Текст книги "Rome"

Автор книги: Jay Crownover

Соавторы: Jay Crownover
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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

I stared at the drink and blinked stupidly. I shoved my cell phone in his direction. “My brother. Call him when it’s time to go, he might be pissed but he’ll come and get me.”

Brite nodded and put the phone on the bar rail. I rubbed my tired eyes and looked at him to see if he maybe had some of the answers I so desperately needed.

“Does it ever get easier?” Life and death, before and after, then and now, I was just having such a hard time finding my footing. I felt like I was going to fall off a ledge and there would be no going back and the inevitable landing would be the end of me.

He sighed and reached across the bar to clap me on the shoulder.

“No, son, it doesn’t. You just eventually learn how to process it so that it doesn’t end up killing you.”

Well, that sucked. The vodka was cold and oh so welcome going down.

CHAPTER 5

Cora

I was cashing out the last client of the day and waving to Rowdy as he left when the shop phone rang. We always had late clients on Friday and Saturday night, so I wasn’t surprised by it, only I was alone in the shop because everyone else had taken off already. Nash swore up one side and down the other that Phil was actively avoiding him, so when his last client bailed on the appointment, he left early in order to ambush him at his house. Rule had jetted out early after getting a panicked call from Shaw. Something about the water heater leaking and the basement flooding. I never would have guessed Mr. Live By His Own Rules (pun intended) to be so concerned about home repair. Rowdy had stayed until his last client was done and all the other artists had left on time.

I didn’t recognize the number on the display, so I answered it a tad more professionally than I normally did.

“Thanks for calling the Marked, this is Cora. What can I do for you?”

A long pause followed and I heard noise and commotion in the background. I was going to say hello again and then hang up if there was no answer when a gruff voice came across the line.

“I’m looking for Rome Archer’s brother.”

A shiver of apprehension slid up my spine. “Why?”

Again I was met with silence that dragged on.

“Do I have the wrong number?” This guy sounded frustrated and like he meant business.

“Rule is Rome’s brother but he isn’t here right now. Can I take a message?”

There was a sigh. “I hate these new cell phones, I can’t ever figure out how they work. Is there another number where I can reach him?”

I wasn’t in the habit of handing the guys’ numbers out to anyone. If I did that I would have a line of desperate girls stretching from here to Coors Field.

“Can you tell me what it’s regarding? I’m friends with both of them.” It was stretching the truth a little but I didn’t feel too bad about it.

“The big guy is having a pretty bad day. He needs a ride home and I thought his brother would be the best candidate for that particular job today.”

I frowned and tapped my fingernails on the counter. “It’s only eight o’clock.”

The guy laughed. “Darlin’, I don’t think you can really understand just how bad a day it was. I can put him in a cab, but I can’t take him myself because it’s tournament night and the Bar is packed. But I need to see that he gets home safe and sound.”

I puffed out a breath that sent wispy strands of short hair floating over my forehead. Rule would go get him if I called him, so would Nash, but there was already enough tension between those guys that I figured I would just take care of it myself and save everyone a headache.

“I’ll come get him and see that he gets home in one piece.”

“Ahh … no offense, darlin’, but that is whole lot of unwieldy soldier in a piss-poor mood and three sheets to the wind. You might wanna let the brother handle this one.”

I wasn’t a girl who backed down from a challenge, and Rome Archer drunk and grumpy seemed to be his default anyway. I wasn’t scared of him. Plus it always galled me being told I couldn’t do something just because I was a girl.

“I have to do a bank drop and I’ll come get him. Where is he at?”

The gruff voice gave me directions to a bar located off the beaten path down on Broadway. He once again mentioned I might need physical help trying to maneuver all the intoxicated bulk that was Rome out of the bar. I shook my head in disgust and told him I was just going to have to figure out how to fit the giant into my Mini Cooper. The guy laughed so hard that I thought he was going to hurt himself. When he finally stopped he told me that he had long since hijacked Rome’s keys and he would just help me pour him into his own truck. After I got him home I could come back for the Cooper. It sounded like the best plan, even though I would have loved to have a picture of all that brawn crammed in my little car. It would have been hilarious.

