West (A Roam Series Novella)

by Stedronsky, Kimberly

  I burst out laughing; I couldn’t help it. She was marching to the stairs angrily. “That’s more like it. So, the only way to make Roam fight is to insult her intelligence.” I reached for her, fully intending to pull her into a congratulating hug, but she was still fuming. “Oh come on, don’t sulk.”

  She continued toward the stairs. I grabbed her from behind, not expecting her to apply what I’d just taught her, but she sure as hell did.

  Her bony elbow in my side dropped me, and I grinned from the floor, lifting my eyes to her. Her hair, so thick and lush, framed her face as she bent to my face. “Do you feel like laughing now?” She mocked.

  Before she could gasp, I had her flipped to the mat and pinned beneath me, my bruising grip locking her wrists over her head. “What did I tell you about witty banter with the enemy?”

  “You’re hurting me!”

  “Hurt me back,” I growled. Enough of this flirty bullshit. She is going to end up dead if you don’t teach her to fight! “Get me off of you.”

  Her knee moved to my groin, but I grinned, knocking it back to the mat.

  When she raised her head off of the mat, nearly touching her lips to mine, I almost let her go.

  Until she screamed.

  She screamed and screamed, and I kept my firm hold, trying to ignore her piercing cries. I was thrown back into the dungeon in 1533, watching Troy and the Alter torture her.

  Again.

  I released her wrist, curling my fingers over her mouth.

  She stopped screaming. When I let go of her face, her voice was hoarse. “This is the part where I would poke you in the eyes. But, I won’t do that.”

  Her small breasts were flattened against my chest. My legs straddled her, and her mouth was seconds from mine.

  “The screaming is bad enough,” I murmured, imagining how she’d react to me lowering my lips to hers.

  “I know, torture, screaming. I think you have some PTS.”

  Witty. Mocking. In control, out of control.

  Forbidden.

  I needed to taste her, just once. Just to remember, to know that this was truly her, beyond the numbers, beyond the birthmark.

  A million other reasons to justify kissing her continued swarming my brain.

  Before I could act on any of them, she lifted her head from the mat.

  Her eyes fluttered closed, and her parted lips, so tentative, pressed to mine.

  Groaning, I locked her face between my hands, my tongue plunging.

  I kissed her hungrily, devouring, creating a friction against her writhing body as my leg fell between hers. My knee pushed firmly into the warm apex of her thighs. When I did that, she moaned, and I exhaled slowly and concentrated on not shoving my hand inside her pants.

  Her breath caught in her throat when I dropped my mouth to her neck, suckling, drinking her in, all while driving my knee into her as she rode against the pressure. She was lost, gone, a wash of sensations, and I was not stopping.

  When her fingers slid into my hair and tightened over my scalp, I almost came, completely out of control. “Take me with you,” she begged, and one some level I knew she meant to Russia, but her nails in my shoulders distracted me. “Please don’t go without me.”

  “I will,” I breathed, back to her mouth, drawing, coaxing, using my tongue to show her what I wanted to do to her body.

  Thrusting, over and over again.

  Claiming.

  I would take her fucking anywhere. She was whimpering, and my fingers found the base of her tee shirt.

  When I touched the skin of her taut belly, she cried out my name.

  An inferno, a craving that I hadn’t felt in almost sixty years, consumed me.

  I didn’t care about one goddamn thing but being inside of her. Lowering my face, I tugged at the band of her pants, my tongue darting over her the skin, her abdomen, the smooth lines of her hips.

  “So soft,” I murmured, fully intending to taste her everywhere. I had her pants lowered to her pelvis when a car door slammed.

  The washing machine stopped agitating, and I flew off of her. “Is it Logan?” She cried, and I noticed tears left tracks over her flushed cheeks. She was crying? When I was kissing her?

  I turned to the ground level window. “No. The neighbor.”

  “I can’t believe I did this! I am a terrible person,” she broke into sobs, sinking to the floor.

  She’s blaming herself? Goddamnit, godfuckingdamnit. I ran my fingers through my hair, trying to adjust my shirt.

