by Nancy Brophy
She backed until he’d cornered her with a wall to her left and a lab table behind her. “Cooties aren’t my main concern.” She tried to scoot to the right, but he slapped his hand on the hard surface to block her only escape route.
“What’s your main concern?” His other hand cupped her jaw, holding her head in place. The jumping pulse beating in her neck and the increased rise and fall of her breasts held him spellbound. For the first time since he’d known her, she was wearing a bra. But even a bra couldn’t hide the hard arousal of her nipples.
He crossed a line he’d sworn to maintain. But when he stroked her lower lip with his thumb she obediently parted her lips. Whatever semblance of intelligence his mind possessed drained along with all of his blood to his groin. He could fight his own arousal, but he lacked the strength to battle hers as well.
He moved instinctively, pinning her even closer to the stainless steel table. His body pressed into hers, and he stifled a groan as hard muscle melded to soft flesh.
“Why’d you kiss me?” The delicious husky tone in her voice inflamed him.
“Didn’t,” he whispered, leaning closer to her ear, watching her eyebrows narrow into a puzzled expression. “That little peck hardly qualified as a kiss. If I’d kissed you, really kissed you, it wouldn’t stop there.”
Her scent spiked, filling the room with a sultry aroma. Just a taste. He needed to lick her skin and bury his face between her legs. She wasn’t his to take. And while she wasn’t in full control right now, eventually, she’d remember he was gaje and tainted with the marimé of an outsider. Still, he pressed against her, shifting his position to stimulate her breasts.
Instead of coming to her senses, a moan escaped her lips. While his mind told him to back away, his body responded. Bending his knees, he rubbed against the length of her as he reached under her skirt, clasped her bare thighs and carried her upward. The height difference between them vanished and suddenly everything was aligned in place - the world and their bodies in perfect harmony.
Stop now. Any further and he wouldn’t be able to stop. He opened his mouth searching for the words to beg for help when she wrapped one arm around his neck and drug his lips to hers.
It was heaven.
It was hell.
The dam inside him burst and his world, his own needs swamped him. Before his mind could form a coherent plan, he had her sprawled across the table with her legs in the air.
He grabbed her panties and twisted, the elastic gave and he held the destroyed white cotton in his hand. Her black eyes flashed and her body squirmed. Not away from him – closer.
Maybe if her eyelids hadn’t floated down, allowing her long dark lashes to rest against her cheeks or if her lips hadn’t opened in an enticing invitation, he could have pulled back. Had she not moaned when he touched her - sweet, hot and willing.
She proved irresistible.
The pounding in his ears matched the rhythm of his body. Surging into her tight passage, he took what he desperately needed. The bite of her nails as she clutched his ass was the final impetus to thrust him into the void.
She spoke, maybe even yelled, but he couldn’t hear the words. Perhaps it was moans or encouragement or it could have easily been refusal or a demand he stop. His demons reigned. His life, so tightly controlled, now unwound with a faster-than-light speed. Everything hung in the balance.
For the first time since his sister’s death he felt each breath he drew into his lungs. His rusted heart filled with blood. Like Frankenstein monster, someone inside his brain screamed, “You’re alive.”
Czigany Romney had done this.
He hadn’t known he’d been dead, but she’d brought him back to life. Whatever joy he expected was choked out by clawing fear twisted with anger. Dead had its advantages. It was comfortable. Safe. He knew dead. Now he became aware of exactly what he’d missed.
Beyond rational, he rode her, pumping into her with a righteous fury while growling at the sky. Her body, molded to his, countered each move driving him harder.
On and on he pushed, until every ounce of the poison of his incarceration gathered, waiting for the final explosion. With one last freeing breath, he let go. Stars flashed behind his eyelids before he descended into blackness.
Chapter Thirty
Tears welled in Cezi’s eyes. Furiously, she blinked them back knowing any quick movement of her hands would alert him to her distress.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Her tears meant nothing. She didn’t love him. It was just sex. So, why would sex make her cry? Still the tears seeped out of her eyes and trickled down her cheeks, dampening her hair and skin.
She lay spent across the hard, metal surface, concentrating on breathing. The in-and-out thing was fairly simple, although she seemed to have forgotten the mechanics for the past several minutes.
His weight was comforting and maybe something else… protective? Even though he didn’t mean anything by it, the illusion he cared lingered. Tomorrow would prove that fantasy false. Her sexual history now consisted of three one-night stands.
She couldn’t afford a real relationship. Not one that meant love, commitment and possibly children. And she’d sworn everyday since her ninth birthday she would not leave a motherless child behind. Both her mother and grandmother had died before the age of thirty-five. Maybe she’d outlive them, but history wasn’t on her side. And while her cards and palms never indicated death, they also failed to predict a long life. She squeezed her eyes against the new tide of tears that thought produced.
Surreptitiously, she freed an arm to dab at her wet cheeks. He groaned. She panicked, relaxing only slightly when he didn’t rouse.
The sex had been…, well there really weren’t words to describe it. Fantastic? Incredible?
