“Don’t bend your arms. Not even a little bit. Or I’ll overpower you. Now, using the pressure of my weight, push your body out from under me…” He waited for her hips to push back, until her knees were visible. “Good, now press your foot into my chest, and kick me away.”
Angie did everything he said, smiling softly as he went tumbling back at her kick.
“I can’t believe it’s that easy.”
But something in his eyes had changed. “Again.”
She lay back without a word, gasping as he came between her legs once more, this time pressing his hardness into her with much more urgency. “It doesn’t always have to be in the chest. You can aim the kick at my face, my legs, my groin. Whatever you have to do to disarm me.”
She grinded her hips against his, purring gently as she felt her juices swirling to life at her pumping center.
“I want you safe, baby.” His eyes jammed shut the moment the admission left his lips. They moved against each other, and he took her thighs in his hands suddenly, pressing them into her stomach, leaving her mound perfectly visible from inside her own pants. “I need you safe.”
Her heart thundered from her chest to her throat, and she was speaking before she could stop herself. “I want you…”
He pulled back and met her eyes with a new intensity.
She accepted his sudden kiss, and attempted to push his sweats down between their roving hips.
Roman pressed a strong hold to each of her wrists, stopping her. His eyes said the words that his heart couldn’t.
She jammed her eyes shut as she read them loud and clear.
“I don’t care,” she responded to the fight in his eyes, bucking her hips. She watched as his eyebrows pulled together. “Just fuck me, Roman, please fuck me.”
He didn’t hesitate another moment. Without a word, he reached under her body, took the waistband of her pants, and pulled them down to her knees. He didn’t finish removing them, letting the fabric bunch at her knees as he pressed her thighs up into her belly. He looked down at the one thing that took precedence, her naked pussy, swelling up at him as he exposed it.
He fell onto his stomach, still holding her legs over her head, and buried his tongue inside her walls, finding her clit, her center, and all of her hot spots in record time, eating like a man left ravenous for weeks.
“Roman, fuck me,” she gasped, throwing her head back.
“I just need to taste it, baby.” He lapped and slurped at her pussy between his pleas. “There’s nothing in the world that tastes as good as you.”
“Oh god…”
He spread her open with his fingers before diving in for more, sending her spiraling towards the verge of release, stopping only long enough to pull her pants and panties off of her legs the rest of the way. He tossed them across the room and put her legs above her head, once more, meeting her eyes as he dove back in. Tongue fastened to her clit, he rotated his head, leaving her only long enough to whisper his hearts deepest desires before going back in.
With a perfect view of him eating her, Angie was finished. She trembled from head to toe, hardly able to scream as her orgasm hit her. Holding his face between her legs with a relentless grip of his hair, she was unable to tear her eyes from the sight of him patiently swallowing every drop of her cum, until every spasm had been expelled from her body.
He kissed up the back of each of her splayed thighs, slowly.
“I need you inside me,” she begged.
His eyes rose, met hers, and nearly froze. “Only if you swear you’ll never walk out on me like that, again,” he said, coming between her legs as he pushed his sweats down passed his throbbing dick and his ass, barely finding the will to kick them off.
“I swear.” She threw her head back when she felt his hardness spreading her open, slowly at first, and then fast as he gave one big thrust, filling her to the hilt. “This is all I want, Roman. You’re all I want.”
He jammed his eyes shut as her body swallowed him in. “You’re all I want.” His eyes opened. “We don’t have to call it anything. But this is what I want. You and me.”
Overwhelmed, she could only nod her agreement, and he pressed rampant kisses against her lips, slipping his tongue passed them in time as he gave in to a desperate thrust. Soon, he was out of control, pounding her until they were both screaming, their lovemaking enough to shatter the windows and crack the walls.
They fucked on the floor for the rest of the night, falling asleep in each other’s arms, just to wake up and start all over again. They lost count of the orgasms, the kisses, and the whispered promises.
Promises neither was sure they could keep.
***
Angie stirred awake in the middle of the night, immediately catching sight of the moon glowing in through the window. The weight of Roman’s arm curled into her from behind. Nearly every inch of him did. Lying naked together on his area rug with a dwindling, but determined, fire in the fireplace, with nothing but a light shawl spread across their lower bodies, Angie should have been freezing, but she wasn’t. It was the warmest she could ever remember being.
She looked over her shoulder to catch a peek at Roman’s sleeping face, shocked when she was met with his open eyes instead.
A coy smile split his lips, as if he’d been waiting for her to realize he’d been awake the whole time.
She pushed her fisted hand into her mouth, biting it gently as her eyes fell inevitably to the thin blanket that was barely covering his hardness. He ran a trail up the side of her body, sliding with a patient grace over every peak and valley with the tips of his fingers.
He was barely touching her, but those fingers were bringing life to nerve endings she didn’t even know she had.
“How long have you been laying here staring at me?”
“A while,” he answered. His smile grew, and with each stroke, he moved his fingers a little farther, a little deeper, until he was brushing the peak of her breast, then the delicate dip in her waist, the subtle curve of her hip, the trimmed patch of hair at her center. Up and down, back and forth, so slowly.
