Yes, I feel better. But at the same time, I feel worse, I answered internally. God, she has absolutely no idea what she does to me. She’s the reason I’m tense. The conversation I’m going to have with her is the reason I’m tense. The feeling she’s able to bring out of me is the reason I’m tense.
My mouth dried up and the response died on my lips. I tried swallowing, but nothing helped. I nodded instead of doing what was right.
I wasn’t going to be able to do it in the shower while we were both naked anyway.
“Good,” she replied, giving me a look.
Without taking her eyes off of me, Bianca reached up to point the shower head over us again and we started rinsing each other off. What started off as a nonsexual shower turned sexual as soon as we removed all of the soap from each other’s bodies with our bare hands.
Feeling her hardened nipples under my thumbs as I cleaned the last bit of soap off of her made my dick twitch between us.
She must have noticed because she looked down and licked her lips. With her hand gently pushing me, she backed me up until my back was against the shower wall. Leaning forward, she traced kisses down across my chest. She stopped briefly to kiss my nipples before lowering herself down to my swollen dick.
As she sank to her knees, I watched her with lust-fueled interest. When she looked up at me from her position right at my dick, I knew I was succumbing to my desire for her. I knew I wasn’t going to stop what was about to happen between us. Not because I didn’t want to do what was right, but because in that moment, I needed her more than I needed to do the right thing.
Softly, she reached out and wrapped her hands around my shaft and gently stroked it. Opening her mouth, she teased me, pretending to stick it in her mouth and, at the last second, backing off of it.
I looked at her in awe. Seeing a beautiful woman naked on her knees in front of me was a sight, but having that woman be Bianca and watching the water douse her made something deep in my gut tighten. I groaned. The anticipation was killing me.
Hovering over me, she lightly scraped her teeth across the tip of my dick and I sucked in a sharp intake of air. Giving the head a painfully slow kiss, she took me in her mouth. Wrapping her hands around the base, she licked me up and down, applying pressure and suction perfectly.
“God, B. You know what I like,” I moaned as I wrapped my hands in her hair. Guiding her head back down, I reveled in the feeling. The warm sensation of her mouth was unlike anything I’d experienced before. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the tile.
The sound of her slurping was amplified by the acoustics in the bathroom and the water hitting the shower floor. She started running her soft, fleshy tongue from my balls to the head of my dick, lapping at me sexily, over and over. She was driving me crazy.
When she stopped, I opened my eyes and looked down at her. The sight of her full lips stretched around me while she looked up at me was too much. I made a noise that erupted from deep in my chest. It was one of the sexiest scenes I’d ever seen in my life. I groaned loudly.
“Bianca,” I hissed as I watched my dick slowly disappear inch by inch down her throat. I felt the head pressing against the back of her throat and she kept going. I looked down and saw her lips struggling to make it to the base of my shaft. I shuddered.
She put her hands on my hips to keep me from pumping as if she could feel that I was about to start fucking her mouth.
Without warning, Bianca pulled back until only the head of my dick was in her mouth. She swirled her tongue around it and then took the whole thing back down her throat again. She continued to work me up and down until I couldn’t take it anymore.
The faster she bobbed her head up and down, the louder the grunts erupted from me. The strangled noises I made sounded foreign to my own ears as I gripped her hair harder and moved my hips to meet her mouth.
“B,” I choked out, looking down at her.
She looked up at me with her mouth full, never slowing down, and my hips jerked.
Fuck, that’s hot.
“You’re about to make me cum,” I warned her, my voice deep and gravely.
She lifted her eyebrows and just worked her mouth faster, pushing me deeper down her throat.
“Baby…” I moaned under my breath as my body tensed then shook violently. My toes curled so severely, I had to grab onto the wall so I didn’t slip.
My eyes were closed until my body came down from the high it experienced.
Panting, I rested against the tile as I watched Bianca wash the mess I’d made off of her face and breasts. When she was done, she winked at me and then stepped out of the shower. My eyes gravitated to her ass until she closed the shower curtain.
