Page 20 of The Cuddle Clause

Maggie

When Roman suggested we leave, I jumped at the opportunity. I couldn’t wait to get home, change into something comfortable, and enjoy some silence.

Roman insisted on taking me up to the apartment complex’s rooftop to decompress as soon as we arrived home, and I didn’t have a good excuse not to follow him.

The moment Roman opened the rooftop door, cool air kissed my skin.

The wind carried that familiar mix of salt from the Bay, faint smoke from a distant food truck, and the crisp tang of fog rolling in.

Roman always seemed to know exactly what I needed, even before I knew it myself.

He noticed things, like how my shoulders sat higher after a long night and that I tapped my thumb against my palm when I was overstimulated, or my gaze lingering for a second too long on an exit.

He read me in a language no one had ever bothered to learn.

Eric never had. No one else ever had. They either missed it or didn’t care enough to try. But Roman didn’t just see it—he acted on it. To him, it was the most natural thing in the world to take me somewhere open and quiet, where I could breathe again.

That was one of the best parts of how his mind worked. He paid attention in a way most people didn’t, and because of that, I never had to explain myself to him.

I stepped out into the open, letting the wind cut through the last traces of brunch perfume and pack politics. The city lights flickered below. Market Street glowed like a golden spine, and the Bay Bridge was a string of pearls against the night. But up here, the world felt quieter. Safer.

Roman let the door shut behind us with a quiet click. “Too many people. Too many questions. I thought we could use some air, and this is one of my favorite places to be at night.”

“Yeah, I agree. Too many people,” I murmured, sitting down on the edge of a raised planter box.

The faint clang of a cable car bell echoed somewhere in the distance.

I pulled my knees up and wrapped my arms around them.

Roman hovered for a second, then sat down beside me, close but not quite touching.

It was the kind of proximity that made me hyper aware of every breath.

The stars were brighter than usual, fighting past the city’s glow. The moon hung low and full, casting silver light over the rooftop and softening the edges of everything. The fog had started to creep over Twin Peaks, slow and steady, like the city’s own ghost settling in for the night.

The silence settled around us. It was the first peace I’d felt all day. My mind was still racing from the brunch, from the smiles I faked and the comments I dodged, the pressure, and the noise. But here, beside Roman, my thoughts finally started to slow.

I was about to say something dumb to break the silence, maybe a joke about Lucien’s mimosa pyramid, but Roman beat me to it.

“Shifting feels like being ripped in half,” he said. “People think it’s just a cool party trick. Shift, growl, dominate. But it’s like having two radios in my head playing different songs at full volume. Never in sync.”

I didn’t speak. I just listened. Really listened.

“No one wants both versions of me, the in-between version of me. They either want the powerful shifter or the guy who can keep it together. Never both. Never anything underneath.”

He wasn’t performing. He wasn’t trying to be funny or flirty or the version of himself people usually wanted. He was just Roman. Raw and honest Roman.

Our hands brushed. It could’ve been nothing, but it wasn’t. My fingers ached to find his and hold on. To say, without saying anything, that I saw him—all of him.

But I couldn’t.

What the hell was I doing letting myself get pulled into something messy again? Roman was chaos wrapped in charm. I couldn’t allow myself to lose control here. Falling for him would mean giving into unpredictability, which was something I fucking dreaded.

He made me feel seen, but so had Eric… until he hadn’t. I’d given that man my whole heart and got half-smiles and empty reassurances in return. I couldn’t survive another slow unraveling.

This—whatever it was—felt real. Too real. And I didn’t trust it.

Roman was charming, sure, but that was his thing. He turned it on for everyone, became what each person needed him to be. He’d just admitted as much. I wasn’t special, no matter how he made me feel.

I pulled back a little and glanced down at the courtyard below, where Doris was scanning the building like she was filming a wildlife documentary.

“She’s trying to catch someone breeding werewolves on the third floor,” Roman whispered.

I laughed, loud and unfiltered. He grinned, and it lit up his eyes. My favorite.

Then he said it. Softly. Like it slipped out before he could stop it. “God, I love you.”

I stared at him, jaw dropping open.

He coughed. “I mean… the moon. I really love the moon. On nights like this.”

We both nodded, pretending that hadn’t happened. That he hadn’t just said what he said. But my heart was thudding against my ribs like it wanted out.

Below us, Doris’s binoculars snapped straight up.

“Shit,” I hissed.

