Thirty-Two
32
Salem
The other women’s comments about how Rome had been looking at me and the way he barely looked anywhere else, even when talking to them, had made me feel like a giddy schoolgirl. That lasted until mid-afternoon, when I started to open the door to the bedroom I shared with Pepper to see Nixie walking out of Rome’s room. Correction: Tex’s room. He wasn’t my Rome. I’d thought perhaps he was after last night and this morning, but I’d been foolish.
Staying in this room and not leaving—ever—had become my plan. It wasn’t solid, but at least this way, I didn’t have to face anyone or anything. Pepper was busy, and I was relieved. Talking to anyone felt like a chore. I preferred to wallow in my stupidity.
I had slept with him. What had I been thinking? He’d been inside me bare, and that…that skank…he’d been screwing her. I wasn’t that careless. I didn’t just spread my legs for any man. I’d only slept with two men in my life. Rome and Eamon. Yet today…this morning, I’d mistaken Tex for Rome.
Closing my eyes, I laid my head back on the headboard and sighed wearily. How much longer would I have to stay here?
When Rome—Tex had said he wasn’t leaving for Ocala, I’d been happy. Hopeful even, but now I wished he’d go. I did not want to see him with other women. Which meant if he stayed here, I would have to live in the four walls of this room.
A knock on the door startled me, and my eyes flew open. I stared at it, saying nothing. I’d locked it so whoever it was wouldn’t be able to come in. Pepper had a key.
“Salem,” Tex called through the door.
Oh heck no. I was not talking to him. He’d gotten me to be an idiot and sleep with him, but my short visit to insanity was over. I’d had my wake-up call. I remained silent.
“If you don’t open the door, I’m coming in,” he warned loudly.
He was making a scene. I didn’t want people to know what we had done. I’d not given the girls one detail.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I scowled at the door. Asshole. Hadn’t he had enough action for one day?
Me, then Nixie and all her available holes.
The doorknob rattled, and then it went quiet. I listened for his footsteps to know he’d left, but heard nothing.
What was he doing? I knew he would break it down. Pepper would be livid. I was sure they had some kind of rules here too. Breaking down doors would be frowned upon.
A click caught my attention, and I sat up straight, dropping my hands to my sides. The doorknob turned then the door swung open and Tex came strolling inside like he had every right to invade my privacy.
“What?!” I exclaimed, jumping up off the bed.
Tex closed the door behind him with more force than necessary. His gaze locked on me as he moved closer with long strides. “You want to explain why you weren’t responding to me?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.
I wasn’t going to back up or cower to him. If he wanted to burst into my space and ask questions, then, fine, I’d give him answers. My arms went back to cross over my chest again as I glared at him.
“If I wasn’t responding, I would think it was obvious that I didn’t want to see you,” I snapped.
His gaze darkened. “You sure didn’t seem to mind the sight of me this morning.”
“We all make mistakes,” I replied, keeping my head high.
He was inches from me then, and the warmth from his body gave me chill bumps. “You sure didn’t think it was a mistake when my head was between your legs and you were screaming my name.”
I hated him. I hated him for having that as ammunition to humiliate me with. I hated him because he wasn’t Rome. I hated him because he hadn’t been my Rome since the day his mother had died. He’d left me too. I’d lost them both. Seeing him was a constant reminder of all I had lost.
The image of the girl I had seen in front of him, on her knees, giving him a blow job, was replaced by Nixie doing the same to him in his bedroom. I put her in the other girl’s place. I hadn’t been enough for him then, and I wasn’t now. Men like Tex needed more than what one woman could provide. He wasn’t like Eamon.
“What do you want, Tex?” I asked.
“Tex?” he repeated. “You’re calling me Tex now?”
“That’s who you are now. Rome has been gone a long time.”
He grabbed my chin, and I tried to jerk away from his hold, but he held firm.
“What changed? You were soft and sweet in my bed hours ago. Not that the little wildcat thing doesn’t make me hard. It’s hot, but I only want that when you’re under me.”
I let out a hard, sharp laugh. “That’s not happening. Not again.”
“Don’t tempt me unless you want me to show you right here just how wrong you are.”
“God, Tex! How often do you need it? Should I be flattered I was chosen twice in one day, or is Nixie going to be the one to close off the night?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
I shoved at his chest hard, but he didn’t even budge. It was like hitting a concrete wall.
“You know what I’m talking about! You didn’t even try to be sneaky about it. Just took her right into your room. I hope you washed the sheets first.” My words dripped with bitterness.
Tex’s confused look was mixed with anger. “I didn’t take Nixie to my room. I’ve not been in my goddamn room since this morning. I had two meetings and then had to go to Pepper’s bar with Micah. I got back and came straight here when I couldn’t find you anywhere else.”
The joy that sprang up inside me was immediately shoved back down by my self-preservation.
“I saw her coming out of your bedroom,” I told him. “You can’t expect me to believe you just leave the door unlocked.”
His hand left my chin to bury his fingers in my hair and hold my head still so that I had to look at him. It was that or close my eyes.
“I do when it’s going to be cleaned.” His voice dropped as he lowered his head and stared down into my eyes. “You sound jealous, Angel Face.”
“I don’t sleep around. I’m not going to do this with you. I can’t just have sex with someone who sleeps with a different girl every day or night or both,” I told him. “We can call this morning our closure and leave it at that.”
His hand fisted in my hair, and he tugged my head hard enough to make me yelp. Then his face was in mine—so close that our noses touched. “Nothing about what we did was closure, and you know it.”
I winced as my eyes watered. He must have noticed because his grip loosened.
“We don’t get closure. Our fucking souls connected twenty- one years ago, and they haven’t let go. Even though you married someone else. Even when I fucked some faceless female. They. Never. Let. Go. You might have loved your husband, but not the way you did me. Because you couldn’t. When I was inside you this morning, it was the first time I’d felt like I had a goddamn soul in eighteen years.”
