Women are so simple minded. Especially the rich, beautiful ones, the ones who have poise, etiquette and manners.
The ones I prefer.
Women unlike Heather.
It’s been two years since that day in the library. I’ve spent two years dodging her at every turn. I swear it’s like the woman appeared out of nowhere then suddenly she was everywhere. She’s the reason I latched on to Julia . S peaking of Julia, I need to regain my thoughts and reassess our situation.
Eyeing the clock I mentally calculate the time I’ve spent on resuscitation, a little more than five minutes. Fierce anger swells and twists around my stomach as my fists clench, raising one far above my head before bringing it down as hard as I can punching her in the sternum. Instantly her lungs fill with air and her eyes bulge open before she begins sputtering coughs and heaving in breaths.
“Jesus.” I run my hands down my face and quickly stand up to pace the length of my room.
“Rom-“ She bursts into another coughing fit for what seems like a lifetime before she gathers enough control to attempt speaking again, “Roman, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry-“ I fly towards her huddled on the floor.
Once I’m close enough my hands encircle her neck and I lift her clean off the floor, her feet dangle three feet from the carpet. “NO! No, Julia, you know how much it pisses me off when you do that shit! It messes up everything! Everything! Do you think after I find release I want to resuscitate you for over five minutes? Do you know how infuriating that is?! Do you have any idea how close I was to picking your weak ass up and tossing you down the trash shoot to be incinerated with the rest of the garbage?!”
Her hands claw at mine around her throat as her eyes widen and her lips turn blue before I drop her into a heap on the floor.
“Get your shit and get out of my house, I never want to see you again, do you hear me?” I storm from my room, through the hall and down the stairs. I slam the door to my Maserati, the garage is barely open enough before I barrel through, pass the gates and take a sharp left.
I don’t know who I’m mad at, I don’t know where I’m going, for the first time in as long as I can remember I feel lost and I haven’t the faintest idea why.
I do know I made the right choice where Julia is concerned. I see a hole in the wall bar and slow before pulling into the dirt lot and parking near the back.
I walk in and head straight to a side booth in the corner , and as I sit, my eyes land on a waitress and I jerk my head at her.
“What can I get for ya, honey?”
I glance at her nametag and look up at her prematurely aged face, “A club soda and lemon slice. Freshly cut lemon slice, Ms. Darla.” I smile.
“You got it.” She walks away with an exaggerated sway in her hips and I have to grit my teeth to keep from verbally mocking her.
I keep my eyes lowered, looking at the table when she returns to avoid conversation. Thankfully it works. I pick my drink up and bring it to my lips as a slip of a woman in red slides into the booth across the table from me. I jerk my head up to see… little miss Heather Mackenzie.
I nod towards her and set my drink down before speaking, “What do you want?”
Her husky laugh catches me by surprise and my eyebrows rise to my hairline. “That, Mr. Payne, is a loaded question.”
Scowling at her over the rim of my glass I repeat my question, “Answer me. What do you want?”
“You. For a smart guy, you can be one dumb ass son of a bitch, you know it?” She chuckles before waving the waitress down, “Bud Light, draft if you have it, please ma’am.”
“You got it, hun.”
I shake my head looking down at the peeling Formica on the table and watch from my peripheral as Heather picks up my drink, takes a sip then spits an ice cube back into the glass. I look up at her as if she has lost her ever-loving mind. “Did you just spit in my drink?” I growl.
Her? She laughs. Like what I’ve said is completely preposterous, like I didn’t just watch her do it with my own eyes. “I like to think of it as transferring, maybe making a deposit immediately after withdrawal. Spitting is such a strong and unfavorable descriptive term.” She sets my drink down and I grasp her wrist tightly causing her to drop it and the contents to slosh over the edge.
Darla sets a beer in front of Heather and coughs before looking at her in question.
