by Jadyn Chase
“Maybe.” I thought about it for a minute. “They might. I didn’t really think about it. This is just between you and me. What they do is between me and them. It’s nothing you need to concern yourself with.”
She broke into a rapturous smile. “Okay. I can live with that. I just wouldn’t want to threaten your people by knowing.”
“You won’t.” I took her hand. I couldn’t stop myself. I had to touch her somehow, even if it was totally innocent. “I’m certain of that.”
I gave her hand one more squeeze and got out of the car. I walked around and handed her onto the sidewalk. She beamed with that glorious happy expression that filled my world with sunshine. As long as she could still look like that after I told her the truth about my people, I could go ahead with this.
I escorted her into the restaurant. Emilio gave us a table in the back away from noise and traffic. That dress caught the light more than ever when she bent over to slide into her seat.
“This is a really nice place,” she remarked. “The concierge seems to know you pretty well.”
“I haven’t been here since my wife died,” I told her. “We used to come here a lot. This was our favorite spot, but I stopped coming after she died.”
Maya’s eyes flashed to my face. “Are you sure you want to bring me here? I don’t want to be a replacement for her.”
“No one could be a replacement for her, and I could never mistake you for her, either. It’s just a nice restaurant and I know all the staff. I trust they’ll serve us a nice meal. That’s why I brought you here, not to make you into something you’re not.”
She lowered her eyes to the table. “I should have known that.”
“No, you shouldn’t have. You had every right to ask.”
Her cheeks flushed a deeper shade of pink. I observed the interplay of conflicting emotions battling in her features. I threw her a lifeline. “Do you want to know another secret—one no one in the whole club knows?”
Her head shot up. “Are you sure?”
“I wanted to leave the club,” I told her. “When Laura got pregnant with Anna, I made up my mind to leave, to quit as The Boss and move us all somewhere far away. I didn’t want Anna growing up like that.”
“So what happened?” she asked. “Why didn’t you?”
“I was in the middle of researching some other cities to move to when Laura got shot. I was raising a newborn alone and the whole club rallied around to help me through it. I couldn’t do it without them. One year followed another. I got busy with Anna’s needs. I told myself I would pick it up again soon, but after a while, I just didn’t. It got shunted to the bottom of the priority list.”
“Do you still?” she asked. “Do you still want to leave?”
“I don’t know.” I scanned the restaurant. “My whole life is here, and all Anna’s friends and relatives are here. I still think about it, but the plans…. well, they just never materialized.”
“Why are you telling me this?” She dropped her voice almost to a whisper. “You didn’t answer my question. Do you still want to leave? Is that why you’re telling me?”
That voice ate into my soul. It chipped away the armor protecting me from pain and tragedy. It found its way into the corners of my heart. It spoke to me in the same gentle, nudging tones as my own conscience.
My hand moved on its own accord. It slid across the white damask tablecloth to cover hers one more time. It just belonged there. “I really don’t know,” I whispered back. “I just want you to know. I want you to know everything.”
8
Maya
Roman parked the Tesla outside his house. A streetlight up the block illuminated my blue Honda Civic. No other people moved around the neighborhood.
Roman’s house occupied a position at the end of the cul-de-sac. A seven-foot cinderblock wall separated the backyard from the railroad tracks. The front windows commanded a panoramic view of the neighborhood and the highway entrance ramp.
I saw the situation in a new light, now that Roman explained a few things to me about his people. When I first pulled up to his house, I noticed how big and nicely maintained it was. The lawn was mowed and edged. A child’s swing set took up most of one side of the lawn. A girl’s bike leaned against the garage.
No one would dare steal that bike from The Boss’s house. Everyone for miles around knew who Roman was. No one would think of crossing him.
At the same time, the house’s position gave it a strategic view of every possible avenue of approach. No one could get near it from the front without the occupants seeing them from a distance. The wall protected the back from intrusion. It was the closest thing to a modern-day castle I could imagine. It was built to be easily defended from attack.
Roman’s voice broke in on my thoughts. “I had a really nice time tonight.”
“I had a really nice time, too,” I replied. “Thank you for telling me everything you did. I appreciate you being honest up front. You’ve given me a lot to think about.”
“I’d like to take you out again,” he told me. “If you don’t want to, I understand. I also understand if you need to think about everything before you agree. I just want you to know where I stand. I want us to get to know each other better if you’re willing.”
“I’d….”
I almost said I’d like that, too, so why did I stop myself? I cast another critical look around the cul-de-sac. A person didn’t have to know that much about Roman to see the whole reality of his life laid out in this neighborhood. He might have wanted to leave, but he didn’t.
Another man—maybe a man from another dimension—would have taken his wife’s murder as the impetus to get himself and his baby daughter as far away from all that violence as possible. Another man wouldn’t let himself fall into dependence on the club. Another man would have made up his mind that nothing like that would ever touch his daughter again.
Roman wasn’t that man. Roman kept living in this house with his eye on the next assault. Roman let his friends and relatives close around him. He let his network cut him off from his dreams. He gave up on his plans to be a part of their circle and now Anna was part of it, too.
