Chapter 18 #3
Closing one eye, I focus on the target and inhale a breath.
I hold it before pulling the trigger. The gun shot is quiet, barely audible as the bullet grazes the side of the wood chunk.
It forces it to move a fraction. Disappointment settles in my gut for not hitting it dead center.
It’s been years since I fired a gun but, honestly, that wasn’t too bad, considering.
I turn to Rome and find his expression unchanged.
“Well?” I pop my brow.
“Not bad.” He shrugs, unraveling his arms as he moves to stand behind me.
I freeze, a snake of pleasure wrapping around my spine the moment his chest meets my back. I’m shivering with excitement. Forcing my nerves to calm down, I hold my breath as his fingers slide down my arms before pulling them up. He wraps himself around me, guiding my arms straight out.
“Here,” he says against my ear. “I’ll show you.”
Goosebumps break across my skin. I smirk, even though he can’t see it. “You’re showing me exactly what I was just doing.”
“You could make a few minor adjustments.” His lips are purposefully pressing against my ear at this point. Heat coils in my lower stomach. “May I help you?”
“I guess.”
His mouth rises into a smirk against me before he pulls back. He crouches down on his heels behind me.
A gasp hits the back of my throat when his hands are wrapping around one of my thighs. He’s slow and methodical. At this point, I know he’s using this shooting practice as a ruse. As an excuse to get closer to me. At least that’s what it seems like.
“Can I ask you a question?” His fingers slide up my thigh, dangerously close to my pussy. I already know I’m completely soaked, aching for him to continue inching his way up.
I swallow. “So, you get to ask questions, but I can’t?”
“Your questions have complicated answers.”
“Fine. If I ask an easier one, will you answer it?”
“Depends.” He pauses, then sighs. “Okay, if you could ask a different question, what would you ask?”
I twist my mouth in thought. There are a million different options, but I go with the one I know he’ll be most eager to answer.
“How does it feel to run your own businesses? You know, now that you run a zillion and a half of them.”
He chuckles behind me, and my stomach flutters at the sound.
“One of the best decisions I ever made.”
I don’t even bother asking him to expand.
He doesn’t need to. His answer is miles deep in meaning.
I try to focus on the target ahead, getting lost in the thoughts of Rome running his own businesses and how, admittedly, I’ve watched him rise to succession over the years, despite the scandal around his family name.
But along with the images of him making a mark across the city, I can’t stop thinking about his hands all over me and how I don’t want him to stop.
“Now that I’ve answered yours, I get to ask you mine. Why did you start hosting fundraising events?”
That catches me off guard.
My arms are Jell-O at this point, my body growing weaker under his touch. He guides my leg farther out before shifting his attention to the other.
I blink and trail my tongue across my lips as I breathe deeply, trying to remember his question. “After attending them my whole life, I always envisioned hosting one myself. I thought they were admirable. It’s the one time those with wealth do good with their money.”
“Huh.” His hand moves along my other thigh. He gently guides it farther out, the same way he did the other one.
“I hated how everyone looked at me differently because my father was the mayor. They treated me differently, as though my whole life centered around money. I figured if I hosted enough charity events, they wouldn’t have a reason to call me the greedy Capuleti princess anymore.”
Rome’s hands still haven’t moved from my thighs. My feet and legs are in perfect position, and there’s no reason for him to remain crouching behind me.
He plants each hand on the outside of my thighs as he lightly chuckles.
“What?” I ask, unable to hold back my smirk.
“I used to call you the Capuleti princess,” he admits, sliding his hands up my thighs and to my hips. His large palms press against my flesh, and he twists them a fraction to face the row of targets.
“Everyone called me the Capuleti princess,” I mutter, deadpan.
“Yeah, well, you always have been kind of a princess.”
I drop my jaw in mock offense. “I have not.”
“Okay,” he mumbles sarcastically. “Right.”
“Fine. You’re right.” I smile and toss my head to the side. “I have always been a princess.”
He grips onto my hips, adding pressure. “Take another shot.”
“With you behind me like that?”
“Just shoot, Lark.” His voice is commanding.
It’s difficult to concentrate with his hands on me, but I try my best. I focus on my target and pull the trigger once I’m satisfied with my aim. I hit the target better than the first shot but it’s still not perfect. I’m out of practice.
Rome glides his hands up the sides of my rib cage in time with my heavy breathing. I’m practically panting with need.
Then his mouth is at my ear again. “Better, Lark.”
His entire front is pushed against me, his stiff cock pressed against the small of my back.
“I’m a bit rusty,” I reply, trying not to turn around and free it from the loose constraints of his gray sweatpants.
“I somehow doubt that.” He slips his hand between my thighs and presses his fingers against me. “Your cunt remembers easily. I felt it the other day.”
