Rome: A Marked Men Novel (31 page)

“Don’t ever call me that again.” He never used his full name and got touchy whenever someone else

did. “And yeah, my heart was broken by the girl every boy loves first. My mom. The second she picked that

dipshit over me, she broke my heart.”

“What did she have to say about Phil? Did she agree to talk to him?”

“She was all weird about it. She said Phil is a grown man, and if he doesn’t want to talk about whatever

is going on, I should be mature enough to respect it. I still can’t run him down and it’s all starting to piss me

off.”

Phil had been scarce around the shop lately, and when I did catch him on the phone, he still sounded

terrible. I didn’t like it at all, and the fact that he was still dodging Nash just didn’t bode well.

“I just had a bit of my past bite me in the ass but it’s fine. Nothing to get all twisted up over.”

“You sure?”

That was the question I was struggling with myself, but luckily I had a girl coming in to get the same

piercing I had done and I needed to get ready, so I moved to the piercing room to set up and made sure all

the instruments were ready to go. I needed to keep busy or the past was going to drag me under, and that

was the absolute last thing I wanted or needed.

Rome knew something was off. I met him at the bar because he had to stay later than normal because of

a band or something. He fed me and poked and prodded at me, which I tried to evade because I just wasn’t

sure what to tell him. He had nothing to worry about. I didn’t want anything to do with Jimmy. He was

history and his apology was beyond a lifetime too late, but a part of me couldn’t deny that I was curious

about what he thought he could say to me after all this time to make any kind of difference. I was avoiding

handing my heart over to Rome, because I was still scarred from the damage Jimmy had done when he

drop-kicked it back to me and I wondered if there were any words that existed that could make that fear

obsolete.

Dinner was a little bit tense but he let it slide because he was awesome like that even though I could feel

those eyes trying to vet me. I was mad he didn’t tell me what happened to the truck and that Asa spilled the

beans. I was worried that someone seemed to have it out for him or the bar and that he didn’t seem to be

taking the threat very seriously. He said something about Brite having an in with the Sons of Sorrow and

that didn’t make me feel any better about the situation, but since I was twitchy and off anyway, I just let it

go.

I was mentally exhausted when I got home. I chatted with Ayden for a minute since she was in the

living room with her homework spread out all around her. I told her that I was probably moving out and

getting a place with Rome before the end of summer, so she and Jet would have the place to themselves.

She was happy for me but bummed because Jet was on the road so much. I think really she missed Asa and

just didn’t know how to mend that bridge. That was something the gorgeous siblings were just going to

have to figure out on their own because I was simply spread too thin at the moment.

I took a shower and crawled into bed. It was weird to be alone, but Rome said he would be home as

soon as he could. I slept more on him than on the mattress, which led to my hands being in some very

interesting and naughty places in the morning since he typically slept naked. He was just so warm and so

solid, he made me feel like anything bad in the world would have to go through him if it wanted to get to

me.

I put on a T-shirt and some panties and was out by the time my still-wet head hit the pillow. I vaguely

heard my guy come in well after midnight and heard him rustling around in the bathroom, but I was too out

of it to rouse. Even when he pulled me up and settled me back on top of him with a hard kiss on my sleepy

mouth, all I could muster was a pat on his chest before getting sucked back into dreamland. I felt his arms

curl around me, and for the first time since that call from my dad, I felt like I had settled back into my

reality. This was now, my then was not something that was going to mess with this. I refused to let it.

I was jolted awake sometime near dawn. I had to blink to try to adjust my eyes to the hazy light coming

in through the blinds, but before I could even adjust to it, Rome had rolled me over and was looming over

me with a scary look on his face. His eyes were wild, his mouth was tense, and the vein that ran along his

neck was throbbing in a rapid beat that I could see even in the low light.

“Rome?” I asked it as a question because this was the same way he looked the last time he disappeared

into the night. I didn’t want to spook him, but I wasn’t sure he was even seeing me right now. His hands

were harder than normal and shaking just a little when they pulled my shirt up over my head and he didn’t

even bother to slide my underwear off; they just disintegrated under the twist and pull of impatient fingers.

He jerked his head up and the light blazing out of those blue eyes was tortured and foreign, but there was

enough of my guy still caught in there that I told myself just to calm down and ride out the storm. I knew to

the bottom of my soul he would never purposely hurt me. He just needed to get away from whatever was

hounding him and this was the only way he could do it without taking off on me again. I had asked for

honesty and this was as raw and honest as I could get from him.

He positioned me where he wanted me and then his head and shoulders disappeared between my legs. I

was still half asleep and nowhere near ready for this kind of assault, so I just threaded my fingers through

his hair, which was now long enough to curl and loop around my fingers, and held on. I arched up against

his thrusting tongue and tightened my thighs around his head.

“Rome …” This time it was a gasp not a question. He wasn’t much of a talker during sex at the best of

times and I had had the silent, totally intense sex with him in the past. But this was something on an entirely

different level. He was typically a very generous and thorough lover. He went out of his way to make sure I

was satisfied and ready to take anything he wanted to throw at me. That wasn’t the case this morning. He

clearly had a goal in mind and it was to get me off as quickly and as violently as possibly. A goal he was

quickly reaching with his oral attack. I couldn’t really complain about it since it felt so good and I knew he

needed it for some reason, but if he thought he was just going to fuck me senseless and then not talk to me

about it, he had another thing coming.

