Roman sighed.
It’d been a hell of a day already, but now that Coma was back at his apartment with the others, he had an urge to go out, to let his hair down. Sometimes he felt like he was married to the dolls, and even though they put no pressure on him to entertain them, he felt guilty when he left them behind.
He’d thought more about having sex with them, the urge to relieve the pressure, literally, making itself known all day. This was a part of himself Roman tried not to overanalyze. Deep down he knew it was an animal instinct making itself known, that his desire for sex was tied to his desire to forget, which was also tied to his desire to move forward, to let everything hit him at once and suffer the consequences later.
A funny way to think about sex, but that was why he tried not to dig too deeply into his inner nature.
For Roman, it was better for him to understand himself on a surface level. And as Bill spoke, he wondered what it would be like to have sex with one of the dolls—if it would feel the same, if he would enjoy it the same.
There was no telling. Well, there wasn’t until he actually gave it a shot.
Roman cracked his knuckles, ready to cut through his inner monologue.
He thought about the funeral director, how scared the poor man had looked. It made guilt swell in his chest; Roman wasn’t the type to intimidate innocent people.
But with his wife gone, stolen…
He shook his head.
The more he dwelled on it, the worse it felt. Better to distract himself. Better to see Harper after this and just forget about his problems for the night.
Besides, as Nadine said, he was in for a little vacation tomorrow. And he wasn’t stupid enough to think it would be an actual vacation, but he was looking forward to visiting the Eastern Province, a place many had never been.
It would be nice to get out of the endless city that was Centralia for a few days.
“…so that’s what I want to say about all that. And I just want to remind every one of you that I’m proud of your progress and tell you that all of you are doing a great job in recovery,” Bill said. “This isn’t easy, and you have each other to lean on for support. Remember that. Look around this room and remember there are others like you, that we’re all in this together.”
Sam, the thin non-exemplar who claimed to have a heightened sense of smell, sneezed. He wiped his hand on the front of his pants, gave Roman a toothy grin, and returned his focus to Bill. Sitting next to him was a woman Roman hadn’t seen before, a tall lady with a pair of tiger-ear headbands.
“Now, who would like to speak today? I see a lot of regulars out there—well, aside from you,” Bill said to a person at the back of the room.
Roman turned to see that Paris had entered. The dark-haired woman wore a pencil skirt and a complimentary purple scarf, with extra makeup on her face likely covering bruises suffered in their battle. She was professional to the very end, not even glancing at Roman as she made her way to the podium.
Paris cleared her throat and started the mantra. Others joined in, and once she’d finished, she introduced herself.
“Hello, everyone. My name is Paris.”
“Hello, Paris,” everyone, including Roman, said.
“So my story begins in the southern part of Centralia, and I have to say this is my first time telling it, so it might not be a very long story. Is that okay, Mr. Bill?” she asked, batting her eyes over at him.
“Please, just Bill,” the big man said, nodding his head. “And the act of just getting up here to speak is good enough.”
Paris started a fake story that impressed even Roman, and by the end of it, he found himself actually believing the lies slipping through her red lips.
She had charmed everyone with her life as a nurse who thought she had a healing power, and how she’d caused the death of a patient by trying to heal him with her hands rather than an agreed-upon blood transfusion.
Paris didn’t get a standing ovation or anything, but people were impressed as she left the stage and took a seat next to Roman.
“Can we talk outside after this?” she asked under her breath.
“Sure.”
The Heroes Anonymous meeting continued for some time, the woman with cat ears getting up to say something and Sam sniffing the entire time. Once it was over, Roman quickly made his way outside.
Paris joined him a few moments later, and even though he knew they’d formed an alliance, he bristled as she approached.
Roman glanced down at his power dial and noticed he had plenty of juice, just in case he needed to do something drastic.
Better safe than sorry, he thought as he stared the Western spy down.
“Relax,” Paris told him, sweeping some of her dark hair out of her face. “If I wanted to attack you, I would have done so already.”
“It’s not that…”
“I get it—old habits die hard, right? It’s probably smarter for both of us to be on guard when we’re around each other. After all, how do I know you aren’t planning to attack me?” She moved a step closer to him, her shadow growing in size.
“I, I mean, we don’t know that.” Roman cleared his throat. “That was quite a show you put on back there, by the way. Is that what you came here for, or do you have information?”
“Straight to the point, huh? Well, to answer your question, I haven’t been able to gather much. The last two days have been rough, and I’ve been recovering, no thanks to you,” she said as her eyes narrowed on him. “I’ve also had pressure from the West; they aren’t too happy with how things turned out. My actions led to the death of one of our trusted enforcers, I nearly died in our fight, and there’s more.”
“Oh?” Roman asked, recalling that Nadine had been kidnapped by Paris. He didn’t know how Nadine had been rescued—nor did Nadine, for that matter—but it had definitely been out of sheer luck.
