Page 58 of Roma King
“By the time I’m finished with her, Shelta’s just going to be grateful that I’m speaking to her. She won’t have a single thing to say about this if she knows what’s good for her. And besides, I don’t call my mom to share the good news every time I share a bed with a girl.”
I clamp my lips shut, determined not to release even a hint of nervous laughter. “You really think I’m going to let you into my bed?”
Slowly, he reaches up and strokes his fingers down the side of my face with his free hand. The touch is soft, the very tips of his fingers faintly making contact, and I go utterly still. God, with his face so close to mine… With the warmth of his body radiating intomybones… With his leg pressing up against mine…
How am I supposed to defend myself against such an assault? How am I supposed to remain unaffected by the sight, and the sound, and the smell of him? It’s just not fucking possible. His fingers lightly brush over my mouth, and a shiver rockets through me as he uses the pad of his thumb to part my lips.
“I don’t care where you let me,” he whispers, his voice thick, and ragged—so rough, I can almost feel the coarse edge of it against the hyper sensitive skin of my neck. “Your bed. Your living room. Up against your front fucking door. Down an alleyway on the way back to your apartment. It doesn’t matter to me,” he growls. “So long as you let me make you come.”
He moves so quickly, I have zero seconds to respond. Both his hands find themselves in my hair, fingers tangling together amongst the rogue strands that he pulls down from my pony tail. His mouth crashes down on mine, lips demanding and fierce, and I let out a surprised whimper. Pasha groans at the sound, and his thumbs begin caressing my face as he parts my lips, slipping his tongue into my mouth.
Holy shit.
Holy fucking shit.
I don’t—
I can’t—
My thoughts shatter as he probes my mouth, the sweet taste of him cut with a sharp hint of whiskey, and my body goes weak. I have no idea what the fuck’s going on right now. The bar, the other patrons, the music…it all fades into blackness as Pasha Rivin kisses me.
When he shifts, rotating his body, wrapping his arm around my waist again, pulling me closer to him, crushing our chests together, I finally kiss him back.
I don’t mean to.
This is the last thing I should be doing right now. This is, in fact, one of the most stupid things I’ve ever done, but thereisalso something inevitable about this. Something that just feels so right. As if, no matter how many different paths I might have chosen over the course of my life, how many different decisions I might have made, I would still have somehow found myself here, sitting in this bar with the king of the Roma, moaning like a breathless school girl as he claims me with his mouth, laying ruin to me with his hands. I have surrendered myself to him.
Because that’s what this is, after all.
A surrendering.
This was my final stand, sitting across from him in this bar, trying to deny that anything was ever going to happen between us. I lean in. To him. To the kiss. To the moment where I recognize that nothing will ever be the same again. I just…let myself go. I know that the weight of all the worry and the stress I’ve been feeling over the past few weeks isn’t gone for good, but for this moment, it melts away, Pasha’s touch giving me a reprieve from the madness as his kiss deepens even further.
My hands have a mind of their own. Before I know it, my fingers are twining his hair around them, the way he tangled his own fingers in my hair a few seconds ago, and I’m closing my hands into fists, pulling…
Pasha’s already labored breathing quickens, and a low, deep rumble of a groan vibrates through his chest and straight into mine as he bites down on my bottom lip and tugs hard. The kiss ends abruptly as he rips his mouth away, panting, and he leans his forehead against mine.
“You kiss like you’re already fucking me, Firefly. Do you have any idea what you’re doing to me?”
“No. I have no idea what I’m doingat all.” My hands rest on the back of his neck, and his skin feels like it’s on fire, like he’s feverish and burning up. Soon the fire inside him is going to pass through our bodies and it’s going to eat me alive, too, I just know it.
“Stand up. Get your things. We’re leaving.”
It all becomes very real, all of a sudden. What is about to happen. The hunger in Pasha’s beautiful green eyes will not flicker out until it’s been fed, and Iwantto fucking feed it. I need to feed his hunger in order to satiate my own. But…he…fuck. The sheer size of him. His very presence. The way he makes me feel when he spears me through with that intense gaze of his, like he’s doing so much more than seeing me. Like he’s seeingintome, and through me, and he understands every working part of me. Like he always has, and he always will.
It’s fucking terrifying.
I’m not sure if I’m ready for him to sweep into my life and take it over just yet. Because I know myself, and weirdly I think I know him, and this is it. This is real, whatever that might mean for us, and there will be no backing out. There will only be life before Pasha, and the rest of my lifewithPasha.
Again…fucking terrifying stuff.
He brushes a strand of my hair out of my face and tucks it behind my ear, humming under his breath. “Are you done?” he demands.
“Done?”
“Weighing your options. Pretending to yourself that you don’t already know what comes next. Telling yourself that this is your moment to walk away and force me out of your life forever.”
“We’ve only just met.”
