Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Romily had no idea what came over her.
Or what these words were, coming out of her mouth like she’d been born to say them.
She felt as if she was lit on fire. As if her skin might crack and peel at any moment, though she suspected that even that would give her no relief. His gaze on hers, such a piercing, impossible blue, haunted her with every breath.
After she’d run off from his door she’d gone back to her boat, but couldn’t seem to think her way out of this. She couldn’t seem to settle, no matter what she did. Chamomile tea was a joke. The cold water in her tiny onboard shower only made her aware of how overly warm she was. Everywhere.
She’d given up.
Eventually, Romily had crawled out of her berth, pulled on her scuffed up sneakers and her favorite hoodie, and tucked her hair away so that maybe that might give her some anonymity.
Not that anyone would be looking for her, she knew — except possibly the police, and for good reason, since it turned out she was some kind of weird voyeur — but it was better not to go out around here in the middle of the night while obviously fragile. Much less female.
And then he’d been right there.
As if she’d conjured him up from her overheated dreams.
Zachary.
She could taste the syllables of his name in her mouth. And she could taste him, too. Because he had kissed her with such filthy, glorious thoroughness that she was fairly certain she would never be the same.
More than that, it was as if all the wrecked and ruined parts of her suddenly… clicked into place.
As if she understood herself in that moment more than she had in all these years.
As if this man was the answer she’d been searching for all along.
The truth was, she would have followed him no matter where he went, and the fact he offered her his hand was just icing on the cake.
Because she loved the feeling of his skin against hers. She would do anything for more of it. Anything at all.
She knew where he was heading now, so she paid no mind to the details of the walk she knew so well.
She was unable to keep her eyes from drooping to something like half-mast. Unable to care about anything but that large, imposing, perfect Viking at her side like all her dreams come true.
Unable to keep the smile off of her face as they moved through the thick night air.
And for the first time since she’d moved here, she paid absolutely no attention to her surroundings.
Because Zachary made her feel safe.
There was a part of her brain—or maybe her wary, suspicious heart— that tried to shout out warnings and wave red flags, but she dismissed them.
Not because she was a fool, though she’d certainly been one in the past. But because she knew those were ghosts. Echoes of a time gone by. Scars from the life she’d left behind.
The thing about Zachary was that he made her feel protected , here and now. Stars and ghosts and all.
It was something about the stern, sure way he’d talked to her about prices to be paid with that hot, knowing gleam in his blue gaze. It had made her feel like she was trembling into pieces, like a hot, wet lick straight down the center of her being.
She was still trembling like that. It seemed to have no beginning and no end, but went on and on and on.
Maybe she didn’t want it to stop. Maybe she wanted to see what it would make of her.
He led her down the alley once more, but this time he didn’t stop at the door to that office that led into his gym. She peered through the window anyway, even though it was dark. She could still see the way he’d pounded that cock of his into that woman, first her pussy and then her mouth.
Romily felt herself bloom all over, wondering if she was about to experience the things she’d seen. Hoping she would.
And wondering if she would survive it. If it would be as good as it had looked. As hot and as wild.
Her pussy already thought this was the hottest thing she’d ever experienced, that was for sure.
Zachary stopped walking at the foot of the stairs, his hand still gripping hers. She looked up. He was looking back at her, the blue of his eyes that knowing gleam again.
Like he was imagining pounding into her too.
“I knew you liked to watch,” he told her in that low voice of his that danced all over her skin like a different kind of heat. “But I had no idea how much.”
“I had no idea you knew I existed,” Romily replied, barely recognizing her own voice, it was so scratchy.
“Oh, I knew,” Zachary said, his own voice rougher than before.
Because he wanted this the way she did. Because he’d been watching her too.
Romily could feel another orgasm shimmer, right there on the edge, but the other thing he’d said came back to her then. No coming without his permission. Why was that so hot?
But it was.
Even as she flushed and felt herself sweat a little as she fought it off.
When she did, his hard mouth curved behind his dark beard. “Good girl.”
Then, as she felt the pleasure of pleasing him wash through her like he’d actually let her touch that gorgeous cock of his, he led her up those stairs.
