Chapter Six
“What is it about the gardens?” Rome asked.
Beth spun toward his voice. He’d been gone this morning, and she hadn’t expected to see him all day. After enjoying her breakfast of tea and toast, she’d decided to head back out to the garden.
She had been at Rome’s now a grand total of five days. Each day, whether it was raining or not, she would try to venture out at least once. She loved being out in the open and feeling the grass beneath her feet. Last night there had been a lot of rain, and she knew her feet were covered in grass and dirt.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I live here.”
She chuckled. “Good response.”
“So, tell me, what is it about the gardens?” he asked.
She smiled at him. “Don’t you think they’re beautiful?”
“I do.”
“And you need more of a reason for me to want to be outside?”
“Yes.”
She folded her arms across her chest. She had come to see this about Rome—he needed answers to everything or at the very least, explanations as to why she did certain things.
“I don’t really know why I come out here, I just know I love being out here. When Ben and I were with our parents, we lived in a horrible place. The neighborhood was beat down and most of the people had given up. We did have a small lawn. It wasn’t much, but it was small, and since we left, I haven’t had the time to just walk over grass. I know it is stupid as we have small parks and places you can go, but I work a lot. When you’re tired, it’s hard to appreciate the little things, you know?” she asked.
She wasn’t sure if he understood what she was trying to say.
“How long has it been?” he asked.
“Five and a bit years. Six in a few months,” she said.
“Do you regret it?”
Beth looked at him and frowned. “Yes and no. Yes, because I thought we were leaving our problems behind. I thought Mom and Dad were the problem.”
“Ben’s a problem,” he said.
“Yeah, he’s a problem, and he is still my brother, but I don’t know, coming here has helped me get some perspective. I’m a little confused, because I love him. I loved my parents, but I was able to leave them. With Ben, I feel we have fallen into this horrible rut.” She sighed and moved over to the bench.
“Talk,” Rome said.
This was so strange for her. She didn’t really know Rome. Yes, she knew he was a scary and dangerous man, and that he could kill her and no one would come looking for her. Talking to him shouldn’t be easy, and yet it was.
She took a deep breath, about to avoid it, but then decided to take him up on his offer to listen.
“I love my brother, I do, but I think when this is over, I need to leave him behind as well. There are things I want in life, and coming home to find your brother trashing your apartment, or having sex on the sofa, and not doing anything to help pay the bills after five years, it … it’s not good.”
“You want to leave?” he asked.
She pressed her lips together.
“You know it’s not a bad thing, to want to leave that kind of shit behind,” he said.
“Like you know what I’m talking about,” she said.
“I killed my father when I was thirteen years old,” Rome said. “No one knows this. For as long as I can remember, that man was beating me with his belt, sticks, his fists, there was even a time he took a hammer to me. Trust me, that man was a nightmare, and I was afraid of him. I don’t know what happened. I was growing up, and the beatings were hurting less, but I was starting to get angry. I was starting to see the truth, and one day when he was beating me and he smashed a bottle over me and was going to start jabbing that thing into me, I snapped. To this day, I don’t know how it happened, but I got that bottle, jammed it down his throat, and watched him die.”
“I’m not going to kill my brother,” she said.
“But, my point is not to kill your brother. With the piece of shit he is, someone else will do that job, but you can’t be afraid to walk away. You can’t be afraid to make a life for yourself. Sometimes it’s better to walk away than live your life, dying inside, hoping tomorrow never comes.”
Beth felt tears spring to her eyes as she looked at Rome, and in that moment, she knew there was more to him than met the eye. He was more than just a criminal, a killer.
“You shouldn’t cry for that,” he said.
“I don’t know how you’re able to say the right words, but you do.” She let out a laugh, and he pressed a handkerchief into her hand.
“When all of this is over, I will find the means to allow you to start a new life,” he said. “If you’re interested, I will even set up a cleaning business for you, and you can do the books yourself. We’ll come to some kind of percentage arrangements, and we’ll do business together.”
She frowned. “You’d be willing to do that for me?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because sometimes in life, bad shit happens to good people, Beth. You’re a good person. I know that, and I know I’m using that. Maybe this will be my good deed.”
She laughed. “Helping me leave my brother behind to deal with his own problems is your way of doing a good deed?”
“Helping a woman who needs it, who has done nothing wrong, who is only trying to make a life for herself. That is the good deed I am talking about, and if it stops any bad shit from happening to her, then I am all for it.”
