Star-Crossed (38 page)
“Probably not.” Jules closed her eyes as if the admission was painful.
“Even if you never see your brother again?” Romeo couldn’t help but ask.
Jules was silent for several heartbeats before she whispered in a choked voice, “I think so.”
“And your practice?”
“Alaine can have it.”
There were other things to consider. Always looking over their shoulders for Frankie. Romeo knew what it was like to constantly be moving and raising kids while
307
living on the edge. There was a lot more shit to discuss, but all he could wrap his mind around was Jules being willing to give up everything to be with him.
He should go back down to the car and grab the fucking condoms, but he couldn’t pull himself away from her long enough to do it. He went back to kissing her neck. He slid his hands under her shirt, pushed the material up to her rib cage and then higher until Jules tugged it over her head to toss it aside.
She wasn’t wearing a bra. All he saw was the long, beautiful curve of her back. He touched her smooth skin reverently, savoring the feel of it beneath his fingers. With his heart nearly bursting from the white-hot rush of love and affection, he trailed his lips down the curve of her spine. He loved the taste of her, salty and sweet. He wanted to spend all day enjoying it. There was something freeing about the two of them being so far away from their families. It made Romeo feel dangerously invincible, like nothing could hurt them now that they were alone and hidden.
He needed to shave, but she didn’t seem to mind the stubble as he ran his tongue over the skin near the seam of her jeans, wanting more of her than what he was getting.
Jules slipped her hands between her body and the bed, tugging on the button to her jeans and pulling the zipper down. Romeo jerked on them, revealing the curve of her ass and a pair of pale blue cotton panties.
When Jules helped him get the jeans all the way off, he crawled back over her, licking at the back of her thigh on his way up, then nipping at one tight ass cheek before he tugged her panties off, leaving nothing but her beautiful body. He grasped her hips to keep her in place, and Jules started shifting beneath him within a few minutes. Little moans burst out of her every time he kissed somewhere sensitive, but he refused to release his hold.
“In me.” Jules moaned. “Please.”
“God, no, not yet,” Romeo complained. “We have all day, and I wanna enjoy it.
Just lemme worship you a little while.”
“There’s more of me to enjoy. I’ll show you if you let go.” 308
Romeo let go, and Jules rolled onto her back beneath him, firm tits on display, nipples already tight and begging for attention. Romeo captured one, sucking hard, making Jules gasp and bow back on the bed. He palmed the other one, feeling his cock jerk against the confines of his jeans.
“I love your body. You’re so fucking beautiful.” Romeo moved up to her neck, sucking at her pulse point before he whispered in her ear, “I wanna lick your pussy.”
“Later.” Jules tugged at his hair, forcing his mouth to hers. She deepened the kiss, boldly tasting him as her other hand slid between their straining bodies. She pulled at the button to his jeans. “Gimme your cock first. I need you in me.” Romeo was fighting for sanity. The storm of emotions made thinking hard. He knew they were both hiding from all the pain in each other, and he was inclined to be totally irresponsible and give in to Jules’s demands. After losing so much, he needed the connection as badly as she did, and the condoms were all the way down in the fucking car.
“Madonn’,” he groaned, fighting the haze of passion, knowing Jules was already too turned on to care. “Just lemme lick you. Lemme hear you get off; then I’ll go down to the car.”
“Fuck the condoms. I wanna feel you, skin on skin, just this time. I need it. You and me, nothing between us.”
It was crazy, wild, and reckless, but Romeo suddenly didn’t give a shit. He wanted that too, more than anything. He needed to make love to Jules without anything between them—just one more time—and this time he planned on savoring it.
Together they shoved his jeans down, fighting to get them off. Once his cock was free, Jules left the jeans to Romeo and grasped the length of him. Stroking once, twice, before she brought her palm up and licked it.
“Fuck,” he groaned, leaving the jeans around his feet because his ribs weren’t being agreeable and it was too hard and painful to fuck with them. Instead he eyed her wetting her palm. “It turns me on when you do that.”
