They think he’s dangerous and maybe I should talk to Reed first and then figure out a plan. But I tell them that I’ve tried. I’ve been trying for months but he doesn’t say anything and I’m getting impatient.
“I love him, okay?” I say, looking at all three of them before fixing my eyes on Salem. “Wouldn’t you do the same for him? For Arrow.”
Her golden eyes fill with sympathy and also determination on my behalf. “I’d do anything for him.”
And so it’s decided.
Not that they were going to change my mind but still.
But there’s one thing that I think is a bad sign. Halo is restless.
She’s been kicking and moving and making a ruckus inside my womb ever since Reed dropped me off at the library. And she’s yet to calm down. I rub my belly, rock my body in the chair, take a walk around the library – which is not a hardship because I have to get up to pee every five minutes anyway; stupid bladder – but to no avail.
By the time I’m done, I’ve had it with her.
But then as soon as I see Reed, she quiets down.
She goes back to sleep and oh God, I’m so relieved. I’m so relieved to see him that I can’t stop my smile as I walk through the black metal gates to meet him.
“Hi,” I say, smiling. “Oh, I’m so glad to see you.”
His frown is immediate. “What happened?”
“Nothing happened,” I tell him, rolling my eyes, before grabbing his hand and putting it on my belly. “Halo was being such a brat, Roman. All day. And look, now that you’re here she’s fine. I don’t like that she’s chosen teams.”
I was expecting a chuckle. Or if not that then at least a small smile.
But he doesn’t give me any of that.
Even though he does grab my belly like he always does, his fingers splaying over the bump, but his wolf eyes that always shine or glint when he touches her don’t come alive.
They’re shuttered.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, squeezing his hand.
“Nothing. Let’s go,” he says and tries to take his hand off my belly.
But I stop him. “Roman, what’s going on? What happened?”
His jaw tics. “Nothing happened.”
Something must have.
Because I know he’s coming back from work.
He was supposed to drop me off at school to study before going back to his hotel room — where he still lives despite spending the majority of his time at the glass house — to get changed and go to work.
Because he got called in, which I completely hated.
It only made me more determined to take matters into my own hands.
That and the fact that after I worshipped his cock in the foyer yesterday, he drew me a bath. He washed my hair for me, rubbed lotion on my belly, massaged my back, my knees, my feet.
How can I not give him what he so obviously wants then?
When he can be so tender and loving.
“You’re upset about something. I know. Tell me.” I inch closer to him, to his rigid body. “Just tell me, please. You never tell me anything, Roman. And I know you’re coming back from work. Something must’ve happened. You need to —”
“Fae,” he growls, speaking over me as something flashes through his eyes. “Not now. Not fucking now.”
That flash of something, something dark, tortured, makes me nod.
I wasn’t going to do it.
But that light of utter anguish makes me agree. Like it pains him right now to be asked questions.
“Okay.”
He gives me a short nod and takes me to his Mustang, helping me gently inside despite his harsh demeanor.
I watch him from the corner of my eye as he drives.
I watch the tight lines of his shoulders, the way his jaw is ticking. The way it doesn’t even look like he’s in the car with me.
As if he’s somewhere far away in his thoughts.
As if he’s in a trance.
I don’t know what’s going on but whatever it is, it’s bad.
It’s worse than his daily battles at the office. It’s worse than him going into that place every day. Worse than anything I’ve seen in the past months.
I don’t know what to do.
I don’t know how to make it better, how to reach him right now.
All I know is that I’m not going to let it go on for long. I’m not going to let him suffer like this.
This time I have a plan and I’m going to make it happen.
I’m going to set the guy I love free.
The guy who’s just taken a turn and I realize that we’re not going home.
He isn’t taking us to the glass house in Wuthering Garden.
He’s taking us to our town, Bardstown. And from the looks of it, he’s taking us back to the woods.
The woods where I first danced for him. Where he first kissed me.
Where I fell in love with him.
I’m not sure if it’s a conscious decision on his part, driving us back to this place from our past, but as soon as we arrive, my heart starts spinning in my chest.
My heart starts remembering.
I haven’t been in these woods in two years, not since the night he kissed me and told me to hold on to my dress, but I remember everything.
All those nights when he took me out here for a ride and I danced for him.
We’re back here and I’ve forgotten how to breathe.
I’ve forgotten everything except him.
Except how to love him, how to adore him, how to be his.
In jerky movements, Reed climbs out of the car and walks around to help me. Again, despite all the turmoil in him, he’s gentle. He’s oh so careful as he helps me out of his Mustang but that’s it.
That’s where his gentleness ends.
He slams the door shut and steps back, his breaths noisy.
He turns around and walks a few paces away, his shoulders moving up and down harshly, the muscles of his back so bunched up that I can see them through his cozy hoodie.
“Roman,” I call out.
His back tenses for a second before he turns back around to face me.
Before his wolf eyes home in on me, his vampire skin sparkling in the summer sun.
