It’s only been a couple of weeks since we were in that basement together but the time sucker-punches me like it’s been eighty years. A thousand lifetimes come crashing down on my shoulders.
Is she real?
If she is real, then I am fucked.
I stick my head out the door, not missing the way she flinches back. Nobody’s in the hallway. If my lawyer saw her, then I’m still fucked. There are two elevators in this hotel, one on either end of the hall. If they both came from opposite directions, it’s possible that nobody saw her.
A curl of delicate perfume strokes my cheek, makes its way up my nose.
Fuck.
I yank her into the room by her wrist. Not the best idea, given how often she’s been thrown around recently, but I’ve got to get her out of sight. Right fucking now. Once she’s safely inside the confines of my hotel room, I slam the door shut and hook the chain. There—the one silver lining. I’m the one to flip the lock in this room. Just me.
My heart’s beating too fast. She’s too close. What the hell is she doing here?
I stalk to the other side of the room to try and catch my breath. A jumble of thoughts shout in my mind, each clamoring for attention. My skin has gone cold, then hot. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up straight. What is she doing here? I can’t look at her. It’s like staring at the fucking sun.
Avery doesn’t move. She stands there in the silence, watching me. After a long moment she reaches up and takes her sunglasses off. They hit something inside her purse with a plastic click.
Finally, painfully, I look at her. I meet her gaze, the tiny golden flecks in her chestnut eyes still the most surreal thing I’ve ever seen. She’s been crying, with the way black mascara trails have run down her cheeks, forming twin black tributaries. Her eyes are bloodshot, and she’s pale. She’s still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
It takes all that I have to drink her in without rushing over and grabbing her.
“Rome,” she whispers. Something dark flashes in her eyes. My heart rockets up into my mouth. Something’s wrong. And yes, I know a lot of fucking things are wrong. But something’s wrong right now. Avery is pale, trembling. She looks like she’s been in the rain, little beads of water still dripping from the ends of her long, dark locks. She chews at her bottom lip. Holds her purse too tight.
“You shouldn’t be here.” It’s the wrong thing to say, but I have to say it anyway.
“I’ve done something terrible,” she blurts out, and an icy wash of pure panic spills down over my back. It freezes my back, my legs, all the way down to my toes. “It’s bad, Rome. It’s really bad.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
AVERY
I’ve lost it. I mean, I’ve really fucking lost my mind. I got behind the wheel of the kind priest’s car and every sob I’ve been holding back for the last few months came pouring out. I’m surprised I didn’t wrap the damn car around a pole on my way from Colma back to the city.
What was I thinking? What have I done?
Once I’m parked in the loading bay in front of the hotel my lawyer told me Rome was staying at, my heart starts to beat like crazy.
I shouldn’t be here.
Rome represents everything that is the antithesis to me getting on with my life.
I should leave.
But my legs propel me to the elevator. They propel me down the hallway two floors up. They propel me to the door marked 206. And then, after I’ve knocked, they threaten to buckle and send me to my knees.
When he pulls me into the hotel room, his hand on my wrist burns. Not in a painful way. It’s more of an I’d like you to throw me on that bed over there and have your way with me burn.
He tells me I shouldn’t be here.
I don’t care. Here I am, Rome Montague.
He looks worried. When I tell him I’ve done something terrible, he looks worse. Wait until I tell him what I’ve done, I think. Wait until he knows what a selfish, murderous piece of shit I am.
Rome studies me with cautious eyes. “Are you okay?”
I nod. “You? Are you okay?”
It’s not exactly the reunion I’ve been picturing in my mind, but then, I didn’t imagine he’d be holed up in a Holiday Inn with a tracking anklet fixed on his leg.
He shrugs. “I’m out of prison, at least. I’m pretty sure you had something to do with that.”
He’s right - sort of. I couldn’t pay his bail without raising suspicion within my family, but I did pay off a judge to make sure he got the bail hearing in the first place. I made it very clear how urgently bail needed to be offered.
“You can get anything, for the right price.”