A hot tear broke free and began to roll down my face. When I blinked, another fell, and a sob came from deep inside my chest.
Agreeing with this, accepting it, would only prove that I deserved the guilt that weighed on me.
Rome moved a hand from my hair to brush the tears from my cheeks with the back of his finger. “I told you, every woman I fucked since you, I never looked them in the eyes, never wanted to see their face. It was always just you.”
I shook my head and let out a loud sob as I shoved at his chest again. “Stop! Don’t say that!” The emotion felt like a volcano that was just on the brink of finally erupting.
Rome grabbed my face with both his hands. His pale green eyes were a sea of pain, hope, loss, and love. Seeing it only made me cry harder. Because more than anything, I wanted his love. Something I no longer deserved.
“Why? It’s the truth. You need to hear it. Believe it. Realize it was always you, Salem. No one else ever came close to taking your place.”
“Please,” I begged. “Stop.”
“Why?” he asked, lowering his head and brushing a kiss against the corner of my mouth.
“Because…” The word came out in a choked whisper.
He began to catch my tears with his finger, then placed a kiss where they had been. The gentleness of it was breaking me as much as it was putting me back together.
I’m sorry.
For doing what I told you to do?
Yes. No. Because…because…
Because you loved him.
“Is it because you can’t forgive me?” Rome asked in a voice so thick with pain that my chest only ached more.
I shook my head. I’d forgiven him. He’d lost his mother. We’d been young. He’d been searching for somewhere to get relief, escape. I was a reminder of her. These were all things I had told myself over the years. I was sure they’d all played a role in what he did. How he had betrayed me, then let me go.
“I forgave you,” I said in a hoarse voice.
“Then why are you breaking my heart with your tears?”
I took in a deep breath, then let it out and stared at his neck, unable to meet his gaze. Not sure if I was going to say this. I’d not repeated this to a single soul. It had been my shame to carry. The one I deserved.
That’s not why I said it. Eamon’s voice was so clear in my head.
Does that matter?
You’re so stubborn.
“Eamon’s last words…” I paused and steadied myself. Grief rushing over me as I remembered that day. His last breaths. “He said…‘Go find him.’ I asked him, ‘Who?” And he said—he—” I sucked in a breath as my eyes stung. “He said, ‘The one you see when you close your eyes.’”
Rome was so still. My shoulders shook as I hung my head and cried harder. Strong arms wrapped around me and pulled me against him. I buried my face in his chest and let it all go. Rome ran a hand over the back of my head in a soothing manner while keeping one arm locked tight around me.
Was that so hard?
Shut up.
Eamon’s amused chuckle replayed in my memory.
Rome pressed a kiss to the top of my head as my sobs eased and then stopped.
“You didn’t come looking for me, did you?” Rome asked in a gravelly voice.
“No,” I admitted.
“Why?”
Not looking at him made it easier to be honest.
“Because I knew I wouldn’t survive the rejection.”
Rome’s arm’s flexed as he held me. “And why were you so sure that it would be rejection?”
I hesitated. Not wanting to make myself so vulnerable. But if this was a second chance, I wanted it to be free of secrets. I’d lived with that for too long.
“You were the one who wanted someone else. You cheated, and you didn’t apologize. You told me to go live my life and walked away from me.”
I heard his hiss.
“I never wanted someone else. Even then, I closed my fucking eyes and saw you. I had to let you go because I’d hold you back. Mom—” He stopped, and I waited, but he didn’t say more.
I pulled back enough so that I could look up at him.
“You were grieving,” I finished for him. “I realized that with time. That having me around was a reminder of her and it was painful.”
He let out a hard, humorless laugh. “No, Angel Face. You were the only reason I made it through the forty-eight hours following her death without completely falling apart. I needed you to breathe. It wasn’t that. It…it was…Mom told me that if I loved you, I’d let you go. That I would hold you back. I didn’t want to be the reason you didn’t get everything you wanted.”
I stared at him with my mouth agape. Words weren’t coming. Horror, shock, even anguish rolled through me.
I’d lost him because of something Vanna had said?
He dropped his hold on me and stepped back, taking his warmth with him. I didn’t want him to go. He began tugging up his shirt. As much as I enjoyed his muscular body, this wasn’t exactly the time. But he snatched it over his head. My eyes followed it to see him toss it, and then they swung back to meet his gaze.
“You didn’t notice it this morning. But then again, I had you preoccupied,” he said with a tiny trace of humor in his voice.
I dropped my gaze to see him pointing at the tattoo over his heart.
“The day I walked out of your dorm room, I went to have this done. I had just ripped out my fucking heart, giving you what I thought you needed. I wanted my body marked as yours. Even though I couldn’t have you, I would always be yours.”
The memories of the day I’d drawn that came flooding back to me, bringing with it the happiness I’d felt. The excitement that bubbled up in me every time Rome smiled at me. How I believed I was the luckiest girl in the world. That Rome had chosen me. That he had changed his life, his plans, all to be with me.
I reached out and touched the ink with my fingertips. The artist who had copied my sketch did an excellent job.
The swell of emotion inside me was verging on making it hard for me to breathe. It was taking up all the available room in my chest.
The single phoenix feather frayed on one side, and two birds flew out from it. One an eagle and the other a dove.
When I’d sketched it, I’d thought about the phoenix tattoo he’d had done and wanted to create something that would symbolize the two people who were my world and the life I’d found with them. The feather was from Vanna. She was the phoenix. And from it came the eagle, which represented Rome. His strength and protectiveness. And then the dove represented my love. The love I had for the woman who had saved me. And the all-consuming love for the boy who had become my everything.