Rom at last noticed the delicious aroma emanating from the kitchen. “What is that smell?”
Jule glowered at him. “What? You don’t like it?” The glower was quickly replaced with a startled expression. “You do eat? Right? I didn’t even think…”
Rom smiled. “I eat. It’s not necessary, but I enjoy food. And that smells good.” He said nodding at the pot.
“It’s just noodles with a basil pesto. When in Rome…” She smiled crookedly and set the lid on the pot and busied herself with setting out dishes.
Rom swallowed tightly. He looked at Jule standing there, barefoot in jeans and one of his shirts.
“You cooked for me.”
“It’s no big deal. I have to eat anyway.”
He wanted to share the significance of the gesture and stepped around the counter to lay his hands on her shoulders.
“Nobody has cooked for me in quite sometime. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Her husky voice sent blood rushing south.
…
Jule turned in Rom’s embrace, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed him. He was without a doubt the best time she’d ever had in her life.
She remembered the way their bodies had fit together so well, the pleasure of his touch and the heat of his kisses. Just his scent, damn it, was enough to send her into a near climax.
Rom wore a pair of low-slung jeans and a snug T-shirt that allowed her hands to play over his chest, his back, and down to his waist. Rock solid muscle created peaks and valleys she explored with her hands, but wanted to investigate with her tongue.
His hair was heavy and silky under her fingers and still slightly cool to the touch from their walk outside. Jule opened her eyes to watch his face, see the heat echo in his eyes as he touched her too.
She wanted to kick off her pants and strip off her bra, freeing her breasts for his hands, his mouth.
Rom groaned into her mouth. Jule answered.
His eyes were swirling with streaks of warm amber, exuding heat that found its way straight into her soul. Had she ever really thought his eyes were cold and cruel?
She tugged one of his shirts over her head, letting it hit the floor beside their feet. He swallowed as she reached behind and undid the fastener that held her bra closed.
So much tenderness in his expression had Jule yearning to feel him close. Inside her. Rocking them both to highs she feared never wanting to leave.
“I don’t know what I’m doing anymore, Rom,” she admitted. “But I know that I want you.” She guided his hand to her bare breast. “Please.”
“Jule,” he breathed as his hand closed around her breast.
Oh, yes, please…
He kissed her, providing the only answer he could. The kiss was passionate, hot, feverish, as were his hands skimming down and across her body, tugging her upwards to plop her bottom on the kitchen counter next to the stovetop.
She tugged his shirt out of his waistband, eager to feel his naked skin under her hands. He stepped back long enough to jerk the shirt over his head and threw it behind him where it landed half on Max’s food bowl.
He eased away from her and gazed at her, from toes to hair. The look consumed her and set every nerve to tingling. Jule refused to feel self-conscious and instead pulled her shoulders back, leaning against the overhead cupboards until her breasts thrust forward, focusing his attention.
She loved the way he worshiped her with his eyes. It made her feel like the sexiest, most beautiful woman alive. And what he did to her! Holy crap. Words couldn’t describe the glory of his body, standing there between her legs. Sculpted muscle and gorgeous male perfection.
He scooped her off the counter, cradling her bottom in his hands. Jule helped by twining her legs around his waist as he carried her down the hall to the bedroom.
“What was wrong with the kitchen?” she asked, watching heat spark in his eyes.
“I was worried about the dinner.” To her surprise, he made a joke. “The way we were going, that pot wasn’t all that safe so close to us. Wouldn’t want to end up lying on a pile of angel hair pasta while I make you scream my name.”
It was Jule’s turn to laugh.
He dropped her onto the golden comforter and stepped back to take off his shoes.
“Now’s the time if you want to change your mind,” he said, his dark, dark eyes and tanned body filling her vision.
Stop? Now? Was he crazy?
But she owed him honesty. She owed herself that much as well.
“Rom, I’ll admit, I’m lost. This is a whole new world for me. You. This quest. I promised myself we wouldn’t do this again until I knew you better, but you know what? It doesn’t matter.”
He dropped to his knees on the tiled floor until he was level with her on the bed.
“You matter,” he said.
She touched his face and smiled. He was so very beautiful. “I’ve spent the last several years living a lie. First as a wife and then an ex-wife. As a dutiful daughter trying to make her parents happy and do the right thing by everybody else. But what did it get me? Grief. Guilt.” She cleared her throat. “I don’t want to live that life anymore. I’m not that woman anymore.”
There was pride and hope in his eyes.
“I don’t know where this is going…or really, where I want it to go. It’s too early, or maybe I just don’t want to think about that right now. Not while you’re half naked and kneeling down in front of me.”
The pride in his eyes was replaced by desire. He leaned forward and kissed her then. Truly kissed her, pushing her back onto the bed and forcing her legs apart as he slid between. His weight was heavy and oh, God, right.
Jule wanted their pants gone. Now.
She reached between them, fumbling with the top button just below his belly button. She felt his stomach muscles ripple as her fingers circled and pulled at his jeans.