I couldn’t hold out long, not with his tongue and his teeth doing all kinds of really wonderful things

down there, but before the first spasm of my climax started, he jerked up, rolled me over onto my front,

and pulled me up so that I was in front of him on my hands and knees. His broad palm stroked over the

curve of my ass and he whispered my name.

“Cora …”

I felt him ready himself behind me, and even though I was all mellow and malleable from the pleasure

and intensity he had just forced on me, there was no denying I felt a little like I was splitting in half when

he pushed all the way into me from behind. I swore a little under my breath, not because it hurt but because

it was just a sudden, overwhelming flood of sensation. He was always so careful with me, aware of the

difference in our size, but this morning it was like some different part of him had been unleashed. This

wasn’t one of my favorite positions in bed, but with him like this, I thought maybe I could learn to love it.

He was just all over me.

I felt him along my back. His hands were between us and curved around my breasts. My nipples were

already extra-sensitive due to the pregnancy, but with him tugging on them and rolling them between his

thumb and index finger, I was pretty sure I could come just from that alone. I groaned and peeked over my

shoulder at him. He was a sight I would never forget.

He was all straining muscles, sweat-slicked skin, contracting abs, flaming blue eyes … he was a picture

of pure male intensity and there was no way I would complain about being the focus of all of it. I liked

how he was all hard lines and planes where I was all soft and round, now more so than ever before. I also

liked the way his hands looked against the parts of my skin that were stained with color. It was a beautiful

contrast, one he seemed fascinated by as well. It would also be hard to erase the image of him driving,

thrusting, pounding into me like he was chasing down his release or else he was going to suffer some kind

of unexplainable loss. That was a whole lot of Rome Archer to take in; lucky for me I was up to the task.

Even if my head wasn’t a hundred percent sure I could take all he was forcing on me at one time, my body

was more than up to the challenge. My inner muscles were squeezing him in time to his thrusts, my nipples

were puckering and begging for his touch, and there was no denying the flood of moisture where we were

joined that was easing his way. I tilted my head back to the side and braced for the inevitable explosion and

collapse; only that wasn’t what I got. Once he ruthlessly shoved me back into mindless oblivion, he seemed

to come back from whatever brink he was on. I was practically in tears, worn out from pleasure and the

wealth of sensation he’d foisted on me, but he flipped me back over on my back, kissed me hard on the

mouth, and sank back into me.

He was slow, the drag and pull of that erection a rough torture on over-sensitized skin. He kissed my

eyelids, the corners of my mouth, the edge of my collarbone. He whispered my name over and over again,

and when he finally shuddered and growled his release into my throat, I felt like there had never been a

time in my life where I knew what it meant to be so fully and completely needed by another person. I just

wrapped my arms around his thick neck and let him cuddle into me while he caught his breath and settled

back down.

I thought I was going to have to poke and prod at him in order to get him to divulge what had set him

off, but after five long minutes of silence where all we did was hold on to each other, he finally started to

lay it all out for me. The accident. How he thought he was going to die. How he lived every day with the

guilt of being the only one to survive. How he was mad that the accident was one of the main causes of not

only his physical limitations but had been the precursor to a lot of the mental ones as well. It sounded like

he put a lot of the blame on the accident for ending his military career. It was sad. My heart broke for him a

hundred times, but when he was done telling me about it, he turned his face to mine and kissed me so

sweetly on the cheek I thought I might cry.

He went to pull out of me, to roll over, but I wouldn’t let him. I locked my arms and legs around him

and held him in place. If he was going to bare his soul to me, not because he wanted to but because I asked

him to let me in, I had to do the same. He deserved nothing less. If he was going to give me his all, I had to

stop being scared and be willing to do the same. Baby steps.

I licked the shell of his ear and whispered, “I got an e-mail from my ex today. It totally threw me off my

game. That’s why I was acting so weird earlier tonight.”

That big body went stiff all over mine, and he pushed himself up so that he was scowling down at me.

We were still joined intimately together, so I thought it should be impossible for him to be annoyed with

me, but I was wrong. His eyes narrowed and flared with something that wasn’t very pretty, and the scar that

decorated his forehead started to throb an angry tempo.

“The guy you were engaged to?”

I ran my hands up and down his ribs like I was trying to soothe a wild animal and gave a little nod.

“Yeah. Apparently the girl he was engaged to turned the tables on him and did the exact same thing to him

that he did to me. I guess he was just looking for someone to commiserate with.”

“Why are you just telling me this now?” I didn’t like the note of accusation in his tone, so I dug the edge

of my fingernails into his flesh.

“Because I deleted it. I don’t care about him or anything he has to say to me. It was a long time ago, and

at one point in time all I wanted was for him to apologize and realize how badly he hurt me. Now I don’t

need it. Now I have you.”

I narrowed my eyes right back at him.

“Plus you didn’t tell me about the truck or the fact that you have some pissed-off biker all over your ass

looking for retribution because you didn’t want me to worry about it. It’s the same thing, big guy.”

“No, Cora, it sure the hell is not.” He rolled us over so that I was sitting upright on him. He crossed his

arms behind his head and continued to glower up at me. This was the weirdest position I had ever been in

while having an argument in my life. I was annoyed at him, but apparently all my lady parts were tired of