I watch him stride toward me with an unknown purpose. A purpose only he knows but I get myself ready for whatever it is.
Whatever it is he’ll give me.
He reaches me, his eyes agitated. “You’re done.”
“What?”
“You’re not going back to that school.”
“What? Why?”
He bends his body down, bringing all his intimidating bulk closer to me. “Because I said so. Because I don’t want you going back to that shithole school. Actually I don’t want you going anywhere.”
I don’t understand what’s happening.
“Roman, what are you talking about?”
“I’m taking you home,” he declares. “And I’m locking you up. I’m not letting you run around town unprotected. You’re not going anywhere without me.”
“But… But there’s just a couple of weeks of school left. I have my finals and then —”
“Fuck finals.”
“What?”
“Fuck the fucking finals,” he repeats in a savage tone. “A lot can happen in a couple of weeks. A lot can fucking happen, all right? And I’m not taking any chances. Not when you’re pregnant. What if something happens and I can’t get to you, huh? What if something terrible happens to you or to Halo and I’m not…”
He trails off because he has to swallow.
Because something gets stuck in his throat. Something that makes his cheekbones all harsh and his eyes all intense and liquid.
And then I realize that I don’t even want to know what the cause of all this is. I don’t even want to know why he’s being all paranoid and panicky.
I can find out the cause later.
I need to take this look away from him. This look of anger and panic and frustration. And the anxiety of something happening to me or to Halo.
So I get closer to him, as close as I can get.
I raise my hands and grab his face. I go up on my tired tiptoes and look him in the eyes. “Nothing’s happening to me, okay? Nothing is happening to Halo. We’re fine. We’re —”
His hands come to grab my waist, or whatever is left of it due to the pregnancy. His fingers fist my summer maternity dress. “You don’t know that. You don’t fucking know that. There are things that can harm you. People, you understand? There are people who could do things to you, Fae. Who could do things to her, to Halo and —”
“Hey, hey,” I speak over him, pressing my hands on his gorgeous, agitated face. “Look at me. Look at me, okay? I’m fine right now. In this moment, Roman, no one is coming to harm me. No one is coming to harm Halo.” I grab his wrist and make him touch my belly then. “Here, feel her. She’s safe. She’s sleeping, see?” His fingers grab on to my belly again. “I swear, she’s been acting up all morning. Ever since you left. But she’s fine now. She knows you’re here. She knows her daddy’s here.”
Reed swallows again, his hand moving over my abdomen.
“No one is coming here, Roman, okay? We’re safe.”
He presses his fingers in my belly for a second, staring into my eyes. And slowly his wolf eyes lose the panicked look. Slowly, his eyes fill with determination.
With a different kind of ferocity.
A mix of possession and protectiveness.
Before he does something that he’s only ever done once before.
Two years ago.
In his driveway when he took me out for my first Mustang ride at night. When I asked him to take me on a ride. A good girl asking a gorgeous villain to take her away.
Turns out though, I’m not that much of a good girl and he’s not all villainous.
Right in front of my eyes, Reed comes down on his knees.
His knees hit the ground, his bones crunching the leaves into the earth, and the sound of it echoes in my body.
In my heart.
Then he presses his open mouth on my swollen belly, the belly he gave me and where his baby is sleeping now that he’s here. He presses his lips onto it and, closing his eyes, he simply breathes.
Slowly and methodically, as if calming himself.
As if breathing like this, gulping air with his open mouth on my pregnant belly, is the only way he’ll live.
And I let him do that.
I let him do whatever he wants, whatever he needs to relax. I rake my fingers through his thick, dark hair. I rub his back, his shoulders. I caress his jaw. I let him be.
I love him with my fingers as he gets his breath back.
My gorgeous villain.
A few moments later, he lifts his head, his eyes burning. “You know I’ll do anything to protect you, don’t you? To protect her.”
I nod my head. “I know. I already know that.”
“I’ll turn this world upside down, Fae. I’ll destroy anything, anyone, I don’t care. I don’t fucking care.”
I put my forehead against his, smiling slightly. “I know you will. But you don’t have to. Because we’re safe.”
Something emerges in his gaze again, that panic that I saw, but it’s not as dominant now that he’s touching me and our baby. Now that he’s studying my face from this close, his body so tall that he’s right there, up to my eye level.
“I made you dance for me,” he says in a low voice. “Here, for the first time.”
My heart flutters. “You did.”
“And you called me a villain.”
I caress his face again. “That’s because you were acting like one.”
“I was, yeah.”
“And the song you chose was offensive.”
It was.
About a ballerina who dances for him like a stripper. It reeked of sex.
His kind of sex, all dirty and filthy and oh so good.
A puff of air escapes him as he chuckles. “I know.”
“So you did it on purpose, then?”
He licks his lips. “Fuck yeah. I’d been dreaming about you spinning on your toes for me to that song.”
“You’d been dreaming about me?”
“Yes, Fae. I’d see you spinning at Blue Madonna, pink cheeks and heaving chest. In your frilly tutus, looking all pretty and fairy-like. And I’d go home and jerk off to making that fairy dance dirty for me.”
