Falling For Rome Page 8

  Damn…He’s good!

  But instead of letting go of his waist with my legs, I went back into a flip to try and throw his big body with them like I’d done his friend earlier. It was a move I did often when fighting with big men, using the strength of my legs to take them down.

  But instead of resisting, which is what’s needed to make this move work, he rolled with me reversing the hold.

  Sh*t! He knew Brazilian Jui Jitsu!

  That wasn’t good…It was at that point I knew I was in trouble. We grappled on the ground for about another five minutes before I was spent…

  This bastard was damn good at Brazilian Jui Jitsu!

  And to add insult to injury, I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was taking it easy on me. I’d thrown several blows, he…not one. If he was fighting someone he viewed as a threat, he would surely throw blows…

  Great!

  This bastard didn’t even view me as a threat!

  Right at the point, I thought I was going to have to tap out because he had my arm in a hold that felt like it was going to break any minute, he surprised me by suddenly releasing me.

  He held up his hand that was covered in blood. “What the f***?”

  Frowning he sat up, pushing me to lie flat on my back. I too stared at his bloody hand confused. Where the hell did all that blood come from?

  It was then that I felt my shirt sticking to me. The blood was mine.

  “Why are you bleeding?” As he asked his question, he was using his big hands to try to lift up my bloody tank top.

  I slapped his hand. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Lying on my back like this with my blood wetting up my tank, it was quite obvious I wasn’t wearing a bra.

  “Get over yourself, I’m trying to see why you’re bleeding.” He huffed before he shoved my hands out the way.

  He lifted my top enough to expose my bandage. Very carefully he pulled the tape back.

  “Oh sh*t! You’ve been shot!”

  “Wow! You are a genius. The rumors are true.”

  He frowned at my sarcastic tone. “What the f*** happened to you?”

  “I got shot.” I told him dryly.

  “Yeah, I can see that. When?”

  I thought about not telling him, but he had a very determined look on his face, and I was just too tired to fight him. Hell, I think I’ve lost too much blood.

  “Yesterday,” I muttered.

  He took his phone out his pocket and after scrolling for a second placed a call tucking the phone between his shoulder and his ear to scoop me up off the ground and into his arms.

  “I can walk.” I told him, but he ignored me.

  “Yeah, I need you to meet me at my house.” He spoke into the receiver. “Yeah now!” When he was finished, he held me with one arm and shoved his phone in his pocket with the other hand before bringing his arm back under my legs.

  I looked at his profile as he carried me to his truck. He held me like a man would a woman he cared for, or a loving parent would a child. Nobody has ever carried me like this.

  A few years after becoming a SEAL, my team and I were on a mission in an Iranian desert. On our way out, I took one to the leg. Rather than be slowed down by me, The Politician threw me over his shoulder and carried me the rest of the way back to our compound.

  That didn’t feel like this. I know it wasn’t possible, but it actually felt like Romeo cared. Because I’d never been treated this way and was finding it quite fascinating, I let him put me in his truck and secure me in the seatbelt.

  No one has ever cared for me, not even my mother. I wondered what he would do if he knew just how tough I was. Would he stop this gentle treatment?

  Did I want him to stop this gentle treatment?

  Maybe I could let it go on for a little while longer. What would that hurt?

  “Are you alright?” He asked when he hopped up in the driver seat. With a real pathetic look on my face I nodded.

  “I think so…”

  Oh! Nak…you’re really selling this, aren’t you?

  Shut up, killjoy!

  When we got back to his building, he hurried around the truck lifting me out and back into his arms. I wanted to rest my head against his big shoulder, curious to see what that felt like, but didn’t because that would be a bit too much.

  “Yo! What you do to her?” Rob said as he rushed out the building towards us.

  Romeo rudely pushed past his little brother. “I didn’t do this, goofy! Move!”

  Oh my goodness! He was really worried about me. I should put his mind at ease and tell him I was alright, I’d just busted a few of my hasty stitches… But when he looked down at me with those concerned honey gazers, I changed my mind.

  What?!

  Before y’all judge me, remember I’ve never had this. Can’t a girl just have a moment of gentleness before my life goes back to the gruesome barbwire it’s always been?

  Now, where were we…?

  Oh yes, he was laying me gently on his bed.

  “You want me to get some warm water and towels?” Rob asked leaning over the bed just as concerned as his brother.

  Wow!

  Romeo looked up at him as if he was stupid. “Do I look like a f***ing doctor?”

  Rob actually thought about it before he shook his head.

  “Then why you gon’ bring me warm water and towels?”

  Rob shrugged. “I don’t know, it just sounded like some sh*t I should ask.”

  Laughter bubbled up from inside me. Rob was the rascal to Romeo’s seriousness, but the big brother did not find his little brother amusing. In fact, his frown grew.

  “I told you, you need to stop smoking that sh*t, it’s making you dumber.”

  Rob’s grin didn’t move an inch. “And I told you, you need to try that sh*t, maybe then you can manage to pull that stick from your a**.”

  That made me crack up. Rome’s angry gaze came down to me, but whatever he was going to say was interrupted by a knock on the door.