“But I’m not going to get into that.” Paris crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the wall, relaxing some. Roman still didn’t let his guard down; even if she seemed at ease, her power was based on elasticity, meaning she could spring into action in an instant.
“Then why stop by?”
“I just wanted to check in with you in person, to let you know I’m still interested in and actively pursuing our healer situation. There is only one left, and the people in the West are in desperate need.”
“I’m aware, and I will be looking into something in the East about this shortly.”
Paris took a step back. “You’re traveling?”
“I am. I’ve uncovered some information through some connections I have in the immigration office that Easterners are being taken from their land and imprisoned here, only to be released later. There’s reason to believe there may be more healers and Centralia is actively looking for them in the region I plan to visit. But right now, it’s just a lead. Nothing is set in stone.”
They both turned to see Bill exit the building.
“Bill,” Roman said as the big man approached.
“You know, we never talked about your little performance two days ago,” Bill started to say.
“Yeah, well, it won’t happen again.”
“I expect better from you, Roman, and I hope you will be able to speak at the next meeting.”
“Actually, I’ll be on a little mini vacation for the next meeting. But I will, uh, speak at the next one after that.”
The big man took a deep breath in and stretched his arms wide. “I hope you’re not getting into too much trouble,” he finally said.
“He’s not,” Paris assured Bill. “Actually, he was giving me recommendations for coffee shops in the city center. There’s an art class I want to take on 35th Street, but the timing doesn’t work with my schedule, so I was thinking of hitting up a coffee shop before the class starts.”
“Well, enjoy your future art class, and your coffee. Roman, we’ll talk soon.” With that, Bill turned away just as a teleporter appeared, greeted him, and vanished
with the H-Anon leader.
“He seems loving,” Paris said after he was gone.
“More like overbearing. Talk about a guy who has a past. Though, I still can’t get a read on him. I haven’t been able to get much at all, which is strange considering he’s the leader of this chapter.”
“Maybe he’s worth looking into,” Paris said in a tone that made Roman feel uneasy.
“Maybe. But we have bigger issues right now.”
She shrugged. “I’m surprised you aren’t with your dolls…”
“Well…”
“It’s too bad; they sure are beautiful, and the masked one was a lot more powerful than I thought she would be.”
“Yeah, she is.”
“You should properly introduce me sometime.”
“I don’t know if that’s necessary,” Roman said. The alley suddenly seemed darker, like some of the light had been stripped from it. A cursory glance up and Roman saw that a cloud had moved in front of the moon.
“Look, I know we have a past. But for now, we are working towards the same goal,” Paris said, “and I’m not going to do anything to you or pull any big stunts. You have to trust me on that.”
“Trust a spy?” A small grin parted the corners of Roman’s lips.
Being asked to trust a spy was the ultimate irony, considering his recent life choices. He already trusted one, and from what he could tell thus far, Nadine was genuine. But Paris was something else entirely, a woman he would have to keep his eye on at all times whenever they were around each other.
It was too bad, too, because her elastic nature would have proved for some interesting…
Roman grimaced, secretly ashamed that his mind had jumped to sex from keeping his eyes on the surroundings.
He was glad when Paris continued speaking, putting a knife in the unnatural silence that stretched between them.
“Well, Roman, it’s been nice, really. Please let me know what you uncover in the East, and by the time you get back, I may have some information that will help both of us. I don’t know. These things take time, and I may have to recruit more assets. Without Ian around,” she said, “I have a lot less muscle. Not that I can’t fend for myself. Do you feel that?”
Roman suddenly felt a prick at the side of his neck. He slowly reached his hand up to find a blade. One glance down and he saw that Paris’s hand had stretched to the ground and curled its way behind Roman, where it had lifted into the air to hold a dagger at his neck.
“I get it,” he told her.
“If I had wanted you dead, I would have killed you just now,” she said in an almost seductive voice. “But I don’t want you dead, Roman, so relax a little when you’re around me.”
Chapter Eighteen: A Much-Needed Distraction
Roman saw Harper almost as soon as he entered the bar. She was finishing up her shift, hunched over a barstool going through a few receipts.
She didn’t see him when he entered, and for a moment, he admired the short-haired brunette with her long neck and beautiful proportions to her body, from her shapely ass to her calf muscles. She sensed him before he could fully approach and turned, a genuine smile taking shape on her face.
“I didn’t think you’d make it,” she said as she stuffed the receipts into the front of her apron.
“I personally wanted to thank you for the box of chocolates you had teleported to my home.”
She smirked. “You came all the way here to thank me for chocolates?”
“Yes?”
“Did you eat any?”
“I’m saving them for a rainy day.”
Harper hopped off the barstool and lifted her hands in the air, wrapping them around Roman’s neck. She stopped and held his gaze for a moment, her eyes wide apart, her face completely unique. Then she moved into kissing.
