Falling For Rome Read online

  Chapter 11

  Strung Out on that Thug Love

  Rome

  I lifted my drink and took a sip as I relaxed back on the couch watching Nakhti through lowered lids. Because she’d been secluded here the last couple of days, she moved around my loft like the Queen she is as she and Happy chased the little puppy around.

  When she squatted down to secure him in his pen in the kitchen, my gaze traveled up her long, muscled yet softly curved legs that I couldn’t wait to feel wrapped around my waist while I slid into her moist heat, up to her a** that has kept me in a constant state of semi-erection and anger all night watching it jiggle in those little shorts as she walked.

  More than once I’d had to make eye contact with one of my men who’d dared to look too long. It was important that they all understood…

  Something strange has happened to me.

  I’m not the same man they knew before she moseyed her a** into my life. I’ve become obsessed, and it took all the control I barely held onto not to lash out and destroy them when they looked at what is mine.

  Mine…

  Mine, mutha f***a!

  I bit down on my teeth as I lifted the glass and took another sip.

  Hitta sat down on the coffee table in front of me, blocking my view of Nak. Only he or my little brother would dare approach me when I’m in this mood.

  “You see that look in yo’ eye, Bo?” He said pointing at my face. “That’s the look of a man that see his tomorrows. Now you can finally understand my feelings for Angel. Now you can understand why I can’t stop until she mine, until it’s my arms she sleeping in every night.” He shook his head. “I’m gon’ get on out of here. I’ll see you the day after tomorrow, try to get some rest.”

  I shook up with him. “Aight, man, I’ll holla at you later.”

  I don’t know how long I’d laughed at Hitta for pining over the Tea Maker. This dude did sh*t like sit outside her crib in his truck and watch her get on and off the bus. Hitta could have any other girl he wanted, it just so happened he wanted the one girl that didn’t want him.

  He was stronger than I though. Now that I had Nak, I couldn’t really see giving her up.

  When I walked through the door today, she’d looked at me as if I was her hero. No doubt my little brother has been filling her in on all the good things I do for the community and what not.

  But she had no idea how sick I was capable of being. She had no idea I’d imagined chaining her to my bed where no one else could ever see her, stripping away her clothes and consuming all the flesh on her bones. I wanted to taste her so bad, I’ve been able to think of little else.

  I took another sip of my drink as my gaze followed her across the loft.

  She had no idea I’d become obsessed with her, and how much strength it was taking to sit here across the loft and just watch instead of acting on my hunger and kicking everybody the f*** out so that I could get my taste.

  Over the last twenty-four hours I’ve studied all there is to know about my little prisoner.

  Of course, what I’d shown her yesterday was only the tip of the iceberg. If she knew how much I truly knew about her she would freak the f*** out. Once I found out her name and social security number the rest was history.

  Between the FBI and the CIA databases, there was nothing about her I didn’t know, including the fact that she was horribly abused by her mother in Brazil and abandoned by her American father.

  She thought she was barren because of what some rinky-dink a** doctor told her in a little poorly founded Brazilian clinic. She had no idea that a department of the CIA has been tracking her movements ever since she left the Bureau to work solely for Jo.

  Whenever she has a few days off, she rents a hotel room in Queens, New York very near her father’s family and visits a dog shelter, her favorite dog was a Miniature Poodle named Crumble, who was too mean and ornery to get adopted. But Nak couldn’t adopt him although she wanted too, because she worked too much.

  The owner of the shelter name is George Newman, he uses it as a tax right off. Because he secretly lusted after Nak, he recorded her coming to visit the dog that she related to, because she too felt unwanted and unloved. He used his camera and invasively zoomed in on her breasts and a** every time she bent over or reached for something. He stored the recording in his computer under the tab, The Sexy Puerto Rican B****, along with thousands of other videos, mainly child porn.

  He liked Nak because she looked young and innocent. He’d been brought up on several counts of rape and harassment, but because he came from money, had managed to not serve any time.

  I took another sip of my drink.

  I could not delay my trip home another day to fly to New York to clean up a little trash, but I called in a favor on a Sicilian business man who stays there that reaches out to me quite often to make his illicit deeds disappear from cyberspace.

  George Newman was pronounced dead three hours and twenty-six minutes ago.

  Nak turned to look at me after she secured Giant in his home for the night. The look in her eyes said she was tired of waiting, she was ready to mate!

  My sentiments exactly.

  As she crossed the floor heading toward me, I swear she worked them f***ing combat boots like those red bottoms. With a slight wave of my hand I gave the signal that the party was over.

  Nakhti

  I was noticing the different sides to Rome. I’d met the genius and the giver…I’d even met the cynic…it wasn’t till tonight that I’d officially met the thug. And it was something about the thug side of him that made me feel reckless.

  I’d done something to upset him. For the last couple of hours, he’s sat alone over on his couch watching me with the eyes of a predator. There was anger in his gaze, but there was also hunger. And even that made me feel reckless.

  The lighting over his head was dimmed more than the rest of the loft seeming to cast him in shadow. The only thing that stood out was his golden gaze. As I crossed the floor to him, I wondered what I’d done to upset him.