In the time it took me to do the deposit for the shop, find the bar, find a place to park, and find the front door since there wasn’t any kind of sign, or door guy, or any indication of where I was going, Rome’s condition had apparently gone from bad to worse. He was actually slumped on the bar, his head hung low like his neck couldn’t hold it up anymore, and the dim light was casting dark shadows on his face. He looked terrible and tired, and most definitely wasted. His pretty eyes were open only half-mast, watery and bloodshot. His mouth was twisted in an ugly frown and even though the air-conditioning was on, I could see a thin film of sweat covering his skin. His big, battle-scarred hands were shaking where he was holding an empty tumbler between them, and it looked like he was having an argument with the huge bearded man behind the bar.

I carefully walked up behind him and caught the eye of the guy who looked like he had given birth to every Hells Angel ever to walk the earth.

“Hi, I’m Cora.”

The guy gave me a quick once-over and lifted an unruly eyebrow. “Tiny little thing, aren’t ya?”

I was actually two inches taller than Shaw, but since I didn’t have half of her curves, I think I looked a lot smaller and more delicate than I actually was. I lifted a shoulder and let it fall.

Rome turned on the stool and I saw his eyes widen and then try and focus on me. I wasn’t sure he recognized me at first, but then the blue lit up like the base of a flame and a drunken and sloppy grin spilled across his face. I tried to keep my eyes focused on the scar on his forehead, because he was lethal when he smiled like that and I knew he wasn’t in his right mind at the moment. That slight imperfection made me remember exactly who I was dealing with, Captain No-Fun, not flirty-fun-drunk Rome.

“Rule had an emergency at the house, so I’m gonna take you home, okay?”

“Where’s Rule?”

At least I think that’s what he asked, but it sounded like his tongue was too big for his mouth. I put a hand on his arm as he leaned toward me and almost toppled off the stool.

“He had something to take care of. So you’re stuck with me.”

He lumbered to his feet and I thought I was going to get dragged down with him. Luckily he seemed to have pretty good balance even when he was hammered because he caught himself on the bar and blinked those killer baby blues at me.

“I’m so tired.”

I nodded, even though I wasn’t sure what he was talking about and peered around him at the burly bartender who was watching us with serious, dark eyes.

“I know. I’m gonna get you home and put you to bed.” Man, that shouldn’t sound nearly as appealing as it did. I needed to stay away from this guy. He made my head go wonky.

“You need a hand getting him to the truck?”

I shook my head and hooked a hand around his lean waist and tried not to wince as he leaned all that considerable weight onto my side.

“If I can’t get him in on my own, there is no way I’m getting him out on my own.” I took the keys he brought me and gave Rome a little nudge with my hip. “Let’s go, Goliath.”

“If he’s functional tomorrow, let him know he has the day off.”

“What happened to get him in this state?”

The guy shook his head and stroked a hand over what was seriously the most awesome beard I had ever seen.

“Life happened, darlin’. Sometimes it just gets the better of us is all. Take care of that boy, he needs someone, too, especially right now.”

I was going to answer that I took care of all my boys, but I never got the chance because Rome chose that moment to lurch toward the door. He put a thick arm around my shoulders, pulled me so that I was pressed flat against his chest, and buried his nose in the short hair on the top of my head. He awkwardly marched me backward while he struggled to stay upright and headed for the parking lot.

“You smell good.”

Typically when I got off work I smelled like antiseptic and all the cleaners used to keep the shop sterile and safe. I had to wiggle free enough to breathe, but since Rome was going in the right direction and seemed steady enough on his feet, I didn’t make him let me go. I tried to subtly steer him toward the shiny red Dodge that the bartender had indicated was his, but he suddenly stopped and stared intently down at me.

“You really do have the prettiest eyes.”

I cleared my throat and tried not to blush since I had never really been the blushing type.

“So you’ve mentioned.”

His words were still hard to understand, but the way the blue in his eyes was glowing wasn’t. I was hardheaded to a fault, but I wasn’t going to deny I thought he was hot, I mean I was only human and there was something about all that plain, old-fashioned beefcake that was hard to ignore. But I was surprised that he seemed to return the sentiment. I didn’t for one second think I was any more his type than he was mine.

