Julianna

Espo and I sat opposite Roman in the interrogation room, the cold metal chair biting at my legs through my skirt. Espo glared at Roman. I stared at the table. Roman watched me. He seemed so calm, so collected. Meanwhile I was a fucking mess inside, trying not to let it all leak out all over my face.

Espo pressed the start button on the recording device, spoke our names, the time and date.

He pulled a blown-up copy of Eddie's driver's license photo out of his file. "Do you know this man?" he asked Roman, as he pushed the photo across the table.

Roman leaned over the table and gave the picture a cursory glance. "No." He sank back against his chair, which gave out a low creak under his bulk.

"Of course, he didn't exactly look like that when you last saw him, right? Perhaps this image will jog your memory." Espo slid out a second picture, this time of Eddie's pale, dead face taken from the crime scene, the bullet wound leaking blood, his eyes frosted over and his mouth open as if mid-begging for his life.

Roman glanced down to the second picture.

Nothing. There wasn't even a flash of surprise on his face. Did he know already? Did he have something to do with it?

Roman lifted his eyes up to meet mine. For a second there was an accusation in them. An accusation? At me?

"Hey," Espinoza snapped as he bristled beside me. "I asked you a question."

Roman slid his gaze back to Espinoza, coldness wafting off him like he was made of ice. I shivered inside.

This is just the mask he wears for the world, I reminded myself. You know the real man. The good man inside. The man who is worth fighting for.

"Like I said," Roman said, his voice sharp and deadly like the edge of a blade. "I don't recognize this man."

"Lay your hands out."

"Why?"

"Are you refusing?"

For a few terse moments, Roman and Espo glared at each other, an unspoken battle of wills raging between them. At any moment either of them, or both, might lunge over the table and punch the other.

Roman gave Espo a smile that bordered on a smirk before spreading his hands on the table, palms up.

"Palms down," Espo said, his eyes still fixed on Roman.

Roman hesitated for just a second, then turned his hands over.

My heart sank. His knuckles were scabbed over, bruised up as if he'd hit someone. He had. He'd hit Eddie several times the night he saved me.

Espo glanced up to the camera above his head, the red light still on, as if to make a point that we now had Roman's injuries on record.

"How did you get those cuts on your knuckles?" Espo nodded to Roman's hands.

Roman didn't flinch. He didn't even take his hands off the desk, he just stared at his knuckles as if he were admiring them. "I got into an altercation with a man who was assaulting my girl."

"When was this?"

"Two nights ago, three… I don't keep track of these things."

"And you sure it wasn't this guy you hit?" Espo tapped the picture of a very dead Eddie.

Roman let out a long sigh. He picked up the picture, making a show of studying it. I could almost see his mind working. What did we know? What evidence did we have?

If he'd only called me back, I could have warned him. Instead, we had him in a corner.

Roman dropped the picture on the desk. "I'm sure, detective."

"Really? 'Cause I think you beat the shit out of this guy." Espo stabbed the picture with his finger. "Eddie Sanchez. Look again."

Roman leaned back in his chair, cool as anything. "Do you have any evidence linking my wounds to this man's wounds?"

Espinoza shuffled in his seat. "No."

"I see."

Espo leaned in, his chair scraping against the ground. "Someone had the foresight to pour bleach over his wounds, destroying whatever DNA evidence there might have been."

Roman gave Espinoza a smug look. "Really? How clever."

Espo glared back. The tension in the room was strung as tight as a tennis racket. "What was the name of the man you assaulted?"

"I didn't assault anyone. I was protecting my girlfriend."

"Fine, what was the name of the man you were protecting your girlfriend from?"

"I didn't get it."

"You didn't get it?"

"I didn't exactly stop to chat. I was too busy teaching him some manners."

"Bruising on your knuckles shows you must have hit this man several times."

"He was a poor learner. I had to teach him several times."

"What a coincidence, a body turns up that had been hit several times before he was killed."

"There seem to be a lot of people around the place who deserve that kind of thing."

"You think Eduardo Sanchez deserved what he got?"

"I already told you, detective, I don't know this Eduardo character."

Espinoza paused. "Where were you two nights ago?"

"With a girl."

"This girl have a name?"

He looked over to me, his eyes piercing into my soul. I stopped breathing. I was fucked if he opened his mouth. He was fucked if he didn't.

I would lose my badge. My father would kill me. But Roman had no choice. He would be alibi-less if he didn't.

I braced myself.