  What if it was her father? If I were him, and she were my daughter?

  Loathsome shards of shame stabbed me in the stomach.

  “No, you’re not. I’m sorry- Roam, I’m so sorry,” I knelt to her and dropped my hands to her shoulders. “We can’t do this. Like I said, it ends badly. Every time.”

  “I know,” she held her stomach, the same stomach I’d just been kissing. Just like in her dream, at the cottage…

  “I don’t want you alone at night. The dreams- they will get worse. No one can know about the numbers. You have to keep them covered.”

  She asked me about the dreams, and I answered her, but all I could think of was her mouth.

  On mine.

  “You should go. I’ll just see you tomorrow morning.”

  I’m destroying her. Again. I nodded, backing to the stairs. “Please call me when you wake up?”

  “I will, West. As long as you take me to Russia. If you’re going, I’m going too. Otherwise, I walk. Away from all of this. I want to find Troy before he finds me… and I want to be ready for him.”

  I listened to her bravely talk about baiting Troy with our child, slowly developing a plan that made no sense and depended on too many uncontrollable variables.

  She had no fucking idea what kind of monster he truly was.

  “Go get some rest,” I ordered, silencing her. “Call me.”

  She nodded. “I’ll stay down here for a while.”

  I turned back to her, resigned. Hugging her quickly, I tipped her face up to mine. “Never again, Roam.”

  She nodded.

  I gazed at her for a long moment before turning for the stairs.

  Chapter Ten

  Annie

  “Baby, it’s done.”

  “It’s done?” She whirled around from the sink, sloshing warm, soapy water over both of us. I laughed, kissing her crinkled little nose as she scowled adorably. “I’m sorry! I just… oh, a shower. I love showers. Thank you West.”

  “You love showers?” I repeated, sweeping her into my arms before she could protest. She shrieked and laughed, her wet hands clinging to my neck. “And what does our son think of showers?”

  She blew at a wet, red-blonde piece of hair stuck to her lip. “Daugh-ter,” she replied in a sing-song voice, reproving, and I turned and carried her to the new master bathroom with a grin.

  “Look at you,” I ran my hands over her belly, amazed. The furthest any of them had gotten in their pregnancy was Lysbette, in the first life, and it had been centuries since I’d felt the taut, hardened skin of my wife’s stomach. Every so often, the baby inside would turn, and as though she knew I was waiting, she gave a strong kick to my palm. “Oh, Annie, did you feel that?”

  “She’s strong, so strong,” she nodded. “There’s something about her… that makes me happy. I hear music all the time,” she added, clinging to my arms. “I feel my paintings come to life. She’s going to be artistic, or a musician, or…,”

  “Perfect,” I lowered my face to kiss our child. “She’s going to be perfect, just like her mommy.”

  Her eyes finally focused on the shower, and she clapped her hands together excitedly. “I want one! Right now!”

  “Hold on, I have to make sure the caulking dries,” I answered, gesturing to the bedroom. “Why don’t you go see what’s sitting by the dresser over there.”

  She gave me a confused glance, moving through the bedroom. As soon as she saw them, she dropped to her knees. “West! Encyclo
pedias… oh, these must have cost a fortune…,”

  “I’m working, and the land owners are tipping well. I know you love to learn.”

  “I don’t know where to begin…,”

  “At the beginning,” I offered, handing her the book on the very top. “And we’ll see how far you can get before our daughter takes up all of our time,” I teased.

  “You’re too good to me,” she stood, wrapping her arms around me. I sighed, kissing her forehead.

  “I love you, Annie.”

  The Saturday afternoon hung lazily before us. I turned her to the bed, lowering myself carefully over her.

  “Will we hurt the baby?” She breathed, worried even as she pulled my shirt over my head. I dropped to her neck, grinning and kissing.

  “How do you think she got here?” I teased.

  “I’m so big…,” she protested, even as I kissed a path down her arm, over the numbers, over her pregnant belly.

