Branded as Trouble

by Delores Fossen

  Roman waited a moment to try to talk himself out of yelling. It worked, but he had to speak through clenched teeth. “Did that meeting with your boyfriend help or hurt Tate?”

  Judging from her suddenly tight jaw, it was the latter. So, Roman had his answer. He pushed past her and went inside.

  “Roman, don’t you dare say anything to him,” Valerie insisted. She was trying to keep a grip on his arm and hold him back.

  It didn’t stop him. Roman went straight to room four, didn’t knock, and he threw open the door. The TV was blaring with some loud music, and there was a buff guy with stringy blond hair on the bed, a bottle of beer in his hand. He was wearing only a pair of boxers with pussies on them. Not of the cat variety, either.

  “What the fuck do you want?” he grumbled to Roman. “First the brat and the old fart and now you?” He looked at Valerie. “Didn’t I tell you I was tired and didn’t want any more interruptions? It was bad enough I had to come to this cow-shit town with you, and now I have to put up with this asshole?”

  Roman hadn’t been certain what he was going to do, but that clarified things for him. He went to Mr. Wonderful, dragged him off the bed and slammed him against the wall. Hard.

  Lick might have muscles, but it was obvious from the puny punch he tried to throw at Roman that he’d gotten those muscles in a gym and hadn’t had an older brother who’d beaten the crap out of him.

  Roman dodged the first punch, then a second one all the while Valerie was shouting for him to stop. He didn’t stop. When Lick tried to kick him in the balls, Roman slugged him in the gut. It had the intended effect. It knocked the breath out of him, and Lick quit fighting and cursing.

  “If you call my son a brat again,” Roman warned him, “I’ll rip off your dick and shove it up your ass. Understand?”

  Lick garbled out a few sounds and nodded.

  “Lick didn’t mean it,” Valerie insisted. She was crying now and trying to pull him out of Roman’s grip.

  Roman let go of Lick and turned to her. “And you will not let this dipshit anywhere near Tate again. You’ll go to a therapy session with Tate and do everything you can to help him. Understand?”

  “You don’t have the right to talk to me that way!”

  “Understand?” Roman yelled right in her face.

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Lick come at him again. Roman was thankful for it. He had a lot of dangerous energy churning inside him, and he hadn’t known how he was going to burn it off.

  Now, he knew.

  When Lick raised his fist to hit him, Roman gave him an upper cut to the jaw that knocked him on his pussy-clad butt, and because he was pretty sure there wasn’t another point he needed to make, Roman walked out. Valerie didn’t follow him. She hurried to her piece-of-shit lover and started kissing, hugging and apologizing for what had just happened.

  Roman figured he should be worried if Lick was going to take out his anger on Valerie, but his concern meter for her was at zero right now. Besides, if Alford heard a ruckus going on, he would call the cops. In fact, he probably already had, and Roman hoped like the devil that no one bugged Clay about this.

  He started walking toward the hospital when he left the inn, and he figured by the time he got there, he would have calmed down some. He hadn’t. So, he kept on walking. He definitely didn’t want Sophie to see him like this. Nor Tate. In fact, there was only person he could risk seeing him right now.

  Roman walked straight to Mila’s house.

  It wasn’t far. Nothing in Wrangler’s Creek was, and when he saw her car in the driveway, he knew she was there. He went straight up the steps. Knocked. Then knocked again when she didn’t answer right away. A few seconds later, the door opened.

  “Roman,” Mila said on a rise of breath.

  He didn’t give her a chance to say anything else. Roman dragged her against him and kissed her.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  MILA HAD BEEN about to ask Roman what was wrong. And something was indeed wrong. She could see it on his face.

  She felt it in his kiss.

  At least for a couple of seconds, anyway. It was hard to feel anything but pleasure when Roman was kissing her.

  He backed her inside, kicking the door shut with his foot, and he turned, pinning her against the wall. The kiss continued, raging on as if there were some fierce battle going on inside him.

  “Are you okay?” she finally managed to say when he broke for air.

  “Lick had pussies on his shorts, and I punched him.”

  Mila didn’t have time to react to that, though she was surprised. Not that Lick was a guy who deserved punching but because she didn’t know what the other thing meant. She hoped Lick hadn’t smelled of sex while Tate was there. If so, Roman had obviously handled it.

  And now she was getting the aftermath of that.

  Mila decided just to ride this incredible wave and then she’d sort it all out later. Not that Roman gave her much of a choice about that. He kept kissing her, kept pressing his body against hers, until Mila thought she might be melting. She didn’t care if she did. She just wanted Roman to fix this fire that he had started inside her.

  He did. Without breaking the kiss, he scooped her up and headed to her bedroom. Or rather the guest bedroom since it was first off the hall. He carried her inside, dropped her on the bed and in the same motion he yanked off his shirt.

  That distracted her for a moment. His body could always do that to her. And it was obvious things were going to move pretty fast. She didn’t mind, but Mila took a moment to touch those toned muscles on his stomach while he was unzipping her jeans. As he’d done in the bookstore, he peeled them off her, rid her of her top and went after his own zipper.

