My hand shot out, gripping his bicep where blood lay wet over his tattoos. “Hey,” I whispered and squeezed. The blood rolled down over my fingers. Warm. Still full of life. It was that vibrant red, like roses on the sunniest day after a summer rain. “If you’re hurting, if you’re about to break, break me instead. I can handle it.”
“Are you offering what I think you are?” His gaze ran up and down my body, searing it and branding it as his with just a look.
I swallowed and then licked my lips, knowing deep down that I was his at the end of the day, that Bastian—that no man—could tie himself to me like Rome could. He’d been there for me since the beginning, and so I would be there for him until the end. “Yes.”
His hand shot out so fast to wrap around my neck that I jumped and fell back into the brick wall behind me. Little fragments of the aged cement crumbled onto my shoulders as I leaned farther away from him. My body was accustomed to pain and suffering. Still, this once, I was sure this was the most danger I’d ever been in.
He squeezed, and I felt my windpipe start to close. “Kate-Bait, I will break you. And I won’t put you back together.”
“I’m already broken,” I murmured, but it sounded far away. “And I don’t expect a handout from anyone.”
“At least you’ve learned what it’s like to be in the family.” He grabbed my hand and slid it under his shirt. I felt the warm liquid before it registered that he was bleeding, that he was running my hand over his wound. “My blood is your blood. I bleed, you bleed.”
I whispered the oath back. “I bleed, you bleed . . .” He squeezed harder so that I couldn’t finish it.
Then he yanked my neck toward him so he could devour my mouth. He moved like he was ravenous, sucking on my lips and then making his way down to my neck as his hands roved over me to the jean shorts I wore. He unbuttoned them, his big hands taking control and not fumbling at all. He didn’t wait for me to nod as he shoved them down over my ass to the ground. “You still clean?” he panted into my ear before he went further.
My heart pounded as anger sliced through me. “I should be able to say I’ve slept with someone else since you.” I pounded his shoulder. “I don’t want to wait for you to have me in the back of a bar. And yet, I’m fucking clean because all I think about is you. All I remember when another man touches me is you.”
His dark eyes pulled me into their depths and held me hostage there. His voice rumbled out soft and low. “No man but me should ever be touching you. You’re driving me insane just living with him, Katalina. It’s driving me fucking insane.”
He plunged his cock into me so hard, I got shoved into the wall. I moaned at the feeling of him filling me up, at feeling like I was connected to the one person I felt separated from for weeks now.
I’d been chasing the high, chasing the feeling of him with Bastian, but couldn’t find it.
I squeezed his hips between my thighs and writhed as he kissed me. “Why does it take us weeks to get to this point?”
He shifted and pulled out before he answered, leaving me empty. I stared at his cock, glistening with my arousal and throbbing in front of me. His arm muscles flexed on either side of me and his jaw ticked when he answered, “I’m never supposed to get to this point. I’m supposed to protect you, that’s it. I can’t protect you when I’m fucking you, Katalina.”
“I should decide who protects me and who gets to be between my legs, Rome.”
His cock flexed, and my pussy clenched in reciprocation. “You want to choose this? Choose the man who can kill you in a heartbeat? I’m the family’s monster, Katalina. I don’t have a heart to give you except a fucked up one.”
“It’s the only one I want.” We held each other’s gaze, speaking a language I wasn’t sure either of us really understood. Maybe there was love there. Maybe we were sharing that sentiment but we couldn’t have known. The world had jumbled all our emotions and made us forget that love could be shared by anyone, even the darkest of souls.
I rolled my hips in front of him, drew his attention back to my core, right where he wanted to be. He stepped up and slid his length into me centimeter by centimeter. When I glanced up at him, he said, “Watch my dick slide into where it belongs. If nothing else, this works and works very”—he thrust so hard into me I arched—“fucking”—he pulled out and then pounded into me again—“well.”
I saw his pupils dilate as I clawed at his back and screamed his name.
Maybe this was where our end began.
16
Rome
Ipulled her down into the black hole. It swallowed us up and ate us whole.
Our light was gone.
She orgasmed in my bar’s bathroom with one lone tear streaming down her face as I took her heart and soul.
I pumped my cock into her almost violently two more times before I buried my seed in her. Our breaths were labored, struggling for life after reaching something way beyond it. I hadn’t come like that with another woman ever.
I backed away from her and took in her bruised lips, her wrinkled clothing, her mussed hair, and knew if I couldn’t keep away from her, we were doomed. With her, I only had tunnel vision. I couldn’t see past her blinding light to real threats to the family, couldn’t keep a clear head, and definitely couldn’t put the family first.
I’d marked her neck, and the beast in me wanted to do it again and again, to lay by her side and snarl at anyone who looked at her. It didn’t care about anything else.
And that was the problem.