ROME
Chapter thirty-seven
Ilift my pounding head and open my swollen eyes, bearing witness to the softest smile. “Hey, baby.”
“D-did I fall asleep?”
Rain watches his finger trail down my nose. “Yeah.”
I cried on him so hard, I passed out? All the while my cum was covering us both?
His finger moves to circle the warm skin of my cheek, his other hand trailing down my spine tentatively. I’ve begun to crave the way his dark eyes brighten when he looks at me, the way he leaves no doubt to his admiration.
“You’re wearing your ring,” he whispers.
“I, um—is it weird that I put it on?”
“I’m glad you did.” His infectious smile falls, and my stomach rolls.
Every doubtful thought I’ve had over the last twenty-four hours creeps back in and overshadows the look that was ruling his gaze. He’s embarrassed about the video, just as I felt my coach was when he ordered me home from training and forced me to take the week off to sort out my personal life.
“I understand the possible reaction to what I’m about to say.” He keeps firm eye contact that has me wanting to remove myself from on top of him.
“Okay?”
“I killed Connor two hours ago.”
My lips part. Connor’s dead?
I sat in bed last night staring at the wall for hours, wanting to blame Rain for Connor posting that video.
Of course, I couldn’t. He told me to stop seeing Connor, but I was planning to do just that before Rain entered my life.
It was only a matter of time before Connor posted it.
The part I’m complete shock over…is that part of me is happy Connor’s dead.
“Baby?”
I blink. “Thank you.”
He stares for a beat, seeming to not expect my gratitude. “I’d do anything for you.”
Maybe the full knowledge of what he just confessed hasn’t completely sunk in yet. Maybe I’m making excuses. I don’t know yet.
That soft smile returns. “Can I ask you something?”
I shift, feeling and hearing my stomach detach from his. “Um, can you ask it in the shower, perhaps? I’m a little…uncomfortable.”
I sit back as he sits up. The next thing I know, he’s holding the backs of my thighs and lifting me as he stands.
“Don’t do that,” I snap.
He stops in the bathroom doorway. “Excuse me?”
“Lift me like this. It’s emasculating.”
That pissed off expression I haven’t seen since he held a bat to my face emerges. “Don’t ever, ever use that word. Carrying someone is not bound to a specific gender, because I know for a fact that’s what you’re thinking.” It is. “If I want to carry the love of my life to the shower, then I will.”
My heart jumps, and we both stare, shocked at the words he just let free.
He groans, resting his forehead against mine.
“I wanted to say that in a better setting than this one, but…I love you, Rome.” My fingers dig into his shoulders, that dreaded knot tying itself in my stomach.
His eyes lift to stare into mine, looking somewhat pained.
“I cannot bear a second away from you. If I’m not with you, I’m thinking about you, or painting you.
I am so helplessly in-love with you I cannot fathom the thought of a future without you.
” His eyes melt with an endearing smile. “I just need you to know that, baby.”
My lids flutter shut as his lips softly press to mine, my heart jumping frantically around my chest. He doesn’t seem at all disappointed that I didn’t say it back just now. I feel incredibly rude that I haven’t uttered a single word.
What do I say? Thank you? I know you do? Your actions have made it clear? I’m a fucked-up person with an extreme amount of emotional baggage, so actually loving someone scares the living shit out of me?
Nothing seems right.
He gently places me down in the shower, and I swipe back my hair under the water. He takes the body wash and wash cloth, eyes locked to mine as he pulls half my drenched body out, takes my left hand, and gently begins washing my arm.
“You had a question?” I whisper through the strangling tension.
“That tattoo on your shoulder.” He scrubs up my arm to the lake, tracing the skull on my bicep with his finger. “Does it have any personal meaning?”
I stare at the bubbles popping over the reminder of the last time I felt confident in my own skin.
“When I was thirteen, my family went to Switzerland on a holiday. There was a lake we sat beside for a picnic. We laughed the entire time.” I let my eyes find his as he moves the soapy cloth across my tightening chest.
His movements are opposite to how I usually scrub myself. He’s light. Careful.
“A month later, I told my parents I was gay. From then on, I felt as though icy water was rushing through me each time they looked at me.”
His gaze slides back to the skull. “Thank you for explaining that. Your pneumonia—”
“I was stressed afterward. I trained in the rain and fell ill a week later.”
I had the idea for the tattoo when I was sixteen, and I got it done a week after I turned eighteen.
After that, I added a leafless tree on my inner forearm, a dying rose on the other side, its dead petals whisking away to surround the skull.
The most recent is the butterfly on my chest. The wing on my right peck is intact, the one on my left bone.
I watch his eyes trace his movements over my entire body until I’m clean. He takes my shampoo next and begins massaging it in. “This is what I wanted to do the first night we had sex.”
“I can wash myself. I’m not a child.”
“And deprive me of having you beneath my fingers? I think not.”
My heart swells as I grip his waist and let my eyes close, the hairs on my neck standing at the welcoming sensation of his fingers gliding through my hair and massaging the throb from my scalp.
