Forbidden Kiss

by Shannon Leigh

  Now was not the time to engage in another discussion of Rom’s dagger, especially considering the outcome of their previous talk. Jule filed it away in her mind under later. Much later.

  For now she was busy watching his body move.

  The fading winter light crept into the bedroom through the slats in the window shutters, playing a game of divide and conquer on his unbelievable physique.

  Her mouth watered as he returned and placed a naked knee on the bed, nudging her own knees apart. A tight abdomen rippled down to tapered hips and muscular thighs as he bent and grasped the waistband of her panties.

  Jule couldn’t take her eyes from his arousal. The hard length pulsed, quickening her breath in time. Tentatively, she reached out a hand and wrapped it around him.

  She was rewarded by a low groan on the heels of a sharp intake of breath.

  Rom dragged the fabric down her legs and tossed it behind him where it floated to the floor, hitting as his hands skated up under her camisole and palmed her breasts.

  “Perfect,” he murmured.

  Jule parroted his description back, skimming her fingers up his length until they danced over the sensitive skin on the tip.

  She wanted to take him in her mouth, roll her tongue around him, but first…

  She gripped the hem of her camisole and whipped the silk over her head, throwing it who knew where.

  Rom reached for her and Jule drew him in, wanting to experience his nakedness up close and very personal.

  “This feels so good,” she gasped as he lowered his weight onto her pelvis and thighs.

  He laughed, a close-mouthed throaty laugh that made Jule wet and tingly. “My feelings exactly,” he said, dropping his head to her collarbone to nuzzle her neck.

  He moved his warm hands along her shoulders and down her sides with a deliberate caress that pebbled her nipples painfully tight. He plunged his hands under her backside and when her bottom rested comfortably in his two palms, he lifted her pelvis a few degrees until she came into direct contact with his arousal.

  His lips found a nipple, which elicited a small cry from Jule. “God. Yes. Please.”

  He rocked gently between her legs while his mouth and tongue honored her breasts with the attention they deserved.

  His eyes reflected the dying light and the heat of their passion. She saw herself in his eyes and just like that, Jule knew her life would never be the same again.

  “If you’re going to change your mind, Jule, now’s the time to do it. Much longer and I couldn’t stop if I wanted.” His voice thickened with each word and Jule felt a corresponding throbbing between her legs.

  She pressed her fingers to his lips. “I’m in. Just please don’t stop.” Ever. The silent word echoed in her head.

  He rolled off and opened a drawer, returning quickly with a condom. He tore the package open and Rom eased the plastic circle out.

  Jule laid her hand over his. “Let me?”

  A slow smile spread across his face. The first honest to God smile Jule had ever seen. She almost wept at the transformation. He was unbearably beautiful.

  Her hands shook as she took the condom and eased down the front of his body. When she straddled his thighs, she bent her head and a curtain of hair shielded her from his view.

  But instead of rolling the condom down his erection, she took him in her mouth. He grunted in surprise and seized her shoulders between his marvelous hands, his fists curling around shoulder and strands of her hair.

  “Christ,” he gasped as she licked him from base to tip. What was it he had said? Ah, yes. Her feelings exactly.

  Jule couldn’t believe how powerful he felt under her hands and mouth. His body hummed with contained force and tension, spiking her desire to new heights. She was coming undone.

  He thrust up and she took him deeper in her mouth, exhilarating in his swallowed cry. He pumped his hips as she stroked him with her lips and tongue. But then he pulled back and eased her mouth away.

  “Better than I imagined. Come here.”

  Jule let him lay her back onto the bed. “You’ve had fantasies of me going down on you?” Disbelief evident in her voice.

  “Hell, yes.” He chuckled. Then his hands were on her, all over.

  Jule didn’t know what to expect when he finally covered her and slid inside, hot and thick, but it wasn’t the total sense of completion that swept her home.

  She cried out as her body convulsed, but she held on, wrapping her legs around his waist and pressing him closer.

