Page 35 of The Promise

When he asked.

She would.

His fingers unfurled from around her throat, and Karine let her head fall forward to rest against the door. Trembling, but needing to know, she asked while he was still hard and pulsing inside of her, “Should I leave now?”

Better to rip the Band-Aid right off.

“You’re fine right where you are,” he murmured, the reply ghosting over her skin and leaving goosebumps in their wake. Karine melted into his arms when he added quieter, “With me.”

• • •

Karine was trying her best not to fall asleep. She didn’t want to repeat her mistakes the last time they’d been in bed together, sleeping their time away when she would much rather spend it wide awake and studying the man next to her.

He was a storm of things she didn’t understand—a picture placed in front of her that should terrify her, but he didn’t.

Not much had changed.

He still felt safe.

Still smothered her in heat.

The thud-thud of his heart in his chest echoed through her back while his arms stayed wrapped tight around her under the sheets. From time to time, she could feel his hot breath falling on her nape, but he said nothing to let her know he was still awake. He also didn’t need to.

“I spent my twenty-first birthday with you,” she said, the secret slipping into the darkness.

Behind her, his reply was a low rumble mixed with his sleepiness. “Did you?”

“I didn’t tell you before—it didn’t seem ... important.”

“Karine, everything about you is important. It’s a fucking shame people have made it worth their while to teach you otherwise.”

“Do you still want me to tell you what I want?” she asked.

“Of course, I do.”

Well ...

“I just want to be okay.”

Not that she knew what that was supposed to feel like. It seemed like something out of her reach, but still somehow possible. Now.

“You are okay,” Roman said, his lips finding her bare shoulder. Karine closed her eyes, the smile forming easily. So true. She wasn’t accustomed to happiness that was real, but she found a piece of it with him. “But it’s fine to know you want to be better, too, babe.”

Right.

Karine wouldn’t forget it.

EIGHT

The scratched ROMAN etched into the left corner of the diner’s booth made Roman smile as the memory flooded his mind of exactly how it got there, and the way his father had laughed at his eleven-year-old son’s antics.

“Knew I shouldn’t have let him give you that knife,” Demyan had mumbled through chuckles and a bite of the food he’d been chewing.

Between them sat a whole pile of pancakes—stacked six high. In a corner booth tucked away from the rest of the diner where he had spent too many mornings to count with his father, a table full with toppings of every kind separated the two.

Roman was all about hazelnut spread, and maple syrup. His father liked blueberries and whipped cream.

Roman grinned sheepishly, but didn’t bother to hide the pocketknife his newest bull had slipped him that morning saying, “Just for you, Prince.”