6. Tate #3
And then he glances over at me.
Just for a quick moment, with a different sort of hunger in his eyes that makes my cock harden.
Holy fuck.
Raw fear is still coursing through my veins from the first parts of the conversation I saw translated. I let myself look over at Roman again. When he reaches a hand low to adjust the bulge in his pants, my eyes travel downward.
And when the sun hits it just right, I see it.
Unmistakably.
The outline of his cock through the dark denim, just as hard as he looked in the photo he sent me.
He’s so fucking big, and I already knew that, but it’s a whole lot different to see it in person than in a picture.
He glances back over and I remember that I have the translator app still open on my phone. I fumble with it, pulling it back too quickly, and it accidentally slips onto the floor of the car.
It thuds as it lands.
“You okay, Tate?” he asks.
“I’m great. Peachy, really,” I tell him, scrambling to pick up my phone. “Just suddenly wondering if I’m going to get shot today. No big deal.”
“Relax. You are safe,” Roman mutters. “There is nowhere safer you could be than in this car with me and Maks.”
“Where are we going next?”
“Dropping Maks off at Capp’s.”
“Who the fuck is Capp?”
He glances at me. “It’s a diner, Tate. No gunshots. I promise.”
“Nothing to be afraid of,” Maks says from the backseat.
I want to believe him.
But I have no idea what the hell to believe anymore.
Maybe police will find my dead body in the back of this trunk later on, complete with a massive goddamned precum-soaked spot on the front of my underwear because that’s the level of crazy I am.
I’m relieved when I see the denser trees start to thin out along the road. I can tell we’re getting closer to the Crimson campus again. I still feel like being in this car is like sitting at the center of a ticking time bomb, but there’s no way out.
I look out the window.
If I look at Roman, I’ll be terrified.
And I hate myself for the fact that I’m somehow also still turned on when I look at him.
Roman pulls up outside of a classic-looking diner a few minutes later. A big, red neon sign says Capp’s Diner in cursive in the front. I watch through the windshield as Maks strides inside.
I become hyper-aware of the fact that it’s just me and Roman in the car again.
The air feels suffocating.
Nothing but the center console separating me from…
Whoever he is.
“I’m going to ask you something,” I tell Roman softly.
“Yes?”
“And I don’t want you to lie to me.”
“Ask.”
“Tell the fucking truth,” I say.
Finally I turn my head to look at him, and I’m met with those gorgeous, deep blue eyes.
“I’m listening,” he says softly.
“Are you in the mafia?”
His gaze dances from my eyes to my lips, then back up.
Don’t do that.
Don’t distract me, giving me that look like you're going to devour me.
“My family is large. We conduct business,” he tells me.
“Answer me. Are you in the mafia?”
He furrows his brow, flicking his hand like he’s shooing a fly. “Of course not.”
Something plummets in my gut.
“You fucking liar,” I whisper.
Roman shakes his head. “The Bratva is not mafia. We run things properly. Or we fucking did, until people like Kuzma and Yegor decided to make my life hell.”
It’s all the answer I need. He won’t call it the mafia, out of pride or ego or God knows what. But I know what Bratva means. The Petrov family is the goddamn fucking Russian mob, clearly operating with ties all the way into New York City, which means it’s big.
“Okay,” I tell him.
I swear I see a sort of pain in his eyes. “You are safe here, Tate,” he tells me again for the hundredth time. “I promise that I will keep you safe.”
So many more questions orbit inside my chest.
He told me the truth.
He could have lied. Could have said his family owns a car business, or something. But he gave me the truth.
“Were you ever going to tell me?” I say. “If I didn’t ask?”
He shakes his head instantly. “Certainly not.”
“So you get to follow me around and know everything about me, but it doesn’t go the other way?”
He squints through the front windshield, looking out at the front of the diner. “The less you know about my life, the better. Trust me.”
He throws the car into reverse and the door is closed on conversation.
Soon we’re driving back up toward campus, taking the road around to the side that goes down onto Red Row.
When I look over at Roman, I see everything about him in a new light, now.
The tattoos.
The scars on his hands.
His raw strength, and the way he slightly frowns as he looks out the front windshield.
I can’t even look at the beaded black bracelet on his wrist without wondering if it’s something more. It loops around his wrist three times, so it could be long enough to be a weapon. Does he choke people to death with it?
He stops the car to pause extra long at a crosswalk when an old lady hobbles by on a walker. He smiles out through the window at her, giving her a polite wave.
The same man who was just standing like a stone, witnessing murders.
The man who is supposed to protect me.