“I’m no longer in denial about your charming little habit of sneaking out on me in the middle of the night. I refuse to be snuck out on for the millionth time.”
“I have not snuck out on you a million times.”
“You have. And I have a curious suspicion it’s going to happen again.”
“So, what’s the plan? You’re just going to stay awake forever? Just to make sure I don’t creep out in the dead of night?”
She turned her body, plopping onto her stomach so she was lying facing him, smirking when he gave the opposite side of her body the same treatment, playing the tips of his fingers along it.
She couldn’t wrap her head around his gentle touch, and his even softer eyes. She’d never seen him quite like this before, and wondered if something was off with him, or if she was completely imagining it. She touched his chin, thinking about the events that had spiraled into them sleeping together.
“Mr. Fixit,” she whispered. He really was, such a fixer. She’d never known just how much until that night. “In your defense,” she continued. “I would have snuck out on you.”
He was shaking his head before she’d even finished her sentence. “I knew it. Why, Colt? Why? To do what?”
“To go to my office. See what I can scrounge up. Mourn the loss. After that I would go to my apartment and stare at the unanswered questions waiting for me on my laptop, waiting for them to answer themselves, even though I know they never will. Then, I’d have dinner with my mom at eight. So, basically, I was going to sneak out, and then proceed to do every torturous thing I could dream up.”
“Your mom is torturous?” he asked, laughing. “You don’t talk about her a lot.”
“No?” she asked. “Maybe because I was always more her mom, than her daughter. If my father hadn’t been there playing sidekick, I would have surely been the one raising her, and not the other way around.”
&n
bsp; “She’s young at heart.”
“Understatement of the century.”
He chuckled gently.
“She thinks she’s sixteen. She gave me my first drink. I was seven.”
Roman laughed out loud.
“She only wears dresses, she sleeps with a full face of makeup, and she has been married since she was seventeen. Of course, she’s been trying to project all of these things onto me from the moment I was born, and will no doubt continue the tradition when she sees me for dinner tonight. See, I’m her freak of nature daughter. Instead of nail polish and earrings, I had a spy kit and dirty Vans. She’s still pretty much in denial about it. I have dozens of dresses hanging in my closet that I will never wear. Ten bucks says she’ll give me a new one tonight.”
He caught a runaway curl between his fingers. “Your dad?”
Angie pulled her eyebrows together. “He’s a lot like you, actually. Strong silent type. Doesn’t mind disappearing into the background to let my teenage mother shine. His job let us live comfortably, but it keeps him away from home 300 days out of the year. 300 days a year, he abandoned me, left me alone with my crazy mother. I would cry non-stop every time he left us. I think that really started hurting her feelings after a while, but I couldn’t help it.”
“Daddy’s girl.”
“To the core.” She took a moment. “I’m being negative. I wouldn’t have even a fraction of the things I have today if it wasn’t for my mom. I may be single, and childless, and still rocking the Vans she hates with such a passion, but she always encouraged me to follow my dreams. Told me there was nothing in the world I couldn’t do. I wouldn’t be doing what I love right now if it weren’t for her, that’s for sure.”
“You gotta love them, right?”
“Their my fam. They’re it.”
“Thank you,” he suddenly whispered. “Thank you for forcing me to go to Zoey’s baby shower.”
This time she pushed up on her elbows, sure that something was off with him.
“Where did that come from?” she asked.
He didn’t answer the question, but his silence was still an answer, one she didn’t need explained.
Without a word, he took her thighs and rolled onto his back, taking her with him until she was straddling his hips.
Blanket falling away, Angie sighed at the feel of him between her legs, so hard she could easily get him in with a few cleverly timed swivels of her hips.
“How long have you been watching me?” she asked her question, again, with much more playfulness in her voice this time as she moved against his heat.
He held her eyes, running the beds of those fingers up and down her body once more, this time with a front row view.
“I need you safe,” he whispered.
Angie immediately cupped his cheeks when she saw moisture threatening his eyes. He fought it valiantly, but the moment her hands touched his face, he turned his eyes away, hiding them in her palms. As if talking himself out of it, however, he looked right back at her, gripping both of her wrists in his hands as his body somehow found itself moving inside of her without either of their guidance.
He looked into her eyes as he sank inside, and he stopped hiding.
***
Roman found himself teetering in the strange space between sleep and wakefulness sometime in the middle of the night, but he was afraid to open his eyes. At first, he didn’t know why.
Then it hit him.
He was afraid to open his eyes, and find Angie gone.
If she was gone tonight, he knew this time it would be for good. The thought left him sick. Paralyzed by fear. He could smell her shampoo, but that was no guarantee that she was there. On the nights she’d crept out of his place without a goodbye, he often could still smell her. Her sweet scent always lingered on his sheets, and in his psyche. He could smell her, but that didn’t mean she was there.
He wanted so badly for her to be there. Having her come to his door that night had been a horrible surprise--horrible, because it had opened his eyes. He could no longer deny what an idiot he’d been these past few months, and he had no idea how to reverse it. If he could go back in time and do it all differently, he would. He would have never let her walk out that door in the Hamptons, and he would have never dreamed of calling her a friend.