"Julianna," he said deliberately. I could feel Espo bristling beside me at his informality. "You know my girl, don't you? Gorgeous face, long honey-brown hair, a body to kill for."

I gritted my teeth. What was he playing at? Just say my name already. "I'm sure I don't."

Roman leaned across "Don't play coy. She's sitting in this very station now."

My heart stopped beating.

"Rosaline?" Espo said.

Roman smiled. My heart stuttered back to life. Of course, Rosaline. I had totally forgotten about her. He was talking about his girl, Rosaline. The image of their arms around each other at his apartment door flashed through my mind.

"You're telling me," said Espinoza, "that your alibi for this murder just happens to be the same alibi as the last one we pulled you in here for?"

He shrugged. "Coincidence."

"That's one hell of a coincidence."

"What can I say," Roman looked squarely at me as he spoke, "I really like this girl. Want to spend all my time with her."

I flushed.

"We have a witness that puts you at a gas station on the road leading out of Verona at around midnight. The same road where we happened to find poor Eddie. What do you say to that?"

Roman smiled like he didn't have a care in the world. "My girlfriend, who happens to be the daughter of a prominent Verona businessman, says otherwise. Are you calling her a liar?"

With the interview and audio recording suspended, Espo and I conferred in whispers on our side of the table. Roman watched us carefully.

"I'll go talk to Rosaline right now," Espo said. "Get her side of the story. You stay here and keep an eye on him."

And be left alone with Roman? "I, er, I should go with you."

Espo pursed his lips. "No offense, but you and Rosaline don't really have a rapport. I think she'll open up to me more if I speak to her alone."

That wasn't something I could argue with. I nodded, resigned to my fate.

Espo shot Roman one last glare before he left the room. The door clicked behind them. I was left in the dim interrogation room alone with Roman Tyrell. Had it only been less than forty-eight hours since we had kissed goodbye? How much things could change in so little time.

Roman's face twisted with the first sign of any emotion from him. "Here we are again, detective."

"Roman, you don't have to call me that. There are no recording devices on."

"You sitting on that side," he continued, "me right back here on the side I belong. You, the cop. Me, the guilty party."

I lunged forward in my chair, ready to start yelling at him.

"Careful, detective. No one might be able to hear you but they may be watching." His eyes darted up to the camera, the light like a glaring red eye.

I sank back in my chair and crossed my arms over my chest. "You're not guilty," I hissed. "Don't you dare think I believe that. Don't you dare think I wanted to put you in that chair."

The only sign that my words had gotten through to him was a slight twitch to his jaw. "You mean to tell me," he said slowly, "that you don't think I killed Mr. Sanchez."

"Not for a second. You were with me that night."

"Not the whole night. I had plenty of time to kill him before I came back to you…" he trailed off.

"I don't believe it. You wouldn't kill him."

"I wanted to."

"You gave him your word. You promised him safety on your mother's memory. Someone else killed him after you dropped him off wherever it was that you dropped him off."

Roman studied me for a long moment. Finally, something in his face softened.

"I tried to warn you," I said quietly, my voice low and hard. "I called, left messages. You never replied. Then I find you in your apartment…with her."

His lip curled up into a sneer. "Jules, I'm disappointed. What did I tell you about how I feel about other women?"

"You mean to tell me that all your other lady friends weren't enough for you?"

"I don't care about them."

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

"I didn'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?"

My gaze locked on his. More memories piled in on me. My body heated, my nipples pressing painfully against the fabric of my shirt.

"It's what you do to me."

"What do I do to you?"

"You make me not care about anyone or anything else. It's just you, you, you. You're all I want."

I was jolted out of my memories when Roman's knee brushed mine under the table, sending a crack of electricity up my leg and hitting that space between my thighs.

"You seem…uncomfortable, Detective Capulet." His deep voice caressed my warming skin.

I swallowed hard. "I'm fine."

"I'm not." Roman leaned his chest over the table like he was about to tell me a secret. "I missed you these last two days," he whispered, his fingers trailing across my knee under the table.

I froze, torn between the rush of lust thundering through my brain, short-circuiting it, or the voice in my head screaming that he couldn't be touching me in a fucking interrogation room.

"What are you doing?" I hissed at him.

"This is your reward."

"What?"

"For trusting me. Now…hold still."

Hold still. His hand shifted up my thigh, pushing my skirt further up. His fingertips burning along my inner thigh like they were made of hot irons.

I squeezed my legs shut, trapping his hand so he could touch no further. "Don't."

