Page 40 of The Preacher's Pet

I nod. “He used to come to my room at night and sleep curled up on the floor.”

Roman’s face tightens a little. “Malachi had a similar upbringing. The violence. The anger.”

I tilt my head to look into his face. “And you, too?”

He bites his lower lip, and for once, he doesn’t meet my eye.

“What I experienced was different. It was worse.”

“How could it possibly be wo—” I start to say, then cut myself off. My stomach knots in dismay. Is he saying what I think he is? There’s only one thing I can think of as being worse than being beaten as a child, and I don’t want to give voice to it. “My God, Roman. I’m sorry.”

Instinctively, I reach out and take his hand. I expect him to pull away, but he doesn’t. His grip is warm and strong, hisfingers long, his nails square and blunt. I study the fine blond hairs on the back of his hand, trying to distract myself from the pull I feel toward this man. How can I have an attraction to him, when I already have one with Malachi? Maybe the Prophet is right and I am a whore. That’s not even starting to consider how I feel about Cain, too.

Roman draws in a long breath through his nose, then speaks again. “We have a plan, the three of us, and it’s vital that we stick to it. If we don’t, this cycle will just continue. Do you understand? From generation to generation to generation.”

I shake my head. “No, it won’t, because you are the next generation, and you’ll make sure that doesn’t happen.”

He shoots me a look of pure frustration. “That’s exactly my point. But we need each other to be strong enough to do it. To not become the same as our families before us. We were focused purely on making that happen, but then you arrived…”

I bite the inside of my cheek. “Whatever has happened hasn’t been intentional on my part.”

“I know that.”

“So, what are you asking? For me to leave? Because that’s not going to happen either. My parents want me here, and there’s no way I can go home.” I shake my head. “I just can’t. I won’t survive it.”

He narrows his eyes at me, studying me again. “What do you mean?”

“The anxiety, the depression, the agoraphobia… it’s been easier since I got here, but that doesn’t mean I’m better. It’s waiting for me, like a big black cloud or a monster under my bed, just waiting for me to stumble and fall so it can smother me again.”

Why am I telling him all this? I knew Cain for years, before I got taken, and I’ve not told him this much in our conversations since we met again. Roman has something about him that makesme want to confess. Like a priest. The irony of that isn’t lost on me.

“You don’t have to leave,” he concedes. “Just leave us … alone.”

I chew on my lip, the sense of rejection huge. I don’t know these men, not really, not even Cain. Not anymore. And they don’t know me, but this feels like a massive slap in the face. I can’t be angry at him because he’s not shouting or being scary. He’s simply asking me to leave them be, for their own good.

To my mortification, tears fill my eyes and spill over. I lift my free hand to wipe them away hastily and clamber to my feet, brushing the leaves and dirt from my backside. My coffee topples over and spills from the gap in the lid onto the ground. I don’t even bother to pick it up again.

Roman is watching me, and something crosses his face that ought to send me running. It’s a dark mixture of frustration, anger, but something else, too. Something white and bright, like the heart of a raging hot flame.

“What is it about you?” He gives a slight shake of his head and stands as well.

He’s asking the sky, though. The air, the soil, anything but me. It’s rhetorical, and I can’t answer anyway because I don’t know what it is about me.

What made that man take me all those years ago? What made me the perfect bride for him, in his eyes? Why do I seem to keep getting myself into trouble?

“Sorry,” I say automatically.

I never wanted to come into the lives of these three men and make things harder for them. I know how it is to have lived a difficult life, and I want to heal, and I’d want the same for them, too.

I feel molten under his burning gaze. My instinct is to make myself liquid to fit whatever he wants me to be. Not to becomemeek, but something else entirely, to submit to him, but not like the women did at the commune.

This is different. It’s sensual and erotic. I want to fall to my knees for him. To rest my head against his thick, muscular thighs.

To my shock, my body is already ahead of me.

“What are you doing?” Roman’s voice is surprised and rough.

My knees hit the soft, grassy floor, and I lean forward, my chin pressed to his thighs as I look up at him.

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