NINETEEN Atonement
I sat back in my chair and faced Roman, fighting off an ancient instinct to be defensive and cynical.
The night sounds of the forest and the faint hiss of the tide filled a long silence as we stared at each other. The stalemate stretched into unbearable awkwardness, until I reached for my glass, forgetting I’d drained it already.
Roman stirred and stood. “I’ll get another bottle.” His voice rasped unusually, as if the words had climbed over craggy stone on their way to his mouth.
“It’s okay. I should get going.” I didn’t actually want to leave; my limbs felt dull and heavy, the way they did after a hard workout. It was like my ... description, explanation, confession, whatever it was ... had been a literal weight I’d been carrying for my whole life, and I’d just set it down for the first time.
Maybe that’s more than a metaphor. Psychically speaking, at least.
Roman didn’t head to the house for another bottle of wine, but he didn’t return to his seat, either. Instead, he came to me and crouched beside my chair. He set a hand on my arm and looked up at me, the deep, dark orbs that were his eyes fixed on mine.
I studied his face, the lines of age it had gained while I was away, the dusting of silver in his scruff of beard and at his temples. Those lines made rays from his eyes and parentheses around his mouth—the signs of a man who smiled often. There was no crease between his brows.
He was a much more real person to me now than he’d been when I was a girl. That Roman had been the equivalent of a teen idol poster a girl (not me; my mother would never have allowed it) might pin to her bedroom wall. A dreamy crush from another world. This Roman was a flesh-and-blood man. Kind and calm.
As far as I knew. But what, really, did I know?
“I am so sorry, Leo. God, I should have—”
“Don’t,” I said, and he stopped.
I knew what he would have said: I should have known . Or I should have done something . Or some other variation of the same.
Okay, yeah. Telling that story in one go for the first time in my life, and telling it to someone who’d known me during those years, had stirred up some thoughts and questions. Like why hadn’t anyone known, why hadn’t anyone picked up one of their thoughts about the strangeness of my life and dug deeper? Why had a whole town noticed that my life seemed unpleasant and unusual but not wondered if it was worse where they couldn’t see?
Those are all valid questions. I understood that. But I didn’t really care about the answer. If someone had asked if I needed help back then, I would have denied it. If someone had offered that help, I would have refused it. If someone had tried to go around all that and filed a report, started an investigation, I would have done everything in my power to thwart any discovery.
I had been deeply ashamed of my life, and for most my years living with my mother, even after I’d understood I could do nothing to make her care about me, I’d blamed myself. When I was little, I tried to figure out what made me so bad and detestable and stop being that way. When I was older and understood that there was no way I could be that she wouldn’t hate, I stopped trying not to upset her. In fact, I started poking the bear on purpose.
Either way, in whole or in part, I blamed myself.
That’s the scar of being raised by hate: if it’s the first thing you feel, if it’s all you know from your first formative moments, you believe, all the way down to your very cells, that you deserve it.
I set my hand on Roman’s. He turned his hand and wrapped it around mine.
I watched his thumb brush lightly back and forth over my knuckles. His hands were a bit scarred and callused, his palms and the pads of his fingers firm but not rough.
“I don’t want your apology for when I was a kid,” I told him. “The way I feel about you now , the thing that feels like it’s happening between us now , I don’t want then to be any part of it. I told you about how it was for me because you asked—and also because I don’t want it to be a black hole between us, something we try to avoid but get pulled toward anyway. And it would be, because yeah, being raised like that gave me some weird ideas about relationships.”
“Was your husband ... abusive?” he asked after a beat.
“No,” I answered without hesitation. “Micah loved me and showed it.”
I could have left it there, but Roman had given me an opening to say something truly relevant to us, whatever ‘us’ might be, and my emotional pump was fully primed at the moment, so I went ahead and continued my firehose of disclosure.
“But he was controlling, and I didn’t see it until he was gone. I’d fallen in love with the first man who showed me love, and when he wanted to take care of me, I gave over to that completely. Not until he was dead and I was left to untangle and try to understand what our whole life was built on did I see how unstable his care actually was—and I failed him, too. He carried a burden of worry and secrets that must have been exhausting, and I didn’t even know.”
