Page 14 of Dance of Defiance
But then…I don’t. And it’s not until Vaughn wishes me good night, reminds me what time his helicopter will take me back to the city in the morning, and leaves me to my thoughts in his study, that I realize that pinching sensation I’m feeling is one of being caught between my hard-on for a self-professed straight guy and loyalty to my criminal mastermind brother.
Fuck.
I don’t have the first idea what the hell to do with any of that.
But by the time I head to bed, I know one thing for sure: Ineedto find out what Roman was doing here tonight.
I swear, that’stheonlyreason he’s on my radar now.
4
ROMAN
Absolute control.Sheer will. Power in strength.
My teeth grind as I clench my jaw, glaring into the glass of vodka in front of me.
It didn’t happen. Even if it did, it wasn’t my fault.
Fuck. When the ways you try to lie to yourself begin to sound, verbatim, like the narcissist's prayer, it’s probably time to admit that shit has gonesouth. Badly.
So I do what I’ve been doing for roughly the last twenty hours: try a different tactic to absolve myself of the sins that happened in the Adirondacks.
It was simply my body’s natural reaction to an external stimulus. That’s all.
Pain shoots through my jaw as I grind my teeth harder.
“External stimulus.” Somehow, that’s the terminology I’ve landed on, as if making it sound clinical and scientific removes any suggestion of sexual arousal. If I can make it sound likesomething out of a textbook, then I can make myself believe that the blood flowing directly to my dick when that motherfucker pinned me to the floor…andrubbedhimself against me…was simply a biological reflex.
It was dark, I’ve tried telling myself.You'd had a couple of drinks.
Fucking shoot me. This is pathetic. Worse,it’s not fucking working.
“Rome.”
My brows furrow deeper as I glare into the depths of my drink.
“Rome.”
“Chill, dude. If he’s anything like me, he’s still not capableof forming sentences after last night.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.Roman!”
This time, the voice calling my name is accompanied by a sharp elbow to my ribs. It knocks me out of my haziness enough to focus on more than just the vodka in front of me and the black thoughts still drifting like venom through my system.
I turn to glare at Bane before he can jab me again.
“What?” I grunt, scowling at him.
He cocks a brow. “Nothing. Just thought you were having a fucking stroke or something.”
I lift a dismissive shoulder and raise my glass to my mouth. “I was just thinking. Relax.”
Across the round table from me, slumped against the dark blue velvet of the curved booth, Laz wrinkles his nose and rolls his neck wearily. “How the fuck are you able to think again yet? I can barely get a coherent thought through the dumpster fire that used to be my brain before you fuckers got to me last night.”
Next to me, Bane smirks. “Keep whining like that and I’ll have to confiscate your Russian card.”
“Fuck, you can have it,” Laz groans. “Or I’ll burn it as a fuck you to the system that allowed me ever to think that it was remotely okay for a human being to consume that much vodka. It’ll be my version of the bra-burning protests.”