"Don't make a scene, detective."

Me making the scene?I wasn't the one with his damn hand up my skirt.

"Open your legs."

"No."

He narrowed his eyes at me. "That camera up there can't see my hand under the table, but it can see your face. If you don't want to draw attention," he pinched my inner thigh with his fingers and I whimpered, "you'll be a good girl and open your legs."

Fuck him. But I knew he'd won. I relaxed my thigh muscles slowly, knowing that this was such a bad fucking idea. Somehow not caring enough to protest too hard.

"Wider."

He nudged my thighs with his hand. I let them fall apart.

"Good girl." His fingers brushed against the front of my panties. I gasped as stardust and rockets burst across my body.

"Detective Capulet." Roman's deep voice cut through into my brain fog even as his fingers kept rubbing my clit in circles. "I need you to keep asking me questions."

"What?"

His fingers paused. I almost let out a whimper. His eyes flicked up and back over my head. Right. The video camera. Someone could be watching us from above. They couldn't hear us or see his hand under the table but they could see our lips. I had to keep asking him questions so that everything appeared normal.

Roman stared at me from across the table, hunger in his eyes. "You ask a question," his finger pushed aside my panties, "and I'll give you an answer." He thrust a finger inside my wet entrance, sending a hot wave of pleasure through me. God, I'd missed his touch. It had only been two days but it had felt like a lifetime apart.

He stilled. I almost cried out with frustration.

"Question. Answer. Do you understand, detective?"

His words clicked in. If I kept asking him questions, he'd keep touching me. If I stopped so would he.

"What's your full name?" I blurted out, a stupid question to ask seeing as we already had his name recorded, but I was barely thinking straight. His finger began its languid tantalizing thrusting. I sucked in a breath.

"Roman Giovanni Tyrell."

"And your girlfriend's name is?" I said, breathlessly. In and out went his finger.

"You already know that, detective."

"And you…you like chocolate, right?" I was mumbling, saying anything, asking anything that came to mind. Anything to make sure he didn't stop.

He chuckled. "I do like chocolate. Especially when it's melted all over the divine body of my very sexy woman. In fact, when I see her next I might just have to eat her pussy with chocolate." He added a second finger, widening my aching, needy core further.

"Oh dear God," I hissed.

Roman lifted an eyebrow at me, his two fingers paused at the hilt inside me. "Was that a question, Detective Capulet?"

"I…um, how long have you known her?"

His fingers began to draw in and out of me again. I almost cried with happiness. "It feels like forever."

"And how would you…how would you describe her?" I muttered, lost in the waves that were running up and down my body.

"She dims even the stars," he began, his words catching my attention.

His eyes caught mine as I snapped them open.

He raised an eyebrow. "Shall I continue, Detective Capulet?"

God, yes. "That would be good," I stuttered.

The smile on Roman's face widened. He curled his two fingers in, stroking at that glorious spot on the front wall of my pussy while he drew small circles on my clit with his thumb. Fuck, that was so good, the waves of pleasure growing deep and thick. My toes curled up in my shoes. I shut my eyes. Thank God the camera couldn't see my face.

I barely listened as he spoke, describing her, me. It was all just a deep, soothing rumble outside of the pleasure cave I was lost in. The pressure built and built until I was trembling in my seat.

"Detective Capulet," he said breaking into my thoughts, "you look like you are so close to your last question."

"Yes," I breathed out, my body already pulsating around his fingers, sweat breaking out across my forehead. I was going to go over the edge. Right here in the interrogation room with Roman Tyrell's fingers deep inside my greedy, wet pussy.

"Do you…care about her?" I spluttered. I couldn't bring myself to say the word love.

His fingers slid out of me, pausing for a mere second. "I'd kill for her." He slammed his fingers deep inside, hard against my g-spot, his thumb vibrating against my clit. His words. His touch. The complete reckless taboo of it. It was all too much.

I came hard, biting down on my bottom lip so I wouldn't scream, so hard that I tasted blood. My vision went white. My pussy clamped around his fingers, my fists scrunching my notepad in front of me as pleasure rolled through me wave after wave.

He pulled his fingers from me as my orgasm faded. I slumped back in my chair and blinked at him. Did that really happen?

Across the table, Roman's eyes seared into mine, a hungry yet satisfied grin on his face. He pulled his right hand up and brushed his two fingers across his mouth, smearing it with my juices. He lowered his hand before he licked the taste of me off his lips.