Marked Men: Rome Part 13

"I don't know how to do that." It was the truth.

"Is there anything that you think would put it in perspective for you? Make it easier to move past this?" I liked that instead of just letting me be all defeatist and lost about it, she wanted to actively help me figure out a solution to the problem.

"Not really. Answers would help. Asking Remy what he was thinking would help, but since none of that is possible, I'll just have to figure it out on my own."

Her eyes flashed at me, and I saw a shadow of something cross from one colored eye to the other. I wanted to ask her about it, but she climbed up off of me and I got distracted fighting the urge to s.n.a.t.c.h her back. I wanted to kiss her from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. I wanted to put her in bed and never let her out. I wanted to breathe her in and let her spread all that color and brightness that poured out of her all over the cold and barren that was spread around inside of me, but I was still minding my manners, so I lumbered to my feet prepared to walk her out to her silly little car and settle for a chaste peck on the lips.

I didn't necessarily feel any better after talking to her about it, but I also didn't feel any worse. I didn't feel the need to guzzle down a bottle of Belvedere and I was pretty sure I could make it through the rest of the night without having to outrun the nightmares. I almost ran her over when she stopped in front of me and turned around. I had to wrap my arms around her small frame to keep her from toppling over onto the floor. She laughed a little against the center of my chest and grabbed the fabric of my T-shirt in her hands and started to pull me back toward my room.

Not that I wanted to rock this particular boat, but I also didn't want to get into something she was going to be all worked up about later either.

"Uh ... What are you doing, Half-Pint?"

Those blond eyebrows danced up on her forehead as she continued to walk backward, towing me with her. Her eyes were lively and shiny, a small smile was playing across that mouth I wished I had dreams about instead of the nightmares I was having, and she was looking at me in a way that didn't just make my d.i.c.k hard, but made something in my chest wind up and release like a spring.

"You have bad dreams. I don't want you to. So I'm going to give you something better to take to bed."

Oh, thank you, Jesus. I kicked the door closed behind us and let her pull my shirt off over my head. She was too short to reach all the way, so I had to bend down for her to get it up and over my shoulders.

"I thought we were slowing things down?" Stupid sense of morality.

She c.o.c.ked an eyebrow at me and bent her head down so that she could get her hands on my belt buckle.

"Do you like me any less since we stopped having s.e.x?"

I snorted and just watched as she pulled the leather through the belt loops with a single yank.

"No. Why?"

She lifted a shoulder and let it fall. I was trying to follow her train of thought but my eyes crossed because she got those little hands under the edge of my fly and brushed against an erection that felt like it was trying to escape from my pants all on its own. I was missing something here. She was almost as vulnerable as I was, only I didn't have a firm grasp on her reasons.

"I dunno. I thought maybe it was all chemistry and s.e.xual attraction, and once that went on hiatus, things with us would be clearer, make more sense."

"We don't make sense?"

She had my zipper down and was working my jeans over my hips and my a.s.s. I wasn't going to be able to keep talking to her coherently for much longer, but I had a feeling I really needed to understand the things she wasn't saying to me.

"We do, but things with us just seem to move at warp speed."

She wasn't wrong.

"Is that bad?"

Those two-toned eyes flicked up at me and she slicked her tongue over her bottom lip. Holy h.e.l.l, I was going to come just by looking at her.

"No. It can be scary and overwhelming, but I don't care anymore because I want you. I missed this part of being with you, plus I'm pregnant and h.o.r.n.y and want to jump you all the time. Restraint has never been one of my strong suits."

I sucked in a breath as she got my pants down around my knees and then dropped to her own.

"Why didn't you say something sooner, then?"

"Because we're trying to do something right, trying to do something that lasts, and when you take your shirt off I can't think straight."

That made me laugh, but then the damp heat of her mouth closed around the head of my c.o.c.k and I couldn't breathe anymore. She was so pretty, so exotic, with all her colorful skin, and good G.o.d, did she know how to bring a man to his knees with just a flick of her tongue and the barest hint of the edge of her teeth. I wanted to grab the top of her head and shove my d.i.c.k all the way in to the back of her throat, but not only wouldn't it fit, I doubted she would appreciate the gesture since she was trying to distract me from all the bad s.h.i.t going on in my messed-up head. So instead I weaved the fingers of one hand through her short hair and let the other one clasp her on the back of the neck.

"Cora ..." All I could get out was her name as one of her hands slid between my legs and the other wrapped around the base of my straining d.i.c.k. It felt so good; she flooded all my senses. The way she looked on her knees in front of me, the way she hummed her pleasure when I bucked involuntarily against her mouth, the way her mouth was so hot, so wet, as it slid up and down over skin that felt like it was going to burst at the seams. It had been too long, she was too potent, I wasn't going to last for very long, especially not if she kept playing with my tight and achy b.a.l.l.s the way she was. I knew her goal was to distract me, work me over so that I was spent and tired and could go to sleep and stay down for the rest of the night, but if she was going to open the door, I was going all the way through.