“Almost anything,” he corrects me. I know what he’s referring to. The people who kidnapped us had the chance to demand an outrageous ransom. They didn’t even keep the eight million dollar diamond ring I was wearing when they took me. They sent the fucker back.
“Almost anything,” I echo softly.
“You sure you’re alright?” Rome asks, a hint of worry in his bright blue eyes.
I can’t believe we’re standing in the same room. I can’t believe how much I’ve needed him. It’s unreal. It transcends reality.
“I don’t know,” I blurt out.
He shoves his hands in his pockets and looks away. Silhouetted in the light from the sliding door, he has never looked so beautiful. His tattoos stand out so starkly against his skin, almost obscene against his plain white t-shirt, and I want to fold myself into his arms and trace those lines for the rest of my life.
“I know I’m not supposed to be here.” Panic is closing in, and it’s closing in hard. It hurts. It’s cracking my ribs. My thoughts spiral out and away, then back again. It’s whiplash. I’m breaking apart. “I did something horrible. I didn’t know where else to go.”
Rome stares at me. Through me. “What did you do?” he asks carefully. I hate that he’s so far away from me. On the other side of the room, and even that doesn’t seem to be far enough away for him. I don’t have to be an expert in body language to tell he would probably like to jump off the balcony of this hotel room and land in the street to get away from me right now.
“I went to the fertility clinic. Where they were storing the embryos.” I told Rome about the embryos, in one of our more lucid conversations when we were stuck in that hellhole together. He was horrified. I did tell him, didn’t I? Yes. It’s getting harder to tell which memories are real.
“I went there and I made them give me the embryos. And I took them out of their cold storage. I took them to the mausoleum and I buried them in the ground. They’re dead. They’re all dead. They can’t survive without—” Oh, shit, it’s ugly, the storm of tears. I can’t stop it and I can’t slow it. There’s nothing to be done about it except t0 give into the heartbreak of it all. “They have to be frozen or in my body. They’re dead now. Buried. I can’t get them back. There’s no way I can take it back.” My voice goes higher and higher until it’s not my voice anymore. I’m open-mouth sobbing now. I feel unhinged.
And finally Rome moves toward me. He’s across the room in a few long strides and the moment he touches me I fall against him. The relief at touching him, holding him, is immense.
“It’s okay,” he murmurs, but I can barely hear him because somebody is crying so loud and hard. It’s me. I’m the one crying. I can’t make myself stop.
“They wouldn’t give them to me,” I whimper against his chest. “I had to use a gun.”
Rome slowly peels himself away from me, holding me at arms length as he searches my eyes for answers. “A gun? You used a gun.”
I nod, furiously blinking tears away.
“Did you shoot anyone?”
“No! God. I just…” I take a shuddering breath. “I threatened the woman behind the desk with the gun when she said she wouldn’t give the embryos to me.”
“Where did you get a gun, Avery Capulet?” If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was amused.
&nbs
p; “The strip mall,” I choke, my breaths spiraling into increasingly more painful gasps. “It’s way too fucking easy to get a gun in this country, by the way.”
“We’ll figure it out, Aves.” He wraps me up in a hug so tight that it has the opposite effect and releases some of the panic pressure in my lungs. The feel of his body against mine is so solid, so hard, so right. I am in the eye of a storm and he is my anchor, keeping me firmly on the ground.
“Tighter,” I gasp.
He holds me tighter.
The smell of him, those muscles pinned around me, it breaks something open inside my chest. It has been so long. Too long. He’s wrapped around me, but it’s still not enough to satisfy this cruel emptiness inside me.
I reach up and grab Rome’s face, pull it down, kiss his mouth. He stiffens at first, not daring to open his lips or give me his tongue or do anything that would indicate he’s returning the gesture. His bright blue eyes are wide open, and he’s staring into mine with an unfathomable sadness that is so palpable, it feels like I’m being stabbed right through the heart.
Doesn’t he want this? Doesn’t he want me? Of course he doesn’t. Who would want me like this? Damaged and broken beyond repair?
