Minutes seemed to pass while he stood in front of her, stiff shoulders, frozen face, his story unfolding behind his eyes as he relived those ancient days. Finally, his shoulders slumped.
“That’s the most ridiculous thing—” Stella exploded.
“More ridiculous than a man healing from several mortal wounds. With your own eyes you, saw me heal.” He stressed every word.
Silence. For centuries he wanted this conversation. Careful what you wish for. He took another swig of whiskey.
“Okay.” She started pacing again. “So you’re immortal. And you let that man die back at the park. That makes no sense.”
“He wasn’t my priority,” he stated.
“You stole his bike and left him to be slaughtered when you knew you couldn’t die.” She fumed.
“Yes, I did. And I would do it again. To protect you, I would do anything; lie, steal, kill, sacrifice anything.”
Her head jerked back, as if his words smacked her. Her hair whipped around and she backed away. “I’m not that important—”
“To me, you are.”
“Why? Because I’m this dead woman you loved two millennia ago?”
“Stella—”
She wouldn’t listen. “If you’re really immortal, you could’ve saved that man.”
“Damn it, I couldn’t save both of you.” His voice hardened ruthlessly. “And you will always be my first choice.”
She brushed a shaky hand across her face. “I’m just the person you were hired to protect.”
“Do you still believe that?” He challenged and watched waves of emotion wash over her face until she turned away.
“So, this Elyssian, you’re in love with her? You’re waiting for her to return?”
“No.” He crossed the room. Stella tried to walk away, but he grabbed her arms and pulled her to him. “I loved her and lost her, was cursed for it, but no, I’m not in love with Elyssian.” He stared into her tempestuous eyes and wanted to drown in them.
“If you loved her, then why were you cursed?”
His hands dropped from her arms. He started to turn away when the gentle touch of her fingers on his arm stopped him.
“Just tell me,” she pleaded.
He couldn’t look at her. “I took something I shouldn’t have, something that wasn’t mine to take, to cherish.”
“. . . What, Roman?”
“Her virginity.”
She stepped back, confusion swirling deep in her eyes. “You raped her?” Her voice reduced to a hoarse whisper.
“No! Never, Stella. Never would I do that to any woman. I loved her.” He brought her cold hand to his lips and kissed her fingers passionately. “I was hired to protect the Lord and Lady of a villa near Jerusalem. You, Elyssian, were a peasant owned by the Lord. I fell in love with you the moment I saw you, but you were contracted to marry another man. You warned me that you belonged to another, but in my arrogance, I didn’t care. Damn the consequences, you were mine and I took you before asking for you as I should. That same day, the Lord’s wife died. Had I not been with you I would have saved her life. I broke my mercenary’s vow of protection and lost my honor. For that, I was cursed to love and lose you.”
Her chest heaved as she sucked in a few deep breaths, but she didn’t push him away. “Who was the Lord that hired you?”
“A sorcerer, a God, I never discovered who or what he was.”
“Did she love you Roman, or in your arrogance, did you give her no choice?” Stella pulled her hand away.
He snatched her hand back. “We loved each other very much and we—together—decided to end her virginal state, though I accept full blame for all that I lost. My brother, my honor and Elyssian, all I had left were ashes.”
Their gazes held each other. First warring, then slowly her gaze softened. “This curse, how do you break it?”
“I don’t know. When I find her, the reincarnated Elyssian, she must remember me. Only then can the curse be broken.”
“What happens when it’s broken?”
You live. Instead of answering, he pulled her into his arms. If he could keep her there, safe for an eternity. Hungry for her lips, he lifted her chin with his finger.
“You think I’m her?” she murmured.
“I know you are.”
“How?”
“You glowed the first time I saw you.”
“I glowed.” She scowled.
“What?” Something was wrong. She pulled away and against his instincts, he let her go.
“What do you mean I glowed?”
“Your eyes, your face, your entire body glows when I see Elyssian’s soul. Every lifetime, it’s the same thing.”
Her eyebrows knit together. “What do you mean ‘every lifetime it’s the same thing’? This isn’t the first time you found me? Isn’t this my first ‘reincarnation’?”
“No, Stella. You’ve been alive . . . several times.”
“How many times?”
“. . . Six, that I know of.”
“Wha-what happened?” She gasped.
“You die . . . repeatedly.” He returned to the bar and the bottle.
“You found me, and I still died. Did I die of old age?” she asked, hopeful.
Roman gulped a mouthful. “No, not old age.”
Agitated, she closed her eyes and pressed her fists against the lids. “You found me and I still died. Did I know you, I mean remember you?”
He didn’t answer.
“This is the only time I’ve known you?” she whispered.
He had the bottle almost to his lips again when she yelled, “Damn it, Roman. Say something.”
“You knew me twice, but not like this.”
Stella snatched the bottle from his hand and gulped it. She sputtered and pressed the back of her hand to her mouth. Her eyes watered, but she swallowed it down. Finally, through gritted teeth she asked, “How did I know you?”
“Once you knew me as a friend and godfather to your children and the other . . . you knew me as your father.”
“What? How?” Stella gasped.