We stumbled, half stepped, and shuffled to the truck. It took some maneuvering and some wiggling on my part to get him to let me go and get him to climb up into the monstrous vehicle. I closed the door on him as he was humming an awful rendition of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Simple Man” and closed my eyes for a second. I had plenty of experience dealing with moody, drunken boys—Rule was a pro at being a handful after too many cocktails—but there was something about the abject sadness, the visible sorrow hanging around in those azure eyes that made Rome just a little trickier to handle. I had an inkling that he could go from malleable and sloppy to really difficult in a heartbeat.

The truck was big and I had to slide the seat up as close to the steering wheel as it would go. I was lucky it was a newer model, because there was no way I would have been able to reach the pedals if had been one of the old-style bench seats. It was also an automatic, which was nice since I hadn’t had to drive a stick in forever.

I glanced over at my passenger and found him slumped over so that his head was resting on the window. His eyes were closed and his chest was rising and falling in a steady rhythm. I was going to take him to the Victorian and have Nash help me wrestle him inside, when his voice cracked out from someplace so deep and dark it gave me goose bumps when it whispered across my skin.

“Do you ever wonder ‘why you’?”

I frowned at him and shot Nash a text to see if he was home.

“Why me what?” I didn’t understand what he was rambling about and his eyes were still closed, so I wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t talking in his sleep.

“Why am I the one still here? Why was I the only one to walk away? Why did I dodge one bullet only to end up useless and unnecessary anymore? Whose plan was that? Why was I someone Remy couldn’t tell? Why didn’t he trust me? Why? Shouldn’t there be a point to it all?”

It was incoherent for the most part but the sentiment behind it was heartbreaking and shouldn’t be coming from someone so vital and thrumming with life. I didn’t really have a working understanding of how survivor’s guilt affected a man that had seen so much, but in Rome’s case it seemed to be eating him alive.

“That is probably a conversation you should have with a professional and maybe not when you tried to drink your liver into submission.”

“People die every day that shouldn’t die. It isn’t fair and it isn’t right. There should be some kind of rhyme or reason to it.” But there wasn’t, and when he was sober he had to know that, didn’t he?

My phone dinged at me and I had to wait until I stopped at a stop sign to check the message. I swore softly because Nash wasn’t home and had no plans on returning. I didn’t want to bug Rule, not to mention he wasn’t the most sensitive of guys and there was no way Rome was in any state to be left to his own devices. I was just gonna have to take him to my house and put him on the couch until he sobered up. Jet was on the road and Ayden was working late, so that meant I was only going to have to deal with a million questions and speculative looks from Asa.

“A lot of bad things happen every day that shouldn’t happen. Unfortunately it’s part of life.”

“It shouldn’t be.”

I looked back over at him and noticed those bright eyes were wide open and focused on my face. It was unnerving to be the target of such intense scrutiny.

“Maybe not. Hey, I’m just gonna take you to my place for a minute. I’ll let you catch a quick nap and put some food in you and you can run me back to my car when you’re back at full operating power. Okay?”

His eyes slid back shut and his broad shoulders rose and fell like he couldn’t care less. I hated to admit that I was worried about him, but whatever blanket of despair he had wrapped himself up in, it was thick and it was fibrous and I could almost feel the weight of it suffocating him.

We made it to Washington Park, where the cute little house I shared with the gang was located. I thought Rome might have finally settled in to sleep for real, but as soon as the motor of the big ol’ truck shut off, his eyes popped open and he was once again staring at me fixedly in the dim interior of the cab.

“Why did you come get me?”

I fiddled with the key and pushed open the door. “Because I love your brother and he loves you and I want to keep it that way. I’m much better at dealing with something like this than he is.”

“Something like what?”

He managed to get his own door open, but I heard him mutter a string of swearwords and a loud thud as he lost his balance and fell against the fender of the truck. I sighed and walked around to collect him.

“Something like a guy who is clearly hurting and lashing out at those that are closest to him because he knows they’ll take it. We can go as many rounds as you want, Captain No-Fun, you don’t scare me.”

The uneasy way he made me feel did scare me but no one needed to know that. On the outside I was always rock solid, no one knew that on the inside I struggled every day with the holes left in me from not getting my perfectly planned future and happy-ever-after after Jimmy left. Growing up primarily on my own had sucked. I thought with Jimmy I would never have to be untethered again. Once that security had gone away, I knew there was no way I could risk my heart and dreams on someone who wasn’t ready to offer me forever, stability, and family ever again.