He caught my attention by breathing a sigh. “Well, you probably want to go home and think about it. You have my number. You can get in touch with me if you want to go out again.”
“It’s not that,” I exclaimed. “I want to go out with you again. I just don’t understand how it could possibly work. I mean, even putting aside all the gang stuff, your people would probably never accept you getting involved with a…. a human. We’re two different species living in two different worlds.”
He arched one eyebrow. “Is that your only objection?”
“No, but it’s the biggest one, isn’t it?” I told him. “We would have to overcome that before we dealt with any of the other stuff, which is pretty big, too, don’t you think?”
He nodded through the windshield at nothing. “You’re right. It is big, but then again, so is how I feel about you.”
I inclined my head to one side. “How do you feel about me? You haven’t told me.”
“No?” His eyes shot to my face. “I did tell you. I told you all my most closely guarded secrets. I told you things not even my closest relatives know. I told you things no other human on the planet knows. If that’s not telling you how I feel about you, I don’t know what is.”
I gaped at him in shock. Holy fucking shit, Matilda! Is that what this was all about? He was right. He told me all that stuff because he said he wanted me to know the truth. He wanted me to know the real him. He wanted me to know everything.
Why would he do that if he wasn’t serious—like, really serious? I never met anyone, especially not a man, that I wanted to know my deepest, darkest secrets. I never met anyone who inspired that kind of trust, that I really, deeply wanted to know me for who I really was with no reservations.
That was what he was saying. That was how he felt about me. Could I feel that way about him?
If I didn’t, I had no business going out with him.
I stared up into his jet black eyes. He gazed back at me with no hesitation, without flinching. He knew exactly what he was doing. He never balked from the instant he asked me out. When I said no, he withdrew himself and all his homeboys from the scene to give me space.
Once I agreed to go out with him, he laid all his cards on the table. He revealed everything to me. What did I reveal? Nothing, that’s what.
I didn’t deserve a man like him. He deserved someone who would open their heart to him without reservation, who could expose themselves to him in kind, not someone who would sit back and take without returning the favor.
How should I break it to him? How could I tell him I couldn’t match his level of commitment?
While I still struggled to choose the right wording, he put out his hand. He laid it against my cheek and steered my face toward his. Before I could stop him, he kissed me. His fingers laced into my hair and grazed my ear, and I collapsed into a deluge of power and sensation from which I couldn’t escape.
His lips captured me in a torrent of heat and swirling possibilities. I plummeted into a dark world full of seething desires and pulsating dreams. My mouth responded to the insistent pressure of his lips. He prodded my mouth open and his sizzling hot tongue lashed my brain to smithereens.
In seconds, his other hand closed around my head and I was lost. He held me entranced with that dominating grip. I couldn’t get away, but I didn’t want to. I fell into a bottomless sea of wet delight. I never wanted it to end.
My body erupted in passionate ecstasy at that kiss. My dress smothered my skin in aching, sinuous pleasure I never experienced before in my life. I didn’t realize this dress could have such an effect on me when I put it on. Now it stroked every inch of my curves with erotic fire.
“Come inside,” he rasped into my mouth between kisses. “Come inside, just for a little while.”
I did my best to break free, but the overpowering furor of that kiss held me spellbound. “What about…..?”
He muffled the rest of my question with searing kisses. He nipped my lips and filled my mouth with luscious warmth. “Just come inside. I’m not ready to let you go yet.”
I fought to focus against the splendid luminosity of those immaculate kisses. His brilliant obsidian eyes locked onto me from inches away. I didn’t want to leave yet, either. I wanted to get lost in his lips and never come back.
Anna wasn’t home. No one would know. I never got a chance to answer. Like lightning, he popped his door and got out. My skin screamed in bereft agony at being separated from him.
He strode around the car and helped me out. His hand infusing its heat and energy into my fingers told me exactly what would happen. He led me inside and shut the door behind him.
Darkness and silence enfolded me in a tornado of pregnant fancies. Did I really want to do this? I was inside a dragon king’s fortress. What was I thinking?
I wasn’t thinking. I definitely wasn’t thinking when he eased toward me in the dark. I couldn’t think when he closed his hands around my head and steered my mouth to his. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t exist with all that blistering desire rocketing through my being.
His kiss sent a throbbing pang of need through my insides. A silent scream of howling furious hunger screeched across the eons for him. Nothing else would satisfy that longing.
Somewhere in the liquid bliss of his mouth and tongue, he whipped one mighty arm behind my back and lifted me up to meet him. If my feet stayed on the ground, I lost awareness of them. I floated in his grip without thought, without any agenda, without any hope of ever coming down.
His granite body touched mine through our clothes. Was this really happening? Was I really going to go through with this after everything I told myself about how it couldn’t work?
His manhood hardened between his legs and poked through my dress. My juices oozed into my panties. I wanted him. I craved him as I never craved any man before, but some part of me still resisted.
He turned around and walked with me suspended in one arm. His lips danced with mine and his hard, black eyes glittered from right in front of my face. His gaze refused to let me look away.
When he set my feet on the floor, I found myself in a bedroom that could only belong to him. Moonlight washed over a king-sized bed with a dark brown bedspread and a pile of snow-white pillows. A wide-screen TV hung from the opposite wall. A suite of hewn wooden furniture completed the picture.
