Chapter 28
Roman
“I think it might be the stripper dress.”
Elenie’s laugh was wobbly.
He kissed her again because he couldn’t help himself. Dipping his head and tasting her soft, open lips, so deliciously warm and wet. Watching her eyelids flutter and close.
“It wouldn’t make any difference if you were wearing your uniform. It’s not the clothes. It’s you.”
Roman gentled his touch, worrying he’d already been too rough and knowing he was still dangerously near to tipping over the edge. It made no difference. The passion ignited again, raging in his blood, and his cock throbbed with the need to lay her down and drive into her beautiful, sexy body.
Leaning his forehead against hers, he bit off a curse.
“I couldn’t watch him mauling you for one more minute. And now, I’m doing the same.”
He slowly lowered Elenie to her feet, catching his breath as she slid down his body, rubbing against the parts of him that throbbed. She caught her lip between her teeth, gray eyes fixed on his face as she tugged her dress back into place. The heat in his groin was intense, his hardness flexing against the fly of his pants.
“The difference is that I have been wanting you to touch me. I never dreamed you would feel the same.”
Roman’s laugh was hollow.
“How could I not? You’re everything I see when you’re near me. You’re all I can look at. You’ve no idea how hard it’s been to hold back.”
The cautious smile that lit Elenie’s face dazzled him. Roman couldn’t tear his eyes away. Her body felt like perfection against him, his hands belonged in her hair. He couldn’t think of another time when he’d felt this connected to someone else. Even as he pulsed with wanting her, he could have held her like this forever.
Unable to resist, Roman dipped his head to take her lips again. Softly, he nibbled, tasted, and teased. Their tongues danced and flicked, touching and retreating. It was gentle, tender, and nowhere near enough.
“I need to go back.”
Elenie’s voice was unsteady.
Her words were a rock in his chest even though he knew she was right.
Stepping away was torture. Elenie ran her hands over her body, smoothing down her dress, and he wished it was his hands pulling it back up again. Her eyes were luminous and her lips—made for the shadow-light brush of his mouth—velvet-soft and swollen. Roman’s muscles bunched beneath his clothes as he fought the urge to grab her and run.
She felt like his. He didn’t want to let her go.
With a chokehold on his restraint, he tucked a stray curl behind one of her ears.
“You go first. I’ll give it some time before I follow.”
He would need those minutes to get his body back under control. She nodded and turned to open the door. Roman stopped her with a hand on her elbow.
“We’ll get through this. It’ll be OK.”
With a tiny quirk of her lips, Elenie slipped through the doorway.
Roman blew out a shaky breath, clenching his fists and his jaw at the thought of her returning to Perry’s side. He shouldn’t have kissed her. He knew he shouldn’t. His professional reserve lay in tatters and Roman couldn’t bring himself to give a fuck.
With the need still pulsing through him from the feel of Elenie’s body on his, he was prepared to walk through fire for the chance to hold her again. Gathering the shreds of his composure together in a steely grip, he strode back into the conference room, aching, unsettled, and more than a little pissed.
He re-joined his friends, fighting to keep his face neutral, and tried his best to focus on the conversation. And, all the while, Roman cursed his formal outfit, the incessant chatter of his ex-fiancée, and the scruffy hotel.
This wasn’t where he wanted to be when he realized how far gone he was over the bewitching woman in the stripper dress.
“We’re ready to head out,”
Milo announced, at last, as the evening began to wind down.
“Anyone else?”
It turned out to be a popular suggestion.
They had to pass Craig and Elenie to reach the exit. Zena curled her hand around his elbow in an unwanted, possessive move. Roman wished he could remove it with his finger and thumb without looking like an ass. Perched on a stool at the bar, Elenie eyed them as they approached. He could still taste her on his lips.
Perry threw an arm around her shoulders. He gave Caitlyn a cocky smirk as she drew level.
“Turns out your mate had no defense against my charm and persistence. Or maybe my money and my body. Who knows!”
He planted a bruising kiss on Elenie’s mouth and rage seared the lining of Roman’s lungs.
“I’ve met some pricks in my time but that guy’s a fucking cactus,”
Milo muttered beside him, swooping in to wrap an arm around his wife’s waist.
“Craig. Elenie.”
Nodding goodnight, Milo led Caitlyn away before she could form a response.
Thea and Luke followed, Roman and Zena bringing up the rear.
Craig swayed in front of them.
“Night, Chief. Take care getting home now.”
Roman gave him a tight smile. Zena offered her cheek to the Brit, who kissed it with a flourish like the jerk he was.
“Nice to meet you, Zena. Goodbye, Chief Martinez.”
Elenie directed the words to the second button down on his shirt. Her smoky gray eyes smoldered as she took in the faint creases she’d left there when she’d crumpled it in her fist.
Roman’s pulse thumped in reaction, his throat tightening. A wordless chin lift was all he could manage but it looked suitably dismissive.
They were stopped multiple times on their way to the door. Local residents, all of whom he now knew and recognized, wished him goodnight. Their interest in the woman on his arm grated and he stubbornly refused to introduce her. From beneath heavy brows, he eyed the sagging promotional banner that hung across the foyer. Roman’s mouth twitched. The Pine Spring.
“Local Event of the Year”
had been more memorable than he’d expected.
Desperate to be on his own, he managed to brush Zena off with a quick goodnight by the elevator in the lobby. The price he paid was agreeing to meet for a coffee in the morning before she headed back out of town.
Thea gave him grief on the way home. He answered her mainly in grunts, relieved beyond measure to drop her and Luke off at their house.
