“No, I just know I’m more protected here than at your place. Besides, we both know your family and your world hates me.” She got to her feet, and Roman couldn’t help but notice the curvy shape of her legs.
Alex was a curvy woman. The shorts she wore didn’t hide that, and with her sitting on the ledge, with her feet up, it had caused the fabric to ride up, exposing more of her body. Even though it had been raining earlier, the air was still warm, and she wore a tank top.
One glance at her tits, and he saw she was indeed still wearing a bra. He had an overwhelming urge to feel her against him. To have her naked chest pressed against his and to touch her body. His dick ached.
He wanted her so badly. The intense sensation took him off guard.
“Did you mean what you said?” she asked.
“What?”
“Before you left. The war. The death. All of it, or were you just trying to scare me?” She held the book against her chest, and he wanted nothing more than to tear it right out of her arms and to pull her against him. She held her hand up when she took a step toward him. “I don’t want you to lie to me either. Just give me the truth, and give it to me straight.”
“It’s no secret that our worlds don’t get along. Liam is a rival. By my not … taking you on our wedding night, it is an insult.”
“So you’ve insulted him and me?” she asked.
He closed his eyes and took a step back. For this conversation, he needed to be in his right mind, and currently, being close to her, that wasn’t him being in his right mind. He was … thinking with his dick, and this hadn’t happened before.
Even with the other women in his life, before he got married. They never got under his skin. They never came before work.
“Yes and no. To many, I’ve insulted you, which wasn’t … the plan. I don’t know if you’re a virgin, and it means something to our culture.”
“Damn it, Roman. I am a virgin. I didn’t lie, and I certainly didn’t avoid the damn test to hide something.” She growled, and he watched as she tossed the book she’d been holding onto the bed. “You’ve been reading my journal.”
“I have.”
“Don’t you see that even with my father being very open and accepting, he has limits? He doesn’t want just anyone near his little girl. I … Millie is the closest person I have to a friend. He wouldn’t even let me adopt Stuart. The only reason he agreed to allow me to marry you is because he felt it was ideal for all of our futures, and apparently out of all of the men in the Greco empire or fucking cult, you were the best damn candidate.”
“You cuss when you get angry,” he said, and he found her rather cute.
She growled and spun away from him. “That’s not helping.” She tapped her foot on the carpet and shook her head. “I don’t want to cause death, but I also don’t want to be living my life like the past two months. I can’t do it. I miss being … me. I’m not someone who stays home all day, or shops, or … I don’t even know what the women in your family do.”
“They keep homes.”
“You have a cleaner for that.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
She rolled her eyes. “Have you ever thought about how badly we mesh?”
“Mesh?”
“We’re not suited. You’re used to your life, and I’m used to mine. I like going to college. Being free to do my own thing. If I want to spend the day in my mom’s sewing room, I can do it. I can be around Stuart and the orphanage. I don’t have to ask permission.”
He watched as she twisted the ring on her finger.
“I’ve seen the women you’ve been with. Your mistresses, the women you’ve slept with. I don’t look like them. I’m not … blonde, or beautiful, or slender. I’m not refined. We don’t mesh.”
Roman took a step toward her, then another.
Alex stepped back, then did so again, and again, until her back hit the wall, and she had nowhere to go.
Roman pressed his palms on either side of her head, keeping her in place and also making it so his body was close to hers. There was no escape, not unless she wanted to press her body flush against his.
She was trapped.
“What are you doing?”