Roman reacted to that last bit with something like a flinch—a twitch of his head and a quick narrowing of his eyes. It was enough that I asked, “What?”
“You’re blaming yourself for not knowing what he didn’t tell you.”
“No. I’m blaming myself for not being curious, for not letting him know he could share his worries with me.”
“But he could have shared with you? If he had, you would have listened and tried to help?”
“Of course.” And that was true; I wasn’t afraid of hardship, and I’d thought we were partners.
“Leo. Then it was on him to trust you enough to share.” He let go of my hand and cupped my cheek instead. “Whatever this is between us, whatever it becomes, I make you that promise: I trust you enough to share my burdens. Will you trust me with yours?”
Staring into Roman’s eyes, feeling his warm hand on my face, in my hair, I realized what had happened here. My firehose of recollection hadn’t been merely a dump-a-thon. Roman’s questioning hadn’t been morbid curiosity. It was all directly related to the reason I’d shown up here tonight in the first place.
The whole thing was my apology for my reaction upon seeing him grilling with Wyatt. And Roman was now telling me not merely that I was forgiven, but that I was understood.
He understood me, and he was ready to share our burdens together.
He trusted me, and I could trust him.
I wanted to tell him yes, I trusted him. I wanted to find the words that would convey how entirely earthshaking it was for that to be true. But no words would come. So instead, I framed his face in my hands and kissed him.
For a few seconds, the kiss was gentle—not hesitant, not light, but slow. A tender coda to my aria of trauma. Then Roman broke away with a gasp. With his forehead resting against mine, he whispered, “I want you, Leo. I want to be close.” He kissed my forehead, my temple, my cheek, my ear. “I think about you every minute.”
I didn’t know if he was inviting me to his bed right then, or if he was telling me he wanted a deeper relationship, or both, or something else entirely. Not knowing how to ask—it was like I’d used up my reserve of words—and emotionally amped and extremely turned on, I told him instead with my body. I took hold of his head again and kissed him. And this time, it wasn’t gentle or light or slow.
Comprehending the meaning of my response, Roman deepened the kiss even more as he wrapped his arms tightly around me. Then he did something that to this day is in my top three most romantic things that have ever happened to me: he stood, bringing me with him, so I came off my chair and was held aloft in his arms, my feet off the ground.
When he turned and headed back to the house, still kissing me, I knew where we were going.
And I trusted him to get me there safely.
WE DIDN’T MAKE IT TO his bedroom right away. We made it only as far as the kitchen.
Roman carried me with seeming ease up the porch steps, and he managed to work the door open without putting me down, and with only minor interruptions to our kiss. But all that grace took effort, and when he tried to kick the door closed again, his grip around me slipped until my feet were on the floor.
“Oops, sorry,” he chuckled against my mouth.
Chuckling with him, I whispered, “It’s okay. You don’t have to carry me the whole way.”
“Oh, I’m not done yet,” he said and lifted me again, this time to set me on the table. “This is just the first stop.” He grew serious, gazing into my eyes, brushing my bangs to the side. “You want this?”
I set my fingers on his lips, not to shush him but to feel the warm plush of his skin. “I want this.”
He kissed my fingertips, sending little thrills of sensation up my arm. “It’s not too soon, too fast?”
I didn’t answer right away, and I let my gaze slip away from his eyes. It was soon; it was fast.
As complicated as losing Micah had been, as angry and betrayed as I’d felt while my funeral dress still hung on the door of my closet, waiting for the dry cleaners, I had loved him deeply and mourned painfully. I don’t know if there’s a right time to be ready to move on from that, but I do know that a couple of weeks earlier, I’d been sure I was nowhere near ready to be with anyone again. I’d been fairly sure there was a good chance I would never want to be with anyone again.
So yes, it was soon. It was fast.
But too soon? Too fast?
“I don’t mind going slower,” he told me when I was quiet long enough to burden the silence with meaning. Lifting my chin on his finger so my eyes met his again, he added, “We go at your pace.”