He blinked his eyes at me and we had a stare-down; for a second I wasn’t sure if he was going to scoop me up or push me down. Instead he just shook his head and whispered so quietly that I thought it could have been my imagination had I not seen his lips move, “That’s good, because most of the time I’m fucking scared shitless of myself.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I took his rock-hard arm and half tugged, half guided him into the house. Asa was propped up on the sofa doing something on the computer and I could have sworn a look of guilt flashed quickly over his face. He gave me and my unwanted guest a questioning look and went to lumber to his feet. I waved him back down and kept tugging Rome across the living room, past the kitchen, to where the master bedroom was located.

“Don’t get up. I’ll put him in my room in case all that booze tries to come back up and he needs the bathroom close by. He just needs a little nap.”

Both blond eyebrows went up. “He couldn’t have taken one at his house?”

“Not now, Asa.”

Rome stumbled and knocked a picture of me and the guys at the shop off the wall. I was fast enough to catch it before it hit the floor, but not strong enough to keep him upright as he toppled into the open doorway of my room. Luckily it was an older house and the room wasn’t giant, so he half hit the king-sized bed. It took a little bit of work, some tugging and pulling, some swearing and grumbling, to get that big body spread across hot-pink comforter. He was breathing hard, his eyes slid closed, and I didn’t bother to try and make him any more comfortable or tell him where the facilities were. I just left him alone, figuring sleep was the best thing for him.

Asa was right where I left him, only now the computer was closed and he looked like he was waiting for me to come back into the room.

“What’s that all about?”

I groaned and sank down on the couch next to him.

“He was at a bar and the bartender called the shop looking for Rule. I decided to intervene since they just started working toward a cease-fire, only I had no idea what kind of drunk he was gonna be.”

“What kind of drunk is that?”

“Complicated. I’m just gonna let him get straight and then send him on his way. He looks like he hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in days; hopefully the booze will knock him out for a few and then he can go home.”

“You’re a really good girl, Cora.”

“I have my moments. What were you doing on the computer when we came in?”

Those eyes the color of aged bourbon glinted at me. Asa was lucky he was such an easy guy to like, because I didn’t trust him as far as I could throw him, or even as far as Rome could throw him.

“Nothing. Just checking up on some things.”

“Things that ended you up in the hospital? Ayden will murder you.”

He laughed. “No. I’m not the sharpest tool out in the shed, but I do eventually learn the hard lessons.”

“Why do I think that might not really be the case?”

“Because you are surprisingly smart for someone that looks like a living, breathing cartoon character.”

I got the feeling he wasn’t going to give me anything else, so I got up and made us some grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner and brought us over a couple of beers. I liked hanging out with Asa, but he seemed a little sketchy tonight, and by the time midnight rolled around with no sound or motion from Rome, I was getting tired and bored of dealing with difficult men. Asa mentioned he was going to go watch TV in his room, because if he was up when Ayden got home, she was going to harass him about whatever it was she was on his case about this week. She tended to be a bit of a terror when Jet was out of town for more than a few days at a time, and her older sibling bore the brunt of it. I knew she didn’t want to live alone since Jet spent so much time on the road, but dealing with the intense dynamic between the siblings was often like watching a reality TV show without the relief of commercial interruption.

I figured it wouldn’t hurt anything to let Rome keep my bed for the night while I crashed on the couch. I was small and the couch was huge, so it wasn’t like it would be a major inconvenience. I did, however, need to sneak into my bathroom and grab a quick shower to wash the workday off.

Asa and I said good night and I tiptoed into the darkened room. At some point in his fitful stage of blacking out, Rome had managed to not only move to the center of the bed, but also kick off his boots and strip off his T-shirt. Even though I knew it was wrong, I had to just stand there and stare at all that skin on display, spread out over my pink bed set. It was so odd. He was all hard muscle and male perfection amid a totally girly and ultrafeminine backdrop. It would take a guy like Rome Archer to make all my girly stuff look tough.