She was his friend, his best friend, but she was also his everything.
He hadn’t known it until he’d opened his door that night, and saw her standing on the other side of it.
Finally, he opened his eyes, found her sleeping face next to his, and jammed them back shut.
The relief that arrested him was terrifying.
It was confirmation.
He loved her.
He’d had an inkling it was true when she’d come to his door.
But she hadn’t snuck out, she was still here, lying next to him, and now it was plain as day. He was happy.
He loved her madly. The feeling that zoomed through him brought tears to his eyes. He scooted closer and pressed his wet eyes into the top of her curly head, hiding them there for a long while before pulling back and kissing the top of it.
This woman had opened his eyes. She’d been with him at his lowest, and remained with him during his struggle to claw his way back up.
She’d all but forced him back into his brother’s lives. His heart was clearer because of it. He knew he would soon have the strength to face his parents, to forgive them, and it would be because of her.
For that, he would love her for the rest of his life.
He wanted to wake her up, to tell her, to shout it from the rooftops.
But she looked so cute, fast asleep in his arms. It was a sight he rarely had the honor of seeing.
He had all the time in the world to tell her how he felt. To tell her she’d been right all along. To regale her with realizations of what an idiot he’d been to have almost allowed her to walk out of his life. He had all the time in the world to tell her that she’d been right all along when she’d said she wasn’t worthy of him.
She was too damn good for him.
He wasn’t worthy of her.
He could only pray she’d give him a chance to grow into a man who was.
***
Roman looked up from the kitchen island the next morning. His eyes came to life at the sight of Angie finally stirring awake from where she’d been wrapped up in a blanket on his living room carpet. The embers in the fireplace had burned out hours ago, long after the two of them had extinguished their own undeniable flame.
As Angie stumbled to her feet, holding the blanket around her naked body, the remnants of their lovemaking made itself plain as she trudged out of the living room, stumbling around the haphazard pieces of furniture that he’d thrown every which way the night before.
The blanket hung unevenly around her body, leaving a low dip in the corner that barely covered the peak of her breast. Thankfully, her long curls tumbled down low enough to cover it, or Roman wasn’t sure what he’d do to stop himself from throwing her across the kitchen island and taking her again.
“Good morning, sunshine.” He sipped a glass of orange juice as she came to a sluggish stop on the other side of the island. She looked at him, but didn’t speak. “Are you hurt?”
Her eyes danced between his for a moment longer. “I’m fine,” she croaked, covering her face with her hand.
“You’re limping.”
“Well, you were very enthusiastic last night.”
“Did I hurt you?”
“You didn’t.” She blushed down onto the counter. “You did, but it’s the good kind of hurt.” Roman had gone all the way in the night before, on more than one occasion, taking her breath away with the kind of passion she’d never experienced with him.
The truth was, the hurting Roman had put on her physically was child’s play in comparison to the war he’d waged on her mind. Angie found herself irrationally angry, again, aware that she wasn’t allowed to be. He’d been very clear with her. The
two of them were not in a relationship. He’d even tried to stop her the night before, but she’d refused to heed his warning. Now she was falling even deeper into a black hole of madness, one of her own devising--one that she was quickly beginning to realize had no end in sight. His capacity to hurt her was simply bottomless.
But she couldn’t stop. She not only loved him, but now loved the woman that he made her, far too much.
Even if he didn’t love her back.
“I tried to wait for you to wake up to have breakfast, but you slept in all morning.” He dropped a bag in front of her. “It’s cold now, but it’s your favorite.”
Angie pulled the bag apart, observing its contents. Yep. Egg salad croissant. Her favorite. He knew her.
“I didn’t have the heart to wake you. Your glasses were hanging sideways, all off your face.” He grinned. “I may, or may not have taken a picture…” His words faded when her gaze veered away from him, zeroing in on something over his shoulder. “What?” he asked, following her eyes to his fridge, where dozens of photos of his family and friends lived. When he looked back at her, she was making her way around the island, that sleepy pout still adorably present on her face. Still sipping his juice, he followed her as she moved with a zombie-like style to the fridge.
Watching her from behind, he itched to tell her.
I love you, Angie.
He touched one of her curls from behind, playing it between his fingers as his brain screamed orders his heart was still too terrified to follow.
It’s three simple words, you asshole. I love you. Tell her. Tell her now.
He was distracted by Angie snatching a photo down from his fridge, almost robotically.
“When was this taken?” she demanded, groggily. She was trying to wake up—to catch up, to the thoughts running through her head.
Roman peered over her shoulder, looking down at the photo she held in her hands. “Hm… I don’t know… nine? Ten years ago? Man, I loved that car.” He took in the aged photo of he, Val, Gary and Leo leaning against an old white Cadillac that his father had scrounged up every penny to buy for them. Tony had bought it for all the boys to share, but since Roman was the only one old enough to drive at that time, he’d always felt like it was his. “It was a real piece of shit, but it was ours.” He set his chin on Angie’s shoulder.
Claiming Roman Page 25
