“How about this, you and I will play, but you might have to help me out because it’s been a while since I played. Then after that I’ll read you a bedtime story and get you tucked in just like I did every night when you were a teeny tiny baby, sound like a plan?”
Ivy yawns again and nods, snuggling her nose into the crook of my neck and whispers in a sleepy tone, “Duss make shore I hab my gway bwanket. I can’t sweep wiffout it.”
As I round the corner in the hall, Roman’s words are spoken almost too quietly for me to hear what he’s telling the caller, “Well there were already pictures. The police already have them, what are they asking for and in exchange for what? Me? Why do you need to know where I was?
“Oh. He did, did he? FUCK! No, I know who it is, it’s Sebastian. No, I don’t know why, just pay his fucking ransom, I’ll transfer…”
Ivy’s door clicks closed behind us. After my daughter wiggles from my arms and waits for me to get the game from the top shelf in her closet, we set it up. She lays her head in my lap and tells me, “Mommy, you go first.”
In less than five minutes, I’m tucking my gray blanket around her in bed and snuggling up behind her when the realization of what my life has become settles around me.
My brothers.
My husband.
My daughter.
They all believed I have been dead all this time. I had a funeral. Someone was buried, AS ME. There is a headstone with my name, my date of birth, and my supposed date of death.
Who exactly is Sebastian Gorman? What in the hell is Roman talking about, and to whom? Does Rome know Sebastian was the person who held me prisoner for two years?
Dammit, there are so many questions and people involved, and I don’t know who to trust and who not to trust.
Sebastian waited on me hand and foot during my entire pregnancy. He was my only ally. He was never anything except kind, attentive, loving, funny, and charming. What happened to make him just…flip? I don’t understand. What caused him to go from being my Seb to the evil, sick perverted bastard who kept me shackled with rusty cuffs and chains?
When Mace was behind the wheel while we were in captivity, I didn’t get the chance to ponder over these questions. I was suspended in a peaceful stasis where confusing facts and betrayals couldn’t reach me. So now, as I lay beside my daughter in my home, everything, every thought, every question, every lie, every scar, everything rains down on me. It’s so damn overwhelming I feel Mace struggling to take over, fighting for my conscious mind.
I slowly slide from Ivy’s bed before making my way towards Roman’s office. But the mental struggle between Mace and I does something and it effects my equilibrium. I stumble, swaying side to side before leaning against the wall of the hallway to steady my steps while staggering the rest of the way. When I walk in, Roman is hanging the phone up and raking his long fingers through his thick ink black hair, exhaling an exasperated sigh. He stands from his chair and turns his back to me before looking out the window behind his desk.
Do I love my husband? Yes.
Do I hate my husband? Yes.
He may seem the worst possible choice to place my bets on and go all in. Yes he has secrets, he’s caused the world enough pain to last a life time. But I’d rather have the man who doesn’t hide the ugly parts of who he is- sins, transgressions, and all. Because I also know Roman as well as what lies beneath his sins.
And now I know I can’t change him. My love will never wash away the blood staining his hands and soul. I wish I knew how to tell him that I’ve seen the dark side too, and nothing I learn about Roman William Payne, nothing can ever make me love him any less. I need not only Rome, but I need my husband back. I need him to continue being the perfect father he doesn’t realize he already is, but more than anything I need him to fix me, to bring me back to life, because he’s the only one who can.
Chapter 20
Roman
I feel her presence the moment I release a sigh of all the pent up exhaustion that’s been wearing on me for as long as I can remember. When I first heard my Heather was alive, I wouldn’t allow myself to believe it. I just kept thinking, ‘This can’t be happening. I don’t deserve a blessing like this. This can’t be fucking happening.’ But then I saw her. When she walked from the cell hiding her thin, pale, gaunt face behind her long, stringy thin hair I realized it was happening, and this blessing was going to be a long, hard earned one that would require the patience and devotion of all three of us, Heather, Ivy, and myself before it ever transformed into the blessing I originally believed it to be.
Patience, though, has never been my strong suit.
