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“That?” I asked. “You don’t have to be afraid of shit like that. It’s normal to me, by now.”
“Well, I’m not going to let anything happen to you. And that moment was the first time in a long while where I had no clue what to do.”
My throat felt a little tight suddenly. “I never have any clue what to do,” I said quietly, looking out at the slow licking flames of the fire. “Never. You’d think that ten years into a mega-successful career, I’d have some sense of what I’m doing. Some vision of a future goal I want to achieve. But ever since the stalker came into the picture, the only goal I seem to have is to feel safe again. To feel normal again.”
Roman reached out, gently squeezing my hand. “I understand.”
I swallowed over the tightness in my throat. “Well, I’m glad somebody understands, because half the time, I don’t even feel like I do.”
“I know what it’s like to feel lost in life, even if I’ve never experienced anything like your life,” Roman said.
A steady simmer of panic was rising again in my chest. I’d had a brief break from it when we first got to the hotel, but now it was all rushing back in, making my heart jackhammer inside of me.
“Like, even right now,” I said, hearing the frustration growing in my own voice. “I don’t know what the hell to do. I can’t sleep. I don’t want to eat. I’m just sitting around, waiting to feel normal. I just don’t know what to do. What do I even do?”
“Hey,” Roman said, sitting up straight and giving me a steadfast look. “If you don’t know what to do, I will tell you what to do.”
He caught me off guard, and in an instant, the panic seemed to subside, even if just a little bit.
“What?”
He nodded once. He was still holding my hand, and he squeezed it, firm but tender at the same time. “If you need it, right now, I will tell you what to do. And the first thing I’d tell you is to take a deep breath. Deeper and slower than you’d think.”
A little bit more of my tension started to unwind, slowly, like a grip slowly loosening around my whole body.
“It’s always about breathing with you,” I said, cracking a smile, but Roman’s face was serious and unflinchingly calm. “Are you about to give me some more self-care tips?”
“You bet your ass I am,” he said gently. “Lay back, and take a deep breath.”
I did as he said. I lay on my back. The couch was deep and long, with plenty of room to spread out, and I took a long, slow breath in.
“Perfect,” Roman said. “Now do it again.”
“When you said you were going to tell me what to do, this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”
“Just a deep breath, Theo.”
Clearly, my jokes weren’t going over well at the moment. But I’d always relied on humor when I was scared, and it seemed like Roman was well aware of that. He just sat there next to me, holding my hand as I took another long, deep breath in. And then another.
“I know you’re into a lot of meditation stuff, but I’ve really never found it to be useful for me.”
“That’s not what this is,” Roman said.
I peeked over at him. “I mean, it kind of seems like that’s what this—”
He leaned in toward me, pressing a kiss to the side of my neck, which shut me up right away. He then moved to kiss me on the lips, just as softly, before grabbing my lower lip between his teeth and giving it a little tug.
And then the only thing I could focus on was the fact that my dick had gone from fully limp to hard as hell in about five seconds flat. Roman’s face was hovering just above mine now, his gentle, brown eyes looking from my lips to my eyes and back again.
“Okay, yes, tell me what to do,” I whispered. “Absolutely fucking tell me what to do.”
“Take this shirt off, and lie down on your stomach,” he said, trailing his fingertips down the front buttons of my crisp, white shirt.
I reached down for the buttons, undoing them one by one. As I worked on it, he watched me, taking his hand and lacing his fingers through my hair. “Perfect,” he said as I undid the last button and slid the shirt off.
“Feels good to get that off,” I said softly.
His eyes danced over my chest, and he slid his palm down from my hair to my neck and then down my chest. For the first time in a long while, I had a flash of insecurity.
I was pale, and while I was certainly fit, I didn’t have anywhere near the physique that Roman had. As he watched me I wondered if he was disappointed. If he regretted asking me to take it off. Or, for fuck’s sake, if he was regretting being this close to a man at all, and realizing he was really only into women, after all.
