Chapter Eighteen
The little blue house was nestled in a hill surrounded with bougainvillea and thick mango trees. They went around the back. A black cat curled on the porch slunk away. ‘Is that yours?’ Samantha asked.
Roman unlocked an iron door. ‘It belongs to the house.’
‘What’s her name?’
‘Cat.’
They entered a kitchen with black-and-white-chequered floors. A wooden table was pushed into a corner loaded with two laptops, battery chargers, headphones and stacks of worn notebooks. ‘Here’s where I work.’ She followed him through a sitting room with wood floors, sparse furnishing and whitewashed walls. It was nice and neat, with no personal clutter whatsoever. They walked straight through and down a short hall to his bedroom. The door was ajar and he pushed it open. ‘Here’s where I do everything else.’
An unmade bed, a rattan chair stacked with books, a few gadgets and toiletries set up on a dresser, his clothes and shoes organized in an open wardrobe. She wanted to go on snooping, but Roman shut the door and leaned against it. All the air rushed from the room.
‘You don’t have much. Is your New York life in storage?’
‘We’re going to discuss logistics now?’
‘I want to get to know you. Is that wrong?’
He rested his head on the door, studied her through lowered lashes. She couldn’t see his eyes. She couldn’t read him. Samantha realized that she might never know Roman, not in any real way. That should have turned her off. Instead, it turned her on.
In the past, when she’d stumbled into bed with a guy, it was always a quasi-mistake. Poor timing, bad chemistry, wrong setting. None of those elements were at play now.
‘Come here and get to know me,’ he said.
Samantha plucked out the clip holding her wind-tossed hair in place. Her tangled mass of curls tumbled to her shoulders. In the stillness of the room, she heard his breath catch.
‘You’re so damn beautiful,’ he murmured.
Her hair was fried and frizzy, damaged by saltwater and chlorine, her complexion had turned copper-brown in the sun, and her face likely showed her lack of sleep. Even so, she felt beautiful. Time with her friends and all that morning yoga had her thinking clearly for once. She felt like herself again, no longer reeling from a break-up and broken up over having to attend a wedding alone. One by one, her closest friends were pairing off and settling down. They had life sorted out. Good for them. She, on the other hand, was in the eye of the storm. Everything was in flux. There was power in this moment, and she was the one wielding it.
Roman pushed away from the door and cut the distance between them. He dug his hands in her hair and angled her face to his. Their kiss was deep and hard and impatient. His touch opened spaces inside of her, every last hidden cave, leaving her nowhere to hide. He had her, not the person she pretended to be, bubbly and bright, but the sharp and the brittle. All the jagged edges that she’d made smooth to please others, he held in his palms with no questions, no complaints. She thought back to all the times Timothy would jokingly say, ‘You’re too much.’ It got to the point where she suspected it was no longer a joke. She’d been too much for him to manage. To make herself more manageable she’d toned herself down, held her tongue and scaled back her dreams.
She was not too much for Roman.
He was not too much for her.
He walked her backwards and they stumbled onto the bed. Roman covered her with his body and only then did Samantha’s world tilt.
‘I’ve dreamed about this,’ he said.
She raked her fingers through his stubble. ‘How did it go?’
‘You were shy.’
‘Ha!’ She tossed her head back and laughed. ‘You must have been dreaming about some other curly-haired girl.’
‘I’m lying. You were feisty as hell.’
So was he. Roman tugged at her clothes. He stripped off her tank top and peeled her denim shorts down over her hips. ‘Sorry I didn’t make the bed this morning.’
She inhaled the sheets, which carried his scent. ‘Sorry you think I care about that.’
He rolled off the bed and undressed, stepping out of his jeans. ‘I know how to do this right. Back home I’d play music, open a bottle of wine, light a candle …’
‘I’m sure you’re really smooth.’ She held out her open arms and beckoned him. ‘Come.’
He grinned wickedly. ‘Why do I get the feeling you’re using me for my body?’