I had a lot of things to worry about, a lot of things in my life, and in my son’s, to try to fix. I had to be vigilant about keeping control, making sure our lives were stable and secure on our own terms. I never again wanted to find us shipwrecked on the rocks of someone else’s secrets.
But as I looked into Roman’s depthless dark eyes, I considered that maybe I could be vigilant and still trust. I could lean when I needed help and still be in charge of my own life. I could be angry at Micah and still mourn him. I could find—I could make —happiness now with Roman and still ache for the love I’d lost.
I could feel the scars of my childhood but no longer be shaped by them.
“This is my pace,” I told him as I slipped my arms around his neck again and drew him close.
Smiling, he kissed me again.
Our few kisses to this point had been lovely. Exciting, arousing, intimate, all that kisses should be. But they had all—even the one while he’d carried me here—been preambles. Opening acts. The previews before the movie. Warm-up stretches.
This kiss was different. It wasn’t a promise, it was an intention. And Roman was different as well. He was still the gentle and kind man I’d always known, but now he was also an eager lover. His touches were firmer, more possessive, his seeking hands no longer exploring but claiming, his mouth no longer tasting but feeding.
He was expressive, too. Small groans slipped from his mouth to mine when my tongue touched his, when my fingers scratched at his scalp, when I hooked my legs around his. When his hands slipped under my shirt and I moaned at the hot leather of his touch, he echoed me with a groan so deep it shook his chest. When his fingers unhooked my bra with a deft twist and I gasped, a lupine growl burst from his throat.
Then his hand was on my breast, and the sudden fire that touch blasted through me. I arched backward and cried out.
“Jesus, Leo,” he grunted, his mouth on my collarbone. “I need you now.”
“Yes, yes, please,” I said. I tried to unbutton his shirt, but I was lost to lust and could only pluck ineffectually at the placket.
With a breathless chuckle, stopped me. “Not here. I don’t want to fuck you on the table. Not the first time, anyway.” He picked me up again.
“I can walk, you know,” I said through gasping laughter.
“I don’t want you that far away,” he answered, his smiling eyes full of light.
HE CARRIED ME UPSTAIRS to his bedroom without turning on any lights. I wrapped myself around him and focused my sensual attention on his neck and ear, loving the vibrations against my lips of every groan and gasp I drew from him.
Straight to his bed he carried me, lying down on me, covering my clothed body with his. We both calmed then, as if we’d reached a waypoint on our journey. For long, uncountable minutes, we were simply close, kissing and stroking, nuzzling and petting.
The room was dark but not pitch-black. His curtains were open and the moon was full; each time I opened my eyes I saw his handsome face, his magnetic eyes, awash in opalescent moonlight.
God, the way this man looked at me. It was like no one had ever seen me before.
I smiled up at him, and he smiled down at me.
“Okay?” he asked.
“Perfect,” I answered.
I reached for his shirt again, this time managing his buttons, and our moment of quiet ended as we stripped ourselves and each other bare, squirming, rolling, twisting, lifting, all the while laughing, until we were skin to skin.
I couldn’t see much of his body like this, but I could feel it all, and it was beautiful. Long and firm and warm. Hair on his chest, his arms, his legs. I slid my hand over his pecs, downward to his belly, feeling the pattern of hair, finding a wide happy trail, exploring farther and finding the true prize.
He grunted and flexed his hips, pressing himself against my hip. His hand came between us, found mine and wrapped it around his shaft.
“God, Leo,” he groaned when I began to explore his length. “You’re going to burn me to the ground.” His hand then slipped between my legs and eased upward until he found what he was looking for. “Fuck, you’re wet for me.”
“And you’re hard for me,” I murmured, pressing my lips to his chest.
“I ache for you.” He bent down and captured a breast in his mouth. At the same time, he slipped his fingers into me—and again sent an fiery lash through my body, so I arched up and cried out.
What he was doing with his mouth and his hand, with teeth and lips and tongue teasing my breast, with his fingers inside me and his thumb on my clit, with his whole body , flexing and writhing on mine, it was going to make me come, fast and hard. The hot weight of a climax gathered in my core, and I was having trouble remembering that I had hold of his cock.
