Chapter 4
ROMEO
Isee them together for the first time on a Friday evening, outside a fancy restaurant that I bet he thinks makes him something special for taking her to it.
I’m aware, as I have been all my life, when I’m doing something that I shouldn’t but feel no compunction not to, that following her isn’t the right thing to do.
Usually, when I do something outside societal mores, like killing one of my father’s enemies or torturing information out of a third party, I do it with calculation, with a clear plan as to why and what purpose it serves.
This isn’t calculated. It’s that same compulsion, a need to see her, to have her in my sight until I can figure out how to talk to her. And once I realized that this asshole she’s supposed to be marrying was with her, I couldn’t stop myself from following.
She looks pretty and wholesome as a church pamphlet in her modest blue dress, but even the high neckline and low hem can’t stop me from getting hard as I watch from the other side of the street.
The pearl earrings in her ears wink in the lights outside, and I imagine giving her a necklace to match, beads of my cum arranged over her throat as she tips her head back and moans my name.
I can imagine my fingers in her while I mark her with it, feeling her clench around me as I make her mine.
The only dampener on my arousal is her fiancé. Thaddeus Whitmore III, with his khakis and his blue button-down and his hand on her lower back, possessive and proprietary.
The feeling that hits me is so unfamiliar it takes me a moment to identify it. It's hot and sharp and visceral, spreading through my chest like poison.
Jealousy.
I've never felt it before Savannah. Never had reason to. I take what I want, when I want it, and I've never wanted anything enough to care if someone else had it first.
Until now.
I watch through the window as Whitmore leans close to say something in her ear, and Savannah smiles—a polite, practiced smile that doesn't reach her eyes. His hand slides from her back to her hip, fingers splaying possessively, and something dark and violent unfurls in my chest.
I want to break every one of those fingers.
A waiter approaches their table, and I watch Whitmore order without consulting her.
Savannah's smile falters for just a moment—there and gone so quickly I might have imagined it—but I didn't. The waiter leaves, and Whitmore is talking, gesturing with his wine glass, clearly going on about something he considers important.
Savannah nods, says something brief, and he laughs—not with her, but at her. Dismissive. Condescending.
The jealousy crystallizes into a cold, furious anger deep in my gut.
I've spent the last three weeks learning everything about Savannah Beauregard. I know her academic credentials, her background, her current course load. I hear her talk in class. I’m thoroughly aware of how intelligent she is, and this mediocre trust fund brat is laughing at her like she's told a cute joke.
I want to walk into that restaurant, drag him out of his chair, and make him understand exactly what he has and what he's dismissing, what he doesn't deserve.
Instead, I stand on the sidewalk and watch, cataloging every touch, every dismissive gesture, every moment of Savannah's discomfort that she tries to hide behind that perfect Southern belle smile.
When they finally leave the restaurant, Whitmore's arm is around her shoulders, pulling her against his side. They walk past me, but they don't see me. I've positioned myself in the shadows between the streetlights, and Whitmore is too busy talking to notice anything beyond his own voice.
I wait at Savannah’s building until he brings her back. A part of me knows it’s a bad idea; that I don’t know what I’ll do if she takes him up with her. I think about the fact that he might take her back to his hotel, and that thick, curdling jealousy feels like it might eat me alive.
When they come back, I see Whitmore back her against the entrance, his body pressing into hers, kissing her with an aggression that makes my hands curl into fists. Savannah's hands come up to his chest—not pulling him closer, but pushing back.
He doesn't notice. Or he doesn't care.
When he finally releases her and walks away, I disappear around the corner before Savannah can see me. But that mingled jealousy and anger pulse in my chest like a living thing, ready to explode.
—
For two weeks, I focus more on learning her and her routine than I do on my studies.
She’s out of her dorm by seven every morning. She goes for a run, then comes back and presumably showers—a thought that has me aching every time I imagine her slender, lithe body naked with water and suds dripping down her skin.
I haven’t touched myself to the thought of her yet.
In fact, I haven’t fucked or touched myself since I saw her that day under the tree.
I’ve considered that perhaps the lack of release is adding to my heightened state, but the agony of my arousal feels like something dangerous.