She pressed the handkerchief beneath her eye and gave a little laugh. “You better be careful, Rome, people might think you care and you have a heart.”
“I don’t. That was beaten out of me years ago. A heart is a weakness I don’t have. What I am, is reasonable.”
“Beaten?” she asked.
“I told you, my dad.”
“What happened after?”
He pursed his lips and she knew this was where he was going to try and make his escape. She reached out to him.
“Stop, okay, I get it. You don’t want to tell me. You give me half a story, but I don’t know if you’re aware of this, I am a good listener. I don’t know if you like talking or not, but I won’t share anything with anyone.” She laughed, she just couldn’t help it. “I don’t have any friends to call my own.”
“Are you trying to ask me to be your friend?” he asked.
Beth took a deep breath. “You make it sound like a bad thing.”
“No, it wouldn’t be a bad thing. I don’t … have friends,” he said.
“So maybe you and I could do something radical, and perhaps be friends?” She didn’t even know why she was suggesting this. There was so much about Rome she didn’t know.
“You want to share all your secrets with me?” he asked.
“You’ve already got my two biggest.”
“What?” he asked.
She rolled her eyes, and then sighed. “That I was a virgin, and how I feel about my brother—my desire to leave him so I can go out and have a place of my own.”
“They’re secrets?”
“Two that no one else knows, not even my brother.” She looked at him with a smile on her lips, and she looked so sexy. “It’s an offer, Rome. I’m here if you want or need a friend.”
She started to walk away and even though Rome knew he should let her go, for some odd reason he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
“Why?” he asked.
“Why what?”
“Why would you offer me your friendship after everything I have done?” he asked. “You’re not here of your own free will. I gave you an ultimatum, and you’re giving me the offer of friendship. Do you see the double standard here?”
She chuckled. “I see the double standard, but I don’t care. I might also have to mention that my parents found me a little weird. Even though you’ve done what you’ve done, Rome, you’ve treated me with more respect in the last five days than my brother has in the last five years.”
****
Rome was not going to take her up on her offer. He didn’t need to talk about his past or his feelings. What happened, happened.
She didn’t need to know that after his mother left, his life went from dark to hell. His father had always beaten his mother, at least that was what Rome could remember. The endless nights of listening to her scream and beg for him to stop. From a young age, Rome hated his father.
That was not going to stop. He didn’t know what finally got his mother to snap, but one night she was cooking dinner that was not good enough for his father. The food ended up on the floor, and that was where he made her eat her own food from. The next morning, when he woke up, she was gone.
His father had been so enraged. For the first time in years, though, he’d started to rant at no one. He’d start by threatening to kill her, hunt her down, and drag her back, make her pay for her insolence. For an entire week, his father went out hunting for her, and each night, he came back empty. Rome remembered getting the punishment for her insolence, and for his failure. He’d get whipped until his father couldn’t hit anymore.
Then, the next morning would come around and it would all start again. He’d not thought about this in a very long time.
Staring across his office room, it was dark outside, and he suddenly heard movement. He got up from his seat, knowing it had to be Beth walking around. His door was partially open, and he watched her sleepily come down the stairs and turn in the direction of the kitchen. She looked so tired, and he couldn’t help but follow her. He stood outside the kitchen as she went to the freezer and grabbed a carton of ice cream.
“You don’t have to stare at me from the kitchen door,” Beth said. “Am I allowed to get ice cream, or will Philippe be pissed at me?”
Rome smirked because she looked so tired and yet grumpy.
“What woke you up?” he asked.
He’d been working all afternoon, well into the evening. He skipped dinner, knowing Beth would be alone, but he didn’t wish to continue his conversation with her.
“Bad dream,” Beth said. “My entire night is now screwed.” She grabbed a spoon and opened the carton of ice cream.
“A bad dream?”
“Nightmares, I get them from time to time.” She frowned as she lifted out a scoop. “What time is it anyway?” She spoke before sliding some ice cream into her mouth and turning toward the oven. “Two-thirty.” This time she spoke with her mouth full and a groan. “Why?”
“So, no chance of you going back to bed?” he asked.
“Not usually.” She pouted. “But don’t you worry about me. I’ve got ice cream and a good movie, or a bad one. Whichever one I find in your movie room. I’m sorry to disturb you.”
