9. Lucas
NINE
Lucas
When I open my eyes in the dark room, I know instantly that Roman is gone. I can feel the empty space on the bed behind me where he’s supposed to be. It’s been two nights since I woke him from that nightmare and everything went to hell. I don’t think he’s really slept since.
I get up and find my sweats and t-shirt then walk across the bedroom to the door. Opening it reveals the dark hallway, dimly illuminated by nightlights.
Everything is quiet.
When I reach the staircase, I see a faint glow of light. I go down then walk through the sitting room to the kitchen, where the above-sink light is on. Roman, wearing only his black warmups, is sitting at the dining table in his usual spot, his back to the wall. He watches me walk in.
“You were asleep when I left,” he says. “I know you were.”
I halt at his words, stung by them. I feel like he’s saying that he wanted to escape me, that he’s annoyed that I’m here.
I know that’s not what he means. I’ve already been through this with myself.
But I can’t get enough control of my reaction to walk straight through those words, so I veer off.
I go instead to the back counter, where I snag the electric kettle and take it to the sink.
I hear Roman get up. As I position the kettle under the faucet, he comes to stand behind me. He reaches around me, taking the kettle from my grip. I let him have it, dropping my hands to the edge of the sink, relieved to have him trap me there, like I’m not allowed to leave.
He fills the kettle and puts it aside. Then his hands settle over top of mine. I lean back against him. He takes a deep breath.
“I don’t like that I keep waking you,” he says quietly.
“You didn’t wake me,” I tell him. He was right. I was asleep when he left.
“But you’re awake. Again.”
I shrug against him. “I just woke up on my own.”
It’s the truth but not enough of the truth for him to understand. I don’t want to tell him the rest. He has enough to deal with. But I feel the distance that my words make. I feel the barrier I’m creating, and I don’t think it’s any better. So I decide to tell him the real truth.
“I can’t sleep without you, Roman. I don’t feel safe unless you’re with me. I know that I am, but … I need your body against mine.”
I feel his chest rise and fall against my back. His hands are still covering mine at the edge of the sink, but now his fingers thread with mine. My fingers curl to hold them.
I ask, “And what do you need?”
His answer is immediate: “You.”
“Then don’t leave me. You can’t protect me with your absence.”
Roman takes another deep breath. His chin presses into the top of my head. Then he draws away and takes the kettle to its heating element and turns it on.
It’s hard not to pry at him. I want to ask him why he can’t sleep. Is it nightmares? Or a fear that he’ll wake from one and hurt me? I want him to talk to me.
But that’s not going to happen, and it’s my own fault.
So many times I’ve wanted Roman to talk to me, but when he finally did, when he told me that he didn’t belong here and shouldn’t be here, I panicked. I was furious and terrified, and I reacted completely wrong.
We haven’t talked about it again, but I’ve thought about it pretty much nonstop, and I know it’s shaping the things I say even when I don’t intend it to. I’m still scared. I absolutely cannot lose him.
I go to the cupboard for two mugs. I take them over to Roman where he’s getting out the peppermint tea because he knows that’s what I want. His bandaged arm lifts, and I duck under it to press myself against him, wrapping my arms around his torso.
I breathe in the scent of him, desperate for every physical proof that he’s here. My face is near his chest, so I nuzzle his pectoral. I’m not deliberately being sexual, but my nuzzling has him drawing a deep breath, and that has me closing my mouth over his nipple.
Roman makes a rough sound of pleasure as I suck. His hand, splayed against my lower back, slides down to squeeze my ass. He arches slightly.
Hungry for more response from him, I let my hand glide upward along the notches of his abdomen to his other pectoral. I knead the dense muscle and tease the tight nub of his nipple.
His hand on my ass tugs me closer. I always harden easily with him, and I’m hard now, pressing my cock against the outside of his thigh.
Maybe I was deliberately being sexual. I need this with him. Always, but especially now when I’m so afraid of him vanishing. Sex means that he’s here, that he’s with me.
Roman turns my way, grabbing my ass with both hands and pulling me up.
I hook my legs around him as he lifts me.
As he walks me over to the island, I feel the brush of his hard cock against my ass.
He sets me down on the edge of the counter and pushes at my chest until I understand to lean back.
I try to settle on my elbows, but Roman keeps pushing until I lie flat.