Like allowing myself to come thinking of her might explode this into something more than it already is.
I don’t want to jerk off. I don’t want to fuck another woman. I want her. Nothing else will satisfy me.
After her shower, she goes to the coffee shop near campus.
She always orders a latte with an extra shot and whatever their special muffin of the day is.
She sits at the corner table by the window, pulls out whatever book she's reading for class, and loses herself in it until it’s time to head to campus.
On Monday, I'm at the coffee shop when she arrives. I've claimed the table next to hers, laptop open, looking like any other graduate student getting work done before class. She doesn't notice me at first, but when she brings her coffee and book over to the table, our eyes meet.
“Oh.” There’s surprise in her voice, but she doesn’t sound upset that I’m there. “Hi. I’ve seen you in lecture. I don’t think we’ve officially met.”
“I’m Romeo.” I smile—that brilliant, charming smile that has dropped the panties of every woman I’ve ever encountered, from ages eighteen to sixty—and hold out my hand. “Romeo Ciresa.”
“Romeo.” The sound of my name on her tongue thrills through me like the burn of an electric shock. “I’m Savannah. Beauregard.”
“Savannah Beauregard.” She shakes my hand with a playful smile.
That thrumming in my veins intensifies, like I’m vibrating on the inside.
I want to sweep her into my arms and carry her out of here, take her back to my penthouse, and lavish her with attention until she’s mine entirely. “It’s a pleasure.”
That’s the fucking understatement of the year. I’ve never been so stiff in my fucking life just from talking to a woman. My cock is diamond-hard, bent uncomfortably in my jeans, and I can feel my fucking pulse in it.
“It’s nice to meet you. This place is nice, isn’t it? I come here most mornings. Before class."
"I'll have to make it a habit, then. The coffee's excellent."
She blushes—just slightly, a faint pink staining her cheeks—and sits down, opening her book. But I notice the way she glances up at me periodically, the way her attention keeps drifting from the page.
I don't push. Not yet. I just sit there, working on my laptop, occasionally making a comment about the coffee or the weather or the reading for Dr. Kouris's seminar. I make it a point to be casual. Friendly. Unthreatening.
By the end of the week, she's expecting me. When I walk in, she looks up and smiles—a real smile this time, not the practiced one she gives Whitmore.
"Your usual table," she says, gesturing to the seat across from her.
I smile back. "If you don't mind the company."
"I don't mind."
We fall into an easy pattern. She reads, I work, and occasionally we talk—about class, archaeology, New York. Nothing too personal. Nothing that would make her uncomfortable.
But I'm learning her with every moment that passes. The way she tucks her hair behind her ear when she's concentrating. The way she bites her lower lip when she encounters a particularly challenging passage. The way her whole face lights up when she finds something interesting in her reading.
That last one does something to me. Something I don't have a name for, because I’ve never felt it before in my life.
Claiming my space by her in the library is even easier. The building itself is huge, but I know the spot Savannah has picked out for herself: a carrel on the third floor, tucked away in a corner with a view of Washington Square Park.
I find her there a few days after our coffee shop encounter, surrounded by books and papers, completely absorbed in her work. I take the carrel directly across from hers—close enough to observe but far enough to maintain plausible deniability.
She doesn't notice me for the first hour.
She's too focused, taking notes in a leather-bound journal and occasionally pulling up articles on her laptop.
I watch the way she works, intensely focused, and then occasionally pausing to stare out the window while she thinks through something complex.
When she finally looks up and sees me, she startles slightly.
"Romeo. How long have you been there?"
"About an hour. You were very focused. I didn't want to interrupt."
She glances at the books spread across my carrel—I've brought materials for my MBA coursework. "You’re not a full-time archaeology student then?”
“Financial analysis. Thrilling stuff." I lean back in my chair. "What about you? You look like you're onto something interesting."
Her face transforms—that light I've been watching for, the one that makes her beautiful in a way that has nothing to do with her physical features.
“I’m working on that first paper for Dr. Kouris’s class—the one about Minoan architecture? I have this theory about how it relates to social hierarchy—”