“You didn’t disturb me.”
“You know, I’m not sure you’re aware, but working late like you’re doing is not good for the soul.” She put the spoon back into the carton and tutted as she shook her finger back and forth.
“There is no rest for a guy like me.”
She chuckled. “No, I don’t imagine there is.” She stepped up toward him and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “And that is why you need a friend.”
Beth moved away and Rome stood there, feeling the pressure against his cheek after she’d kissed him. What the fuck was the matter with him?
He wasn’t going soft. There was not a single soft bone in his body. Yet, he reached up and grazed the tips of his fingers against his cheek, feeling the exact spot she had touched, and it seemed almost foreign to him.
Get a grip, Rome. She’s here for easy sex, nothing else.
He kept trying to convince himself that was exactly why she was here, as he followed her into the movie room. He joined her on the sofa and stole the spoon out of her hand.
“Hey, I’m using that.”
“You were using it, and now I am.” He winked at her.
“I should have known you’d be a thief.”
He stared ahead at the big screen. “You want to tell me what we’re watching?” he asked.
“Something scary, I hope.”
This made him pause as he turned to glance over at her and she shrugged.
“Don’t look at me like that. I work on the theory that one will cancel out the other. Trust me, I don’t like horror movies, but I do what I must.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” he said.
“Why, Rome Hayes, are you afraid of a little scary movie?” she asked.
“No, I’m not.” He didn’t have time to watch movies. Scary shit on a television screen didn’t scare him. Growing up as a kid, hearing real bumps in the night, and living with his own bogeyman of a father, made scary movies seem more like animated movies. Of course, he should have known it was going to be a slasher movie.
Beth stole back the spoon, and he watched some guy go on a killing spree. The more blood, the more bored he got. There was a point when he did see one killing, one that reminded him of what he’d done to his father, and he knew the blood didn’t spurt that way. The dramatic effect was what made it do what it did. None of it was real, and he’d lived in the harsh reality of the real world. One he couldn’t get away from.
Grabbing the remote, he’d seen enough, and as she cried out, he did no more than silence her with a kiss.
He expected her to push him away, but instead her hand went to his shoulder and she seemed to grip him closer to her. That was good. He needed to feel her full lips against him.
Needed her to be close. She was like an addiction to him. One he currently didn’t want to give up. There was going to come a time when everything made sense again.
There were no rules, though.
He took the carton of ice cream from her hand and placed it on the table in front of him. It didn’t take him long to get her naked, but the moment he could get to her tits, he took each one into his mouth and sucked the hardened peaks.
Beth moaned, arching back, offering up those full, ripe tits for him to suck. He pressed them together, and while he was teasing one with his mouth, with the other he stroked his fingers across the turgid peak. He loved listening to the sounds of her gasps. The sounds of her moans filled his soul with pleasure.
Moving to the other breast, he lavished the same kind of attention on that nipple, until he couldn’t take anymore. He had to have a taste of her sweet cunt. This time, he didn’t take his time, but moved between her thighs, spreading them open, and licking from her cunt up to her clit. He swirled his tongue around her clit, hearing her moan and whimper as he did so.
“Please, Rome,” she said.
He kept his focus on her clit and slid his tongue back and forth, until she cried out and writhed against him. Rome didn’t stop until she was screaming and begging for him, and he expertly sent her body over the edge.
Before she could come down from her release, he slid between her spread thighs, lined his cock up against her entrance, and then began to fill her. Inch by inch, he watched as she took his cock, and then he slammed balls-deep inside her. Once again, no condom. He loved feeling her wet pussy wrapped around his dick, and he looked down at where they were joined, seeing his cock covered in her slick orgasm.
He took both of her hands, pressing them above her head, keeping her at his mercy, and holding her in place. She released a little moan, and then Rome didn’t hold back. He’d made love to her and fucked her. Tonight was about losing each other and forcing those memories that were fucking with their heads out of the equation, so he took her hard and fast.
The sound of flesh hitting flesh as he fucked her harder, echoed around the room. He felt another orgasm building within her, and he guided her toward that peak. The moment she went over the edge, he didn’t have long before he joined her. All it took was two thrusts, and he filled her pussy to the brim. Pulse after pulse, he filled her up, and then he collapsed over her, pressing his face against her neck.
This was not punishment to him.
In that moment, he felt like it was his salvation.