21. Romeo
I never went looking for trouble, but it had a fucked up way of finding me.
Every night, I did the same thing.
Went up to my room after dinner. Read a few pages of a book. Made a plan for what I was going to do in the gym. Then I went downstairs and worked out while the rest of the house slept.
But tonight, that plan got derailed when I opened my bedroom door and heard moans before I ever set foot in the hall.
Sincere and Enzo’s room was too far away for me to be hearing Goldyn’s unmistakable moans this clearly.
Our suites were on opposite sides of the staircase, giving us all enough distance for this sort of thing to never happen.
But Goldyn had disrupted every structured thing in my life since she showed up two weeks ago, so I shouldn’t have been surprised this was happening.
Desperate cries ate up the space between our rooms and filled my ears with a melody I was never supposed to hear. Because now that I’d heard it, I knew it was all I would be able to think about.
The splinter in her throaty voice. Sin and Enzo’s deeper moans that followed up her high-pitched cries. And the rhythmic knocking of the bed against the wall.
All this shit was happening on the other side of the house, yet I could hear it as clearly as if I was standing right outside their door.
And I had to walk that way to get down the steps.
I heaved a sigh and questioned what I’d done to piss the universe off this much.
The past two weeks proved that we weren’t as locked in as I thought and I needed to fix that shit because I couldn’t take the constant torture being sent my way.
And it just kept getting worse.
The moment I took my first step toward the staircase, my dick twitched to life in my compression pants and I blew out another sigh.
Tempted to turn around and say fuck this shit, I shook my head and kept walking.
I couldn’t keep walking on eggshells in my own home just because a beautiful woman had moved in.
It didn’t matter how much my body responded to her cries the closer I got to their side of the house. And it didn’t matter how damn good I knew she looked getting fucked, either.
I needed to get laid. That was it. As soon as I found someone else to occupy my time and mind, this little obsession with Goldyn would fade away.
That’s what I told myself. Even as I made it to the top of the stairs and paused. Even as I strained to keep listening when her voice grew faint. Even when I stroked a hand over my dick when I heard her hoarse, “Ah, fuccccckkkk!”
Time stood still and I stood there with it, lost in the sound before snatching my hand away from my dick and forcing my feet to move. I jogged down the stairs, shaking my head the whole way.
As soon as I got back to my room after the gym, I would add ‘getting laid’ to my to-do list.
When I reached the bottom of the stairs, beautiful silence greeted me. But I still didn’t go straight to the gym as usual. Instead, I walked into the kitchen, found the canister of pre-rolls I kept in the island drawer, and walked outside to the back deck to face a joint while listening to the crickets.
My dick was still heavy against my thigh. And my heart was still knocking in my chest like I’d been standing at the foot of the bed watching her get fucked into oblivion.
Why did the thought of my friends pounding her to the point of tears make my dick press harder against my pants? Why was she the only one of their girlfriends I couldn’t ignore? Why did I want to fuck my hand to the memory of her voice as she came for them?
Letting my hand fall away from my lap, I took another pull of the jay and let the smoke fill my lungs.
The mellowing effect the weed usually gave me was taking longer to kick in. I was riled up, too fucking aware of how much I needed the woman upstairs.
I knew it wouldn’t happen, but my mind kept snagging on the same outcome.
Goldyn, on top of me, full of my dick and her tongue wrapped around mine until her screams turned into moans and her moans turned into cries.
My abs tightened, and I clenched and unclenched my fists while the joint hung from my lips.
I needed to chill the fuck out. Goldyn Ambrose was off-limits. Even in my fantasies.
Any woman who drove me this off the rails without touching me was a woman I didn’t want anyway.
A week later, after a string of sleepless nights and too many hours spent at the shop distracting myself, Goldyn was the first person I saw when I walked in the house.
She was in the kitchen, inhaling the bouquet of jasmine and lavender I left there this morning. She probably thought Sincere or Lorenzo put it there. But after noticing how much she liked the combination of scents, I clipped a few stalks of lavender from my inventory at Soulstice and stopped at the florist to buy fresh jasmine before I came home last night. The vase had been waiting for her on the counter when she woke up this morning. And watching her inhale with that peaceful look on her face was almost enough for me to live with the fact that she would never know they were from me. Almost .
