“I’m serious,” she snaps, whipping around to face me, but I don’t move.
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Why?” she demands.
“Because you need someone, and right now, that’s me, whether you like it or not.”
“Well, if that’s all it is, Roman, just obligation, then go get Jasper or Zeke. Or fuck it, get both. Then you don’t have to be here.”
“Is that what you want?” I bite back. “Just them?”
“No, Roman, that’s whatyouwant. Because it sure as hell isn’t me anymore, and you’ve been really fucking clear on that.”
Say it. Tell her.
“Addie, please.” I exhale, and whatever anger she had left just drains right out of her as she puts as much distance between us as the room allows.
All that’s left now is heartbreak—raw, brutal, and fucking devastating heartbreak.
“You know, I thought I could do this. I thought I could have them and still have you, even if it was from a distance. But every time you don’t touch me, every time I see you loving them—and god, Roman, you love so hard—I remember what that felt like. I’ve missed it since the day I lost it, and now I have to watch it up close, right in front of me, but neverforme.”
She’s sobbing, her whole body shaking, and her head is buried in her hands. I move around the bed, every instinct screaming at me to hold her, fix it, do something, but the second I get close, she recoils, like having me near is just another kind of pain.
“Don’t—don’t do that. Don’t be my friend right now. I don’t want that from you. It’s not enough.”
“Addie—”
My chest splits down the middle, her pain echoing all the shit I went through years ago. There’s no satisfaction in seeing her like this. If anything, it fucking kills me.
“Don’t say my name like that. Don’t look at me like I still matter, because if I did, you wouldn’t keep shutting me out the way you are.”
“That’s not fair.”
“It’s the truth,” she chokes out, her breath hitching. “I went from meaning everything to you to meaning nothing.”
“You think you’re the only one hurting? You think this doesn’t gut me every second of every day? Being around you, wanting you, and not touching you—I hate it. But I had to put up walls, Addie. You ripped my heart out, and I barely survived it. Yeah, Zeke and Jasper patched me up, but don’t you dare think you ever left me. Don’t you dare think I ever stopped?—”
“Yes, you did.”
She doesn’t see how much I still carry her with me.
“I miss you, Roman. I miss you so much that it physically hurts. I need you. I need every beautiful, infuriating part of you. I want the man who used to love me so hard it felt like I was the center of the fucking universe, but I know you’ll never give him to me again. So please don’t touch me. Don’t comfort me. Don’t make this harder for me.”
That’s it.
That’s the breaking point.
“Fuck that.”
I close the space between us and press my mouth to hers. I drink down her cries as her hands fly up around my neck, and I lose myself in her—her taste, her touch, the way her tongue slidesagainst mine. Every piece of me that ever broke starts healing right here in her arms.
“I love you, Roman. I’m so in love with you, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry… I’m sorry I didn’t do this the second I saw you again.”
I lift her, one arm tight around her waist, the other gripping her thigh as her dress rides high, and she locks her legs around my hips. I don’t stop kissing her, not when I carry her to the bed, not even when we crash down together. It’s like we never stopped. Our bodies just remember, as if we’ve been doing this every day. There’s nothing to relearn, nothing to fix. We just fit. And fuck, I knew it. I knew it back then, and I know it now—we were always supposed to be this.
I lay her back on the bed, grinding against her so she feels just how badly I still want her. Her sobs have faded, but the tears still fall, and I kiss them away one by one while her hands fumble with my shirt, desperate to get to my skin. I shove her dress higher, exposing that perfect pussy, and this time I’m taking what I’ve been dying for every time I watched Zeke or Jasper touch her.
