by Sienna Blake
I shoved that thought away, pulling my hand away from Christian’s on the pretense of wiping my mouth with my cloth napkin. “I hope you don’t mind if we cut tonight short, but I’m exhausted,” I said with an apologetic look.
His lips pinched for a second before his expression smoothed over. “Of course. Anything for you.”
As he settled the bill I leaned back in my chair and stared out the glass window to my right. The waiter had seated us in a small alcove on a slightly raised platform right at the front of the restaurant, glass encasing us. I felt like I was on display, with the people outside able to see me clearly as they walked past.
My gaze fell upon a figure in the shadows across the street. Roman’s watching me. I shivered, my eyes fluttering shut. When I opened them, the figure was gone.
If it had even been him in the first place.
I was an idiot. I was thinking about Roman when I shouldn’t be, seeing him where he wasn’t. I needed to get over this obsession with him before I did something stupid. Correction: before I did something stupid again.
In the passenger seat of Christian’s car, I slumped back and closed my eyes. Christian shut my door behind me and got into the driver’s seat, but he didn’t start the car.
“Julianna?”
I opened my eyes and turned to look at him. “Yes?”
I could see his face in the dark, shadows filtering across his features. He was handsome, his features classically put together, but for some reason he didn’t make my stomach flip when I saw him. Not like it did when I caught sight of a certain dark, dangerous man.
Perhaps I just wanted Roman because I couldn’t have him. Because I shouldn’t want him.
I brushed that theory away. I had been drawn to Roman from the moment I laid eyes on him. Before I knew who he was.
I was so caught up in my own thoughts, I only realized Christian was leaning in for a kiss when his lips touched mine. For a moment I didn’t move because I was too shocked. Then I didn’t move because I wasn’t sure what I should do. I should kiss him back. I should want to kiss him back. Christian was the sensible choice. He was good for me. Why couldn’t I want him like I wanted Roman? Why couldn’t my body catch alight at his lips on mine?
Perhaps if I kissed him back, some feelings would arise? I parted my lips for Christian and felt his tongue slip into my mouth. Where was the surge of heat and need? Where was the feeling that I was falling? Flying? That I might stop breathing if he pulled away?
I gently pushed Christian away with my fingers on his chest and the kiss ended.
He gave me a shy smile. “I’ve been wanting to do that for a while,” he admitted before he started the car.
I tried to push away the unease in my stomach. It took several minutes of driving before I could pinpoint what it was that I was feeling. Guilt. I was feeling like I had betrayed Roman by kissing Christian. Well, that was ridiculous. Roman and I were nothing. He made that quite clear the last time I saw him. I didn’t owe any loyalty to him. Still, the tightness in my belly wouldn’t go away.
* * *
My phone beeped with a message as soon as I shut my apartment door behind me. I didn’t check it right away. It was probably Christian telling me again that he had a wonderful time. It was just the sweet kind of thing that Christian would do. He was lovely and sweet. Why didn’t that excite me? Excitement wasn’t everything, right?
I only picked up my phone again after I’d showered and changed into the shorts and t-shirt I usually slept in. The message wasn’t from Christian.
Roman: Are you awake?
I stared at the black text. It had been his first attempt at communication with me in a week. Was I awake? Why, so you could confuse me again with your hot and cold routine? No, thank you. I was done. I should just ignore him. That’s what I would do. Ignore him. I threw my phone to the bedside table and tried to settle into a book.
My awareness kept drifting off the page and back towards that damn message on my phone.
Damn him. I typed out a curt text back. I hit send before I could stop myself.
Me: What do you want?
Stupid. Why was I even replying to him? Communicating with Roman was wrong. If anyone ever found out…
My phone started to ring. Oh shit. It was Roman. Don’t answer it!
I answered it. “What?” Well, that came out breathier and less intimidating than I intended.
Roman’s deep voice eased into my ear, all rumble and bass. “I just wanted to see how you are?”
I frowned. “I’m fine.”