309
Jules smiled and held up her hand, letting him lick it too, which felt dirty and made the passion burn brighter because of it. Then she grabbed his dick, her warm palm slick with their combined spit. She stroked him again, and this time it made his stomach clench from the flare of pleasure it caused. He fisted his hands in the sheets, hovering over her, tense from the lust pounding through him.
Chest heaving, Romeo growled, “Put me in.”
Jules spread her legs and moved down. Her eyes were wide and glazed with love and desire, holding him captive when she refused to look away. She guided him to her, rubbing the head of his cock against the lips of her pussy, and it was insane how fucking good it felt, just skin against skin when there’d been so much between them.
Every minute since Las Vegas had been a struggle to get closer to Jules, and here they were with nothing and no one holding them apart.
He grabbed her hand, suddenly impatient. He let his fingers intertwine with hers as he pushed forward, sliding into her slowly, savoring every uninhibited inch. He watched her face, seeing the haze of pleasure cloud her vision before her eyes fell closed as she moaned. Her back arched. Her hips rose to meet him until he was buried deep, her warmth surrounding him, healing him, freeing him in a way he’d never thought possible.
Then he was giving in to the heaviness of ecstasy. Closing his eyes, he tightened his hand around hers before he started moving. Pulling out and then pushing in, the friction drove him to move faster, fuck harder. He wanted to savor it and he did, but it still became something primal and desperate, leaving them sweaty and gasping for breath.
It seemed this was the only way he and Jules knew how to fuck, all or nothing, unapologetically raw and sexual. They owned each other and surrendered to the rise of bliss, the tempest raging between them until Jules was crying out. Romeo captured her mouth in a rough kiss, stealing her words rather than share them with the neighbors.
She was his. They couldn’t have any part of her. All this fiery passion and untamed 310
sensuality Jules shared with him so easily was his alone, and now that he’d tasted it, he couldn’t let her go.
He was doomed from the start. The moment their paths had crossed sealed his fate.
Romeo and Juliet didn’t have a happy ending. That’s how the story went, and no amount of real emotions or good intentions could change the outcome. It scared him how close they really were to the end, and he released her mouth to bury his face in her hair.
“I love you,” he whispered, wanting to stay in this moment forever and hide from the future. “I love you so fucking much, Juliet.”
She ran her fingers through his hair, pushing the sweaty strands off his forehead.
“Love you too.”
“Don’t die, okay?”
“I’m too stubborn to die,” she said, breathless and moaning from the next hard thrust. “You too.”
Romeo licked at her neck, tasting the adrenaline bleeding from her pores, and it wasn’t until Jules wrenched his hair that he grunted, “What?”
“Promise?”
Romeo’s thinking was already too fogged. Jules felt so good, and he was losing the battle against the rising tide of pleasure. It tingled at the base of his spine, spreading outward, making his balls ache with the need for release.
“Come for me, baby.” Romeo licked that sensitive place behind her earlobe.
“Come with my cock buried all the way in you—just us.” Jules seemed to be fighting against it, but the moment was too intense. She jerked beneath him, crying out once more before Romeo caught her lips a second time. She shuddered and came, her pussy milking his cock, her nails digging into the muscles of his shoulder. Jules pulled Romeo down with her, and the bliss of it was blinding. It
311
pounded through his veins as his cock pulsed and filled her with his cum, unrestrained and dangerous. He knew even as he did it that he shouldn’t have, but the deed was done and he’d be lying to himself to say it was anything less than incredible to claim her like that.
He wanted to be tied to Jules’s body, mind, and soul—forever.
With his face buried beneath her hair, he kissed behind her earlobe and breathed against her flushed skin. “Marry me.”
Jules stroked the sweat strands off his forehead, her fingers soothing against his scalp before she finally whispered, “Okay.”