  He captured her shout of release in his mouth and thrust deeper, sending her to the edge and beyond.

  But he didn’t let her slide lazily into bliss. He took her higher, again and again.

  Jule didn’t realize she was holding her breath until Rom shuddered inside her and rolled over, cradling her to his chest.

  “Jule. Jule. Jule,” he whispered in her hair, all the while stroking her spine. They lay with arms and legs entwined and Jule took comfort from his silent strength until she could talk.

  “Did I hurt you?”

  She raised her head, but couldn’t see his face; darkness had fully descended.

  “No. Just the opposite,” she breathed, trying to put the feeling into words.

  Rom reached to turn on the bedside lamp and Jule shut her eyes until they adjusted. When she opened them, she looked into the warmest shade of night sky eyes she’d ever seen. It was like lying on the ground during the heat of summer, looking upwards towards the heavens.

  She was in deep. No doubt about.

  Jule sat up, hoping some physical distance might clear her head.

  “What’s that?” Rom asked, his head resting on a nest of pillows.

  Jule glanced down to find his eyes riveted to her chest scar.

  She smoothed the scar unconsciously, wondering if he found it distasteful. The size of a quarter, it peeked out from under her left breast.

  “I impaled myself on a freshly cut branch falling out of Angelo’s treehouse when I was eight.”

  Rom sat up and gently moved her breast, exposing the scar fully to the light. He didn’t speak for several heartbeats. And still didn’t as he left the bed.

  Jule watched as he crossed to the dresser and opened a drawer. He removed something and when he turned, Jule saw he held his dagger.

  …

  Heaven is here, where Juliet lives.

  It couldn’t be. It simply could not be. After all this time. He’d found her.

  Juliet.

  He’d been with her for over a week and never seen it, until now. But all the signs were there if he only looked.

  Jule Casale had a scar where Juliet would have, had she lived. She knew his dagger and panicked when saw it. She lay in his bed, keeping company with him, despite the cost to herself and family.

  She was his Juliet. Reborn.

  It blew all theories of coincidence to hell and Rom didn’t believe in coincidences anyway.

  “Rom, what are you doing?” The shakiness penetrated his thoughts.

  Her eyes widened and fixed on the blade as she clutched the sheet to her breasts.

  Rom looked down at himself and saw what she must see. A naked man with madness in his eyes, stalking her with a weapon.

  “You mentioned before you knew this weapon,” he stopped midway across the room and balanced the dagger on an open palm. “I was hoping you might humor me in a little test.”

  “What kind of test?” Caution colored her words.

  “I want to measure the diameter of your scar against this dagger.”

  “But I told you my scar is from a tree branch.” She pulled the sheet tighter.

  “I know. But you also said you knew, intimately, this blade. I’d like to know how.”

  Fringes of panic started to creep into her eyes. Her breathing increased and her chest rose and fell heavily against the sheet. A panic attack was just a breath away.

  “I don’t know. I told you already.”

  “Okay. Sorry.” H
e held up his empty hand and whipped the other with the dagger behind his back. Rom returned to the dresser and slid the dagger back into the drawer. It wouldn’t do him any good to terrify her or drive her away. Not when he’d finally found her.

  He wanted to laugh, cry, or drop to his knees and pray for the first time in 600 years. Offer up a thank you to Lawrence who surely watched over them from the heavens.

  “Are you all right?” Jule asked tentatively.

  Rom glanced back, looking into her eyes, and saw his salvation.

  “Yes. For once, I’m quite all right.”

  He padded back across the room and slid back into the bed, pulling her to him. He held her, reveling in the feel of her skin next to his. The faint whisper of her breath against his neck. The drape of her hair over his chest.

  Juliet. Juliet.

  He must have slept because the clock tower woke him chiming the hour. It was almost midnight and time for them to go. He reached for Jule, but he found only cool, empty sheets.