  “Yeah!” He called in that direction.

  The man I’d thrown into the wall earlier with my legs, which so happened to be the same guy that Rob was smoking weed with on the steps earlier stuck his head in. “Doc’s here.”

  “Let him up.” Rome responded as he stood from the bed, but before he walked away, he slapped his little brother really hard in the back of the head.

  Rob grabbed at his sore head. “Ouch! Man! What you do that for?”

  “Pull that out your a**.”

  Rob rubbed at his head as he glared at his brother’s retreating back.

  “He better be lucky I’m over here worried about you, or I would have whooped his a**.” he whispered to me.

  “Say what!” Rome called from what I assumed was the closet area.

  Rob’s head jerked up. “Huh? Oh, nothing, I was asking her if she wanted me to prop up her foot.”

  I had to cover my laughter. Rob is a mess. And yes, he was higher than a Georgia Pine. There was absolutely nothing wrong with my foot. Rome came out the closet in a clean white t-shirt. The one he had on before was stained with my blood. When the doctor bustled through the door with a medical bag in his hand, Rome kicked his little brother out.

  He was a young, attractive, dark skinned brotha and I couldn’t help but feel a little proud to see him sporting that lab coat. I tried to hear what he and Rome were talking about by the door, but I couldn’t. It’s a very big loft and the door was way across the room.

  It looked as if he was asking Rome for a favor. Whatever it was aggravated Rome who impatiently gestured to me, but the doctor didn’t give up. He was younger than Rome and spoke to him like he was his little brother.

  Finally, Rome gave in to whatever it was he was asking him.

  “You only have one hour, and you need to fix her first!” He told him as he walked toward the kitchen area that wasn’t far from the bedroom area. With a huge g
rin on his face the doctor got on his phone and made a call as he began to lay out his supplies on the kitchen table.

  “What’s going on?” I asked Rome confused at the doctor’s behavior.

  “Nothing…” He reached inside the fridge and came out with a bottle of water, then proceeded to drink half of it before he continued.

  “He’s been pestering me about letting him put his stupid machine on my head.”

  “What kind of machine?” He turned to me and smiled before he came down to one knee next to the bed. He moved with the grace of a trained fighter. Don’t know why I looked past all this before.

  “A machine that he claims can pick up thought patterns and determine what makes people tick.” This he whispered to me, so that the doctor couldn’t hear him.

  “You don’t believe him?” I whispered back.

  He shook his head. “Hell no. There is no machine that can see the thoughts that live here.” He touched my head with his finger.

  “Sure, they may can see some electric reactions, but they are completely clueless to what that is. The kid thinks he’s so smart because he can work the phrase space time continuum in every conversation.”

  That made me laugh. “Why are we whispering?”

  He licked his lips and I nearly groaned out loud.

  Damn! Maybe I did, because a knowing grin appeared on his face before he leaned closer. So close, those soft lips of his brushed my ear.

  “I’ve invested too much into his education to tear down his confidence. If he thinks his machine can unscramble my thoughts, then who am I to tell him different.”

  After he said that he looked at me to see what I thought of that. And although I won’t be telling him what I really thought, I will tell you guys.

  One of the things that’s a big part of training for the Federal Bureau of Investigation is profile analysis. Before you put on the suit, you’re forced to study many different personalities, so that when you go into the field, no one catches you off guard.

  This is a gift I excelled at even before I became an agent. When growing up with an abusive parent you learn how to read body language as if your life depended on it. Many times while out in the field, my brothers- in-arms waited for me to read a situation before entering it.

  I have studied many profiles, but nothing like Rome. His mind didn’t work like anything I’ve been trained to deal with. He’s not my first genius…

  Yet…

  He is like none of the genius profiles we’ve studied. Maybe that was why the doctor wanted to put his machine on his head.

  Rome watched me with those amber eyes of his for a minute and I wondered what he saw. Did he just now realize he’d shown care to the un-carable? Did he now understand that I was too rough for his gentleness?

  Unnerved under his intense gaze I opened my mouth to ask him what he saw, but before I could, he winked at me and jumped back to his feet.

  “One hour with your stupid machine, I mean it,” he told the doctor before turning up his bottle of water and draining the rest.

  “It’s not a stupid machine,” the younger man responded to him before he went back to his call.

  “He said yes, come quickly, bring the equipment, we only have an hour…we won’t get this chance again.”

  When he hung up the phone, he smiled down at me. “I don’t know who you are, but I can kiss you!” He was excited like a kid in the candy store.

  “You try it and it will be the last thing you do,” Rome grumbled before he walked away toward the living room area to his paused GTO game.

  The doctor looked up at his retreating back startled before his curious gaze came back to me.

  “Wow! Never seen that before.” He mumbled under his breath so that Rome couldn’t hear.

  “Seen what before?” I asked when he made it back to the bed from washing his hands in the kitchen sink.

  “Him… territorial.”

  I started to tell him he was mistaken, but after he put on a pair of gloves, he took out a pair of shears and began cutting away my bloody shirt. I managed to get my hands up to cover my boobs before anyone could see them…

  And yes, my boobs were so small they fit in my hands, but…

  What I’m lacking up top, I made up for down below. I’ve always been told I have a nice butt. Many of men have gotten their hands broken trying to touch it.

