AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Her hand flew up to her mouth, tears stinging her eyes even before she could process what she was seeing.
The reaction was visceral, her body remembering what her mind had been trying to forget.
She took in the room: the pale pink walls, the white iron bed, even the comforter was the same.
Roman flipped another switch and fairy lights glowed against the walls. He stepped past her into the room and bent to the nightstand and a moment later, a familiar parade of unicorns and rainbows danced across the walls from the projector nightlight.
“How did you… It’s the same,” she said softly. “The exact same as Olivia’s room in my apartment.”
“Not the exact same,” Roman said from the doorway. “But I got as close as I could.”
The shelves were the same ones Ruby had bought at Ikea — she knew from the other furnishings in the loft apartment that Roman wasn’t an Ikea kind of guy — and were lined with picture books and stuffed animals.
She shook her head and turned to look at him. “How did you do this?Whydid you do this?”
“I wanted Olivia to have a comfortable place to live if we got her back before it was safe to go back to your apartment,” he said. “I hope I didn’t overstep.”
She stared at him, shifting on his feet. He was a big man, a hard man, and yet he looked more uncomfortable, more uncertain, than she’d ever seen him, more so even than when she’d first been rescued and she’d barely been able to look at him.
She flung herself against him and wrapped her arms around him. A second later, his muscular arms closed around her like a sheltering oak.
“Thank you,” she said against his chest. “Thank you for doing this for me. For us.”
He stroked her hair. “I’d do anything for you and Olivia.” His voice was gruff. “Anything.”
She looked up at him, afraid of what she saw in his eyes.
Afraid of what it made her feel.
For a split second, she balanced on the precipice of two equally powerful desires: to stay safe and to press herself against him. To look into his eyes as she unbuttoned his shirt, as she took him inside her body.
She forced herself to step back. “This is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me. For us.”
“Well, now you know it’s here,” he said. “We’ll leave the door unlocked so it will be ready when she comes home.”
She didn’t argue his use of the wordhome. Home for Olivia was where Ruby was and vice versa, and right now, Ruby was here, in Roman Kalahsnik’s apartment.
In his life, in a manner of speaking.
“Thank you,” she said.
He hesitated. “I’ll leave you alone. Let me know if there’s anything I missed.”
She nodded and watched him leave, the wall she’d built around her heart — the one designed specifically to keep Roman out — crumbling into a pile of rubble at her feet.
33
Roman
He tried to remember if Basil’s had always been this packed or if it was more crowded than usual. He hadn’t come to fight since before Ruby had come to stay in the loft. He’d been too eager to see her, had lurked around like a lovesick teenager hoping for a chance to say something — anything at all — to her.
But now he needed to fight.
No, that wasn’t exactly right. He needed to feel the crunching of bones and dissolving of flesh, but this time he needed it to be his own.
He pushed his way through the crowd to the bar, ordered a double shot of tequila, and downed it in one go before returning the glass to the bar and making his way to the basement.
The crowd was more raucous downstairs, the thump of music drifting up the narrow staircase and fighting for attention around the shouting of patrons preparing to watch the fight.