“Good.”
“Good.”
There was an uncomfortable pause. “Well,” I said, “if that’s all—”
“Have you been thinking about me?”
My mouth dropped open. What kind of game was he playing now? Should I lie and say “no”? That might end this conversation prematurely. Did I want to admit the truth? No, I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing I’d been thinking of him. Damn him for being so presumptuous as to ask a question like that.
He broke the silence first. “I’ve been thinking about you.”
Inside, I screamed. I wished he were here so I could choke him. “You’re giving me whiplash.”
He chuckled. “Is that some kind of sex thing? I am open to anything.”
I shook my head, trying to ignore the sting because this Roman on the phone—open and flirty—sounded too much like the Roman I had started falling for. “You kick me out of your apartment, then you send me roses. You tell me you should stay away from me, then you admit you’ve been thinking about me. I can’t keep up.”
“I should stay away from you.”
“There you go again! Whiplash.”
“I said I should stay away from you, not that I wanted to.”
I let out a soft growl. “You are so frustrating.”
“You should stay away from me if you know what’s good for you.”
I could punch him in the face. Seeing as he wasn’t actually here for me to do it, I just stuck my tongue out into the dark. It made me feel slightly better.
“Do you like him?” he asked.
“Who?”
“Your date tonight. He looks like a stiff.”
What the fuck? I sat up in bed. “You followed me?”
Roman snorted. “I just happened to see you as I was walking by.”
I thought back to the feeling of being watched at the restaurant. Roman had been outside. It had been him there watching me from the shadows, intruding, unwanted, into a private moment I was having with my date. I should be furious. Instead it sent a thrill rushing through my blood. Stupid body.
“Of course I like him,” I lied. “What’s not to like? He’s handsome, sweet and he doesn’t give me whiplash like some people.”
“But he doesn’t kiss you like I do.”
My mind flooded with the memory of Roman’s kisses, all night, all over my naked body. I began to sweat in my sheets. My breasts became too sensitive and uncomfortably full. I felt like I’d suddenly developed a fever. And yet, I shivered.
No, I wouldn’t play into this. I couldn’t.
“He’s a great kisser.”
“Liar.”
“I’m not lying.”
“If he was such a great kisser, why did you leave him standing on the sidewalk at the end of the night?”
My skin prickled. Roman had been watching us outside my apartment. He lied. He hadn’t just been walking past. He was there outside the restaurant watching us kiss in the car, then watching us again outside my apartment at the end of the night as I avoided a second kiss. He had been following me.
“If you were mine,” he spoke in such a quiet voice I almost didn’t hear him, “you’d never leave me on the sidewalk.”
If you were mine… If I were his, I’d never leave him on the sidewalk.
I could never be his.
I jumped up from my bed, throwing my sheets off me, and ran to my window. I had left it partly open, my curtains pushe
d to the side to let in the breeze. I could smell the scent of the city: cigarette smoke, car fumes and the hint of hot frying oil from a fast food café down the road. The street below looked dark. Nothing moved. Was he down there still, watching my window? Could he see me standing here looking for him? I swear I could feel his eyes on me again. Watching me. The place between my legs that was empty of him throbbed.
“Send me a kiss goodnight, Julianna.”
He was out there in the dark. I stared out, biting my lip, trying to see through into each shadow to the beautiful secret hidden within. “Where are you?” I whispered, my body buzzing.
“In the dark, little rabbit. A place you shouldn’t follow me into.”
I shouldn’t. I really shouldn’t. Oh, but I wanted to…
Send me a kiss goodnight, Julianna.
I remembered his lips on mine. My eyelids fluttered shut as I lifted a hand up. I had meant to touch my lips, to blow him a kiss, but on the way up my fingertips brushed across the swell of my breast and I hissed. God, that felt good. I was so sensitive, so ready, my body burning at the knowledge that his eyes were on me.
