“Meaning what?”
“Meaning I’m sure he’s as fucked in the head for you as I am. Meaning we’d die on a damn stake for you if we had to because you’ve jumbled up all our shit and stuffed it into a bag you control.”
My jaw dropped. “I’m not some voodoo—”
“No, you’re Cleopatra,” he hissed as his hand skittered over my neck, and I gasped that he remembered, that his touch felt as good as it had the day before. “Where’s your necklace?”
It was the smallest thing to notice, just a single raindrop of attention on his part. Yet it drowned me like no one else’s thunderstorm ever could. I cleared away the ball of emotion forming in my throat. “I left it on my nightstand.”
He scanned my face, his head close enough for me to breathe in his breath, taste the air that went through him and then straight into me. He sighed and squeezed my shoulder before the deep timbre of his voice rumbled out. “Okay, Kate-Bait. Okay. Games are over. We choose dreams or destruction tonight.”
His hand dropped from my skin, and he pivoted to face Bastian who met his stare head-on.
Two of the most powerful men in the city stood on that balcony with me, looking like gods ready to attack each other. Bastian would have thrown lightning, and Rome would have met him with thunder. I wasn’t sure who would have been the victor. A sick part of me wanted them to figure it out, a part that was broken and used, a part that was accustomed to being a pawn instead of the one they really wanted.
“You claiming her as an untouchable now?” Bastian asked, as if completely unfazed, as if he hadn’t kissed me more than once in these past few weeks. He appeared resigned to the fact that this was bound to happen.
“You think I can claim Katalina?” Rome’s voice seemed to shake the whole balcony, and I felt his question so deep in my bones, I wondered why I’d ever thought a man could claim me.
Bastian’s stare cut to me, and his brow furrowed. He sucked in air like it was suddenly hard for him to breathe. “I’m sure she can’t be claimed. I’m just not sure who she wants to claim for herself.”
They both turned to me, two men in dark suits, gold rings on their fingers glinting in the moonlight, identifying them as part of the most powerful group in all the city.
My knees weakened, and I grabbed the railing to try to regain my composure. “You want me to choose?” I murmured as my gaze jumped between them. “I can’t choose.”
“And really there’s no need. You live with me, you sleep under the same roof as me, you came here with me. Youchoseme,” Bastian emphasized. “I told Rome to draw a line, and he didn’t. Now, we have one. You and me, right?”
My mouth opened. I wanted to say yes. It was the smart thing to do. I had a place finally. I finally fit in a box, had finally climbed to the top where I would be respected.
No words fell from my lips, though.
Rome chuckled. He scratched at the scruff on his jaw and let whatever joke he’d thought of roll through him. His laugh turned maniacal as he glared at Bastian and then me. He rubbed his hand over his head and tilted his chin toward the sky. The tattoos on his neck stretched as his laugh died, and he breathed in a massive sigh. When he angled his face back toward me, my stomach tightened, the hair on the back of my neck stood up, and the instinct to run rushed through my veins.
Rome’s eyes were cold, dead, empty as he said, “Let’s see if it’s you and Bastian, huh?”
I shook my head no as Bastian whispered, “Rome, come on.”
He prowled toward me like a panther, slow and menacing. I swear he swayed like he was drunk on the knowledge that he would own me before the night was over. “Come on, Katalina. Does he make you feel the way I do? You want his touch over mine? His tongue down your throat more than mine? You like the way he tastes that much more?”
My nipples tightened as I stole a glance at Bastian. He was watching me, studying the way I panted at Rome’s words.
I couldn’t control my quick breaths. My bodice suddenly felt too damn tight; the way the dress flowed out and into the wind between my thighs brushed all the right places.
Rome leaned back on the cement railing next to me, his shoulder butted right up against mine. He leaned in and whispered, “Do you want to show, Katalina, or do you want to tell?”
I licked my lips. Rome was giving me the option, letting me take the lead like he never did. My pussy clenched. With every man I’d chosen to be with, I’d been in charge. It was how I reached a high because I hadn’t had control with the others, the ones who forced themselves on me.
Except with Rome. Rome took what he wanted from me; he dominated our sexual escapades and made the rules. And I loved that only with him, that he didn’t need to treat me nicely or feel the need to give me control, like he knew my broken pieces and could navigate their jagged edges better than anyone.
Yet tonight he was asking me. Like I was his ruler, like I wore the crown, no matter how broken it may have been.
Bastian didn’t say a word. His gaze jumped between us, and a small smile played at his lips, one of knowledge, of forfeiture.
I turned to Rome. “You ready to show the family that you’re better for me? That we can be together, that you get me to my high better than Bastian ever would? Show me. Show him. Show us all.”
He grabbed my neck and yanked me to his mouth so fast I yelped. The sound was muffled by him devouring me, feasting on me like I was his last meal. He sucked on my tongue, ravaged my lips, and then licked over them to soothe the pain.
I moaned as his free hand grabbed my ass to shove me straight into his hard cock. He was rock solid, longer, thicker than anyone I’d ever been with. I clung to his back, trying to get as close to him as possible, but he ripped his lips away as quickly as he’d dived in and shoved me around so that I was facing Bastian. His muscular tattooed forearm wrapped around my waist and pulled me back against his chest. I felt his dick at my ass, felt how he gyrated against me just to cause me to gasp, cause my mouth to water, cause me to arch back into him.