by Jordan Marie
Ana doesn’t push me, however. She leans up and kisses me lightly on the cheek, and then stretches up to whisper in my ear. “Be safe, Daddy.”
The whispered words make me want to smile. I would if I didn’t know what was waiting for me. I watch as she slides out of the car. It’s not until I’m ten minutes down the road that I realize I didn’t walk her to her door and make sure she was safe. I’ve never felt the urge to before, but I vow that will never happen again. Ana’s mine. I’m keeping her.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Ana
I lean against the door when I make it inside. My emotions are all over the place. Being near Roman makes me forget what I’m really here for. That’s dangerous. It’s also extremely stupid. Roman’s a job. I’m here to find evidence on him and save my brother. It’s that simple. The rest is just static. I can’t allow it to get to me. I can’t allow Roman to get to me. After giving myself a pep talk, I start walking up the stairs to my apartment when a hand reaches out and grabs me from behind. I scream before I can stop myself and years of training takes over. I step into my attacker, deliver an elbow back into his solar plexus. I hear a male grunt and I reach behind my head and wrap my arms around my attacker’s neck, flipping him over my shoulder. He lands with a thud, groaning and still holding his stomach.
“Told you not to sneak up on her, rookie,” I hear Paul say from my left.
The adrenaline is still surging through me, but that’s when I can recognize the guy on the floor as one of the main officers who work underneath Paul.
“What the hell are you two doing here? Are you trying to blow my cover?”
“Gee, Ana, it’s not like we planned on you bringing that slime back home with you. I told you, kid, you’re skating on thin ice here.”
“Back off, Paul. I’m doing what I have to do to make sure my brother survives this shit.”
“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” the man on the floor wheezes as he gets up. I instantly want to knock him back down.
“What do you want? You do realize Roman could be having me watched?”
“You’re safe. We’ve cleared all the security.”
“Whatever. Tell me what you did. Before we got here, Roman got a call that something had happened. He mentioned deaths. Why did he mention deaths, Paul?”
“We raided the warehouse. There were more guards there than we anticipated. They surprised a few of our men. It had to be done.”
“No, it didn’t. Why are you doing that? I thought the reason I’m undercover is so we can know what property to check into and not do stupid shit and get people killed. People like my brother!”
“I thought that was the reason you were here too, Ana. But it seems to me the reason is all about you fucking the enemy now.”
“You need to step back, Paul. I’m doing what I have to do to take care of my brother and do my job. You may not like it, but you better damn well respect me and keep your judgments to yourself,” I growl, having enough of the shit he keeps dishing out. It may be frowned on, but if I was a male officer, it wouldn’t even be a question. He’d be patting me on the back. “I am doing my job, and if you would just let me work and give me time, then maybe we wouldn’t have to kill innocent people!”
“They’re not innocent, Ana. They’re felons. Scum of the earth that supply drugs to—”
“They are human beings and one of them had a wife and a mother. Last I checked, our job was to protect and serve, not kill and leave lying and shrug it off.”
“If you’re done being on your high horse, I don’t have much time here.”
My stomach churns with the look on Paul’s face. Why had I never noticed this side of him before? Something about his whole attitude makes me feel like my skin is crawling. Something is just… off.
“Say it,” I tell him, just wanting him to leave. He hands me a small packet of white powder. I look at it like it’s a snake, one that’s about to bite me and pump my body full of poison. “What the fuck is this?”
“Coke.”
I blanch, physically jarred from his answer, even if I knew what it was. “Why are you giving this to me?” I whisper, that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach only getting worse.
“You need to plant that on Anthes.”
“Plant? What are you talking about?”
“The fucking weasel keeps covering his tracks and he slips through every fucking trap we set. We get him on possession, he’ll get out, but it will give us all the ammo we need to get a judge to give the okay to take a fine-tooth comb to his businesses and anything else. It will give us time to sweep in and tear apart his business piece by piece.”
“Paul, that’s … what you’re asking me to do …”
“Before you go all moral, that’s just enough to cap him for possession. It’s enough to get our fucking foot in the door. It will save your brother. The quicker we get Anthes locked up, the quicker we can find your brother.”
“But…” I try and argue, but my tongue feeling too heavy for my mouth and refuses to form words. My heart is beating erratically and I am about two steps away from a panic attack.
“Your brother is running out of time, Ana. Do you really want to be the reason for his death?” he asks, then motions to the guy with him. They leave me standing there looking like I was just in a train wreck and holding an eight ball of coke and wondering how the fuck I got here.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ana
I jerk awake in bed and reaching for the pistol I keep under my pillow. I grab the butt of the grip, wrapping my fingers around it, when a large hand clamps down making it so I can’t move.
“Jesus Christ, Ana. You keep a gun under your fucking pillow?”
I go deathly still in the dark of my bedroom. “Roman?”
“Who the fuck else would it be getting into your bed at three in the morning?” he asks, taking the gun away from me and placing it on my nightstand.