I let her suck, let her roll her tongue along the straining head just to the point where I was about to lose it all in that pretty mouth. Luckily I was a guy who had a gold star in discipline: I pulled her off right before she finished setting me over the edge. She made a disgruntled noise in the back of her throat that had my d.i.c.k screaming at me in protest, but her eyes were shining and laughing at me. She gave the hand that was still wrapped around the base a tight squeeze and grinned at me.

"Oh, old friend, how I missed you."

I was trying unsuccessfully to get her shorts down her legs and her stretchy top over her head because she didn't seem to be in any hurry to let go of my throbbing erection.

"You talking to me or my d.i.c.k?"

She giggled, the sound so carefree and full of joy that it knocked something loose inside of me. I could feel that ball of tension, that coil of despair that I held so tightly inside of me break free from whatever it was clinging to. I put my hands on either side of her face and tilted it toward me so I could attack her smiling mouth. I overwhelmed her enough that she finally had to let go of her hold on my c.o.c.k and reach up to grab on to my wrists so I didn't knock her over backward. She tasted sweet. She tasted like redemption. She tasted like the future I didn't need to figure out anymore.

When she rubbed her tongue back against mine, when she rose up onto the tips of her toes to wind her arms around my neck, I simply fell backward on the bed and took her down with me. It made both of us laugh. I couldn't remember the last thing in the entire world I had found humor in, let alone while I was in the middle of trying to get laid. That she could do that to me, do it for me, made it clear to me that I wasn't going to be able to let her go. Ever. She wiggled on top of me so that I was supine under her and she was braced on top of me with her hands on the center of my chest. She still had too many clothes on but seemed far more interested in getting me all the way naked and taking her sweet time about it.

She hopped to her feet and got my boots off and my jeans the rest of the way off, then stood over me looking down at me with a fiery gleam in those different-colored eyes.

"You sure are pretty."

I didn't know about that. My d.i.c.k was sticking straight up in the air, the veins in my neck were pulsating, and I'm sure I looked pretty frenzied. It had been too long to be without her, but if she liked what she saw, ravaged scars and all, I wasn't going to complain.

"I think I should tell you that." She gave a delicate little snort and pulled her shirt off over her head. I felt my eyes widen, because I had been naked enough with her to know those b.o.o.bs were not normally that size. She took her sweet time wiggling out of her shorts and lacy, pink panties; by the time she was done, I was contemplating pouncing on her and just throwing her on the floor and going to town. I didn't get the chance because she climbed back on top of me, only this time she was all pretty tattooed skin and warm and willing flesh. I got my hand around the tattoo high on her thigh as she settled on top of me and reattached her palm to my erection.

I ran my other hand up over her ribs, stopping to rub each of those little jewels like they would bring me good luck. I pressed my thumb under the swell of one breast and lifted my eyebrow up.

"Nice." I continued my journey upward until I was circling a pebbled nipple.

She made a face and bit down on her lower lip. She was just unendingly cute; I wanted to eat her all up. If she didn't make a move soon, I was going to do it.

"One side benefit of unprotected s.e.x."

The humor was dry and she wasn't interested in cracking jokes anymore when I suddenly rolled her tiny frame under me. I could look into those mismatched eyes until the end of time, especially when they were foggy with desire and heavy-lidded with the knowledge that I was about to return the favor. I kissed her hard, licked my way across her collarbone, took a second to pay homage to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, twirled my tongue around the jewels embedded in her side, and made my way to all that colorful ink that circled the top of her thigh.

I pushed her bent legs apart as I traced the design where it decorated the inner curve of her thigh closest to my destination. I felt her shudder in antic.i.p.ation, saw her stomach quiver and tip, and grinned against the soft skin I was pulling between my teeth when the very tips of her fingernails p.r.i.c.ked impatiently into my scalp.

"Rome ..." Her voice was low and breathy, reminding me that she had had to wait on this just as long as I had. It made me even harder, if that was possible, to know that she would never hesitate to ask me for what she wanted.

I licked a trail along the crease in her leg that led to her damp cleft. The little wink of silver buried inside all that pretty pink flesh was an allure I wasn't able to ignore. I sucked the entire ring and the sensitive flesh it was decorating into my mouth. The action made her entire body bow up off the bed, and her hands got even more desperate along my head and shoulders. She was a tangy mix of metal and aroused female, and nothing in life had ever tasted sweeter. I twirled that little hoop around and around and abandoned it just when I felt her get to the crest of what I was building in her. I heard her swear at me, laughed a little against the grasping folds as I buried my tongue inside her, which had her alternating between cursing me and telling me I was the best she ever had.