I close my eyes as he tugs down my sweats to free my cock.
I murmur in pleasure when he takes it in his mouth.
God, I love when he sucks me.
My back arches as he swallows me deep. His fingers massage my balls, rolling and tugging them before his hands glide up my abdomen to my chest. I grip his hands with mine, holding him there, clinging to the only part of him I can reach.
He sucks me harder, working up and down my shaft, putting delicious pressure on my tip. My legs have been loose around him, but my heels dig into his back as my hips lift.
“You’re gonna make me come,” I gasp.
Roman lets out a dark, rumbling sound that vibrates against my cock.
“ Fuuuck ,” I moan.
His hands pull away from mine and slide under my arched back. He lifts me off the counter. His hands move down to my ass, forcing my sweats out of the way as he hauls me against him, taking my cock deep into his throat.
“Roman—” I try to warn him, but he squeezes my ass and sucks me harder until I cry out sharply and start coming. My hips jerk and my stomach contracts. Roman holds tight and sucks me through every pulse, swallowing as I ejaculate down his throat.
I’m loose and slightly dazed as he lowers me to the counter. He draws free of my cock. When I’m able to lift my head, I find Roman gazing down at me. His lips are swollen, his hollow cheeks flushed. God, he’s beautiful.
My hand finds his. Our fingers thread together. I can tell he doesn’t want to do anything more right now, even though I know he’s still hard.
It worries me. I thought this was connection. It was, I guess, but it’s not enough, not on its own.
I lift my hips, and Roman fixes my pants, then I sit up. Sitting on the counter brings my face almost level with his. I lean forward and rest my face against the crook of his neck. He pets my hair.
“I love you,” I whisper.
His hand splays on my head, holding me against him. He’s saying that he loves me too.
Words have gotten hard for him again. He hasn’t spoken since I told him not to leave me. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that, but how could I not have?
When the electric kettle clicks off, Roman draws away from me.
He’s only gone a few steps before he freezes, instantly alert.
His body language completely changes, and his gaze cuts through the open doorway into the sitting room.
My scalp prickles at his sudden predatoriness.
I haven’t seen it for a while, not like this.
I trust him so completely that I’d almost forgotten how dangerous he can be .
Then I hear it too: a raised voice coming from far off. From downstairs, I think.
Roman motions for me to come to him. I slide off the counter. As I reach him, he indicates for me to follow.
My heart pounds as we leave the kitchen and move through the dark sitting room. We reach the stairway to the lowest level, but I don’t hear anything now. We creep down the stairs.
Light is glowing along the bottom edge of a door. I can’t tell which room it is until we’re close and I hear voices again. They’re sharp, arguing.
I sag with relief. “It’s just Vitali and Quinn,” I say, but Roman doesn’t stop. He doesn’t break down the door, but he does throw it open.
I hear wordless shouts then Quinn barking, “Jesus fuckin’ Christ!”
I peer around the edge of the doorframe to see Quinn lowering a gun. My heart jumps. Thank god he didn’t just fire.
Roman’s gaze sweeps across the office. He’s still looking for threats. He switched into his predatory mode so easily, so instantly, but it’s harder for him to switch back out of it.
Vitali says, “It’s just us, Roman.” His voice is sharp. He didn’t like being startled.
Quinn didn’t like it either, and I watch him struggle with his temper as he sets the gun on Vitali’s desk.
As I step into the office behind Roman, his arm sweeps out and hooks me around behind him.
There’s no danger here, and maybe I should be embarrassed to be so submissive with Roman, but I love his protectiveness, even when it’s not needed.
There’s some deep, sore part of me that’s always soothed by it.
“What’s going on?” Roman demands.
I relax somewhat at his words. He’s speaking. He’s calming down.
“We’re just discussing something,” Vitali replies, still with an edge in his voice.
I hear the evasiveness and feel like we should leave. I feel like we’ve walked into something personal. Roman, however, just waits.
Quinn glances at Vitali, and that’s when I realize that Roman has read something in his brother that I missed. With the distance I often sense between the two of them, it’s easy to forget what a long history, a lifelong history, they actually have.
Vitali is keeping something from Roman, and Quinn’s glance says that he thinks Vitali should tell him.
Vitali catches that too and isn’t pleased. He exhales irritably to make sure Quinn knows that, but he gives in.
