Page 44 of The Broken Wolf's Redemption

She threw back her head and laughed, seeing herself doing a series of ridiculous moves in her mind. “I’m a terrible dancer. If it wasn’t that, what other awful suggestion did you have in mind?” She stood over by the desk and Rome was by the door. She had a better view of the assortment of toys he’d left out for her like an all you can eat buffet.

Honestly, if he’d presented himself naked on that desk, he might have stood a chance.

Jesus H, sometimes she truly despised herself.

His hair was a mess, his eyes their normal coal black. There was a smudge of grease along his sharp jawline and a shadow of dark stubble. He’d been working all day and no doubt he was barely healed from whatever happened to him when he took down a gang,which she’d read about during the week, the graphic details censored, but she’d gotten the idea. One clubhouse, sixteen men, all with rap sheets that could wrap around a whole block, found deceased. No article had used any other word. Mutilated, chewed, ripped apart, nothing said that it looked like a pack of wild animals somehow gotten into the clubhouse and wrecked those men. If there was any security footage, it had been thoughtfully removed. She was a little astounded that the place hadn’t been set on fire after, but there likely was no need. What DNA did wolves leave behind that could be traced?

This man. He was so dangerous that it made her stomach cramp. A wolf who killed. A man who killed. His soul had likely long since ceased to be in mortal danger and had left the party altogether. He had zero conscience. He was broken and beyond depraved. He pretty much oozed the fact that he gave zero fucks about it all. He’d stolen her life and her body and he’d done it happily and easily. He’d proved to her that he could buy her. The worst part? He’d promised to own her and break her, and in a way, he already did and so fulfilled that last promise.

In another world, maybe they could have been good together.

In this world?

She was going to perform for him because that’s what that contract said she would do because it was fine for her to say she could hold onto her pride, but in reality, she knew she’d do whatever it took to save her business and her friends.

What about the alternate reality where you’d do anything to save him? He wants you. He doesn’t want to want you. You’re the position and the antidote. If he can use you and discard you in order to stop wanting you and that’s what this is about, then you can use him back. You can want him back and have him and put an end to all of the cravings that are driving you mad.

It was insane, but wasn’t all of this? Wasn’t the very notion that you could stop wanting something by having it? It worked with food. Killing a craving. Songs too. Maybe he was right. She wouldn’t know until she tried, but the trying might kill both of them.

“I’ll dance,” she agreed, throwing what little caution she had left entirely to the wind. “If you dance with me.”

This was what Rome had turned her into. An insane person, because only an insane person would want to take the beast who held the keys to her cage and drag him in there with her knowing full well there was no taming or domesticating or fixing him.

“That would be impossible,” he stated flatly.

She’d done a lot of thinking ever since Wednesday. She’d done far more thinking than that, but it was only after Rome picked up Waverly that she’d had the idea that he needed her and that was also why he pushed her away. It was why he wouldn’t let himself touch her. It wasn’t just for his protection. It was for hers.

She was going to disregard her own safety for both their sakes. Rome didn’t want to be saved. She hadn’t wanted more complications in her life. Neither of them wanted a mate again. She’d thought that it was the softest animals on the inside that required the most armor or quills on the exterior, but Rome didn’t fit in that category. He was hard all the way through.

“You bought me as a toy,” she said. “You bought me as a thing. But nothing has gone according to whatever plan you had. Why not just scrap it and do something different?”

His eyes flashed. He was the lightning, the thunder, the entire storm. His face was always broody, but an extra shadow moved in front of his eyes. His face grew pinched. “No, thank you.”

“No?” She stood on her toes and leaned a little bit closer to him. They were separated by a few feet. She might as well be standing on the edge of an abyss, ready to hurl herself off without any sort of chute. “Why not?”

“I’m not interested.”

She choked. Gasped. And then laughed. She couldn’t keep it in, not even with Rome glaring her a new one. “I’ve never met anyone who was so full it.”

“Full of what?” He crossed his arms and looked at her like she was a stain he might have to bust out the industrial grade cleaner to remove.

“To say shit would be far too token. Honestly, I don’t even know what. You said you wouldn’t ever touch me, but you did. You kissed me. It’s like it never happened. I show up here after taking your broken ass halfway across the state and it’s like it never happened. You just give me commands and watch me. You make me want… ugh. You’re mean! You won’t compromise an inch. You’ve done horrible things. You might even be the devil, but you secretly love your family.” This was a lot further than she was planning on going, but now that she’d started, she couldn’t stop. She was mid-tirade and there was no slowing down that trainwreck. “You look after Waverly, and I know that you love her. It’s not just obligation that makes you a family. You showed up at my work, ready to break the door down and you couldn’t even be honest with yourself about why. You tell yourself no when all you want to hear is yes. You’re not the least bit like anyone I’ve ever known, but that’s not so mystifying considering there isn’t a being on this planet who is anything like you.”

He gave her a bored look and his eyes purposely swept over her body, like he could intimidate her the way he used to. That wasn’t going to work any longer. He stood like a statue, the most beautiful one she’d ever seen, a cold, cruel, demanding, demeaning, evil work of art.

That’s all she’d seen at first, but now she knew that wasn’t the truth. That was just what Rome wanted people to see.

“I think we’re more alike than you realize. At least, there’s one thing we have in common. We both structured our lives so carefully to keep them from coming apart.”

His lips curled into a mocking grin. It did nothing to change the fact that he wasn’t as dead inside as he liked everyone to believe, including himself.

“You try to keep people away with all your sharp edges. I have a thousand friends. I know half the people in this city. I was mated. I’m a daughter and a best friend and a co-worker and so many other things, but truly, hardly anyone knows me. They see what I give them. We also have that in common. Maybe I’ve been seeing what I gave myself. Maybe I had no idea what I really wanted. I tried to believe I did. I tried to figure it out. I had the perfect life, and it wasn’t right. So what was? Being by myself, working hard, being a good daughter and friend? I thought that was enough. It was enough, maybe, for that time.”

“We’re nothing alike, darling.” Rome cracked his knuckles like he was getting ready to do violence, but his size, his cold, dead eyes, the feral aura, the toxicity he oozed didn’t frighten her. She knew what he did to her and she was prepared for her body’s reaction.

The heat didn’t shame her this time.

“You know what you do to my body. I want to touch you. I want to get inside you. I want you inside me.”

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