God.
God.
One day I’m going to find out all his secrets. All the things that he hides from me.
All the things that make me fall in love with him more and more.
Things that are both my salvation and damnation.
“I loved it,” I whisper, curling my ballerina toes in my flats. “That song.”
“Yeah, you loved dancing dirty for me?”
My hands have come down to his shoulders and I fist his hoodie. “Yes.”
A puff of air escapes him again as he chuckles slightly, his eyes intense. “God, Fae, you kill me, you know that?”
“Is that why you brought me here?” I whisper breathily. “Because I danced for you in this place?”
“Tell me what else happened here,” he rasps instead of answering me.
I don’t even have to think about all the things that happened in these woods. They are written in my soul, in the chambers of my heart.
I see them in my dreams.
“You kissed me in the rain,” I reply.
“Yeah, for the first time.”
“And you let me go after.”
His eyes glint then. “I did. I let you escape my evil clutches unscathed.”
Goosebumps wake upon my skin as I say, “You’re not going to this time, are you?”
He slowly shakes his head. “No.”
A current goes through my channel. A thick, pulsing current.
A current that makes me needy and makes me clench my thighs when he continues, “Tell me what’s going to happen to you now. Here.”
Somehow he’s grown even closer or maybe I’m losing my mind, I don’t know.
But I feel his words on my chest, on the lacy neck of my summer dress showing a slight cleavage. My swollen breasts and my nipples perk up.
“You’re going to fuck me.”
A flush of arousal appears on his features. “Yeah. Tell me where.”
I don’t know how it’s possible for him to look so large and looming and inevitable like fate when he’s on his knees, but he does look like that.
He does look like my destiny.
He does look unstoppable, written in the stars, and I bite my lip for a second before saying, “In my pussy.”
His fingers twist my dress. “Yeah, in your tight little pregnant pussy. But tell me, Fae. Tell me if you think I’ll stop there.”
The lust in his eyes makes me squirm and somehow I know the answer. “You won’t.”
“No, I won’t. I want something else, don’t I?”
I nod, fisting his hoodie even tighter. “You do.”
“Tell me what. Tell me what I want, Fae.” His one hand creeps up and wraps itself around the back of my neck in a possessive hold. “Tell me what you’ll give me for the first time. Here.”
I know. I know.
I know what he wants from me. What he’s wanted for months now but for some reason, he won’t take it. For some reason, he’s always held himself back.
He’s always said that I wasn’t ready.
And God, I’ve told him a million times that I was ready.
That when he touched me there with his finger, grazed it or popped his thumb inside while fucking me doggy style, it felt so good. It made me explode and I wanted his cock in there too.
So when I tell him, I’m all breathless and wet betwee
n the legs. “My ass.”
His fingers squeeze my neck and his other hand slides away from my waist too, to go down to my ass and give that a big squeeze, making me go up on my tiptoes.
“Yeah, I want this.” Another squeeze. “I want your ass. I’m going to fuck it here, in these woods. Where you danced for me. Where I’ve imagined fucking you a million times.”
Just like that he gives me another piece of information, and I latch onto it. “You did?”
He kneads my ass again, rubbing the cheek through the fabric of my dress, inching it up, making it all wrinkled and messy. “Yeah, every time you danced for me. Every time you spun on your toes for me, I wanted to grab you. I wanted to grab your waist, bend you over my Mustang and flip up your dress. I wanted to stick my cock in you and fuck that fairy hole until you screamed. And no one would’ve heard you, if you had. No one would’ve come to save you if I wanted to fuck you and fuck you and come inside your sweet, innocent, sacred body. I’ve wanted to do that a million times, Fae. Here, in these woods. I’ve wanted to trash that tight little temple between your legs and send you home to your four overprotective older brothers with my cum leaking out of it. To send them a message, see. To tell them that you’re mine. That tight little prize between your ballerina legs belongs to me. Fuck soccer. Fuck everything else. I just want that prized pussy for myself. That’s why I brought you here.”
I arch my body into his. I can’t help it.
I stick my tits out and rub my belly against his torso because he’s making me crazy now, gasping, “Roman.”
And he takes advantage of that.
He presses his stubbled face in between my breasts, rubs the soft skin with his jaw, sucks on it, sinks his teeth in the meat, leaving little love bites.
“That’s why,” he growls when he’s played out with them, when my breasts are all tender and achy and begging to be sucked on again. “Because I’ve thought about fucking you here a million times and I’m going to do it today. I’m going to take your virgin ass here. In these woods. Out in the open. Tell me you understand.”
I jerk out a nod, my fingers in his hair and my tits in his face. “Yes.”
“Tell me you’ll let me.”
God, is that even a question?
“Yes, I’ll let you.”
He buries his face in my tits again, this time pulling on the bodice of my dress and my bra until my nipple is showing and he sucks it into his mouth, growling at the taste.
A Gorgeous Villain Page 49