That’s a good question. “Roman? How are you in my bed? You don’t have a key. You gave me a heart attack!”
“I could tell by the way you were about to shoot me. Motherfucker, what the hell has happened to you in the past that you sleep with a gun under your pillow?”
That’s a question I’m not about to answer. “Will you tell me how you got in?” I ask instead, my eyes following his body and enjoying the view. Roman is probably the sexiest man I’ve ever met in my life. Roman without a shirt is deadly. He might be covered up too, but shivers run through me when I realize he’s probably completely naked and in my bed.
“Pet, you’ll find there’s not much I can’t do when I want it. And I think we’ve established that I want you. Now let’s get back to the question at hand. Why do you sleep with a gun under your pillow?” he asks, and I try to ignore the distraction of a naked Roman to concentrate on our conversation.
“I’m a single woman alone in the city,” I compromise. It sounds plausible? Right?
“If I get my hands on your brother, I may choke the life out of him for leaving you in the position where you think you need a gun to protect yourself.”
I listen to him and there’s a lot to think about in that one sentence. Most of all, it sounds like he hasn’t killed my brother. Maybe it’s not him that has Allen at all. Could the informant have been wrong? On the heels of that thought is the warm feeling I get inside at the fact that Roman is concerned about me. No one ever has been, except Paul … and now I wonder if he ever really was. If we had the relationship I thought we had, would he have put me in the situation I am in right now? The Paul I had created in my mind would have never done anything underhanded.
I push thoughts of Paul out of my head. I can’t deal with that right now. I have the coke locked in a firebox under my bed. Fuck if I know what I’m going to do. As I look at Roman now and see how tired and upset he looks, pain squeezes my heart.
“You had a bad night,” I tell him. It’s not a question; the truth of it is written all over his face.
�
�Yeah, pet. It was a bad night.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“There’s a reason I don’t do relationships, Ana. You get what I do, everything I am. It’s not a normal nine-to-five, nor is it what most people could accept. I have my own laws, my own code…”
“Roman, everyone has the same laws.”
“No, pet. They don’t. But it doesn’t concern you.”
“If we’re dating…”
“I told you, I don’t—”
“Whatever we’re doing, we seem to be heading in a direction where—”
“Where we’re going to fuck over and over?”
I smile, despite the gravity of the situation facing me. I feel like a fraud, even as a larger part of me wants to believe that I’m having this conversation because somehow I’ll get to keep Roman. I think I really want to keep him.
“Freak. I was going to say it looks like we may be spending more time together.”
“Oh yeah, definitely spending more time together.”
I shake my head at him. “Roman, I’m serious. If we keep seeing each other, your life and choices will affect me. Don’t you think I need to know more? To prepare myself, if nothing else?”
“We’re definitely going to keep seeing each other, Ana,” he says, cupping the side of my face. He seems to do that a lot, and I’m not going to lie. Every time he does, a small piece of the distance I try to keep between us chips away. “And nothing I do will ever touch you, pet. I’m starting to realize you aren’t used to having a real man in your life, but you’re mine,” he says and the words vibrate through in a way that causes every single female part inside of me to clench in pleasure. Can you orgasm without any kind of sex? “I’ve claimed you and I will protect you from everything, including myself. Nothing will touch you.”
Wow. If only he could, but he can’t. He has no idea who I am, and he thinks I don’t know anything about him. Our relationship, or whatever this is, has all been built on a house of cards and I’m the dealer. What will Roman do when he finds out he’s being played?
I bring my hand up to cover his and pull it to my lips to kiss his palm. “It’s too late to be having this type of conversation and you look worn out. Let’s get some rest and worry about tomorrow, tomorrow,” I urge him. I really can’t handle any more heart-to-heart tonight.
“Ana, I’ve been wanting you under me all night. If you think I’m going to be satisfied with just sleep, you’re dreaming.”
“Noted. But first, we need to make you less tense.”
“Sex does that.”
“So does a backrub.”
“A backrub?”
“You sound doubtful, but these hands,” I tell him, holding my hands up and cracking my knuckles. “These hands are miracle workers.”
“Is that a fact?”
“Completely. Now lay down on your stomach,” I order him, getting up from the bed to grab a bottle of lotion. I make note to go shopping tomorrow to get some massage oil, preferably heated. It wasn’t something I foresaw me needing before now. I go to the dresser, finding the lotion. I stop before I make it back to the bed. Roman is lying on his stomach, his head turned to watch me. He has the strangest look on his face. “What?” I ask, wondering if I’ve given myself away. Could I have pushed too much? Does he suspect something?
“Pet, are those … unicorns with rainbows coming out of their ass … on your pajamas?”
“Um … maybe?”
He keeps staring at me, and I’m blushing like crazy. I don’t need to see my face to know I am.
“Have I mentioned how you might be the first woman to surprise me? And you seem to do it constantly.” He means that as compliment, I know he does, but the guilt that swamps me makes it impossible to respond. Instead, I clear my throat and try to offer a weak smile. I place some lotion on my hands and rub them together to warm up the cold cream, then I start working it into his lower back. Carefully, I make my way up his back, applying pressure on the tense muscles beneath. “That feels so good. You might be magic.”
