“Bastian’s was planned. I was able to move freely around his penthouse. We went on scheduled excursions. You went shopping with me!”
“You didn’t leave that penthouse much at all.”
“What? Did you track me while I was there?”
“Of course I tracked you,” he shot back, not at all apologetic for his actions. “It’s my job.”
“Whatever. It doesn’t matter. This is different!” I threw up my hands and then stormed past him, done with the conversation and wanting to get on with the night.
He stomped out after me. “You’re something, you know that?”
“What a compliment,” I grumbled as he checked a few of the locks and the security system he had in place.
Then we were walking in sync toward his garage. He stepped in front of me as we turned corners to make sure no one was watching us, and then he cut the lights to the garage as we made our way over to a black SUV with tinted windows.
He opened my door and grabbed me under my shoulder to hoist me in, probably a little more aggressively than necessary. Still, his touch shot through me, and I gasped at feeling his strong grip after knowing exactly how our touches exploded together.
He slammed the door as I cut my gaze to him and licked my lips.
Fuck, he was in a mood.
How was it that he wanted nothing to do with me right now, but I wanted everything to do with him?
He drove the back alleys in silence and checked his rearview mirror constantly. The night sky was muted by the city lights, the buildings glittering with their manmade brightness.
“You ever think the country might be the best place to be?”
“Why? The city all of a sudden too much for you?”
I sighed. I was tired of sparring with him.
We drove over a bridge, and the car rattled as the tires bounced off the metal. “I think the city can be too much for anyone. It wants our blood, and I’m not sure we’ll have any left to give once we’ve been drained of it.”
He glanced at me, his dark eyes suddenly not so empty of emotion. His tattooed arm flexed as he gripped the steering wheel. “No city is going to drain you of your blood, Katalina.”
“It feels like you’re all hiding this huge secret, and it might be that. Honestly, it wouldn’t be the worst way to go.”
“It’s also not the way you will go. You’re stronger than that. We’re stronger than that.”
I nodded, letting his words sink in.
“Your blood is my blood, Kate-Bait. You die, I die.” His hands white-knuckled the steering wheel, and he didn’t look at me as he spoke. His jaw clenched, like he was trying to hold back whatever he was feeling.
He pulled over in a dark alley, and when his head whipped my way, I saw the need finally, the hunger I’d seen the last time he touched me. I saw the Rome I’d missed for the past hour, the one I thought might have only been a dream or a nightmare.
I quivered under his stare, my core aching for anything he might give me in those moments his gaze roamed over me. “Maybe my blood isn’t, though. Maybe this family isn’t mine to—”
His hand flew off the steering wheel and went straight to my neck. He yanked me forward so I was just inches from his lips, feeling his hot breath on my cheek as he said, “There’s no arguing your place. Your blood is mine. We bleed together, woman. Always. Remember that.”
He devoured my mouth and bit down painfully on my bottom lip. He wanted to taste blood, and I moaned when I realized that was his intention. I could submit to this man. I knew that even if he was inflicting this little bit of pain, he would never take it far enough to truly break me any more than I’d already been broken.
I unbuckled my seat belt and climbed over the console to straddle him.
The latex of my outfit squeaked as I did, and Rome burst out laughing midway into our kiss.
“Are you kidding me?” I shoved him in the chest and glared at him. “Don’t fuck this up by laughing.”
He laughed harder, and I caught the side of him no one ever saw. Rome never really laughed, not like this. He’d momentarily lost the dark side of himself—the empty, hollowing side that sucked at your soul when he looked at you—and appeared like a genuinely carefree guy in his twenties.