Star-Crossed (20 page)

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Romeo was sure the house was nice, but he hadn’t bothered to notice. His thoughts were scattered in a million different directions, and the only thing that anchored him to earth was Jules.

He was completely focused on her, especially now that they’d ended up naked and in the shower. For the first time in a long time, Romeo didn’t even know where the hell his phone was, which was strange after carrying it around like a lifeline for almost 158

two months to keep him connected to Jules. He didn’t need it now. She was in his arms, naked and wet, pressed against him because separating was impossible for them.

Strangely, as he kissed her, he thought about Nova’s constant bitching about integrity and how pointless it was in the face of living for the moment and experiencing everything life had to offer. Romeo got it now. If he had been with Jules before that fight with Clay, he would’ve thrown the title just to ensure spending one more day, one moment, one second longer in her arms. Fuck giving Frankie an excuse to shove a gun in Romeo’s face and do what he’d been threatening to do for fifteen years.

Jules pulled away from Romeo, long, wet strands of blonde hair clinging to her neck and shoulders as she stared up at him hungrily. “Will you lemme do something?”

“I’ll let you do whatever the hell you want.” He gave a breathless laugh as he reminded her, “If it turns you on, it turns me on too.” Jules smiled, looking pleased. She reached up, tracing the pad of her finger over his face, the line of his jaw, the scar in his eyebrow, and then reverently over his lips.

She pushed his wet hair away from his face before she placed a kiss against his collarbone. Her hands ran down to his chest, tracing the contours of his muscles, trailing lower over his abs, fingers running over the deep ridges. Then her lips were following the same path, and Romeo swallowed hard because he knew where this was going.

Jules fell to her knees on the shower floor, and Romeo’s stomach clenched in anticipation as he looked at her kneeling in front of him. Her gaze was filled with desire that was easy to read, the smudges of black mascara beneath long eyelashes making her eyes seem an even lighter shade of blue. They sparkled under the fluorescent light, mesmerizing him when he realized all that want was directed at him.

One hand cupped his ass, her fingernails digging into muscled flesh as she smiled teasingly. “You sure this turns you on?” she asked, though she knew it did.

Romeo nodded mutely when his voice had abandoned him. His cock jerked with anticipation, and Jules noticed. She cupped the length of his hard dick, her fingers

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wrapping around him and stroking in a way that had him squeezing his eyes shut from the surge of molten pleasure it caused. It was almost too much, and a part of him wanted to fight against losing himself completely. It felt like he couldn’t ache any harder or hunger any more.

Then she put her mouth on him.

Already lost, the desire to stop the inevitable was replaced with something much more carnal. He fought against the blinding ecstasy to watch, keeping his gaze trained on her despite the heaviness. He needed to see it, those lush lips wrapped around his cock. Jules’s eyes were closed, dark eyelashes resting on her cheeks, her mouth stretched wide as she took him deeper, and Romeo couldn’t help but thread a hand through her wet hair and hold her to him. Seeing a strong, powerful woman like Jules on her knees for him… It was amazing he didn’t black out from the rush.

He used his back to block the spray from hitting Jules, still refusing to release his hold on her hair. Then he stood there, savoring the indulgence as the steam clouded up and made everything feel like a fantasy come to life. Romeo set the pace while Jules’s hand and mouth worked him, making the pull of pleasure tingle in the pit of his stomach. The want between them raged too hot after so long apart, and it was doing away with his self-restraint.

The flames of ecstasy started to lick up his spine, spreading to arms and making his abdominal muscles clench with the need for release. He fought it, desperate to live in this moment forever. He wanted it to last, but his body had other ideas. That pull started to become more insistent as Jules sucked and stroked him with the same hard-driving intensity she did everything in life. No matter how desperately he fought it, he was going to come again—hard.

“Stop.” His voice was low with need as he tugged on Jules’s hair. “Come here, baby.”

“I wanted it.” Jules panted, giving him a look of genuine disappointment.