  “You’re mine. She’s mine. You’re my family,” I responded.

  I made love to her, so gently, cradling her in my arms afterward. Turning on the radio, I let her sleep in sun that streamed through the window, grabbing the encyclopedia from the top of the pile.

  The set had set us back over $200, but the look on her face was worth every penny. I opened to the middle of the book, my eyes focusing on one word.

  Alchemy.

  The prophecy.

  We were running out of time.

  I had no idea if Troy had found the Alter yet. I’d tried to isolate us as much as possible, but Annie was going to need a hospital when she went into labor. I planned to take her across the sound to the mainland next week. I wanted a doctor to tell me that she was fine, that our child was fine…

  And that we were really going to bring her into the world.

  Finally.

  I felt that she was a girl. I loved her without even knowing her, just because she was Annie’s.

  And mine.

  Annie stirred, smiling in her sleep. “Can we pick up some blankets for her when we go across next week? It’s almost December. It’s getting colder.”

  I lifted my eyes from the book, closing it softly before moving next to my wife. Her fingers were swollen again, and her wedding ring lay next to her grandmother’s cross in the jewelry box on the dresser. “Of course. She’ll have everything she could ever need. Or want.” I promised.

  Tears filled her eyes, and she nodded, unable to speak. I knew she was thinking about my promise to her again, and I tightened my grip on her hands.

  “West…,”

  “Annie,” I brought her fingers to my lips. “Not this time. Not this time,” I repeated, near tears myself with the horrible possibilities before us.

  “I love you.”

  “I love you,” I managed, holding her in my arms.

  Chapter Eleven

  Roam

  “You said there were two bedrooms?”

  Pushing open the door, I held my breath. I’d paid to have the entire place redecorated, and if Annie’s soft, painted flowers still climbed the nursery wall, I may have lost my will to continue into the cottage.

  “Here’s one.”

  She stopped and turned, lifting her eyes. “What? Oh- I thought that was a closet.”

  “It used to be,” I lied, tossing my suitcase to the small cot. No flowers. “I’ll take this room. It’s the smallest.” There was no way I would sleep in the master.

  She glanced around warily, focusing on the dead bugs in the planter. “Oh.”

  “I’ll show you the rest,” I urged.

  Everything had changed. When Troy had drowned her, and I breathed life back into her, I’d nearly lost her.

  Lost everything.

  And now Logan was the Alter, there was no fucking way I was letting him touch her.

  At all.

  The master bedroom of the cottage felt haunted. I turned to her, watching her take in the bed, the dresser, and the ceiling. “This is the room… from my dream.”

  Her dream. A dream where she was Annie, and I was kissing her pregnant belly, loving her, promising her the world.

  I remembered the vow I’d made Annie, only two weeks before she died.

  I’ll never stop loving you.

  She is Annie… Roam is all of them.

  And I wanted her more than I’d ever wanted her.

  Guilt and confusion played tug-of-war with my conscience.

  “Can we walk… by the shore? I’ve never been to the ocean,” she pleaded, pulling me out of my reverie.

  “Sure. We can go out here.” The door from the master bedroom of the small cottage led out to a deck. Through the dunes, I could already hear the ocean waves.

  We settled on the shore, barefooted, sitting so close. I took her hand, linking her fingers through mine. I had just as much power over her as any man. The instant love was not love, and I knew that, it was desire. It was déjà vu, a memory, recollection of thoughts that were always just beyond comprehension.

  It was the chase that kept her going, kept her interest.

  I’d kissed her in my dining room, after Logan left, the kind of kiss that was meant to rattle her. I asked her to choose between me and Logan, because I wasn’t going to force her.

  I wanted her in my bed, and I wanted my child inside of her womb.

  Nothing good would come of us… but I wasn’t going to settle for just good.

  I wanted Roam. I wanted a miracle.

