We walked around each other on eggshells for a few days after that. He didn’t try anything again. When he left me a couple of days later, he told me to take an SUV out if I needed to, to be careful about where I went.
He was trusting me and giving me space when he shouldn’t have.
I tried to steer my mind to the fact that Bastian was here for me, wanted me, and that he trusted me to take control where I wanted to.
Still, my mind veered off course and found its way to the man who didn’t want anything to do with me. Rome hadn’t called, hadn’t texted, hadn’t come to visit Bastian in an effort to see me. He’d avoided everything we were, and now I wondered if it was because he was as broken as me. He’d lost his father by his own hands. The one person he should have been able to rely on made Rome exercise the monster in him in the most brutal way. He protected the family by taking his dad’s life.
When I got to Heathen’s Bar, the host greeted me with a smile and waved me in. Every heathen that worked there had a mouthwatering look, and the host didn’t disappoint. His top bun was thick and his smile bright and white. Then there was Cole, who stood behind the bar in a tight T-shirt that showed off his muscles and his dimples were overkill.
“Is it too early for a drink?” I sat down on a stool and put my chin in my hand as I winked at him.
“Never too early for you, Katie. You’re one girl I’m sure needs all the drinks she can get.”
A patron who had been there much too long burped and swung his head my way. “What’s that supposed to mean? You doing something I want to get into?” He waggled his eyebrows at me.
I rolled my eyes and didn’t answer him. “Just get me a Sprite, Cole.”
Cole stared down the guy who decided to get up from his stool and walk over to me. He wobbled on his way, and when he got within three feet, I could smell the whiskey.
“Cole, get me my Sprite,” I told him pointedly. I could take care of a drunk and didn’t need Cole getting into any type of trouble before the night even began. Bars were magnets for enough drama that I felt obligated to help out the bar manager every once in a while, especially since Cole was a papa bear on steroids for most everyone. He managed Rome’s bar with precision and heart, making sure his employees and patrons always felt safe, while weeding out customers that caused the opposite quickly.
Cole filled up a glass just as the guy whispered something to me about going back to his place.
“I think you need to go home and sleep off the alcohol, buddy. You don’t want a Heathen to kick you out of here for bothering me, do you?”
“I’m not bothering you, sweet thing.”
I sighed and spun on my stool to glare at him. As I did, I lifted my loose dark shirt that covered the waist band of my jean shorts. My knife sat there, wedged in a case. When he looked, his eyes widened. I said quietly, “Leave before we have a problem. For the sake of the bar, huh?”
He stumbled back with his hands raised and then ran out.
Cole was laughing when I turned back around in my seat to face him and grab my Sprite.
“Do I want to know what just happened?” he said, his voice full of mirth.
“Nope. I need to go to the bathroom.” I slid off the chair and headed to the employee hallway.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. I think—”
I pushed through the swinging door, my heart pumping from Cole’s words. If it wasn’t a good idea, I might find something I shouldn’t. Or someone.
The bathroom door next to Rome’s office was cracked, but I heard rustling and the water running. I pushed it farther open.
The blood on his hands turned the water red as he washed them. The white porcelain sink blurred with the pink and red ribbons of someone else’s life.
“Rome,” I whispered.
He jumped, the muscles in his back rippling as he tensed. His dark head of hair was dripping wet, and as it shot up, droplets of water sprayed everywhere. Those black eyes solidified to a stone-cold stare when he looked at me through the mirror. “Why are you back here?”
“I had to pee. It’s not like I don’t come back—”
“Get out!” He delivered the command as swiftly as a sword slicing its enemy down.
I stood my ground. We still weren’t friends. We were barely acquaintances at this point. He’d ignored me too many times for that and had acted as though I didn’t exist for the past couple of weeks. And in those weeks, I’d almost slept with another man, one I knew could keep me content. Yet I still wanted only Rome.
“Katalina, you need to leave.” His voice rumbled out low in warning.
I should have left like he asked me to. If he didn’t care about me, didn’t want me here, I shouldn’t have cared either.
But I knew him. I knew his touch, the way his breath shook when he was with me, the way his mouth felt against mine. I knew the man under the monster.
More than anything, I knew the emptiness in his eyes. It was the same look that had marred my face over the years, time and time again.
I crossed my arms. “That’s not just someone else’s blood on your hands. Your face is bleeding.”
He sighed and ducked his face down to splash some more water over it. “Get the fuck out of here, Katalina.”
I leaned against the doorframe of the bathroom for support as my full name rolled from his pillowy lips. I missed hearing his voice, missed hearing him command me. “Does the other guy look just as bad?”
I got no answer from him. The silence ping-ponged around us, ricocheting off our tension and unanswered questions. Rome wanted me to leave.
Instead, I lightened my tone. “To be honest, I might act out and fuck up one of your customers tonight. They’re out of control. I just had to threaten a guy. So I’m thinking I need a good fight story.” I smiled at my own joke, trying to lighten the mood. “Please tell me you killed the other guy.”
He whipped around to face me. His black eyes pulled me in and tried to swallow me in their hollowness. “I did.”
Those two words—he said them so seriously, goose bumps popped up over my skin. “What?”
“Don’t ask a question if you aren’t prepared for the answer.”