Roman didn’t quite expect this to be how she greeted him, but he wasn’t complaining, and it was nice to feel wanted.
Especially after a day like today.
“Do you want something to drink?” she asked.
“I’ll have that one drink, the blue one you talked me into last time.”
“You mean the Bobby Banger?” Harper said as she turned to the bartender.
“How the hell did it get a name like that?”
“A regular named Bobby would get the drink and then go to the bathroom and bang a hole in the wall. At least that’s what the bartender told me.”
“Sure, I’ll take that.”
While the bartender made the drink, Harper leaned on the bar, using her elbows to prop herself up. She gave Roman a look that made him feel wanted, desired.
And he felt the same for her, or at least he thought he did.
The truth was, Roman had been through so much over the past week and a half that he knew, even as he took his drink from the bar and threw it back, that what he was doing now wasn’t the answer.
Not with his plan to change his ways, the dolls at home, his wife’s body missing…
But it felt right. Or at the very least, it felt like a good way to forget his troubles for the time being.
There wasn’t much conversation.
They both knew what he had come to do, and while there was some flirting and small talk, Harper stayed clear of the reason for Roman’s recent silence, and he didn’t ask her too much about anything she could potentially be going through as well.
It was simpler that way, an unwritten rule between them, and Roman appreciated the fact that she was cool with it.
He would tell her everything one day, and that would be the day Harper stopped giving him the smile she was currently giving him. But it was a risk he’d have to take.
It was an hour later now, and they were standing at the door of her apartment.
Harper shared the apartment with another waitress that she said was still at work as she let Roman in.
“Not a bad place,” he told her, giving her home a quick scan. Concrete floors, red barstools, a single long, low red couch, and a coffee table covered in open textbooks and paper that gave the place a college vibe.
“You’re a student, right?”
“I thought we’d already been over that,” she told him.
“Yeah, I was just joking.”
She dropped her hand into his and led him to the couch. Taking control, as she had done the first time they’d made love, she playfully shoved Roman onto the couch and hopped into his lap, straddling him.
“You know, you really shouldn’t leave a girl waiting like you did,” she said with a pouty look on her face.
“I know…”
“Especially one like me.”
He placed his hands on her ass, and from there lifted up her skirt to run them against her bare skin, his fingers lightly flitting against the fabric of her thong.
“What do you mean a girl like you?”
“I’m not afraid to admit I get pretty horny,” she said. “It’s who I am.”
“You shouldn’t be afraid to admit that; there’s nothing wrong with it.”
“Are you the same as me?” she asked, placing the palms of her hands on his chest.
Harper began rocking her body back and forth, rubbing her pelvis against the front of his pants. She bit her lip and looked down at him. “I should be mad at you,” she said as she wrapped her hand around his throat.
“Mad enough to kill me?”
“Maybe.” She squeezed, putting just a small amount of pressure on his neck.
Roman smiled at her, daring her to try.
He knew she wouldn’t do it, and with the power he now possessed, any attempt to kill him wouldn’t work out in her favor. This thought sparked the image of Paris in the alley, her arm limped to the side as she held a dagger at his neck, lightly pricking it against his skin.
“What’s this?” Harper asked, almost as if reading his mind. “You have a cut here.”
“Cut myself while shaving,” he said.
“You shave all the way to the side of your neck?”
&
nbsp; “It was an accident,” he told her, not at all flinching at the fact that she was still pseudo-choking him.
“Did you come here just to fuck me tonight?”
“Not originally, but when I saw you at the bar, I knew that…”
“You knew what?”
“That I had to have you.”
“Gee, thanks,” Harper said as she dropped her hand, laughing. “Has anyone ever told you that you have a way with words?”
“Absolutely not. No one has told me anything of the sort; most people tell me I don’t speak enough, and that I have a dark sense of humor.”
“Well, do you?”
“You tell me.”
“How should we do this tonight?” she said, changing the subject as she removed her hand from his neck. “I’m all for foreplay, but it’s been a little while since we’ve been together alone. You know, that was the first time I’d been with another woman, but I’m guessing you already figured that out by now.”
Roman recalled the sort of threesome he’d had with Harper and Coma that first night at his apartment. Harper had definitely seemed experienced, and was not shy at all about who she was or what she wanted.
She started moving her hips again, this time in a circular position. “You can handle me,” she whispered.
“I can sure as hell try.”
Harper grabbed one of his hands and brought it up to her mouth. She acted like she was about to put his finger in her mouth, then stopped just as it touched her lip. Instead, she kissed his finger and guided his hand down to her right breast.
She thrust her body forward, peering down at him. Roman felt the couch tremble and realized it was his own ability, that he had lost control.
“What was that?” she asked. “That shake?”
“Don’t know. Let’s move somewhere more comfortable.”
“Get on the floor,” she ordered.
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