Page 184 of Only for Him

“I promise,” I say. He nods, but the look on his face tells me the promise isn’t enough.

It wouldn’t be enough for me, either.

I want to hear him say it, too.

He already chose me, once, and has kept choosing me, over and over. Kept letting me come back. Kept giving me Serena’s earrings, every time I thought I lost them forever.

I think of that bathroom, when he first touched me, really touched me, sliding them into place. Making me tremble.

He doesn’t owe me those three words and he doesn’t give them to me, either.

I guess we’re both cowards.

We drive in silence to Red Hook, to a brick building with iron gates wedged between an abandoned grocery and a pawn shop. We drive past and there’s a single light on in the basement window. Roman parks two blocks away.

The car ticks, cooling, but the air between us only gets hotter.

“I can’t do this without you,” Roman says, voice raw as it punctures the air.

There’s only one way I know to respond.

I unbuckle, crawl across the console, and straddle him. My thighs grip his hips, my breath hot against his cheek. I want to fuck him here—hard and fast, with the windows fogging and the doors rattling.

I want to feel his teeth in my neck while bullets fly outside. I want him to fuck the terror out of both of us. The need in me is feral, clawing its way out.

I always want him like that—violence and prayer.

“You don’t have to,” I whisper, and then I’m on him.

My mouth crashes into his, desperate, open, tasting salt and sweat and the blood he hasn’t cleaned from his lip. He groans into me, hands hard on my ass, pulling me tighter.

His tongue invades, demanding and filthy, and I give him everything he wants.

He’s hard below me, straining against his jeans, and I moan as I grind against him. I want to feel the sting of his buckle against my skin, the convulsive pleasure of his cock filling me up.

Most of all, I want to feel him alive and hungry and ready to take control.

I’m panting when I surface.

“You have me,” I say. “You always fucking have me.”

My hips roll against him, a slow grind that makes us both shudder. I breathe him in. Salt, sweat, blood, gun oil. All the things I shouldn’t love, and do.

This is what I’m here for and this is who I’m here for. I was meant to find him. To let him ruin me. To let him own me in the only way he knows how—brutal, consuming, forever.

47

ROMAN

The safehouse loomsin front of us, a dark promise under the cold gaze of streetlights. It stares back at me like it knows what I’ve come to do.

My heart pounds—a heavy, relentless drumbeat echoing every sin, every failure, every name I should have avenged by now. Revenge curls around my spine like smoke, whispering sweetly in my ear.

But the truth is, I need Giselle more than I need this. Our future is fragile, blood-soaked threads braided together.

If watching Pavel die takes even an ounce of hurt out of her, it’ll be worth it.

And I know, if I give her this, she’ll never walk away.