  When the doctor began to peel my bandage off, I turned to look at Rome and was startled to find him watching me. I’d thought he’d been playing his video game, but he wasn’t. He was sitting on his couch facing me with his arms on the back of it unashamedly watching me.

  “Ouch!” I cried when I felt a prick to my side. Panic shot through me when I saw that the doctor had given me a shot.

  “What is that?!” I started to get up, but he put his hand on my shoulder gently pushing me back down.

  “Calm down, ma’am, it’s just a local anesthetic. After I check the wound and make sure it’s clean, I’m going to have to re-stitch it.”

  I exhaled. A local anesthetic…

  Okay, I can deal with that.

  Damn it!

  Rome was throwing me off my game. Ever since he’s come into my life, I’ve been behaving unnaturally. I never let my guard down enough for someone to get a needle in me without me realizing it.

  The doctor had used a local anesthetic, but it could have been so much worse. Like, he could have been trying to put me out.

  “What kind of doctor are you?” I asked trying to feel the man out who was so eager to get inside Rome’s head.

  “I’m what is called a physician-scientist. I study the brain. I guess you can call me a Neurologist.”

  Well that explained his fascination with the brain. But what was it about Rome’s brain that he was so eager to find out?

  “Why are you so eager to see what’s going on in his head?”

  His hand paused in cleaning my womb and he looked at me as if I had suddenly gone lame.

  “Are you kidding me?”

  I shook my head. “No, I’m curious.”

  “He’s a…” He searched his mind for the right word. “A phenomenon…”

  “Oh, you mean a genius?”

  He shook his head fervently. “No, I’m a genius, I think I may have found a way to separate space from time in the continuum.” He tapped gestured toward his own head.

  “Genius… He’s a phenomenon…and I plan to be the one to crack the code to his brain.”

  The fact that he’d managed to say space time continuum just like Rome said made me chuckle. At least I attempted to chuckle, but my eyes were beginning to feel kind of heavy.

  “I don’t understand. What’s the difference between the two?” Even my speech sounded slurred.

  “Geniuses believe in what they can touch, taste, see, or smell. He…” He tilted his head in Rome’s direction as he prepped my wound for stitching.

  “He believes in things he can’t see.”

  “Like what?” Nossa! I was getting really tired.

  “Like God…” He leaned closer. “Do you know he claims to play chest with an angel every Tuesday in the park?”

  “Do you believe him?”

  That was the last thing I remember saying before everything went dark…

  Chapter 6

  My Captive

  Nakhti

  The first thing that assaulted my senses when I came awake was the overwhelming smell of marijuana smoke and bass from a near-by speaker that seemed to vibrate throughout my whole body. I tried to open my eyes, but they were so heavy and that sweet darkness was beckoning me to return to its embrace.

  “How are you feeling, Minha Anjo?”

  The sound of Rome’s voice caused me to fight off the darkness. Although my body protested, I opened my eyes.

  Rome stood at the foot of the big bed, but he wasn’t alone. Rob grinned down at me from my right, the man I’d thrown into the wall earlier stood
next to him, and two more men who I didn’t recognize stood to my left.

  I blinked to try and clear my vision. That bastard doctor had drugged me! Local anesthetic my a**--

  The sound of metal hitting metal when I tried to lower my arms caused my thoughts to come to a halt.

  What the hell?

  My hands were handcuffed and fastened to something over my head. Instant panic shot through me at being vulnerable like this. Taking a few deep breaths to still my pounding heart, I quelled the fear. I’ve been in situations like this before.

  Panic was not going to help me. I just had to try and clear the drug from my mind and think my way through this.

  My first mission was to get my hands free…and then get the hell out of here.

  “Wha—” I swallowed, my throat felt really dry. “What’s going on?” I asked Rome.

  The sound of a crowd of people clapping drew my attention. Turning my head towards the music I nearly cried out in alarm. Although there was no one close to the bed or really paying attention to me outside of the five men surrounding me, the loft was full of people.

  It looked as if I’d been asleep in the midst of a full-blown party.

  Ah…he did say he was having a little get together at his place later.

  But this was a little bit more than a simple get together.

  Over against the far wall was a band.

  A band!

  The music they played was a fusion of jazz and hip-hop. It didn’t sound bad. In fact, it sounded really good. I narrowed my eyes at the man rapping on the mic. He looked so familiar. The song they were performing sounded familiar as well.

  A woman dressed in a red mini dress strutted over to an area where a bar had been set up. She looked like a model. When she got to the bar she glanced over at Rome and smiled shyly before turning away.

  Hmmmm…that was subtle.

  When she got her drink, she strutted a little closer, as if the fact that she was clearly on the hunt wasn’t evident.

  “Rome, are you coming back to the party?” She cooed.

  For the first time, he looked away from me and smiled at her. “Yeah, I’ll be back over in a min.”

  “Okay…I’ve been trying to talk to you all night. I’ve got something I want to show you.”