“Told you,” I whisper, my heart feeling heavy as I’m swamped with so many different emotions that I’m having trouble functioning. We continue like that for a few more minutes until I finally gather up the courage to ask Roman a question that I really need the answer to. “Roman? What happened to the men you were talking about earlier? How did they die?”
Silence answers me. Did I push him to open up too soon?
“Roman?” I ask again, and there’s a soft snore following my words. I look down and Roman is definitely sleeping. Guess my hands worked too well.
Disappointment swamps me. I didn’t have a lot of expectations, but I was hoping to learn more about Roman because I need to trust and believe in him. The truth is, no matter how much I try to explain it away, Roman matters.
He matters a lot.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Roman
Apparently life with Ana is going to be a constant surprise. Never have I passed out on a woman. Yet with Ana, I did easily. I reach over for her, determined to have her finally. My hand finds nothing but her pillow and it’s cold. I sit up, stretching, and let my eyes get adjusted to the darkness in the room. There’s minimal light coming through the window. The clock tells me it’s a little after six in the morning. The apartment is quiet; no obvious sounds telling me where she’s at.
“Ana, where the hell are you?” I growl, grabbing my pants and putting them on before looking through the apartment for her. Each room comes up empty until it’s apparent she’s nowhere to be found. I’m about to tear from her place to search for her when I look through the glass doors that lead out to her balcony. Ana is sitting in a lounge chair wrapped up in a blanket and looking out over the sunrise. “I’m going to start tying you to the bed so I stop waking up alone. What are you doing out here?”
She looks up at me in surprise. I notice the tears in her eyes and they bother me. Am I the reason for them? Most likely. I’m really going to have to do something about this brother of hers if I keep her. If. I’m not letting her go. There’s no point in hiding from that fact. I want her more than I did the first time and I’ve yet to get inside her. I can only imagine that once I get a taste of that, I’m doomed. Brought down by a pussy.
“Thinking.”
I pick her up and slide underneath her on the lounge chair. The blanket drops to the floor, but I let it go. I figure I can keep her warm enough. I hold her head close to my chest and let my fingers brush through her hair. “You okay, pet?” I ask, knowing better.
“I’m a mess, Roman.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not even a little bit.”
We sit there in the silence a few more minutes while the sun breaks free from the clouds and its light blooms in the sky. She turns from her side, laying with her stomach pressed to mine, her face mere inches from me. I run my thumb over her chin, sweeping it up towards her cheek.
“You’re beautiful, Ana.”
“You weren’t what I expected,” she whispers in return. I’m not quite positive how to take that, so in the end I say nothing. Her fingers reach for the zipper of my slacks. I had left the top button undone, and in just a second she has them all undone. My cock, which had been semi-sleeping since finding Ana gone, begins to stretch and push towards her. I grab her hand to stop her.
“Ana.”
“Please, Roman. Later, you can remind me you’re in control. For now, just right now, can I take what I want? What I need?”
There’s something in her eyes as she asks that question. Something that I vow to question further. When she pulls my shirt off and throws it on the ground, I stop thinking about it. As the sun’s glow serves as a backdrop, highlighting her perfect body, I almost forget to breathe. When she pulls on my pants, I lift up and she works them past my hips. As she adjusts her legs to ride me and starts sliding back and forth on my cock, using the hard ridge of it to push against her pussy, I stop thinking altogether. I can
feel the slick, wet heat of her desire paint my cock as she slowly drags herself back and forth.
“Fuck, pet. You’re soaked.”
“I need you,” she gasps, moving her body back and using her hand to grasp the base of my cock.
“Then take me. For now, take what you want,” I tell her, repeating her words and giving her the permission she needs.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Ana
Guilt can suffocate you. Roman has been so sweet, so loving, and he’s nothing like the man I expected to encounter. He’s good. He’s a good man. I know he’s involved in things that are bad, but the Roman I’m beginning to know is … good. What do I do with that? It’s like I’ve fallen out of reality here. The rules have all changed and the bad guy isn’t really the bad guy and the good guy clearly isn’t good. And me … I’m stuck in the middle.
I need to save my brother. I have a job to do. But I never thought my job would mean I had to hurt innocent people. My brain wants to argue that Roman is far from innocent, but he would be innocent of what Paul asked me to set him up for. Paul—my mentor, the man I looked up to among all others, and he’s asked me to go against everything I believe, every oath I ever made and everything I thought I was in the force to prevent. Paul’s right. Roman’s not innocent. But if we do this—if I do this—aren’t we worse?
My head is a mess, and when Roman came out to find me and was so sweet, I was so close to jumping off the ledge, telling him everything that’s going on and asking him to not only save my brother, but to save me. I can’t take the final step to do that. What if I’m just losing sight of reality, lost in all that’s Roman? If that’s the case, I’m probably doing the last thing I should. Losing myself even more.