“Ahhh!” She jerked and arched against him as his tongue found a nipple, drawing her into his mouth.
“You want some help with these pants?” he asked around the breast in his mouth.
Jule couldn’t form the words, so she nodded. He pushed his weight up on one arm, still licking a very sensitive nipple. In short order, his pants were gone and so were hers.
They came together, finally, exquisitely naked. Jule thought she’d come the moment his erection touched her, but she held on, looking into his eyes.
“Thought I’d lost you there for a minute,” he said, his voice harsh with the strain.
“You almost did.”
He kissed her again and the world shifted, clicking into place. The rightness of the moment swept over her, pushing everything else out of the way. It was just the two of them.
He touched her, slowly. In ways and in places that no one else could know would drive her over the top and around the bend.
He breathed her name.
Jule answered.
It was the confirmation he needed. He slipped inside her.
Oh, my. Oh, yes. Please.
He rocked them back and forth, at first gentle, but when Jule wrapped her legs around his waist, he plunged harder and she cried out.
Was that her own voice? So full of tension and need? She opened her eyes to find Rom watching her. And she saw in his face the same struggle to stave off release. It was too good to be over so soon.
Jule laughed and she knew in that moment that she loved him. Body and soul. For eternity.
Rom laughed with her, thrusting faster until Jule exploded into starlit pieces. He stayed with her, growling her name as he came on a final shuddering thrust.
Like a spent firework, she felt those pieces drift back down to earth and gather back into her body. A body that clung to Rom for everything she was worth and then some.
“We should be about ready for that pasta now, dontcha think?” She asked after several minutes, licking his ear.
…
“Rom?”
He couldn’t move a muscle, because if
he did, Jule would stop stroking his neck and shoulders. “Yeah?”
“I was wondering something.” Jule ran her fingernails across his scalp, which sent delicious, spine tingling ecstasy lightening across his body. “About my previous, er, former life.”
Rom rolled over onto his back and stared up at her. “What do you want to know?” And would she believe it?
Her eyes glowed electric blue in the softly lit bedroom. “What was sex like the first time, we, ah, you know, did it?”
“You mean, was it like it is now?”
Jule nodded, smiling tightly.
He pushed himself into a sitting position and stroked the curtain of hair back from her face, letting it cascade across her shoulder and down her back.
“No. Juliet was painfully young and inexperienced. I don’t think she’d ever even kissed a man before, outside her family.”
Jule looked away, pulling her lip between her teeth as she did so.
She was jealous? Rom kissed her lips, easing the tension. “It was,” and here he struggled for the right words, “beautiful. Pure. Right.”
Shock shone in her eyes. “Not to say what we share isn’t all of those things, because, my God, it is. But it’s an adult’s passion. An adult’s experience and patience, making it more. Bigger.”
“Am I like her?” she asked him.
Rom had thought about the answer to that very question for the last three days.
“This is going to sound vague, but yes and no. Yes in that you share the same passion for fighting for what’s right and just. She was compassionate to a fault and you are too, I think. Juliet was always guarded with her feelings, but when she shared them, they were honest and true. Like you.”
A ghost of a smile played around her lips. “And how am I different?”
“Wiser. Stronger. More sure of yourself and your place in this world. And with a decided vulgarity to your language that would never have crossed Juliet’s lips.”
She shoved his shoulder, but her smile moved from ghostly to full out shiner. “You think my language can be bad, you should hear my sister.”
Had they just had a conversation about her past life? Was she believing it?
Rom had to remember that convincing her and wooing Jule would take time. She was Juliet, but she wasn’t. Jule wasn’t going to fall into marriage with him after just a few days and some great sex.
And would it even be wise considering he was still immortal?
Rom had to keep his mind on the bigger goal. Mortality. If he didn’t have that, they didn’t have a chance.
“Rom?” Jule shifted next to him. “We, ah, didn’t use protection.”
Was that fear in her voice?
“Don’t worry. I can’t have kids.”
She didn’t look convinced. “How do you know?”
Well, didn’t that put him in a fix? Now he was going to have to talk about the sex he’d had with other women as well? Not something he really wanted to do.
“Trust me.”
For now, he wanted to hold her, make love to her. He looked directly into her eyes when he spoke, driving his point home.
“I’m here as long as you want me and probably then some. I don’t have all the answers, but I’ve been hoping, am hoping, you’ll help me find them.”
Jule took his hand and led him back under the blankets.
Chapter Eighteen
“The Art Institute—of course it wasn’t called that then—was the only building at the end of an empty dirt street. But it was beautiful in a stark, unsettling way. Alone. Standing testament to Chicago’s entry into the art world.”
Jule laid with her head on his chest, listening to the rumble of his voice as it drew upward and out his mouth. Their legs were comfortably intertwined and her hands lazily stroked his belly and occasionally slightly further south.
She was blissfully happy, as long as she didn’t think about the rest of the world, the paintings, her parents, Pio, and an uncertain future with Rom. But she knew sooner or later she’d have to.
