Julianna

Istood there staring at Nora's closed door, debating over whether banging on it for her to let me in would seem smart or just cowardly. I could feel Roman's stare burning into my back.

"You're going to have to face me at some point, Jules."

I squeezed my eyes shut. Dear God, if you exist, please let him be gone when I turn around.

I turned around slowly. And opened my eyes.

Roman was still standing there, a grin on his face, his gaze roaming over me. He winked at me when I caught his eye, immune to the daggers I was throwing at him. How was it fair that a man could be equally gorgeous and infuriating? I wonder if he'd still be smirking if I shot him.

Suddenly I was conscious that I was at the end of a long day. I hadn't showered. I probably looked like shit. I was scared to smell myself.

"What the hell do you think you're doing here?" I hissed in a low voice, because I knew that nosy Nora would have her ear glued to the other side of that door.

Roman cleared his throat and nodded at something to my left. One of my other neighbors was opening the door to her apartment, her buggy and three-year-old appearing as the door widened. I hid my gun at my side. This was not a conversation that we could have now. Chances were high that a concerned neighbor might call the cops on us. Wouldn't it be a fun thing trying to explain why I was arguing with the heir to the blood empire right outside my apartment?

I growled and shoved past Roman, cursing my own body when tingles radiated from where I touched him. I unlocked my apartment and stomped inside. Maybe if I shut the door on him he'd just go away?

He jammed his boot into the doorway with lightning reflexes when I tried. Goddamn it. I glared at him. He smiled serenely at me.

"Get your foot out."

"Let me come in."

"Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin."

His smile turned wolfish. "Then I'll huff and I'll puff, and I'll blow you until you scream my name."

My cheeks heated as I got a flash of his face between my thighs. "That's not how the rhyme goes," I said through a clenched jaw.

"Let me in, Jules. I promise I won't bite. Not unless you ask nicely."

Curse him. He wasn't about to take his foot from the doorway. I could shoot it. But then I'd have to explain myself. And paperwork. I hated paperwork.

"I just want to talk," he said. "Five minutes, that's all I'm asking for."

Better to get this over with. "You get two."

"Four."

"Two."

"Fine, two." He shook his head, a small smile on his lips. If I didn't know any better, I'd say it was pride on his face. "You drive a hard bargain."

Despite my better judgment, I stepped aside and swung the door open. "Get in before I change my mind."

Roman strode inside my apartment. I locked the door behind him. He stood in my living room as casually as if I'd invited him in for tea. "Your neighbor Nora thinks I'm handsome," he said, flashing me a smirk. "Do you think I'm handsome?"

"Nora is a sixty-something year old senior with bad eyesight."

Roman laughed. "I notice you didn't deny that you thought I was handsome."

Arrogant bastard. "As handsome as you are infuriating."

His grin widened. "And we all know how infuriating you find me."

I rolled my eyes. "One minute and forty-five seconds left. What the hell do you want, Roman?"

"Would you believe me if…" There was suddenly a softness to his voice. It seemed out of place with the rest of him. "If I told you I just wanted to see you again?"

I blinked. "Why would you want that?"

"I…I can't seem to stop thinking about you."

Wait. What now?

He frowned, looking almost confused. "It's very frustrating. Highly inconvenient."

"You poor thing," I breathed. He can't stop thinking about me. Just like I can't stop thinking of him.

"Usually I don't have any trouble getting over… But you…" he trailed off.

I let out a laugh. "This is a trick. A trap. A way to get me off your case."

"Why would I do that? I've heard that I've officially been cleared from the Torrito case. My alibi checks out."

"This is some kind of game, then."

"Trust me," he muttered. "If I could have avoided coming here, I would have."

What was that supposed to mean? "You mean to tell me that all your other lady friends weren't available at this moment?"

He grimaced. "I don't care about them."

"Good," I blurted out before I could stop myself.

"I don't even want them to touch me." His face twisted into a mask of anger. "What are you doing to me, Julianna? What the fuck are you doing to me?" He blamed me. He hated me for haunting him just as he haunted me. He took a step towards me. Genuine fear gripped my body.

"Stay right there." I lifted my gun out of instinct.

"What is it about you? Why you?" He ignored my gun, stalking even closer. So close that his cedar and musky cologne filled my nose.

I only realized I had been retreating when my back touched the door. I sucked in a breath. "Don't come any closer or I'll shoot."

Of course, he didn't listen. He stepped before me, grabbed my gun barrel and shoved it against his chest, right over his heart.

My finger twitched towards the trigger. He was a known criminal from a known criminal family. He was in my home. I was just defending myself. No judge in the world would ever convict me if I pulled the trigger.

The anger slipped from his face, replaced with a look of resignation. "If you're going to shoot me, Julianna, just do it. It'll save you and the rest of the world a whole lot of hell."