  He sat up and searched the room. She sat curled up in a corner chair near the balcony windows, shadows covering most of her face. “There you are. Come back to bed before we have to go,” he coaxed.

  She didn’t move.

  Her stillness disturbed him. “Jule?”

  “Who is Juliet?” she asked in a tight voice.

  Rom’s mind raced back across the last couple of hours. He had slept because his mind blanked out after he’d crawled back in bed with her. But no nightmares, thank God. Those typically woke him, violently.

  “How did you hear that name?” Their roles reversed and Rom held back, cautious not to upset her. He couldn’t possibly tell her the whole story like this. He possessed immortality and she was his reincarnated wife from 600 years ago? She wouldn’t believe it. Christ, he wouldn’t believe it.

  “From you. You shouted that name in your sleep.”

  So he had dreamed. Of her.

  “Is that your wife?” she asked.

  “Was,” he started to get up, rubbing his forehead.

  She made it as far as his side of the bed, heading for the door before he caught her, holding her tightly against his chest. “Let me explain.”

  She squirmed around in his arms and faced him, fully dressed and obviously ready to leave.

  “Jule, there is so much I need to tell you, about me. About us.”

  She crossed her arms and looked toward the balcony, avoiding him. “We need to get going if we’re going to do this job tonight.”

  “Jule, please.” He reached for her hand, ready to grovel if that’s what it took, but she stepped back. Rom didn’t follow, giving her the space she needed. “Please allow me an opportunity to explain. If not now, then when this is over.”

  Her eyes shone with unshed tears when she finally turned to look at him. Her small frame shook with the effort not to cry and it nearly broke him. He smoothed the backs of his fingers down her cheek and stroked her chin.

  “It’s not what you think. This whole thing is not what you think.”

  “Well, that’s worse then. Because I thought we had something. A truce. An opportunity for something good.”

  Her boots clicked softly on the ancient wood floor as she left the room. The front door shut seconds later and Rom raced to pull his clothes on.

  She wasn’t going anywhere without him. Ever again. Secrets or no secrets.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Jule didn’t wait for Rom. He would follow of course, he was too gentlemanly not to, but she couldn’t simply stand there like a target and wait for him to shoot another arrow into her heart. She’d lost enough blood already.

  The door from the courtyard latched closed behind her and Jule stepped out into the narrow street, crossing over into the dark shadows.

  “Jule, wait.”

  She heard his footsteps behind her.

  “Jule.” He caught her arm, stopping her as she rounded the corner to cross the river. She looked straight up into his dark, dark eyes and glimpsed pain.

  “Look. I’m sorry I screwed things up,” she said. “We should have kept this professional. I asked for your help and I’m grateful you’re here. But let’s not talk about what happened tonight. Okay?”

  His hand lingered on her shoulder and Jule, heaven help her, took comfort from its penetrating warmth.

  He opened his mouth, but Jule cut him off and pulled out from under his hand.

  “Tell me what I need to do. I want to get this done and find out if we’re on the right track or if I just need to hang it up and go home to—” She’d almost said go home to Pio.

  His gaze searched her face for several seconds. She couldn’t read his thoughts, couldn’t tell if he hurt as much as she, but he came to some internal decision and let the moment go.

  “We’ll be going underground. There’s a network of tunnels that run under the palazzo to a number of nearby buildings. That’s our way in.”

  Jule kept up with his pace, refusing to dwell on the feel of her hand wrapped in his.

  “How do you know about these tunnels?”

  “I know the city well.”

  He didn’t stop walking, but Jule noticed a new tension that ticked a muscle in his jaw.

  “How will we be able to get inside this tunnel? You have a key?”

  Rom glanced down at her as they gained the top of the bridge and the sound of the river washed over them. If Jule weren’t in such a lousy mood, she would have stopped to take in the beauty of the Adige on such a clear night.

  “I know where to find one.”

  And he did.

  A few minutes later, Jule stood inside the darkest hole on the planet. Or at least in Verona.