“It was 1802 in New Orleans. I was a merchant.” He remembered the carved wooden shingle, Nicolis Goods and Trade Company, and the pride he felt when Hector hung it. Two levels crammed with goods from the Orient and a storefront showroom. The showroom doors opened only on Tuesday evenings and only to the most exclusive clientele.
“I stumbled across you at a tavern. You entered with your hand outstretched begging for food. The owner tossed you out by your collar. I pitied you and searched you out.”
Children’s lives were so precarious. While he was not partial to children, Hector was. He fed the orphans in the area and preached to them while they ate. Roman suspected he missed his true pastoral calling to care for him. He tossed some coins on the table. He’d find the child and hand her over to Hector.
Outside the tavern, he paused in the doorway. The child was gone, yet she couldn’t have gotten far. A rustling noise made him turn left. Strewn with refuse, he stopped at the threshold of the alley. He heard a child’s laughter and wasn’t fooled. Many thieves used children as decoys to rob and kill. Minutes away from the warehouse opening, walking into an alley was ill-timed. Leaving would be best, however his conscience nagged. He entered the alley quietly, easing his way past accumulated debris. Hidden behind a small mountain of trash, he saw the filthy child sitting amidst the garbage, eating from the refuse and talking to a tattered rag doll. He couldn’t hear her words, but the singsong quality sounded like a nursery rhyme.
“Child, come here.”
The girl froze. She tensed to flee and he prepared himself to catch her. The child jumped and tried to scoot around him. She had every right to be wary. Sold for labor and sex, life on the streets was perilous for a child, doubly so for a little girl. Captured, he turned the girl toward him. Tilting her chin up, he looked down into a filthy heart shaped face.
“Hello, sweetheart.” She refused to look at him. “I’m not goin
g to hurt you. Are you hungry?”
She smelled too offensive to take her into the tavern. Hector would clean her up and feed her. Roman raised her chin and waited for her to look at him. Slowly, her gaze rose and stared into his. Stunned, he nearly pushed her away. Her eyes glowed. Then she glowed.
“What happened?” Stella asked.
“I adopted you, and raised you as my daughter. You were a lovely child with your brown ringlets and soft brown eyes. We cleaned you up and kept you.”
“But—” She hesitated. “I’m your soul-mate. You raised me, then married me?”
“No, Stella. I raised you as my child . . . then I let you go.”
He sat on the edge of the bed. “As a child, I loved you as a father should. You grew and I was so proud of you and the beautiful, caring woman you turned into.” He sighed heavily. “There came a day when I stopped looking at you as a father should. That was the day I left you in Hector’s care and went on an extended holiday in Italy.”
“Your butler was named Hector also?”
“That’s another story for another time.” He brushed her question aside.
“You gave me up?”
“I had to. You would never look at me as a lover. I was your father.”
“So what happened? Did I marry and grow old with kids and grandkids?” She stood before him waiting for his answer, but he bowed his head. “Tell me, Roman.” She touched his shoulder and he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her close, his cheek pressed against her abdomen.
“You died two years after I left. A carriage accident with your new husband. You went off the road in a storm and into a creek. You drowned”.” His voice broke on the last word. “I should have been there to protect you, save you.”
Gently, her palm stroked his face and tilted his head up to her. She kissed him, raining tenderness all over his face, until she cupped his head and slanted her lips across his. In an instant, he hardened, ready for her softness to surround him. His mouth opened and she sucked his tongue into hers as he pulled her onto his lap.
Soft satiny skin quivered beneath his hands as he stroked her shoulders and slid down her slender back. Cupping her rear, he lifted and repositioned her so she straddled him, her core landing exactly where he needed it to be. She rolled her hips. A shudder raced down his spine and flashed to every nerve ending. The urge to rip the clothes from her and sink into her flesh nearly stripped him of all rational thought.
His hands slid under her shirt and he spread a torrent of kisses from her lips and down her neck. Her pebbled nipples strained against the lacy cups. He pulled the lace from them and rubbed his calloused palm across their tips. Stella moaned. He panted. They both trembled.
Slow down, before he embarrassed himself.
He pulled her tee over her head and snapped opened her bra. The perfection of her captivated him. Round globes of flesh topped with tight coral nipples begged for attention. A quick scoop and shift placed her in the center of the bed.
His playful nips and laps of his tongue on the tight buds drew a prolonged moan. When she gasped for air, he gave her a reprieve while he opened her jeans and peeled them from her hips. A triangle of black silk shielding her core halted him. He lowered his head and inhaled. The floral of her lotion mixed with something much heavier, sexier, filled him and went straight to his throbbing trapped cock.
He placed her heels on his shoulders and trailing his fingers, pulled the jeans from her legs. As long as he lived, this image would forever be seared into his memory. He stood and her feet skimmed his body. He grabbed the hem of his shirt. Up and over, it landed on the carpet. He hooked his thumbs in the waistband of his sweats. Heavy-lidded, she didn’t look away as he freed himself. Her eyes widened and her lips parted. A small, “Oh,” escaped.
He crawled up her body. Braced on his elbows, he nuzzled the skin along her collar, and then trailed a scorching path to her hard nipples. A symphony of moans and sighs reached him, his cock jerking to each note. He needed to be inside her. He slipped a knee between her thighs, spreading her legs.