He reads the subtle shift of my expression, from lust to blank acceptance, and his eyes flash from sadness to panic.
“Wait–” he says, but I don’t want to wait.
Oh, God. He doesn’t feel the same as me.
It’s more than mortifying. It’s splintering apart my empty glass heart, shards of sorrow and rage that pierce me from the inside in all directions. I feel like I might be sick. I feel like I want to die. I feel like I wish those damned magic pills he’d promised me would relieve my suffering had worked properly and fucking killed me. Because this, here, is the worst moment of my entire existence.
I wrench myself away from him, walking over to the door. “I’m so sorry,” I mutter as I walk away from him. As I walk away from the thing I thought would save me in all of this. The first boy I ever loved. He’s not that boy anymore though, is he? He’s somebody else now. I shouldn’t blame him. It’s my fault he went to prison. It’s my fault he stayed there. It’s my fault he’s a convicted felon.
I shouldn’t have kissed him. I can’t even look back at him as I reach for the door handle.
“Avery, wait.”
I keep my hand on the handle, but there’s no strength in my grip. I stare at the scratched wooden floor of the hotel room, wondering why it isn’t the normal cheap carpeting every Holiday Inn has as standard. Why am I thinking about flooring? It’s my mind’s way of trying to distract me from what’s really happening, I guess. Better to think about ugly carpet than about the crushing rejection of the person you thought loved you back.
“Avery.” Rome’s voice is in my ear, his tone firmer this time. He’s right beside me, reaching slowly for my hand on the door handle. He’s acting like everyone else–like I’m made of glass, like I might break if he so much as looks at me the wrong way.
“Avery, look at me.”
I lift my head so I’m staring at the fire escape plan stuck to the back of the door. Honestly, if this building caught fire right now, I’d probably stay and burn with it.
“Avery.” His fingers reach out slowly, ghosting along my jaw as he gently turns my head to meet his gaze. I can imagine what I look like to him in this moment; a dead-eyed girl, on the brink of madness.
“Don’t go.” He lets his hand drop from my jaw, and the absence of his touch aches immediately.
“I have to go,” I say, hearing my monotone voice ring hollow in my ears. “I shouldn’t be here.”
Rome rests his hand on mine, sliding it off the door handle. “And yet, here you are,” he says, tugging my hand gently so I’m fully facing him.
“I definitely shouldn’t have kissed you,” I say to his chest. I just can’t bear to look into his eyes for more than a few seconds. There’s so much in them, it feels like I’ll burst into flames from the intensity of him. I’m like an ant under a magnifying glass, oblivious, waiting for the sun to hit the right spot and burn me alive.
“I wish you would kiss me again,” he murmurs, tipping my chin up, lowering his lips to my neck and biting gently at the tender skin where my jugular pulses frantically. I let out a small sigh as his tongue glides along my neck, down to my collarbone. He’s careful to avoid the two pin prick wounds that have since healed into twin scars at the base of my throat, a forever reminder of the shock collar I was forced to wear when we were in that hellhole.
I wish he wouldn’t be so careful.
He breaks contact, cupping my face in his hands as he straightens, staring down at me. His expression is … what is it? So many things. Tender. Fierce. Things that shouldn’t be able to logically coexist, but then, we shouldn’t be able to coexist, and here we are. A Montague and a Capulet. A rich girl and a poor boy. A sheltered, spoiled princess and a tattooed drug dealer.
“I meant it when I said it,” Rome murmurs, his lips inches from mine. “You told me I didn’t need to mean it when I said it, but I did mean it. I did love you. I do love you. I love you so fucking much. And I’m afraid if I hold on to you too hard… if I touch you too roughly … you’ll break.”
“Tell me you love me, Rome.” A light whisper, like a summer breeze. “You don’t have to mean it. Just say it.”
“I love you,” Rome said. “I love you, I love you, I love you.” It was the last thing I heard as I drifted into death. It was the first thing I remembered when I woke up in the hospital.
