Breathe You In (Sweet Torment 1)

I backed away from him, hating where this conversation was going. Even after the past several weeks together, it seemed I’d still made no progress in getting him to trust me.

“Maybe I just like talking to you when you’re naked,” he said, and walked past me toward the car.

Whatever was going on with him had some seriously dark roots, and I had a bad feeling those roots ran deeply.

All I could do was follow him and get in the car. He didn’t say a word as the driver began the trek down the long driveway. As we wound between the trees on either side of the road, I watched the sun set over upstate New York.

“Roman?” He glanced at me, tension still radiating from him. “Will you talk to me?”

“About what?”

“About what happened back there.”

“Nothing happened.” He glared, warning me that he was serious about his threat earlier.

“I know what horror feels like. The moment we stepped into that house, you changed. And why on earth would you treat your mother that way? She’s so nice and—”

“You don’t know a goddamned thing about her!” He banged his fist against the privacy glass and the car came to a complete stop.

Throwing open his door, he grabbed my hand and exited the car, pulling me with him. Keeping a tight grip on me, he walked off the road and into the forest.

“What are you doing?” I asked, trying to keep up as he wound through the trees, taking us deeper into the dense woods.

“I made myself clear earlier, Amy. You want to talk?” He gently pushed me up against a big tree, and my back hit the smooth trunk. Standing in front of me, Roman began tugging at my dress.

“I don’t like that house because I’ve spent plenty of time in it already, and as far as my mother goes, there isn’t a responsible, trustworthy bone in her body.”

Though my skin prickled with cold, my blood was hot, rushing through me quicker and quicker with every sweep of Roman’s hands and yank on my clothes. Apparently unhappy with the sturdiness of my dress, he reached underneath it and ripped my panties away. My body responded to him in every way, just like it was trained to do. I cupped his face and tried to coax him to look at me.

“What happened?”

He paused for a moment and looked me in the eye. “Why is it so important for you to know?”

There was something so raw, so untrusting in his voice that it chipped another piece of my heart. I knew that he had trouble trusting people, that he didn’t like talking about his personal life or past—that much we had in common. But this? This was something deep. Something that had shaped him.

“I just want to know you. To understand,” I whispered.

He shook his head and went back to running his hands up my legs. Just the feel of him, all his strength and intensity, was enough to make my core throb and ache. There was the sound of a belt being unfastened, but I couldn’t see. Between the dark gray evening sky and Roman pressed against me, all I could make out were his blazing eyes. His whole body was racked with tension.

“Why do you hate your home?” I tried again.

He scoffed. “That place has never felt like home. You know what does, though?”

He gripped my knee and brought it to his waist. There was no warning before he thrust his hard cock inside me. I gasped and gripped his shoulders.

“This…” He withdrew and surged back, filling me to the hilt once more. “This feels like home.”

He kissed me hard. I was stunned. Dazed. Didn’t know what to think, but didn’t want him to stop. Yet he did. He pulled out completely, and I heard a rustling. When he returned, I felt him enter me once more, only this time, he was covered in latex.

For a brief moment, Roman and I had been connected with no barriers. And it had felt amazingly right.

Keeping a tight grip on my knee, he slowly thrust in and out. Coaxing my every breath to come quicker, leaving me panting for more.

“I was six when she started locking me in there,” he breathed against my mouth. Darting his tongue inside, he took a deep taste, then buried his face in my neck. “For days at a time, she locked me in the closet.”

I wove my fingers in his hair, his assault on my body making it difficult to process his words. But either because he felt vulnerable or strong enough to do so, he was finally opening up. I just wanted to be there, to catch him, help him, anything he’d let me do.

“Why?” I whispered.