Star-Crossed (8 page)

“But I like it, Juliet.” His voice was taunting and sincere at the same time. “The taste of a woman gets me off.”

As if to prove his point, he leaned down and laved his tongue over the pebbled, pink tip of her breast. Jules’s breath caught as she watched him do it, mesmerized by the way he used his tongue before sucking the tight nipple into his mouth. The pleasure went straight to her core, making her entire body jerk from the intensity of it. She let her legs fall away from his hips, parting to him in a silent invitation Romeo took.

He moved down her body, his large hands wrapping around her thighs, holding her open to him. His thumb ran over her folds, spreading her. He stared, his gaze hot and hungry, making it easy to believe he was actually one of those rare men who enjoyed tasting a woman. Then he licked his lips and leaned in to run his tongue over the length of her pussy.

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Seeing Romeo between her thighs was easily one of the sexiest things Jules had witnessed in her life. She wished she could have better appreciated it, but it was all too much. Her head fell back against the pillow just as he pressed his tongue against her clit in a way that made her gasp from the hot rush of pleasure it caused.

She closed her eyes to the ecstasy as she ran her fingers through Romeo’s hair. She held him to her while he licked and sucked and pushed her to the very edge of heaven even faster than the first time. The way he gripped her thighs, his soft moans of pleasure against her sensitive pussy, his tongue that was just the right mixture of hard and fast against her clit had Jules coming undone easily.

She shook with the force of her second orgasm, leaving her body sated and weak when the tide started to ebb. She dropped her arms to her sides once it was over and let her legs fall open from where she’d wrapped them around his back. Part of her wanted to fall asleep as she drifted on the wave of satisfaction.

She only dimly noticed Romeo tearing at the box of condoms, ripping and spilling the gold-foiled packages onto the bed. Then he fell back on his haunches and pushed his underwear past his hips, revealing a long, thick, cut cock that was hard and impossible to ignore.

Jules leaned up on one elbow to watch him rip open one of the condoms with his teeth and then roll it onto that big, beautiful dick. Her body clenched as she studied him. She was still sated and relaxed, but seeing all of him made her ache in a different way. When he was done with the condom, she didn’t even let him push his underwear the rest of the way off before she was grabbing his wrist to pull him closer.

Romeo’s breathing was labored, his cock was hard and warm against her thigh, and his hand shook as he brushed her hair away from her face. His need was palpable, and it was catching. Jules slid her bare feet up his thighs. She hooked them underneath the band of his underwear and then helped him kick them off.

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“I don’t wanna hurt you.” Romeo’s shoulders were tense as he hovered over her.

He was trembling with need, his voice heavy with the desperation of it, but still he said,

“We’ll go slow at first, okay?”

Jules understood his concern. As he’d pointed out earlier, Romeo was a
very
big boy. She reached down to stroke him, feeling his heat through the condom. She tested the width of his cock as she wrapped her fingers around him at the base. They barely touched, and Jules had long fingers. Her breath caught with a strange mixture of anticipation and nervousness.

“Slow’s good,” Jules agreed as she shifted beneath him, moving her hips and guiding him to her.

She rubbed him against her wet, sensitive folds and closed her eyes as she arched her hips up instinctively. Huge or not, she needed him. Romeo let out a low growl of surrender and pushed forward, his cock sliding through Jules’s hand, breaching her as she guided him in. He was so thick he stretched her almost painfully. He seemed to touch every nerve ending inside her as he pushed in deeper. She was still so sensitive after the first two bone-melting orgasms that the pleasure was almost too intense. She released him and flattened her palms against the bed as she bowed into the thrust.

“God almighty, Romeo,” she gasped, the bliss pouring over her in warm, liquid waves as he slowly and surely claimed her. “It’s too much. I feel like I’m dying.” Romeo paused, his voice gravelly with repressed desired. “Should I stop?”

