“They loved you,” Roman said.
Angie grinned. “I loved them. I had a really good time. God, I needed this night.”
Angie made a face when he suddenly pulled back, moving to the dresser and continuing to light the candles. She sat up in the middle of the mattress, watching him.
“Come over here,” she demanded, before holding a hand up. “Wait, no, I’m sorry…” She plopped onto her butt and got to work kicking off her wedges. “Get naked, and then come over here.”
He finished lighting the last of the candles and turned back to the bed, just watching her. After a few more moments, he unbuttoned his plaid shirt with one hand, so slowly. Once it was undone, he pushed it off, letting it fall from his body and pool to the floor. He watched her eyes roam his body several times before he undid his belt, and the button and zipper of his pants. They joined his shirt on the floor. Tucking his fingers into the waistband of his boxers, he pushed them down, just enough to show the beginning dustings of hair.
Then he froze.
Angie jolted, and her eyes rose to his, disturbed that he’d suddenly stopped the show.
He removed his hands from the waistband of his boxers, nodding to her.
“Take off your clothes,” he ordered.
Biting her lip, Angie slowly came up to her knees in the middle of the bed. Holding his gaze, she took the bottom of her crop top, hesitated, and then pulled it up over her head. Her curly hair was still wet from the pool, and it slapped her breasts audibly once she’d gotten the shirt over her head. The small, taut peaks came into view, nipples hard as pebbles, glowing softly under the candlelight.
Roman held his breath, and then swallowed thickly. “The shorts.”
Angie teased him in much the same way he’d just teased her, undoing her shorts and tucking her fingers into the waistband, pushing them down just enough to give him a peek of her trimmed pussy lips. She stopped short, taking her hands out of the waistband and running them up her body. Her fingers trickled up her flat stomach, over the bottom of her breasts, lingering over both of them before pinching the nipples between her fingers. Her eyes fluttered shut as her fingers probed the sensitive nubs, opening only when she released them and travelled up her chest, along her neck, and into her hair. She pushed it back, away from her face, giving him a perfect view of the desire in her green eyes. They sparkled under the candlelight, dancing with as much passion as she had earlier that night.
Finally, her hands travelled back down to her shorts, and she tucked her fingers back into the waistband. This time, she didn’t tease him, pushing them all the way down her legs. Holding his eyes, she fell back onto her bottom and pulled the shorts off her legs, tossing them away. Still holding his gaze, she leaned back on both arms, and gripped the comforter in a ball in each hand as she spread her legs wide, toes pointed as she showed herself to him.
Roman came undone, but he managed to disguise it even as his chest heaved wildly.
“Touch yourself,” he said.
Angie brought her fingers to her lips, letting them disappear inside her mouth. After swirling her tongue around her fingers, she pulled them out with a plop. She made sure those glistening fingers didn’t touch her skin as she ran her hand back down her body, stopping only when she reached her pussy. She spread her lips for him with her pinky and pointer finger, allowing the wet fingers in the middle to slip into her heat. Looking into his eyes already had her soaking wet, and the fire behind them had her fingers sliding in with ease.
Naturally, her knees rose in response to the pleasure, and her stomach extended as she began working her fingers in and out slowly, losing control of any part of her body that didn’t involve her busy fingers.
“Look at me,” he demanded, when her eyes fluttered closed. He waited for her eyes to meet his. “Curl your fingers. Find that spot I showed you.”
Angie was already there, she could feel the tip of her nails brushing against her G-Spot, and her hips were now rocking in time with her fingers, wanting more, but so unable to get it. Her fingers weren’t as long as his. Her eyes fell instinctively to his hand, wishing they were inside her instead.
She gasped when her eyes fell to his hand and found those thick fingers stroking his dick, a long string of precum leading a path all the way to the floor.
Her eyes rose back to his. She’d been so entranced by his eyes, his face, him, that she hadn’t even realized he’d been touching himself, too. “I want your fingers in me. I want you to touch me, Roman.”
“No. Finish. Just the way I taught you.”
She much preferred it be him to tend to her pounding center--with his fingers, his dick, his tongue—didn’t matter, but she was now so blinded by need she would do anything to finish. Even if she had to do it, herself. She took her fingers from inside her warm walls and wet them with her tongue again, staring down at her pussy as they disappeared inside once more. She covered her clit with her free hand and began a frantic swirl.
“Oh god,” she cried, feeling that feeling. That feeling she didn’t even know she was capable of until the day she’d met this beautiful man. Her eyes met his just as she came, lips parted, eyebrows tight, bones trembling as she hit that peak. “Roman.”
He waited until she was cumming, until her body was so wracked with shudders she couldn’t even scream. Her mouth hung open as she assaulted herself, but not a single noise escaped.
“You’re so sexy, Mama.”
Angie’s eyes opened as the last of her orgasm faded, but she continued to circle her clit, more gently now, since the bud had grown sensitive to the touch, looking for more. She wasn’t ready for it to be over.
When she looked at Roman, then back down to the hands that still pumped his dick, she swallowed back the moisture that had pooled in her mouth. The sounds he was making were sounds she recognized well. It was the pants, cries, and moans he made when he was on the verge of explosion.
