“I know how to get a tattoo.” I balked and tried to pull my hand away. He gripped it harder and leaned forward over me so that his lips were a hair away from mine. “Stop fighting me. Let out a breath on me, Katalina. I want to taste your air.”
I knew he was just trying to get me past the pain. I knew this didn’t mean a damn thing, but my nipples tightened, my body quaked, and my stomach dropped. Had I been standing, I may have fallen over.
I let out a slow breath. I wasn’t trying to forget the pain. It’d already been forgotten. I was trying to quell the new feelings stirring in me, the ones that had always been there but grew rapidly as I stared into the depths of Rome.
From far off, I heard Zane mumble that he was done.
Rome’s hand traveled along my collarbone as his voice rumbled through me. “Give us a minute, Zane.”
Zane rolled away on his stool because I guess every person in the world listened to Rome when he commanded them.
Rome’s fingers wrapped around my neck, but he didn’t squeeze. “You got my words on you.”
I licked my lips. “They’re just words.”
“They aren’t. Come back to the bar with me.”
“For what?” I whispered.
But I knew.
He tilted my head by pushing a thumb into my jaw, and then he lowered that dark head of hair to my neck where he took what he wanted. He devoured me without even kissing my lips, and his hand slid down to my cleavage where he dipped a finger in to graze my nipple. It puckered as I moaned.
His hand disappeared along with his mouth.
Suddenly, he was standing over me and throwing my shirt at my chest. “Put your top on. Let’s go.”
“I have to pay Zane.” I jumped out of the chair and glanced at my tattoo. He’d already taped cellophane around it while I was being hypnotized by my damn kryptonite.
“He’s been paid.”
I spun toward the dark hallway Zane had disappeared down. “What do you mean? How? Do you two know each other?” That was a dumb question. Zane was right down the street from Rome’s bar. Everyone knew him in one way or another, and Rome had a million and ten tattoos.
I pressed a bandage to the new ink and threw my shirt over my head. “I’m paying you back.”
“Just move your ass.”
I stalked out of the shop, irritated and completely unsatisfied. “I can pay for myself, and just so we’re clear, I’m not for sale.” I knew the comment would rub him the wrong way.
He grabbed my back belt loop and yanked me against him. His hand turned my chin his way. “Even if you do sell yourself as bait, I’m never paying for you, got it?”
I wore stilettos for a reason. I stomped into his foot, I hoped hard enough to hit the bone of his toe. He swore fluidly, and I left him stumbling after me on the sidewalk. “I never sell myself, and even if I did, you wouldn’t be able to afford me, jackass.”
8
Rome
Katalina had permanently marked herself with the words I’d said to her the first night we met:
You’ll live because if you don’t, you’ll die.
Around it all were skulls and roses and dying flowers of all sorts, wrapped in jewels and strings of pearls in the most intricate detail I’d seen in a long time.
I’d never gotten that good a look at it all until tonight. It was art that represented her more than I think she would ever know. I saw her in the world of the family, trapped as a prized possession, trapped by the beauty she flaunted for us. She let herself be used over and over again as bait, and even if she didn’t know it, it would kill her. The family would kill her just like they did everyone.
It was a beautiful lifestyle, but one that tangled you up and suffocated you until you were lying there bleeding out.
She’d made that bed. I couldn’t change it for her, and I didn’t need to get wrapped up with her.