  “I am trying to be logical… but I am having a hard time fighting the… lust… I feel for you. It’s all-consuming. I just can’t stop thinking of you touching me. In really intimate places. I mean, the bedroom, not intimate places on my body… well maybe… what I mean is, even when I’m irritated with you, it’s so confusing, and I…,”

  Hearing her ramble, I almost pushed her back over the sandy shore that moment. Instead, I took her chin in my hand, turning her to face me. She closed her eyes, ready for my kiss. I smiled at her willingness, at her words, instead dipping my lips to the nape of her neck.

  “If you keep talking like that, I won’t make it through the week without taking you to that bedroom and doing exactly what you’ve been dreaming about.”

  “I won’t make it through the night if you don’t,” she whispered.

  I stopped kissing and pulled away, my eyes on hers. “Do you mean that?”

  “Yes,” she admitted, more to herself than to me.

  “And you won’t regret this?”

  And then the fucking phone was ringing, and Logan was boarding for Moscow. I practically dragged her into the house, knowing what was coming. She looked like a frightened rabbit, cornered as I ordered her to lie down on the bed. “Stay there!” I urged.

  I was going to check the freezer for ice, but it was too late.

  She stayed conscious through the change this time, screaming… God she was screaming until I wanted to scream myself. Finally, she went limp, dropping back against the pillow.

  I let her rest for a while. She was going to have to learn to control the pain on her own.

  We spent the evening gathering supplies and groceries at Walmart, and we both fell into a flirtatious back and forth that made me feel hundreds of years younger. When she became jealous, thinking I was comparing her to Julie, I couldn’t help laughing. If only she knew what Julie was like.

  Guilt nagged at me. I was tempted to tell her about Julie a thousand times, finally resolving that it would make her afraid of me.

  And I couldn’t have that.

  We picked up a pizza and ate in a comfortable silence back at the cottage. At least, I thought it was comfortable, until I saw her wringing her hands again.

  Finally, she exhaled sharply. “What I said… by the ocean… I don’t think…,”

  I finally realized why she was holding her breath again. She thought I was planning to take her to bed.

  Tonight.

  “Nothing is going to happen tonight, Roam. Take a shower and go to bed. I’ll com
e in and check on you before…,”

  “No! No, I want you to sleep with me. Just beside me, I mean. Don’t leave me in the bedroom alone. I’m afraid of the nightmares.”

  Sleep next to her, in the humid cottage. Knowing she’d be sleeping in nothing but her panties. Not happening.

  Her green eyes pleaded, and finally, I relented. The nightmares are awful, and I finally have a chance to be there for her when they happen. Control yourself.

  “I’ll come in, then, in a little while.” I ran my fingers through my hair, resting them at the back of my neck. “Just to sleep.”

  “Okay, thank you.” She started to turn, but I caught her gently.

  She looked at my hand on her elbow for a long time before lifting her eyes to mine.

  I took a step toward her. “I just want you to know, they don’t compare to you,” I spoke under my breath, as though the ghost of Annie could hear me. There are no ghosts.

  She is Annie.

  She leaned closer to hear me. “No one compares to you.” I repeated.

  She smiled. She fucking beamed. “Thank you,” she burst.

  I wished I’d told her that a long time ago.

  I smirked at her obvious contentment, rolling my eyes. “Now get to bed. This isn’t a vacation. I’m teaching you how to fight tomorrow- more than just self defense. You need sleep.”

  Her eyes lowered once, and her expression went soft. “Yes, Mr. Perry.”

  I shook my head and turned away, hating how much I loved to hear her call me that.

  The shower ran for a short while, and I could smell the Dove soap we’d picked up at the store. I had a lot to do, planning for the trip to Russia, and it was well past midnight before I finally entered the bedroom.

  The smothering heat was lessened just slightly by the open window, but still she’d thrown the blanket aside.

  The moonlight drew a silver outline over the curve of her hip, her arm…

  And her long, long legs.

  I was right; she wore only panties and a strappy camisole. Her hair spread over the pillow, her hands clasped together, even in sleep.

  My God, she was breathtaking.

  I slipped out of my shorts and left my boxers on, but pulled my tee shirt over my head. I dropped my clothes into a heap on the hardwood floor.