A Test of Love: Interracial Erotic Romance (Chasing Love) (22 page)

You want me, bitches? Then come get me.
I paused for a minute and bit my lip.
Just come get me when the lights are on, and not with a gun. . .or weapon. . .maybe it’s good that I am here.

“What’s on your mind?” Chase asked when Vivian got up to go to the bathroom.

“Nothing.” I stared at my plate and had no energy to touch it.

Pajata.

That’s what decorated my plate. It was an ancient Roman dish, the chef had explained. The intestines of a milk calf were washed, but not emptied. They proceeded to cook the intestines so that the heat turned the partially digested milk within them into a thick, pungent cheese-like substance. Many Romans poured pasta sauce over it, and devoured the whole dish.

All this fabulous food will now go to waste.

“Are you going to eat?” Chase leaned my way.

“I’m not hungry.”

“You’re always hungry.”

I snapped my face his way. “No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.” He pressed his full lips against mine. No sparks or electric energy came, just fear. It seeped into my pores and owned me. I’d been hiding shaking fingers under the table the whole dinner. I didn’t even want to reach for my glass and alarm Viv and Chase of the anxiety attack that was slowly unraveling my mind.

I’ll be fine. Yes, I’ll be fine. Maybe. Or not? All of the other women died. Why would I be so lucky?

Chase slid his chair closer to me, placed his hand in my lap, seized my shivering fingers, and clasped his around mine. Warmth hit me first, this soothing heat that didn’t incite hormonal hysteria, instead his touch told me that I wasn’t alone. There was nothing to fear, not with Chase around.

“Listen to me.” He lifted his hand to my chin and gently turned my face his way. “I’ve survived this long because I never want to lose. Feel safe in the idea that you and I are one union that can’t be broken or shattered by any of our enemies. I will not lose.”

“You don’t know that.”

“We’re like the Coliseum.” He gestured to my side where it towered and glowed.

“We’re a ruining monument of historical violence?”

He smirked. “We can’t be destroyed or forgotten, or abandoned or conquered. Our love is strength.”

“I’m not worried about our love being strong. I’m freaking out over a killer who thinks that my death is the answer to some evil problem in her messed-up head.”

“I will not lose.” He shook his head. “You won’t be taken from me, not when it comes to the heart or in this life. And Dawn, Wendy, and even Lucy are my enemies, because one of them shot you, and now there is no way that the other two don’t know. The news was all over Oshane. So now is the time for the innocent to separate from the guilty. Yet, they stand united, which means they will all be destroyed by my hands and Benny’s.”

I swallowed. “I thought you didn’t want Benny in this.”

“Not when I knew with all certainty that they wouldn’t be close to you, but they’re here.” He looked as if he was going to snarl. “They’re too damn close to what’s mine, so the rules in the game have changed. I’ve notified Benny that they’re heading to Atrani. It could cost all of their lives, but I don’t give a damn. In fact, if it comes to keeping you safe or. . .”

I searched his face. “Or what?”

“Or all three of them being killed, which, as we’ve learned, is the Benny way to solve problems. If it comes to their deaths for you to keep breathing another day. . .” His eyes watered. No tears spilled from his lids, but still water glazed over his eyes and took my breath away. He cleared his throat. “I’m not a monster.”

“I know,” I whispered.

“But I will kill if it means you’re here. I’ll burn down cities to keep your breath moving in and out of your lungs and passion traveling throughout your heart.” He leaned in closer to me. “I would murder for you. My hand around the gun. My finger pulling the trigger. My aim as I center it between the eyes of any one of them. No one could make my steady hand shake, not when it comes to you. I would pull it with no regrets, and no one, not Wendy, Dawn, or Lucy, could beg enough or say any damn thing to stop me. I choose you over them, your life over theirs, my love for you versus my guiltless sanity. I’d take the blood on my hands with a fucking smile,
tesoro
.”

I’d stopped breathing somewhere in between gun in his hand and my life over theirs. I just froze. My body stiffened into a statue of dread. I had no doubts that Chase believed his words, but did he mean them? Could he do that? And how did I feel about this intensity? It should’ve freaked me out I think, perhaps force me to jump out of that seat and away from it all.