Shit, I thought, getting myself together. How am I supposed to tell her last night was a mistake if I can’t stop lusting after her long enough to say it?
I washed myself off and then got out of the shower. Bianca was just finishing brushing her teeth. “This is the same one I used last time,” she explained immediately, adjusting the towel around her.
Grabbing my own towel, I nodded. “Yeah that’s it. I was going to get a case for it and give it to you, but…”
I ended our friendship. Speaking of that…
I cleared my throat. “But it didn’t work out like that.”
She gave me a look before heading into the bedroom. I brushed my teeth and then followed her out there.
“What are you doing today?” Bianca asked, pulling her leggings on.
Is she asking just to ask or is she asking because she thinks that we’re in some sort of relationship?
As I dried off, I looked at her wondering how I should answer her question.
Her eyebrows furrowed and she gave me a look. “Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Don’t get weird on me.” She pulled her shirt on before moving in front of the mirror to tie her hair back. “You’re being weird right now.”
“I just…” I trailed off as the pain rippled through my chest. I grabbed a pair of boxers and jeans and slid them on before applying pressure to my chest.
Finished with her hair, she turned around from the mirror and looked at me. When our eyes met, I looked away, focusing on the first t-shirt I saw in my closet.
“You just what?” Her voice was even and didn’t give away any particular emotion.
It’s now or never.
“I don’t…” The pain magnified and I exhaled roughly.
“Spit it out, Ro,” she snapped.
It’s for the best, I reminded myself, running my hands down my face a few times to snap myself out of it. We tried being friends, it didn’t work out. We crossed a line and we can’t ever go back from that. We had sex. And although it was good sex…crazy good sex…I mean, mind blowing, crazy good sex… No, focus! It has to be over. We don’t work as friends anymore and last night proves it. We can’t be friends and we definitely can’t be more than friends. I can be nothing more than a former supervisor to her. It’s done. I mean, look what happened with Tia. Look at what happened with Allie. Look at what happened with all of the women who’ve mistakenly gotten close to me. I’ve got to protect B from that. She deserves more than that. I’ve got to protect B from me.
I looked at her and she was chewing at the corner of her lip, watching me. As soon as our eyes met, I could see that she knew. She began shaking her head before I opened my mouth.
“We can’t do this again, B.”
“Be more specific,” she demanded sharply.
My heart was pounding in my chest and my stomach was in knots. I took a deep breath.
I’m doing this for her. I’m doing this for her. I’m doing this for her.
“Everything that happened since last night was a mistake,” I lied, my eyes shifting from her face to the mirror beside her and back again. “We shouldn’t have crossed that line. I shouldn’t have crossed that line. I shouldn’t have kissed you. I take full responsibility—”
“Fuck your
responsibility,” Bianca interrupted, marching over to me. Her eyes narrowed in anger, but I could still see the hurt in them. “What are you saying right now? I want to be sure I understand the bullshit that is coming out of your mouth clearly.”
Feeling my emotions starting to rise, I ran my hands down my face.
Calm down.
Looking at the mirror again, I started, “You need to leave—”
“No, look me in my eyes and say what you have to say, Roman.”
Why won’t she just leave? If she leaves now, we could both move forward with our lives. It’s that simple. Her parents are here today so she’ll be fine today, and if by tomorrow I don’t know who the person sending me messages is, I will hire a personal security guard to sit outside of her house. But she can’t stay here. Things have gone too far. There’s no recovering from that. She has to go, that’s the only option.
Steeling myself against the emotions that swirled within me, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I was beginning to shake because of everything that was bottled up inside of me. Opening my eyes, I parted my lips and then almost immediately shut them.
Just look her in the eyes and say it and then it’s over.
“I don’t know why you’re saying this, but I know you don’t mean it,” Bianca said, her voice breaking.
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep myself from admitting the truth to her. If I told her, she would break my already shaky resolve.