On the plus side, she could only be thankful the building was empty, because she was pretty sure she’d screamed the house down. And how would she explain that to her father and uncle? But the amazing thing was that it simply hadn’t occurred to her that the pleasant feelings she’d always associated with sex were merely mirage expressions of a mind-blowing orgasm.
One day maybe she’d meet a man who wanted to have sex in a bedroom. A revolutionary idea.
John stirred on top of her, lifting his body, taking his heat with him. She steeled her expression to avoid showing him regret or possibly another emotion he wouldn’t want to see. He probably wished he was out of here and that it had never happened.
John blinked and shook his head as though trying to clear it. She waited, forcing each breath between her teeth. Finally, he seemed to notice her, pinned beneath his hips
“You okay?” the words rumbled from his throat as his thumb gently stroked her cheek.
She nodded her head unable to form any words. Their eyes met and held for several seconds. He opened his mouth to speak.
“Please don’t say you’re sorry,” she said. “Or that this was a mistake. Even if that’s what you think, I don’t want to hear it.”
He closed his lips. Unable to stand the silence, she chattered on. “It was what it was. Fortunately, no one was here. No one needs to know. No harm. No foul. You can go back to DC without worrying.”
The slow grin that crept across John’s face lightened Cezi’s heart. Apparently she’d said the words he needed to hear.
“You’re wrong,” he whispered. The gruff voice coupled with his sly smile jump-started the butterflies in her stomach.
A shiver she couldn’t suppress ran from her head to her toes. A hoarse laugh tumbled out of his mouth as he bent forward and covered her lips with his. Not a fast peck or a let’s-get-on-with-our-day kind of kiss, but a slow, lingering are-you-ready-for-part-two question. And like before, her brains liquefied at his touch and her body seized control.
Before she’d managed to hang on for the ride, but now he gentled his movements. Each long, deep slide into her body was leisurely, shifting from a harrowing break-neck race through southern Hell to a gondola ride down a lazy river.
His grip on her hips tightened. Cezi swallowed and clung to his forearms. She’d been fooled by the eye of the storm. John Stillwater didn’t do leisurely or gentle. And the funny thing was, she didn’t want slow and gingerly either. She wanted the real Stillwater, not the superficial mask of polite society. She wanted the man capable of walking away from a black op with a scarred face, not the one who donned a suit and tie for some unheard of Federal agency.
If she was going to fall in love with someone inappropriate, she might as well fall for the whole package. Screaming she called his name as she rode the lightening with him.
*
“Don’t move,” he said, several minutes later, as he rose from her body, pulled up his pants and disappeared out the door.
Don’t move? Like that was possible. She jumped off the table. Her knees threatened to buckle and her hand reached for the table to secure her balance. For a moment she was lightheaded, but that feeling was replaced with mortification when her saw the remains of her panties on the floor.
“What are you doing?” His tone was so demanding, she looked up. “Here.” He reached for her, clasping her waist and settling her back on the table. Not sure exactly what he expected, she held her tongue until he pushed her backwards and tossed up her skirt a second time.
“Wait.”
“Shhh, let me do this.” Gently he pressed a hot washcloth between her legs. Which might have been charming, stretching into almost romantic, except it was daylight and he could see everything. She squeezed her eyes closed.
His heavy hand rested between her breasts, keeping her pinned to the table. From across the room the phone rang, an actual ring, not a song or a series of tones. An old-fashioned ring. “Ignore it.” Stillwater told her, totally engrossed in completing his task.
“I can’t. That’s the private line. I have to take it.”
Instead of helping her rise, he hopped across the room tugging on his pants, which had mysteriously made their way back down his hips. He grabbed the phone and handed it to her.
“Hello,” Cezi said, hoping she didn’t sound as breathless as she felt.
A pause. “Is everything okay?” her father asked. Of course he would see though any ruse she attempted.
“Yeah. I hurried to grab the phone.”
John’s fingers wiggled beneath her skirt and she struggled to sit upright, pushing his arm away.
“Are you alone?”
“No.” She glanced at Stillwater’s retreating back as he headed out the door. Back to the bathroom she surmised.
The edge to her father’s voice caught her attention. “We’ve got problems. The other families are demanding a Kris.”
“What? When? Why?” She heard her father make a chuckling noise, which was improvement on the weariness she’d caught earlier.
“First Rolf. Then the Feds. The families fear marimé. Tonight at midnight. You were named.”
Of course, she was named. Who else could be blamed for this mess? A Kris was serious. Not in terms of the outside world. They would never understand how fearful the homegrown justice system could be. After all, the worse thing the Elders could do was banish her. A gypsy without a home or a clan was a boat without a rudder. Banishment was the ultimate punishment.
But her worse fear, the one that ate at her insides and ruined the happy afterglow, was that her behavior would shame her father. He would suffer her fate even though he would still be of the community.
And if banished what would she do? Where would she go?
How many times had she longed to break the chains of family? To be a little more free. But if she were banished, none of her family could acknowledge her. She would be alone.
# # #
John wasn’t exactly sure what had happened between the phone call and the time he’d returned from rinsing out the washcloth, but Cezi now sat next to him in the jeep chewing her nails.