“Darla, don’t think for a second I don’t have this situation under control, he may be a foot and a half taller than me and have a buck more in weight, but I’ve got this sweetie. Run a long, mmmkay?” Heather’s eyes never leave mine as she speaks, even though my grip becomes as tight as a vice. As I feel her bones grating against each other under my fingertips, she smiles serenely and her calmness remains.
After the waitress leaves I watch as Heather’s right eyebrow rise with every statement I speak, “I do not know you. I do not like you. I do not know what it is you want from me, but I will tell you what I want! I want to know why you have suddenly appeared in my life and why you are suddenly always around. NOW TELL ME WHY, GODDAMN YOU!”
I jerk her arm forward until we are both leaning over the table nose to nose, “You want to fuck the big bad wolf? Huh? Is that what you want?” Her head shakes slightly as she swallows. Before she can open her mouth to speak I brush my lips over hers, “You have no idea how many innocent little red riding hoods have thrown themselves at my feet, begging for my affection, my oppression, my brutal benevolence, placing their own lives within my hands hoping to find an angel behind this devil’s mask.”
Her hand is yanked from mine and instantly I’m lost in her sinful dark eyes, her tiny hands fist the shirt covering my shoulders, and using the material as leverage she smashes her nose harder against mine, our foreheads butt against each others, “I’d have to be blind, deaf, or dumb not to know that, Roman, the problem is, I’m not the one hoping to find an angel behind that mask. Angels are a dime a damn dozen. What I want is the demons who live within because...they mirror my own.” She releases her hold on me and leans back into the booth, grabs her mug of beer and drains half its contents.
I have trouble piecing my thoughts together as I feel myself falling for the blond temptress sitting before me.
I’m completely breathless, and almost speechless, but I somehow manage to get the words out, “I’ll ask you once more, and once more only Heather, what do you want?”
Chapter 4
Shit! What do I want?
Well, like I said that’s a loaded question!
I want Roman William Payne, that’s what I want.
I want him to tell me, “NO! I did not hurt or kill those girls and I wasn’t the cause of anyone’s suicide!”
Have you ever been at a place, or found yourself in a serious moment where your mind, or the little conscious voices are adamantly screaming in revolt at what your stupid love sick, butterfly filled, Cinderella-happily-ever-after believing heart is telling you? But the rose colored glasses instantly appear when your eyes land on the one, YOUR one and only, that your gut, hell even the marrow in your bones joins forces with the imbecile beating within your chest? Leaving you a hot mess questioning everything you know. Hell, I’m twenty-five years old. I have gone without intensity and passion of this magnitude since my first love…Since my first and last heartbreak in high school.
I’m not supposed to feel this way again and for damn sure was not supposed to feel this way about Roman Payne.
My voice wavers when I’m finally able to speak, “I want you, Roman. I want you to quit fighting me; let me in, let me show you how happy I can make you, but all you’ve ever done is…Run.”
I glance at him searching for any effect my words have made and I am met with nothing but a blank expression. My heart constricts as my eyes well with tears and in a wobbly voice I ask, “You don’t…You don’t give a damn do you?” Yes, okay dammit, I admit at the end, tears spill over my eyelashes and stream down my face as my voice whisper-screame s which cause my words to become slightly
indiscernible.
Roman clears his throat and sips his drink before setting it down and taking both of my hands in his. When I look up and our eyes meet he quietly speaks, “Sweetheart, I only fucking care because I haven’t pin-pointed what there is about you other women lack. You fail to understand if I chose to make you mine I would not let you go. If I became bored, you would be so far beyond ruined there would be nothing left of you to let go.”
His finger tips harshly grip my chin before finishing, “I’ll do nothing but hurt you. You only think your demons mirror mine, what you don’t understand, the concept you’re unable to grasp is…my demons derive from the largest evil of all, the demons you think you want to see is not only demons veiled by an angelic mask. What I’m saying, Heather, is even Lucifer was once a beautiful angel.” Roman stands and tosses a hundred dollar bill on the table. “Stop trying to find good in me, I promise you, Ms. Mackenzie, what you’re looking for does not and never has existed in me.”
