Roman Holiday: The Complete Adventure (2-Book Bundle: The Adventure Begins and The Adventure Continues) (43 page)

“You’re such a geek.”

“I’m not a geek.”

He explored her hills for a while. If the squirming was any indication, she liked it just fine.

“Did you ever want to see more?” she asked.

“Mmm.” Roman pulled up the hem of her T-shirt to expose her stomach.

“Like, did you ever want to get in the car and drive and keep driving until you run out of road?”

“Sure.”

“When?”

“Today.”

Ashley smiled. “You just wish we weren’t bringing all these people with us.”

“They don’t bother me.”

Ashley arched an eyebrow—an expression he recognized as his own.

“Okay,” he admitted. “They bother me some. But you want them here, so it’s fine.”

“What is it, then?”

He’d talked to his assistant, who’d made it clear that if Roman spent much more time out of the office, he might not have an office to come back to. “Work stuff,” he said. “Worrying about what’s going on back in Florida. More than a few times today I thought it might be easier to make a break for it.”

Ashley rested one arm on his chest, cupping the back of his neck in her hand. Roman let his head fall, enjoying the play of light and shadow over her face.

“Go on the lam?” she asked.

“Bonnie and Clyde.”

“You can be Bonnie. I’ll grow a mustache.”

Roman huffed a laugh, and she broke into a grin, twisting on his lap to tickle his ribs. He captured her hand and brought it to join the other on his neck, and then he ducked down as she
rose up to meet him, and they kissed.

There was nothing like kissing Ashley.

Nothing like the way she felt in his arms, warm and sinuous, light and full of hope. He would follow her anywhere to feel like this, do whatever she asked. It had been this way from the beginning, although he hadn’t understood at first.

What bound him to Ashley was Ashley.

When she gave herself, she gave everything, and when he took from her, he wanted nothing more than to give it back, give her more.

He loved her.

That was what you called it. That was the size and shape of it, the tough kernel of hope at the center of it, the tenacious tangled neediness of it.

Love.

It didn’t scare him anymore. There was no one he would rather love than this weird, wild, wonderful woman.

Roman hauled her closer. Their kiss kindled and lit, tongues dancing, bodies sinking and shifting until they were side by side, legs interlaced, hands moving anywhere they could find a plane to glide over, a curve to hug, a hill to climb, or a crevice to sink into.

“We
can
do this in the trailer, right?” he asked. “It won’t fall off the blocks?”

“It won’t fall. It’ll just, you know, bounce.”

“So anyone who happens to walk by to take a leak or brush their teeth—all those little kids riding around on bicycles—they’re all going to know I’m getting laid.”

“
You
’
re
getting laid? Nice.”

He pushed her hair behind her ear. Caught her eye. “We’re making love,” he corrected.

Her tongue hit the back of her teeth. He felt the shift in her breathing against his stomach.

Her lashes lowered.

She leaned forward and nipped his collarbone, a sharp bite that hit him hard between the legs. “I don’t think the kids will know,” she said. “They probably won’t even notice, and if they do, they’ll just assume we’re …”

“Bouncing vigorously on the couch?”

“Playing one of those Wii games, maybe, where you jump around.”

Roman braced one arm and used his thigh to scoot Ashley to the inside of the bench so he
could move above her and fit his aching erection between her legs. She sighed, a happy sound.

She hadn’t rejected his description.
Making love
.

It would be his first time.

“We’ll have to take this to the bedroom,” he said. “I’m pretty sure my head’s sticking up, and the window’s open.” He covered one side of her neck with kisses, then found the smoothest patch of skin beneath her jawline and traced the boundaries of it with his tongue.

“I’d be delighted,” she said. “As soon as
—yes
. Do that again.”

Roman made a slow, rolling thrust against her clit, and her mouth fell open. “Jesus. Kiss me.”

He did.

They let their bodies speak for a while, let their arms say
I missed you
and
I want you
and
You make me feel amazing
. He watched her expressions shift, blissed out one moment, tense with need the next. Drifting, yearning, troubled. Beautiful. She ran her fingertips along his hairline, over his temples, around his ears. “I want to see your hair curly someday,” she said.