“No!” Jules said quickly and wrapped her arms around him, her nails digging into thick muscles to hold him to her. Who the hell cared if she was sore tomorrow? It felt too damn good at the moment to play it safe. “Feels good, too good.” Her breathing was labored, her words were cracked and broken, but she managed to choke out, “Harder.” Romeo groaned and grabbed her ass with his bandaged hand, the brush of gauze against her bare skin feeling foreign as he used the leverage to take her completely.

They were chest to chest, one heartbeat, one throb of desire. Their skin dewy with sweat and only their labored breathing echoing in the dimly lit room. It was the calm before 60

the storm, one moment in time to savor the connection before Romeo pulled out and took her a second time.

Colors burst behind Jules’s closed eyes, and she spread her legs wider, wanting to feel all of him. She clung to Romeo when he started moving in her. The strokes were torturously slow and steady. It was obvious he wasn’t used to letting go. Perhaps he’d never had a partner who could keep up with all that hard-driving passion.

Jules tangled one hand in his hair and dragged his mouth to hers as she writhed beneath him, hungry for more. She felt the crack in his control, tasted it in the fervor of his kiss as he started moving faster.

The yearning built and quickly soared out of control, going from slow to a raging inferno of passion that welled up before either of them realized it. Romeo began fucking in the same wild, untamed way he did everything as Jules swallowed his moans of pleasure. His hips slammed against hers over and over. His grip on her ass was bruising. His other hand grabbed the headboard, using it as leverage to fuck her harder, and she met him stroke for stroke. Jules pulled at his hair; her nails cut half moons into his back. She was right there with him, wild and free and drowning in the ecstasy that was all encompassing enough to leave her blinded to everything but Romeo.

Jules gave in to the climax when it crashed into her. She screamed, feeling like it was being ripped from a deeper part of her soul. Her reaction to the unexpected orgasm pulled Romeo down with her. His body tensed, his growl of pleasure anguished, making it obvious he hadn’t anticipated it any more than she had.

“Shit,” he groaned, his hips still pushing against hers, his body still shaking from the intensity of their shared pleasure. “We gotta do it again.” Jules laughed even as she tried to breathe past the shuddering aftershocks. “There ain’t no way you’re doing it again after that. You and me both know you’re ’bout to roll over and pass out.”

“What the hell sorta guys have you been with?” Romeo asked as he let go of the headboard and leaned down to lick a trail of sweat rolling down the curve of her neck.

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His voice was warm and endearing as he whispered against her sensitive skin, “Baby, I plan to fuck you for as long as you can take me.”

Jules opened her eyes lazily, feeling the same adrenaline rush she got when she hit the wall on a long-distance run. She’d never had to tap into that strange storehouse of energy for sex, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t if the need arose. A slow, seductive smile tugged at her lips because she heard the promise in Romeo’s words and knew he would live up to them.

Speaking was still too much for her, so she tangled her fingers in his hair, now moist with sweat, and brought his lips to hers once more. This time she was the aggressor, pushing her tongue past his lips, letting him know in no uncertain terms if he wanted to fuck all night long, she did too.

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Chapter Four

Romeo woke up sore and sated in a way he’d never been before. The all-night sex marathon had left its mark on his body. His dick was sore as fuck. His back stung with barely broken skin from where Jules had clawed at him in the heat of the moment.

He smiled at the feeling, loving everything about it as he rolled over and instinctively reached for her. He came up with nothing but a cold pillow. It took him a few moments to pull up and look over to the alarm clock on the nightstand.

It was only nine o’clock, way too early to be up after the night they’d shared, and Romeo couldn’t help but feel irritated that Jules had slipped out. Yet even as he formed the thought, a memory invaded his clouded senses of Jules brushing the hair off his forehead. She’d placed a tender kiss above the stitches on his left eyebrow that Clay had left him with, and he’d blinked to see her framed in the first rays of early morning light making their way past the open window.