He leans over and brushes his lips against my temple before saying, “Goodbye, Mac.”
“Goodbye, Mac? And where exactly did you become privy to that name, Mr. Payne?”
His salacious grin makes my skin tingle before his husky voice causes my eyes to shutter closed and my thighs to clench, “Oh, baby, never think for one second that I’m not doing my homework while you are doing yours.”
My hackles rise and my eyes fly open, “What does that mean?” I ask before narrowing my eyes on his.
Grin unmoved he replies, “I asked what you wanted, you said me.” He crowds my personal space again before speaking, “Why? I know, or make note of every person that enters my life, be them acquaintances, new friends, potential fuck buddies, or watchers from the side lines. You have always been a sideline watcher. I want to know why and what it is you want. You say me, but I believe what you want is my sins, and those Mac, will never be revealed. As far as you’re concerned, I’m a goddamn saint.”
I stand quickly and push myself, shoving my breasts against his hard chest and slide my right knee between his thighs, rubbing it against his growing erection, “I don’t care about your sainthood, I don’t care if you really are the devil himself, I want both, Roman, I want it all. Wherever you think I stand, you’re mistaken. I’m nothing more than the woman you see standing before you. I apologize for my inconvenient or awkward entrance into your life. However, what I want will always remain the same. I fucking want you, all of you. Period.”
Before I can comprehend what’s happening, I’m spun away and facing towards our booth, after he has me shoved back into our little cubby hole I’m left to sit…Watching his back as he retreats, storming from the shady bar. I feel any progress made slip away as he slips out the door. I do not want him.
Okay, I do not want to want him.
You know you’re being served a cold, frigid day in hell from karma when you ’ r e where I am.
Roman William Payne may be the devil. And the sick twisted truth is for the first time, I realize just how much power Roman has and how easily he could shatter me. The problem is I can’t back out now and divert from the path I’ve been set on for more than two years. There’s no way around the collision course my heart is currently headed straight for.
Roman will break me.
He will let me down.
He will make me hurt.
He may make me bleed.
Yet there isn’t a damn thing I can fucking do to stop it. I have come too far and this must be finished.
Chapter 5
Sitting in my Maserati under the dark shadows I created by tossing a rock and busting a few street lights, I watch as Heather steps into the humid light, the soft embers glow as she lights a cigarette, looking over to where my car was parked earlier tonight.
After blowing out a lung full of smoke she sits on the dirty concrete stairs and alternates between wiping tears with one hand and bringing her cigarette to her mouth with the other.
I didn’t even know she smoked. It is easily the most disgusting habit a person could have, and the mere thought of her engaging in such behavior fuels my rage to the next level of fury.
Suddenly she’s off the stairs flicking half of her cigarette to the ground and walking towards her car, digging through purse without even watching where she’s going.
She doesn’t notice the three men until they’ve flanked her on all sides, the tallest of the three standing behind her with a knife at her throat while he uses his free hand to wrench her head at an odd angle. The remaining two go for her purse but she refuses to release it, muttering something too low for me to make out the words.
I have my hunting knife out of the console and find myself out of my car stalking from the shadows.
Before I’ve even thought about my actions, the tip of my blade pierces the skin covering the spine of the knife wielder standing behind Heather.
Something flashes in my peripheral and as I growl the words, “Put the knife down and step away from the girl.” It dawns on me Heather never needed my help. She was surprised but she was also always in control.
Her purse hits the ground as two black nine millimeters, one in each hand aim between the eyes of both men standing in front of her.
“Pick up my purse and dust it off, then hand it to my knight in rusty armor behind me. Move slow.”
My brain is going ninety to nothing.
Why does Heather Mackenzie have not one but two nine millimeter glocks in her purse?