“I can’t let it get long. It’s out of control.”

“I like it when you’re out of control.” He thrust again, and she brought her legs up. “I like making you lose your grip.”

“You’re good at it.”

She grinned. “Right? I feel like it might be what I was put on this earth to do.”

“Annoy me?”

“Make you mad, sad, happy, cross-eyed with pleasure. All those things you’d given up.”

“I’m a fan of the last one.”

“I noticed. Speaking of things we’re fans of, take off your shirt.” Roman lifted up enough to wrestle the T-shirt over his head. “Yeah,” she sighed. “I’m a fan of this view.”

He kissed her. “Shallow.”

“Aren’t I?”

Roman helped her out of her shirt, leaving her bra on. He kissed the tops of her breasts. Stroked her calves. Wondered how he could have considered her too skinny, too blond, when she was obviously perfect.

“You know,” she said, stroking the top of his head and the back of his neck. “Airstream people have a saying.”

“What’s that?”

“If the trailer’s rockin’, don’t come a-knockin’.”

“Classy.”

“There’s other ones, too. Bucking the rivets, rocking the shocks, polishing the silver tube …”

“I could use some tube polishing.”

“Only if you promise to buck my rivets while you’re at it.”

“Until you can’t hardly take it anymore—that’s how long I’ll buck them.”

“Sounds like it might hurt.”

“I’ll make it good for you, baby.”

Ashley laughed, and Roman glanced to the side, did a moment’s mental calculating, and rolled them off the couch onto the floor.

“Holy shit! Roman!”

He didn’t know why she was complaining. She’d landed on top, the way she was supposed to. He was the one who’d have a bruise from the corner of the box poking into his shoulder.

“It’s more private down here.”

“You’re the most repressed man—”

“I wanted to do this.” He unhooked her bra, pushed it aside, and drew one nipple into his mouth.

“Oh,” she breathed. And again, a minute later,
“Oh.”

His hand found the cleft between her legs and worked over the seam of her shorts, the thin fabric on either side, until she was soaked and saying his name. “Roman. Please. Roman.”

“In the bed,” he said.

“I don’t think I can stand up.”

“Crawl.”

She did. All the way down the length of the thirty-foot trailer, with Roman behind her, stroking her ass, grabbing at her ankles and calves, overtaking her just to rub his bare chest over her back and wrap his arm around to work inside her shorts and make her moan his name some more.

They got stuck near the stove for a while.

Then right outside the bathroom for a while longer.

Finally they made it to the bed, where he got impatient with her shorts and urged her onto the mattress, ass perched on the edge, torso laid flat so he could yank off what was left of her clothes, spread her legs, and lick her until she tightened around his thrusting fingers.

He had no idea how long it took. He didn’t care about time. He only cared about the slippery swollen shapes of her and the secret red flush of her cunt. The prickle of her leg hair against his neck. The way she shuddered for him.

The way he could unravel her, so exactly like the way she unraveled him.

When she came, he felt it ripple through him and transform into a keen awareness of everything at once—his grip on her hip, the musty shag carpet flattened beneath his knees, the briny ocean taste of her, the low reverberating volume of her moan. How far the sound would carry out the open window.

How far he would go with her.

How far the future stretched out in front of them, and how good it could be. How fucking
good
they could make it together, however they decided to be, wherever they wanted to go.

Ashley put both feet on his shoulders and shoved him away. “Swear to God,” she said. “If you even so much as breathe on me, I’m going to die.” She dropped her legs, covering her eyes with her forearm. “I might already be dead.”

Roman sat back on his heels, amused. “Yeah, but how are your rivets?”

“Fused shut. Or something. I don’t even know. God. You’re going to want to fuck me now, aren’t you? You can’t. I’m dead. That solves that problem.”

Roman unbuttoned and unzipped his pants. He glanced over his shoulder at the window on the far end of the Airstream, determined that he wasn’t likely to moon anyone, and dropped trou.

“Scoot over,” he said.

Ashley lifted her legs and made room for him. When he lay down beside her, she put her head on his shoulder and curved her body around his. Her limp hand found his hard cock.

She sighed. “I’m going to have to
do
something with this, aren’t I?”

