to slip. The oath… it wasn’t just words. It was a ward. A lock on the beast. He broke it for her.”
He pulls his hand from mine to run it over his face, a rare show of exhaustion. “We confronted him. Gave him a choice. Her, or the Pact. He chose her. Called us fools. Said we were guarding a world that would never thank us, denying ourselves the one thing that could actually make the rage worth bearing.”
“What happened?”
“He tried to take her and run. We stopped him. It was… messy. Brutal. She didn’t survive the crossfire. And something in Roman broke that day, something that never got put back together. He vanished. Now he’s building what we swore to prevent. An empire of unchecked rage. And he’s using the one thing we denied ourselves to do it. He’s finding mates for his new brothers. Twisting the bond into a chain.”
The weight of his history hangs between us, a shroud of pain and duty. He’s staring at the rain again, a statue carved from grief and regret. I can’t stand it. I can’t let him sit in that darkness alone.
I shift on the couch, turning my body toward his. My fingers find the sharp line of his jaw, gently guiding his face back to mine. His eyes are pools of liquid gold, the rage banked, leaving only a raw, aching vulnerability.
“You’re not him,” I whisper, my voice barely a breath. “You’re not alone.”
I lean in and press my lips to his. It starts soft, a simple seal of comfort. But then his control fractures. A low groan rumbles in his chest and his mouth opens under mine, hungry and desperate. His hands come up to cup my face, his touch impossibly gentle for all its urgency.
He breaks the kiss, our breath mingling. “Jennifer.”
I stand, taking his hands and pulling him up with me. I lead him to the bedroom, the space silent except for the soft sound of the rain and our breathing. I stop beside the bed and turn to face him. My fingers go to the buttons of his shirt, working them slowly, one by one. I push the fabric from his shoulders, my palms smoothing over the hard planes of his chest.
His hands find the hem of my sweater and he pulls it over my head, his gaze hot and intent on my body. He unclasps my bra and it joins the growing pile of clothes on the floor. He lowers his head, his mouth closing over one nipple, his tongue laving the peak until I cry out, my fingers tangling in his hair.
We fall onto the bed, a tangle of limbs and need. He strips my pants and panties away, his hands roaming my bare skin as if memorizing it. I fumble with his belt, then the button of his trousers, pushing them down his hips. His cock springs free, thick and hard against my stomach.
He settles between my legs, the head of his throbbing cock nudging at my entrance. I’m already wet, aching for him.
“Please,” I breathe, arching up to meet him.
He pushes inside, a slow, inexorable stretch that steals the air from my lungs. He fills me completely, a perfect, shocking fit. He stills, buried deep, his body trembling with the effort of holding back.
“Move,” I urge him, wrapping my legs around his waist.
He begins to thrust, a slow, deep rhythm that builds a fire low in my belly. Each stroke is deliberate, a claiming and a surrender. His pace quickens, the bedframe creaking a softaccompaniment to our ragged breaths. I meet him thrust for thrust, my nails digging into the muscles of his back. The coil of pleasure tightens, winding tighter and tighter with every deep, driving plunge.
He moves inside me with a rhythm that feels ancient, a language my body understands better than my own name. His thrusts are deep and measured, each one hitting a spot that makes stars burst behind my eyelids. I clutch at the sheets, my moans muffled by the pillow.
“God, Malek…”
His hands slide around from my hips to my ass, gripping me hard, pulling me back onto his cock with a force that steals my breath. He leans over me, his chest pressing against my back, his lips finding the sensitive skin below my ear.
“You feel like heaven,” he rasps, his voice rough with a need that mirrors my own. “So tight. So perfect for me.”
He picks up the pace, the slow, deep rhythm giving way to something more urgent, more primal. The sound of our bodies meeting fills the room, a wet, slapping music that drives me higher. One of his hands slips around my hip, his fingers finding my clit, circling it with a pressure that’s just shy of too much.
“Come for me, Jennifer.” His command is a low growl against my neck, a vibration that goes straight to my core. “Let me feel you come around my cock.”
His words, his touch, the relentless drive of his hips—it’s too much. The coil snaps. Pleasure detonates through me, a white-hot shockwave that makes my entire body seize. I cry out, a raw, broken sound as my pussy clenches around him, milking his length.