And my devotion has always dangled on the razor sharp edge of morbid obsession.
“I apologize, you and Ivy don’t need to hear the bones of the skeletons rattling at the back of my closet. I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again, mouse.”
“No. It’s, Roman I believe it’s well past time you and I begin being honest with one another. Drag the skeletons out, we’ve both been wronged, hell we’ve both been wrong. I won’t judge you. I know after Ivy was born I did everything in my power to push you away, I know I shut you out on the day of our wedding, but Rome, your vows, I wasn’t ready to hear them. Especially after you’d taken away your promise of my brothers becoming a part of our life. But all of that was then. Let’s have the night I returned home be our starting over point, can we please?”
Her hands barely brush my shoulders before her thin arms circle my waist and she rests the side of her face between my shoulder blades and continues, “We both have scores to settle now, Roman. Don’t we?”
Her tone alone sends chills down my spine and I briefly wonder how much of the torture she endured has changed the woman I love before I feel her hands slip into my flannel sleep pants and grasp my cock. Immediately any thoughts or worries dissipate as the blood supplying my brain with oxygen detours directly to where her hands are. “Holy mother of God, mouse.” I brace my hands against the windowpanes and breathe in slow breaths through my nose before exhaling it through gritted teeth.
I feel her hot breath through the cotton of my t-shirt, “How long has it been, Rome? Do you need me?”
Damn lights flicker behind my eyelids as my sluggish brain tries to make sense of her words.
Before I can answer she’s in front of me, shoving me back into my office chair, slipping her top over her head and her silky pj bottoms pool around her feet. She tugs my sleep pants down further until they're around my ankles, and then my wife is kneeling between my legs dragging her tongue along the crease from under my balls to the tip of my cock and moaning as she laps up the beading precum before taking as much of me as she can into her mouth. Her head turns slightly left then right and the head of my cock slides though the ring of muscles at the back of her throat and instantly my hands fist her hair on their own accord as my head lolls back my hips thrust upward. “Shit. Goddammit, Heather, what are you doing to me?”
Her only answer is regaining control of administering the brand of head that would be awarded alongside the elite Oscar, Nobel Peace, and Pulitzer if rewards were ever handed out for blowjobs.
I cannot explain it. The sheer force of the abrupt orgasm tearing its way through me and pouring down Heather’s throat catches me so off guard it rocks me to the core as unintelligible growls and shouts emit from my chest.
When my labored breathing slows and my erratic pulse returns to normal I loosen my grip tangled in Heather’s hair when I realize tears are streaming down her face and she’s choking on my cock, hardening again because I’m a sick, twisted bastard who still fucking loves the sound of my wife gagging around my shaft.
I remain silent trying to mentally coax my erection away, but when Heather lays her warm, tear soaked cheek on my thigh while caressing her fingers across the other thigh I concede a battle my heart was never in to begin with. “Rome, please, I need you to be careful with me, tonight.” Her husky voice cracks, without moving her head from my lap she sw
allows before continuing, “I need you to make slow and gentle love to me, be firm and dominating when demanding what you want of me, but most of all, I need you to whisper soft, warm and affectionate words to the battered, abused, broken little girl who lives inside my heart,” I watch her as she looks up at me from kneeling on the floor between my thighs and smiles, “she has always only ever loved you.” I can’t take it another minute, I have her scooped up, swiped my forearm across the office mahogany desk sending two Tiffany lamps, alongside a laptop and whatever else is of no importance, crashing to the floor before laying Heather on its surface and draping her thighs over each of my shoulders.
I run my nose along the crease where her inner thigh meets her pussy, groaning as the essence of my mouse slams into me for the first time in years.
When I pin her eyes with mine, my voice is harsh when I ask, “Heather, are you sure this is okay?”
I lick up her pussy and as the taste of her hits my taste buds, I groan, “I need you, mouse. And if this isn’t okay, you only have a few seconds to stop me before I fucking take what is mine. Now answer my goddamn question, is this okay?”
