Good. Now go to sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be intense.
Promise?
Roman
Count on it.
I finally close my eyes.
Tomorrow we go home.
Tomorrow this ends—one way or another.
And for the first time in three days, I actually fall asleep.
20
ROMAN
We landin Seattle at nearly midnight and I haven’t taken my eyes off Marnie for the entire flight home.
She’s been reading. Or pretending to. One of those hockey romances with a shirtless guy on the cover.
She’s barely turned a page in three hours.
Just keeps shifting in her seat, crossing and uncrossing her legs, arching forward to stretch her back. Small unconscious movements that make it clear the past few days have gotten to her.
Three days of getting her right to the edge and stopping. The most exquisite torture I’ve ever experienced.
Because I’ve been barely surviving it too.
Every night I’d stand under the coldest shower the hotel could provide. It never helped. I’d lie in bed after, hard and aching, replaying every sound she made. The way her thighs shook. How her breathing changed right before I stopped. The frustrated whimper when I pulled away.
And then I’d have to do it all over again the next night. Build her up, work her to the edge, walk away while every instinct screamed at me to finishit.
But watching her now—watching her squirm in that airplane seat, knowing exactly why she can’t sit still, knowing she’s been thinking about my hands for days—that makes every cold shower worth it.
She catches me looking and her face flushes.
Even that response—the way she colors when she knows I’m thinking about what we’ve been doing—makes this harder to wait through.
Seventeen more minutes until we land.
Another fifteen to my place.
I can wait that long.
Barely.
The secondwe’re through my apartment door, bags dropped wherever they fall, she’s on me.
Her hands fist in my shirt, pulling me down, and the kiss is desperate—all tongue and teeth and days of wanting finally finding an outlet.
I kiss her back just as hard, one hand in her hair, the other on her hip pulling her against me so she can feel exactly what she’s been doing to me.
“Roman—” She gasps against my mouth. “Please, I need?—”
“I know what you need.” My voice comes out rougher than I intend. “Bedroom. Now.”