  And then I wondered what I could do to change his mood. When the thought came to me, I just acted on it. And as if the forces of nature were working with me, the next song to come on the speaker overhead was Rihanna’s Needed Me.

  This was the same song I danced to in the private room of a high-end strip club in Vegas minutes before I’d slit the throat of my mark.

  Although I hated every minute of it, I’d had to train with a professional stripper for weeks preparing for that assignment. It was that training I used now as I walked toward Rome. The thug in him was an unstable creature. It was not like the genius or the giver. It was unbalanced and it called to the impish side of me.

  When Rome’s men started clearing everybody out of the loft, I smiled.

  Perfect…

  I didn’t stop walking until I was standing on the coffee table in front of him, then I squatted down facing him with my legs spread and as I slowly stood, I rolled my stomach to the beat. Many people don’t know the muscle that it took to do this kind of dancing.

  You needed to be in top shape to be the best. Something my trainer had drilled into my head as she taught me how to seduce with the movements of my body.

  Still slouched back against the couch he watched me, letting his honey gaze drink me in. I bit my lip to hold in a moan when the tent in his pants grew big…

  He didn’t even try to hide it. He wanted me to see what I was doing to him. I closed my eyes as I let the music take over me. It was as if Rihanna lived in my shoes and wrote this song especially for me.

  Bet you never could imagine

  Never told you you could have it

  You needed me

  Ooh

  You needed me

  Her words reminded me what my job was. I make men need me. But they can never have me.

  Never!

  They just need me…and then—

  An angry growl came from the c
ouch before Rome moved so suddenly, he took me by surprise, grabbing me off the table bringing me to straddle his lap.

  “You damn right I needed you! So I took you! I didn’t f***ing ask. And when I’m done with yo’ a** tonight, you gon’ know fo’ sho’ who you belong to!” He growled before his big hands palmed the sides of my face as his mouth devoured mine.

  That moan did escape when the impact of his hungry kiss made its way down to my core. I rubbed my softness against his hardness, eager to feel him fully.

  “I swear if you wear these f***ing short a** shorts around other men again, I will rip them in two.” He muttered before his hungry mouth made its way down to my neck.

  Hmmm…It was hard to think of anything with that mouth and his strong hands washing over me, taking control of my body.

  But eventually the reason for his anger penetrated through the haze he’d created around me. He was jealous of the other men looking at me in these shorts. His jealousy only heightened my arousal. And it was my arousal that I blame that for not being able to control the impulse to rile him up even further.

  “Stop tripping, you ain’t gon’ to do nothing to my shorts…” I muttered with a devious grin on my face, loving the thug side of him.

  That growl of anger emitted from his throat before he once again moved so suddenly the only thing I could do was squeak. One minute I was straddling his lap and the next he’d flipped me under him on the couch. His big hands grabbed my shorts at the waist, the sound of the fabric ripping only turned me on more. As he ripped them from my body his angry amber gaze met mine.

  Damn! That was hot!

  I reached for him, pulling him down so that I could kiss those perfect lips, but he had a different destination in mind.

  “No, I can’t wait any longer to taste you. I’ve been hungry for this nectar all night.”

  When his mouth began to work on me, he had to palm my belly with his big hand to hold me down on the couch when my world shattered. His mouth made me a savage. In that moment, I felt like I was dying a very agonizing, pleasurable death. I clutched his head to me, wanting him to stop, but needing him to continue.

  He took his anger out on my tender flesh, and it felt like my whole body was on fire, I was being consumed by all things Rome…

  What was happening to me? I had never shattered this way. I did not recognize my own voice when I screamed out his name.

  The orgasm that hit me was so strong that when his slurping kiss began to bring me down gently to the ground, the only thing I could do was moan his name, over and over again as aftershocks shook my body.

  “Romeo…”

  “Mmmm…Romeo”

  I just wanted to curl up in a child’s pose and sleep. But little did I know that was just the beginning.

  He gently lifted me off the couch and carried me to his bed. I lay there and watched through lowered lids as he removed his clothes.

  Nossa! His body was a work of art. It was the body of an athlete.

  “I want to kiss your pretty nipples.” He told me as he helped me take off my shirt and the sexy bra.

  Gently he pushed me back before taking my lips in one of those drugging kisses of his. He was in no rush, taking his time to work my body back into a fever with only a kiss. By the time his mouth made it to the peak of my breast, my back arched off the bed as intense pleasure made its way down my spine.

  He drew from my breast hungrily while using his hand to drive me wild.

  “Romeo…Please.” I was so close.

  “What do you want, Minha Anjo?” He whispered against my breast.

  “I—I need…”

  Right then his mouth drew strongly from me and my world shattered again, this time causing a scream to rip from my throat as he used his big fingers to heighten it. But this time, he didn’t bring me gently to the ground.

  In fact, he didn’t let me come down at all…In the next breath he was over me, looking in my eyes with the honey storm brewing in his…

  And then he was filling me…

  And filling me…

  Oh God!!!!

  *************

  “Where are you going with that?” Rome asked eyeballing the juice in my hand as if it was a pile of crap.