  As they had approached what appeared to be a dead end to an alley a block from the palazzo, Rom had walked straight up to the back wall of the Santa Maria Antica church and pulled on several bricks until a mortar joint gave way and an ancient skeleton key popped out.

  While she stood speechless and gaping, he trotted down several steps to an even older looking door and inserted the key into the lock. Viola. Tunnel access.

  “I’d love to ask how you knew about the secret key, but I know it’d be a waste of time. Suffice to say, I’m impressed, Montgomery.”

  She got an unreadable look for her statement.

  She wouldn’t have believed it, but here she stood now, pressed against Rom’s broad back, groping the darkness for a sign they weren’t about to drop off the edge of the world and into the abyss.

  “Do you know where you’re going?” she whispered to his back.

  “Yes. Hang on to me. The tunnel slopes down soon and it may be slick from river seepage. At least it used to be.” He mumbled the last bit, as if talking more to himself than her.

  Jule refrained from wrapping her arms around his waist and instead grasped his belt. Her hand bumped the dagger at his back and she nearly shouted at the feel of the hilt against her hand.

  So warm. So familiar. And deadly.

  He must have felt her stiffen because he stopped abruptly and Jule bumped her nose against his back.

  “Shit. Sorry,” he said and reached behind him, removing the blade as Jule reared back.

  With the knife tucked away somewhere else, God hoping somewhere where she wouldn’t encounter it again, he continued walking, clicking a flashlight on as he went.

  Jule held on to the back of his jacket, far away from the knife and the lure of his body heat.

  The tunnel was amazingly sophisticated from what she could see by flashlight. Neat and tidy rows of old brick ran straight up from the floor of the tunnel to round out the arched ceiling. The patina of age made the brick and mortar seem mellow in the yellow glow of the flashlight, and every so often Jule spied an arched cutout in the brick, as if made for a window.

  But they were empty, looking out to nowhere. Empty sconces lined the walls and Jule wondered what year saw the last candle lit here in this tunnel under the city?

  “How old is this tunnel?”
she asked, awed by the engineering.

  “The Romans built it the same time they built the arena. 30 A.D.”

  After what seemed like miles, the tunnel sloped downward and the temperature dropped further. If it weren’t so dark, Jule knew she’d be able to see her breath in the chilly air.

  They walked in silence for probably fifteen minutes, Rom never once stopping or losing his sense of direction. When he did finally slow, he reached out once again to the brick wall and pried at the bricks. This time the key lay hidden above the door and Rom had a tougher time loosening the hidey hole.

  Several minutes later, he still didn’t have it. He stopped groping the wall. Rom growled and whipped back to the door. His dagger appeared from under his coat and he plunged it into the mortar joint at the edge of the doorframe.

  Several more heavy thrusts and the mortar gave way and a second key spilled into Rom’s outstretched hand.

  “Amazing,” Jule said, holding the flashlight so he could see. “I feel like I’m hanging out with Indiana Jones. Except I’m the ditzy sidekick brunette who gets into trouble.” Rom scowled at the comparison, which triggered a giggle from Jule. “What? You don’t like being compared to Harrison Ford, or the thought of me getting you into trouble?”

  “I don’t like the idea of you being in danger.”

  Well, that killed her indignant mood.

  The second tunnel door didn’t open as easily as the first and Rom pushed it with his shoulder until it gave.

  “Turn the light off,” he whispered as fresh air spilled into the tunnel from above.

  Jule doused the light and for several seconds she was dipped into blinding darkness. When her eyes finally adjusted, she could just make out Rom’s silhouette framed against the shorter doorway.

  He lowered his head and reached behind him, once again seizing her hand in his larger one. He led the way up a steep set of old stairs, keeping Jule from tripping more than once.

  At the top they stopped so Rom could look around. Night draped the interior in subtle shades of dark, and the windows near the ceiling were shuttered from the outside. The only light came from random slivers of moonlight spilling from above.