I left her wet, greedy channel and switched my attention back to her hard, begging c.l.i.t. I kissed her all over, sucked on it, bit down on it hard enough to let her know I meant business, and by the time I got my hand involved and used my fingers in unison with my mouth to finally let her come, she was making noises that were a cross between moans of surrender and sobs of relief. She came like she did everything else, full of color and light and blindingly honest in letting me know that what I did to her not only worked, but was incomparable. A man could get used to having a woman make him feel that way.

It took a few minutes for her to recover, so I pulled her over me and rolled us so that she was covering me like a warm, satisfied, human blanket. When she finally roused herself she wasted no time and sat herself down on me and sank all the way to the hilt. She was wet and slick and all the good things I had been missing by being a big jacka.s.s and a man scared of his own reality. Only a moron ran away from a girl like this, and while I was a lot of things, stupid wasn't one of them.

We both sucked in a surprised breath at the same time. Her eyes drifted closed and mine popped wide. She just felt so good, and when she started to move on me, my poor brain shut down. She moved one of her hands so that it was by my head and bent down to put her mouth over mine. That position opened her up just enough that I could get my fingers on the d.a.m.n ring of hers while she moved herself up and down in a rhythm that had both of us swearing and straining against each other. The drag of her pointed nipples across my chest, the soft suction of her body, the featherlight press of those sa.s.sy lips against my own and it wasn't long before I had to roll her over and pound into her.

She squealed a little at the action and I tried to tell myself to take it easy on her, but she was just as wild, just as greedy as I was, and it only took a grasp of needy and convulsing muscles to pull me over the edge. I said her name, heard her whisper mine against my ear, and I very well may have blacked out for a second as pleasure and the finality of what this woman meant to me slammed through my body with a shudder. I didn't mean to collapse on her, but I did. I buried my face in her neck and gathered her close to my chest before mustering the energy to roll over.

She snuggled into my chest and tucked her head underneath my chin. I rubbed a hand up and down her spine and kissed her on top of her head. I could stay like this with her forever.

"Sweet dreams, Rome."

When I closed my eyes all I saw was her and the colors and shades of rightness she brought with her into my dull world. I fell asleep with her all around me, her soft breath on my skin, and all the best parts of her changing all that emotional shrapnel lodged inside of me. I slept like a G.o.dd.a.m.n baby.

CHAPTER 11.

Cora

"Stop looking at me like that, Shaw. I think it's a great idea; no, I know it's a G.o.dd.a.m.n brilliant idea."

If she didn't stop gawking at me with those big green eyes, I was going to knock her upside her pretty blond head. We were at lunch. I met her downtown so that she could hop over to the Goal Line for her shift when we were done. It was Sunday afternoon and neither of the Archer boys was in the mood to go see their parents, so instead they had decided to spend the day together doing guy stuff, whatever that meant. Shaw insisted it meant they were going to go to the gym and try to beat the c.r.a.p out of each other, either that or they were going to stay put in the living room playing video games. Rome wasn't much of a gamer, so I thought the gym thing sounded more likely, but it made me nervous because neither one of those boys knew when to pull it in and one of them very well could end up hurt.

I had a brilliant idea to help my big, brooding soldier put at least one of his demons to rest, only Shaw seemed to think I had gone off the deep end when I explained it to her. She just kept shaking her head at me and biting her lower lip anxiously. She could look worried and think I was crazy all she wanted, but Rome needed closure, needed some kind of answers so he could move forward, and there was only one way I could see for that to happen. I just knew bridging this gap would not only offer him the peace of mind he needed, but also do wonders for his current need to keep his parents at arm's length. He had already lost a brother; this self-imposed exile from those who loved him simply had to stop. Unfortunately I needed Shaw's help in pulling it off.

"I was there, Cora. I'm the one who saw the reaction, the one they ignored and abandoned when they found out about Remy. Trust me, the Archer boys do not like surprises."

I sighed and blew my bangs off my forehead. "Look, Rule sleeps at night. Yeah, he had a hard time of it there for a while but mostly he has handled his grief and the role Remy played in it. Rome hasn't. He is sinking in a mire of 'what-if' and 'what-now'; if I can throw him a lifeline I'm going to, with or without your help."

She tapped her fingernails on the table and we stared at each other steadily. "I've known those boys a lot longer than you, Cora. Trust me: it isn't an idea that either of them will welcome, not to mention the tailspin it might send Margot into. It will just open old wounds and hurt. I have no interest in doing that to Rule or to Rome."