“That, or close your eyes and pretend to fall asleep while I stare at your naked body and jerk off.”

“I’m not sure if that’s sexy or weird.”

“I’d be making this face.” Roman fisted himself and made what he hoped was a bug-eyed creeper face while staring at her breasts, panting.

Ashley got the giggles really bad.

By the time she was over it, he’d moved above her, and she’d folded her arms across her breasts, saying, “No, no, I’m not ready, I’ll
die
, Roman, aren’t you worried about my
death
?”

He kissed her in places that might make her laugh. The point of her chin, the point of her elbow, the tip of her nose. Her ribs.

Then he kissed her where he wanted to. Along the side of her body from just beneath her armpit to the dip of her waist. Her navel. Her thigh. Her throat. Her breasts.

Everywhere.

He took his time, counted her freckles, found faint tan lines from at least three different bikinis.

He loved her with his mouth until her end-of-giggle sighs turned into another kind of sighing, and then her arms fell open and she opened her legs and said, “Oh, fine. Get the condom.”

He fished one out of his shorts pocket, smiling, and she rolled it on. Her hair was a disaster. Her nose was a little sunburned. She looked freshly fucked in the most glorious way.

“Any tips?” he asked.

“For sex?”

“In the Airstream.”

“I’ve never had sex in here before.”

“You haven’t?”

“Nope. I’m an Airstream virgin.”

“Me, too.”

“Be gentle with me, honey pie.”

“I’ll go slow, sugar.”

He lay down beside her, caught her leg at the knee, and draped it over his hip. She helped him find the right position, the right angle, and then he was inside her, and he couldn’t remember what had been so goddamn funny.

He couldn’t remember his own name.

He knew hers, though.

“Ashley,” he said, and she shushed him.

“I know.”

They kissed and moved together, tongues thrusting, bodies softening, accepting, melting. He pushed her hair out of the way and kissed her neck, because his head was so heavy and she was soft there, intimate skin, and he could hear her breathe, he could find a place to feel that was safe because it was her, all of this was her.

Too much. He was too worked up, too close already because it killed him listening to her come, and the soft press of her walls against him, her
heat—

“Don’t move,” he said.

She laughed softly and squeezed.

“Ash! Don’t.”

After a few seconds, the crisis passed, and he was able to lift his head and kiss her again. To make long, slow strokes inside her, looking for the perfect angle, searching for the best way to make her feel the right amount of way too much.

He found it with her knee lifted higher, her hips tilted just so. He found it, and he worked at it. Felt her clutch him. Her fingers pressing into his biceps. Her teeth scraping over his shoulder.

“Fuck. Roman. Don’t—don’t stop.”

“I’ve got you.”

He had her. He had Ashley, here in her bed, but only because she’d gotten him first.

When she came, she pulled the orgasm from him, grabbed it up from his balls and coaxed him out of himself, flung him into the night, the stars, the dark black emptiness of the universe.

She kept him from feeling the cold.

He woke late that night to remember they’d left the windows open. The night air nipped at his skin. She was spooned against him, though. He was safe.

Roman found the sleeping bag on the floor and pulled it over them both.

Carmen couldn’t believe it.

She stood on the porch of the Sunnyvale office, staring at the spot where her clipboard had been and where, now, there was nothing but a rock stacked on top of a pile of her papers, their edges curling, ruffled by the breeze.

The hippies had stolen her clipboard.

She considered the rock—a fist-sized landscaping stone, white and smooth—for a long time. She thought about how good it would feel to hurl it through the office window.

She wanted to. Carmen wished she could forget Sunnyvale, her father’s expectations, Roman, and Noah. She wished she could walk straight to the car where she’d slept last night, release the emergency brake, back out of the parking lot, and roll away.

She would never look back.

The Sunnyvale situation had exploded in her face, and Carmen wasn’t sure whether she’d lost her hold on things when her father had discovered the strange man in the bathroom yesterday morning or if it had happened later in the day, when the hippies invaded.

Probably later. Probably her control had slipped away for good the moment she saw the line of slow-moving cars approaching the lot. Or just afterward, when they turned in and parked, and the people who got out began unloading reusable bags full of groceries.