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Romeo didn’t doubt that. Any woman who liked watching a guy jerk off as much as Jules did probably enjoyed tasting it. Still he tugged her arm, fighting for a better grasp on words as he forced her to her feet. She looked ready to tell him off, which turned him on even more because her feistiness was part of her appeal, but they didn’t have the time to fight about it.

“Not yet.” Romeo cupped her face with both his hands and tugged her close until they were sharing the same air. “Later. I promise.” A coherent explanation was beyond him, so he kissed her before she could disagree. Instead of struggle, Jules kissed him back as if she couldn’t resist. Her fingers ran through his hair, tugging the strands as she stood on her toes to bring their bodies into more intimate contact.

He liked the feel of Jules’s tits, taut and firm, pressed against his chest, and he couldn’t help but wrap his arms around her, holding her tight. He was Italian; hugging was like air to him, and having Jules in his arms felt like coming home.

Then she hugged him back, lean, cut arms coming around his back and holding tightly as if she needed the cuddling as much as he did. They stopped kissing and curled into each other. Jules’s face pressed against his shoulder. His cheek rested on top of her head as the labored breathing of both of them echoed over the thrum of water against the tiles.

First the car, now this, Romeo wanted a bed, but he couldn’t wait. They’d make it to the bed eventually, but now he was so overcome with emotion he needed to bond with her more deeply than a hug. Jules gasped when he suddenly lifted her up, but she recovered quickly by hooking her legs around him.

She grunted from the force he used to fall against the back wall of the shower. Any other woman and he would’ve panicked over hurting her, but Jules was strong, so solid and utterly fuckable he almost couldn’t breathe past the desperation. He needed to be in this woman like flowers needed sunshine to grow. He’d been slowly dying for years

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and hadn’t realized it until Jules walked up to him in Las Vegas and demanded to buy him dinner.

Jules’s fingers were back in his hair. Hard and demanding, she kissed him, using her hold to tilt his head and own his mouth. His cock was trapped between them, stiff as steel, aching again despite just coming in the car. Jules’s other hand slipped between their straining bodies. She grabbed his dick, her fingers tightening around the base and tugging, almost painfully. It was just how he liked it, and he knew she’d been paying attention during their video chats, learning him even if they’d been far apart.

“Love me.” She breathed into his mouth. “Now.”

He didn’t balk at the demand; he obeyed it, using his hold on her waist to raise her higher and slide home. Jules moaned at the first contact his cock made with her warm, tight pussy. He did too, fighting past the pleasure to keep his eyes open and watch the way Jules threw her head back against the wall, arching herself into his thrust.

“Do it,” she pleaded, her voice low and husky with sex, leaving no room for argument. “Love me, Romeo. Hard. Make me feel it for a month.” Not fuck me,
love me
.

They were there, at that point where neither of them was denying what had been blatantly obvious for a while now. They’d fallen in love somewhere between Vegas and Garnet. Through the million phone calls, texts, and video chats, something had pushed them over the edge, and it felt too fucking amazing at the moment to scare him.

And he loved her just as she told him to, thrusting the rest of the way in, forcing her to gasp from the intensity of it. Then he pulled out and did it again before she could catch her breath. A third time and there was a catch in Jules’s voice, a cry of ecstasy as she panted, “Yes!” Nails dug into his shoulders, her hold on him tight and fierce as she met him halfway, angling her hips to make the slide of skin against skin white-hot and fluid. Even still, she tilted her chin up, wheezing past the pleasure to demand, “Kiss me.”

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He kissed her, his tongue thrusting into her mouth, his dick sliding into her body, over and over, the momentum rising as they pushed closer and closer to the edge. They gave each other exactly what they needed, what they wouldn’t have been able to find with anyone else but each other.

It was love on their terms, raw and carnal, with no more excuses and no regrets.