We ducked like teenagers caught making out. Giggling, we crept back inside and bolted down the stairwell. By the time we crashed through our apartment door, I was breathless—not from running but from feeling.

We stood in the dim hallway between our rooms. The air shifted, becoming thicker, seemingly moving slower.

He was close. Too close. My back brushed the wall.

He looked at my mouth. I looked at his. He didn’t say anything, and neither did I. I tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear and cleared my throat.

“Night, wolfboy.”

He stepped back. “Night, Mags.”

We went into our respective bedrooms. Neither of us closed our doors all the way.

I dreamed I was standing in a field that didn’t belong to any real place. It was like it had slipped between worlds and gotten stuck there. A thick fog curled around my ankles and laced between my fingers, clinging to my skin like regret.

Everything shimmered under a soft silver light, even though there was no moon in the sky. The grass was cold and wet beneath my bare feet. Each step I took made a squishing sound, until I suddenly couldn’t move. My body was a statue carved out of confusion and quiet fear.

Shapes moved in the mist. I didn’t hear them approach. One moment I was alone, the next I was surrounded.

They weren’t men. They weren’t wolves. These creatures were something in-between. Hulking shoulders and animal eyes, fur that shifted in and out of form, too-long limbs, and teeth that glinted even when they weren’t smiling.

They circled me like I was prey. A curiosity. A threat. A mistake.

“She smells wrong.”

“Human.”

“Weak.”

Each syllable sliced through my skin like a scalpel. My breath caught. I didn’t look at them. I knew if I met their eyes, I’d see what they saw. I’d see everything I wasn’t.

I had no magic. I had no ability to shift. I was just flesh and flaws.

They saw me. Not the version I’d curated with eyeliner and sarcasm. Not the polished mask I kept on for other people’s comfort. Just… me.

Raw. Too soft. Too small.

And then, like he’d been summoned by the worst parts of me, Roman strode out of the fog.

He didn’t emerge so much as arrive, like he’d been there all along, waiting for his cue. His expression was locked on me with that same intense, laser focus he had when he was pissed off on my behalf. He was real. The weight on my chest eased the second I saw him.

Relief warmed me like sunlight cracking through cold glass. My legs buckled under the weight of it, and I stumbled toward him.

Seraphina appeared behind him, so smooth it felt choreographed. Her arms slid around his waist like they belonged there. The curve of her body folded into his effortlessly and possessively.

Roman let her touch him, hold him, keep him.

He turned his attention to her and never looked back at me. Seraphina smirked at me in triumph. She didn’t need to gloat. Her presence alone said enough: He is mine. You never had a chance.

When the wolves started laughing, I broke.

It wasn’t a cruel sound. No, it was worse. It was amused. As if the whole thing—me standing there like an idiot in my bare feet and borrowed confidence—was some inside joke I didn’t get.

I turned and ran.

The fog dragged at my legs like it wanted to keep me. Everything tightened—my chest, my throat, my grip on reality. It didn’t matter where I ran to. I just needed to not be there anymore.

A clearing opened around me. At the center, a koi pond shimmered like a mirror. Still. Too still. The surface didn’t ripple, not even when I dropped to my knees beside it, gasping for air like it had been stolen from me.

I leaned forward and looked into the water, expecting to see myself looking sweaty, panicked, and pathetic.

Instead, I saw Roman and Seraphina in the pond’s reflection, naked and twined together. His mouth was on hers, her hands fisted in his hair. It wasn’t a still image—it moved. Real and vivid and wrong. His back flexed. She dug her nails in.

My stomach lurched.

The version of me in the dream didn’t look away. She watched and let herself hurt.

I wasn’t like Seraphina. I wasn’t ethereal or magical. I didn’t laugh like bells or glow under moonlight. I didn’t have the kind of energy that made men want to fight for me. I wasn’t her.

And I wasn’t enough.

In the distance, I heard my name. The fog stirred.

“Mags.”

A beat later. “Mags, wake up.”

A hand on my shoulder, real and grounding. The dream fractured like ice under pressure, cracks racing across it until everything collapsed.

Gasping for breath, I sat up, drenched in sweat. My T-shirt clung to my back, and my sheets were a twisted mess around me. My lungs strained, like I hadn’t breathed properly since I fell asleep.

Roman was crouched beside my bed, his hand still on my arm, his brows drawn tight. “You were moaning, and not in the sexy way.”