  “I’m putting it in the cart.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Yes, I am.” I told him going to put the juice in my hand in the cart. But the bastard moved it out the way and my hand met air.

  “Romeo! Stop playing!”

  He chuckled, “I’m not playing.”

  I put my hand on my mud encrusted hip. I’ll tell you guys how he and I got covered in mud in a minute, right now, we were getting ready to have a huge fight in the middle of the grocery store.

  “Why can’t I put my juice in the cart? I thought we agreed to go grocery shopping and get some food that we both liked.”

  “We agreed to go grocery shopping and get some real food that we both liked.” He pointed to the juice in my hand. “That’s not real food.”

  “Duh, it’s juice.” I went to put it in the cart, but once again he pulled the cart out the way.

  “Romeo!” I growled stomping my foot, causing clumps of mud to fall to the floor.

  By this time, we had gained a little audience. In fact, as soon as we stepped out of Rome’s mud-covered truck in the grocery store parking lot, we had an audience.

  “Nakhti!” He said, mocking my tone as he continued to push the grocery cart down the aisle like nothing was wrong.

  Side note: Another thing I was learning about my honey-eyed lover, he was stubborn as a mule.

  “Why can’t I put my juice in the cart?” He stopped and gave me that placating look I was beginning to hate.

  “Because, it’s not real juice.”

  “Yes, it is.” I angrily pointed to the bottle. “It say’s fruit punch. Everybody knows that’s juice.”

  He took the bottle out my hand turning it around to read the ingredients. “Show me where this says juice anywhere.”

  I stood next to him to read. It said a lot of things, but nowhere did it say juice.

  “It doesn’t have to say juice!” I snapped snatching it away from him. “You know it’s juice because it says fruit punch. Dammit, Romeo! It’s not pop!”

  He exhaled. “Nak, you eat like sh*t. Don’t think I don’t know my little brother has been smuggling you trash.” Pointing at me he took a step closer. “I hope you enjoyed all that sh*t, ‘cause now that daddy’s home, we gon’ get yo’ a** healthy. If you want juice, get juice. Fruit punch ain’t sh*t but high fructose corn syrup and red dye. Bury me and smother me in sh*t before I ever buy that!” He folded his arms clearly ready to go to war.

  I held up my arm and made a muscle. “Look at that.” I said pointing at it. “I am healthy! You seen my record. And I owe it all… to this!” I told him holding the fruit punch in the air like it was the answer to all life’s questions.

  He snatched the bottle from me tossing it to the side. Then he reached back and grabbed a bottle of orange juice putting it in the cart.

  “You have pre-hypertension. It’s the silent killer, you won’t see it coming.”

  I held back my head and exhaled loud and ignorant. “What the hell is pre-hypertension?” I yelled to the ceiling before looking back at him.

  “Is that like pre-broken leg or pre-headache? You driving me nuts with this crap. Either I have hypertension or I don’t! Ain’t no such thing as pre-hypertension.”

  “Yes, there is. And you have it. You might as well give up. You’re not going to win this.” And then he continued on down the aisle clearly done with the conversation. I stared after him for a moment seething in anger.

  He was a sexy, mud covered, stubborn peacock. And although he angered me like nobody’s business, I couldn’t help but feel cherished that he would go through such lengths to keep me healthy.

  Nobody has ever cared before him.

  Not ever…


  Okay, so let me tell you guys how he and I ended up covered in mud.

  When Rome finally let me rest last night, I collapsed in his arms and slept like the dead till morning. He had kept his word. My world had shattered so many times I was in tears the last time, begging him to let me be.

  It was sweet torture. After I’d come the fourth time, I tried to run from him, telling him I couldn’t take anymore. I thought if I could just make it to the bathroom, I could lock myself in and not come out until I knew he was fast asleep.

  But because my legs were like rubber, I couldn’t run as fast as I would have liked, and he had caught me, scooping me up in his arms and carrying me begging for mercy to the shower. With one hand he turned on the water, with the other he’d held me still so he could fill me from behind.

  I swear I didn’t think I would be able to get into it again. But I was so wrong. Not only did I get into it, I found myself clawing the walls begging him to go faster, harder. That time when my world shattered, I had nothing left in me. I just lay there in his arms lifeless as he washed us both off and then carried me to the bed.

  I was fast asleep before my body even touched the sheets. This morning when I woke up, my body was deliciously sore all over.

  The first thing I noticed upon coming awake was that I was in the bed alone. I cracked my eyes and what I saw caused me to suck in my breath sharply.

  Rome sat at least fifteen feet in the air on a step ladder that had been pulled in front of a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf.

  Nossa!

  Who could have guessed that the whole south wall slid back like that? It was breathtaking! There had to be over a million books there. And not only that, he sat on the ladder reading a book with a pair of black reading glasses on.

  I grinned. He looked so cute in his glasses.

  Do you guys see what I mean? Here I’ve discovered another side to this wonderful man, the side of him that was a bookworm.

  With his nose still in the book, he climbed down and walked back to his computer. There were a few gadgets on the desk in front of him. He was building some kind of software. Leaning close with a soldering iron he touched it to something that emitted a little pop.