Star-Crossed(66)

She reached back to run her fingers through the short hair at Romeo’s nape and then tugged his head down until it was buried in the curve of her neck. She could feel the emotions pounding off him as they lay there connected in the quivering silence, but she didn’t push him. If he needed time, she could give him that.

Finally he swallowed hard and whispered, “I love you too.” She understood why Romeo chose now to force the confession. Together, but hidden, it was a safe space when they were both a little dented by life and cautious because of it.

Jules savored the moment as Romeo started moving in her. Touching her reverently, his hands running over the curves at her sides, his thumbs brushing at the edges of her breasts as his hips thrust in and out, slow, steady. Like the budding love

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that had erupted between them, the passion started to bloom before she knew it was really happening.

She tightened her hold on the comforter, pushing her hips back against his as each thrust forced a sob of ecstasy out of her. Romeo was moaning into her hair, the sound of it reminding her of all their late-night phone calls. The knowledge that he was finally here, with her, inside her made the bliss start to swell until Jules was tinkering on the edge of a precipice.

“Touch me,” she pleaded, wanting it to be his hand and body that pushed her over instead of her own. “Please.”

Romeo slid his hand between her body and the bed, finding her clit as he started moving faster, losing himself to the rising tide. He was speaking in Italian. She could tell he was confessing things, and she heard the emotion even if the words were lost on her.

Love. Passion. Fear.

They all spilled out of Romeo as he fucked her body and owned her soul. Then his hand fisted in her wet hair once more, pulling her head back until she was tasting the passion, salty with tears—she didn’t know whose, and it didn’t matter because they were suddenly one soul, two halves that had found home in a place where they least expected it.

Every cultural divide evaporated as they came crying into each other’s mouths and trembling from the violence of the collision. Nothing mattered, just Romeo, that’s all Jules wanted to think or know as she shuddered from another powerful orgasm.

Wave after wave washed over her as Romeo rode out his own climax, his hips jerking against hers to the rhythm of it.

They collapsed when it was over, sweaty and breathless. Jules’s neck throbbed a bit, the ache between her legs made her want to take a long bath, and Romeo was choking the air out of her because he was big by heavyweight standards.

And she’d never been happier in her entire life.



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Jules wanted to spend every lunch break under him like this, and she smiled with the knowledge that he was going to be here for several months. She had him all to herself until his fight in May. After that they’d have to figure something out, because this was too beautiful not to fight for.

“What’re you gonna do about your hair?” Romeo asked, tugging at it softly.

“How’s it gonna look if you show up back at your office with it all wet?” After the confessions of undying love, only they could jump into a conversation about her hair. Rather than respond, Jules buried her face in the comforter and cracked up. Something about everything just seemed so very funny to her.

Romeo laughed with her as he brushed the wet strands off her shoulders. “Why the hell’d we take a shower in the first place?”

“You had an accident in the car.” Jules laughed harder, her shoulders shaking with the mirth. It’d been so long since she’d laughed this much, but still she fought to speak enough to choke out, “But why’d I have to get in with you? What the fuck am I gonna do ’bout my hair?”

“Call in sick,” Romeo said as he touched her back softly and pulled out of her.

“Take a day off for once. Stay with me.”

Jules rolled over beneath him, still giggling, knowing her face was flushed and her mascara was probably running from the shower and the crying. She gave him a wide, happy smile and said, “Okay.”

“Yeah?” Romeo asked, surprised.

“I think we’ve earned it,” Jules said, not feeling even mildly guilty for the indulgence. “A whole afternoon to ourselves.”

Once Jules stopped laughing and Romeo had washed up in the bathroom, the two of them made a ritual of shutting off their phones and then curled up in bed for the afternoon.





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Chapter Eleven

 April

“There’s something wrong with that boy.” Clay sounded mystified. “He’s talented, ain’t no one gonna argue that, but yeah…something.” Sweaty, tired, and sore, Romeo sat on the mat in the massive martial arts center Clay owned with Jules and Wyatt. While trying to catch his breath, he watched Tino move to the beat of his own drummer as he worked out using a punching bag. With white headphones in his ears, his brother bounced and danced and kicked at that stuffed sack of beans, and for the life of him, Romeo couldn’t tell if he was trying to hurt the thing or date it.