But I didn’t leave.

He was mine as much as I was his.

“Talk to me,
tesoro
.” He brushed his lips against my ear. “Tell me you’re not scared.”

“I’m not.” My shaking had ceased. All the earlier anxiety disappeared. Sure, dread lingered. It was the sort of dread that came at the most foreboding times—a moment when you know that the future may not be so bright and things may need to be done that could forsake others. “I feel better.”

“Good.” He squeezed my hand. “I just needed you to know that. . .you’re never alone. I’m Chase Stone and I am your god. Say it.”

I rolled my eyes. “Really? You’re my god? Didn’t we settle that weeks ago?”

“Perhaps. What was the answer again?”

“You’re no god.”

“Maybe.”

“Trust me on this.” I snorted. “Say it. You are not my god.”

“I won’t say that. However, I can admit that gods don’t stalk mere humans and some would say that I may have done some light shadowing of you during our break-up.”

“Light shadowing? You lived outside of my apartment in your car.”

“Limo.”

“What?”

“I lived outside of your apartment in a
limo
, and a very expensive and top of the line one, if I do say so myself. That’s a very different sort of stalking. A man sleeping in a shitty little car with rusted hinges and decomposing food products crowding the interior, well, that man is insane and you should call the police immediately. But,” He raised one finger, “a devilishly handsome man who shadows you longingly from the polished leather interior of a limo. Well, that man, you should crown him.”

“Dear God.”

“It’s too late to call God.” He licked his lips. “I’ve already stolen you,
tesoro
.”

“One day, God is going to hit you with a bolt of lightning.”

“Never. He loves me too much.” He made a show of presenting himself to me. “Look at me. Surely, God took great care and putting me together.”

I directed my view from his head to his toes, drifting a bit longer than necessary on that nice package tucked within his designer pants. “You clean up well.”

Smiling, his cheeks twitched a little as if he held in laughter. “How is your bottom? Are you able to sit now?”

“I’m not going to answer that.”

He returned his hand to my lap and inch by inch lifted my dress up, exposing my thighs.
Thank God the table cloth is long.
Cool air glided against my skin. “Maybe I’ll have you answer that question later on tonight.”

Lust sparked within my core. “Maybe.”

He slid his hands between my thighs, causing a delicious tremble to come over me. “Or maybe I can ask you right now.” He slipped his fingers underneath my moist panties. I swallowed, not ready to stop him and very hungry to just feel one finger touch where I most craved him. The soft pad of his finger greeted my aching bud. Gasping, I closed my eyes.

“Are you able to sit now?” He nibbled at my neck. Those sharp teeth danced around my skin in the most erotic of ways. I knew we had to be making a scene. I did my best to hold in my moans. I kept my eyes closed, knowing if I opened them, there would probably be enough people watching to make me stop Chase’s sensual attention.

No. I need this, if only for a few seconds.

I sighed. “Yes, baby. I can sit now.”

“I want to take you in this restaurant.” He sucked on the curve of my neck hard. Sighing, I arched his way and licked my lips. He pushed that greedy finger into me and did a lovely dance to my center—taunting my g-spot, toying with my clit, and filling my body with not one but more fingers, the few times I could catch my breath.

Holy shit. Please don’t stop.

“I think about fucking you in a restaurant a lot now.” Second by second, he played with my center and I moved right with him, with absolutely no shame. “I think we should make that our thing. I rather enjoy bending you over a table decorated with elegance. It goes so well with that nice soft flesh up in the air.”

“Oh, Chase. What you do to me is so wrong,” I murmured.

“You’re lucky Viv is due back from the rest room.”

“Or what?”

“I’d clear this place out and take you right now.”

“You wouldn’t.” I giggled.

“Oh,
tesoro
, you have no idea who you’ve fallen in love with.” His fingers left. Pouting, I opened my eyes. Chase signaled the few guards near us. The tallest one bent over. Chase whispered in his ear.

Oh, my goodness. What is he doing?

I tapped his shoulder. “No, sex in the bathroom again or—”

He held up his finger to silence me as he continued whispering. I almost knocked him in the back of his head.