“I got to go,” she whispered softly. “Busy day. Clay’s called me four times since five. I got
a stir-crazy fighter to bust out of the hospital and three sets of luggage to pack before I do it

’cause Melody’s still with him. Our flight’s at two.”
Romeo reeled that not only was Jules awake, dressed, and freshly showered with her long,
wet hair tied up in a bun sporting a hotel pen stuck through the middle of it, but she was also
exceedingly responsible despite the lack of sleep. He wanted to praise her for something he’d
never have been able to pull off, but all he managed to grunt was, “Too early.”

“Shoot, where I come from seven o’clock’s considered sleeping in.”

“Fucking
oobatz
.” Romeo’s eyes closed. “You hicks kill me.”

“Who ya calling a hick, city boy?” Jules snapped playfully as she poked at his shoulder.

“And what the hell does oobatz mean?”

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“It means you’re nuts.”

“Probably,” Jules agreed, a smile still sounding in her voice as she leaned over and kissed
his forehead once more. “I had fun, Romeo.”

“Mmm,” he agreed, already drifting back to sleep. He sensed her leaving, and it was
instinct more than anything that had him reaching out to touch her thigh. He rubbed his thumb
against smooth skin and whispered, “Stay.”

Jules sighed. “Wish I could.”

She sounded like she meant it. The regret was heavy enough in her voice to force Romeo to
let her go. He allowed his hand to fall to the side, but he refused to open his eyes as she turned
and walked out of the hotel bedroom.

He hadn’t wanted to see her leave, he’d needed to fall asleep imagining she was still next to him, and he must have done just that because he woke up looking for her.

Romeo wasn’t even sure why he was awake. He and Jules hadn’t stopped fucking until past four in the morning, which meant Jules had been operating on about two hours of rest when she left. He was starting to think those people in Hicksville weren’t quite human, because it hadn’t even fazed her.

The phone rang, sounding oddly familiar, as if it’d rang more than once since Jules left, and he’d only now noticed. At least now he knew why he was up.

He reached for his phone on the nightstand and then answered blindly, “Hello?”

“I think it’s actually him,” came an excited screech in the phone. It was a woman’s voice, though she sounded more like an excited teenager. “He totally sounds like he’s from New York.”

Another annoyed woman in the background snapped, “Well, say something, stupid.”

“Is this the Gladiator?”

“I guess.” Romeo rubbed his eyes and then blinked at the clock again. “Who is this?”

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“My name’s Sarah. I’m like your biggest fan ever.”

“Okay,” Romeo said, still fighting to wake up as he sat up in bed. “How’d you get this room number?”

“The operator just transferred us to your room,” she said, sounding excited it was so easy. “I saw what you did on the news yesterday. I can’t believe you helped out Powerhouse like that. I would’ve let his girlfriend die.” Romeo pulled a face, unable to hide his annoyance. “Nice.”

“But I think it was totally heroic what you did,” she went on. “You wanna have breakfast with us?”

“Did you say the operator just patched you through?” Romeo asked, only now absorbing the information. “You just asked for my room, and they gave it to you?”

“Yup.”

Romeo frowned, looking around the room for one confused minute before he realized he hadn’t listed this room under a secret name. He’d been so caught up with Jules Conner he’d just blindly booked it without clarifying. He let loose with a stream of colorful Italian swear words at his stupidity.

“He’s speaking in Italian,” Sarah told her friend before she asked Romeo. “What’d it mean?”

Romeo wasn’t about to translate. “I gotta go.”

He hung up and stared at the phone for two seconds before it started ringing again. He couldn’t believe he’d left his room wide open to anyone a day after he’d been involved in a shooting. In Las Vegas, no less, three days after a championship fight.

He rolled out of bed. Now fully awake, he padded naked out of the bedroom in the suite and walked to the front door. He tried to walk quietly, which wasn’t always easy for him, but being barefoot helped. He leaned into the peephole, squinted to look through it, and spied two men leaning against the opposite wall in the hallway. He could hear them talking to others outside the limited range of the peephole. One guy