by Kylie Walker
He knew that would be a search in vain. He walked back through the lobby and punched the elevator button up to the top floor. He would just have to try his best to get some sleep, even though he knew he would probably be restless for most of the night.
In the morning, if Chloe still hadn’t turned up, he would contact the authorities. She couldn’t have just disappeared into thin air, vanishing without a trace. There had to be some explanation; he just didn’t know what it was yet.
He wandered back down to his hotel room, swiping the key against the door. He closed it behind him, making sure to leave the top latch unhooked just in case Chloe arrived in the middle of the night or the early morning.
Going into the bathroom, he splashed his face with cold water. It wasn’t as refreshing as he had hoped. His skin was numb and tingly, unresponsive like the rest of his body. He patted his face dry with a towel, heaving a hefty sigh that contained the weight of the world on his shoulders. Then he walked to his bed and flopped down face first, extending his arms out by his sides.
Roman laid there for several minutes. His face was pressed into the pillows, and it was becoming harder to breathe. He didn’t want to suffocate himself, so he pushed himself back up on his elbows and adjusted the pillow directly under him.
A white note floated to the floor like a feather, delicately spinning through the air. Roman stared at it, unable to move for a moment or two. How did he miss that before in his grand-scale search of the room? He had torn the place apart.
The note had somehow been pushed under the pillows and seemingly appeared out of nowhere. Roman waited until it fluttered to the floor in almost slow motion. He noticed some scribbled writing as it landed face down.
He recognized it immediately to be Chloe’s handwriting. He snatched it up and scanned it, his eyes darting from right to left.
Roman, I’m so sorry to leave in such a rush. I promise you that I am okay. I am safe. My father is very sick. I received a call from my sister who was in tears, saying he had made a turn for the worse. I had to make a snap judgment decision to get on a plane and go home to be with my family. I hope you understand and will be willing to look past this if and when I return. I’m so sorry. Chloe.
He blinked, shook his head and stared at the note until his eyes blurred over, and the words became one scrambled mess of ink on the page. He didn’t know what to think. He didn’t know how to react. His heart ached for her, guilt piercing him that he wasn’t here to support her in her time of need.
He lay on his back and stared at the ceiling. He did so until his eyes became heavy, drooping into the temptation of sleep. He wouldn’t be able to deal with this problem until the morning, but at least now, he knew where Chloe was.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Visiting hours were over at the Intensive Care Unit. Chloe drove home with her mom and sister, staying up late drinking decaffeinated coffee around the simple round oak table in the dining space of their kitchen.
Chloe had made it home on a grueling red-eye, extended flight back from Germany.
She cradled her head in her hands, unable to face reality or look her grief-stricken mother and sister in the face.
“I can’t believe I just...left without telling anyone,” she murmured so faintly her words were barely audible.
She heard the comforting sound of her mother Donna’s voice fill the room. “You left a note sweetie. You can call Emelia tomorrow and explain everything.”
Chloe sighed, sagging back in the kitchen seat. The wood creaked in protest against her weight. She finally mustered the courage to look at her mother and sister without bawling. She still hadn’t told either one of them about Roman or how quickly their relationship was moving.
“I think I need to lay down,” she mentioned, suddenly feeling lightheaded. “I’m so tired that I’m not thinking clearly.”
Her mother gave her a concerned glance. She cupped her warm hand over Chloe’s and squeezed. “Are you sure you are going to be okay? You had a long trip. Have some water or a snack.”
Chloe’s lips curled into a half smile. What was it with parents, always trying to encourage their adult children to have snacks when they come home for a visit in order to feel better?
“I’m not hungry, Mom.” She sniffed and scratched the side of her cheek, giving Ashley a fleeting glance.
Ashley had a vacant expression on her face as she stared at the table in front of her.
“Okay, sweetie.” Her mom didn’t press her any further and to Chloe’s relief, didn’t protest her going upstairs alone either.
“I’m going to try to get some rest.” Chloe stood up with a robotic movement and shuffled towards the staircase by the front door. “Let me know if anything happens.”
“Good night,” her mother called out from the kitchen table.
Chloe shuffled up the stairs, barely making it to the top. She felt weak and fatigued, but it wasn’t a physical ailment. All her suffering was internal, rooting from her anxious mind. She climbed into the sheets, pulling them up over her head so that she couldn’t see anything but the darkness through her open eyes. She tossed and turned, unable to sleep even though the last twenty-four hours had been a sheer and unimaginable nightmare.
Her father was a distressing sight with his wilting eyes and bony, frail body. The cancer was ravaging him, eating at his body faster than he could fight it off. The chemotherapy treatments didn’t seem to be working anymore.
She laid in her bed as stiff as a board, as silent as a statue. She didn’t move. Chloe was using all her mental energy to float her thoughts to her dad. Where there was a will, there was a way. If she could just send him some kind of vibration, encouraging him to fight back and linger on before giving up....
That’s when she heard something raking against the side of her window. At first, she figured it was probably the wind tickling a tree limb against the side, and the scraping sound was coming from that.