It seems I’ve been asking the wrong questions where Ms. Mackenzie is concerned.
“Good boy, now Mr. Knife-at-my-throat, step around and in front me.” Her words snap through the moonless night and he jerks into motion leaving me standing there like an idiot who brought a knife to a gunfight.
“The way I see it, this can end one of two ways. I’ll leave it up to you boys. One, I can call the cops and piss away even more of my time this evening or you three can turn around and get the hell out of dodge. So how do you want to spend the rest of the night, fellas?”
In unison all three back away slowly then quickly turn and run from the parking lot. Heather shoves both guns into her bag and swings it over her shoulder as she turns smiling to look up at me.
I’m frozen in place, my breath is locked in my chest, my eyes scan over every curve and line of Heather’s face as if I’m seeing her for the first time.
“I thought you’d left. Never would have pegged you for the man that hides in the dark, unnoticed, to make sure I get to my car safely. You would think with your bravado, you would prefer boasting.”
Her face is an inch away from mine when she stops her taunting.
My innate reflex has one hand wrapping around her neck and the other cuffing her wrists behind her back as I shove her against the brick building, and rub my thigh between her parted legs. With my eyes still scanning her face I ask her in a dark tone, “What have I told you about assumptions, Heather?”
Her throat attempts to swallow three times under my hand before succeeding and her tongue sweeps over her lips as her breathing slows.
After her eyelids flutter closed her warm breath puffs against my lips as she speaks, “You haven’t, Roman, it must have been one of your other girls. I don’t believe we’ve broached the assumption topic yet.”
A growl, yes…a growl escapes my chest before my mouth crashes over hers, my tongue sweeps inside and circles, sliding against hers . B ut before I can gain control over the kiss she has her teeth sinking into my bottom lip sucking it into her mouth while her thigh hikes up around my waist and tightens, pulling me closer and grinding her pelvis against my raging hard on.
A shudder wracks through me. I rake my fingers through the hair at the base of her neck as my thumbs sweep over her high cheekbones With my hands tangled through her soft, blond locks, I take control over the kiss. Part of me believes it happens so easily because she is weak to my machinations and the power I wield , yet a voice in the back my mind whispers it has nothing to do with her be
ing weak, and everything to do with the fact she freely handed me control.
I didn’t take a damn thing Heather wasn’t willing to give me.
All these thoughts are wrecking catastrophe upon my mind and in turn cause my patience to run brittle thin and my rationale begins to snap. I slam Heather harder against the wall and when her head cracks against the brick, our mouths and teeth harshly ram against each others. Her teeth cut into my lip before she sucks my bloody lip into her mouth, moaning as she wraps both legs around my waist. My hips move of their own volition. I feel madness nipping at the corners of my consciousness as our lower halves mimic elicit sexual movements.
I have never been affected by anyone the way Heather Mackenzie and her lithe strong body is affecting me right now.
I feel her body tense moments before she convulses in my arms. As her hands alternate fisting and relaxing only the material covering my shoulders, an ecstasy laced moan escapes her throat.
What the hell have I just done? Looking down at her flushed face and lust clouded eyes I search in vain for an answer. I jerk my body away from hers and it takes effort stronger than I’m willing to admit to stop myself from helping her balance on her feet.
Sad confusion flashes across her face so quickly I question having seen it before she cocks her eyebrow up and smirks like a wanton temptress, “Thanks for the quick cum, babe. You couldn’t have made my evening any better. And to think, all I had to do was get held at knife point.” Her chuckle is malicious and dripping with sarcasm, “I must say, it was more than worth it, Mr. Payne.” She side steps me before sauntering towards her car and tosses the last words over her shoulder, “Let me know what I can do to get a wet fuck instead of a dry one next time. Yeah?”
She slides into her little red sports car before I can answer, cranks the engine, shifts into first gear, and then tears out of the parking lot.
Roman: Book 1 Page 3