* * * *
Freshly showered and shaved, Romeo sat in the passenger seat and stared at his phone in trepidation. He hadn’t dressed up. Jules said it was unnecessary, but he still wore his nicest pair of jeans and a clean, button-down white shirt. All he needed now were the directions to the nearest courthouse.
After spending all day and night doing nothing but making love to Jules, he was more relaxed than he’d been before they’d left. As the early morning sun shone past the windshield, he considered how out of his mind Wyatt would be not hearing from Jules for two days.
Finally he turned it on, deciding to try his hardest not to look. Once his phone powered up, the four most recent texts appeared on the screen.
Nova:
Just bring Daisy Duke home.
Clay:
mafia’s the least of your worries right now.
Tino:
shit is deep.
555-487-6372:
Stop living a fairy tale. Be a real man. Make Jules come home.
Even without a name on the last text, he knew who it was from. That had Wyatt Conner’s name stamped all over it. Romeo got the impression each text was a continuation of longer, drawn-out threats and explanations, but he’d seen enough. Once 312
he slid his finger across the screen, he couldn’t help but look at the red bubbles indicating twenty-seven voice mails and two hundred and forty-seven new texts, which was epic enough to be impressive. He was almost tempted enough to turn on Jules’s phone and see how many she had.
He skipped past the main screen before curiosity got the better of him and worked on looking up the courthouse. He found one not far from them and was just getting directions when Jules slid into the driver’s side wearing a blue summer dress.
“Did you find one?”
“Yeah. It’s close.”
“Great.” Jules grinned as she closed her door. “I drive. You navigate.”
“You look nice.” Romeo gave her a smile as she started the car. “Something blue.”
“I don’t have any white dresses.” Jules laughed. “And even if I did, I didn’t wanna start off a new life lying to myself or the folks at the courthouse. I ain’t innocent or virginal; no sense pretending I am.”
Romeo laughed with her and pointed out, “I’m wearing white.”
“Does that mean I get to corrupt you on our wedding night?”
“Absolutely,” Romeo agreed with a mischievous smirk. “But be gentle.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Jules teased as she pulled to the stop sign leading to the main road from the motel parking lot. “Where to?”
* * * *
On a gentle spring day Romeo and Jules got married under a magnolia tree outside the small West Virginia courthouse. The air smelled like flowers. The breeze forced Jules to hold her loose hair away from her face. They didn’t have rings, but the stately black woman who performed the ceremony said they didn’t need them.
Jules said, “I do,” and Romeo kissed her before the woman gave him permission because he didn’t want to lose the tight hold he had on his emotions. Jules let go of her
313
hair and kissed him back, intertwining her arms around his neck, and neither of them cared they had an audience.
Everyone who worked at the small courthouse had come outside to watch Juliet Conner and Romeo Wellings get married simply because of the names printed on the marriage license. They seemed to feel it was something worth watching, and they weren’t disappointed by the performance. They all clapped, and several people took pictures with their phones.
Romeo wanted to give them his e-mail address, but he knew he couldn’t.
He wished Nova was there to memorize everything for him, but Romeo tried to do the best job he could with his ordinary mind. Everything felt so vivid. He knew most of it was going to stay intact.
Jules cried after it was over; then she hugged the woman who married them. Her name was Sara Jensen. Jules wrote it down so she’d remember.
Once they got away from the hugs and congratulations, they got back into Jules’s car, and she turned to him, tears still sparkling in her light eyes as she grinned. “Now’s the part where I corrupt you.”
He chuckled. “Corrupt away, Mrs. Wellings.”
Unable to resist, Romeo reached over and cupped his hand at the back of her neck and pulled her closer. He stole another kiss, this one more intimate. Their tongues brushed as Jules pulled open the first few buttons of his shirt and slipped a hand inside, placing her palm over the steady thump of his heartbeat.
“I’m so happy,” she whispered against his lips after a few breathless moments.
“This is the best day of my life.”
Romeo smiled. “Mine too.”
314