  She helped with that and saw the scar from his surgery. It’d healed from the looks of it, but she wanted to make sure he didn’t hurt himself with this anger sex.

  Anger sex, she mentally repeated. Then smiled.

  Mila had always suspected that sex with Roman would be intense, and this was off to a good intensive start. That start got better when he pulled off his boots, jeans and boxers.

  Oh, my.

  Someone had sucked all the oxygen out of the room. There wasn’t a drop left in her lungs, and she couldn’t speak. Turned out, though, that speaking really wasn’t necessary.

  Roman took a condom from his jeans pocket, but he didn’t put it on. Instead, he put his knee on the bed, the mattress dipping down with his weight and sending him forward. On top of her. He kissed her again, dragging off her bra and panties.

  Touching her.

  While he kept up those wildfire kisses, he played with a new fire source. Her breasts. Many, many kisses there. He circled her nipple with his tongue and took her into his mouth. Then he located yet another fire source.

  Between her legs.

  She’d known he could do magic things with his mouth there, but his fingers were equally clever. Maybe too much so. Because for a moment Mila thought he was going to finish her off right there. She didn’t want that and maybe managed to make a protesting sound.

  Roman listened because he tore open the condom, put it on and pinned one of her hands to the bed.

  “Slap me if I hurt you,” he said.

  The offer surprised her, much as his greeting had done at the door, and with that sound of surprise shaping her mouth, Mila lost her virginity to the only man she’d ever wanted to have it.

  There was no pain. At least, she didn’t think there was. It was hard to tell because she went flying to a place where there was only pleasure. The delicious pressure of him inside her, filling her. And then he was moving.

  She liked the moving part best.

  There was a rhythm to it. A frenzy, too. And the need. The need was growing with each of those moves. He didn’t stop with the kissi
ng and touching, either. Roman managed to connect with her mouth, and he reached between them to touch her in the very spot that would cause her to climax. Of course, she doubted that she would need his fingers when she had something much bigger and better suited for climax-giving.

  This was so much better than oral sex or the orgasm in high school with her clothes on. Roman thrust inside, and each time sent those gold sparkles exploding all around her.

  He wasn’t especially gentle.

  She would thank him for that later. Because he wasn’t treating her like a virgin who’d been waiting her whole life for him. He was treating her like his lover. She decided to treat him like a lover, too, and not just lie there and moan while he gave her all this pleasure.

  She kissed him, lifted her hips. In theory it was a good idea, but at that moment he pushed into her again, catching that “right place” just right.

  “There you go,” Roman said, his voice all low and dripping with sex.

  And there she went.

  Though she wasn’t sure how he knew it was about to happen. But it did. The sparkles multiplied times a billion and then shattered. Mila felt herself shatter, too.

  Roman gathered her in his arms, buried his face in her neck, and one thrust later, he shattered right along with her.

  * * *

  TWO TIMES.

  Those were the words going through his head. Roman couldn’t pretend that the first time didn’t count, either. They hadn’t actually had sex, but he’d gotten Mila naked. Naked plus climax counted. Now, though, he’d crossed the sexual Rubicon because he’d taken her virginity. Perhaps hurt her, as well, so Roman lifted his head to look at her and make sure she was all right.

  Oh, no.

  That was more than an “I’m just all right” look on her face. Her lids were lowered halfway. Her facial muscles were slack. And she was smiling. That definitely wasn’t the expression of someone who knew there could be only one more time—at most—for them to have sex.

  Mila located his mouth, kissed him and then fully opened her eyes. “Oh, no,” she said, making him wonder if she was just repeating what he’d said in his head. But unless she had ESP, she didn’t know that had been his reaction.

  Unless, of course, she was reading his expression as he’d done to her.

  “Are you regretting this already?” Roman asked, and because he thought they could use some levity, he added, “Because usually the regrets don’t come until the postorgasmic fog is gone.”

  “No. I’m not regretting it. But you are. Does this count as one time or two?”

  It would have been much easier to answer if she hadn’t kissed him or if her body hadn’t had a really nice little aftershock contraction. He liked to call those the gifts that kept on giving because it gave his dick a squeeze to remind him of just how good this had been.

  And it had been darn good.

  “Two times,” he answered, causing her to frown.

  “Did I hurt you?” he asked at the same moment she asked, “Did I hurt you?”

  He had to smile. “No. The incision is fine.” He probably wouldn’t have noticed if it’d popped. An orgasm was a cure for a lot of things. “And you? Did it hurt?”

  She flexed her hand. “Nope. It was a tight fit, but I think that’s what made it so good.” Her eyes widened, and she blushed.

  Clearly, she wasn’t used to talking about her private parts with a man. One who’d just introduced that part to sex. But yeah, a tight fit had made it pretty damn memorable.

  “I’m glad it was you,” she said, pressing her hand to his cheek. “I wanted it to be you.”

  He’d figured that, but the jury was still out on whether or not this was a really, really good thing that would open her up to new experiences or if this was just going to cause her to build a shell around her to guard her heart.