The darkness behind my eyelids made me bold. I brushed my nipples again. In my ear I heard him moan, the same sweet noise he’d made all that night. He was watching me and he liked what he saw.
Before I knew what I was doing, I slid one hand firmly across my other breast and pinched down on my sensitive nipples the way his teeth had that night. Pleasure and pain rocketed through me. A louder moan slipped out of me.
“What are you doing?” He sounded like he was choking.
What was I doing? I wasn’t thinking straight. All the blood had rushed out of my brain. My body rushed with hot desire making me dizzy. “Remembering what you did to me,” I admitted.
He let out a low, pained groan into my ear, the vibration of his voice sending tingles through my body, the same way it had when he’d moaned against my wet folds. All sense of decorum fled from my mind as my body trembled with need. I slipped my hand down my body and into my shorts, gasping when I touched that sensitive bud. I gripped on to the phone, my link to Roman, and slid my other fingers along my wet aching slit, the pleasure running down my legs making them shake.
“Jesus fucking Christ.” His breath became heavy in my ear. “If I were there…”
If he were here…
If we could just have one more night together, one more night without being Roman and Julianna. One more night being anything but a Tyrell and a Capulet.
“If you were here...?” I shouldn’t be asking. I shouldn’t be doing this.
It was too late now. He didn’t sound like he was going to stop us.
“If I were there,” he growled, “you wouldn’t need to remember. I’d bury myself so deep inside you, you’d never get me out.” Too late.
I impaled my hips onto my fingers, pretending it was his cock and a shudder went through me. It wasn’t enough. I needed him. I needed him more than I’d ever needed anything in my life. Food. Water. Air. I needed him more than I needed to breathe right now. “Come here, then.”
I heard him inhale sharply. There was a long pause.
My hand stilled. My eyes shot open, searching the darkness below for him, heat rising to my cheeks. “Roman?”
“You’ll be the death of me,” I heard him whisper before the line went dead.
7
____________
Roman
It had been a mistake to watch her from the dark of the empty apartment across from hers. Lying in my bed, my mind assaulted me with the memory of watching her hand moving between her legs, of her head thrown back, sweet panting in my ear.
If I were there…
Come here, then.
I grabbed my aching cock in my fist and worked myself into a fury, wrecking myself upon her memory, collapsing in a fever after my release, begging for sleep. Sleep didn’t come. And she tormented me, still. Perhaps this was the penance for my sins.
It was early. Much too early. The sun was barely peeking up over the horizon, splashing the glass and concrete buildings of Verona with her bloody brush. I threw off the sheets that were sticking to me from my sweat. I showered, dressed and went out walking. I didn’t know where I was going. I just knew that one foot in front of the other was the only thing stopping me from going mad.
I found myself sitting in the pews at the back of Waverley Cathedral attached to the graveyard where my mother and brother were buried. Fitting, as it was where I would end up one day. Too soon, I was sure. Everyone attached to me ended up here before their time, torn from this earth in a flurry of bullets and blood.
That’s why I needed to stay away from Julianna. I didn’t want her to end up here too.
But she was making it so damn difficult. She was just…everywhere. Showing up at my apartment, at Nonna’s house, at Fated…asking all the wrong questions, saying all the wrong things, staring at me with hope in her beautiful amber eyes, acting like…acting like she cared about me. Telling me that I was good. Making out like she couldn’t believe that I could have killed a man.
Well, I did, Julianna. I shot him in cold blood and stole his life. I chose my life over his. Would knowing that be enough to drive you away? Would spilling this secret finally make you understand that I am not worth saving?
I stared up at the statues of Jesus on the cross. He sacrificed his life for us. I couldn’t even sacrifice my lustful desire for a certain detective to keep her safe.
“Roman! Is that you?” a familiar voice called from behind me.
I stood up, spinning, my hand going automatically for the gun hidden at my back. I froze as I spotted the familiar figure dressed in a black button-up shirt and the telltale white collar. Bad Roman. I was about to draw a weapon at a priest in a church.