I shook my head at her. "You knew the Rome that he was before he found out his little brother had a secret life and his other little brother didn't need him anymore because he found the love of his life. This Rome, Shaw ... you don't even have a clue what's going on with him. I'm sorry but it's true. He's a different man now. He needs this."

I didn't mean for it to sound so harsh but it was true. Granted, Rome had a knack for keeping people at bay and hiding all the things he was constantly struggling with behind a glower and a snide att.i.tude, but I knew if anyone bothered to look closely, they could see how he was fractured in his heartbreaking, blue gaze. I would move every mountain in the Front Range to give him this. Besides, this kid was going to have every kind of family I never did, even if it meant I had to rattle the Archer family foundation to do it.

"I love him, Cora. He's my family and I don't want to hurt him."

"He needs closure, he told me he doesn't know how to let it go, Shaw, and none of us can provide it or help him with it. I think Rule would benefit from having some answers that make sense as well, but he's yours to worry about; big brother is all mine."

He was mine. Every towering, unpredictable, floundering inch of him was mine, and I was going to do whatever it took in order to make things better for him. I took care of my friends because I wanted them to live the best life possible. I was going to take care of Rome because it did something to me on a fundamental level to see him struggle, to see him hurting. I felt like if I could put him at the slightest of ease, it would be the most rewarding gift I had ever given anyone. Plus he deserved it. He was a good man. He had earned someone working to make his world a better place for once instead of the other way around.

She opened her mouth to continue her side of the argument but was interrupted by my phone going off. I had set Rome's ring tone to Creedence because he was such a cla.s.sic kind of guy and it always made me smile to see his grim mug looking up at me from the screen. He would laugh if he knew CCR played "Fortunate Son" every time he called me, especially since I preferred girl rock bands as a rule.

"What's up?" He had seemed pretty committed to spending the day with Rule and hashing out some of their issues, so I was surprised to be hearing from him.

"Can you meet me at the Bar as soon as you can?"

He sounded stressed out and was talking really fast. I frowned and motioned for Shaw to get the bill so I could go.

"Yeah. What's going on?"

"The place got robbed."

I felt my eyes go big and I understood the underlying panic in his tone. He was really close to Brite, the owner of the bar, and if something had happened to the older guy, it wasn't going to be pretty for Rome. He needed me to keep him grounded; I knew it even if he didn't say it. He was asking for help and my heart turned over in my chest.

"I'll be there in ten."

I felt him release a breath and he sounded less anxious when he spoke again.

"Asa called me, the cops are already there. I don't know anything else."

I frowned and stood as Shaw signed for the bill.

"Who would rob a dive bar on a Sunday in broad daylight?"

"I don't know. But I sure as f.u.c.k don't like it."

I nodded even though he couldn't see me. "I'll see you soon."

"Thanks, Half-Pint."

"Anytime, Captain No-Fun."

Shaw followed me as I hurried out of the restaurant. I was practically running to the Cooper when she stopped me with a hand on my elbow. Her eyes were still big and unsure, but now there was a different kind of understanding shining out of them.

"Are you in love with him, Cora?"

I didn't know how to answer that, so I just stared at her for a minute. It was a question I was actively avoiding asking myself every day. The answer scared me because if I was in love with him and he bailed on me again, there was no way I would be able to forgive him for that and now our futures were inexorably linked through the child I was carrying, so that wasn't a viable option. If I kept my feelings in check, denied how important he was, if he broke apart on me again, I could still move past it and not fall apart like I had before. My kid deserved a parent who was always going to be present in every way possible.

"I'm having his kid, Shaw."

"But do you love him?" d.a.m.n, she could be persistent when she wanted to.

"I don't know. Last time I loved someone he nearly destroyed me and that didn't feel half as intense or as important as this thing with Rome does. I think loving him could be the end of me if it doesn't work out."

"What if it does work out, though? What if he's your imperfect Mr. Perfect?"

I pulled away because if I was in love with him or not, it was irrelevant to me right in this moment. He needed me, and I wasn't ever going to leave him hanging if I could avoid it.

"Then he'll be the first to know. Call Ayden and tell her Asa just got robbed. She might want to check in on him." I didn't bother to say good-bye; I was in too much of a hurry to get to my guy.

When I got to the bar, everyone was standing outside. Rome was with Brite talking to a couple of police officers, a few of the regulars were huddled together looking lost and nervous in the bright light of day, but what really had my attention was the fact that Ayden and Jet were also there. Only instead of worrying over her brother, she seemed furious. She was pointing a finger in his chest and Jet was doing his best to hold her back.

I walked up to Rome and put an arm around his waist. He had on black track pants and a black T-shirt. Clearly, he had been at the gym. He looked like he should be on the cover of a men's fitness magazine.