I knew at that moment that there was a part of Roman Tyrell that wanted to die. He wasn't fearless as I suspected; a part of him didn't care whether he lived or not. Or perhaps a part of him didn't think his life was worth it.

My shoulders sank. My hand sagged. I couldn't shoot him. Because fight it as I might, I knew that his was a life worth saving. I pulled my finger away from the trigger and loosened my grip. You win, Roman. You win.

He moved the gun out from between us. I let him. He slid it onto the table beside the door, clanking against the bowl where I usually threw my keys. He closed the distance between us, the heat of his warm chest pressing right up against mine. The back of my head knocked up against the door. The breath caught in my throat.

"I can't stop thinking about that night," he said, his eyes drilling into mine. "I wish I had come over when you asked…"

No. Don't do this. I don't know if I have the strength to stop you."Don't say that."

"I can't get you out of my head. You plague me when I'm awake. You haunt me when I'm asleep. The memory of your beautiful naked body echoes in my brain on repeat until I can't take it anymore and I have to… release the pressure."

Oh my God. Did he just admit…?

He lifted a hand and tucked a lock of my hair behind my ears. That simple touch set off a shower of sparks inside me. "Do you like hearing that I touch myself when I think of you?" His fingers stroked my cheek and heat fissured through me. If he touched me in the right place, I'd break apart. "Do you like knowing that it's your name I hiss upon my release?"

I couldn't speak. I could barely move, a stunned doe in the headlights.

He reached around my neck and gripped my hair, holding my head still. His eyes glittered with pure intent as he went in for the kill. "Ask me to come over again."

I made a mistake. I shouldn't have let him in. His flirtatious teasing earlier was just a cover, a trick to get himself inside. Here was his real intention. His gaze dropped to my lips and he lowered his mouth.

Kiss me.

"Don't," I whispered, a pathetic attempt at stopping him. It was all I had. My body was betraying me, aching for him, wet for him, begging to unfold for him.

His lips missed my mouth and I could have cried. He brushed them against my ear, sending shivers down my spine. "I would never take what's not being offered. Ask me to come over."

"No," I said, my mutinous voice coming out like a breathless plea rather than a command.

His hand remained in my hair, holding me to the door with that single touch. I could get away if I wanted to but…I didn't want to.

He nipped down the sensitive pulse in my neck. My mind was screaming what the fuck are you doing? but my body refused to budge. My knees began to shake when his tongue joined his lips and his teeth, searing a line across my collarbone, down, down, down the V of my shirt. He licked a line across the inner swell of my left breast. I let out a soft cry.

"Ask me," his voice rumbled against my breastbone, heightening the pressure in my aching wet core.

I was going to lose my mind. I could barely hang on to the only sane part of my brain that knew it would be a long, hard fall I'd never recover from.

"You wanted it before. You still want it. Let's put our lives aside. Let's give in to this attraction," he continued between kisses that ran up my other breast, then towards my chin. He was saying everything I had wanted to hear days ago.

If I were there…

Come here, then.

He was here now. He was here now, offering himself to me. Take it. Take him.

Something stopped me. The delicate wound of his previous rejection throbbed in my chest. What if I gave in, exposing my desires to him? What if he changed his mind again? I wasn't sure I could bear it.

"If we gave in…" His tongue flicked my earlobe, causing my eyes to roll back into my head. I gripped on to his shoulders like he was the only thing holding me on this earth. "We could get it out of our system."

My eyes snapped open as the truth hit me like a bolt of lightning. I could fool myself into believing that being with him would get him out of my system. I knew deep down it wouldn't. He was already under my skin, soaking into me like ink. There was no getting him out. Giving in to him now would mean falling further. There'd be no safety net when I landed. Not for me.

While I was just a game he hadn't won yet. If I gave in to him, he'd soon get bored. Like he'd gotten bored with all the other women he'd been with. All it would take for him would be to fuck me out of his system.

"Get out," I hissed, my voice low and deadly.

He pulled back, frowning at me. "You're angry with me."

"You come into my house, proposition me for sex," I said, my voice growing louder. "And you have the nerve to look confused as to why I'm upset? I am not one of your party whores."

He winced. "You make it sound so sordid."

"Really? How would you put it?"

"An agreement between two consenting adults."

"Get out. Get the fuck out."

"You have to understand why I can't offer you anything…more," he said quietly.

"Who said I wanted more?" I snapped, his words already finding their mark in my heart. Of course he would never want anything more from me than just sex. Bastard. I shoved him back with all the strength of my anger.

He let me go. For the first time in the last ten minutes I felt like I could breathe properly. I felt like I could think. I almost did a stupid, stupid thing saying "yes" to him. I grabbed my gun and yanked open my door, holding it open for him to let him know this conversation was over.

He raised an eyebrow, a small smirk back on his face. "So that means you'll think about it?"

"How's this for my answer." I pointed my gun at his dick, still hard through his jeans. "If I see you here again, that's where I'll shoot you."