“Father Laurence.” I dropped my hand and smiled. I didn’t have to force it. I was genuinely glad to see him. In the eight years since I left Verona for the anonymous freedom of Europe, his fine hair had gathered more silver strands and his kind chestnut eyes seemed wearier than ever before, but otherwise he looked just the same. “It’s good to see you again.”
“Likewise, my boy.” I clapped the older man on the back as he pulled me in for a hug.
Father Laurence had been close friends with my mother since childhood. He had been the one to marry her to my father. He had been the one to bury her.
He pulled back and smiled, his kind brown eyes crinkling at the corners. “Let me look at you.” He studied me, clucking softly. “You went away a boy and came back a man.” Affection filled his voice. “I barely recognized you.” We sat down side by side in one of the pews.
“Well, you look exactly the same.”
The Father snorted, such an odd sound to hear from a man of the cloth that it almost made me laugh. “You’re just lying to be kind. I’ve aged much too fast since you left.” His face fell. “Verona has become a darker and darker place. It’s been more of a struggle to keep the people’s hopes afloat.”
He didn’t have to convince me. I could see how far my father’s twisted roots had dug into the community.
He placed his hand on my shoulder, his face growing solemn. “I’m sorry about Jacob. It was…a senseless tragedy.”
It still felt like someone had closed a fist around my throat when I thought of Jacob. I still held on to the memories of him when we had been kids, when he still acted like my brother. I still loved that Jacob. Sometimes I wondered if I could have saved him from himself. Maybe I should have stayed and tried. Would I have made a difference? I doubted it. I couldn’t save myself.
I swallowed down the knot in my throat. “Thank you, Father. He will be missed.” My voice sounded hollow, even to me.
“I saw you at the back of the service at his funeral, sneaking into the church after everyone was seated,” Father Laurence said softly. “You didn’t stick around afterwards for the wake.”
“I had to run off.” That wasn’t exactly a lie.
He nodded sl
owly. “I hear your father has convinced you to stay in Verona.”
“That’s one way to put it.”
Father Laurence frowned. “But you’re not happy to be back.”
“Would you be happy if you were me?” I asked, my voice a bitter note. “It’s only a matter of time before…” I trailed off.
He slipped his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. The single touch gave me more comfort than I’d ever gotten from my father. I wondered what my life would have been like if my mother had chosen someone like Father Laurence as a husband.
After my mother married my father, Father Laurence joined the priesthood. They said he did that because he loved my mother; he would never love anyone else. Despite the rumors, my mother and Father Laurence had remained close. I had always dismissed the stories as just that. But sometimes I wondered how close they had been… Or perhaps it was easier to believe that I might not have Tyrell blood in my veins.
Father Laurence gave me a weighted stare. “Nothing is inevitable. We all have a choice, Roman.”
Some people did. Not me.
“I don’t know how to say no to him.”
Father Laurence sighed. “Giovanni Tyrell is a difficult man. He’s gotten worse since your mother, God rest her soul, passed away.”
I didn’t even have the energy to nod.
He studied me, frowning. It felt like he was looking right into me. He always could. That’s why he was the one I turned to for advice. “That’s not the only thing on your mind, is it?”
I leaned forward and ran my hands roughly through my hair. “There’s a woman.”
Father Laurence, unlike most people, knew when to be silent. He was silent for long enough that I began to fill in the noiselessness with the things that were clattering around in my head.
“I can’t stop thinking about her. When I’m awake, I crave her. At night, I dream about her. I need her. Want her. How do I make it stop?”
“We all have desires, Roman,” he said slowly. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”
Coming from a man who was strong enough to control his worldly desires. I, on the other hand… “This is different. She is different. She’s…” I laughed when I realized I could never put her perfection into words. I could try. “She is so good that… No, she is goodness. She has so much goodness in her that she sees it in everyone else.” She saw it…in me. Of all the tainted, stained, wretched creatures on the planet, she saw something good in me.