Page 17 of Say It Slowly

CHAPTER SEVEN

Roman

Grabbing Lux’s hand,I pull her upstairs. She doesn’t even fight me. Maybe she’s just glad to be out of the lion’s den. Whatever the reason, she follows me down the hall to my bedroom, and I guide her inside, shutting the door behind us.

“Yourbrosare assholes,” she says, emphasizingbroslike it’s an insult.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” I answer, clearing my bed of the clothes I flung there this morning, and dumping them into an armchair by the fireplace.

She takes the scrap of paper out of her pocket and stares down at it. “So what am I supposed to do, go around asking guys to show me their forearms?”

“You think something happened to her?” I ask.

She looks at me sharply. “What do you mean?”

“I thought the going theory was that she ran off with this guy? If that’s the case, then he’s with her, wherever she is, which obviously isn’t on campus.”

“There’s nothing to indicate she left with this guy willingly. He was just the last one to see her. And that text ‘Bree’ sent me before we almost got run over…? Yeah, something is wrong.”

I can see the emotion flooding her face, all of a sudden, like it’s finally hitting her. I walk over, and brush my thumb across her cheek, guiding her head up, so she’s looking directly at me. “Hey,” I say softly. “We’re going to figure this out. We’ll find her.”

Unshed tears pool in her moss-green eyes and something pulls at me like the tide—the inexplicable need to comfort her. I gather her into my arms, and pick her up, placing her on my large matress. The blankets and pillows swallow her up, but she looks so damn good lying there—even fully clothed—like she belongs in my bed.

I clench my jaw and glance away. I can’t allow thoughts like that to take root, so I do what I do best, and push them away, choosing to focus on the one thing IknowI can do—make her forget about her friend, about Tyler, and focus only onme…

She rises up onto her elbows, eyes wide, like she’s afraid of what I’m going to do. I’m such a twisted fuck, because that fear and uncertainty I see in her eyes only turns me on more. I feed on her denials, on her insistence that she doesn’t want me. It’s like I have to prove it, to her and myself, that what I’m feeling between us is real.

That her body craves me.

That her soul cries out for mine.

“I should get back to my dorm room,” she says. Her voice shakes a little, and that makes me smile.

“You’re not going anywhere, Little Rabbit. Not until I’ve heard you scream my name at least once tonight.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Lux

Every fearI’ve developed over the last couple of years comes roaring back to life. I don’t like feeling trapped. I don’t like feeling like I have no escape—and yet, here I am with Roman tossing me onto his bed, blocking the only way out—again.

“I want to leave,” I say firmly, hoping he hears the strength in my voice and decides to back off. Unfortunately, though, my body is on a completely different wavelength. My core is already drenched, and my nipples are beaded into sensitive peaks, rubbing against my bra painfully.

He half-climbs onto the bed, one knee on the mattress, with both hands braced on either side of my head. “No.”

“Yes,” I choke out. The last two times Roman fucked me, it just kind of happened. I didn’t have time to stress about whether or not I shouldallowhim to fuck me.

But since the tribunal, it’sall I’ve been thinking about.

Roman isn’t good for me, that doesn’t take a genius to figure out. And it’s true, I need his help finding Bree, but at what cost to my sanity?

His one hand slides up my baby-T, over my ribcage, then around to my back, so he can unhook my bra. It comes open easily, and sags on my body. He pulls me up slightly and removes my shirt and bra, so I’m lying there in front of him, naked from the waist up.

I don’t fight him at all, and I have no idea why. Maybe, deep down, I really do want this. I hate this guy. I hate everything he stands for. But I can't deny the effect he has on my body.

He smiles appreciatively, his gaze roving over my breasts. “You have generously sized tits. I meant to tell you that last time.”

Yeah, I’m not the stick figure he’s used to. “I have generously sized everything,” I say stiffly.

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