12. Chapter Twelve—Cassiel
Chapter Twelve—Cassiel
Ihail a cab home the rest of the way.
Brushing the flaky pastry crumbs off my lap, I pay the driver and step out, bounding up the steps to the town house on the upper east side that I call home.
“Rome?” I call as soon as I’ve locked the door behind myself, kicking my shoes off and following the sound of classical music emanating from the kitchen.
I find him standing, dressed in a loose tee and a pair of dark navy sweatpants, peering out of the window at the street beyond. The cell phone he grips, looking comically small in his large, calloused hand.
Turning at the sound of my loud footsteps, Rome smiles, eyes creasing at the edges with the beginnings of two fine lines.
“Everything okay?”
Nodding, I press the biodegradable takeaway coffee cup into his hand and whirl around to throw the croissant in the microwave to heat up.
“Fine. Better than fine.” I grin at him, raising my brows. “I saw Carlotta home safe and sound.”
Rome frowns at me in question as he slides his phone into his pocket and takes a sip of his coffee. “She let you take her home?”
I scoff, grabbing a clean plate from the cupboard before the microwave signals its countdown with a sharp ding!
Plucking the hot pastries from its confines, I dump them on a plate, wincing at my slight burning sensation dancing across the tips of my flesh and slide the plate over the granite countertop towards Rome.
“Fuck no. Her exact words we’re ‘I’m a big girl’ and off she went.”
I see Rome roll his eyes, grabbing a seat on the breakfast barstool and picking up a croissant, catching an oozing droplet of melted chocolate and hazelnut filling on the tip of his thumb.
My eyes trace the way he pops his digit into his mouth, sucking nosily, causing my dick to swell, pressing insistently against the metal zipper and fly of my jeans.
The smirk ghosting over Rome’s full lips tells me he’s doing it on purpose, and fuck me, it’s working.
“So, how do you know she got home alright?”
I blink, licking my dry lips. “I followed her.”
This time, Rome doesn’t bother to try and hide his full-blown grin. “Good.”
I pause, plunging my hand inside my coat pocket to feel the lace of Carlotta’s panties. Did Rome peel them off her last night or did she do it herself? Were they damp from her slick pussy dripping with desire?
“You could have stayed… last night.”
Rome simply grunts his reply, demolishing his first pastry and picking up his second with a mouthful of black coffee to follow.
“Why didn’t you?”
He pops his shoulders, gazing up at me, a clash of dark brown against hazel. “She’s more comfortable with you, I think.”
Nodding slowly, I swallow. “I see what you see in her. I see why you’re… in love with her.”
Inhaling sharply, Rome gently places his cup down. His eyes bounce back and forth across my face, searching for something.
“When are you going to tell her?” I question.
He doesn’t answer me.
I shake my head, annoyance creeping up over my skin, settling into my bones. “You can’t just leave me in the dark, Rome.”
“I’m not,” he starts, shutting up at the sharp ‘don’t bullshit me’ look etched on my features. “I’m not leaving you in the dark. I promised you I would never.”
“So, when?”
“I—”
“I thought we were in this together.”
“We are!” Rome pushes both hands through his hair, dislodging the usually smooth strands until they stand up every which way. “We are, Cass. I’m—not yet. I’m not telling her yet.”
“Why?”
“She needs to complete the initiation first. Otherwise, it’ll be pointless telling Carlotta information she’s never going to use, let alone believe.”
“What’s her task going to be?”
He shakes his head slowly, eyes large and round, pleading, almost. “You know I can’t tell you that.”
I don’t fight him on that. Officially, I’m not a full member of The Thirteen. I’ve never taken an initiation task myself; the other members simply accepted me because Rome told them to.
Behind those doors, I have no clue what goes on. Nor have I ever really wanted too… until now.
“So, we’re going to tell her after she passes?”
“If she passes.”
“She will. I know she will.”
Bobbing his head, Rome slides his hand across the countertop, intertwining our fingers together.
“Do you want her?”
I don’t need to think about my answer. “Yes.”
He squeezes my wrist.
“What do you think about sharing?”
Huffing out a dark laugh, Rome stands, rounding the kitchen with a grin. “We were always going to share. What’s mine is yours, remember?”
The edge of my vision darkens as he captures my lips with his, hands snaking down to squeeze my ass moments before I. Snap.
Tangling my tongue with his, I pull at the soft hem of his shirt, ripping it upwards until I can pull it from his body.
“You smoked, didn’t you?” he mutters, trailing his lips back and forth along the sharp line of my stubbled jaw before he steals another kiss.