He hated leaving Elenie with Perry at the hotel; even the peace of his cabin couldn’t soothe the raw jealousy in his chest. It was impossible to close a lid on the memory of their kiss. He tried to rebuild the smashed and shattered boundaries but failed completely.
Roman stripped off his suit and crawled into bed, the touch and taste of her torturing his thoughts, scorching his airway. His skin burned like a furnace.
Aching to have her next to him, under him, surrounding him, Roman slid his hand into his shorts. Muscles clenched, sheets rumpled beneath him, he got himself off to the memory of Elenie’s scent and the feel of her body against his. He came hard in his hand, on his stomach, chest heaving, and couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so out of control.
Showered, composed, but irritable, Roman slumped at a table in Mocha Magic. So far, his precious day off was a bomb. He’d done nothing from the moment his eyes opened but rerun the events of the gala dinner.
“Sorry to keep you. Checking out took forever. Apparently preparing a bill for one solitary hotel guest is a challenging concept.”
Zena draped her jacket over a chair and parked a neat travel bag beside the table leg.
“Coffee?”
Roman asked.
“Please. My usual.”
There was no line and he returned with her espresso and a mug of tea for himself within minutes.
“So, last night was interesting.”
Zena gave him a sideways look.
“Right from when you introduced yourself as my fiancée,”
Roman agreed.
She smiled and shrugged.
“I miss wearing the ring. It looked good with my dress.”
“The ring is yours. Do what you want with it, but don’t tell people we’re engaged when we’re not.”
“You’re not even tempted to give us another go?”
She seemed curious, rather than upset.
“I don’t want to go back to how things were. I’m trying to move forward.”
He stirred some sugar into his tea.
“Yes, I can tell that.”
Roman wasn’t biting. His eyes swept the almost empty café.
“I don’t have long this morning. I’ve got things to do.”
Zena sighed and her demeanor changed.
“OK, cards-on-the-table time.”
She set her cup down.
“I’m in a spot of bother at work.”
Roman raised an eyebrow. This was unexpected.
“Remember Ben Barrett? I’ve been seeing him for a while and his wife has heard rumors. Not ideal, as I’m sure you can imagine.”
He found himself completely lost for words.
Zena plowed on.
“I’ve told her that you and I are still an item, totally committed, even though you’ve taken this post for a year. I said we’re fine with the whole long-distance thing as it has an end date.”
Her cool eyes searched his face for a reaction.
“I need you to come back for a few work functions to convince her.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,”
Roman said eventually.
“I’m not,”
she assured him.
“So, the whole ‘Let’s give it another go’ thing is a crock of shit?”
“I was just testing the ground. It might have been worth calling time on it with Ben if you—”
He cut across her, his eyes flashing with danger.
“How long have you been seeing him?”
Zena gave a sigh, straightening the watch on one narrow wrist.
“Does that really matter?”
“Yes, it really does.”
She met his eyes with a level stare.
“About six months or so.”
Roman hissed out a breath between clenched teeth. She was unbelievable.
“Let me get this straight. You were cheating on me before we split with one of the partners at your law firm. One of the married partners at your law firm, who is married to one of the other partners at your law firm?”
Zena toyed with the handle of her coffee cup.
“And you want me to either forget about this and take you back, or go along with it and pretend we’re still dating, so you can convince your married lover’s wife—one of the people who sign your fucking paycheck—that you’re not sleeping with her husband.”
“I’ve worked hard to get where I am and I don’t want to lose my job.”
She remained completely unruffled.
Roman was reminded of Athena Dax and Elenie’s comment that her mother had no moral compass. On the surface, the two women couldn’t be more different but, studying Zena with incredulity, he found himself repulsed by the same trait in her.
“Goodbye, Zena.”
Roman pushed back his chair and stood up.
“Wait—where are you going?”
He fixed her with a disbelieving stare.
“I knew you’d be like this!”
She made a sound of frustrated annoyance.
“Yes, there was a bit of an overlap in relationships. But it wasn’t working for us and we both knew it. Now I need your help, and you’ll want to give it to me.”
Her look was challenging, no hint of an apology in her voice.
“Sit down, Roman.”
He stood for a moment longer, gathering the fragments of his temper. Though the urge to walk out was strong, he sat back down. Two more minutes. He’d give her two more minutes.
“I’m a smart woman and it was blindingly obvious there were . . . undercurrents . . . last night.”
Beneath the table, Roman’s fist clenched against his thigh.
“You disappeared for a while toward the end of the evening. And I couldn’t help but notice the sparkly waitress was nowhere to be seen at that point either.”
Zena’s tone dared him to take issue with her avoiding Elenie’s name. Roman’s face remained blank.
“Want to tell me where you were?” He stayed silent while she studied him closely. “Well, you might have nothing to say but I’m sure Craig Perry would be keen to talk it over. I can find out if he’s the type to share.”
“Like your boss?”
Roman bit out.
Zena’s eyes glittered.
“There’s no need, is there? All I want from you is a little help with a tricky situation, in exchange for keeping my nose out of whatever you’ve got going on in this cultural backwater. And frankly, I’m not that bothered about finding out. But I will if I have to.”
“Even if it puts Elenie at risk?”
She raised her eyebrows.
“Is it me putting her at risk, Roman? Or is it you? There’s a fine line between an ethical relationship and an improper one when you’re chief of police.”
Roman seethed, weighing up his options.
“What do you want, Zena?”
“I told you. I have some work events coming up and I need you to accompany me to them.”
“How many events?”
“Let’s say three.”
Roman tapped his fingers on the side of his empty mug.
“I’ll go to one with you.”
“Two and we have a deal.”
“Send me the details.”
Roman pushed to his feet. Stalking out of the café, he cursed himself for the signs he’d missed while they were dating.