He had one long arm flung out to the side and the other curled up behind his head. The lines delineating muscles and tendons used to hard and strenuous work made my mouth water. I felt like a voyeur. I shouldn’t be blatantly checking him out while he was passed out and unaware, but I also couldn’t muster the strength to look away. I had never seen a real-life, living breathing male that had that vee that cut between their hips and pointed downward, where a trail of dark hair disappeared into his jeans. The only men that really had that in life were underwear models, dudes on romance novel covers, and maybe professional athletes. But oh no, Rome Archer had it, as well as abs that put a six-pack to shame and endless amounts of lightly tanned skin that stretched over a canvas that looked like it was carved from stone. He was a massive example of all that was beautiful and male. He was built like a god, and I didn’t want to acknowledge it but I had never, ever seen anything look better in my bed.

He also had way more pale white scar tissue dotting that landscape of total hotness than I wanted to know about. Even with the only light filtering in from the hallway, I could see the huge scar on his shoulder where his arm was bent up under his head. It was puckered and was wider than my hand; it looked like it still hurt. He had an ugly red welt all along the opposite side on his ribs that was about ten inches long and looked like it was healing. There was a nasty white line that zigged and zagged under his belly button and disappeared into the top of his jeans and that was only what I could see on his very impressive front side.

I was used to being around men and women who marked their body to define their individuality, to claim their skin as their own. Seeing those scars, those marks that he most definitely had never asked for, I had to wonder how he felt about being permanently marked up against his will. His skin also reflected his life, the choice he made to go off and become a warrior, a man who fought for the freedom of others, and now he would carry those reminders for the rest of his life. It was body modification on an entirely different level than tattooing, with a different purpose.

I gave my head a quick shake and told myself to stop being a creeper. He clearly needed the sleep since he didn’t so much as twitch an eyelash as I got out an oversized T-shirt and a pair of shorts to sleep in. I wasn’t exactly stealthy as I banged around in the bathroom and got ready for bed. It was early for a Saturday night but no one was out and Ayden didn’t like to party while Jet was gone, so it was just going to be me and cable until I zonked out. I was back in my room, trying to unplug my phone charger from the nightstand next to Rome’s head. I wasn’t worried about bothering him since he seemed like he was out like a light—that is, until I suddenly had a massive hand curled around my bicep.

“Hey!” The startled word didn’t get any force behind it as I was yanked down and my back met the mattress with a thud. I let out a startled shriek as the arm he had dangling over the edge of the bed curled around me and pulled me half under him as he rolled over. He weighed a freaking ton and no amount of pushing at his broad shoulders seemed to have an effect on him. His dark head buried itself in the curve of my neck, his ridiculously long eyelashes were still pressed closed and brushed against my skin. His breath was coming in a steady stream as his chest rose and fell with no sign of alertness or wakefulness, even as I wiggled and squirmed to get free of his iron hold.

“Rome?” I tapped him on the side of the head lightly and felt him frown against my neck. “Hey, big guy, I need to get up.”

I tried to shake him once more and he muttered something under his breath and settled more fully on top of me. One of his denim-clad legs slid between mine and the thick arm he had wrapped around me locked even more in place and that wide palm settled fully across the curve of my backside. He turned his head and rubbed his cheek against the side of my temple and sighed. It made me stop struggling for a second and I looked up so I could peer questioningly at him because the sound was just so defeated. It hurt me to hear it.

He felt like his motor was running at a thousand degrees and he had to weigh over double what I did, but he was holding on to me like I was a lifeline. Like I was a living breathing teddy bear, and whatever it was that was keeping him up at night, holding me would make it stay away. I huffed out a breath and tried to decide what the best course of action was. In hindsight I should have just given the bartender Rule’s number and let him be caught up in this mess, but as usual I had to meddle. No good deed went unpunished.

There was no way I was getting free unless I kneed him in the junk or punched him in the face to wake him up, and that just seemed a little too extreme. I felt bad for the guy. He was obviously struggling, and clearly a bad day didn’t begin to cover what he was trying to drink away. I figured it wouldn’t kill me to just lie still until he rolled over or loosened his hold. Plus it had the added benefit of letting me enjoy all that hardness that battle-ready body pressed against mine. I doubted that I would ever have an opportunity like it again. The landscape of my sexual experience was pretty barren over the last few years. There had been a guy here or there, but not one that I had wanted to hang out with for more than a minute and none could ever compare to the sheer physical perfection of the guy I was trapped under right now.