“Yeah,” I pant into his mouth, my hips bucking forward when his large hands begin to pluck at my button and zipper on my jeans, teasing passes of his calloused fingertips coursing over my Adonis belt. “She was stressing—shit—me the fuck out.”
Rome chuckles at that, unceremoniously shoving my jeans down my thick thighs and squeezing my hard cock through the thin material of my boxers until a smear of pre-cum stains the once light gray, a gunmetal shade.
Grunting, I fist my own shirt at the nape of my neck with one hand and yank it off, uncaring of where it lands.
Pleasure ricochets up and down my spine, paralyzing me for a heartbeat as I squeeze my eyes shut tight and tip my head back, moaning Rome’s name to the ceiling.
I can tell he likes my reaction when he smiles into my collarbone before he sinks his teeth into the hard, muscled flesh. The bastard.
Pushing him forward, I shove my hand down the waistband of his sweats, wrapping my fingertips around his hard length and squeezing at the base just the way I know he likes it.
We’re a knot of wandering hands and sloppy tongues as we jack each other off, precum smeared across my knuckles and the inside of my wrist, while Rome slicks my length, collecting another drop from my slit with the pad of his thumb and then using the extra lubrication to dip behind my balls and press against the bud of my asshole.
I almost come right then and there, like a fucking teenager doing anal for the first time, and I might have, if Rome didn’t move his other hand quickly to squeeze my balls so hard it’s almost painful.
“You’re a right dick, you know that?” I snarl, chest heaving, my temples slicked with a fine, sheer coat of sweat.
“Sorry, baby. I’m sorry,” Rome whispers, pressing his lips to mine in apology until I can’t help but melt into his arms.
I let him press me up against the cold granite, marble of the breakfast bar, sucking softly at my pulse point, his hand slowing as he jacks me off, the tip of his thick thumb still inside me.
Unable to take another second—I’m so fucking pent up after last night and this morning and now this—I pull at his sweats, forcing him to step out of them and wrap my fist around the both of us.
Rome pitches forward on a groan, the fingertips once inside my ass slipping out, leaving me feeling strangely empty for a second, to grab at the countertop edge. His other hand, slick with my arousal, grips at my hip, creating smears of pearlescent fingerprints on my tattooed skin.
He buries his face in the safe space between my neck and my broad shoulder while I use the mixture of our pre-cum to get each other off.
I gasp and moan, writhing in my own grasp, until the large blue vein on the underside of my cock pulses, at the feel of our hard, hot lengths rubbing against each other.
Transfixed, my mouth hanging open, I watch more pre-cum drip from Rome’s red tip, landing on my cock and dribbling down to my thick base.
“Cass, baby, please.”
My heart skips in my chest at the sound of Rome begging. Nobody else gets to see him like this. Only me and…
I spurt in my hand at the thought of Carlotta, rubbing faster and faster, my balls tingling, my thighs flexing, until Rome comes with a shout too. His hips jerk against mine, cock rutting into my palm, against my own dick as he paints ribbons of hot, opaque cum on my hand and our stomachs.
Placing a soft kiss to my neck, Rome laughs, his warm puff of breath coating my skin. “Holy shit, I can’t feel my legs.”
“Me neither.”
We stand, half slumped against the kitchen countertops, tangled together while we wait for our heartrates to calm down and the ringing to stop coursing through my ears, trading soft kisses back and forth.
“Promise me nothing will change when Carlotta comes along. Promise me, Rome.”
“I promise,” he murmurs, nudging his nose with mine. “I love you.”
I believe him in the very core of my being, I have no reason not to. He’s my best friend, my confidante, my protector, and my lover since we were kids and even more so now we’re adults living in a dangerous world.
Smirking, I peer down at the still half hard length of him pressing into my hip.
“Shut it,” Rome jokes, grabbing a fresh dishrag from the sideboard to wipe his hand free of cum and then filling up a glass of water for the two of us to share.
I raise my brows, feeling my own cock perk up at the idea of another round. Or Two. “Don’t you want to—”
The rest of my words die on the tip of my tongue when Rome finishes off the glass of water, and pulls me along, up two flights of stairs, to the topmost floor, striding past the floor to ceiling window streaming strobes of weak winter light across our hallway, uncaring that the curtains are open wide for the world to see and into our ensuite.
“This what you want?”
I nod, watching him reach inside the shower enclosure to twist our waterfall shower on, testing the temperature with the back of his scarred hand.
“In you get then, baby,” he urges me with a squeeze of my ass. “Let me show you how thankful I am for you and how grateful I am for the way you watched over our girl all night.”