I love you, I love you, I love you. Sweet murmurs in my ear until I said goodbye to this cruel world.
I blink away tears. Nobody is that good a liar. He loves me. And my relief unlocks a tidal wave of need that I didn’t even know existed within me.
“I love you,” I say with every ounce of emotion I possess. “I love you, Rome Montague, and you could never hurt me. You could never break me.”
I snap, grabbing at his shirt, my strength and speed surprising me. I’ve been so weak since the hospital, so frail and pained, shuffling about in my sorrow. But Rome’s love, or at least his admission of love, sets me free.
It brings fire to my veins.
It awakens a beast inside me.
An animal reduced to its basest desire.
A violent need to be as close to him as humanly possible.
I pull him into me, kissing him again, but this time, there’s nothing tentative about his response.
A moan escapes my lips, drowned inside his mouth, but he hears it. I know he hears it because he stills suddenly.
He freezes for a moment that’s as long as eternity but I’m hot, I’m on fire, I can’t be stopped. I bite at his bottom lip and Rome kisses me back. His hands go around my waist and pull me in, his hardness grinding against my hip. His mouth works against mine, fighting me, devouring me, and I could explode. Panting desire batters all the rest of my self-control. I go for Rome’s shirt like a crazed woman, which I am. He helps me get it over his head, and he returns the favor with my dress, grasping the hem and tearing it off me so I’m left in my plain black bra and panties. We tear off each other’s underwear and my breath catches in my throat at the sight of him naked in front of me, his cock swollen and standing to attention, ready for me. He looks so fucking good.
Rome looks down at my nakedness and growls a wordless noise in the back of his throat that’s pure need.
Then his hands are on me again, confident and sure. He pinches my nipples, dips a hand between my legs, strokes. I’m so wet. I’m so ready. He’s not careful with me. He doesn’t act like I’m made of glass. He takes me like he was always meant to. Bending me. Exploring me. Thrusting into me with one finger, then two.
I’m so wet.
I’m so ready.
It suddenly strikes me that we’ve never done this before. Yes, he was my first love, my first kiss. Yes, we’ve endured every horrible, tortured thing together. But the one thing we have never, ever do
ne is actually fuck each other.
That realization thrills and terrifies me.
I don’t even notice the way he’s backed me toward the bed until the backs of my knees hit the end of it. My hands fly out behind me, bracing my fall as I land in soft sheets. I can’t keep up with Rome and I don’t want to. He’s taken me and pushed me down onto the bed, using his hands to spread my knees wide. His scarred hand circles my throat gently as he looms above me. Pinning me in place.
“I need you,” he growls into my ear. “I’ve needed you for ten fucking years, Avery.”
Rome thrusts inside me and I yell out. I’m loud, too loud for a fucking hotel room with paper-thin walls. Amusement lights up his eyes as he covers my mouth with his free hand.
Oh, god, oh, fuck. I’m so tender and new. It’s like I’ve gone back in time. It’s almost like I’m a virgin again. He stretches me, but it’s not a violation. It’s perfect. It’s the only thing I want. I have to inch my thighs apart to make room for him because he’s an animal, gone. Rome’s teeth come down on my shoulder, my neck, glancing bites that I can tell won’t leave marks later.
He’s the only person I’ve ever wanted.
I hold on to the sheets I’m fisting for dear life while Rome uses me. Pleasure gathers and multiplies where his cock hammers into me again and again. I’m so wet and the sensation of being held here by him brings me back into my own skin. Each thrust is a reminder and a prayer. I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive.
I come fast and Rome pins a hand to my left hip, forcing me to buck and cry out against him. His hips piston against mine but I can’t move, I have to take all of him, and I love it. I love it. I need it. I’m coming again. Oh,fuck, I’m coming again.
Rome yanks himself out of me while I’m still writhing and then he’s coming too, big hot spurts on my stomach. His face contorts with pleasure and then he bends down, breathing hard, and kisses me again. Softer, now.
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