“We can’t be friends…or anything else, B,” I whispered hoarsely. “If anything, last night was proof of that.”
“Last night was proof that there’s something here.”
“No.” I looked away from her. “It’s time for you to leave. Please just accept my apology and know that—”
“So are you telling me that you didn’t feel that last night?”
I let my gaze fall on her and I held it. “No.”
As soon as the lie escaped my lips, she took a step back, shaking her head. Her eyes were wet with tears and I had a hard time keeping eye contact. “You’re lying.”
“I’m doing this for you,” I admitted, placing my hand over my heart, willing the ache to go away.
Wiping the corner of her eyes, she took a trembling breath. “No, you’re doing this for you.”
Stepping into her shoes, Bianca ran downstairs.
The guilt washed over me. Even though I knew it was for the best to let her leave, seeing her upset hurt me. I chased after her. Catching up to her before she had a chance to open the front door, I grabbed her arm and pulled her into me.
“I’m so sorry, B,” I murmured into her hair. Even though she didn’t return my embrace, I squeezed her tighter. “I never meant to hurt you. You’re my best friend.”
“I was your best friend,” she whispered back so softly I almost didn’t hear her. “And then you ruined it.”
I almost crumbled right then and there.
Pushing away from me, she wiped her tear-streaked face and squared her shoulders. Turning, she opened the front door and screamed.
_____
Chapter Nineteen
The warmth I felt when Bianca retreated into my arms was short-lived as I fully grasped the reason she’d screamed.
With my arms wrapped protectively around her, I glared at the intruder. “Why the hell are you lurking on my front porch?”
“Because I was working up the nerve to knock, Roman.”
Bianca pulled away from me and I felt the loss immediately. She looked from me to him and back to me before she asked, “You know him?”
Unfortunately.
“Bianca, Benjamin. Benjamin, Bianca,” I said tersely, glaring at him.
Her eyes widened. “Benjamin…as in your…as in Benjamin Harper?”
Benjamin smirked, cocking his head to the side. “The one and only,” he said with a laugh. Looking between us, he continued, “I didn’t mean to interrupt. I could come back.”
“No, I was just leaving,” Bianca uttered in a tone that sounded cordial but I knew was not. She didn’t even look at me as she stomped by Benjamin and down the stairs.
I wanted to run after her. I wanted to call out to her. I wanted to say something, but there was nothing I could do or say that would change the situation.
It has to be like this.
“She’s cute,” Benjamin acknowledged as Bianca sped off. “She has a nice—”
“Say one more word and I will knock you the fuck out. Don’t test me,” I barked forcefully. “Why are you here and how do you know where I live?”
“Chill, bro. I was going to say car. Your girl has a nice car.”
My blood was boiling. Between everything that happened with Bianca and Benjamin showing up at my house unannounced, I was on the edge of losing it.
“Why are you here and how do you know where I live?” I repeated.
“Can I come in?”
“Hell no.” I leaned against the doorjamb, blocking any possible entry. “Why are you here?”
Benjamin lifted his hands in the air in surrender and took a step back. His face transformed from self-satisfied clown to completely serious immediately. “I came here because I want to apologize. Face-to-face. Like a man should. That was the reason I came to Virginia. I’ve tried calling you, but you wouldn’t answer and I stopped by your job, but you have to have codes and cards to get in the elevators. So I used my resources to find you here. To apologize. So…”
Oh this should be good.
I crossed my arms over my chest and looked at him skeptically. His dirty blonde hair had turned brown since the last time I saw him and he had put on some weight. Besides that, he looked the exact same, and just looking at him took me back eight years. I was fuming.
This asshole is eight years too late for an apology. What’s done is done.
“So what?”
“So I’m sorry,” Benjamin apologized, staring at the sky for a moment and then back at me. “I met this woman who has helped me work through some things. She helped me pinpoint the error in my ways. So I wanted to come by and say I’m sorry. I know we made some mistakes—”
“We? We?” I repeated, yelling. I stood up straight and walked out onto the porch. “We didn’t do shit. You need to own up to what you did.”