Without blinking or looking away from me she whispers, “I already told you, Rome. I need you.”
Chapter 19
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. I don’t know much when it comes to Roman, but I can say without a modicum of doubt that my husband is starved for me. I can only hope he remembers my words as his hunger wages and consumes my body and soul like a man who has gone stark raving mad.
He holds nothing back, bringing me to the brink of ecstasy time and time again with his mouth and hands before finally allowing me to begin the descent. Leaving my skin flushed and damp, my hair in ringlets around my face and neck from the humidity and sweat and my muscles quivering in jerky trembles. I gasp, trying to swallow the dry lump in my throat, shaking my head back and forth as Roman’s blunt nails rake up my sweat soaked skin until they drive into the hair at the nape of my neck, tightening their grasp, and wrenching my head back, as his teeth sink into my shoulder.
His lips kiss, his tongue laves, and his teeth nip their way from my collarbone along my jaw to behind my ear before his husky voice growls a plea, “Mouse, your window of opportunity is closing—“ His cock slides against my drenched core, back and forth as his warm hands fumble from my tangled hair to cup my heavy breasts.
I cup his face in my hands and pull him up from my cleavage until we’re nose to nose. I smile before closing my eyes and kissing him with everything I have in me, muttering against his lips, “Please, Roman, please.”
My nails graze over the warm skin covering his ribs as I run my fingertips up his abdomen before gripping his hard tattooed shoulders. His movements are rough, his fingers dig, bruising my thighs as he yanks me to the edge of his desk by my hips before nudging his forehead, matted with sweat soaked silky hair, into the crook of my neck. His warm breath causes goose bumps to raise across my arms and chest and my nipples harden painfully. I feel the rigid muscles along the sides of his torso flinch before the head of his cock stops sliding through my wetness and aligns at my entrance. Once he’s eased as far in as possible we both release a long held sigh.
My hands grip, fingertips biting into both of his biceps and when I feel them trembling as I try to circle his waist and use my ankles for leverage to rock against him, I realize we’re both shaking. I chuckle, blushing like a fool.
“I’m glad I’m not the only one who feels it.”
His cerulean, sapphire blue eyes flick down to mine, and his boyish smirk reveals his rarely seen dimples, “We’ve only just begun, and already we’re trembling like baby giraffes, yeah?” He chuckles before pulling almost completely out and slowly sinking back in, pulling a whimpering moan of pleasure from me. I arch my neck and back in an effort to meet his movements and sync my quivering body to our rhythm.
My ankles hook around his neck as his hands pin my wrists above my head and his warm breath whispers through the damp hair around my ear. His voice growls with his increasing thrusts, “Like this, baby? Hmmm? This slow enough, mouse?”
“Yeah,” I whimper, struggling already for reasons unknown against an oncoming avalanche that will drag me down before blotting out any rational thought or concept where Roman William Payne is concerned.
“Do you know how fucking crazy you make me? Huh?” His left hand encircles my throat and tightens as his thrusting quickens, slamming into me so much it hurts, but at the same time it feels so fucking good.
“OPEN YOUR GODDAMN EYES AND LOOK AT ME, HEATHER!” I hear the wood of his desk groan before the legs screech, scratching their way across the hardwood floor. I realize his thrusting has become so fierce, it’s shoving the desk from one side of the room to the other. My eyes snap open, pinning his with mine when I feel the massive desk crash against the wall once fifteen feet opposite it.
Then it happens. Just as it always has with Roman.
Do I love my husband? Yes.
Is he a saint? No.
Is he Lucifer’s Belial? Quite possibly.
Has he hurt me? Destroyed me? Pushed me past the brink of sanity? Mocked me, frightened me, tortured me? Bullied me and transformed me from the woman I was, into a woman who I’m grateful my parents aren’t alive to witness the debacle she’s allowed her life to become while upholding her Taurus sign, bullishly and stubbornly throwing away not only her pride and dignity, but her life as well?
God yes, he fucking has.
Now, do I hate my husband? Every single moment I’m awake.