Crawling to the edge of the bed, she spread her lips for him.
He didn’t hesitate a moment at the invitation, frowning in ecstasy as he went to her, still stroking himself as he pushed the head into her open mouth, giving her as much of him as she could take just as he exploded, firing shot after shot into the back of her throat.
She replaced his hand with hers, pumping him in time with the warmth hitting her throat, swallowing every drop with ease until his fingers curled into her hair and he pulled her back.
“Mmm.” Releasing him from her lips with a plop, Angie tried to look up at him, squealing when he took her arms before she could, flipping her and putting her on her stomach in the middle of the bed.
“Rome--” She couldn’t speak another word when she felt him spreading her ass cheeks from behind, burying his lips and tongue into the crevice, working overtime to get her second entry as wet and ready as she’d gotten the first. He moaned as he ate, giving it all of his attention as he pushed his tongue inside. Reaching up, he cupped one breast in his hand and pinched the nipple hard.
Angie screamed, pushing her parted lips into the pillow before she woke the whole house. She was nearly unable to handle this new feeling. Though it wasn’t the first time Roman had explored it, it was the first time he’d explored it with clear intent.
She had no plans to stop him.
The filthy sound of his lapping bounced off of the walls, along with his eagerness, his vigor.
She wanted it to go on all night.
For a moment, she felt like it would.
Soon, however, he’d removed his mouth from her, having saturated it with the mixture of their juices. He covered her body with his, every inch. He was hard, again, and he pressed the head into her entry. The only entry tighter than her pussy.
The head sank in, and it felt so good he nearly ripped the sheets off the bed. She panted below him, turning her head in the pillow with her eyes jammed shut.
“Are you okay?” he asked, stopping.
She swallowed thickly, eyes jammed shut, but still nodded.
/> “Go slow,” she whispered.
He was undone. It was so tight, so incredible, that he knew he wouldn’t last long, at all. So he pushed in slow, as far as he could go. He was only able to get a few inches of his dick inside, but it was enough to send him crying out into her shoulder, unable to fathom the enormous pleasure.
“You’re mine,” he gasped into her ear. “Say it.”
“Yours,” she cried, tear filled eyes popping open as the pain slowly ebbed in another direction. Nerves she didn’t even know she had suddenly crackled to life, and spread all along her center, bringing new life to it for the second time that night. She ripped the fitted sheet from the edge of the mattress, in awe at the feeling.
Roman slapped his hands on top of hers, entwining their fingers as he pulled out slowly, so slowly. He pushed back in, and lost all control. He only made it three strokes before he was spilling inside her once more, his breath warming the crease of her neck as he finished, clutching her fingers in his as his hips bucked one last time, giving her all he had to give.
He collapsed against her back with a gasp. They lay together for so long that their breathing felt like it had become one. When Roman finally pulled out, he did so slowly, listening to her hushed whimpers, holding her hips lovingly, doing everything he could not to hurt her until his dick finally popped out. The tight bud released him with a plop, and he couldn’t help bending down and kissing the bud once more, pulling back just in time to see his cum seeping out of her.
He spread her cheeks open, in awe at the sight, placing feather soft kisses along the globes of her ass. Breathing finally slowing, he dipped his fingers into the mixture their juices made, spreading it along her beautiful canal, sure he’d never see a sight so breathtaking again for as long as he lived.
“I love you, Roman.”
She whispered the words so softly, he barely heard them.
But he heard them.
He came up next to her, where she still lay on her stomach, wrapped his arm around her waist, and pulled her body to his. She turned and curled into him, tucking her cheek into his chest, looking away.
She couldn’t look at him, because she knew he wasn’t going to respond.
Angie jammed her eyes shut, pushing her knuckles into her mouth as he pressed soft kisses to the top of her head. Her entire body throbbed, hummed like an instrument. It terrified her that the one man in the world with the power to make music with her body couldn’t tell her he loved her, too.
It terrified her even more that she’d set herself up for this. She had no one to blame but herself for the pain that was now roaring through her heart.
He’d told her what this arrangement was, on more than one occasion.
Only now was it beginning to hit her that she’d set herself up for her own tragic demise. Not a literal demise, but an emotional one. Even as the silence charged on, she couldn’t wrap her head around the fact that he didn’t feel the same way. How could someone who brought her alive the way he did, not feel the same way? How could something so undeniable in its power, be a one-way street?
Her heart wouldn’t accept it.
“I think you’re afraid of me,” she said, when the silence in the room had stretched on for what seemed like decades. “You’re afraid I’ll hurt you. Like they did.”
He didn’t respond, and she wondered if he was asleep.
Then, he inhaled audibly, confirming that he was awake. He breathed in so strong, so deep, that it sent her entire head, which was currently cradled against his chest, into the air.
She sat up and met his gaze, curls tumbling into her eyes in the candlelight. “I’m afraid, too, Roman. In fact, I’ve spent the last ten years of my life being afraid of you. Afraid of how you make me feel, afraid of your amazing capacity to hurt me. You could. You could destroy me, if you wanted to. Easily. And I don’t mean physically.”