This was real to Romeo. This was honest and right. Being with her was perfect synchronicity. The rest was bullshit. The constant looking over his shoulder, half the time waiting for the mafia to finally put a bullet in him, the rest wondering what the Feds were going to pin on him hoping he’d sell out his brothers. Everything suddenly evaporated, leaving only the truth of his reality, that he was made to love Jules. He was named for it. Destiny meant for them to be together, even if everything else in their lives was opposed to it.

Their movements became harsh, frantic, as they fucked hard and fought for the oblivion together. Romeo’s grip on her hips was bruising. Jules’s nails dragged down the curves of his back, clinging to sinewy muscle, marking him, claiming him, and ruining him for anyone else.

The water was hot, making the steam heavy, and they were both sweating under the weight of it. Romeo could taste it on her skin as he bit and kissed and licked at the curves of her neck, salty sweet, just like Jules.

She cried out, her back arching as her head fell against the tiles and she gasped,

“I’m coming!”

And then Romeo was too. The dam burst free, and he was pushing into her, emptying himself with warm, satisfying gushes of pleasure that washed over him to the pulse of his heartbeat echoing in his ears. It blinded him with the intensity, a spiral of ecstasy that throbbed through him over and over until he was weak in the aftermath.

Then he was leaning into Jules, crushing her against the wall as she sagged against him. Their lips met once more, their kisses lazy. Everything was hazed with the surreal

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reality that had walled up around them, protecting this amazing, perfect connection they shared from the outside world.

Still shuddering, small mews of pleasure escaped Jules. She sagged in his arms, making him realize just how much of her own strength she’d been using in the heat of the moment. He tightened his hold on her hips, hefting her higher and using the wall as support because his strength was lagging too. He felt like every ounce of it had just been dragged out of him and emptied into Jules.

He froze with that thought, and his entire body tightened.

“Oh shit,” Jules gasped, pushing at his shoulder and looking at him in shock. “We didn’t use anything.”

Romeo was just as stunned as Jules was. He’d never had sex without a condom—

ever. But he’d never met a woman that made him completely stop thinking like she did either.

“Are you—” Romeo started hesitantly. “On something?”

“No.”

“No?” Romeo repeated because that couldn’t be true.

“Get off me.” Jules pushed at his shoulder again. “Lemme down. I can wash off.” Romeo let her down and stood at Jules’s back while she tried to wash him off her, but finally he had to voice his thoughts out loud. “I don’t think it works like that. This is bad.”

“It’s fine,” Jules said, oddly calm. “I got the world’s most irregular periods. I can go seven months without one. At first the doc told my daddy I was working out too much, but then I went to a specialist up in Mercy and it’s more than that. Doctors told me it’d take a damn miracle to have a baby on my own. They warned me years ago I’d probably have to go through fertility treatments to get pregnant.”

“Are you sure?” Romeo asked in concern.

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“I think I know my own body,” Jules said with a laugh as she turned around and gave him a look. “It’s fine. Breathe, Romeo. Ya look like you’re ’bout to go down right here in the shower.”

“That’s
exactly
how I feel,” he said, taking his first clear breath. “Scare the shit outta me, why don’t you?”

Jules turned around and hugged him, strong and dependable; it was almost as if she was trying to hold him on his feet. “So I’ll take a test in a few weeks and make sure, but I promise, it ain’t nothing.”

Her accent was heavier, as if she wasn’t totally convinced, but he decided to believe her as he hugged her back. He rested his chin on her head and for just one moment entertained the thought of a place and time where he could make a baby with Jules and not want to faint at the idea of bringing another life into this world that was dead set against him more often than not.

“In a different life,” Jules started, her breath warm against his chest, “seeing what we could make together wouldn’t be bad a thing, ya know?”

“I do know,” he said softly, wishing life had dealt him a different set of cards, because he’d love to give Jules a baby. He knew she wanted one, and he liked kids more than anything, but— “It’s not a different life, Juliet. This is the one we got to play with.”