He pushed my hands away so he could examine where his handiwork had come undone.
“I’ve got a first aid kit––”
“You don’t need one, it’s not that bad,” I lied.
His hands landed on my shoulders to prevent me from hopping off the sink where he had sat me. “I’m gonna ignore the fact that you just spoke over me. You’re gonna sit your ass on this counter until I get back with the kit.” He stepped away, giving me a warning glare before exiting the bathroom.
As soon as I heard his bedroom door shut, I stood up, steadying myself on trembling legs.
Holding my head in my hands, I tried to make myself regret what had transpired between us but the feeling wouldn’t come. So many men had used me and none of them had ever made me feel like he just did.
I should have foreseen this coming. The powerful frequency between us had our souls fucking before we ever touched. No, I could never regret the painfully sweet ache he created between my thighs.
Ever since I’d discovered who he was two years ago, he’d done the impossible. He intrigued me like no man had ever done before. He was beautiful and sick, like me—the star of all my obscene fantasies.
The throbbing in my side steadily reminded me he was real. He was more than pictures and the erotic nightmares I craved late at night.
This lust though, my secret obsession, was dangerous. I had yet to see just what he was capable of, but I knew he was merciless, ruthless. He had an aura around him that was so dark it could blot out the sun. It seeped into everything around him. I knew I wouldn’t be the exception but that didn’t bother me; I harbored my own demons inside me.
Through the white noise inside my head, I distinctly remembered Tito warning me, “You don’t want to end up like his last girl.”
Now that I thought about some of the things he’d said, it was alarmingly obvious Tito had known more than he’d let on. Some of the things he’d told me could never be learned from a sheet of paper or in-depth research. They were too personal. The Savages were notorious, but they were also highly secure and private.
Of all the things I’d found out about him, no woman had ever come up. So how did Tito know there ever was one? I mean, she clearly wasn’t around anymore. That’s if she ever existed in the first place. He could have easily made it up in his failed attempt to ward me off.
I was inclined to believe she was either no longer breathing or their relationship had ended on an unpleasant note.
A chain of truth tried to form in my mind, but there were too many goddamn links missing. I couldn’t ask, either, not without giving up information on the other and risking being lied to. Right then, I barely even trusted myself.
“Didn’t I tell you not to move?”
“I didn’t like the way you asked.” Lifting my head, I clenched the shirt covering my waist a little tighter and took a quick inventory of the things in Romero’s hands as he re-entered the room.
“I didn’t fucking ask you anything. You know what? We need to get a few things clear.” He brushed past me and sat everything in the sink. Then, he scooped me up as if I were a ragdoll and deposited me right back on the counter, parking his muscular body between my legs.
“You gorgeous girl,” he murmured, brushing strands of hair out of my face.
“I don’t want to hurt you…wait. That’s not how I want to start.” He gave me a skewed grin and shook his head. “I do want to hurt you. There are so many…things I want to do you. And I will. You’ll love every torturous second of it…eventually.” He smoothed the pad of his thumb across my bottom lip.
“I don’t want to hurt you for pissing me off, Cali, not this early in our relationship.”
Early in our…
“We don’t have a relationship,” I objected.
“We have whatever I want us to have.”
“You can’t do that. You can’t just make decisions for me.”
“I can do whatever the fuck I want. It’s you who no longer has choices.”
My eyes floated to the slated floor and then back up to his. Not yet up for a battle of words, I asked him the question that was still swimming around in my head.
“How do you know my name?”
Should I have asked how he knew my name before demanding he fuck me like a needy whore? Probably.
He smirked. “I was wondering how you knew my name, seeing as you just repeated it like a well-versed prayer.”
Shit, did I really do that? I pressed my lips into a straight line and looked up at him, refusing to give myself up. “You need to work on your art of seduction.”
He reached out and pinched my chin. “Do you want me to seduce you, Cali?”
I choked on a swallow and knocked his hand away. Since he was still shirtless, I chose to intently focus on his sabbatic goat head.
Yes, yes, yes! I excitedly repeated in my head. He could be mine and I could be his. I couldn’t give up the plot so fast, though. I may not be able to follow Tito’s plan, but I could never be disloyal to him.
Okay, deep breaths. Fake it till you make it, Cali. I hated rejecting him, but I couldn’t so freely give in. Letting out a little sigh, I smiled and placed a hand on his broad shoulder.
“I want you to stop doing…whatever it is you’re doing. I don’t know you well enough for you to be my…boyfriend. I’ve never even had a boyfriend. What makes you special enough to be my first?”
He threw his head back and laughed. “You knew me well enough to let me inside your tight little pussy and come all over my cock. You’d be amazed at what you can learn about a woman when you’re balls deep inside her.
“And where in there did you hear I wanted to be your boyfriend? That’s fucking juvenile. Boyfriends are temporary; I’m not.”
Keep going, I thought, secretly thrilled by his words. The hair lifted on the back of my neck. I brought my free hand up to his other shoulder and slightly leaned back. “I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”
“You let the devil inside you, baby. And he isn’t leaving anytime soon.”
I blinked up at him, hearing his words but not fully processing them. It couldn’t be this easy-peasy. Romero Deville was not rumored to be a nice man. Like Tito said, the Savages didn’t give without receiving, so what was it he wanted from me, and why wasn’t he saying something?
Taking my silence as his cue to continue, he gripped the back of my neck, ensuring he had my full attention.
“I don’t know what the fuck this connection is but I’m not letting it die before we give it a chance to live. Don’t focus on me being your first when I’m going to be your last. I have your whole life to tear you apart and then put you back together again.”
Well, the first part sounded a bit romantic, but the ending could use a tad more work. I needed a minute to reflect, needed to retreat somewhere quiet so I could think.
There were a few parts of his proclamation that stood out, but what did it even matter when we both seemed to be on a similar track?
“You have no intention of letting me leave here, do you?”
He looked to the ceiling with a sigh. When his eyes met mine again, I saw the answer before he repeated the two simple words that had damned me from the beginning.
“Finders keepers.”