It kept happening, relentless and harder and faster. Chloe sat up like a bullet, entangled in the sheets. She perked her senses, prickling her ears to hear better. The sound kept plunking against the side of her window pane as if pebbles were being thrown at it.
Chloe flung the sheets off her legs and draped her legs over the edge of the bed, apprehensive to stand up and wander over to the window and look down. The pebble sound kept coming.
Finally, in a mixture of both frustration and curiosity, Chloe’s interest was pegged. She shuffled on bare feet against the plush carpet of her second story bedroom. She pulled back the curtains ever so slightly, brushing them against her cheek in the process.
At first, she didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. The moon was bright in the center of the sky, creating a white soft glow on the dew-soaked grass on the front lawn. She narrowed her eyes, trailing them across the entire yard.
That’s when she saw him.
Roman, standing there in a pair of jeans and a brown leather jacket. His blonde hair was glowing almost white under the light of the moon. He crouched to the ground, plucked a pebble from the lawn and tossed it in his hand a few times before standing back up, drawing his arm back and throwing the pebble at her window.
Chloe smiled. So, he was the source of the annoying and persistent window pelting. She raced to her bedroom door, throwing it open before jogging down the stairs and barreling out the front door.
She didn’t want to wake her mother or sister, so she cracked the door in order to eliminate some of the noise. Seeing Roman standing on her front lawn almost seemed too far-fetched, too good to be true.
But there he was, grinning at her with a mixture of concern and longing. For a brief moment, he knocked the breath out of her lungs. He was so handsome, and his gesture of being here was so touching that it made her knees feel weak.
“Oh my God, Roman?” Chloe rushed toward him.
Roman grinned, taking a few steps in Chloe’s direction to meet her in the middle.
“It took me a while to find your
note,” he said in a deep voice. “But when I did, I knew I couldn’t let you go through this alone.”
He scooped her up in his arms, the warmth and strength of his body exactly what she needed to replenish her soul. They were two souls, two silhouettes under the cascading light of the moon.
“This is unbelievable...” Chloe trailed off, afraid of getting choked up and unable to utter another word.
“I had to come for you. I had to make sure you were okay.” His Adam’s apple bob up and down as he swallowed hard.
There were a million emotions and sensations surging through her body and her mind. She was intoxicated by his gesture, staring into his eyes so hard that she was sure she would become lost in his gaze forever.
Her heart pounded, and her pulse swooshed violently through her ears. Her lips tingled, longing to kiss him as if they were two magnets being pulled together.
“I’m so sorry for leaving without telling you in person...” she trailed off again, wondering if he would get the impression that her excuse was insincere.
The way he stared into her eyes spoke his truth. He wasn’t mad; only concerned for her and worried and caring.
“Do you want to come inside?” She whispered into the night, surrounded by only the faint chirping of crickets in the trees.
“Yes,” Roman smiled, delicately stroking her cheek with his thumb.
They walked upstairs together, carefully padding back down to Chloe’s bedroom at the end of the hallway. She closed and locked the door behind her, staring at him expectantly while an intense heat of desire blazed inside of her.
“Chloe...” Roman stuttered as he carefully approached her. He had his hand on her cheek again, staring at her with such fond adoration she was confident she would melt into a puddle on the floor right in front of him.
“I love you so much,” he whispered. “I’ve loved you since Hawaii. You are the only one on earth I want to be with.” There was urgency in his voice as if he couldn’t waste another single second suppressing that bombshell information without exploding.
Chloe draped her arms around his waist, squeezing his body to hers. She needed to feel the warmth of his skin on hers. “I love you too,” she whispered into his chest as she buried her face into his shirt, drawing in an enormous breath of his familiar and safe scent.
“The band will be traveling for the next couple of days,” Roman reminded her. “I didn’t want to miss my small window of opportunity to come and find you.”
Chloe craned her neck to look at him. She smiled, and for the first time in a while; she felt blissfully content in spite of the turmoil of her father’s devastating illness. Roman made her feel like nothing on the planet could shatter her, as long as she was wrapped up in his arms.
“Thank you for being so dedicated,” she admitted.
“I don’t want to lose you again,” he confessed in a fear-soaked voice. “You give me so much strength.”
Chloe didn’t even realize she was shedding happy tears until her cheeks grew wet. She pulled him to the bed and straddled him, frantically kissing him as if she were afraid he would disappear if she stopped or let go.
There was no sound, no dialogue as they removed each other’s clothes. Only primal urgency and passion filled the room and suspended in the air above them. In the dark, their fumbling hands explored each other’s naked bodies as they intertwined through the sheets, becoming one. Roman thrust and rocked up against her, making guttural sounds escape her lips as she quietly tried to stifle them.
She dug her nails into his back, squeezing her naked thighs against his waist. As she came with passion and glorious bliss, she saw stars shimmering in her mind’s eye. Making love to Roman was the cure to all sadness, Chloe held the proof in the saturated pool between her legs.
He’d come for her when she’d needed him the most.