“That’s not what I meant.” There’s an intense, pulsating ache right where his fingers are pressed.
Damn spandex barrier.
“Why don’t you show me?” he asks. “I know you miss it.”
“I don’t miss anything.”
“Lies,” he hisses like the snake he is. “All lies, all the time.”
“You’re such a hypocrite. I’ve seen you lurking in corners, eyeing me across the room, as if I don’t see how badly you want to fuck me.
As if I can’t read the thoughts running through that sick mind of yours.
Like I’m an itch you can’t scratch. Like your cock is begging to sink inside me.
Watching me in the shadows like I can’t see you. You’re not fooling anyone, Rome.”
He drags his fingers across my slit, over the spandex of my shorts. My wetness seeps through the fabric, coating his fingers. He lifts them and drags them across my lip, forcing me to taste myself.
“Neither are you,” he whispers. “I wonder if your mouth has been begging to suck on my cock as much as your sweet cunt.”
I’m ready to collapse against him and give in. Rip the Band-Aid, so to speak. Maybe all it’ll take is one good fuck to get him out of my system. Maybe it will finally cut all this tension we’ve been feeling over the past week and a half.
I drop one hand from the gun and reach behind me to rub my palm down the length of his cock. He groans, huffing a heated breath into my ear, his mouth curling against my skin.
Fuck, I want him so badly. I don’t even care that he’s smugly grinning against me, knowing he’s right.
Turning my head, I face him over my left shoulder.
Our mouths are dangerously close. I want to press my lips to his and drink him in.
I want to remember what it feels like to kiss Rome Montgomery.
I used to kiss him and be convinced I was drifting away from Earth.
The only time I was forced to return was when he would tear his mouth from mine.
Kissing Rome is, in many ways, more intimate than sex. At least for us, it always has been.
“Beg me for it,” he grinds out, riding against my hand.
“Rome.” His name falls from my lips on a barely-there whisper. “Please.” I tip my chin, reaching to press my mouth to his.
I’m breathing in, ready to cave when he blurts out, “Tell me the real reason you host those charity events.”
The earth is ripped from under my feet. My gazes meets his.
I swallow around the lump in my throat and close my eyes before turning away.
His hand returns to my side, slinking around my ribs while he uses the other to grip the end of my ponytail.
He wraps my hair tightly around his fist before yanking me back.
I cry out, my heart jumping and my pussy clenching.
My eyes snap open, and I’m suddenly staring at the sky. Heat pools in my stomach.
“I told you already.” My lips part as I’m left gasping.
The air is charged with want, need, and scars from old wounds.
Tears sting the corners of my eyes as I look at the cloudless sky.
It’s as if Rome has suddenly ripped me open to examine all my scars and count them one by one.
He’s taking advantage of my vulnerability, calling my bluff.
He’s always calling my bluff.
My spine tingles as his velvety voice hits my ear once more. “Only truths, Lark. It’s just you and me out here.”
“They make me feel closer to my mother,” I confess, my bottom lip trembling.
“That’s one.” He drags his nose along the curve of my neck, breathing me in.
“One what?”
“One reason. There’s another.”
The tears lining my eyes swell, turning the sky blurry. Rome’s hand stops over my stomach and he spreads his fingers wide. He may as well be cutting me open. The pain is visceral and alive. A reminder of everything I’ve lost. Everything we’ve lost.
“Don’t make me say it, Rome.” I can’t do this. Not now. Not with his hands on me, refusing to allow me to break free from the chains he has shackled around my heart.
“Say. It,” he orders against my skin.
My hands are shaking, rattling the gun still in my hands. I want to let go but I can’t. I’m staring at the sky, willing this feeling to go away. Love. Hate. All of it.
“Say it, Lark.”
I can’t breathe. Not until his lips meet the delicate skin between my neck and my shoulder. Rome inflicts pain, then licks the wounds after.
I’m shivering. I can’t stop.
“Say it.” His whisper snaps what resolve I have left inside me.
Closing my eyes, I inhale a deep, steadying breath. The shit life has thrown my way has prepared me for this, to fight back when I feel most vulnerable. I snap my eyes open. “No.”
Rome doesn’t move. “Julianna.” His voice cracks, and my heart hammers as I tell myself not to give in to him again.
He places a soft, too-gentle kiss on my shoulder, but I can’t take it.
The gun slips from the ends of my fingers, and I step forward, forcing him to release my hair.
The twigs and leaves crunch beneath my feet as I sniff, wiping the tears away before turning around to face him. “If this is why you brought me out here, then you can go fuck yourself.”
“It’s not.” His eyes darken.
“I don’t believe you. Target practice is over.”
Rome calls me the snake disguised as a gentle bird, when the truth is, that’s him. It’s been him all along.