But not right fucking now.
Not when he rests his forehead against mine, and his sweat-drenched, black hair sticks to both of our sweaty foreheads as his sapphire blue eyes burn into my brown ones.
Not when every muscle in his body seizes, going rigid as I feel his jaw tense against my cheek while his warm come spills inside me.
Not when I see the telltale tears soak his inky black lashes before mixing with the sweat beading and running down his face as his eyes look back and forth between mine.
And not when his coarse voice delivers the words I’ve longed to hear, “Bloody fucking hell. Goddamn it, Heather, I love you so much more than I thought was possible.”
And then it happens, this thing, it just happens…it causes hope to bloom and like a fool, I laugh at what my mind is screaming, warning my heart. I spit in the faces of our fate. I scoff, mocking the notion that history repeats itself.
And after I convulse around him, I giggle before releasing a sigh and letting my sanity slip from my fingers. Diving head first into something women across the world would chastise me for, and arrogantly parrot ‘I told you, so' in my face. It’s possible my world will collapse around me like the fickle, shaky house of cards I already know my future’s foundation is built upon.
From behind my closed eyelids the bright sun in the room pulls me from unconsciousness and my slurred words are muttered at Rome into my pillow, “Baby, Seriously? Please close the damn drapes,” I laugh under the covers I pull up over my head, “Rome, what the hell? It can’t be seven am, you know I’m a late sleeper…”
Dolores’ voice shatters my playful banter instantly. “It’s eight thirty. And Mr. Payne and Ms. Ivy are having breakfast in the kitchen, child. Don’t you want to join them?”
I bolt upright in bed and when my eyes land on Dolores standing at the foot of the bed, I feel Mace pushing for control merely half a second before I’m being shoved to the dark recesses of mind, blinking as the bars slam in my face at Mace’s retreating back.
No. No. No. No. No.
“NO! This is my life, NOT yours! I will not let you come and go as you want. Roman is MY husband. Winter Ivy is MY daughter! I don’t need you anymore, Mace.”
She smirks over her shoulder, “Oh, sweetheart. You wouldn’t be here, alive, much less mentally sound without ME. The second you bowed to my presence in France, you sold your soul and your happiness, to me. So, no, this is OUR life. Roman is OUR husband. And W
inter Ivy is OUR daughter. Now shut your fucking mouth, while I go take care of YOUR messes.”
“Messes? What messes? Everything is perfect. EVERYTHING IS PERFECT! Roman and I are finally on the same page! My daughter and I are finally where mother and daughter are supposed to be! Mace! Stop it! Fucking stop—“
I don’t even hear my own voice being spoken anymore. My world is shrouded in the black nothingness, the same black nothingness I stumbled around in for two years. But with sound and sight, goes my drive, my will, my need to right any more wrongs, and my fire for life flickers out.
Why even try to care about anything when Mace will always hold more power over us than me.
If I can’t fight her, then what am I even here for?
Look, if you’re just gonna scoff and get your damn panties in a twist over the way I’m handling this, you can take your panties, and your scoffing, and go fuck yourself. Until you have been where I have, until you have suffered for something you didn’t do, for the sake of someone else, I see no merit, or ground for your judgments.
This may be Heather Mackenzie’s life, but it’s also mine.
She may have everything seemingly fixed. But I still can sense things that have the potential and the power to rip Mac’s ‘perfect fixed everything’ to fucking shreds, leaving her and I with the tattered remains of what we could have had, had she kept her dim witted mind on the game and not the far placed prize.
Dolores’ words reverberate through every cell within me, “And Mr. Payne and Ms. Ivy are having breakfast in the kitchen, child.”
Flags. Alarms. Warnings are flying up at her statement. Is it her voice? Her tone? Her words?
Whatever it was, as soon as it grated across my conscious it sent me reeling back to the forefront.
The difference between Mac and I is, Mac’s Hell was run by another brand of Satan. One whom she both loved and feared. Roman.
Roman's Redemption: Roman: Book II (Roman's Trilogy) Page 9