Romily felt the way her heart was punching against her ribs and wondered where she’d gotten the boldness to do… any of this. Even daring to tell him she hadn’t realized he’d ever noticed her.
She knew that some might not think that was particularly daring at all, but she had always been the sort to admire brightness in others. She’d never shined much herself.
That was what happened, growing up the way she had. Shining in any way at all, calling attention to herself like that, could only get her in trouble while she was bounced from one family member to another—all of them wanting applause and endless gratitude for not kicking her off into the system.
Sometimes—often—she’d had to think that the system might have been better.
She didn’t know why this man, who was notably and clearly unsafe in a thousand ways, made her feel as if she had never been more protected. Or more precious, somehow, simply because he’d noticed her.
Maybe that was the trauma talking, as her therapist liked to say.
But Romily kind of thought it was just… Zachary.
At the top of the stairs, he punched a code into a keypad, the imposing steel door opened, and then it was really happening. They weren’t going to be in public any longer.
She was actually going to be alone with this man. With her Viking.
Zachary led her inside and the heavy door slammed shut behind them, and Romily braced herself for what was about to happen?—
But it didn’t.
They stood there, just inside the door. In what would have been total darkness, but he had no curtains or blinds on his windows and they all looked out over the lights from the marina, Coast Guard Island beyond, and Alameda in the distance.
If she turned her head, she knew that she would be able to see down into Brooklyn Basin, and no doubt across to San Francisco, too, if it weren’t quite so foggy.
She waited for him to turn on the lights, but when he didn’t, she blinked. And realized she could see him well enough in the reflected gleam from outside.
The gleam from the lights in the marina, she thought then. Her marina. He could stand right there at that big window and see her boat.
She wasn’t imagining this.
“You’ve been watching me too,” Romily whispered.
“Since the day you moved in.”
“I can’t imagine why that would hold your interest,” she said nervously. “Why I would.”
She wasn’t putting herself down. Her therapist was always on her about that, but she’d seen his blonde. His stunning blonde. That certainly wasn’t Romily.
But Zachary moved then. He came closer, standing above her so she had to tilt her head back to look up at him.
Way, way up.
Up close, he seemed like even more of a Viking to her.
He was so tall. His shoulders were so broad.
And that beard only emphasized the harsh beauty of his face.
Romily knew exactly what sort of things he did to keep those muscles looking the way they did—she’d seen him do them—and she had never wanted to put her hands on another person as much she did just then.
Her palms actually itched with the need to touch him.
Though she knew better.
Somehow, she knew better.
“You know exactly what holds my interest.” That stern note was back in his voice and it wound its way down deep into her body, making her pussy clench tight around the blaze he’d put there.
“It’s this, little bird. The way you flutter.
The way you melt inside when I look at you.
The way I want to tell you exactly what to do and something in you wants to do it, no matter what it is. ”
Romily felt as if she’d been kicked in the gut. All the breath seemed to leave her body, but it was replaced by heat so white-hot and so intense there was a part of her that thought she might actually explode. Or die—but she was certain that she didn’t actually want to die.
Not when she finally felt alive for the first time in years.
Maybe ever.
“You can’t… You can’t know that. People don’t want… What?”
Something changed on his hard, beautiful face. A kind of patience dawned, maybe. An awareness that was in no way less hot. “Have you done this before?”
“I’m not a virgin if that’s what you mean,” she said, though it stuttered out of her and it made her feel silly. Stupid. “Do you know what year it is?”
“I’m not talking about sex,” Zachary said, not exactly gently . “Not the kind of sex just anyone can have when they stumble out of a bar in the middle of the night.”
Romily couldn’t imagine this man stumbling at all. Ever. Much less out of bars.
He reached out and took her chin between his thumb and a knuckle, then tipped her head up.
And there was nothing sweet about it. She felt chained there, unable to look away from him, caught as securely in that grip as if he’d tied her down.
The very idea of that, being tied down by him, made her whole body flush all over again.
And there, between her legs, her pussy went soft and hot.