“Look, Roman, I came to apologize. I said I was sorry, but I’m not going to let you put this all on me. Yeah, I was wrong for lying to her. I shouldn’t have told her you said anything, that wasn’t my place. I was wrong for that. But she tried to contact you. She called Mom and Dad’s landline repeatedly, asking if anyone had spoken to you. You could’ve told her the truth. So yeah, I messed up, but so did you. We made some mistakes.”
“Fuck you,” I barked angrily, storming into the house and slamming the door behind me.
I paced from one end of the house to the other. My jaw clenched and I exhaled harshly through my nostrils.
Who the fuck does he think he is? Showing up to my house, trying to blame me for what he did. Apology, my ass. That asshole wanted to placate his guilt.
When pacing didn’t calm my nerves, I went upstairs to pack a bag. I didn’t plan on being back for a while. Grabbing jeans, t-shirts, and workout clothes, I stuffed my duffle bag. I ignored the smell of sex and Bianca that was in the room as I moved around. I went into the bathroom to get my toothbrush and ignored the second one in my toothbrush holder. Being reminded of Bianca only made me more volatile.
Doing a quick sweep of the house, I hoisted my duffle bag over my shoulder and left. The midday drive to Art House took longer than expected and my nerves were shot by the time I pulled up in the parking lot.
With my bag in tow, I burst through the front door of Art House, barely acknowledging the man leaving the building as I was coming in.
“Hi Roman,” Meredith called out sweetly from her desk.
I nodded in her direction.
“Roman’s here?” I heard Monroe call out to Meredith followed by the clicking of heels on the hard surface of the floors.
“Roman! Roman!”
I kept going until I got to the elevator and hit the call button.
“I know you heard me,” Monroe said as she arrived at the same time as the elevator car.
“I did. But today, I’m not in a good mood. I don’t want to take it out on you or anyone else so I’m trying to keep to myself,” I explained politely.
“Oh no, I get it. That was me last month on day one of my cycle.” She laughed.
I didn’t.
The elevator door opened and I rushed inside the empty car.
“I’ll see you later, Roman. Remind me to tell you about the draw—”
The elevator door closed, cutting Monroe off and carrying me to my studio.
When I opened the door, the familiar smell of paint and cleaners greeted me. Going straight to the iPod, I pressed play and cranked the music up. Dropping my duffle bag onto the couch, I pulled off my t-shirt and kicked off my shoes.
I had one painting done in its entirety and it was facing the wall as to not distract from my other work. I had two paintings that were almost done. I had drawn the faces of the models using both charcoal and paint, but I hadn’t finished either one.
And the way I’m feeling now, they won’t get finished today.
Picking up a large canvas and putting it on the easel, I grabbed my brushes and paint. I went back for some charcoal just in case I was inspired and it worked with the rest of the collection. Sitting on the stool in front of the blank canvas, I shut my eyes and just let the music take over. I didn’t want to think about Bianca, Benjamin, Tia, my stalker, or my deadline. I just wanted to create art. I just wanted to get back to the one thing that made me feel complete.
As soon as my mind shut down, I moved skillfully and automatically. The feeling of loss that always consumed me when I thought of my past erupted out of me in short, frustrated bursts of onyx. Attacking the blank canvas with uneven, jerky strokes, the flat-tipped paintbrush slid from left to right. Each line and every curve held the hurt, the pain, the anger, the frustration, the regret, and the truth.
Satisfied with the area I had finished, I picked up a sponge-tipped paint brush and dipped it in a bright blue. The sharp contrast between the blue and black paint felt right, so I continued the lines of blue in a pattern that I could feel better than I could see. I started losing myself in the design, in the colors, in the rhythm. Like a compulsion, every painful emotion I had came out in my art and in that moment, the main source of my pain was blatantly clear.
Heartache Page 24