“Sum qui sum.” The foreign phase rolls off his tongue.
“What does that mean?”
“I am who I am.”
I smile. “I like that.”
Feeling his movements gathering my hair at the top of my head, I push off his waist and step back.
His head throws back with a laugh, a childish grin eating up his face.
I reach up, feeling the Mohawk. “You’re a child,” I mutter.
He looks at me again before falling backward into the wall, wheezing. “It’s cute.”
“Shut it,” I laugh, stepping under the water to wash it away.
I press the answer button on my steering wheel. “Where the fuck are you?” Rain demands through the speakers.
“I’m almost back.”
“It didn’t spark in that beautiful head of yours to leave me a note, or text, or, I don’t know…wake me the fuck up!”
I wince and turn the volume down a little. “I only went around the corner for a few things, and you were tired, so I let you sleep.”
“I don’t fucking care, Rome! Wake. Me. Up.”
I wind down my window, tapping my card to the scanner to open the gate. “Noted,” I deadpan.
He growls, “Your ass is getting it.”
My dick jumps as I drive through the gate. “I’ll be there in a second.” His angry breaths fill the air around me. “Okayyy,” I emphasise.
“I’m not hanging up until I see you drive in here, and then I’ll bend you over the hood of that car.”
So much for this being a surprise.
He could hardly keep his eyes open once we were in bed last night, but he said, I don’t fall asleep until you do. After he recited that phrase, I found the confidence to tell him I enjoy hearing him breathe while I sleep.
He grinned for the remainder of the shower while I washed him and his hair.
Once we were in bed, my back was to his chest, and I turned my ear toward his nose and mouth.
He refused that position, stating ten different facts about the repercussions on my neck muscles.
I was put on my back, his arm across me, the other under my neck and his mouth against my ear.
I then argued about his uncomfortable position, to which he finalised the discussion with, shut that tasty mouth before I do so with my cock.
I was ashamed when my emotions flooded back in. I sobbed in his arms again, but he held me close, peppering my wet eyes and head with soft kisses.
Going to the shop just now was uncomfortable.
The young man behind the counter was a fan and apologised for the leaked video.
I just smiled and paid for my things, hoping to squash his hope of continuing the conversation.
I was thankful for his support, but too focused on subsiding the anxious shaking caused by the eyes of others.
Rain stands at the back of the garage, wearing nothing but white boxers, arms folded across his bare chest, foot tapping. The line disconnects as I drive in and shut off the engine.
He moves toward my door, and I snatch the items from my passenger seat.
When he almost snaps the door from its hinges, I quickly extend the bouquet of white roses.
I know his favourite colour is green, but the store only had red, pink, or white.
I was already anxious, and the thought of going to a florist further away to source green roses had sent me on a downward spiral.
His pissed off expression falls. “You bought me flowers?”
He looks like he’s about to cry; I’m thankful he appreciates the gesture and isn’t disappointed they’re not his favourite colour.
“And breakfast.” I hold up a tray containing two breakfast bagels.
“Y-you… This is what…”
I’ve done it. I made Rain Weston speechless.
I push out of the car, and, of course, he refuses to move an inch. Pride grows in my chest when his cheeks redden, and I push the flowers to his chest. His hand wraps around mine. “Thank you, baby.”
I grin against his mouth. “Are you still mad?”
“No. But am I still going to bend you over that hood? Yes.”
“Hey, Rome.”
I look right to the sweet, familiar voice. “Hey, Isla. You visiting your grandma?”
Rain glares at her, then me, as I attempt to put space between us. Taking the hint, he steps back so I can shut the door and lock my car.
“Mum and Dad are in the city, so I’m staying with grandma today,” she chirps, whipping back her blond ponytail, dressed in a long sleeve white shirt and denim overalls. She holds up her football. “Wanna come play?”
Rain snarls. “Scram, pipsqueak.”
I whack his chest.
Isla’s blue eyes narrow. “You’re mean.”
“Don’t care. Leave.”
“Rain,” I scold. “She’s six. Stop being rude. She’s also been in my life longer than you have.”
“Yeah.” Isla hikes a hand on her hip.
Rain takes my hand. “Rome and I are busy. Watch the road when you cross it.”
I hate disappointing Isla. “Why don’t you come inside, Isla? Rain and I are going to eat breakfast, and then we can practise.”
Rain looks at me with an are you fucking serious look before glancing at the bonnet.
I smile and motion inside. Isla skips past toward the door.
“You owe me your mouth or—”
“Rain.”
Isla jumps in first, turning straight toward the fridge. Taking out a juice box, she confidently walks to the table, places her football on the chair beside her, and begins removing the straw.
“I was curious why you had juice boxes in there, and this kid acts as though she fucking lives here,” Rain grits out, taking an old crystal vase from the cupboard beside the fridge.
“Swear jar,” Isla says, stabbing her straw into her juice.
I step beside him and kiss his red cheek. “And you don’t?”