I put my hands on the door and looked over my shoulder at him. “Want to kiss me again and see if this time you can make me yours?”
“I’m not here to fall for the bait anymore,” he murmured as we both looked in the mirror. Suddenly, the hands that killed, that I knew were extremely deadly and had inflicted painful pleasure on me before, were light as a feather. His fingers danced over the sensitive parts of my collarbone, played with the chain of my necklace for a moment, and then swooped up to hold my chin high so that we were staring at one another, his chest against my back. “I’m only here for you now, woman. Not to be a pawn or play a game with Bastian.”
“Wasn’t that the game you played with me out there? You tossed your relationship with Brey right in my face.”
“That was a few years ago, and we all know it wasn’t a relationship.”
“You fucked her just like you fucked me.”
“I slept with her to fill a void. I have sex with you despite knowing you’ll probably create a bigger one. Fuck, woman, I should never have looked twice at you.”
“Why? Am I that toxic?” I whispered because I couldn’t stop myself from asking.
“You’re intoxicating, that’s for sure. I’m supposed to protect the family, not lose myself in the mind-fuck that you are.”
I didn’t take lightly to the insult. “Fine. Don’t, then. You shouldn’t have come tonight, anyway. Bastian and Brey wanted friends here. We definitely aren’t that.”
“I’m their friend, though.”
I crossed my arms. “Not mine.”
He twirled me to face him. “Yes, yours. I’m your whatever the fuck you want me to be. I have been since the moment you walked in with Jimmy. Shit, probably since the moment I stood in your room staring at you wearing that necklace.”
I clutched it to my chest. “I’m not asking you to be anything to me.”
“And yet I’m yours and you’re mine.”
I bit my lip as he said the words. The room suddenly felt so small, and Rome felt bigger than life. He took up so much space with his massive muscles and broody-ass personality. I wanted to scream at him for claiming me and then rip his clothes off so he could show me just how much I belonged to him. I couldn’t stop my breath from coming faster, couldn’t stop myself from pulling him close and leaning my forehead against his.
“You’re tangling Bastian in our web,” he said. “You always think I’m trying to punish you for taking pleasure from him. You know you’re mine and I’m yours. What the fuck are you thinking?”
“I don’t want to be yours!” I yelled. “You can’t put me before the family, and I can’t sacrifice my place in the family for you. I don’t belong on the outskirts. And if I’m with him—”
“You’ll be what? What’s it matter where you are?” He narrowed his eyes like he was trying to figure me out.
“A long time ago, I was a little girl with dreams, Rome. I can’t remember a single dream now. When I lie awake at night, all I see is different men standing over me and showing me that my worth is between my legs.”
Rome’s face paled and he fisted his hand, but I held up mine to stop him from spewing something comforting I didn’t care to hear.
“All those little girls are out there feeling how I feel. I still think about the one I met at Marvin’s, how we stared at each other with not on flicker of emotion in either of our eyes. We’d been stripped of life and were dead inside and out. What if my dream gets to be stopping the men from standing over us? Maybe I get to change something, and isn’t it better to have a dream like that than nothing at all?”
“You should never have had to go through any of it.” He sighed. “But that has nothing to do with Bastian and you.”
“Sex trafficking is big business and at-risk youth are perfect targets. We’ve pulled our family’s business away from it, but the Armanellis could do more.”
He shook his head and shut his eyes in frustration. “You can’t change the family. Even with Bastian. You’ll be just another girl on his arm. Family is blood, Katalina.”
“I deserve that family title just as much as any of you.”
“Maybe.” He sighed. “You’re as close to them as any woman will ever get.”
“And that should be good enough?”
“No, it should be motivation for you to leave this shit behind for somewhere you’d get equal respect.”
I turned around and poked him in the shoulder. “And where would that be? Give me one good place where I got a shot at that.”
His stare was desolate. We both knew the only place I could be comfortable now was with all of them. I found myself longing for him to make me feel at home for just a second, to make all the nightmares disappear.