He knew what she meant. He may have been five times her size, but sometimes she made him feel about two inches tall, like she could crush him in her tiny hand if she decided to.
“I want to give us a real shot,” she whispered, jamming her eyes shut when he reached up and cupped her cheek. “Even though you scare me to death.”
“Ang, if I could give you everything, I would.” He took a deep breath. “I’m just not capable. Not anymore.”
“Why not?”
“I’m just so…” He trailed off, unable to find the appropriate words to illustrate what he felt. “I’m so fucking angry.”
“I know you are.”
“It feels like it’s eating me alive sometimes. Rotting me from inside out. Like anyone who gets within an inch of me is bound to get infected with it, too.”
“You’re talking like you’re contagious.”
“I am. I know I am, and you…” He pushed her curls away from her face while shaking his head softly. “You have this light. It follows you. You take it with you wherever you go. If I get too close, I’ll put it out. All this anger that’s rotting me from inside out, will steal every beam of light shooting out of you, and that’s not okay with me.”
“Well… when I look at you, I don’t see rot, I see light. You might not see it, but I do.” Angie tightened her lips. She knew a cop out when she heard it, and this felt just like one.
Roman watched her face change, and hated that he was hurting her. He knew he was, but the little pangs he was hitting her with right now were nothing compared to the bulldozers he’d send flying her way if they actually allowed themselves to begin a relationship. There was no way it would go anyplace good. He would hurt her deeply. He knew it. And he refused.
“Angie… I’ll never make you a promise I can’t keep. I’ll never lie to you. I’ll never hurt you. But I can’t be your boyfriend.”
Angie almost laughed. He’d just promised he’d never hurt her, and then ripped her heart out in the same breath. The logical side of her brain screamed for her to run. Run for her life, before it was too late.
She tried to use humor to hide the deep hurt she felt. “I don’t know, you seemed pretty jealous when you saw me dancing out there tonight. Maybe that was your subconscious speaking to you.”
“I wasn’t jealous.”
“Really? So if I’d gone upstairs with some guy tonight, taken off all my clothes, and used all the tricks you’ve taught me these last few months to fuck him senseless… you wouldn’t be jealous?” Of course she’d never do any of those things, and this conversation had quickly taken a turn for the ridiculous, but she couldn’t stop herself.
He opened his mouth to answer, but some voice in his head—a voice that was apparently much smarter than its idiot host—made him slam it shut before he could speak.
His silence was the worst response imaginable. Worse than even if he’d just said no. It was way worse.
Angie found herself sitting up when a feeling so terrifying zipped through her--with such vigor--it literally straightened her spine. Kicking her legs over the side of the bed, she grabbed her shorts and set to work pulling them on.
Roman pushed up on his elbow, jamming his eyes shut when he realized what was happening. “Oh come on, Mama, you’re getting dressed?”
“Yes,” Angie said, hopping out of the bed and swiping up her shirt.
“You don’t have to leave.”
“Yes I do,” she said, pulling her shirt over her head frantically. “That’s what booty calls do. They don’t lie around in your arms. They don’t stay the night. They fuck, and then bounce.” With every word she said, she was awoken to how unbearable this situation had become. Roman got to fuck her, hold her, be comforted by her presence, have a warm body to cling to at night, but he didn’t have to call her his girlfriend. He could drop her like a bad habit whenever he pleased. Trade her in for a prettier, newer model whenever the mood struck him.
And she wouldn’t have a single card to play. She would be crushed beyond repair.
Roman climbed out of the bed just as she stepped into her wedges.
“
Whoa, wait a second.” He put his body between her and the door, holding his arms out with a strained laugh. “Come on now. I don’t want you to go.”
“Contrary to what I’ve allowed you to believe for all these months, Roman, this isn’t just about what you want.” She swallowed. “Maybe I want a few things, too.”
“Fine. Tell me. What do you want?”
Her eyes searched his. “Exclusivity.”
He immediately looked off.
Her voice rose. “No other guys. No other girls. Just you and me.” She motioned between them. “What we have with each other… I don’t want to share that with anyone else.” Her breathing hitched. “I’m in love with you, Roman.”
His eyes flew to hers, and softened.
Angie’s heart split in two when, once again, he didn’t say the words back. “And if you don’t feel the same way about me… then this whole thing needs to end. Tonight. Right now.” She was embarrassed by the tears in her eyes.
“I don’t want that. I don’t want this to end.”
She swallowed heavily. “But you also don’t want me.”
“Of course I want you. I want all of you.”
“You want all of me in the bedroom. But not on the street, right?”
“This is ridiculous, Angie. I’m here with you, aren’t I? Did you not just spend the entire night with all my friends? With my brothers? I’m not seeing anyone else but you. Why can’t that be enough?”
“Because that could change in an instant. When will it be? Tomorrow? A week from now? Two weeks? I could be pushing fifty before you finally find the balls to tell me the truth. That I’m simply not good enough to be your girlfriend. Not in your eyes.”
His eyes shrunk. “Angie,” he reproached.
But he didn’t deny her words.
“I want more than that,” she said. “I deserve more.”
“ I told you from the very beginning what this was about.”
Claiming Roman Page 21
