The Promise (Darkest Lies Trilogy Book 2) by Bethany-Kris (fiction book recommendations .txt) 📕

last drop of his cum inside her, and even then, his last thrusts came long and deep, only serving to smear their mingled fluids on the insides of her thighs. She’d still suck him clean.

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.”

“It’s only little—no one will even see, Papa.”

Demyan shrugged. “No, no one would say anything otherwise, Roman—they wouldn’t dare.”

Somewhere along the way, Roman forgot that the respect and place he had was because better men worked hard for it to be so. He traced the letters of his name carved into the booth with the pad of his thumb, knowing he couldn’t go back to being that younger version of himself sitting across from his father ever again, but still longing for a simpler time in his life.

His father always picked the diner whenever he wanted to sit down with his son, one on one, and when he thought back now—Roman only had fond memories here. Even the black and white checkered tile floor brought back images of him racing across it to jump into their booth.

Roman couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten at the diner with Demyan, and that kind of bothered him. He didn’t have much of an appetite lately, though. Not since he left New York—since he was forced to leave New York. Food seemed unimportant in the grander schemes of things going on in his life, honestly.

Since, his father seemed to think it wasn’t wise to have important conversations over the phone anymore, he was supposed to meet up with the man at their old haunt for a chat. Except Demyan hadn’t shown up yet, even though he was the one who called Roman’s hotel room at six in the fucking morning, and demanded to see him.

Even if he hadn’t been able to hear the agitation in his father’s voice over that phone call, he knew something was up. It had to be for Demyan to leave his house before seven.

It was the nagging memory of the look Karine had given him when he ended the call that kept Roman lost to his thoughts while he waited for his father to arrive. She’d been sleeping in his arms, her face tucked against his chest, when his phone rang. The noise made her stir, but it was him reaching over to answer the call that woke her.

He wished she hadn’t.

She never slept well as it was, and it didn’t take long for him to notice the more she did sleep, the less Karine seemed to work on autopilot.

Either way, he couldn’t ignore a call from his father whether it woke her or not. Roman had paced the room while he talked to Demyan, feeling the weight of Karine’s stare leveling on him the whole time. There wasn’t much in the conversation that she could decipher, but that didn’t stop her from listening.

When the call had finally ended, he turned to face her only for her to immediately ask, “You’re leaving, aren’t you?”

Naked under