My apprehension must have been displayed on my face, because the eyebrow under the scar danced up and he finally stopped touching me, stopped dropping sucking little kisses along my collarbone, and stopped running featherlight fingertips over the flowers decorating my side. He stared down at me and I was fascinated by a drop of sweat that started at his temple and crested over his cheek, wound its way down his neck, and tracked over a pec muscle that looked like it belonged on a marble statue. I wasn’t familiar with this kind of restraint, this kind of will, so I just traced the track that little drop of moisture had trailed and stopped at his nipple.

“That’s never going to fit.”

The words were strangled, like I hadn’t had anything to drink in a hundred years or more. We were so close, this was so raw and open I didn’t know what to do with him, or with me. My words were meant to be funny, to slow things down, but I sounded scared, even to my own ears, and I knew it wasn’t just because he was far more than any man I had ever been with, or maybe it was.

That single dark eyebrow danced even higher and that little half grin that undid me the other day flashed across his face. I guess he decided that my words were a challenge and not a warning because the next thing I knew, all his attention switched to that already damp and needy place between my legs. He pressed my legs open with one of his thighs, pulled my hips up, and delved his fingers into folds that were achy and electrified by his touch. He was about to find another surprise that guys only got to see, got to touch, when I took my clothes off, and I felt it the instant his questing fingers made contact with the small little hoop hidden down there.

Once he touched it, he stilled, just a fraction. I had had the hood piercing for as long as I could remember. Initially I got it because I thought it was edgy and cool; now that I was older I kept it because I had had enough sex with enough guys that needed a damn bull’s-eye to get to the good stuff. Rome wasn’t one of those, he also wasn’t scared or put off by it. He gave the ring a little tug that had my eyes rolling back into my head and made me pant out his name. Seeing the results, he played with the slippery metal while playing with the rest of me, creating a tidal wave of sensation that was going to make me break at any second. He touched, me, stroked me, rubbed his thumb steadily and unrelenting over the hoop and the tight little bud underneath it. He worked me over like it had never been done before, and just as I was grinding into him, pressing my heels into the mattress of the bed, splitting in half and seeing stars, he removed those skilled fingers, shifted me under him, and pushed all that turgid, straining flesh inside of me. I wasn’t ready for it, but he slid in up to the hilt and filled me up to the point I thought I was going to suffocate on all I was feeling, all I could see was blazing out of his bright eyes.

He stayed still for a second, waiting to see if I was going to push him away, tell him it was too much. At any other time I would have appreciated his restraint; right now I wanted to choke him. I felt impaled, pinned, stuck, and I hated that I loved it. This was an aspect to sex I had never experienced before, it added an element that took things to a different level.

“Okay?”

It was the only word he had spoken since this all began and really it was more just a breath of sound. I knew if I told him no, that it hurt, that it was too much, he would stop, let me out from under him, and walk away without question, so it was that instinctual understanding that had me giving him the barest of nods and sliding my hands up around his neck. I wanted to see him finish, wanted to know what happened to those spectacular eyes when he went over the edge. I was all in anyway, there was no point in reining it in now.

He moved slowly at first, I think there was a legitimate fear there that he could indeed do some serious damage with that weapon of his, but he had done an excellent job of priming me, of getting me ready for him, so soon I was writhing restlessly under him and urging him to move faster, go harder, to just let go. He was good at reading the cues, he watched my face, eyes locked on mine, and before I knew it both legs were up high on his waist and he was driving into me like he was trying to put me through the other side of the mattress. It was awesome.

The muscles on the side of his neck corded, a fine sheen of sweat pebbled up on those massive pecs, his biceps bulged just enough to offer a very nice show, and those eyes, man oh man, those eyes lit up like the fireworks display he had missed on the Fourth. Silver sparks exploded from the center, chasing midnight-blue lightning as he grunted his release and dropped his forehead to the crook of my neck. He was careful not to collapse his whole weight on me, careful to set my legs back down, careful to pull out nice and slow, which made both of us gasp.

