Page 56 of Roma King
The word sounds foreign. I have no idea what it means. Pasha clearly knows this. “Unclean. Impure,” he says, clarifying. “Us Roma have a bit of an obsession for cleaning.”
“Oh, well, shit. Thank you very much. Glad to hear that I’m spoiled goods.”
The waitress drops off the drinks and leaves. Pasha sips his own, pushing the second shot of tequila my way. “Don’t take it personally. We also tragically embrace the Madonna/Whore complex. We want to get our dicks wet at every available opportunity, but the women we marry are supposed to be virginal. Quite the double standard.”
“Sucks to be a woman in your family, then.” Instead of pouring the tequila into the remainder of my apple juice this time, I pick up the shot glass and tip the golden liquid inside into my mouth, wincing at the sharp taste and the burn as the alcohol slides down my throat.
When I look down, searching for the lime and the salt the waitress dropped off earlier, I can’t find it.
“Here, Firefly.”
Oh, sweet Jesus. Both the salt and the lime are in Pasha’s possession. I hold my hand out for them, but he doesn’t hand them over. He rubs the wedge of lime on the back of his hand, and then up-ends the salt shaker, pouring the white granules so that they stick to his skin. Then he holds his hand out to me. “Lick.”
Liquid napalm ignites inside my veins. I could throw myself into a pool of frigid, icy water, and it wouldn’t be enough to extinguish the burn. Slowly, I shake my head, and Pasha blows out a long breath down his nose. “Afraid, Firefly?”
“No. Just smart. You probably have all sorts of bacteria on your hands.”
“I just told you. We’re very clean people.Now lick.”
I used to get into so much trouble in high school for railing against the teachers and the principal. A problem with authority—that’s what everyone always said during my parent/teacher conferences. I haveneverliked being told what to do. My initial reaction to Pasha’s command is to tell him to go and royally fuck himself, him being the king and all. But then I see the challenge there in his eyes, the gauntlet that he’s throwing down, and I see what he’s doing. Heisthe hunter, and Iamthe rabbit. And I won’t keep on running anymore. I won’t be the person he expects me to be.
I take hold of his wrist, and I stop thinking. Quickly, I lick the back of his hand, collecting the salt on my tongue, and then I let him go. His merciless grin seems to light up the entire booth, the man a light source all of his own. “Happy now?” I ask.
“Ecstatic.” His eyes are mocking me. He lifts his hand to his own mouth, and he licks where I have licked, taking the time to savor the action. The sight of his tongue sweeping over his own skin is…
God.
A deep, pained groan works free from him, and my toes curl inside my shoes. “I was right. You do taste like honey.”
I’ve never felt this kind of heat before. It snakes and coils through me like smoke, filling a tight space, and I finally understand what desire is. I see now that my past experiences with men have shown me nothing but the idea of desire, the faintest suggestion of what it might be like to want another human being, and this…this is what I have been waiting for my entire life.
His tongue onmyskin. His mouth onmymouth. His hands, rough and calloused and demanding, caressing me, the way that his eyes are caressing me right now.
“If this is never going to happen, then why bother with this,” I breathe.
“With what?”
“The flirtation. Making me lick your goddamn hand. All of it.”
He looks down at his whiskey. “Well. There’s another reason why I’m not supposed to involve myself with you specifically, firefly.Youaren’t just some woman in a bar.”
“What am I, then?”
“You’re something else entirely.” He hesitates—the very first time I’ve seen him look anything less than one hundred percent confident and cocksure. “You know what you are, don’t you? What you are…tome, specifically.”
I am deafened by the roaring sound in my ears. The way he’s looking at me… It’s terrifying and thrilling at the same time. I can’t meet his gaze. I can’t even sit still in my seat. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Pasha.”
A small, salacious smile lifts his mouth at either corner. “I like how you say my name. It sounds so much better in person.”
“What the fuck doesthatmean?”
“It means that I remember now. I remember a lot of things. I’ve heard you whisper my name into my ear a thousand times before. Just like you’ve heard me call you Firefly. But it’s different in real life, isn’t it? There’s something…finalto it.”
He’s mad. He’s lost his fucking mind. Or I have? I don’t know what’s happening right now, but I don’t like it. It feels like reality is slipping away, and I’m losing all control over myself. My heart is beating so fast, I can’t even differentiate between the beats. “Please stop. You’re making me uncomfortable,” I whisper.
Pasha grins. “I highly doubt that. But I apologize all the same.”
He’s so confounding. Confusing. “Just stop fucking with me. I want to know what you’re going to do about your mother.”
