I thought seeing Rome with Bastian would be easier.
He stood there in that boutique unscathed by my being there with another man. I was certain he had no true feelings except hate toward me after screaming at me to leave the bar.
Not that I cared.
Except that I did. Except that I couldn’t stop thinking of him sliding in and out of me, of how his eyes pulled me in, of how my body gravitated toward him and was repelled by anyone else now.
He was supposed to care a little too. We were supposed to be bound by our inability to bind to anyone else.
So I pushed every one of his red do-not-touch buttons.
“Get the fuck back in the dressing room and change,” Rome said in a low voice.
“What crawled up your ass?” I put a hand on my hip and waited for an answer.
“You’re purposely trying to rub me the wrong way today, Katie.”
“Maybe I’m rubbing you just the right way.” I winked at him.
One of his massive hands went to the back of his neck, and he pulled on it hard as he sighed up to the ceiling. Then he said, “Yep, I’m doing it,” to no one in particular and dragged me into the dressing room by my elbow.
I fought him. He fucking deserved it. “Don’t manhandle me, you big asshole.”
Mario shook his head as he walked away to confer with the saleswoman again. I swear, the boutique must have been used to our type because none of them batted an eye. I tried to stomp one of my heels into Rome’s shoe, but he sidestepped and threw me over his shoulder.
“No help?” I yelled over his back. “Bastian? After everything we’ve been through?”
He looked a bit wounded, but Rome said over his shoulder, “You come near us right now, I’ll step aside the next time a bullet comes your way.”
Bastian’s jaw ticked; I saw it. But he didn’t step forward.
Rome dropped me down in the dressing room, and I stumbled back into the wall. “A little overly dramatic?” I raised an eyebrow as I readjusted my sweetheart bodice.
“You’re out of control, woman.” His eyes were wild, wide with fury when normally all I saw was emptiness.
Good.
I was finally getting a reaction.
I crossed my arms over my chest, and his gaze flickered down for a moment. “Oh my God. It’s a dress, Rome. Can we get past it?”
“It’s a hook, line, and sinker dress. It’s a here-I-am-on-a-platter dress for a fucking event where you could die because of it. Pick something less in-your-face.”
“I like in-your-face.”
“Too bad!” I yelled. “I like you. They like you. The whole city likes you. Too damn much! We can’t keep you safe when you’re tempting everyone’s rage, everyone’s pride.”
“I can keep myself safe, Rome.” I smiled with extra smarminess. “But thanks.”
He crowded me into the corner of the fitting room, and his hand went to my favorite place—wrapped around my neck—so he could lift my chin and glare into my eyes. “You know every time you say that, I think of how easy it would be for me to snap your neck.”
“It’d be the hardest thing you’ve ever done, Rome, because you wouldn’t be able to live with it like you do all the others. You’d have to find a way to get over the fact that you actually care about me. You may act like you don’t, you may act like I’m just a nuisance, but you wouldn’t be in this fitting room if that were the case.”
“I have a job to do, and that’s protecting this family. You’re a part of it. I take my job seriously, even if it means dealing with your shit.”
“That’s what you’re going with? I’m your job?”
A line formed between his eyebrows, like I was confusing him, like he was working through what I said but wasn’t catching up quickly enough. I knew the struggle. I knew his fight not to care for me. I was fighting to shove him aside and move on to Bastian too.
In that fitting room, under the fluorescent lights that amplified all our imperfections, I found my most glaring one.
His calloused hand on my neck sent shivers across my body; goose bumps rose along with my nipples as if they would only ever peak for him. My hands had a mind of their own as they inched the mesh of my skirt up and then gripped his shirt while I wrapped one leg around him.
His hand gripped me tighter, and my mouth dropped as I sucked in air and felt his length against me. His other hand gripped my upper thigh, and I bit my lip as it slid higher.
He swore over and over again, strings of whispered obscenities mixed with insults about how reckless I was as I let his hand creep farther and farther.
Abruptly, his hand raked hard up the rest of my thigh. He pulled his hips away just enough for him to move my panties aside and plunge two fingers into me.
I would have screamed out, but my voice was gone. He was cutting off my oxygen, watching me ride his fingers, watching me lose my control and consciousness. I held onto his shirt, felt my nipples tightening against the fabric, felt his eyes watching me, my tits, and my body riding him.
I should have stopped.
But I couldn’t.
I was on some roller coaster of Rome, some fucked up feeling of wanting him and then hating him and wanting him to want me too.