“Hey, Rome!”
Why was she always so excited to see me?
I hated how much I didn’t hate it.
She was everything I usually avoided in a woman.
Bubbly. Talkative. And too damn optimistic.
Every time she opened her mouth to speak to me, it felt like the sun was shining directly on us, regardless of whether it was night or day.
I didn’t understand how the novelty of her hadn’t worn off. And I definitely didn’t understand why I’d been straining my ears every night since last week to hear even a hint of her whimpers or moans.
On cue, my dick hardened against my thigh, making me happy with my decision to wear baggy black cargo pants today.
Oblivious to the storm her presence created, Goldyn continued to beam up at me until I spoke around the lump in my throat.
“What’s up, G?” There was no point in ignoring her. She was immune to it and had a way of wearing me down without saying a word. I was done fighting it. Just like I was done fighting a lot of things when it came to her.
“We’re going to the Opera tonight,” she reported quietly, pivoting to look at me instead of the purple and white bouquet.
A soft smile was her default expression when looking at me and emotion fisted my stomach every time I saw the slight curve of her lips.
Was this how it felt to slowly go insane? To be addicted to something I knew wasn’t good for me? To dread it and crave it at the same time? I was a walking, breathing contradiction with Goldyn and the worst part was that I didn’t know how to fix it.
“Sin and I went shopping for something for me to wear, do you like it?” She turned in a slow circle, watching my expression over her shoulder the whole time. “Don’t lie.”
Why does it matter what I think? sat at the tip of my tongue, but I kept it bottled up because I knew she wasn’t asking me for shits and giggles. She was asking because she really saw me as her friend after the past few weeks and guilt tugged at my chest every time I thought about being short with her.
I eyed the simple cocktail dress, more drawn to the glimpses of her golden-brown skin and told the truth. “You look fine.”
Saying she looked fine was a cop out. Goldyn was stunning in whatever she wore. I was in awe of how she made everything look good. Would I ever tell her that? Fuck no.
“What are you going to do while we’re gone?”
Breathe . Being around her and not doing anything about the pull in my gut was as close as I got to suffocating every day.
I’d tried to distract myself with other women. I downloaded the apps. Updated my profile. Did everything I was supposed to do. And yet, every time I matched with someone and got past the introductions and small talk, I disappeared. Because I wanted to talk to Goldyn instead. Or let her talk to me. She was an endless well of information and stories and never seemed to care that I just listened instead of talking back.
At first, it was because I thought it would make her stop talking. How long could someone speak without feedback from another person? The limit apparently didn’t exist with Goldyn. And by the time I figured that out, I was already addicted to the sound of her voice while she told me stories about traveling in her van for two years. Or the way her grandmother had raised her on reruns of Night Court and Matlock so when people at school talked about the shows they were watching, she never knew what the fuck they were talking about.
I tried not to smile remembering the way her eyes rounded when she told the story.
God, I needed to get a fucking life.
“Do you want to come with us?” Her question pulled me out of my thoughts.
Masking how much her invitation threw me off, I followed up with a question instead of answering. “Sin and Enzo know you inviting me on y’all’s date?”
She looked contemplative before lifting her shoulders in a shrug. “Technically, I’m the third wheel. You’d balance us out.”
“Who’s a third wheel?” Lorenzo wanted to know, walking into the kitchen with his tie undone. He paused directly in front of Goldyn, staring down at her with a possessive glint in his eyes I didn’t even think he was aware of.
When she lifted up on her tiptoes to kiss him, his arm locked around her waist, pulling her off her feet until she giggled. “ Enzo .”
“You’re not a third wheel, Goldy.”
My mind was still racing long after Sin came downstairs and they left the house.
I picked up my book, trying to block out Goldyn’s voice in my head.
You’d balance us out.
If I listened to her long enough, I’d do something reckless one of these days like believe her.