Page 45

I come with a cry, a powerful jerk moving swiftly through my body. My moans taper off as breathing momentarily becomes impossible. I’m suspended in pleasure, my heart pounding like a rabbit, and every inch of me burning up.

Roman comes a second or two later. His eyes roll back, and his entire body arches into mine as pulse after pulse of heat floods inside me. It mingles with the rush of warmth from my own body, and after the initial seconds of strong orgasm, I gasploudly and my body trembles violently. Roman kisses me, and keeps kissing me until stars burst behind my eyelids and every drop of pleasure is wrung from our bodies. Then I collapse down onto him, panting.

“Wow,” I gasp as tingles jolt through my body and my core twitches. Roman’s chest rises rapidly, and he runs his fingers slowly through my hair.

“Wow indeed.”

I want more. I need more.

We remain like that until the wound on Roman’s shoulder forces me up. Lust gets in the way of treating ourselves properly since we can barely keep our hands to ourselves, but I do manage to clean and cover both his wounds. My vocal concern that Roman needs a hospital melts into nothing but moans because Roman buries himself between my thighs and stays there until he’s eaten me to another orgasm.

I return the favor to ensure he stays in bed and Roman barely restrains himself from thrusting down my throat. I kiss and lick and suck, pouring every old fantasy into worshipping his cock like I swore I’d do if I ever found him. Then I let him fuck my throat with wild abandon for the last few minutes until he comes hard down my throat and buries himself there until my head swims.

It doesn’t end there. Each time we tell ourselves we need to rest, our hands wander. Roman sucks on my tits and fingers me to another orgasm under a blanket of darkness and leaves me a puddle of pleasure and aching need. So I tease his cock with just my fingertips while kissing his neck until he’s swollen and aching for me. Then he fucks me from behind until the neighboring motel room bangs on the wall in complaint.

Our laughter makes that the best orgasm of my life, and as dawn breaks, we eventually fall into a light, restless sleep.

At least, Roman does.

I stay awake for a while longer and quietly study his handsome, sleeping face. His strong jaw, his slanted eyes, the little crooked lump on the bridge of his nose. He’s miles of strong, bulky muscle and olive skin with black ink, yet he has the softest lips and the kindest smile.

I lightly kiss the tip of his nose as sleep takes me.

“You saved my life,” I whisper. “And I never forgot you.”

18

ROMAN

“Iwas fifteen.”

Jasmine’s delicate fingers press alongside the laceration on my side. Her other hand squeezes water out from a cotton ball, then she very slowly slides it over the wound to remove the dried blood. Had we tended to this last night, then it definitely wouldn’t hurt this much, but I can’t bring myself to care much. She threw herself into my arms, and my fear of losing her to those assassins turned me into a man so hungry for a taste of her life that nothing else mattered.

Not even my own life.

I probably shouldn’t have fallen asleep though. Not that it matters. She kneels on the bed next to me and continues her work while her soft words fall like music from her red lips.

“They snatched me from school like I was a piece of meat. My mother always told me it was a risk.Your father is a dangerous and important man, they’d say. And I’d listen, but it never felt real because they did a good job of keeping that kind of life away from me. It was all talk, y’know? It wasn’t real in my mind. Until that day. I remember fighting, but it was so useless. I’d never met people so strong before. They took me to this abandonedbuilding, I don’t know what it was, and then they hung me from a pipe by my wrists and beat me.”

My heart lurches painfully in my chest. “Jasmine?—”

She quickly shakes her head and lifts her beautiful eyes to meet mine. “It’s okay. It gets better, I promise.”

Pain lances through my side and I wince, staring back down at her gentle fingers while they thoroughly clean my wound.

“There were other girls there, and they were all wearing different clothes. Looking back, I realize now that they didn’t know exactly who I was. They were just snatching girls until they got lucky, and they finally did. There was one girl I’m sure was dead on the floor, and another who tried to help me, but they beat her like a punching bag. It was one of the most horrific things I ever saw.” Her hands lift from my skin and she tosses the stained cotton ball away, replacing it with another clean one. “I never found out what happened to them. My parents refused to talk about it so…I assume they died.”

I want to reach out to her and chase away the pain haunting her words, but she’s on a roll and it feels disrespectful to interrupt again.

“Anyway, when they worked out I was the real Jasmine Falzone, they dragged me to this room and were forcing me to take off my clothes. I was scared because they were huge and dangerous, and I was so convinced I was going to die. And then someone broke in. A man.”

I feel the weight of her gaze on me, and when I look up, she’s staring directly at me while peeling a packet of butterfly stitches. “Those won’t hold, y’know,” I say gently.

“They will until you get to a doctor,” she replies.

“So this man…it was me?” Despite the question, her story has notes of familiarity that pull at the dark recesses of my mind.

“Yes. I didn’t remember much about you. Only your gorgeous eyes, like warm butterscotch. They’re darker now.” Jasminechuckles softly. “Or you just frown more. I’m not sure. But your face was covered, your arms weren’t. You swept in killing people and then you scooped me up like I weighed absolutely nothing. I think for a while, I thought I had died and you were some kind of angel coming to collect me. But then you were protecting me and shooting those men, and all I could do was stare at your tattoos.”