  Since she got that dreamy look in her eyes again, Roman decided it was time to put a little distance between them so they could both have some thinking time.

  “Bathroom?” he said so he could take care of that first.

  She pointed to the hall.

  He kissed her because she looked so damn tasty lying there. Her hair tumbled all around her face, and she had a “fuck me again” smile. It was tempting to use up his third shot, but that was something he could think on, as well.

  Roman gathered up his clothes, located the bathroom. Not hard to do because the house was small. He decided to take a quick shower just in case he ran into Tate when he got back to the ranch. He doubted his son would pick up on it, but it was best not to walk in there with Mila’s scent all over him. He took a last whiff of that scent before he stepped under the showerhead.

  Mila would need to know about what had happened at the inn. If for no other reason than so she could make sure Tate didn’t have another encounter with Lick. In fact, everyone in his family should know. Once Mila heard what had gone on, she’d probably figure out that’s why he’d come to her. She might feel used. Might be pissed off.

  If that happened, he would deserve anything she dished out.

  He’d hoped that the silence would help him come to the right answer. And it did. There was really only one answer here and that was for him to leave Mila alone. This wasn’t going to turn into a relationship. He didn’t do those. Especially the kind of relationship she would almost certainly want.

  She wasn’t exactly a white picket fence kind of person, but it was close. She wanted normal, and she wanted it here in Wrangler’s Creek. Roman couldn’t give her either of those things.

  So, there.

  It was settled.

  He should just go in the bedroom, tell her he was sorry and then hit himself in the head with the biggest skillet he could find. Maybe punch himself a couple of times, too, because he’d really screwed this one up. Then he could focus on what he should be focusing on—Tate and this shit-storm situation with Valerie and the turd she’d brought to town with her.

  Roman took a little more time in the bathroom to give Mila a chance to catch her breath, and when he was finished dressing, he went back into the bedroom, expecting to find her there. She wasn’t. And her clothes weren’t lying on the floor, either.

  He went to the room across the hall—her bedroom, he realized when he saw the stack of paperbacks on the nightstand next to what appeared to be an old cup of tea and some candy bar wrappers. There were plenty of pillows all stacked up, which meant she probably used this as her reading spot.

  “Mila?” he called out in case she was naked in the closet.

  No answer.

  In a house this size she should have been able to hear him no matter where she was. That sent a jolt of alarm through him, and he went into the living room. No sign of her there or in the kitchen. Roman called out to her again and got the same response.

  Nothing.

  Since she hadn’t vaporized, he glanced around, trying to figure out where she could be. Maybe she’d taken out the trash or something. He was heading to the side door off the kitchen to check when he saw the note on the counter.

  “‘I decided to go back to the hospital and say goodnight to Sophie,’” he read aloud. “‘Don’t worry. I won’t say a word to her about what happened. Just lock up on your way out. Oh, and thanks bunches.’”

  Roman read it again. And again. He frowned.

  Thanks bunches?

  Well, he hadn’t thought that would be Mila’s reaction after losing her virginity to him. He had figured she’d be picking up the pieces of her heart or else picking out china patterns. Apparently, though, she was in a different state of mind than he’d ever imagined she would be, and the PS at the bottom of the note proved that.

  “Never thought I’d get to have a one-night stand with Roman Granger. Ha!”

  To deepen his frown even more, Mila had added a smi
ley face and that one word he was starting to hate. “Peachy!”

  * * *

  MILA DROVE AWAY from her house, not speeding exactly but she wasn’t dawdling, either. She hadn’t lied to Roman when she’d said she wanted to go back to the hospital, but even if Sophie hadn’t been there, Mila would have just figured out somewhere else to go.

  She’d seen that look in Roman’s eyes. The panic. The regret. He was probably thinking that having sex with her could only lead to some kind of commitment.

  It didn’t.

  She had fallen hard for him years ago, and sadly that “commitment” of her heart would have stayed that way even if they hadn’t had sex. But the last thing she had wanted was for sex to make him feel trapped. Apparently, Roman wasn’t ever going to be the friends-with-benefits type.

  Mila felt the tears burning her eyes and blinked them back. Cursed them, too. She had fantasized about having sex with Roman, and it had lived up to the fantasy. That wasn’t a reason to cry. It was a reason to celebrate. Maybe now she could truly get past the massive obstacle in her heart that was there because she just hadn’t been able to stop caring for him. She would always care. But it was time to maybe look at other possibilities.

  Even if that made her heart ache even more.

  She drove up the street toward the hospital, a trip she could have easily walked, but she wanted to drive around a little while before she went in to see Sophie. Maybe Sophie would be so caught up in her precious babies that she wouldn’t sense that something about Mila was different.

  It was dark now, and there was that old saying of the town rolling up the sidewalks at night. The sidewalks were still there, of course, but no one was out and about. At least, there wasn’t until Mila made it to the inn.

  Valerie was outside, pacing and smoking a cigarette.

  Mila considered just driving right past her, but she suspected the reason Roman had ended up at her place was because of something that had gone on here. Since she might not hear it from Roman, she pulled over to listen to what Valerie had to say.