Page 67 of The Cuddle Clause

I didn’t even havetime to blink before my back met the wall. Roman didn’t touch me, but the heat of him pressed in like gravity, and I realized I’d followed him in here with no idea what was about to happen.

There was no hint of teasing mischief in his eyes. That sharp, smug edge he wore like armor?

Gone.

What was left was darker, and it told me that whatever this was, it wasn’t pretend anymore.

My breath hitched. My spine locked. I couldn’t seem to find air, but I couldn’t make myself look away either. Roman stared at me like he’d made up his mind. And whatever he’d decided, my body had already agreed.

The silence stretched on, and something built in the space between us.

He raised his hands slowly, giving me time to stop him.

I didn’t.

His fingertips brushed the fabric at my hips, then his touch became firmer, more certain. His palms settled there, and I felt my knees nearly give. Roman looked at me like I was the only thing in the world he wanted to touch. Tofeel.

The back of my head pressed harder into the wall as I tried to remember how to think.

But thinking was impossible with Roman looking at me like that. Suddenly, it felt like I wasn’t just a pawn in his pack’s games or the convenient roommate he tolerated because he couldn’t be bothered to get a real girlfriend.

He looked at me like I wasrealto him. And it terrified me more than any fight, any stare-down with Seraphina, any rule we’d already broken.

Because I didn’t want to stop him. I didn’t want to go back to the table and pretend we hadn’t just stepped into something irreversible.

His grip on my hips tightened, and he searched my face to see if I’d flinch.

I didn’t.

He picked me up like I weighed nothing. I gasped, my legs parting automatically to anchor around his waist.

The wall held my back. Roman held everything else.

I clutched his shoulders, heart thudding loud enough that I was sure he could hear it. My fingers tangled in the back of his shirt as he pinned me against the wall, eyes flicking from my mouth to my throat, then back to my eyes…

He wouldn’t make another move until I said yes with every part of me.

“Roman—”

He didn’t let me finish. His mouth brushed mine once, and everything fell out of focus.

He walked over to the dresser and set me down on it, the surface cool even through the fabric of my dress. I pressed my palms against the wood as I tried to steady my breath. He wasn’t speaking. He didn’t need to. The way he looked at me, like I was the only thing in the world that mattered, was louder than anything he could’ve said.

The wall muffled the sounds from the hallway. Laughter, silverware. The soft ping of a mimosa glass being refilled. That world didn’t exist anymore.

He sank to his knees between my legs.

I stared down at him, too aware of the heat blooming between my hips, too aware of the heat of his hands as they skimmed up my thighs like they had every right to. My whole body had turned traitorous. My pulse beat like a war drum, and my skin felt too sensitive. I was shaking, and he hadn’t even touched me yet.

His hands slid under my dress, slowly and reverently. I gasped when his fingers brushed the bare skin above my knees. Sucked in a breath when he moved higher. My thighs trembled.

“Let me take care of you, Mags,” he whispered.

All the reasons to stop—this is fake, this is dangerous, this will ruin you—dissolved the second his mouth touched me.

I gasped, hands flying to his hair before I could stop myself. My fingers curled into the thick strands, needing to hold on to him or else I’d float away. He groaned low in his throat, like he liked that. Like he wanted more.

He flicked his tongue over me in languid strokes, testing, exploring. When my hips rolled involuntarily, he growled and pulled me closer, his grip on my thighs tightening.