Roman returned to her lips. His palm skimmed her stomach and headed south. His cheek brushed hers and he felt wetness. Tears? She pushed him away and scooted to the other side of the bed.
“I’m sorry.” She hiccupped. “I can’t do this.”
She dragged the sheet over her naked body and tried to rise, but his weight had trapped the rest of the covers beneath him. His slow brain couldn’t understand what had just happened, but instinct directed him to carefully measure his next words.
“Did I do something?” he asked, heart shredding in his chest.
“N-no, y-you didn’t. And it’s not that I don’t want to—I do . . . I-I just can’t.”
Roman rolled off the bed. As she secured the sheet around her, he shrugged back into his sweats.
“Can’t what?” Love me? Stay? At his sharp words, Stella spun around. Her red, tear stained face nearly destroyed him.
“I can’t . . . be with you.”
A whole opened in his heart. “I expected no less.” In a second he was at the door.
“Roman, don’t leave, please.”
He didn’t want to leave. But he had to escape from this caustic embrace. He loved her. God help him. The doorframe creaked in his grip. That didn’t mean he had to submit to this torture. One foot and he’d crossed the threshold and be gone.
“It happened in foster care.”
Clear and strong, her voice speared him. He jerked to a stop. His body vibrated as everything he discovered and learned about her crashed together.
“When I was sixteen, I was . . . raped.”
CHAPTER 15
The doorframe splintered beneath Roman’s hand. Whoever he is. Wherever he lived. His time above ground was about to end. He closed the door and faced her.
“Was it in the group home? Did it happen there?” He had to get over his anguish to help her deal with her own.
“No, the group home was bad enough but . . . no. After I was released from the hospital, Doc tried to petition to be my guardian, but the court rejected him. They wouldn’t place a teenage girl with an elderly man. The state placed me with Mrs. Carmen. She was nice and there was plenty of food. She cared for two little boys, brothers eight and six. I had my own room with a lock on the door. Mrs. Carmen left me alone, no prying questions, she let me be. I wasn’t happy, but I was OK. And OK was so much better than where I’d been.” She returned to the edge of the bed.
He sat next to her, watching her hand fisting the sheet she had wrapped around her until he couldn’t stand it. His large hand covered hers. It only took a moment for her fingers to thread through his and squeeze tight. No matter how badly he wanted her to speak, he wouldn’t force her.
“Mrs. Carmen’s son came home from jail. She was excited. I kept to myself. I did everything I could to stay out of his way, but he slept on the living room sofa. He was always in the hallway when I got out of the shower, bumping into me.” The anger threading her voice fed his rage until it burned white hot.
Then her words broke once more. “I tried to n-never be in the same room alone with him,” she whispered. “But I came home one day and no one was there. I fell asleep on the sofa . . . w-when I woke he was next to me saying, ‘There’s been an accident’.’ One of the other foster kids broke his leg rollerblading. ‘They won’t be home for hours,’ she mimicked his accent. “I tried to p-push him off, but he shoved me back and held me down.”
Roman kneeled in front of her. “It wasn’t your fault.” He meant every word, but she didn’t hear it.
“I s-s-shouldn’t have f-fallen asleep,” she rambled, her words raw. “My s-s-skirt was too s-small, but there was no money to buy more.”
He wanted to scream that she was a child, an innocent who couldn’t defend herself. What clothes she had on didn’t matter.
“Maybe if I were nicer to him, made him like me.”
“Stella . . . sweetheart, don’t do this to yourself. Yo
u did nothing wrong” He gripped her bowed shoulders.
“I managed to grab a lamp and brain him. I think I killed him.” Her voice had drained of all emotion. “There was so much blood. I ran away . . . never looked back. I never told anyone, never wanted anyone to know . . . that I killed a man.” Her hollow eyes held no hope. “That’s why The Strangler found me. I’m no better than the other victims. That night I should’ve died.”
“Stella, you’re nothing like them.” Roman swore, but she had closed her eyes and turned away.
“And then I met you and, you made me believe . . .” Her voice drifted away.
He cupped her face and teary gray eyes stabbed his heart.
“You made me feel like maybe I wouldn’t have to be alone. Maybe there is someone out there for me. Someone I could let in, but it’s ruined. I’m ruined, inside and out.”
“You are not ruined! Do you understand?”
“You say that now, but later, you’ll leave me like all the rest.” Her voice broke on a single sob.
“I will never leave you.”
Slowly, he placed careful kisses on her tear stained cheeks and trembling lips. He brushed her hair back and before she protested, pressed kisses along her scars and then down the column of her neck. He stopped and was about to pull away when her fingers threaded through his hair and guided him to the sweet swell of her breast. He inhaled the lavender and rose scent of her skin.
“Let me see all of you, see how beautiful you truly are.” He moved away and found the strength to wait for her decision. Stella clutched the fabric to her bosom. Her eyes were wide with worry while she chewed on her bottom lip. Seconds stacked together. Roman held his breath, silently pleading with her to choose a future with him. Her hands fell away. She stood and the sheet pooled at her feet.
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