Page 41 of Roma King
There he is, Mr. Green Eyes, nursing a glass of what looks like whiskey. He’s wearing a leather jacket this time, over a black button-down shirt. I can’t see his pants under the table, but I’m willing to bet they’re fashionably ripped. His focus remains straight ahead as he says, “Most women are primed to fuck at that time of the month. There’s a heat in their blood. Anitchthat needs scratching.” He lifts his glass to his mouth, placing the rim against his bottom lip, tilting it so that the burned caramel colored liquor inside drains into his mouth. I’m pinned to the edge of my seat.
What the fuck is he doing here?
“Shit,” Henry hisses. “I forgot about him. Hey man, this is a private conversation,” Henry calls out to him. Apologetically, he shrugs his shoulders at the rest of us. “Paid me two hundred bucks to let him sit and have a couple more drinks. Didn’t think he’d be any trouble. Arrived here five minutes before closing, sober as a judge. You guys want me to kick his ass out?”
I spin back around, heat flaring in my cheeks. Whoever he is, he shouldn’t be here right now. He has no right, and it’s no coincidence. Hitchin’s is over ten miles away from Rochester Park. This is obviously no accident.
“S’okay, Henry. He’s fine,” Andrew says. His face is beet red, probably from the embarrassment of realizing how little he knows about general biology. “Excuse me?” he calls over. “You’re more than welcome to join us if you like? It’s never fun drinking on your own at one in the morning.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake. Why the hell would he invite him over? I scowl at Andrew, hoping to god he reads my mind and withdraws his hospitality. I can’t turn around. I’m sure the bastard already knows I’m here. I walked through the front door and sailed right past him not that long ago, after all.
There’s an amused huff of laughter from the booth behind me, and then a sliding sound, material on leather, as he presumably slides out of the booth. There’s a seat available on the other side of Andrew. The only other available seat is to my right, next to me.Please let him go around. Please let him go around. Please let him go around.I nearly die of relief when I see him out of the corner of my eye, skirting around Garrett and Waylon with his drink in his hand.
Holy shit, he really is tall. I’d temporarily misplaced that piece of information, distracted as I was by the way his mother spoke to and then summarily dismissed me the other night.
His eyes catch on mine as he takes a seat at the far end of the bar. His bone structure…fuck, it’s hard to explain.Heis so hard to explain. Nothing about him makes any sense. Separately, his features would appear too delicate and feline for a man, but together their combination is somehow extraordinarily masculine. High cheekbones. Narrow nose, with the slightest of kinks at the bridge. His square jawline looks like something you’d see on an army recruitment poster. A perfect cupid’s bow forms the curve of his top lip, which is full, and the wet tip of his tongue—
Fuck!
I rip my eyes away from his face, my pulse staggering all over the place inside my chest. He knows I was staring at him. The fucker caught me red handed, or rather red eyed, but did he do what any other polite person would and pretend like he hadn’t noticed? Nope. Not even close.The fucker just licked his goddamn lips.He wasn’t too obvious about it. Not blatant enough that the other guys would think it strange when he wet his lips. But to the woman lasering in on his bitable mouth, it was obviously a very calculated move.
“I’m Andrew. This is Waylon, Garrett, and on the end there, we have the delightful Zara. Quite the knockout, huh? You don’t find that many redheads around these parts.”
Oh, no. Andrew’s taken one look at this guy, recognized that he’s attractive, and now he’s entered matchmaker mode. The guy smiles. Wolfish. Predatory. Sinful. “Yes.Zara. She does have beautiful hair, doesn’t she? Like a sunset.”
“Or a nightmare,” I fire back. Shelta’s son hums with amusement. Meanwhile, Henry looks at me like I’ve lost my fucking mind.
“What kind of comment is that? You can’t describe your hair as anightmare.”
I treat Henry to a show of mock surprise. “Oh, really? Huh. I guess you’re right. Now that I think of it, that is really fucking weird.”
Dipping his head, the stranger tucks his chin into his chest, concealing the ghost of a smile. Next to me, I suddenly realize that Garrett’s hand is tightening and untightening around his glass, and the knuckles on both of his hands have gone white. Oh shit! Up until now, it’s totally escaped me that Garrett must recognize this interloper, too, and…fuck, he looks like he’s about to fly across the bar and start throwing punches. Waylon, who knows nothing about our experience at the Midnight Fair, or Sarah’s secret past with the visiting Roma, also looks like he wants to rip this guy’s head clean off his shoulders and toss it into the dumpsters out back.
Andrew, oblivious, sweet, naïve Andrew, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to register the tension that’s suddenly developed at the bar as he ploughs on with his conversation. “And you are?”
The jade coloring in the stranger’s eyes seems to flash as he looks askance at the man sitting next to him. “Oh, I’m nobody,” he says, grinning. Whiter than white, his teeth would be perfect but for the slightly crooked incisor next to his left canine. I can’t seem to stop myself from cataloging these tiny details about him and squirreling them away.
“I meant your name. What’s your name?” Andrew says, elbowing the guy with a wry shake of his head.
“Mmm. There’s power in a name,” Shelta’s son says. “I don’t often hand it out to strangers.”
What a weird thing to say. And after Andrew just introduced us all, giving our names to him like any normal person would. In the middle of the night, relaxed and at ease, there’s never any discomfort or animosity between the members of our little group. We’re all so at home with one another that it’s easy to forget sometimes that certain members of the group, one in particular, shouldn’t be fucked with; Waylon can be a fucking psychopath at times. He threw a guy through the tempered glass window of Hitchin’s once, for uttering something wholly unsavory about Sarah, on a rare night when we all showed up before Henry kicked the regular patrons out.
The ex-intelligence officer’s demeanor shifts, his shoulders loosening as he leans back, away from the bar. Anyone else might think he’s relaxing, getting comfortable, but that’s not the case. Far from it. He’s positioning himself so he can get up from his seat and grab hold of the guy, quicker than you can sayfuck you, smartass.
There’s a chance the other man understands that’s what is happening, because he winks at Waylon. God, he must have a death wish. “You all look like trust worthy types, though,” Green Eyes muses. Slowly, his eyes travel down the line of men sitting at the bar, and then they’re on me, burning holes into my skin. A gaze like that is capable of breaking hearts—I’m all too aware of that fact, as I’m sure he is, too. The confidence; the intelligence; the arrogance, not to mention the raw, shocking beauty of so much green… Those eyes are a gift and a curse, perfectly capable of mesmerizing anyone foolish enough to make contact with them. His voice is low when he speaks again—the sound of stone against stone, the lilting brogue penetrating deep down into my bones. “My name is Pasha Rivin. And I’m very pleased to meet you.”
Pasha Rivin.
Pasha.
There’s nothing normal about the astonishing creature sitting next to Andrew. Everything about him is a little larger than life. A little different. A little strange. It should come as no surprise that his name is out of the ordinary, too. The image of his lips pressing together to form the P of his own name will be forever burned into my retinas. It will be the only thing I see when I close my eyes for the foreseeable future. Fucking asshole.
That sinister, suggestive smirk catches hold and develops into a fully-fledged smile as Pasha Rivin gestures down at his glass, silently asking Henry for another drink.
“Sounds Russian,” Henry observes. “Pasha. Honestly, I thought that was a girl’s name.”
Pasha huffs down his nose. “Maybe it is. Who knows. My mother has a unique sense of humor.”