I sighed in resignation and tried to wiggle a little in order to get some more breathing room. Rome just tightened his hold even more and settled more fully into me. I relented and wrapped one arm around his shoulders; they were so wide, so broad, I could barely reach the other side. I put the other hand on his ribs, right above that healing wound. I kept my eyes on the ceiling and not the clock, figuring he would get uncomfortable, realize he wasn’t alone anymore, and roll over at any second. Only at some point I heard the front door open and Ayden’s heels on the floor in the hallway, which meant it was well past two in the morning and my human blanket hadn’t moved a muscle. I had been pinned to the bed for over two hours, and it didn’t look like I was getting free before dawn.

Finally I was too tired to just stare at the side of his sleeping face or wonder at all the little nicks and tiny marks that dotted his skin. This close to him the scar above his eyebrow was really wicked-looking. It hooked from the arch up into his hairline and spidered off to web across his temple. It looked like he was a very lucky man to still have a functioning eyeball on that side of his handsome face. There was history there, a life lived hard and dangerously mapped out across his skin for the entire world to see and judge. It made Rome an even more difficult man for me to try and figure out, and frankly I was exhausted by all of it. My last thought before I gave up the fight of trying to wait him out was that not once in all the years Jimmy and I had shared a bed had he ever held me this close, like he never wanted me to go.

I wasn’t sure what had me stirring awake—if it was the sun coming in the blinds, if it was the feeling of being covered by an electric blanket in the middle of summer, or if it was the impossible-to-ignore fact that I wasn’t in my frilly pink bed alone. I squinted against the morning light coming in the room, but all I could see for days and days was blue. A blue that no words could describe, a blue that was so hot and bright I felt like it could burn me alive from the inside out. I opened my mouth to ask Rome if he was feeling all right, to tell him to get the hell off of me, but nothing came out. We just stared at each other and the lack of clothing between us suddenly became a noticeable thing. I could feel his heart thundering against my own where our chests were pressed together, could feel his sides rise and fall as he sucked in a breath and let it out slowly, could feel the hardness of an erection that needed its own zip code press against the softness between my legs, not protected at all by my tiny sleep shorts. This was a compromising situation to be in any way you looked at it, and considering we were practically strangers, my normally nimble tongue was having a hard time finding its defenses.

His hand that was holding on to my butt gave the cheek a squeeze and I thought he was going to lever himself up and off of me, but he didn’t. He used the other hand to hold his considerable bulk up off of me for the first time in hours and his free hand lifted and I went frozen still as he used it to oh so gently trace the curve of my bottom lip where my mouth was still hanging open like a dimwit. Hands that big, that rough, shouldn’t be capable of being so reverent, so delicate. It made me gasp.

I should say something. He should say something. Neither of us did, though, and when those pretty, sad eyes moved closer to mine, when that mouth surrounded by a sexy shadow of scruff dropped to cover mine, all I could do was lie there and take it like it was inevitable. I had been kissed plenty in my lifetime—by good boys and bad boys, by boys I liked and boys I didn’t, by boys I spent just a minute with and boys I had spent years with, but no one had ever kissed me like this. Something happened when that firm mouth settled over mine. My brain short-circuited, my common sense and basic rationality took a hike, and all I was left with was a bundle of raging hormones and a desire so sharp and pointed it almost hurt when it started to pulse under my skin.

I was surrounded by him, engulfed by him. He was just everywhere and it was overwhelming. I knew I should tell him to stop, that this wasn’t right. I didn’t do this kind of thing and I had a feeling he was still cut open and bleeding from whatever had sent him over the edge last night, but the words just wouldn’t come and it wasn’t like I could have used them if they did. His mouth was hard on mine, his tongue invading every corner, every hidden place I had in my mouth. Neither one of us had very much hair to hold on to, so I had to settle for grabbing on to his ears to keep him in place. I should be pushing him away, not pulling him closer, but there was no way that was going to happen, not with all that brawn pushing against me and those eyes making me drown in them.