“Gavino DiMaggio went into the hospital two days ago,” Vitali says, “but he just got transferred home with a crew of nurses. Word is, he doesn’t have long. And that means Alesso, who hasn’t been seen in months, will likely be drawn out of hiding. When that happens, I want to grab him. ”
Roman takes that in. The longer Roman is silent, the tenser Vitali gets. I don’t understand what’s passing unspoken between them, but I don’t like it.
Finally, Roman asks, “Why not just kill Alesso?” His tone is sharp, which I’m not used to hearing from him. Harsh, yes. Sharp, no. He’s angry but in a different way than I’m used to.
“Things have gotten more complicated,” Vitali says with obvious reluctance.
“That big fucker who showed up at Arete the other night is Paulo DiMaggio. He’s a nephew of Gavino, cousin of Alesso.
The reason none of us recognized him is that he’s been on the outs with the family for something like twenty years.
I guess he did some fucked-up shit here.
Sick shit. So he’s been in Chicago working freelance.
I don’t have much intel on that, but it sounds like mostly hits.
“Gavino bringing him in is obviously desperation. Regardless,we need to get rid of Paulo before he takes too much control of the DiMaggio operation—which he will undoubtedly do as soon as Gavino’s gone.”
The twitch in Roman’s body tells me that he wants to start pacing, but he holds himself still. He asks, “And how does grabbing Alesso help with that? Why wouldn’t Paulo just let you kill him?”
Vitali rests back against his desk like he’s trying to keep things casual, but he’s way too tense for it to be convincing.
“Paulo will not be able to sit things out. While Gavino is still alive, he’ll have to make some show of loyalty.
If we can use Alesso to lure Paulo into a trap, we’ll have them both. ”
“And how are you planning to do that?” Roman demands, almost snapping. “And where?”
“We’re still working on the details, but we’re going to use the boxing gym,” Vitali replies. “We need a space we control, and the warehouse would be too obvious since we’ve used it with the DiMaggios before.”
“You’d expose the gym? That’s a valuable location.”
Vitali tenses, clearly not wanting to get into this part. “It’s … already been exposed.”
Roman is silent for a moment, then he says, “You mean when I went there.”
“Yeah.”
Roman’s fists clench at his sides. “And you fucking let Lucas be there?”
Oh, shit. My muscles tighten like I might need to do something, but Roman hasn’t moved. Not yet. His tone says that he might.
Vitali and Quinn have read that too. They both go on alert.
Quinn says carefully, “We had six men on guard at all times, and we never let the DiMaggios see that we’d clocked them. Lucas was always safe.”
By this time, I’ve edged around Roman enough to see his profile. His expression is complicated. There’s anger in it, certainly, but other things too. I can’t parse it all out. I need him to say something, to give some hint of what he’s thinking.
But he doesn’t.
Vitali’s eyes flick from Roman to me then back to Roman. He says, “We have an opportunity here. When they attack, we’ll eliminate them. We can end this.”
Vitali waits for some response from Roman, but he doesn’t really get one. Roman just grunts and holds out his hand for me. I take it, then Roman leads me from the office.
Silently, we return to the kitchen, where Roman turns the electric kettle back on to reheat the water.
He opens the box of peppermint tea and drops a teabag into each mug.
When I gather up the wrappers and take them to the trash, he makes a sound somewhere between a grunt and growl.
I look up, surprised to find him scowling.
As I return to his side, he catches my elbow and pulls me closer, making clear that I’m to stay beside him.
I put my hand on his lower back to tell him that I’m here, that it’s okay. He takes a deep breath and makes a visible effort to relax.
I really want to talk to him. I don’t understand what all of that meant in Vitali’s office. I want to know what Roman is thinking and why he’s so upset.
Finally, as the kettle clicks off, I ask, “Are you angry with Vitali?”
Roman exhales loudly. That seems like a yes, but he says, “No. ”
Roman doesn’t lie, so I have to believe him. And yet, he’s clearly angry, so I have to ask, “Are you angry with me?”
“ No .” This no is harsher, and his breathing roughens.
“Okay,” I say, putting my arm around him, trying to show that I’ll let it go.
Roman’s hand grips my side and pulls me closer. He presses his face against my head, silent and upset. Whatever it is that’s upsetting him, he’s not willing, maybe not able, to talk to me about it.