Roman held my gaze while he stripped off his jacket and yanked his buckle loose. I couldn’t make up my mind to tell him I didn’t want to do this. How could I say that when I did want to do this?
He kicked off his pants and shoes. He peeled off his shirt to reveal a spray of tattoos on his arms and chest. In a flash, he dove forward and lifted up my dress. My body and mind obeyed him without any input from my rational brain. I raised my arms and he pulled it over my head.
He dropped the dress on the pile of his own clothes and lifted me up in both arms. He scooped me off the ground and carried me to the bed.
He dropped onto one knee before he lowered us both onto the bedspread. He eased back on the pillows and let me sink down next to him. His warm arms closed around me and drew me into him.
The primal scent of a man blocked out all my awareness. I couldn’t think to argue against this. I knew only the insatiable magnetism holding my skin against his.
He hugged me against his shoulder and cupped my chin to kiss me one more time. As long as he kissed me like that, I knew where I would go and what I would do. Nothing else made sense when his tongue flickered into my mouth and ignited my heartfelt desires.
He wrenched off my mouth to nuzzle into my neck. He gnawed around to my ear and twisted my jaw aside to burrow down my collarbone. When he turned my face away, my eyes drifted open and fell on the ink splashed across his chest.
The dragon looped around the wheel rippled and seethed on his forearm. Flames spiraled from its coils to blend into a rose with barbed-wire thorns. The wire scored up his swollen bicep. It spread over his chest to twine in the hair of…..
I froze, and my hand flew to the dark smudge covering his torso. Etched into the skin, I could clearly make out a female head with a thick mane of black hair. Underneath, a banner displayed the italics name, Laura, but no one could see her face. An angry scribble of dense ink obliterated her face.
I touched the outline and sucked in my breath. “Is this….?”
He reclined back on the bed. One meaty arm still held me around the back, but he didn’t touch me. He didn’t try to hide that tattoo, either.
“That’s her. I couldn’t stand her looking at me all the time, so I blacked her out. That was a dark time in my life. I guess I could have handled it better, but there it is.”
I couldn’t stop staring at the awful vestige of that woman imprinted on his flesh. My fingers continued their hypnotic circuit of her hair and her name. I couldn’t fathom the pain and anguish he wore branded on his body for all time. “Did you really have to scratch her out like that?”
He didn’t stop me touching it. “Well, I got her put there in the first place so I would always have her with me, so I could look at her anytime I wanted to. After she died, I couldn’t stand the pain anymore. I couldn’t have her looking at me or me looking at her when she wasn’t really there. It got to be a torture, so I blacked her out. It helped somehow, but now I know the real reason I did it. I didn’t understand until right now.”
I looked up at him. “Why?”
He trailed one fingertip down my cheek to my lips. “So she wouldn’t be looking at you all the time.”
All at once, none of that mattered anymore. I was in bed with him, with Roman Santiago. I closed my eyes and the tattoo ceased to exist. Laura wasn’t there. I wasn’t looking at her. I wasn’t touching her when I dragged my fingertips over his chest.
I let my face collapse onto his sternum. My mouth gasped for every breath of
his essence. I stroked my lips across his nipple to his shoulder and back to his belly. I was kissing him, not Laura. She wasn’t here. I was kissing his skin, that magical skin that lit me up from the inside in a thousand possible ways.
All the time. That was what he said. He didn’t want Laura looking at me all the time. That meant he wanted me here all the time, with my face against his heart, with his bare skin exposed for me to touch and kiss, with his body stretched out for my pleasure. That’s what he wanted. He didn’t want his past confronting me and making me wary of getting close to him.
He didn’t have to scratch out her face. I didn’t see her. I didn’t feel her when I caressed my cheek against his torso. That satiny delicious sensation was all him.
His breath caught in his throat. His fingers cinched around the back of my neck to guide my head lower, lower to the rigid shaft of pure masculinity between his legs. He croaked in agony when I took him in my mouth. That hand holding me dominated my world. I submitted to its masterful guidance all the way into my throat.
His meat thickened with every fruity suck. The veins popped against my lips when I took him to the hilt. His sweat stung my eyes and I tasted his vital spunk on my tongue. Through the surf crashing in my ears, I heard him whispering in Spanish, but I couldn’t make out the words. My whole attention riveted on him.
He clenched his fist in my hair and pried me off him. When he picked up my head, I beheld the strain and tension stiffening him to the breaking point. He said something else, but I didn’t understand. I only knew I had to do something to bring this whole episode to its natural conclusion.
He touched my hip and steered me on top of him. I straddled that distended slab of flesh and closed my eyes again. Fate drew me down on top of him. His hands tugged me down until I rested on that wicked spear. It stabbed into my center and I groaned aloud.
Lightning poured through me from its tip and exploded out of my skull. I couldn’t stop it. It shot out of my eyes and ears. It screamed out of my mouth as a hurricane of shrieking climax. How did that happen so fast? He didn’t even have to move. Just his shaft inside me propelled me into Heaven like nothing else I ever experienced.