All he’d discovered was that the sanctioning body was calling Cezi on the carpet and for some reason, he – the Indian who was supposed to save her – was part of the problem, not part of the solution. But judging by her demeanor she didn’t see this as a hand slapping.
“Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on.”
The silence continued. As they approached the Swallowtail Hollow gate, she regained enough animation to punch the overhead button on the remote. Nothing happened. He wasn’t sure if she was impatient or infuriated, but if jamming the button would have helped she had that handled.
He covered her hand to prevent her fifty-first request. “Let me go see.” Before he could get his seatbelt unfastened, the gate opened about eighteen inches. A man he’d never seen before stepped out, an Uzi in his hand and a forbidding look on his face.
He studied the car for several minutes longer than necessary. Obviously part of the program to make Cezi feel chastised. A lesser mortal might have submitted, but defiance flashed in her eyes. Those guys should have known she wasn’t going to be easy.
The gate finally moved, cranking open far enough to admit the vehicle. She snarled and bared her teeth as the car rolled by three men lounging against a decorative fence. None looked even slightly disturbed by her annoyance.
“Do you know them?”
“Of course, I know them. This isn’t a Godfather movie. We haven’t gone to the mattresses and brought in a bunch of unknown faces to guard the homestead.”
Her tone was harsh as her feelings bubbled to the surface.
“But if it were the movie, which character would you be?” He teased her to change the mood. “The feisty sister?”
“Give me a break.” She grinned for the first time in hours. Those deep dimples changed the shape of her face. She tossed her head with a flourish. “I’d be the slutty bridesmaid.”
Briefly John pictured himself as Sonny Corleone banging her against the door. Yeah, it’d be a fantasy he’d be willing to play out.
Chapter Thirty-One
Cezi stepped out her front door and stared up at the night sky. Her world had collapsed. Yet the earth continued solidly on. Like a single star that flickered and blinked out of existence, she wouldn’t be missed. Only the half-saucer of a moon would notice.
She stuck to the path, moving sluggishly, each step laborious. Her father had offered to come for her, but she’d refused. Knowing the family stood behind her was sufficient. Tonight’s trek was solitary.
Her skin prickled. Goose bumps rose on her arms. She sniffed the air, feeling a ripple of change.
“Let me come with you,” John’s rough voice rumbled out of the cluster of trees just off the path.
“You can’t.” She searched for a reason but couldn’t come up with one that would explain her actions to a gaje.
“They’re putting you on trial for something that’s not your fault.” The strain in his voice as he struggled not to show outrage touched her.
“It’s our way.”
“Your way or not, it’s wrong.”
“Everyone’s afraid.” She racked her brain, struggling for an explanation that wouldn’t condemn her family in his eyes. “Our history with law enforcement has not been an easy. For hundreds of years we’ve been at odds. Your presence is a perceived threat, but one they could ignore if it hadn’t been for Rolf’s near death last night.”
He stepped out of the shadows onto the path, but Cezi held up a hand to stop him. “Please, believe me, I have to do this – alone.”
A heavy sigh reached her, but even in the scant light she could see him shaking his head. She hated that he worried about her. Couldn’t he see his help would ruin her?
Leaving him standing at the edge of the trees, she trudged on alone until she reached the blue clapboard building tucked into the trees.
“Be with me,” she whispered to the sky, hoping her mother heard.
The Council Chamber was one large room with an elevated dais. All the Elders, minus her father, were seated when she entered from the side door. Nicholae stood in the middle behind a solitary chair and g
estured for her to join him.
Walking tall, she refused to scan the crowded room in an attempt to read faces. Believe in the cards. Believe in the cards.
The pride in her father’s eyes gave her strength. As a Romney she was a direct descendant of the oldest line of Gypsies. Her great-grandfather, seated in the middle of the dais, was the bandolier. Family stood together.
In the hurried moments prior to the Kris, she’d done a reading. The cards never lied, but discerning the true meaning wasn’t always easy. Like tonight, her cards, pulsing with energy, promised a favorable outcome - with a caveat – the ending wouldn’t be the one she expected. That gave her a moment or two of hesitation. Unlike the older women who’d lived through terrible times in foreign countries, she’d adapted the new-age American philosophy. Everything worked for the best.
Poppy pounded the gavel. The room quieted. “Czigany Romney, step forward.”
To show her humility, she slid her feet out of her slip-on sandals and walked barefoot to the front and center of the room. Every eye followed her progress as she lowered her chin and sank to her knees, folding her hands in front of her.
“Do you agree to follow the decision of the Elders?”
“I do.”
“Theron Davenport. Step forward.”
The instigator of the Kris was Theron? Cezi forced herself to remain still, fighting her natural instinct to leap to her feet and flay him with words. He’d been raised with her cousins. Seeing his face around the dinner table along with all the other kids had been normal. To have him turn on her now drove the knife deeper than she could have imagined.
Her hands were clenched tightly together, both in anger and shame. His shoes stopped beside her. Leather loafers polished to a high shine and brown slacks. Theron ran a construction company. Rarely was he seen in anything but jeans and scruffy work boots.
