Rome (Marked Men, #3)(55)

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 anticipation, 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 pricked 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 clit. 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 jackass 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 damn 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 sassy 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 goddamn baby.





CHAPTER 11



Cora


“Stop looking at me like that, Shaw. I think it’s a great idea; no, I know it’s a goddamn 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 crap 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.