“Rome, seriously? You can’t . . . Bastian didn’t say anything about kills in the past few days. If you’re not following the rules . . . Bastian doesn’t want anyone acting outside of his control.”
“You still staying with him, then?” The first real emotion from him was the pain as his voice cracked with the question. It hurt me just as much as him.
“What does Bastian really have to do with any of this? You know it’s all for—” I stopped. If it were all for show, I wouldn’t have kissed Bastian. But Rome hadn’t called; he hadn’t even asked about me. He’d left me to the mob without a backward glance, even knowing I’d had my head bashed in, even knowing people were out there looking for me.
“It has everything to do with it, Katalina. You know what the family is out there doing?”
“Rome.” I glanced toward the ceiling, my heart wanting to break. “They don’t tell me everything. So I don’t get to ask those types of questions.”
“You better start. And you better be prepared for the answer.”
I combed a hand through my waves as I took in his words, the way his body vibrated with a rage that was barely contained. “Are you okay?”
He crowded me against the door, looked me up and down. “Bastian’s world isn’t the one you want—”
“And it’s the one you do? You’re in just as deep as me.” I grabbed the gray shirt that had splatters of blood staining it. “How are you ever going to explain this? How are you going to come back from taking lives when Bastian isn’t giving you permission? He’s the head of the family now, Rome. Him! Not you.”
He looked away, and the breath he took in was labored, like a wounded animal struggling for life. I felt him crumbling, felt the world taking him down, felt his pain.
My hand shot out, gripping his bicep where blood lay wet over his tattoos. “Hey,” I whispered and squeezed. The blood rolled down over my fingers. Warm. Still full of life. It was that vibrant red, like roses on the sunniest day after a summer rain. “If you’re hurting, if you’re about to break, break me instead. I can handle it.”
“Are you offering what I think you are?” His gaze ran up and down my body, searing it and branding it as his with just a look.
I swallowed and then licked my lips, knowing deep down that I was his at the end of the day, that Bastian—that no man—could tie himself to me like Rome could. He’d been there for me since the beginning, and so I would be there for him until the end. “Yes.”
His hand shot out so fast to wrap around my neck that I jumped and fell back into the brick wall behind me. Little fragments of the aged cement crumbled onto my shoulders as I leaned farther away from him. My body was accustomed to pain and suffering. Still, this once, I was sure this was the most danger I’d ever been in.
He squeezed, and I felt my windpipe start to close. “Kate-Bait, I will break you. And I won’t put you back together.”
“I’m already broken,” I murmured, but it sounded far away. “And I don’t expect a handout from anyone.”
“At least you’ve learned what it’s like to be in the family.” He grabbed my hand and slid it under his shirt. I felt the warm liquid before it registered that he was bleeding, that he was running my hand over his wound. “My blood is your blood. I bleed, you bleed.”
I whispered the oath back. “I bleed, you bleed . . .” He squeezed harder so that I couldn’t finish it.
Then he yanked my neck toward him so he could devour my mouth. He moved like he was ravenous, sucking on my lips and then making his way down to my neck as his hands roved over me to the jean shorts I wore. He unbuttoned them, his big hands taking control and not fumbling at all. He didn’t wait for me to nod as he shoved them down over my ass to the ground. “You still clean?” he panted into my ear before he went further.
My heart pounded as anger sliced through me. “I should be able to say I’ve slept with someone else since you.” I pounded his shoulder. “I don’t want to wait for you to have me in the back of a bar. And yet, I’m fucking clean because all I think about is you. All I remember when another man touches me is you.”
His dark eyes pulled me into their depths and held me hostage there. His voice rumbled out soft and low. “No man but me should ever be touching you. You’re driving me insane just living with him, Katalina. It’s driving me fucking insane.”
He plunged his cock into me so hard, I got shoved into the wall. I moaned at the feeling of him filling me up, at feeling like I was connected to the one person I felt separated from for weeks now.
I’d been chasing the high, chasing the feeling of him with Bastian, but couldn’t find it.
I squeezed his hips between my thighs and writhed as he kissed me. “Why does it take us weeks to get to this point?”
He shifted and pulled out before he answered, leaving me empty. I stared at his cock, glistening with my arousal and throbbing in front of me. His arm muscles flexed on either side of me and his jaw ticked when he answered, “I’m never supposed to get to this point. I’m supposed to protect you, that’s it. I can’t protect you when I’m fucking you, Katalina.”
“I should decide who protects me and who gets to be between my legs, Rome.”
His cock flexed, and my pussy clenched in reciprocation. “You want to choose this? Choose the man who can kill you in a heartbeat? I’m the family’s monster, Katalina. I don’t have a heart to give you except a fucked up one.”
“It’s the only one I want.” We held each other’s gaze, speaking a language I wasn’t sure either of us really understood. Maybe there was love there. Maybe we were sharing that sentiment but we couldn’t have known. The world had jumbled all our emotions and made us forget that love could be shared by anyone, even the darkest of souls.
I rolled my hips in front of him, drew his attention back to my core, right where he wanted to be. He stepped up and slid his length into me centimeter by centimeter. When I glanced up at him, he said, “Watch my dick slide into where it belongs. If nothing else, this works and works very”—he thrust so hard into me I arched—“fucking”—he pulled out and then pounded into me again—“well.”
I saw his pupils dilate as I clawed at his back and screamed his name.
Maybe this was where our end began.