He flopped back on his back and we both stared at the ceiling while breathing hard and still not talking. I wasn’t sure what there was to say. In all my visions of what I was doing, of who I was waiting for, there had never once been a glimpse of anyone like Rome Archer. I sort of marveled that he seemed to be blocking out not only the sun, but whatever else was standing on that horizon waiting for me. He was a problem that literally was going to be too damn big to ignore, not that I wasn’t going to try and do exactly that until I figured out what in the hell I had just done and what exactly it meant to all my carefully constructed plans.

CHAPTER 6


Rome

I thought I was dreaming. Somewhere between the haze of blood and death, and the swirly nauseating feeling of being almost blackout drunk, I had a dream that a pixie came in and saved me from everything. It was all a blur after the fifth or sixth drink. All I knew was that the mind-numbing effects of alcohol, and Brite’s gentle, kind reminders that the shitty things in life could not be directly tied to me, were the only things that kept me from going completely off the rails.

When I pried my eyes open because the sun was bitch-slapping me across the face, I had no idea where I was. Hell, I barely knew who I was: my head was throbbing, I felt a little like I was going to hurl, and all I knew was that I was surrounded by wall-to-wall pink. I also had all kinds of soft feminine curves trapped under me and she smelled like cotton candy and flowers. It had to be a dream because at no point in my reality did I ever get to wake up after a crap day to end all crap days and have those amazing two-toned eyes looking up at me with trepidation, but also with a healthy dose of admiration. Therefore it had to be a dream, and since I was dreaming, I was going to do what I had been dying to do since she called me Captain No-Fun and smirked at me like she already knew all my dark and dirty secrets. I was going to kiss that sassy mouth until neither one of us could breathe, until my head stopped hurting, until I forgot what had put me in such a vulnerable, sorry state in the first place.

Only I had no idea a simple kiss with this tiny, bossy, mouthy girl was going to turn my head around. I wanted to kiss her because she was cute, and soft, and I really did think she had the prettiest eyes I had ever seen, but mostly I wanted to kiss her because I knew she would tell me to stop, that she would no doubt push me away and get worked up into a tizzy of righteous indignation. I was already feeling about as low as I could, so there was no harm in taking it one step further.

Cora apparently didn’t play by any normal set of rules, though. She did the opposite of what I expected, and before too long I was too scared to talk, too freaked out to even breathe, because I was worried that one slight movement in the wrong direction and she would call a halt to the only thing that had made me feel good in a really long time. It still felt like a dream, but she was so hot, so damn unexpected, it now felt like a dream come true.

When it was all over, as I lay there panting and trying to think of an appropriate response, because “thank you” just wouldn’t cut it, she rolled off the other side of the big bed and looked down at me with eyes that were both bright and shiny and dark and swirling. That dual-color thing really was kind of a trip.

“I’m going to take a shower and then you need to take me to get my car from that hole in the wall you were at yesterday.”

She turned around to rummage through a tiny closet on the other side of the very pink room and I took a moment to admire the view. She was lithe, all smooth lines and colorfully decorated skin. She had some kind of Asian-inspired water-and-fire image tattooed around the top of one thigh that danced almost to her knee, those flowers on her ribs with the shower of jewels implanted in her skin on her side, and that arm that had every flower known to man inked on it. She was petite but man, did she pack a punch. Who knew metal in places I never imagined a chick would want to put it would be so hot, be such an unbelievable turn-on. Everything about this girl was a surprise.

“Uhh … not that I’m not grateful for it, but how exactly did I end up here?” The in bed with you I left unspoken.

She put on a short robe that had tiny silver stars all over it and looked silky and shiny. She glanced at me over her shoulder and ran her hands over her short hair. I reached over the side of the bed and started to pull my jeans back on, but I had to take a second because my head started to throb in time to my heartbeat.

“The bartender called the shop looking for Rule but he was gone already. He was dealing with the crisis of being a new homeowner and Nash wasn’t at the apartment. You weren’t in any condition to be left alone, so I brought you here.”