I saw spots as he pressed his thumb into my clit and rubbed back and forth, hard and slow. “Please, Rome. Please, please, please.” I begged him like I begged no man. I climbed to a higher mountain with him than I had with anyone else. I was willing to give in, willing to give anything to reach the peak with him.
He moved his fingers faster. “You beg me and only me, Katalina. This part of you belongs to me.”
I wanted to tell him to fuck me, to unzip his jeans and let us get a quickie in, but he took my orgasm too fast by sliding a third finger in and curling them to hit my G-spot while rolling his thumb roughly on my clit.
Just as my core tightened, he released my neck and covered my mouth to muffle my moan while I convulsed around his fingers.
When he knew I’d be quiet, his hand gripped my jaw, making me look right in his eyes. All I could see was hunger and rage as he said, “Buy the other dress.”
I didn’t confirm or deny that I would do anything. He slowly removed his hand from under my dress, and I tried not to mourn the loss immediately.
“If I buy the other dress, what do I get out of it?”
“A happy monster for the night? That not good enough for you?” he said without looking up. He was turning me around, trying to find a way to help me out of the bodice. “Where the fuck is the zipper?”
“I’m tied in.”
He groaned. “I hate this thing.”
“Sure?” I said as I glanced down at the swell in his jeans. My mouth watered, and I just about licked my lips. I knew how he handled that dick, and I knew it was some of the best handling I’d ever had the privilege of witnessing.
“My mind and dick rarely agree on things.”
I turned quickly to hide my smile and pointed to the tie at the bottom of my back. “Untie me?”
His hands held my waist for a moment. He stood a whole head taller than me as I looked at us both in the mirror. Rome was this mammoth of a man, full of muscle, tattoos, and darkness. I knew firsthand that he used every one of those muscles, that every one of those tattoos meant something, and that his darkness was all-consuming.
“This dress is hypnotic, Katalina. You’re hypnotic.” He rested his chin on my forehead, and my curls rubbed against his five-o’clock shadow. “What am I going to do with you, huh?”
I stared at him in the mirror, wondering if we could ever just be normal, just together. “Why do you have to do anything different than what you’ve always done with me before?”
“Because before I was sure I didn’t care. Now I’m not so sure. Caring makes me vulnerable when I can’t be. Not for the family.”
I prided myself on not getting emotional. My dad had been there, then he wasn’t. I went into the system swiftly and knew emotions were taken advantage of. I didn’t cry. I didn’t complain. I took it all—the beatings, the abuse, the neglect—in stride.
Why was it that now, all of a sudden, with just the slightest bit of truth and attention from him, I wanted to let the unshed tears go?
“Probably should get me out of this dress,” I whispered.
He nodded and then stepped back to start loosening the ribbon.
As he did, my waist spilled out. I breathed in deep as his fingers dug between the ribbons and my skin to slacken the fabric’s grip.
“Jesus, are they folding you in half when this is tightened?”
“Beauty is pain.” I chuckled at his disbelief.
“Katie, there’re marks from the waistline,” he said like it was ridiculous.
I glared at him. “Rome, you get to throw on a jacket and look nice. We do this to look nice.”
“This is like bondage. Seems pretty uncomfortable for a night of show.”
“But bondage for foreplay and show is what it’s all about.” I waggled my eyebrows at him.
He had the ribbons in his hand, and for a moment he cinched them tighter. “Don’t play, woman. We’re getting this shit off you, and you’re getting the other dress.”
“You still didn’t tell me what I get.”
“What do you want?” He sighed, like he’d finally tired of me and was admitting defeat.
Maybe that’s what I needed. For him to step aside so I didn’t truly become a victim of heartbreak in all this. Rome was my most dangerous downfall. I didn’t care about my life being at risk, because I knew that losing myself would be much less painful than losing someone I loved.
“Should I ask you to step aside?” I said. “Bastian and I could be comfortable, Rome. I’ve enjoyed being there with him. Should I ask you to stop whatever the hell we keep doing?”
“You could.”
My heart sank. He would let me go so easily. I knew it was an indicator for me to turn away, to leave him behind and ask him to do the same for me.
“You could, Katalina, but it wouldn’t matter.” His solemn tone signaled that he was in as much turmoil over what we had as I was. “I don’t step away from what’s mine, and you’re quickly becoming that. Even if I don’t want you to be.”
I looked up at him and ran a hand over his jaw. “Then I guess what I want is for you to claim me, because the harder you both pull the more I’ll relish the pain of splitting in either direction.”
“Ever the masochist, huh?”
“Takes one to know one.”