Already my body could not be still, was trying to drive him even faster, even harder. The looming climax would shatter me, I knew.
But it wasn’t what I really wanted.
What I wanted was him inside me. Though I rarely came from actual intercourse, what I wanted more than a life-altering orgasm in that moment was to be as close to Roman as I could possibly be. I wanted to be full of him, joined with him.
“Wait, wait,” I gasped, letting go of his cock so I could wrap my hand around his wrist.
He stopped at once. Lifting onto his elbow, he gazed down at me, his face folding with worry. “Did I hurt you?”
“No, I’m not hurt. I’m about to come.”
The worry faded away as a grin arose instead. “That’s kind of the point.”
I returned his grin but shook my head. “I want you inside me.”
For a second, he was quiet, his gaze locked with mine as his grin slipped from his face. Then he kissed me until I’d lost all my breath and nearly forgotten my own name.
He reached out, fumbled open a drawer in his nightstand, and eventually brought a condom packet between us.
He shifted, coming up to his knees as he took position between my legs. Bathed in moonlight—oh yes, his body was beautiful —he rolled the condom on and dropped to his elbows over me.
“I’m so glad you came home,” he murmured, brushing his lips over mine.
The feeling of being wanted filled my head like a magnum of champagne. Overcome, I couldn’t make words to tell him how glad I was, too, to be here, to be wanted, to want. Instead, I wrapped my arms around his neck, lifted myself up so there was no space between us anywhere, and nuzzled my face against his chest like I could burrow my way in.
Holding me in that position, Roman shifted and eased into me. A long, low moan left him.
At first, we moved slowly, rocking together, still wrapped up so tightly we were hardly two people. As physical need began its ineluctable overtaking of emotion, our tandem movements became more emphatic. Roman shifted to find my mouth again, slipped away to suckle at my neck, my shoulder, all the while whispering a story of how good he felt with me, how much he loved my skin in his hands, how the tight embrace of my body around his was reshaping him.
I’m not a sex talker, not because I don’t like it but because my brain empties of words in such moments. So I answered him with sighs and moans and gasps, with kisses and caresses. When the next phase came upon us and we were both chasing the most feral of needs, I began to counter his thrusts with my own, driving him as deeply as I went, hooking my legs at the small of his back.
When he seemed to be reaching his peak, and I was at the highest point I could reach like this, I slipped a hand between us and found my clit. Roman noticed but didn’t stop me or get weird about it. In fact, my touching myself seemed to excite him. Without interrupting our rhythm together, he shifted slightly, just enough to give me room to work.
I flew up the rest of my climb, coming within a minute, so hard my body forgot how to breathe. Roman completed with a roar while I was still trying to find air again.
When it was over, he didn’t drop onto me like a corpse. Nor did he pull out immediately and roll away. He stayed on his elbows, holding most of his weight in his arms. For a few seconds, while we were both gasping like we’d run a marathon, he rested his head on my chest. Then, with a kiss to my breastbone, he lifted his head and looked down at me, a half-smile dancing lightly at a corner of his mouth.
Things had definitely changed between us. I had the feeling that tonight had changed my whole life.
“Hey,” he said, his voice little more than breath.
I combed his sweat-dampened hair back from his face. “Hey.”
“I’m glad you came to apologize.”
I laughed. “Me too.”
I COULDN’T STAY, AND we both knew it was impossible. Wyatt was home by himself. So after a half-hour or so of delightful, serene postcoital cuddling, we got dressed, and Roman walked me out to my car.
Before I could open the door, he turned me and pushed me gently back against it, coming in for a quietly intimate kiss. He’d put his shirt back on but hadn’t closed it, so I slipped my arms around his bare waist and held on.
Then Roman said something that a few hours ago would have terrified me. Now, though, I knew it meant whatever I needed it to mean.
“I want to help you with Manfred and the tax thing. Will you let me?”
I played lightly with the hair over his nicely contoured pecs. “Will you listen when I tell you what kind of help I need and what kind I don’t?”
“Of course.” He brushed a finger over my cheekbone.
“Then yes. Thank you. We’ll talk about what that means—when I figure out what it means.”
He grinned and kissed me again.