No other man on the planet could compete with that.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Roman roused as the first light of dawn began to spread across the floor in Chloe’s bedroom, spilling in pinkish, orangish rays across the space. He quietly lifted the sheets off his side of the bed, carefully planting his feet onto the soft carpet of the floor.
He stood over Chloe’s naked, silky smooth body. Her face was partially covered by the pillow — a cascade of light reflected from the window onto her rosy cheek. Her chest rose and fell with the tranquil peacefulness of her dreamy state of mind.
Her eyes were still closed as he gently dared to brush her cheek with the surface of his lips, giving her a kiss before stirring over to her bedside table where his clothes lay in a heap. Chloe’s clothes were spread out across the floor, a proving sign that they had spent an erotically charged night together.
Roman had, at last, professed his love for her. He’d declare it to the entire world if she let him. He couldn’t hold it in any longer. He had to reveal his true feelings for her so that she would finally understand how important she was to him. He wanted no one else in the world but Chloe, and he would walk through fire to protect her if that’s what it took.
He would travel to the ends of the world in order to bring her back with him. He hadn’t even realized how much he truly loved her until he saw her standing outside last night in a cotton nightgown. Even though he knew she was strong and independent, a woman who could hold her ground, she had looked so innocent and pure standing out there in the blanket of darkness. It had sent his senses into overdrive.
He carefully trudged downstairs, not wanting to wake the family, especially Chloe’s mother or sister. They didn’t know he was there, and he didn’t want to startle them when they awoke and saw some strange man sitting in their living room.
He wandered outside, standing on the front porch with his hands in the pockets of his jeans. The morning air was crisp and fresh, and the grass was soggy with glistening beads of dew. A few stray webs of fog slowly trekked across the yard like wispy slivers of silky fingers.
Roman sighed and leaned against the porch railing, watching the world wake up. A man in a black robe across the street emerged from his house, shuffled across his driveway in a pair of slippers and a coffee mug in his hand. He reached down to retrieve the morning paper and then disappeared back into his home.
A stray car or two slowly and silently drove past, most likely commuters headed out to start their daily routine and trudge off to work. Roman heaved an enormous sigh of the fresh suburban Chicago air. No matter where he went in this incredible city, he was home.
He didn’t even notice the sound of the front door opening, or Chloe approaching him. She snaked her arms around his waist from behind, making a contented sigh sound as it escaped her lips.
Roman glanced down, smiled and rubbed her interlocked hands around his waist. “Good morning sunshine,” he whispered. He was delighted that she woke up before the rest of her family so that they would be able to avoid that bit of uncomfortableness at seeing a stranger in their home.
“Good morning,” Chloe purred in a soothing and satisfied voice. Her demeanor was much more approving and appealing than that fateful night in Hawaii. She melded and conformed to his body, sensually becoming one with him as she squeezed him tightly to her body.
“Last night was incredible,” he mentioned, unable to stop reliving the moments of passion where her legs were wrapped around his waist, and her naked body was pressed up against him.
“One of the best nights of my life,” she admitted in a dreamy voice.
Roman glanced down at her and beamed. “Really?”
Chloe chuckled and unhooked herself from him. She leaned her elbows over the wooden railing of the front porch. It was damp and a little green around the edges from water collecting there.
“Really...” she trailed off, staring straight ahead with a nostalgic expression.
“I’m glad you enjoyed yourself,” Roman affirmed proudly. He hadn’t thought twice about flying here to be with her. And he was so glad that he had.
“My mom and siste
r are going to be surprised to see you,” she said with a chuckle.
Roman laughed. “I was worried about that.”
Chloe met his gaze. “You don’t have to be worried. They will love you because I love you.” The sincerity in her eyes made him melt.
“Maybe you should go warn them in advance so that they don’t come downstairs indecent,” he suggested.
Chloe smiled. “That sounds like a good idea.”
She left him on the porch to go rouse her mother and sister. He waited for a few minutes, just standing there while he watched the world wake up.
He didn’t know how much time had passed, but he didn’t want to go inside until Chloe had reemerged and given him the green light.
After a while, she came outside fully dressed and beaming with a brilliant smile stretched across her lips.
“What’s the good news?” He asked as he turned around and propped his back against the railing.
“My dad,” Chloe said breathlessly, bouncing on her heels. “He made some great improvements overnight.”
“He did?” Roman’s heart galloped with excitement. “That’s excellent!”
Chloe jogged into Roman’s waiting, open arms, crying tears of joy. He spun her around as she interlocked her legs around his waist, breathlessly showering his lips with sensual kisses that tasted like cherries from her lip gloss.
Roman heard a female voice clear their throat behind him. He spun, placing Chloe delicately back on her feet on the porch.
“Hello.” He nodded in acknowledgment at Chloe’s sister who was propped up against the side of the door jam, grinning with amusement.
“You must be Roman.” She took a step in his direction with her hand extended to shake with him. She never left his gaze, continuing to smile from ear to ear.
“I am.” He laughed enthusiastically, pumping her hand in greeting. “And you must be Ashley.”