For now, she was drifting.
“I’ve seen photographs of it back then. It must have been amazing.”
“For Chicago, it was a big deal.”
“But you’ve seen bigger things, right?” she said, turning her head to see him.
His eyes clouded with what she supposed were memories. Memories she didn’t and wouldn’t have, couldn’t share with this man.
“I’d like to know something about your history. Tell me one thing. And don’t say it’s not important.”
He reached for her, pulling her head up so he could kiss her. Jule closed her eyes and felt herself giving in, which she guessed was what he wanted. She pulled back and sat up.
“The American Revolution. Were you here for that?”
“Yes. And you Yanks won.” He smiled, reaching for her again. Jule stayed out of reach and kept talking.
“We won. But which side did you fight on?”
“Neither. I fought with the Native Americans.”
She hadn’t expected that. “Against the British?”
His hand rested on her naked criss-crossed legs, perilously close to the juncture of her thighs, but he behaved. “Against the British, against the Colonists. Against the French. Against anyone who exploited them for greed and gain. They were just trying to survive in a world turned upside down. Hang on to their way of life in the face of conquest, disease, and displacement. In the end nothing I did made a difference.”
“But you tried,” Jule said.
“It didn’t matter.” He shook his head. “In the end, they decided I was as evil as the invaders.”
“Why?”
“Because I never died.”
Jule looked into his eyes, knowing he’d fought to champion an underdog. Despite the futility, he’d been elbow deep in blood, tragedy, and death. How horrible it must have been.
“That wasn’t the first war you’ve fought in. Was it?”
“You know, this conversation is a real downer as far as the sex goes.” He tried to lighten the mood.
“How many?” She asked, dreading the answer.
“How many what?” He looked down at her breasts.
“How many wars have you fought in?”
He avoided her eyes and instead ran a finger under one breast. “All of them.”
Holy crap.
Jule didn’t know what to say. She didn’t even know if she could process the information. So she did the only thing she could think of.
“Kiss me.”
And he did.
A couple of hours later with a fully sated body, Jule’s restless mind latched onto a question that had bothered her for days.
“If you’re immortal, Rom, what kind of future do long term relationships have?”
If she’d been a few inches away, she wouldn’t have felt the almost imperceptible tension in his body. But as it was, she was wrapped in his embrace enjoying the heat of his body covering hers.
Her question hit home.
And Jule knew the answer without him speaking a word.
“Up to this point, none.”
“So something has changed?”
Rom relaxed his arms and pulled up to gaze down at Jule on her back. “You could say that.”
“Well, I did. But tell me what you think.”
Rom chuckled and Jule closed her eyes at the feel of his vibrating chest against her sensitive breasts. She was sooo ready to go again, but first, she wanted the answer to this question.
If he needed to let her down, she wanted it now, before she completely lost her body and soul to him.
Crap. Who was she kidding? Jule was already in very serious trouble with Rom Montgomery.
“I think there is a way to reverse Lawrence’s gift of immortality.”
Had she heard him right? She looked deep into his swirling night sky eyes. “You can be mortal again?”
“Yes.”
He hesitated.
“What’s the catch?�
�� She wanted to smooth the hair back from his forehead and cradle his head to her breast.
“I think it will only work if we’re both there to walk through history again.” He smiled sadly and kissed her nose.
“I’m not following,” Jule said.
“Me, either. But it’s something Lawrence said that last time before I left.” Rom’s gaze turned inward and Jule felt him move back through the centuries.
“History will repeat itself, but provide me a way to make it right. For years, I didn’t know what that meant, but now that I’ve found you, I suspect we have to go back to the beginning.”
“And where is that?” Jule asked.
“The tomb.”
Rom glanced at Juliet’s dagger lying sheathed on the dresser.
Something clicked in her head and Jule knew. “That’s why you carry the dagger? Waiting for the moment when history repeats itself? What do you plan to do with it?”
His eyes met hers and Jule felt herself swimming in a sea of warm emotions. Love. Joy. And pain.
“It’s what tripped us up last time. I gave it to Juliet to protect herself if need be. I didn’t know she would take her own life. It was my fault.”
“Shhh.” Jule covered his lips with her fingertips. “You didn’t kill her. It was a tragic mistake.” But she knew her words didn’t sink through his grief. She wasn’t that Juliet.
Now Jule pulled him down and stroked his head. He let her and wrapped his arms around her waist, drawing her close.
She guessed his admission cost even more than she realized. He’d carried it for centuries, this thing he considered a personal failure. Punishing himself with no end in sight.
Jule wondered if he’d ever be able to get over the past. Even if he regained his mortality. Would it be enough?
…
Her cell phone rang as she packed her meager belongings for the trip back into Verona. Rom didn’t know she’d be going this time, but he’d find out soon enough. She wasn’t sitting around this vacation dream spot another hour while he was off doing God knows what.
“Jule Casale,” she answered.
“Jule, goodness it’s good to hear your voice,” said the voice on the other end.
Forbidden Kiss Page 14