Did you just quiet me? Really?

“And tell them all that I will appreciate it most greatly.” He checked his watch. “Let’s see if you two can achieve this in less than five minutes. That would please me, and as you may have heard, I take care of those that please me the most.”

They nodded, rushed back to the other few guards scattered around by the space. Chase relaxed in his chair as I noted that each guard went to the few full tables and pulled out check books. Many of the diners’ faces blushed. A few opened their mouths in a giddiness of shock.

“What are they doing?” I asked. “And what did you tell them to say?”

“I’m clearing the restaurant.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re not going to eat that disgusting thing covered in sauce.”

“It’s
pajata,
which is—”

“It’s calf intestines with cooked undigested milk within them. It’s disgusting. They’re telling the waiter to get rid of these plates before the staff leaves.” In that moment, several waiters rushed with grins and took away mine, Chase’s, and Vivian’s dishes. “Then when everyone is gone, I’m going to bend you over so that you’re facing the Coliseum as I thrust inside of you.”

“Say w-what?”

He checked his watch. “And I’m so eager to see if your moans can be heard all over Rome.”

“But Chase, what about Vivian—”

“She will be driven to a new place to finish her food and will meet us on the plane. I doubt she would be unhappy about some space between her and me.”

“But still—”

He placed a finger over my lips to silence me. “Save your voice. You may not have it by the end of the night.”

And he was right.

I didn’t have my voice by the end of the night. With me bent over the table and those designer pants down to his ankles, he fucked me hard and with no break to gather my thoughts and emotions. The table rocked. Glasses fell and crashed onto the floor, spilling out wine and water.
Oh, baby.
The Coliseum watched the whole affair, its gold lights glittering around the fragrance of flowers and delectable food. Minutes blurred by. Each time I shrieked loud, he pumped deeper. At one point, birds resting near the edge of the rooftop flew away in panic, their wings violently flapping in the air.

Oh, my God, he’s going to have me speaking in tongues!

He stroked in and out of my center with violence in each depraved push and pull. My arousal dripped down my legs as he pounded. The stars shined high above us. A steady breeze cooled our sweaty bodies and relaxed me enough to take his erotic assault.

But in the end, my body could only take so much before tearing into bits of me.

“
Tesoro
?”

“Yes, Daddy?” My body quaked. I was so close, so deliciously near. I wasn’t even sure if I said the words out loud or in my head. All I knew was his cock.

“No. I’m not your daddy.” He smacked my ass. “Tell me what I am.”

My legs gave out. Didn’t matter. He held me up with those huge hands of his. “Who am I,
tesoro
?!”

“Oh, baby.”

“No.” He eased his cock out of me in this slow, sensual way that made me whine like a spoiled kid. “I’m not your baby.”

“Stop playing. Put it back.” I glanced over my shoulder.

Ha! You’re just as bad off as I am.

He’d been practically gnawing his bottom lip as he gawked at my ass so close to the tip of his length. A maddening edge shone back to me in his eyes.
Oh, you want this too.
He was about to erupt, right there within a few seconds. He’d been falling and had no way of getting himself back to safety.

He gritted his teeth. “Who am I?”

The wild sexual animal in me urged to make
him
beg, force
him
to yell out my name. But there was no need. He’d pledged his sanity for my life, laid it all in front of me, so raw, bare, and coated in honesty.

“I would murder for you. My hand around the gun. My finger pulling the trigger. My aim as I center it between the eyes of any one of them. No one could make my steady hand shake, not when it comes to you.”

And I believed him.

He trembled against me. “Who am I to you?”

I turned away with tears spilling down my face and my hungry pussy on fire. “You’re my god.”

Chapter 21

TROY

Two days had passed since Jazz, Viv, and Chase had returned from Rome. They’d cut the trip short due to word of those crazy chicks’ flying to Atrani. Somewhere along the way, Chase’s people lost their tracks. The shit had me on edge and everybody else going crazy. In the house, we barely spoke to one another, without snapping out curt, annoyed words. Jazz and Chase argued during the day and humped at night. Viv and I avoided each other as much as possible, still not ready to deal with our problem while faced with three rich murderers.