Chapter 108: Sinking Lower

Roman I probably look like a stalker the way I lie here, eyes open in the middle of the night, watching the rise and fall of her chest as if the rhythm could hold me together. Savannah. My Savannah. She’s tucked against me like she belongs in the curve of my arm, her lips curved in that soft, unconscious smile that wrecks me every damn time. She’s happy. That smile is proof enough. And God help me—I’m happy too. No, not just happy. I’m fucking euphoric. She said she loved me. She said it with trembling lips and a heartbeat that kicked like a drum. The words are still burned into me, branded in places no flame could touch. I can’t stop replaying them, over and over, like a song I can’t get out of my head. I love you. Do you know what that does to a man like me? A man who spent years biting his tongue, swallowing his want, playing the good friend, the loyal shadow, while every cell in his body screamed to touch, to claim, to take? To kiss her? Five years I kept myself caged. Five years o